The Assassin

THIRTEEN

It took Vito Lanza several seconds to realize where he was when he woke up, several seconds more to reconstruct what had happened the night before, a few seconds more to realize that he was alone in the revolving circular bed, and a final second or two to grasp that the revolving bed was still revolving.

It didn'tspin around, or anything like that, you really had to work at deciding it was really moving, but it did move, the proof of which was that he was now looking out the window, and the last he remembered, he had been facing toward the bathroom, waiting for Tony to come out.

The bed was also supposed to vibrate, but the switch for that was either busted, or they didn't know how to work it. They were both pretty blasted when they tried that.

He'd had too much to drink,way too much to drink, there was no question about that. He'd had a little trouble getting it up,that much to drink, and that hardly ever happened. And much too much to be doing any serious gambling, and he'd done that too.

It had started on the way up. Tony had said she hadn't had anything for breakfast but toast and coffee and was getting a little hungry, so they stopped at a place just the Poconos side of Easton on US 611 for an early lunch. And he'd fed her a couple of drinks, and had a couple himself thinking it would probably put her in the mood for what he had in mind when they got to the Oaks and Pines Resort Lodge.

He had half expected the coupon Tony's Uncle Joe had given them for the Oaks and Pines Resort Lodge to be a gimmick; that when they got there, there either wouldn't be a room for them, or there would be "service charges" or some bullshit like that that would add up to mean it wasn't going to be free at all.

But it hadn't been that way. They didn't get a freeroom, they got a freesuite, on the top floor, a bedroom with the revolving bed and a mirror on the ceiling; a living room, or whatever it was called, complete to a bar and great big color TV, and a bathroom with a bathtub big enough for the both of them at once made out of tiles and shaped like a heart, and with water jets or whatever they were called you could turn on and make the water swirl around you.

And when they got to the room, there was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket sitting on the bar, so they'd drunk that, and then tried out the bathtub, and that had really put Tony in the mood for what he had in mind.

And that was before they'd found out that the bed revolved.

After, they had gone down to the cocktail lounge, where the Oaks and Pines Resort Lodge had an old broad-not too bad-looking, nice teats, mostly showing-playing the piano, and they'd had a couple of drinks there.

That was when the assistant manager had come up to him and handed him a card.

"Just show this to the man at the door, Mr. Lanza," he said, nodding his head toward the rear of the cocktail lounge where there had been a door with no sign on it or anything, and a guy in a waiter suit standing by it. "He'll take care of you. Good luck."

They didn't go back there until after dinner. Whoever ran the place sent another bottle of champagne to the table, compliments of the house, and the dinner of course went with the coupon. Vito had clams and roast beef. Tony had a shrimp cocktail and a filet mignon with some kind of sauce on it. She gave him a little taste, and the steak was all right, but if he'd had a choice he would rather have had A-l Sauce.

And then they had a couple of Benedictines and brandies, and danced a little, and he had tried to get her to go back to the room, but she said it was early, and it was going to be a long night, and he didn't push it.

Then he'd asked her if it would be all right if he went into the back room, and Tony said, sure, go ahead, she had to go to the room, and she would come down when she was done.

It wasn't Vegas behind the door. No slots, for one thing. And no roulette. But there was blackjack, two tables for that, and there was three tables where people were playing poker, with the house taking their cut out of each pot, and of course craps. Two tables. Pretty well crowded.

By the time Tony came down from the room, he had made maybe two hundred, maybe a little more, making five- and ten-dollar bets against the shooter. When she showed up, he didn't want to look like an amateur making five-dollar bets, so he started betting twenty-five, sometimes fifty, the same way, against the shooter.

When he decided it was time to quit, he had close to five thousand, over and above the thousand he had started with and was prepared to lose.

"You're going to quit, on a roll?" Tony had asked him, and he told her that was when smart people quit, when they were on a roll, and what he needed right now was a little nap.

So they'd had a little nap, and a couple of drinks, and that was when they fooled around with the switch Tony had found on the carpet when she'd fallen off the bed, and then they'd gotten dressed again and went back downstairs and to the room in the back.

And this time the dice had turned against him. He was sure it was that, not that he was blasted or anything. Sometimes, you just have lousy luck, and with him betting C-notes, and sometimes double Cnotes, letting the bet ride, it hadn't taken long to go through the five big ones he'd won, plus the thousand he had brought with him.

That was when the pit boss told him that if he wanted, they would take his marker, that Mr. Fierello had vouched for him, said his markers were good.

