The Wizard of Death (7 page)

“We trace him to his home, his wife calls ahead, and he takes off with the money from his job,” Lyon said as he shut the empty cash-register drawer. “Seems to me he was in a hurry.”

“Too much of a hurry to take his colors. That's a real hurry.”

“His what?” Lyon asked.

“His colors,” Rocco said as he held up a leather jacket that hung on a nail in the corner of the small office. Krauts M.C. was emblazoned on the back of the jacket.

Captain Sean Murdock of the Breeland Police Department was short and squat, with a round face laced with red lines, and mean as hell. He pointed a fat forefinger at two chairs in his small office and scowled across the desk at his visitors.

“Who the hell is Captain Norbert of the state police?” he snapped.

“My brother-in-law,” Rocco replied. “Why?”

“We put out the APB on Junior Haney, like you asked, and five minutes later I get a call from state police barracks, from this joker Norbert. He wants to know what in hell you're doing out of your jurisdiction, and for me to tell you to get the hell home.”

“A continuing family squabble,” Rocco said.

“That's your problem. Now, what's this crap about Haney and the Llewyn murder?”

“Suspicion only.”

“Tell me a little B and E, tell me suspicion of rape or a little mugging, but Haney and murder—political murder—that's shit.”

“Perhaps for hire,” Lyon suggested.

Murdock glared and then leaned back in his creaking swivel chair. “Maybe. Junior could be hired to bludgeon his grandmother if it paid more than a sawbuck. What do you have on him?”

“Not much,” Rocco said. “We traced everyone who was a registered motorcyclist and who purchased thirty-caliber ammo in the last week. It fits Junior. An hour ago we interviewed Loyce Haney. When we went to see Junior—”

“He'd skipped.”

“Right. Of course he doesn't know why we want to talk to him.”

“Knowing Junior, he's probably done something, and cops nosing around is all he needs to hear.”

“You sound like you know him well,” Lyon said.

Murdock squinted ominously. “Junior's twenty-eight. He's been known to this department since he was twelve. One of our more outstanding citizens. Started by stealing bicycles, advanced to cars—you name it. His sheet doesn't show half of what we've brought him in for.”

“Political murder is slightly different than ripping off a Thunderbird.”

Murdock's eyes glinted at them as he pulled a long cigar from a center desk drawer and lit it with a kitchen match. “Depends,” he said in a noncommittal voice.

“You don't mean that,” Rocco said.

Murdock's cigar went out and he lit it again, flipping the match toward an overflowing wastebasket. “'Course not, Chief Herbert. I don't believe half I say and hardly anything I hear. Now, as far as politics and Junior are concerned—he can hardly read. Not that that stops some of them over in the state capitol. For money now … maybe.”

“Would he kill?” Lyon asked.

Murdock contemplated the spiraling cloud of cigar smoke and made a lazy gesture with a finger through a smoke ring. “Well now, if I was in a position to want to eliminate someone … Junior would be available for a price.”

“You think he's done it before?”

Murdock wrinkled his nose at Lyon. “If he'd done it before he wouldn't be here. I would have seen to that. I just said he would be available if approached.”

“What about pulling a Lee Oswald?” Rocco asked.

“Junior's not nuts. He's what your do-gooders like Llewyn would have called underprivileged. Translated to ordinary English, he's hungry as hell for what he can get.”

The phone rang. Murdock closed a pudgy fist over the receiver and picked it up. He mumbled twice and slammed it back on the cradle. “A unit has located Junior's bike outside the Krauts' clubhouse.”

“Junior?” Rocco asked.

Murdock stood up. “Hell, how would I know? I wouldn't let two of my men go into that place alone. That'd be like feeding them to the sharks. Come on, I'm taking a double backup crew down there to raid the joint.”

The Krauts' M.C. clubhouse was located on Route 92 on the outskirts of Breeland. Three years earlier the peeling frame building had been an inn, with rooms for rent upstairs, and a small bar and grill on the first floor. The property had been condemned for a highway widening and was slated for destruction later in the year. In the interim, the Krauts had taken occupancy. Its windows were mostly shuttered, and a half dozen Harleys were neatly aligned in the overgrown parking lot.

