The Killing Man mh-12 Page 10

I heard him swallow. "They didn't have to. They have a way about them, y'know."

  "Russell, you are in England, buddy. The police don't work that way."

  "These were . . . a different sort of police."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "British intelligence agents don't work under the same rules as our bobbies."

  "They threaten you?"

  "Let me say . . . they were threatening. Only when they determined I was a bona fide reporter did they leave. The implication I got was . . . that I was an unwelcome intruder."

  "Did they say that?"

  "It was what they didn't say, y'know. I'm afraid there's something very big in the wind. They were very frightening."

  "Why the call then?"

  "Because . . . one mentioned, well, rather out of turn, I doubt if he was aware of it . . . not to go looking for 'the others.' Now, he might have said 'any others,' but I'm quite sure he said 'the others.' In that case, there would be more."

  "Beautiful, Russell, you did fine. Don't go out looking for any of them."

  "Oh, you can be sure of that, Mike. I'm really not into violence. Those men were quite burly. Knew what they were about too. Thought you'd want to know, however."

  I thanked him again and hung up.

  I sure was in the middle of something.

  They hadn't quite finished their meeting when I got to Candace Amory's office. Her door was open and I could hear their quietly argumentative voices down the hall. In a steely tone I heard Coleman say, "In all this time there has to be somebody able to identify him. This one-name 'Penta' business must have some significance."

  "Well, we're coordinating all the information the embassy's gathered in. We really haven't all that many men in the field-"

  I interrupted him from the doorway. "Why not, Mr. Bradley?"

  The interplay of glances between the three of them was quick. Candace reacted with sudden surprise and I knew she had forgotten our date for a drink. Before she could answer, Bradley said, "Why should we? A couple of killings-"

  "Cut the crap, Bradley. If this Penta demands State's being on the scene we're in a big-league ball game."

  "Mr. Hammer . . ." He turned sharply, facing me, a big guy carrying a lot of federal authority. He was all set to read me right out of the picture, but he wasn't that big.

  I walked into the room and said, "Which couple of killings are you referring to? I can name three more civilian jobs that carry Penta's trademark and a lot of others on the political scene without any fingers." I was lying about the last bunch, but he didn't know that and I saw him stiffen visibly. He looked at Coleman quickly, then back to me. "How do you know that?"

  Now it was better. He wasn't challenging me at all. He knew that someplace I had gotten information I wasn't supposed to have, and he didn't know what I was going to do with it. I wasn't somebody he could put a hold on and he had to make up his mind fast.

  I gave him a simple noncommittal shrug.

  Coleman cleared his throat. It had caught him off guard too. "You seem to have some unusual sources, Mr. Hammer."

  I still didn't say anything.

  "Did Captain Chambers tell you this?"

  Truthfully, I said, "I don't think Pat even knows about it." I was full of truth these days. Ray Wilson probably hadn't had time to tell him and he didn't know Russell Graves.

  "And, of course, you aren't going to tell us where you got the information from."

  "What difference does it make?" I asked him. "Now we all know what the facts are." Candace Amory's face seemed to be frozen, but her eyes were blazing. I added, "Too bad you didn't let the lady district attorney in on your show."

  Ice was in her voice too. "Yes, that is too bad. I thought we were a team."

  "We were going to, Miss Amory. For the moment we thought it best to ignore the background and concentrate on the current situation." Bradley was really trying now. "Perhaps if Mr. Hammer leaves, we can put our cards on the table-"

  I didn't let him finish. "Why don't you tell her you're after a terrorist, Bradley?" I ignored him then and looked at Candace. "He's a hit man, kid. A coolly professional killer who can work in the big time and enjoys signing his work with finger mutilation. Somebody took him out of his grade and put him in the political arena. Now he's over here."

  Candace walked to the door, closed it, then came back to the table. To Bradley she said, "I assume this is true?"

  "Generally, yes."

