Menaced Assassin

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Kosta taxied his Mooney from his tie-down spot to the southern end of Furnace Creek’s 3,000-foot paved airstrip. It was just after 8:00 a.m. and there was nobody except a pilot getting his Aztec filled with aviation gas, and the airport mechanic who was pumping it.

Kosta released the brakes and the plane surged forward, left the ground. He took off northwest, banked to the left, rising sharply to get over the saw-toothed Panamints toward Owens Lake. Below was the golf course where he had played eighteen holes with Gid the day before-losing about $500 to the old shark. It was emerald green in the slanting morning light, bounded by slim irrigation ditches and a small lake lined with weeping willows.

The engine’s steady roar faded into longtime familiarity. He tuned to Castle Rock and asked Flight Following to advise him about other traffic in his vicinity. There was none; apart from private fliers like himself, the only planes that came into Furnace Creek were charter bush flights from Lone Pine or Vegas.

With the turbocharger he could have flown over the high mass of the Sierra lying between him and California’s hot interior valley, but he chose to go up the Owens Valley and down the Tioga Pass. He liked the hazards of flying the passes: it challenged him more urgently than anything except sex.

Sex. Diana Pym would be waiting at Marin Ranch Airport with no panties on under her skirt, hungry for degradation in the back of his closed van. He would have liked her with him on this trip, but he hadn’t wanted any of them, Mr. Prince or Don Enzo or even Uncle Gid, to be reminded of the fact that it was a woman close to him who had started this whole damned mess.

Not that he wasn’t planning to get a great deal out of it, maybe even the brass ring with his dangerous game. Proving to himself he wasn’t afraid of them? Simple greed? Lust for power? Those big balls of his youth again?

Anyway, there was Uncle Gid yesterday, almost believing Prince’s suspicions about him. Was it just the usual Outfit paranoia, where everyone was always slightly suspect? Or was it something more concrete?

And then there was the cop, Stagnaro, showing up at the Greek Film Festival. Subtle harassment that couldn’t be answered by a lawyer’s cease-and-desist letter: after all, the man was just there with his wife, some Greek friends…

The plump pretty black-haired woman next to him would be the wife. For a wild moment, Kosta thought of seeking her out, getting her to fuck him and abase herself for him, as he did any other woman he wanted. But the fucking cop might shoot him in return. Still… she was there, desirable, that ever-potent hostage to fortune that made vulnerable all men who loved…

No. Dangerous and unnecessary. Dante knew nothing.

Dante had joined the two men topping off the Aztec’s tanks just as Gounaris’s plane had left the ground.

“That a Mooney that just took off?”

“Yeah,” said the mechanic, wiping his hands on a faded red rag that looked greasier than his knuckles. “Turbocharger, cabin heater, the works. A beauty.”

“Do you fly yourself?” asked the pilot.

Dante shook his head. “Can’t afford to.”

“I can’t afford not to,” grinned the pilot.

Dante had been up and around at first light, after a mighty struggle with his cop’s instincts had called the inn and asked to be connected with Kosta Gounaris. But Gounaris had checked out. And was now well away and, for the moment, safe.

Because Raptor was here in Death Valley, given pith and substance for the first time by the note pinned to Dante’s shirt. No longer just a series of sly phone messages on his machine, detailing the stalk of Dr. Death through the ranks of the Mafia.

Following him out to the dunes, turning into the dirt road by the stovepipe well, killing lights and engine, jogging in, picking up Dante’s tracks into the dunes-an awesome bit of fieldcraft. And an act of either sheer bravado or sheer contempt, letting Dante know that he was herel Scorning him, showing him he was helpless against Raptor’s omniscient ways.

But was he scorning Dante? I DO NOT KILL MY OWN KIND. Or acknowledging him as a fellow hunter? Raptor was Dante’s prey; but who, here, was Raptor’s? Not Dante; he could have had Dante out in the dunes last night. Not Gounaris, Gounaris was safely away. But Gideon Abramson was still here. Dante would warn him, then start the long drive home.

Death in Death Valley. Almost corny. Almost.

Gideon had finished his early-morning laps in the heated pool, now was on the terrace of the inn, drinking orange juice while waiting for his decaf and toast. A beautiful morning for eighteen holes of golf. He had slept like an angel despite the questions going around and around in his mind until his head had hit the pillow.

He regretfully put aside consideration of what to get his favorite granddaughter for her birthday-a five-foot stuffed purple Barney had the inside track at the moment-to return to the previous night’s churning thoughts. He hadn’t told Kosta that he secretly agreed Mr. Prince was probably be hind the Madrid and Kreiger killings, because he felt that Mr. Prince was looking at Kosta as a possible threat somewhere down the road.

A pretty young waitress came with his toast and coffee. He watched her hips glide like oil beneath the oddly erotic uniform as she walked away. Could he possibly… No. He went to Vegas for that. Outside Vegas these days he was decidedly avuncular.

If Mr. Prince was not behind the killings, then who? Could it be Kosta? Could he have set up the hit on Moll Dalton with a phony fuck-up confession, so the rest of the killings could be seen to grow out of that?

Where should he stand should there be a confrontation between these two? Gross Gott, he knew the answer to that. Stand with Kosta, fall with Kosta. Gid planned to live forever: he had seen enough men die to know there was nothing worse than dying, nothing on this earth. If Mr. Prince gave him the order today to set up a hit on Kosta, by morning Kosta would be dead.

