Two Jakes (42 page)
CHAPTER
54 – A FEARSOME PRICE
Evelyn
stuck her head into his office.
“Randolph
and Emma Shields are here.”
Scarne
looked at her.
“Show
them in.”
“Are
you OK, Jake?”
“Show
them in, honey.”
Evelyn
held the door for them.
“Would
you like some coffee?”
During
his recuperation Evelyn had purchased a state-of-the-art machine that made
everything from cappuccino to iced-tea. It looked like a Mars rover and she was
proud she was the only one who knew how to work it.
“No,
thank you,” Randolph Shields said. “We won’t be long.”
Evelyn
looked disappointed and closed the door as she left.
Scarne
stood but didn’t extend his hand. Neither did Randolph Shields.
“It’s
nice to see you, Emma. Please sit down.”
Shields
looked like he would rather remain standing but when his daughter sat so did
he.
“My
daughter told me about the letter. Why you didn’t send it to me?”
‘What
can I do for you, Mr. Shields?”
Shields
stared at Scarne. Finally, he said, “The people who murdered my brother and his
son are dead. I know you had a part in that and my sources tell me you were
injured in the process. I would like you to elaborate.”
“Mr.
Shields, I don’t mean to be rude, but everything you need is in the letter,
including the names of federal and state officers now dismantling what’s left
of the Ballantrae organization. It will keep your writers busy for months. I’m
sure that with Victor Ballantrae dead, there won’t be a conflict of interest.”
Shields
reddened.
“That’s
a cheap shot, Mr. Scarne. There ceased to be a conflict when my brother was
murdered. A murder for which I must hold you partly responsible”
“Father!
That’s enough.” Emma Shields hadn’t raised her voice, but she now commanded the
room. “Jake was almost killed trying to set things right. And I think he knows
he was just out of line.”
“Your
daughter is right, Mr. Shields,” Scarne said, and he meant it. “I apologize to
you both for that. I’m tired. And I’m sick of the whole affair.”
Randolph
Shields sighed deeply.
“I
loved my brother, Mr. Scarne, and Josh. When all is said and done, the people
responsible for their deaths have paid a fearsome price. And I suspect you
have, too.”
He
stood up, as did Scarne, and extended his hand. They shook.
“Come
along, Emma.”
“I’ll
be right there, Papa,” she said, standing to escort her father out the door,
which she closed and then walked over to Scarne. “I spoke to your friend, Mr.
Mack, and a Detective Sealth. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to kill
someone you love.”
Emerald
Shields put her hand behind Scarne’s head and kissed him full on the lips, then
walked out the door.
***
Evelyn
came into his office holding a package.
“Messenger
just dropped this off.” She placed it on the desk in front of him. She looked
as if she wanted to say something, then apparently thought better of it and
went out, shutting the door quietly.
I
seem to be getting a lot of packages lately, he thought. This one was about the
size of a shoe box. Scarne picked it up and felt its heft. There was nothing
other than his name and address and a bold “PERSONAL” on the brown wrapping. He
used a knife to cut through the masking tape. Inside was a metal box. He opened
it and stared at the blue-black Bersa Thunder. He finally lifted the gun out
and saw the note, handwritten in a thick, but legible, scrawl:
“You
have the balls of a Ukrainian. A firearm without serial numbers may be valuable
to you. It is only a piece of metal. It has no memory. Nor should you. I would
advise you to use it soon. But if you and I should meet again, let us try not
to kill each other.”
There
was no signature, just the letter
“B.”
THE END
BOOK II, MADMAN’S THIRST, FOLLOWS
A Jake Scarne Thriller
By Lawrence De Maria
“If him whom God destroys He maddens
first,
Then thy destruction slake thy madman’s
thirst.”
-- George Herbert Clarke
PROLOGUE
The
Hechler-Koch roared in the confined space of the shooting booth and its spent
9MM shell casings bounced and pinged on the concrete floor. The 20 total shots
had taken less than 30 seconds. Scarne ejected the empty magazine and rammed
another one home. He worked the slide and resumed firing. When he finally put
the automatic down, the smell of cordite was heavy in the air.
Scarne
took off his ear protection and pushed the button that would bring the
man-silhouette back to him from its position 50 feet down range. As the target
whirred closer, even at a distance he could see that there was little left of
the face and the area where the heart would be.
“That’s
some shooting, Jake.”