Seven police cars with twice as many uniformed officers had formed a circle around the building. Murdock stood with a bullhorn near the wooden steps leading to the front door as Rocco swerved his cruiser to a stop near the side of the building.

“This is Captain Murdock. We're coming in and don't want trouble. All you in there, against the wall and take the position. I'm coming in on five. One …”

“I have the feeling they've been through this before,” Lyon said.

“I hope they don't decide to relocate to Murphysville,” Rocco replied.

“… five. All right, here we come.” Murdock, followed by several uniformed officers, clumped up the remaining steps and with a shattering kick opened the front door.

The splotched wooden bar was cluttered with empty beer cans. A man was stretched out on a cot in a far corner, and three other Krauts were playing pool on an ancient table. The police officers milled around the room as a pool player glanced uninterestedly in their direction and then back to the table to take his shot.

“I told you, against the wall,” Murdock said to the pool player. “You hear me, Wiff?”

“I heard you, Captain. Get off our backs. We haven't done nothing. We got rights, you know.”

Murdock stood directly in front of the club's leader, providing a sharp contrast to the tall, heavy-set man in the cut-off sweat shirt. “You shouldn't talk like that to the establishment, Wiff. It's not nice.”

The captain's fist slammed into Wiff's solar plexus and knocked him back against the pool table. “Put 'em against the wall and see if they're clean,” a police sergeant bellowed.

Wiff waved his pool cue toward Murdock. “I told you, Murdock. Lay off!”

“You want a trip downtown, Wiff?”

“Fuck you.”

“I ought to bust your goddamn head.”

“Come on, Fatso.”

“Where's Junior Haney?”

“Don't know the gentleman.”

“Take him,” Murdock said to the waiting officers.

Six men hung back for a moment and then began to move in a tight semicircle toward Wiff. Wiff backed against the wall, the pool cue held to his front like a protecting lance.

“Take him now!” the sergeant yelled as they closed in on Wiff.

“Wait a goddamn minute,” Rocco's voice echoed through the room and froze everyone. “He's mine.” The chief moved through the attacking officers until he stood before Wiff with the tip of the pool cue an inch from his chest. “Take it easy, son,” Rocco said in an even voice. “You and I are going to talk for a few minutes.”

“Off you, pig.”

“Now, now.” Rocco's mammoth hand closed over the pool cue, wrenched it effortlessly from Wiff's hand, and then snapped it in two. The two pieces fell to the floor with a clatter that sounded across the quiet room. Rocco stepped forward, placed both hands on Wiff's shoulders and turned him against the wall. He quickly and efficiently searched the leader of the bike gang, then turned Wiff back to face him. “Now, sit down,” he said quietly.

Wiff backed toward a folding chair and plunked into it. He crossed his legs and glared up at Rocco. “All right, big mother fucker, what do you want?”

“I want to know where Junior Haney is, and I want to know right now.”

“You may be a big bastard, but la ti da.”

“You'll make me angry,” Rocco replied evenly.

“The Krauts protect their own.”

“You take the club up to Cape Cod a couple of times a summer, don't you?”

“So?”

“I'd like to know how you're going to get there without going through Murphysville. By way of Boston, maybe. It's only a hundred or so miles out of the way.”

“You can't stop us.”

“You know, I'm not even going to answer that.”

“We got a right to go through Murphysville.”

“Do you have any idea how many traffic violations I can stick on your club if I put my mind to it?”

“Junior's not here.”

“His bike's outside.”

“He came by earlier and wanted to sell it. Fizz bought it for a couple of yards.”

“I'd call that a distress sale. That bike looks almost new.”

“It is; he just bought it.”

“Four thousand new?”

“Something like that.”

“And yet he sold it for a couple of hundred?”

“He said he was hot. Had to get out of town.”

“How'd he leave?”

“Thumbed it.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe half an hour.”