Not that Mr. Prince would. The man’s mind was too subtle for such a gross challenge to human feeling and commitment. Gid would be the last to know-except for Kosta, of course.

A lean dangerous-looking Italian with a tired face sat down at Gid’s table. He wore jeans and heavy hiking boots and a light baggy sport shirt outside his pants. Gid glanced involuntarily at the heavyset man alone at a table on the corner of the terrace.

“You won’t need him. Dante Stagnaro. You want ID?”

“No. That explains the gun under your shirt.”

“Sig-Sauer 228-a beauty.” He pointed at Gid’s pot of coffee. “Decaf?”

When Gid nodded, the Italian turned over the unused cup and filled it, added milk and Equal. He sipped, sighed in pleasure, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. The tables were set far enough apart so nobody could casually overhear them.

“I’m sorry, I know nothing about guns,” said Gideon.

“Pity. I’m a fucking deadeye with it, I could shoot off your chauffeur’s toes before he could stand up.”

“You aren’t quite… as I pictured you, Lieutenant.”

“I get giddy when I talk to mobsters.”

Gideon was starting to get into the spirit of it, starting to enjoy himself. He said, “Such a remark would be actionable in front of witnesses.”

“But it’s just between us girls.” Dante leaned forward across the table, focusing his energies, and Gideon suddenly understood the reputation of this seeming buffoon. His first impression had been right: here was a dangerous man. “I think your life is in danger, Mr. Abramson.”

That broke the spell. Gideon said, “So this woman goes in to buy a fresh chicken. She lifts a wing and smells underneath it; then she lifts the other wing and smells. Then she spreads apart the chicken’s legs and sniffs again. She turns to the butcher and she says, ‘You meshugga, this chicken is no good.’ The butcher says to her, ‘Lady, can you pass a test like that?’”

Dante didn’t crack a smile. Instead, he said, “Meaning?”

“Meaning, you stink worse than the butcher’s chicken. I suppose Mr. Prince is going to have me killed, so I must scurry to you as my passport into witness relocation.”

“I don’t know who wants you dead. I don’t know who wanted Spic Madrid or Otto Kreiger or Skeffington St. John dead, either. But I know that the man who killed them is here in Death Valley. Gounaris is gone and he’s not after me.”

For a moment, Gideon was shaken. The man was very good!

“Then why don’t you arrest him?”

“I said I know he’s here, not who. He left me a note.”

Dante laid Raptor’s note on the table. Gideon leaned forward, scanned it without touching it. No fingerprints.

“‘I do not kill my own kind. Raptor.’” He looked up at Dante. “Raptor?”

“It’s what he calls himself.”

The waitress was at his elbow. “Mr. Abramson?” He turned. “You have a telephone call. Would you like me to bring-”

“No, thank you.” It was probably some ploy the meshugge cop had set up, he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of listening in. “I’ll take it at the desk.”

“I’ll have some more coffee while I wait,” said Dante.

Inside at the phone alcove, Gideon picked up without hesitation; nobody would call him on business at an open phone like this. The voice was thick, heavy, Bronx-accented.

“This is Raptor, tell me one a ya fuckin’ hebe jokes.”

Anger swelled Gideon’s chest. “ Hebe jokes?”

“I gotta know I’m talkin’ to the right guy here. I never met you, but you’re famous for them terrible Jew jokes you tell.”

This made sense. His fury dissipated. “Ah… okay. This Jewish mother is talking with her son’s teacher, she says, ‘My Gregory is very smart. If he’s a bad boy, slap the boy next to him-Gregory will get the idea.’”

“Yeah, they’re right,” said the heavy voice. “Terrible. Now, ditch the fuckin’ cop.” This call was local. Somebody in the building-or down the road a half mile with binoculars and a car phone. A heavy chuckle. “I left him a note.” Then he said, “I did them all.” When Gid didn’t answer, he added impatiently, “All of them. Starting with the broad. You’re supposed to be next.”

It was just so goddamned pat; another simpleminded gambit by the cop to either frighten him or compromise him in some way. But Stagnaro was not a simpleminded man. If he came up with a gambit, wouldn’t it be a convoluted one, instead of children’s games like the note, this phone call?

Could both note and call be genuine? Was he talking with the man who had hit all the others? Gid couldn’t help it, he heard himself asking, “For whom are you supposed to do this?”

“I tell you that, I got nothing to sell.”

“Why would I want to buy it?”

The caller gave a harsh chuckle. “To stay alive, pal. To stay alive.” Gideon felt a finger of dread down his spine.

“Why would you want to sell it?”

“I think he’s got me on the list after you.” When Gideon hesitated, the voice added, “Make up your fuckin’ mind, I gotta get somebody between me an’ the light. You don’t wanna play I gotta go to the fuckin’ cop.”

“No, no. I’m in the market. It’s just that I… I need some protection, a place where I can feel safe.”

“You think I don’t? I want it flat and I want it wide open. I know all about you, Abramson. You’d fuck your dead mother so you could steal the pennies off her eyes afterwards.”

He was truly, blindingly angry for a moment. Retired or not, nobody talked that way to Gideon Abramson.

“Men talk like that end up drinking a Drano cocktail.”

“Twenty years ago, old man, maybe. Now you’re just pissing in the wind. So we’ll play this my way…”