So what the hell, he'd figured that as bad as his luck had been, it had to change, it was a question of probability, so he'd asked how much of a marker he could sign, and the guy said as much as he wanted, and he hadn't wanted to look like a piker in front of Tony, so he signed a marker for six big ones, what he was out, and they gave him the money, in hundreds.

When he lost that, he knew it was time to quit, so he quit. If he had really been blasted, he would have signed another marker, because his credit was good, and that would have been stupid. The way to look at it was that he had dropped seven big ones. That was a lot of money, sure, but he'd come home from Vegas with twenty-two big ones. So he was still ahead. He was still on a roll.

He had the Caddy, and about ten thousand in cash, and, of course, Tony. If that wasn't being on a roll, what was?

Vito focused his eyes on the mirror over the bed, and then pulled the sheet modestly over his groin.

Then he got out of bed and walked to the bathroom.

Tony was in the tub, and it was full of bubbles, a bubble bath. It was the first bubble bath Vito had ever seen, except of course in the movies.

"Jees, honey," Tony said, "I didn't wake you, did I? I tried to be quiet."

"Don't worry about it."

"How about this?" Tony said, splashing the bubbles, moving them just enough so that he could see her teats. "I found a bottle of bubble stuff on the dresser. You just pour it in, and turn on them squirter things, and-bubbles!"

"There still room in there for me?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't."

Vito walked to the edge of the tub, dropped his shorts, and got in with Tony.

"You know what I would like to do later?" Tony asked.

"I know whatI'd like to do later. Or for that matter, right now."

"Behave yourself! What I would like to do is get one of them golf things…"

"What golf things?"

"The buggies, or whatever."

"You mean a golf cart," he said.

"Yeah. Could we get one and just take a ride in it?"

He thought that over.

"Why the hell not?" he said, finally.

"You know what else I would like?"

"What?"

"Champagne."

"Christ, before breakfast?"

"Well, I figured champagne and bubble baths go together. You can eat breakfast anytime. How many times does a person get a chance to do something like this?"

"You want champagne," Vito said, and hoisted himself out of the tub, "you get champagne."

Marion Claude Wheatley had slept soundly and for almost twelve hours. That was, he decided, because no matter what else one could say about the Pine Barrens, it was quiet out here. No blaring horns, or sirens, no screeching tires, and one was not required to listen to other people's radios or televisions.

But on reflection, he thought as he got out of bed and started to fold the bedding to take back to Philadelphia with him, it was probably more than that. He had noticed, ever since he had understood what the Lord wanted him to do, and especially when he was actually involved in something to carry out the Lord's will, that he was peaceful. It probably wasn't the "Peace That Passeth All Understanding," to which the prayer book of the Protestant Episcopal Church referred so frequently, and which the Lord had promised he would experience in Heaven, but it was a peace of mind that he had never before experienced in his life.

It seemed perfectly logical that if one was experiencing such an extraordinary peace, one would be able to sleep like a log.

Before he made his breakfast, he put the bedding into a suitcase, turned the mattress, and then carried the suitcase out and put it in the trunk of the rental car.

He fired up the Coleman stove and made his breakfast. Bacon and eggs, sunny side up, basted with the bacon fat, the way Mother used to make them for him when he was a kid, served on top of a slice of toast. Mother had thought dipping toast into an egg yolk was rather vulgar; placing the egg on a slice of toast, so that when the yolk was cut, it ran onto the toast accomplished the same purpose and was more refined.

He didn't have toast, of course. There was no toaster. And if there had been, there was no electricity to power a toaster. He thought again of the pluses and minuses of getting a gasoline-powered generator and bringing it out here to the farm. There was a new generation of small, truly portable generators. He had spent the better part of an hour taking a close look at the ones Sears Roebuck now had.

The one he liked best advertised that it produced 110-volt alternating current at five amperes, and burned one-half gallon of unleaded gasoline per hour. The recommended load was up to 1,500 watts. That was more than enough to power a toaster. It was enough to power a small television. And it would pose no problem, if he had such a generator, to install some simple wiring and have electric lighting over the sink, next to his chair, and in the bedroom.

That would mean, he had thought at first, that he could do away with the Coleman lanterns, which would be nice. But then he realized that 1.5 KW was not adequate to power more than one electric hotplate, which meant that the procurement of a generator would not mean that he could dispense with the Coleman stove.

And then he realized that he didn't really want to come out here and watch television, so there was no point in getting a generator to provide power for that purpose.

And then, of course, there were the obvious downsides to having a generator. For one thing, it would make noise. He didn't think that he would really be willing to put up with the sound of a lawn-mower engine running at two-thirds power hour after hour. And it would, of course, require fuel. He would have to bring at least five gallons of unleaded gasoline every time he came to the farm. Carrying gasoline in cans was very dangerous.

