The Killing Man mh-12 Page 16

  "It's me, buddy," I said. "I got an address for Fells and Bern. They still use an active safe house in Brooklyn."

  "Mike, damn it, there's nothing we can do on that end of it."

  "Then call Bradley and let him straighten it out. If the other agencies can't get close on this, they'll have to go along with us."

  "This address a positive?"

  "You got it."

  "Where are you?"

  "Home."

  "Stay there. I'll buzz Bradley and call you back."

  I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to nine. I walked to the desk, got the bottle of Canadian Club out and made myself a normal-size drink, splashing in the ginger ale over the ice. I turned the TV on, watched CNN for ten minutes, switched to the sports channel and finished the drink.

  The phone went off. I grabbed it and Pat said, "Bradley okayed the deal. We're all meeting in my office in an hour."

  "I'll be there."

  "Give me that address first. No telling what can happen to you on the way over."

  "Thanks," I said, and gave him the street and number.

  My car I left sitting in the garage. It was easier to have the attendant flag me a cab down on the street, then hop in, covered by the parked cars on the street. Twenty minutes later I was walking into Pat's office. He had already contacted a precinct in Brooklyn and was organizing a layup for the raid.

  I caught him between calls and asked, "Any problems with Bradley?"

  "He sounded glad something positive was happening. He's picking up Ferguson and Frank Carmody."

  "Carmody? The FBI is still holding an interest?"

  "They're observers on this deal. NYPD makes the collar and they head up the interrogation, which is okay with me. You're along on this out of the goodness of our hearts and because there's no way of keeping you out of it. Keep your nose clean, will you?"

  "Don't sweat me out, pal. You have the safe house staked out?"

  "Nobody is getting in or out of that block until we say so. You ready to move?"

  "Anytime."

  Behind me Bennett Bradley came in with Ferguson and Carmody, their faces serious. Bradley was the only one not carrying, which was fine with me. Bradley tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I understand you came up with this lead."

  "I lucked out."

  "Who was your source?"

  "Confidential, Mr. Bradley."

  "I hope it pans out," he said. "How are we getting there?"

  Pat slipped into his jacket and checked the .38 on his belt. "There are a couple of unmarked cruisers downstairs. Now, I'm going to run over our positions just once. Remember, you're observers. We do the active work."

  He took five minutes outlining what he wanted on a green blackboard, then got us out of there.

  They said Brooklyn never changes, but it does.

  There was a different time, but now is now and the stupidity of progress had taken over. The neighborhoods had dissolved into complexes and the highrises had become the crucibles of trouble, the old trying to retain what they had, the new ones caught up in the money world where all is a quick fuck, a coke high and a hole in the ground.

  I thought, A long time ago, I was born here. Menahan Street. It's buried now under a pile of rubble, reconstructed later into a sand-and-plaster heap of garbage.

  The cop said, "What's wrong, Mike?"

  "I used to live here."

  "When?"

  "Before it changed."

  "You're an old timer," he said.

  "Hell, I was only a year old."

  The cop grinned and went over to his station. Pat finished directing his crew and walked over to me.

  "This better be good," he said, and touched the button on his flashlight.

  They hit with all the precision in the world, quietly and close-shouldered. One team went in from the rear, one swarmed over the rooftop and the hot squad went right in through the front.

  I sat and watched and nothing happened. They all came out, untied their bulletproof vests and when I went over to where Pat was operating the station, he put down his earphone and said, "Two dead men inside."

  "Who?"

  "Damned if I know. Let's go see."

  And they were dead. These were the quiet dead. No big holes in them, just a fast slug into a vital part and dead. The shot was knowledgeable, direct and certain. No screams. Whatever happened to them happened so fast they only had a chance to gasp, then die.

  Both of them were sitting at a table, coffee and soft rolls in front of them. Whatever hit them happened so quickly they never had a chance to react.

  The killer had come in the door, shot the one who was facing him square in the forehead and the one sitting opposite in the back of the skull. The wound entries were about the size a .22 would make, but there were no exit holes and there was a strange expansive look about both the heads.

  Pat looked at both the bodies carefully, a grimace drawing across his mouth. "I've seen hollow-tips do this. They fragment inside the skull and create a pressure that can make features pretty damn grotesque."

  "Wasn't much of a safe house," I said.

  But now the picture was a little clearer. The two dead guys had been on the prowl for Penta, all right. He was their target. This thing had all the earmarks of a contract kill that went sour.

  Penta had gotten wise. Penta had gotten to them first. Someplace Penta had picked up their trail, followed them to the safe house and eliminated them. That is, if they were Bern and Fells.

  Dead bodies don't take long to smell. The odor from these two was starting to bubble up and when we had enough, Pat said, "Look at their fingers."

  The tips had been cut off very neatly.

  I said, "Another signature."

  "The one on DiCica was even better. He had a real mad on when he carved up that guy."

  "Don't say it, Pat." I knew what he was thinking.

  Lewis Ferguson made the identification. He came in behind us and said, "That's Bern and Fells, all right."

  "They're pretty bloated," Pat said. "You'd better be sure."

  "Positive. Prints will confirm it."

