Menaced Assassin

CHAPTER TEN

Dante hadn’t expected to score so soon, but Danny Banner, the black inspector who liked to say things like, “Don’t be dissin’ my ’do, Lou,” and was half of his task force and was on Gounaris, knew Lenington by sight.

“Gounaris in at ten-eleven a.m.,” said Danny. “Lenington in at ten-fifteen. I didn’t want to go in to see if they ended up together, but Lenington was out at ten twenty-seven, Gounaris at ten thirty-six.”

“Lenington have any legitimate reason to be in one of Vince’s places?” Dante had always avoided Vice and had a remarkably sketchy knowledge of its modus operandi, although he knew or suspected enough about Lenington to turn his stomach.

“Oh sure, check but the action, make a presence-you know. But it could also mean…”

“Yes,” said Dante in crisp comprehension. “And Gounaris had no reason to be there whatsoever. I think you can drop the Gounaris surveillance for now, Danny, but drop a word to I.A. about Lenington at the same time. It won’t do any good, I just want them to make a run on him to keep the bad guys confused.”

If there were any bad guys, of course. He might be looking under the beds in Atlas Entertainment for Mafia bogeymen who weren’t there. As Tim was fond of pointing out, Popgun Ucelli might just have gone fishing.

• • •

Diana Pym had a long face but lovely chestnut hair and very blue eyes and a touch of hauteur that Dante had a hunch Kosta Gounaris would soon take out of her. She served Dante an excellent cup of tea and was quite cosy this morning as they waited for Gounaris to show up. Dante made no attempt at all to pump her about Atlas Entertainment affairs. Tim Flanagan liked gossip, innuendo, coffee shop speculations, but Dante thrived on the half-heard word, the oblique, surprised glance, the shift of the eye, the dryness of the lips, the break in the voice.

It was after 10:00 a.m. when Kosta Gounaris finally arrived. Four thousand dollars on his back, three times that on his wrist. Tall, whipcord, distinguished, a slight glint of silver here and there in otherwise coal-black hair. Thin black mustache. Disturbing eyes because they were full of life, intelligence, and wit instead of being the dead BBs that Dante had come to expect from connected men.

“Good morning, Miss Pym.”

Good, deep, masculine voice, a little of Zachary Scott in his Mask of Dimitrios role, maybe a pinch of Gregory Peck’s bluff, deep-voiced, sly elegance in Roman Holiday. Rosa often sat up watching American Movie Classics while waiting for Dante to get home on late nights, and they usually stayed through to the end of whatever film was on before going to bed.

“There’s a Mr. Stagnaro waiting to see you, sir.”

The head turned, those intensely alive eyes met Dante’s.

“That’s Lieutenant Dante Stagnaro of the Organized Crime Task Force, isn’t it?” said Gounaris. He waggled beckoning fingers over his shoulder as he headed toward his inner office. “I can give you… Miss Pym?”

She swept Dante with suddenly frosty eyes. “Mr. Taylor at ten-thirty.”

“So. Twenty-one minutes.”

Everything designed to put him at a disadvantage. Knowing his name, rank, affiliation; zinging him for not so identifying himself to Miss Pym; giving him a precise twenty-one minutes as if he were a job applicant. Elegant. Impressive. A worthy opponent. Gounaris wouldn’t rattle easily; this first crossing of swords would be rapier work, thrust and parry, no slash and hack of sabers. A feint or two and Dante would be gone.

Twenty-one minutes would be more than enough. He only had one fact that would surprise, maybe shake Gounaris, and he wasn’t yet sure how to play that one to maximum advantage. If at all.

The office was at the top of the building, windows on three sides. Directly behind the antique desk that Gounaris claimed while waving Dante to a chair was a wonderful view of Yerba Buena, Treasure Island, distant Oakland. The day was clear, the air sparkled with sunlight, the cars on the Bay Bridge span clever moving toys in a master artist’s diorama.

“You’ve got an incredible view, Mr. Gounaris.”

“It is wonderful, isn’t it? That’s why I decided to work out of San Francisco rather than L.A. Being Greek, I need my mountains and water. Or at least hills.”

“I’ll get right to the point. The death of Mrs. Dalton.”

“Ah yes. Moll. Tragic.” Gounaris stood, turned to the window as if studying the tragic dimensions of her demise.

“Also very professional,” said Dante. “Which is what brought me in on it and is still puzzling me.”

Gounaris turned to frown at him. “Professional.”

“As in hitman professional.” Dante shrugged, making himself as Italian as he could. “As in Mafia, Mob, Outfit, Organization, Cosa Nostra, the Family, Our Thing. But our task force looks into any organized criminal activities that would come under the RICO statutes. Which means it could be linked to Mafia-controlled operations in other parts of the country.” He leaned forward earnestly. “The trouble is, Mr. Gounaris, no matter how hard we look, we just can’t find anything in Mrs. Dalton’s private life that would account for anyone hiring a professional killer to murder her.”

“You come to me because I was sexually involved with-”

“Not at all,” cut in Dante heartily.