Scarne
took the shredded target from its holder and turned around. He hadn’t seen the
other man enter the range. Fred somebody, F.B.I., from the Anti-Terrorism Task
Force. A few Bureau agents on Police Commissioner Richard Condon’s “not
assholes” list got to use the secret N.Y.P.D. range in the basement of an old
Borders bookstore on 21
st
Street and Sixth Avenue in the Flatiron
District of Manhattan, rather than trek out to the 54-acre Police Training
Facility at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx.
“I
was trying to shoot him in the leg,” Scarne deadpanned.
The
Fed smiled and said, “How about a little shoot-off? Twenty bucks?”
“Twenty?
You Feds are so cheap, you must be on the take. But sure. How many shots?”
“My
Glock holds 15.”
If
you need 15, Scarne thought, you will probably also need a coroner.
“My
Heckler holds 10. Let’s shoot five and five, head and heart. We’ll only count
what’s in the rings. Winning total takes all. And let’s do 75 feet, just to
make it interesting.”
“You’re
on, pal,” the other man said, and moved into the adjacent booth.
It
was early in the morning. They were the only ones at the range. Scarne could
hear the man loading his magazine. The two new targets sped out and stopped. It
took a second for them to stop fluttering. Scarne put on his ear protection. He
knew the other man would, too.
“Can
I keep my eyes open when I shoot,” Scarne said loudly.
Fred
somebody laughed and said, “I’m ready. How about we go when we slam the
magazines in?”
“Ready.”
“Set.”
They
both said “go” simultaneously. Slides ratcheted and both automatics fired. It
was over in seconds. The targets headed back. They pulled them from their
respective clips and compared them on the walkway behind the booths.
Four
of the Federal officer’s shots were in the head ring, as were four of his heart
bullets. The two misses were just millimeters outside their respective rings.
At 75 feet it was incredible shooting. He smiled until he looked over at
Scarne’s sheet.
“Shit,”
he said. Scarne’s groupings were tighter, and all 10 were inside the rings. The
five in the heart were almost dead center. “Where the hell did you learn to
shoot like that? The goddamn Olympics?’
Scarne
had been a crack shot since growing up in Wyoming hunting jackrabbits. Later,
in the Marines, he was occasionally picked to fill in on a few inter-service
competitive teams. He smiled grimly. Only an expert could put a single bullet
through the heart of someone on the pitching deck of a small boat. Easier than
a jackrabbit. Only had one bullet, too. Pity it went through the heart of a
woman I loved. For a second Alana Loeb’s beautiful face swam out of Scarne’s
memory. He quickly pushed it back into its vault.
“Come
on,” he said, pocketing the $20, “I’ll buy you breakfast.”
After
their meal, during which he promised Fred (whose name he still didn’t get) a
rematch, Scarne walked the half mile from the range to his apartment
overlooking Washington Square Park. He would have to remember to thank Condon
again for use of the range. As far as he knew, he was the only private
investigator in the city with the privilege. His relationship with the Police
Commissioner had its up and downs – years earlier Condon fired him for holding
a City Councilman off a balcony by his ankle – but the man came through when
the Ballantrae affair blew up in Scarne’s face and various state and Federal
prosecutors started baying. Not only had he kept Scarne out of jail but he’d
also thrown some work and favors his way, the shooting range being one of them.
After
he showered and dressed, Scarne called his office and told his secretary,
Evelyn Warr, he’d again spend the day staking out the Brooklyn Heights
brownstone where one of his clients was sure her husband kept a love nest with
his “spic whore” girlfriend. Actually, Scarne knew, the girlfriend was
Venezuelan and was a pretty nice lady. He could tell from Evelyn’s voice that
she disapproved of this kind of work. Too bad. A job was a job. And a nice
sordid marital squabble was just what he needed right now. He could do without
the kind of cases, like Ballantrae, that almost cost him his life and his
sanity. It would take wild horses to drag him into something like that again.
CHAPTER
1 – THE CABLE MEN
The
two men in the idling Inter-Boro Cable Company van weren’t cable technicians.
That wasn’t surprising; Inter-Boro Cable didn’t exist, at least in any of the
five boroughs of New York City. What was surprising was the whiff of conscience
cutting through the van’s embedded odors of tobacco, Big Macs and sweat.
“What
do you mean?” Lucas Gallo said as he angrily folded up his portable chess set.