“We'll pick him up,” Murdock said. “He won't get far.”

Rocco drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as they waited in the parking lot outside the Krauts' clubhouse. The Breeland police drove from the lot and headed in various directions as the Krauts moved insolently from the building and began to start their Harleys.

Conformity against conformity, Lyon thought. The departing Krauts seemed alike: German helments, leather jackets, or shirts cut off at the shoulder. Massive and sullen men, they roared from the lot with a scream of rubber and turned onto the highway in a single file that headed toward a lemming-like destruction.

“Suppose we ought to go home,” Rocco said. “I can check the school crossing guards.”

“School's out. I think we ought to check on Loyce Haney again.”

“Crud like Junior won't bother about his wife and child. He's off like a big-assed bird.”

“I don't think so.”

Rocco looked at Lyon and nodded. He threw the car into gear.

As they stopped at the apartment on Halliburton Court, Lyon saw a curtain flutter at the window. Rocco knocked again and again; no answer. He increased the pressure of his pounding until he shook the wood of the door.

“Wait,” Lyon said and put his hand over Rocco's fist. “Mrs. Haney, it's Lyon Wentworth. We must talk to you. I can't tell you how important it is. It's a question of Junior's safety.”

There was silence from the apartment interior, and then the door opened a crack. The young woman's opaque eyes looked through the slim opening. “I don't know where Junior is. Please leave me alone.”

“Junior will be dead in hours unless you let us help,” Lyon said softly.

“He can take care of himself.”

“Hear me out, Mrs. Haney. May I call you Loyce?”

“I suppose.”

Lyon pushed on the door in a slow but persistent movement until it swung backward, and they stepped into the small apartment. Loyce Haney had changed into a blouse and skirt. The baby, still in the playpen, now wore a blue knit suit. He seemed puzzled by the whole affair. Past the kitchen area they could see into the bedroom. There was an open suitcase on the bed.

“What about Junior?” Loyce asked, and then seeing their gaze toward the suitcase quickly said, “If Junior's in trouble again, I'm leaving. I told him that if he did anything again, I would.”

“He called you?”

“I don't know where he is.”

Lyon reached for her hand. Puzzled, she put it in his and he led her toward the couch, where they sat down together. Lyon turned toward her and spoke in a gentle voice. “You must trust me, Loyce.”

“I—I don't know what's going on.”

“I think I do, and therefore it's terribly important that you listen carefully.”

“All right.” Her voice was low, almost plaintive.

“Junior's involved in something with people he can't control. They paid him a good deal of money before the fact, twenty-five hundred, five thousand, and they promised him more.”

She nodded.

“As soon as we left here earlier, you called Junior and told him of our visit. He left the station, sold his bike for a ridiculous amount of money, and has gone somewhere. Somewhere nearby and called you, told you to pack, that someone would come for you and take you to him, and then the three of you would go off. But it won't work that way. You must know that; they won't let him leave. They won't let you go with him. They are going to kill him, Loyce. I promise you that. He's been in contact with them, and they will not allow him to live.”

She took her hand from Lyon's and pressed it against her cheek as her eyes stared into his. “Junior's not a bad guy, he really isn't.”

“He's in well over his head this time. Tell us where he is.”

“He … he called me.”

“I know he did. From where?”

“I'm to meet him. He said a friend will give him money.”

“Where?” Lyon asked softly.

“In—in a bar. Al's Place in Cyprus.”

Lyon looked quickly toward Rocco, who was standing by the door. “About a ten-minute ride from here. We had better take her with us this time.”

Al's Place was scrunched between two small factories. Its front windows were almost gray with grime, and the neon beer signs cast strange patterns through the dirty glass. Rocco parked the car down the street, away from the sight lines from the bar's interior.

Loyce Haney, holding her baby, huddled in the rear seat as Lyon turned toward her. “Do you have a snapshot of Junior?”

She pulled a small red wallet from her purse and handed it to Lyon. He unsnapped the clasp and flipped through the acetate photo covers until he came to one of a man astride a motorcycle. He held it up and she nodded.