  Pat nodded and called one of the detectives over. "Get all the preliminaries done, then sweep this place good. Like I mean take it apart. When you're done, I want it to look like the city wrecking crew was here. Pick your guys, keep the clowns out of here. I want some evidence, something, anything of what went on here. You got it?"

  "Got it, Captain."

  Carmody and Ferguson were having a serious conversation with Bradley when we came out.

  Jurisdiction seemed to be the heart of the matter, but Pat called a halt to that in a hurry. He said, "Let's get something squared away, people. We got two more corpses inside my area and that's where it's going to stay. You guys can play around with any espionage or international bellyaches you want, but these bodies belong to NYPD and until I get a direct order from my superior, that's the way it goes."

  "Captain . . ." Bradley started.

  Pat held up his hand. "Don't challenge me, Bradley. NYPD is a bigger outfit than yours and if you want to see how clout works, just mess around with this investigation."

  "No intention of doing that, Captain," Bennett Bradley said. "Let's say that all of our agencies are anxious to cooperate in any way."

  Ferguson agreed. "This has overlapped into strange areas. Stumbling blocks we don't need."

  One of the uniformed cops came up with a detective and got Pat's attention. The detective said, "Patrolman Carsi here was working in the back. There's a garage attached to the building."

  "Not quite attached. A walkway goes into the cellar," the patrolman told him. "There's a car in there. Pretty lush."

  And there was the Mercedes. The rear tail-light was broken.

  I said, "If you find my prints in there, you know when it happened."

  There were New York State plates on the car, but a current Florida tag was on the floor under the front seat. In the glove compartment were all the goodies belonging
to a Richard Welkes with a Miami Beach address.

  A uniformed sergeant drove by and told Pat that the press had just arrived on the other block. Pat muttered an annoyed "Damn," then instructed the detective with him to go rough things in for them, playing it down as much as possible. An unidentified squeal on a couple of dead bodies could command the amount of police attention that was in the area, so there shouldn't be any kickback from the news hounds. Not right now, anyway.

  Within an hour only the investigative crew was left. A pair of uniforms stayed out of sight in the doorway, alert and quiet. Carmody came up with containers of coffee and we passed it around. You could hear nails being wrenched out of boards inside the building and occasionally something came crashing down.

  Forty-five minutes later a dust-covered detective came to the doorway and waved to Pat. "You better come over here, Captain."

  He told me, "Wait here," and followed the cop inside.

  In ten minutes he came out with a small box in his hands, nodded toward the cars and said, "Let's go."

  I sat beside him in the back and didn't say a word. He was waiting for me to throw a question because it was my work that had opened the murders up. Twice, in his reflection in the window, I saw him watching me.

  Finally I said, "Now it jumps back into Bradley's hands, doesn't it?"

  He said it very softly. "How'd you figure that out?"

  "I get tingling sensations." I hit the window button and let some air in. "Why did those two want to hit Penta?"

  "He wasn't doing his primary job. He was off on something else."

  I looked down at the box in his lap.

  "The assholes didn't destroy a letter of authorization they got. We can assume it was Penta they were after, but the person was simply mentioned as 'Subject.'"

  "What was Penta's primary job, Pat?"

  "You mention this to anybody and you're on my permanent shit list."

  "Don't insult me, buddy."

  "Sorry, Fells sent a letter to Harry Bern. He had gotten a contact from their employer overseas who wanted to know if they wanted the assignment of killing the VP."

  "The who?"

  "VP. I assume it stands for vice president."

  "Of what?" I asked him.

  "Let's start with the United States."

  "Pat . . . why the hell would anybody want the vice president dead? I can understand the president . . ."

  "Hold it, will you? Apparently Penta screwed up someplace along the line and his employer would only tolerate one mistake. Fells and Bern were offered his initial contract after they wiped him out. If those two could take out Penta, they certainly could hit the VP."

  "Somebody has a damn good reason. With the VP dead, think of the consternation it would cause in Washington. Man, they never could figure that one out. The VP doesn't get the personal coverage the president does, so he would be an easier target. But hell, that's still hitting right at the heart of our government."

  "What bigger target has he got than that, for Pete's sake?"

  Pat just looked at me a couple of seconds. "I can't believe it," he said.

  My eyes started to go tight. "Believe what?"

  "If the so-called subject is Penta, where you would come into the picture." He stopped me before I could get a word out. "I know, you're not in. He was after DiCica and all the crap. But I can't figure that way. How the hell you do it, I'll never know. I've said that before too, haven't I? How the hell you go from kicking around in the streets to substituting for the vice president of the United States in a murder scheme defies belief. Where do you come from, Mike? I've known you all these years, but I don't think I know you very well at all."

  "Pat . . ."

  He shook his head. "You've been running me, haven't you? Here I thought you were my boy and I was running . . . all the time you have something else going down." He paused, wiped his hand across his face and took a deep breath. "What's happening, Mike?"

  I shrugged. "What else is in the box?"

  "Forty-two one-thousand-dollar bills," he said.

  "Be hard to cash," I told him.

  "What's happening, Mike?" he asked again, ignoring my remark.

  "Tomorrow, Pat. I have to make sure of something first."