Banaszak had been acting funny lately. Today the dumb Polack had lost in four
moves, suckered by a “Fools Checkmate,” the first thing you learned how to
avoid. Gallo was trying to teach him the game and wanted more of a challenge
from his partner. He glanced at the school entrance. “It’s a job, like any
other.”
Whitey
Banaszak started to stub out his cigarette in the console ashtray before
noticing that it was overflowing. He rolled down the driver’s side window and
looked both ways down the street. They were a few blocks from a precinct house
and being cited for littering at this stage would have been ridiculous. He
field stripped the butt, closed the window and dropped the filter into the
breast pocket of his work shirt. He immediately lit another.
“I
don’t like it.”
“Jesus,”
Gallo said, coughing. A nonsmoker, he rolled down his own window and waved his
arm as the fumes drifted his way. He was rewarded by a refreshing breeze tinged
with the smell of salt water and diesel fuel. “We’re not paid to like it. We’re
paid to do it. A shit pot. So don’t get mushy. It’s a little late for that, you
honkie douchbag.”
He
laughed. They busted each other’s racial balls constantly. It was a bonus that
the guy’s nickname was Whitey. Banaszak gave as good as he got. (“Gallo? Funny
name for a spade. They think you’d pass as a guinea because your name ends in a
vowel?”)
“But
her old man’s the problem,” Banaszak persisted.
“Can’t
touch the guy. Worse than hitting a cop. They said this will do the trick.”
“I
wonder why Lacuna isn’t using his own crew.”
“Probably
doesn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut.”
“Maybe
he couldn’t get anyone to do it. Sick fucker.”
Gallo,
tiring of the conversation, changed the subject.
“Speaking
of sick, you ain’t looking too perky, my man. I didn’t think you could get any
whiter, but you are. Still got that pain?”
And
the chills, Gallo reflected, which was why the guy wanted the windows up and
the heater on, despite the warmth of the late September sun. But, screw him,
I’m keeping my window down, so I don’t get asphyxiated.
“Yeah,”
Banaszak said, twisting his torso back and forth, trying to find a position
that lessened the ache under his left shoulder blade. “I wonder what it could
be.”
“Maybe
gall bladder. Usually presents itself on the right side, but it could radiate.”
“Presents
itself? Radiate? Who are you, Dr. Kildare?”
“I
used to date an E.M.T.,” Gallo said, wondering who the hell Dr. Kildare was.
“You know, a first responder.” He thought a moment, and grinned. “She didn’t
know she was balling a kind of last responder.”
He
liked that. So did Banaszak, who laughed, grimacing with the effort.
“Soon
as we’re done, I’m gonna see somebody. This sucks big time.”
“Maybe
you should give up the cigs, Whitey. Next time I’m gonna ask for a bonus to
work with a smoker. Just my luck I’ll get second-hand cancer from those coffin
nails. Don’t you listen to the news?”
“Blow
me,” Banaszak said equably.
Despite
his two-pack-a-day habit, he prided himself on his physical shape. He’d worked
the docks, and Army Ranger training had toughened him even more. Still trim and
muscular, he delighted in beating his taller and beefier partner in arm
wrestling. Made up for the goddamn chess drubbings. But a recent 10-pound
weight loss accentuated the already prominent cheekbones in his face. That and
his thinning white-blond hair and large forehead made him look all of his 63
years.
“Come
to Memphis,” Gallo said, “I’ll get you a number. Got some first-rate clinics
there. But don’t get your dick in a twirl. Probably something simple. You been
into any Caribbean snatch? Caught some weird bug from a little momma down in
the Dominican a while back. Served me right. She was awful nice, though. Could
suck a Hyundai up an elevator shaft. But I about wore out a bottle of Cipro
when I got home.”
A
sharp blast from a tugboat shepherding a containership just offshore startled
both men. They smiled at each other’s edginess.
“That’s
a huge mother,” Gallo said. “Look how high those containers are stacked.
Wouldn’t want to be on it during a hurricane. She’d roll over faster than my
sister. Read somewhere the Japs and Chinks have some can’t fit under the
Verrazano. Carry like 14,000 containers.”
“The
slopes will run the world soon,” Banaszak said.
“Maybe
they should. All we build in this country is sports stadiums. Bread and
circuses, my man.”
Banaszak
stared at the massive ship.
“Only
a matter of time before somebody slips a nuke through in one of those
containers.”
“Fuckin’
towel heads,” Gallo murmured.
