The Killing Man

"Let's make a script out of this, Pat."

"Okay," he agreed. "Our boy Anthony went a little bit further when he hit those mob guys. He knew they were plotting against his employer and grabbed the papers. When he saw what he had, he knew he was in a position of power, but didn't quite know how to handle it, so hid it somewhere." He paused. "Now your turn."

"The mobs turned on themselves thinking of a double cross somewhere, then realized what had happened and cooled it. It took a couple of weeks to locate our Anthony, but they went a little overboard in bringing him in and cracked his skull. After that he was no good to anybody. They still needed his goods and had to wait for him to come out of the memory loss before they could move . . ."

Pat lifted his beer and made a silent toast. "We really took his place apart, you know."

"No, I didn't know. What did you find?"

"Zilch. There were no hiding places at all. We even tried the cellar area. If he had anything at all, it's someplace else."

"Now what?"

"We wait the way we usually do," he told me.

I grinned at him. "Balls. When are you going to ask me?"

He grinned back and said, "Okay, wise guy, when are you going to see General Skubal?"

"Soon. Since you're off this case I go alone, but there's no reason why we can't have a few talks together later, is there?"

"None at all."

"And I'm not investigating the Penta affair at all. Just seeing an old friend. Right?"

"Right."

"And the next time old Bradley boy demands I do something, I think I'll rap him in the kisser with a civilian citizen hook."

"Good thinking. You know where Skubal is?"

"I have his address in my office. I'll get it tonight."

We finished our beers and when Pat left I made two calls looking for Petey before I found him in his office at the paper. He told me to come on over. He sounded excited.

Until I saw his office, I hadn't realized Petey Benson's status at the newspaper. Most of the working reporters had a desk with a console in the quiet bedlam of the main section, but Petey had his own room, not a compartment, with a door that closed and his own bank of filing cabinets.

"Man," I said. "I thought you did all your work out of barrooms."

"That's all eyewash for the peasantry."

"You've ruined your image, pal."

"Nope. Been around too damn long to do that. What you see here is seniority at work. Plus sheer expertise, of course. Technology and computer chips rule the system these days and he who has the most gadgets wins. Wait till you see what I've come up with."

I tossed my hat on an old Smith-Corona typewriter and pulled a chair up next to Petey. "You have a work-up already?"

He nodded. "We're lucky we're dealing in areas that have good terminal systems. You know anything about computers?"

"Very little."

"Okay, let me brief you a little. In backtracking DiCica, I was able to get into records of public information, had some friends on the other end do a little legwork and between the FOI Act and the power of the press, we've got some history on Mr. Anthony DiCica. Ready?"

"Hit it."

Petey's fingers moved over the keyboard and the console came alive. "Where do you want to start?"

"All right, we'll go for basics." Then he brought Anthony Ugo DiCica up in green electronic reality. Born January 2, 1940, of Maria Louisa and Victorio DiCica in Brooklyn, New York. Victorio was a cabinet maker by trade, a World War II veteran honorably discharged in 1945. Maria DiCica had two stillbirths There were no other children. Anthony graduated Erasmus Hall High School, June 1958, worked one year in Victorio's cabinet shop, then left and was arrested for the first time a year and one week later."

"How do you like it, so far?" Petey asked me.

"He made the streets pretty early. Pat's got his rap sheet, so skip that part and stay with the personal stuff."

Petey hit the keys again. "His father was killed in a holdup shortly afterward, as you see. Now, here's an excerpt from the News about the murder of a man suspected of having killed Victorio. He was even wearing Victorio's watch. Anthony was picked up and questioned, but released for lack of evidence. However, the word was that Anthony found the guy and hit him."

"He discovered his profession, didn't he?"

"More than that," Pete said, "he found a patron. Juan Torres."

I knew the name, and it hit me with force. "Now we're into the heavy cocaine scene."

"You'd better believe it," he agreed. "You know where Torres stood with the organization?"

"He was a damned lightweight for a long time, I remember that. Something happened that pushed him right up the ladder."

Pete nodded, chewing on his lower lip. "He'd just disappear for months at a time and when he showed up he was a little bit bigger. We finally figured out. Juan Torres was a finder. You know what that is?"

I shook my head.

"He's got family scattered all through Mexico and South America. A million cousins, you know? He's got that touch, and where there's a coke source he taps into it. He was a nobody, a nothing, but maybe that's how he made it work. The way prices are on the street, no operation was too small to tap into. Torres got the leads, made the deals and the organization moved him up. Oh, he was a damned good finder, all right. He was right inside the Medellin cartel when it first started."