  While the static was still in the air I said, "Why don't you put the cards on the table, people? Whether you like it or not, I'm in. There's no way you can cut me out now."

  Before Bradley could stop her, Candace looked directly at him, but was speaking to me. "Mr. Bradley is the State Department's expert on this Penta person. I though his assignment was fairly recent, but it looks like he's been at it for some time now. Is that right, Mr. Bradley? Or do I reach my associates in Washington to find out?"

  There was no embarrassment in Bradley's face at all. They train the State guys well. When something sours, they go with the play and take the best way out.

  He talked to me too, but his eyes were on hers. "Yes, it's quite true. I have led a specially selected team to locate and seize Penta for the past eleven years. We've gotten close several times, so have the British, but every time he has eluded us. There have been nine important political assassinations credited to him, but on these there were no mutilations. Instead, there was a simple slash across the backs of all four fingers and the thumb in each case. Rather than leaving a signature, he was initialing his work. When our agent apparently surprised him in England, he reverted to his previous method of total finger amputation to show his displeasure."

  "Who's his boss?" I asked him.

  "It would have to be an unfriendly. Somebody funds him well."

  From the side, Coleman cut in with, "We suspect that he could be somebody in a low level of politics or a police organization. The way he moves, he seems to have a great deal of insight into our activities."

  "And if you must know, Mr. Hammer, it was because of the death of our agent in England that I was removed from my post and brought back to the States."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "Because I'm the only one who has had any previous experience with this person's operation. When Victor Starson gets here, I'll be relieved and transferred to Washington."

  "Meanwhile," I reminded him, "Penta is here."

  "And so are you, Mr. Hammer. Please remember that it was you he came for."

  "Now we're back to square one. I'm a political zero. I have no ties to government policy in any way. I'm the one big mistake in this scenario."

  "This killer hasn't made a mistake yet," Bradley said softly. "As long as his identity is an absolute mystery, all the odds are on his side."

  "Buddy, he's no ghost. He's been seen by a lot of people. Trouble is, they never knew who they were looking at." I paused and looked at all three of them. To Bradley I said, "But you are wrong about him never making a mistake."

  They waited to hear the rest of it, but I looked at my watch, then at Candace. "We going to get that drink, Miss Amory?"

  But Coleman wouldn't let it drop. "You were saying, Mr. Hammer . . ."

  "I was saying that this is a police matter in the City of New York and you'll just have to wait for Captain Chambers to release any fresh information. You ready, Miss Amory?"

  Everybody left. The good-byes were fuzzy. Candace and I got in a cab and I had the driver take us to the Old English Tavern. Petey Benson was at the bar talking baseball to a yuppie type and almost dropped his teeth when he saw me with Candace.

  I nudged Candace's shoulder. "Care to meet a fan?"

  "Does he vote?"

  "What difference does it make? You were appointed."

  "One day that will change."

  "He votes," I told her.

  She smiled pleasantly. "Then by all means, introduce us."

  Petey was a little uncertain about taking the han
d she held out, but grinned and gave her fingers a squeeze. He appreciated civilian authority from an objective viewpoint, not this close. "Petey's one of the good-guy reporters, Miss Amory. Got real hidden talents."

  "Wonderful," she said.

  Silently, Petey was kicking my tail.

  I told him, "You feel like doing me a favor, pal?"

  "Nope, I don't ever . . ."

  "Get into your files and get me some information on DiCica. Not his record or any late stuff. Go back as far as you can."

  "Why? The guy's dead."

  "Just do it, okay?"

  For a second I thought he was going to tell me to forget it, but he read my eyes a second and nodded slowly. "Sure," he told me. "Only because of one thing will I do it."

  "What's that?"

  "We got computers and fax machines now and I don't get tied up for a week scanning old copy."

  I threw five bucks on the bar and ordered beers for Petey and his baseball buddy, then went back to a table with Candace. I answered her question before she could ask it. "The killer was after DiCica or me. Now, I know all about me, and I know something about DiCica. What I want is to know all about DiCica."