Traffic
was building on both sides of the street as cars began to pull up in front of
St. Peter’s High School for Girls, which sat on a hill overlooking the harbor
on Staten Island’s north shore a few blocks from the St. George Ferry Terminal.
Horns honked to catch the attention of girls more intent on chatting than
noticing their parents. It was the beginning of a new school year. The girls
had a lot of post-Labor Day catching up to do.
“My
folks never picked me up from school,” Banaszak said.
“If
you looked anything like you do now, can’t say I blame them. Who’d want to own
up to you?”
“The
diocese is closing the school, after a hundred years,” Banaszak said. Too few
students. Gonna sell the property.”
“Yeah,
I saw that.”
When
they’d started their job, Banaszak had insisted they buy the local newspaper
every day. When Gallo first saw the masthead of the
Richmond Register
,
he’d asked why they needed a Virginia newspaper. Banaszak explained that the
borough of Staten Island was formally known as Richmond County. The
Register
was a paper he delivered in his neighborhood as a kid and it still conveniently
ran a weekly roundup devoted to burglaries. It never hurt to know what the cops
were up to, and where. There had been a recent spate of home invasions on Todt
and Emerson Hills, two of the borough’s priciest neighborhoods. That’s where
the police would be more observant. Randall Manor, the community that
interested Gallo and Banaszak, hadn’t been mentioned. Both men thought it
ironic the
Register
was proving so useful.
“Closing
the school has nothing to do with the students,” Gallo said. He considered
himself an expert on real estate and was investing in depressed condos in
Memphis, regaling, and boring, Banaszak with his recent coups. “That land has
to be worth a fortune with this view.”
“Tough
on the kids,” Banaszak said, hoping to forestall another conversation about
bankruptcies and short sales. “The church is farming them out to other schools
in the borough. Most won’t graduate with their friends.”
“That
stinks,” Gallo agreed, recalling his own high school days. “But look on the
bright side. She won’t have that problem.”
Banaszak
looked at his partner.
“You’re
fucked up,” he said.
Gallo
laughed and started to say something, then suddenly leaned forward.
“There
she is. Let’s make sure she catches the bus.”
The
girl walked to the bus stop across from the school and started talking to some
other students.
“Some
fine looking quiff, my man,” Gallo said. “Couple of chubsters to be sure, but
nothin’ I’d send back. Look at the bee bites on that one on the end.”
“Give
it a rest, will ya, Lucas. They’re kids for crissakes.”
“Listen
to Dr. Phil. Wanna bet some of them nice Catholic girls have condoms in their
schoolbags?”
“Please,
I’m begging you, just shut up.”
Gallo’s
shoulders rocked as he laughed silently. He loved getting the old guy’s goat.
A
city bus pulled up and the girls got on. Banaszak put the van in gear and followed
it, passing small clusters of students walking home along the shore. A car
drove past and honked. The kids waved enthusiastically at classmates they had
left moments before. The sight of pretty Catholic girls, books clasped to
chests, sashaying in pleated uniform skirts, brought back pleasant memories of
his high school years on Staten Island.
Banaszak
had attended McKee Technical in St. George, his heart set on the fire
department. Civil service. Out in 20 on three-quarters. Drinking with buddies
in local taverns. He’d even gotten engaged. Karen Kelly, from Moore Catholic.
Pretty little thing. Was sure he loved her, although looking back now he
realized her refusal to put out for him probably had something to do with that.
Her father was a fire lieutenant with good connections. Said he’d make sure
Banaszak would move up in the department, Polack or no, if he could pass the
demanding physical test and get through the academy. As if that would have been
a problem after heaving 100-pound sacks on the docks.
Then
he was drafted into the Army. Karen said she’d wait. Her initial letters were
terrific. Gentle, moving, hinting of suppressed passion and delights to come.
Then the tone changed. She began to sprinkle in anti-war bullshit. It got more
and more strident. By the time Sergeant Banaszak (Silver Star, two Purple
Hearts) returned home, she was marching outside the Pentagon, hair down to her
ass, and blowing anybody with a beard. He asked for his ring back. She told him
she sold it “for the cause.” Cause she needed more grass, he figured. She
eventually straightened out, but by then Banaszak had left Staten Island and
was using his military skills elsewhere. Last he heard, Karen was married to a
principal of a high school in Westfield, N.J., and had three kids.
“Fucking
war.”
“Now,
what?” Gallo said, exasperated.
“Nothing.”