It would be much better, he concluded again, not to get a generator. Besides, if he went ahead and got one, there was a very good chance that he wouldn't get to use it very much. Once he had disintegrated the Vice President, all sorts of law enforcement people would begin to look for him. He thought there was very little chance that they would not sooner or later find him.

If indeed, in carrying out the Lord's will at Pennsylvania Station, he didn't end his mortal life.

When he finished breakfast, he pumped the pump and filled the sink in the kitchen with foul-tasting water, added liquid Palmolive dish soap, and washed the plates and flatware and pots and pans he had soiled since his arrival. He put everything in its proper place in the cabinets, and then made up the garbage package.

Until he had finally realized how to solve the problem-like most solutions, once reached, he was surprised at how long it had taken him to figure it out-he had ridden the tractor to the depression carrying the paper bags full of garbage in his arm. It was difficult to drive the tractor with one hand, and sometimes, despite trying to be very careful, he had hit a bump and lost the damn bag anyway, but that was all he could see to do. If he put the garbage in the trailer, by the time he got to the depression, the vibration caused the garbage to come out of the paper sack and spread out all over the trailer. Or even bounce out of the trailer.

The solution was simplicity itself. He made up a garbage package, or packages, by placing one paper sack inside another, and when it was full, sealing it with duct tape. He had then been able to place the sealed bag in the trailer, and then drive, with both hands free, the tractor to the depression.

Ordinarily, when Marion took care of the garbage, he simply drove to the edge of the depression and stood on the edge and threw the garbage packages down the slope.

Today, however, he decided that it would be a good idea if he took another look at the lockers. He had examined them yesterday, of course, but that had been right after he'd set off the devices, and there had been a good deal of smoke and even several small smoldering fires. By now, everything would have cooled down, and if any of the fires were still smoldering, he could be sure they were extinguished.

Throughout the Pine Barrens were areas that smoldering fires had left blackened and ugly. And one could not completely dismiss the possibility that a smoldering fire could reach the farmhouse, although that was unlikely.

There was still the smell of smoke in the depression, but he could not find any smoke, and it was probably that the converse of "where there's smoke there's fire" was true. No smoke, so to speak, no fire.

He was pleased when he examined the lockers. The devices had functioned perfectly, and with evidence of greater explosive power than he would have thought. The doors of the lockers in which the devices had been detonated had, except for one that hung on a hinge, been blown off. The chain that had been wrapped around the Composition C-4 had functioned as he had hoped it would. The lockers in which the devices had been placed were shredded, as were the adjacent lockers. He found only a couple of dozen chain links, and he found none where more than two links remained attached.

Marion climbed back up the slope of the depression, drove the tractor back to the farmhouse, replaced the tarpaulin over the tractor, and then went into the house. He took a careful look around to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything, and then left, carefully locking the padlock on the door.

He got in the rental car and started the engine. He looked at his watch. Things couldn't be better. He would get home in plenty of time to do the laundry, go to the grocery store, and then get the rental car back to the airport in time to qualify for the special weekend rate. And then he could get back home in time to watch Masterpiece Theater on the public television station.

That was the television program he really hated to miss.

Tom O'Mara stopped the car in front of the building that was the headquarters of the Special Operations Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. Over the door there was a legend chiseled in granite: FRANKFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL A.D. 1892.

Before O'Mara could apply the parking brake and open his door, Supervisory Special Agent H. Charles Larkin said, "This must be the place," and got out of the car.

Matt hurried after him, and managed to beat Larkin to the door and pull it open for him.

"Right this way, Mr. Larkin," he said.

He led him down the corridor to the private door of what had been the principal's office, knocked, and then pushed the door open.

"Mr. Larkin is here, Inspector."

"Fine. Would you ask him to wait just a minute, please, Detective Payne?"

"Yes, sir," Matt said, and turned to Larkin. "The inspector will be with you in just a minute, sir."

"How good of him," Larkin said, expressionless.

Matt knew from checking his watch that Wohl kept Larkin waiting for two minutes, but it seemed like much longer before Wohl pulled his door open.

"Mr. Larkin, I'm Staff Inspector Peter Wohl. Won't you please come in?"

"Thank you."

Wohl gestured for Matt to come in, and then waved Larkin into an armchair.

"Any problems picking you up, sir?"

"None whatever."

"May I offer you a cup of coffee? A soft drink?"

"No, thank you," Larkin said. "But may I use your telephone?"

"Of course," Wohl said, and pushed one of the phones on his desk to Larkin. Larkin consulted a small, leather-bound notebook, and then dialed a number.