  "You know, I'm a lousy cop, old buddy. I have you inside this package like you're the PC or something. I have my neck out, giving you information, breaking all the rules-"

  "Balls. You had no choice. Like Candace Amory said, I'm an adjunct of the law, licensed by the state, subject to conditions no ordinary citizen has to operate under. Consider it professional courtesy."

  "I must be off my rocker," he said.

  "You going by your office?"

  "I have to."

  "Good. I want to use your phone."

  When we reached Pat's office I slid behind Pat's desk into his chair and punched the number into his phone. I had one foot up on Anthony DiCica's antique toolbox, which Pat had in the kneehole, but took it off when I realized what it was.

  She picked up the phone on the first ring and there was no sleepiness in her voice at all. I said, "This is Mike, Candace."

  "Well, I've been waiting to hear from you."

  "The grapevine working?"

  "Not until after the Brooklyn soiree was over. I understand there were two bodies found."

  "Both shot."

  "I don't suppose you'd care to explain further."

  "Right. All information will come from official sources. It's strictly a police matter."

  She had to probe with a lawyer's instinct. "But you were there?"

  "The police acted on my information. I went along for verification."

  "Very neat."

  "What's new on that load of cocaine?"

  "Something extremely interesting. It's totally hearsay, but often enough what sounds like a fairy tale is factual. Your friend Ray Wilson came up with another lead, an old dealer who is straight now and doesn't want his name mentioned in any way."

  "So?"

  "He had heard about the shipment being set up. It was delivered by freighter at Miami, concealed as bags of coffee beans. The shipper was genuine and the destination was a reputable buyer. Nobody knows just how the switch was made, but the cargo was offloaded into a tractor-trailer."

  "Do you realize how much stuff that is?"

  "In dollars the final street value is incredible. Anyway, it came up via Route Ninety-five into the New York area. The trailer was delivered to a depot in Brooklyn, all the paperwork completed, and the next day another tractor signed for them, hauled them out and it hasn't been seen to this day."

  "You can't just hide a trailer," I told her. "I can see the run being made, but you'd still be dealing with a driver who probably had a helper along."

  "Thanks to Ray Wilson we found a possible line on that one too. He went into the computers for known mob persons who could handle trucks. Not live ones, but deceased. He came up with two names of men who were found dead in a car that had apparently been sideswiped and knocked off Route Nine-W up near Bear Mountain. Two days later the brother of one was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Newark."

  "That took care of the driver and a helper," I said. "Your hearsay is making pretty good sense."

  "But somebody would know where the cargo went to. Whoever gave the instructions to the two men DiCica killed would know."

  "Sure," I said. "The driver and the helper would have known. Those guys were probably made men who would lay down their lives for their bosses. They were taking no chances on any hijack action so they planned the delivery themselves, which could have meant repainting the truck or changing the lettering somewhere along the way. The legitimate driver on the first leg of the run really took the odds for the mob boys. His making it to Brooklyn meant the job was coming out clean."

  "Then the driver and helper were the only ones who knew?"

  "Why not? The fewer the better. They picked their own hiding spot for the shipment, made up a map and delivered it to the bosses. On the
way out they were followed by the hit men and taken out in a supposed accident."

  "Why kill . . ."

  "The bosses didn't want anybody but them knowing where the stuff went to," I told her. "Unfortunately, they were in line for a hit themselves that night. And unfortunately, they closed off the mob's only access to the stuff."

  "And DiCica had it all."

  "Wild, huh? Tell me something. How much is the street value of the junk today?"

  She told me. I let out a low whistle. No wonder Penta could afford to pass up the VP for an old hood. Nine-digit figures are understandable.

  YOU DIE FOR KILLING ME.

  Okay, DiCica. You were the hit man. That was your trade. Who did you kill and how did you work it? That note was for you after all, wasn't it?

  "Mike . . ."

  I shook myself out of my thoughts. "Sorry, kid."

  "Unless we find that cargo, nothing will ever end."

  "Is Ray checking out all the leads?"

  "The trailer would take a certain size building to be concealed in. He's working on the assumption that something was bought, rather than leased. By now taxes would be owing and if anything matches, we'll be on it."

  "You don't have that much time."

  "Any other options?"

  "A lot of luck. We still have a killer out there waiting."

  "For what?"

  "Pat will have to tell you that. Or Coleman or Carmody or Ferguson."

  "You going to be around?"

  I told her I would. She said she'd call tomorrow and I hung up. I would have gone home and crawled into bed, but I called in to check the tapes on my phone and a deep, sultry voice said to call at any hour.

  When the call went through, General Rudy Skubal answered it himself. As soon as he recognized my voice, he said, "I couldn't stand not having more pieces of the puzzle, Mike. I went back to when they were feeding information into the computers and zeroed in on Fells and Bern. We ran constant checks on our men without their knowledge, especially those whose performance was getting shoddy."

  "Bern and Fells are dead," I interrupted.

  "Killed at the safe house, I presume?"

  "Good guess, General."

  "It wasn't a guess. That safe house was supposed to be known and used by Bern and Fells only. I have two reports that a third party had access to it on several occasions. No description."