  "We know all about DiCica."

  "Hell, kid, not even DiCica knew that. He led two completely different lives."

  She waited until the waiter brought the drinks, then toyed with her glass while she put her thoughts together. She knew I was watching her, feeling her with my eyes, reading the little bits of body language that she let slip, and let her mouth go firm.

  "Don't do that," I said.

  Her expression questioned me.

  "You got a nice, sensual mouth, kid. Don't squeeze it shut like that."

  "Please!" She glanced around quickly, afraid someone had heard me.

  I grinned at her. "Now talk to me, pretty lady."

  This time she shook her head and smiled back. "Why do I go from hot to cold with you?"

  "Because you're playing the game too, doll."

  "And what does the winner get?"

  "I'm not sure what the prize is yet," I told her.

  She let her teeth slide over her lower lip, folded her hands under her chin and gave me a studied gaze. "You're going to be a winner, aren't you?"

  I didn't answer her.

  "That's what's disturbing me. Disturbing everybody. You're the piece that doesn't belong, but has to be there. As my friends say, a lousy private cop in a position they can't shove around. Why is that, Mike?"

  A slight shrug was the best I could do.

  "My boss defers to Captain Chambers. He recognizes his professionalism and appreciates his opinion. Somewhere you have a niche in all this and nobody but you seems to know where it is." She paused dramatically. "Where is it?"

  "Right in the middle of the shitpile," I said.

  "Gross."

  "Not really. You ever been shot at?"

  Her head made a slight negative movement.

  "When it happens," I told her seriously, "you'll know what I mean."

  "But you'll still be a winner."

  "Candace honey, whoever stays alive the longest wins. Right now something is happening and nobody wants to spell it out. We have federal agencies sniffing around, the State Department playing footsies in a murder case because they're afraid they might screw up the political scene. Right now all that's a lot of crap. We're working on a murder, a killing that comes under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department."

  "No murder is simple."

  "And a kill isn't complicated," I reminded her. "Only the motives are complicated."

  She took her hands down now, settling back in her chair. Her head tilted slightly and she gave me that odd stare again. "See . . . that's the other thing about you that's puzzling."

  This time I waited.

  "Someone wanted to kill you. Most likely he still wants to kill you and you don't seem to be scared a bit."

  "Don't fool yourself."

  "You're scared?"

  "Not the way you'd count scared. I'm cautious. And you have to be alive to be scared."

  "That's a thought."

  "I'll give you another," I said. "Be scared, but don't let your hand shake."

  "Later I'll ask you to explain that." She snapped her pocketbook open and pulled out a vanity, glanced at the mirror and put it back.

  "Later?"

  "After you take me home," she said impishly.

  They forget sometimes, these beautiful women. There are times when they can lift their skirts up to their eyebrows and nobody will even blink because they did it in the dark, and right then my eyes were closed.

  When the cab pulled up to her building and the doorman did his little sprint, I said, "When your hand shakes, you miss the target, kitten."

  She glanced at me, frowning, and asked, "Is your hand shaking?"

  "It doesn't matter, honey. I'm not aiming."

  I kissed the tip of my finger and stuck it on the end of her nose.

  This time she smiled and got out of the cab. It wasn't an impish smile at all.

  7

  The workout at Bing's Gym let me tear at something physical for a change. Weight machines were enemies I could push and shove at, my jaws clamped hard in the effort. I could pound at the heavy bag and rap the hell out of the light one, and even if it wasn't the real thing, there was something therapeutic about it that made me feel better.

  I would have kept it up, but Bing reminded me that I was overdoing it for this session and ushered me into the steam room with a towel wrapped around my middle. Nobody else was there, so I sat and let my mind drift through the details of an old hardcase being mutilated and killed in my office.

  One lousy murder and the whole world fell apart. The DA's office is in, the FBI is in, the CIA is in, the State Department is in, because a guy they call Penta took out a wacko hood. And that put me in too.