Matt could hear the phone ringing.

"Olga? Charley Larkin. How are you, sweetheart?"

Matt saw Wohl looking at him strangely.

"Is that guy you live with around? Sober?"

There was a brief pause.

"How the hell are you, Augie?" Larkin asked.

Staff Inspector Peter Wohl's eyes rolled up toward the ceiling; he shook his head from side to side, smiled faintly, and exhaled audibly.

"I'm in Philadelphia, and I need a favor," Supervisory Special Agent Larkin went on. "I need a good word. For some reason, I got off on the wrong foot with one of your guys, and I'd like to set it right."

"I appreciate it, pal. Hold on a minute."

Larkin handed the telephone to Peter Wohl.

"Chief Wohl would like a word with you, Inspector," he said.

Peter Wohl took the telephone.

"Good morning, Dad," he said.

Larkin, beaming smugly, tapped his fingertips together.

"Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Larkin was talking about me. Obviously, there has been what they call a communications problem, Dad. Nothing that can't be fixed."

Chief Wohl spoke for almost a minute, before Peter Wohl replied, " I'll do what I can, Dad. I don't know his schedule."

He handed the phone back to Larkin.

"Chief Wohl would like to talk to you again, Mr. Larkin."

"I don't know what his plans are for lunch, Augie, but I'm free, and I accept. Okay. Bookbinder's at twelve. Look forward to it."

He reached over and replaced the handset in its cradle.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Wohl chuckled, and then laughed. Larkin joined in.

"I thought my guy here said 'Wall,'" Larkin said. "I don't know anybody named 'Wall.'"

"Well, while you and my dad have a lobster, that I'll pay for, I' ll have a boiled crow," Wohl said. "Will that set things right?"

"I'm sorry I used that phrase," Larkin said. "Nothing has gone wrong yet, but I'm glad I saw your father's picture on the wall. I think you and I could have crossed swords, and that would have been unfortunate. Can I ask a question?"

"Certainly."

"Have you got a hard-on for the feds generally, or is there someone in particular who's been giving you trouble? One of our guys, maybe?"

Wohl, almost visibly, carefully chose his words.

"I think the bottom line, Mr. Larkin, is that I was being overprotective of my turf. They just gave me Dignitary Protection, and I wanted to make sure it was understood who was running it. I really feel like a fool."

"Don't. The Secret Service is a nasty bureaucracy too. I understand how that works."

"When you're aware of your ignorance, you tend to gather your wagons in a circle," Wohl said.

"Well, I'm not the Indians," Larkin said. "And now that we both know that, could you bring yourself to call me Charley?"

"My dad might decide I was being disrespectful," Wohl said.

"Peter, if you keep calling me 'Mr. Larkin,' your dad will think we still have a communications problem."

"Matt," Wohl said. "Go get Captains Sabara and Pekach. I want them to meet Charley here."

"Yes, sir. Lieutenant Malone?"

"Him too," Wohl said.

As Matt started down the corridor to Sabara's office, where he suspected they would all be, he heard Larkin say, "Nice-looking kid."

"I think he'll make a pretty good cop."

That's very nice. But it's sort of a left-handed compliment. It suggests I will probably be a pretty good cop sometime in the future. So what does that make me now?

Wohl made the introductions, and they all shook hands.

"There is a new game plan," Wohl said. "There is something I didn' t know until a few minutes ago about Mr. Larkin. He and my dad are old pals, and that changes his status from one of them to one of us. And I've already told him that we don't know zilch about what's expected of us. So we're all here to learn. The basic rule is what he asks for, he gets. Mr. Larkin?"

"The first thing you have to understand," Larkin said seriously, " is that the Secret Service never makes a mistake. Our people here in Philadelphia told me that the man in charge of this operation was Inspector Wall. Peter has promised to have his birth certificate altered so that our record will not be tarnished."

He got the chuckles he expected.

"The way this usually works," Larkin went on, "is that our special agent in charge here will come up with the protection plan. I'll get a copy of it, to see if he missed anything, then we present it to you guys and ask for your cooperation. Then, a day or so before the actual visit, either me, or one of my guys, will come to town and check everything again, and check in with your people."

He paused, and looked in turn at everyone in the room-including Matt, which Matt found flattering.

"This time," he went on, "there's what I'm afraid may be a potential problem. Which is why I'm here, and so early."

He picked his briefcase up from the floor, laid it on his lap, opened it, and took out a plastic envelope.

"This is the original," he said, handing it to Wohl. "I had some Xeroxes made."

He passed the Xeroxes around to the others. They showed an envelope addressed to the Vice President of the United States, and the letter that envelope had held.

