Silent Scream

PART THREE
CHAPTER 23

One bullet through my right lung, one in my belly. Another small gun, 7.65-mm. Lucky. I was in the hospital five weeks.

Two weeks in Intensive Care, one of them critical. Another week with a nurse around the clock. Two more when the room began to look normal, faces smiled, and I noticed the daylight outside. Even Marty came to visit. Without her husband, but she looked happy. I hated her. Yet glad for her, too. I was feeling mortal, and I hoped everyone was happy as long as I was still alive.

Captain Gazzo came. “Damn lucky I had the brains to call the precinct. Their sirens must have scared your man off, all over when they got there. Hal Wood met them, told them about the shooting, and they reached you in time.”

“I always said you were a good cop,” I said.

“Charley Albano came around off the record. Admitted two of his men got Bagnio. Claims self-defense, and the boys are long gone. We could try to find them, but we’ve got no names, no evidence. Unless someone tells us, we’ll never know who they were. I suspected Bagnio all along, it all fits. Even what Max was looking for-evidence that would show Andy was dumping him. He was a killer, Dan, case closed, the taxpayers save money.”

Hal Wood came many times. He was happy he’d gotten to Gazzo in time to save me.

“When we heard the shooting, I thought I’d gotten someone else killed,” he said, shook his head. “Shooting stopped before we reached the building. We didn’t see anyone, damn it.”

“You saw me,” I said. “Alive. You did just fine.”

He looked better now. His magazine was expanding, he had an assistant, was keeping busy. But no new girl. Not this time.

“I’m even painting,” Hal said. “A new style. It’s good.”

John Albano visited. Mia and Levi Stern had gotten married. Stern wanted them to live in Israel, but Mia was still running her business in New York for now. John Albano didn’t like that.

“Mia’s got a lot to learn still,” he said.

Even Lawrence Dunlap sent flowers. He was big with flowers, the proper aristocrat. Or maybe that was the wife.

I went to a convalescent hospital, and April turned into May. Spring came, and after a while there were fewer visitors. Gazzo still came sometimes, and my buddy Joe Harris, and John Albano. I wondered about John Albano. Did he have some doubts about the case, too?

When I walked around the convalescent hospital, sat out in the sun on good days, I thought about Max Bagnio and the murders. I thought about who had shot me, and why?

“You’re sure Bagnio was alone in it?” I asked Gazzo on a sunny day in mid-May. “Just mad at Andy and Diana, no one hired him?”

“No evidence of it, Dan. We’ve turned that Ninth Street place and the room on Sixth Street upside-down. We’ve combed his regular apartment, his room at Andy’s house. Nothing.”

“You haven’t found the automatic rifle?”

Gazzo sighed. “What do you want, Dan? That M-sixteen’s probably in the river. We’ll never find it with Max dead. Diana Wood’s wedding ring, Andy’s money clip, the rifle cartridges in his pocket, that memo Charley Albano never got. Open and shut, everything explained.”

“Sid Meyer isn’t explained.”

“That kind of killing happens every day, half of them never get explained. Not officially.”

“Why’d Bagnio keep the ring and money clip?”

“Mistake. Maybe thought it was safer than dumping them, risking them showing up to point to a private murder not gang.”

“Why did Bagnio search Mia Morgan’s apartment?”

“Andy’s daughter. Maybe he mentioned something to her about dumping Bagnio. In writing. Bagnio just being very careful. If you’d killed Andy Pappas, you’d be careful, too.”

“Did you check on Ramapo Construction and Ultra-Violet Controls?” I asked.

“Ramapo is best equipped to handle that laboratory and housing project in Wyandotte, even if Charley Albano does own it. Ultra-Violet Controls is a solid company, no Mafia connections. A subsidiary of Caxton Industries, a big conglomerate.”

That made me uneasy. Caxton Industries, and a Martin Winthrop, had been represented by Irving Kezar in stock dealings. So? Kezar was a businessman. He probably got a lot of companies together-even Charley Albano’s legitimate companies.

“Why was I shot, Captain? Was it the same gun that killed Max Bagnio?”

“No, not the same,” Gazzo said. He looked uncomfortable. “I can’t explain why you were shot, Dan. Maybe you stumbled over something. Maybe the gunmen just didn’t want you around.”

“Then why get me down there at all? A setup? Then what did I do to be set up? Two open questions-me and Sid Meyer.”

“You could have been a mistake. Got there too soon, the killers needed more time. Or maybe they left some evidence we can’t spot, came back to get it.”

It was a reasonable explanation.

“Dan, the gang’s satisfied,” Gazzo said. “And they wouldn’t be if they had any doubts about Bagnio. Not the Mafia.”

That was reasonable, too. But…?

I thought more about it for a week. The Mafia were happy, and they wouldn’t be if they had doubts that Max Bagnio had killed alone-unless they had some more important problem.

It was over, closed, everyone satisfied. Too damned satisfied. Mia Morgan married to Stern, but still in New York while Stern was in Israel. Just a willful girl, or some other reason? Hal Wood looking better, able to work again. Charley Albano, who seemed to have forgotten his suspicions that Bagnio might have been hired by someone to kill Andy. John Albano being nice to me, visiting a lot. And where were those neat-looking men interested in Irving Kezar? Were they glad the case was closed?

I was released on a hot day for May, summer in the air. John Albano had offered to drive me home. I told him to drive me somewere else.

“To Stella?” he said. “You’re not convinced, Dan?”

“I just want to look around. It’d help to have you along, but I can get out there by myself.”

“All right, we’ll go to Stella,” the old man said. “But leave it closed, Dan. It worked out okay.”

“Mia’s safe?”

“I’m thinking of you. The brotherhood won’t like any more snooping.”

It was true. Too damned true. But I don’t like being shot, especially if the one who shot me was still loose.