  But there was one thing that only I knew for absolute certainty . . . I really wasn't in at all. There was no way at all that I could have any involvement with the killer. Even if he was the Penta everybody was after, he was after nobody else except DiCica. It sure as hell wasn't me.

  Question. Which DiCica? The old hit man he was before he had memory smashed out of his skull? In that case, the motive was pure revenge. But why wait so long? DiCica hadn't been in hiding. Even the mob boys knew where he was. Right now Pat would have his inquiries in the works and Petey would be working from another end. Something could show up here . . . possibly.

  DiCica with his memory back could be something else. The mob didn't care about him as a person. All they wanted was what he had that could bring pressure on their organization. They could kill him, but that left his information liable to a possible discovery. Their misconception that he had contacted me for assistance meant that they didn't order the kill.

  So . . . another part of the organization, an upstart group or person wanting to get control or possibly another family entirely, knew DiCica had flashes of memory recall and went after him.

  In that case, did the torture session get it out of him?

  Who set up the appointment to meet me in my office? Could that have been legitimate and the guy scared off by the action that day? Logical and possible.

  The screwy thing was the trademark mutilation by somebody named Penta our government and the British government seemed to know all about, and it sure wasn't likely that someone in the mob circles was able to contact anybody working on Penta's level.

  I let it run through my mind again and the only answer I could come up with was that somebody had picked up some stray facts about Penta and did a duplicate, but more elaborate job of mutilation on the DiCica kill to throw in the most beautiful red herring I ever saw.

  And I still was in the middle of it.

  After a shower I got dressed and grabbed a cab to the hospital. This time the overnight parkers had left cleared space and there was no Mercedes parked with wheels turned away from the curb. Oddly, I wondered what my muggers' optio
ns would have been if I had grabbed a cab at the entrance that night.

  Downstairs I picked up a vase of flowers, took the elevator up to Velda's floor and walked to the desk. For one second I almost dropped the flowers. Pat was there talking to Burke Reedey and all I could think of was something had happened to Velda. When he half turned, saw me and nodded agreeably, I knew there was no trouble.

  "What're you doing here?" I asked him.

  "Same as you, pal, bringing flowers to a friend." But he knew what I had been thinking and added, "She's okay."

  I glanced at Burke for confirmation and he grinned. "It's a good recovery, Mike. We had her for some other tests this morning and the prognosis looks fine."

  "Can I see her?"

  "Sure, but she's asleep. Leave your flowers and we'll tell her you were here."

  Even though the cop on the door saw me talking to Pat, he waited for him to nod okay before he let me in. I put the flowers down quietly, then stood beside the bed watching her. The swelling had gone down some and the discoloration had taken on a different hue, but the improvement was noticeable. Her breathing was strong and regular, and I said, "Sleep well, kitten," in a barely audible whisper.

  Pat and I found the visitor's lounge, got some coffee and a table away from the main crowd. "You look like something's bugging you," I said.

  "I spoke to Ray Wilson this morning."

  "And now I'm in deep shit, I suppose."

  "No more than usual."

  "What's the beef then?"

  "Just cool the use of departmental facilities, Mike. The word has come in loud and clear. This Penta business is being taken out of our hands."

  "The hell it is," I told him. "The DiCica murder comes under NYPD jurisdiction."

  "Not when Uncle Sammy thinks otherwise."

  "So why tell me about it?"

  "Because you're still the fly in the ointment. You're a principal in the case and even though you're licensed under the state laws, you're still a civilian, a US citizen, and there's nobody harder to keep quiet than one of our own."

  "You can do better than that, Pat."

  "Okay, our CIA pal, Lewis Ferguson, has asked for an audience in" -- he looked at his watch -- "forty-five minutes."

  "Where?"

  "In one of those cute little places the State Department reserves for quiet conferences. Take your time. Finish your coffee."