He caught it in the eye, the flicker of surprise, maybe even annoyance, as if this stupid copper wasn’t sticking to the script Gounaris had written in his head for this interview. Because Dante wouldn’t, he’d have to make the obvious connection.

“It is true that Dr. Dalton was very upset…” He lowered his voice. “He walked in on his wife and myself, you know.”

“I know. Flagrante delicto, as they used to say. But even if he wanted his wife dead, he could never have found a killer of that caliber. And he hardly would have stopped with her.” Dante chuckled and spread his hands, a typical wop enjoying a good joke. “But here you are, safe and sound, and there Will Dalton is, in Africa.” He paused. “Safe and sound.”

Gounaris chose to get angry. “Are you implying-”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Gounaris. It’s just that nothing’s happened to you, nothing’s happened to him… the two principal players. So-nothing to do with her personal life.”

“I see,” said Gounaris, then added, “Leaving, to your literal policeman’s mind, just her professional life.” He spread his hands in turn. “There I can’t help you, Lieutenant. Moll was an excellent attorney, very independent, so I have very little knowledge of what she was working on at the time of her death. If you-”

“Bed and board strictly separate, as it were,” said Dante.

“Strictly.” His tone was dry as British toast. “But if you feel it would help in your investigation, Atlas Entertainment would be perfectly willing to put at your disposal any papers she was working on when she was killed.”

Meaning the papers would be worthless. “Thank you. I’ll have someone pick them up.” Dante was on his feet. “You have an appointment in a few moments…”

And the brass showed through, as he had hoped it would. When Gounaris spoke again, Dante knew he was right that Atlas Entertainment and its president were somehow, someway, dirty.

“You are of Italian blood, are you not, Lieutenant?”

“As they say in Italy, Mr. Gounaris, Romano di Roma.”

“That’s what I thought. So I wanted to ask you, did you get into the investigation of organized crime because you are so sickened by the vicious things men of your blood habitually do?”

Dante smiled. “Organized crime is no longer essentially Italian, Mr. Gounaris. Equal opportunity employer. Irishmen, Jews, African-Americans, Latin Americans… Greeks…”

“Just what do you mean by that?” demanded Gounaris quickly, either angry again or faking it again.

Dante would give his fact away, but he would turn it around first. He was suddenly confidential.

“Let me make a suggestion, Mr. Gounaris. You might be wise to stay out of Vince O’Neill’s porn palaces for now. I imagine your sex life must be… somewhat curtailed since Moll Dalton’s death, but even so… they’re in a pretty rough part of town.”

He saw the tiny flicker of alarm mixed with anger in the dark alive eyes, instantly quelled, and spoke even more softly.

“Some unsavory sorts hang around there. Corrupt vice cops under secret investigation by the Internal Affairs Division…” He turned from those again-startled eyes, tossing “ Ciao ” over his shoulder as he strode out.

And almost just walked out into the bright San Francisco October sunshine. Instead, thinking about the vile bug juice dispensed at the Hall of Justice, he decided to get a decent decaf at the lobby’s tiny afterthought of a coffee shop.

Kosta fretted at his desk for ten minutes, trying to sort out exactly what he had learned and what he had given away. The damn cop was good, all right; he’d needled so skillfully that Kosta had lost it for a moment, had gotten personal.

He strode from the office, curtly telling the surprised Miss Pym that Taylor should go into a holding pattern until he got back. At the lobby pay phone bank he placed a call to Gideon Abramson in Palm Springs, caught him on the links. Gid kept a cellular phone in his golf cart, so the call was transferred direct from the clubhouse.

“Kosta!” he exclaimed in a delighted voice. “So these two married guys are talking, one of ’em says, ‘You mean you been married twenty-five years and your wife still looks like a newly wed?’ ‘ Cooks,’ says the other guy in a sad voice, ‘ cooks like a newlywed.’”

Kosta was finally able to tell him the latest problem: how he’d been chatting with Jack Lenington the day before, how Will Dalton was safely out of the country, and finally how Stagnaro had visited him that morning.

“I agree with you about Dalton-we can just file him and forget him, he poses no threat,” said Gid in his high, chirping voice. “As for Stagnaro, I know him by reputation, he’s highly thought of by Rudy Mattaliano in New York, which probably means he’s a very dangerous man. But what can he do you?”

“He told me Lenington is under surveillance by the Internal Affairs Division, and wanted me to know they saw him and me going into the same porn place. They didn’t see us together, but that’s got to be the end of Jack fucking Lenington.”

“I agree,” said Gid thoughtfully.

“Do we have to tell Mr. Prince?”

“Just that Jack should be eased out.” In a more hearty voice, he added, “Be well, Kosta. I’ll handle it from here.”

Gounaris hung up, feeling better as he always did after he had shifted some dangerous burden to Uncle Gideon, and turned away from the phone.

And stopped dead: sitting in the coffee shop not ten yards away was Dante Stagnaro, smiling and nodding at him like one of those idiotic toy dogs in the rear windows of automobiles.