Dear Mr. Vice President:

You have offended the Lord, and He has decided, using me as His instrument, to disintegrate you using high explosives.

It is never too late to ask God's forgiveness, and I respectfully suggest that you make your peace with God as soon as possible.

Yours in Our Lord

A Christian.

"Is this for real?" Mike Sabara asked.

Wohl gave him a disdainful look. Matt was glad that Sabara had spoken before he had a chance to open his mouth. He had been on the verge of asking the same question.

"If you're getting a little long in the tooth," Larkin said, "and you've been in this business awhile, you start to think you can intuit whether a threat is real or not. My gut feeling is that it's real; that this guy is dangerous."

"I don't think I quite follow you," Wohl said.

"The Vice President and, of course, the President get all kinds of threatening letters," Larkin said. "There's a surprisingly large number of lunatics out there who get their kicks just writing letters, people in other words who have no intention of doing what they threaten to do. Then there are the mental incompetents. Then there are those with some kind of gripe, something they blame, in this case, on the Vice President-and want fixed."

Larkin paused long enough for that to sink in.

"Everybody, I suppose, has seenCasablanca!" He looked around as they nodded. "There was a great line, Claude Rains said, 'round up the usual suspects,' or something like that. We have a list of suspects, people we think need to be watched, or in some cases taken out of circulation while the man we're protecting is around. This guy is not on our list."

"How could he be on a list?" Matt blurted. "He didn't sign his name."

He glanced at Wohl, and saw Wohl's eyes chill, but then move to Larkin. It was a valid question, and Larkin immediately confirmed this:

"Good question. If they don't have a name, we give them one. For example, No Pension Check. Jew-Hater. Irish-Hater. Sometimes, it gets to be Jew-Hater, Chicago, Number Seventeen. Understand?"

"I think so," Matt said.

"We keep pretty good files. Cross-referenced. As good as we can make them. This guy doesn't appear anywhere."

"What makes you think he's dangerous?" Dave Pekach asked.

"For one thing, he's in Philadelphia, and the Vice President will be in Philadelphia in eight days, a week from Monday. We don't have much time."

"I meant, why do you think he's dangerous, and not just a guy who writes letters to get his kicks?" Pekach persisted.

"Primarily, because he sees himself as an instrument of the Lord. God is on his side; he's doing God's bidding, and that removes all questions of right and wrong from the equation. If God tells you to quote 'disintegrate' somebody, that's not murder."

"Interesting word," Sabara said thoughtfully, "'disintegrate.'"

Larkin glanced at him. Matt thought he saw approval in his eyes.

"I thought so too," he said.

"So is 'instrument,'" Wohl chimed in. "God using this fellow as his 'instrument.'"

"Yeah," Larkin said. "I sent this off, as a matter of routine, to a psychiatrist for a profile. I'll be interested to hear what he has to say. Incidentally, if you have a good shrink, I'd be interested in what he thinks too."

"Her," Wohl said. "Not a departmental shrink. But she was very helpful when we had a serial rapist, ultimately serial murderer, running around the northwest. When we finally ran him down, it was uncanny to compare what she had to say about him based on almost nothing, and what we learned about him once we had stopped him."

"Interesting," Larkin said.

"Payne's sister. Dr. Amelia Payne. She teaches at the University."

"What's even more interesting, Mr. Larkin…" Pekach said.

"Charley, please," Larkin interrupted.

"…is that Matt, Detective Payne, got this guy. With his next victim already tied up in the back of his van," Pekach concluded.

"Fascinating," Larkin said, looking at Matt.

He already knew that, Matt thought. He's not going to shut Pekach up, but he knew. He really must have some files.

"Okay, Matt," Wohl ordered. "As a first order of business, run this letter past Dr. Payne, will you, please?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mike, how are we fixed for cars?"

"Not good. Worse than not good."

"Matt's going to be doing a lot of running around," Wohl said. " He's going to need a car."

"Let him use mine," Pekach volunteered. "With or without Sergeant O'Dowd. I can get a ride if I need one."

"With your sergeant," Wohl said. "Matt, take the Xerox-before you go, make half a dozen copies-to Amy. Explain what we need, and why we need it yesterday. On the way, explain this to Sergeant O'Dowd, ask him for suggestions. The minute you can get through to him, call Chief Coughlin and ask him if he can meet us, make sure you tell him Mr. Larkin will be there, at Bookbinder's for lunch. I'll see if I can get Chief Lowenstein to come too."

"It's Sunday. There's no telling where Amy might be."

"Find her," Wohl ordered. "And keep me advised, step by step."

"Yes, sir."