Reaching across me, Petey picked four printed photos off his desk and handed them to me. In each one Juan Torres and Anthony DiCica were in close conversation against different backgrounds, obviously very familiar with each other. Here DiCica was dressed in expensive outfits, jewelry showing on both hands.

Again Petey keyed the board and brought up bills of sale and records of deeds to two houses. "DiCica was the sole support of his mother. She still lives in the Flatbush house enjoying an income from two dry-cleaning establishments he bought for her years ago."

"What about the other one?"

"A two-family place. Both rentals of long standing. The house was in his name, the rentals went to his mother. In the terms of his will she inherits the houses."

"Does Maria know what happened to her son?"

"Here's a copy of a report on her. When Anthony was in that trauma following the beating, she assumed he would die. She collected his belongings and only saw him once after that when he was released. He didn't even know her. All he remembered was something his papa had made, she said." He erased the screen and brought up another report, a letter from the medical supervisor in the hospital that attended to Anthony. He concluded that DiCica had absolutely no memory of his previous life, his mental faculties were severely impaired in certain areas, but he was capable of leading a satisfactory, if minimal, existence.

"What are you saving for me?" I asked him.

"Somebody else was keeping a watch on both those houses," he told me. "Look at this." Two minor items from the Brooklyn Eagle appeared. The home of Mrs. Maria DiCica had been burglarized, but nothing seemed to have been taken. The elderly lady and her live-in housekeeper had been locked in the pantry while the ransacking went on. The dateline was two days after Anthony had been admitted to the hospital.

One day later a minor squib reported an attempted robbery of another house, where the residents downstairs were trussed up and gagged while the robbers prowled through the premises before doing the same thing to the upstairs apartment where the residents were away.

"Both those houses belonged to DiCica," Petey said. "However, since nothing was reported stolen, they were after something else entirely. Now," he said with emphasis, "check this one out."

The headline was bigger this time, under a partially blurred photograph of a pair of frightened old ladies. For the second time in a month their home had been entered and this time the women had been bound, their mouths taped shut, and kept unceremoniously on the kitchen floor while the intruders went about systematically tearing their house apart. Apparently they found nothing. Neighbors reported that street speculation assumed the DiCica woman to have a hoard of cash in the house since the ladies lived so frugally.

Before I could say anything, Petey keyed the console and grinned. "Don't ask me how I got this." It was a copy of a bank statement. The amount was over three hundred thousand dollars, all in the name of Maria DiCica. Deposits were regular and automatic from several sources. "Our boy Anthony had set his old mother up in fine fashion. So, what were the houses being burglarized for and who did it?" He sat back and looked at me. "Or should I ask?"

"I can give you an off-the-record opinion, Petey, but that will have to do for now."

"Good enough."

"DiCica had some devastating information on the mob. He hid it somewhere before he was clobbered."

With a look of finality, Petey shut the console down. "End of case. It died with Anthony."

"The hell it did," I said. "Somebody in the organization thinks DiCica suddenly remembered and dropped his secret on me."

"Brother!"

"So if it dies, it'll die with me."

"Only you're not dead yet?"

"Not by a long damn sight."

"But they got pressure on you, I take it?"

I nodded. "The bastards as much as said it was my ass if I don't produce."

"Shake you up?"

"I've been in the business too long, kiddo. I just get more cautious and keep my .45 on half cock."

He watched me frowning, grouping his thoughts. "That mutilation of DiCica could have been a message to you then."

"It's beginning to look like it," I said.

"What do you do now?"

"See how far I can go before I touch a tripwire."

"You don't give a damn, do you?" he said.

"About what?"

"Anything at all. You don't want any backup, no protection . . . you want to be out there all alone like a first-class idiotic target."

I shrugged.

"There's a lot more of them than there are of you, kiddo," I watched him and waited. He finally said, "They know how you are, Mike. You're leaving yourself wide open."

I felt that tight grin stretch my lips and said, "That's the tripwire I set out."

When she answered the phone, I said, "Would you really like to be president?"

There were three seconds of quiet and I knew she was studying the way I had said every word.

"There are a lot of obstacles on that road."

"I think I can clear a few of them out."

"How?"

I looked at my watch. "I'll be at your place in fifteen minutes."

All I had to do was walk around the corner and I made it in five. The doorman nodded, called Candace's apartment, then told me to go up. As I expected, I caught her in the middle of getting ready, obviously flustered at being half-dressed.

"You're a real bastard," she said. "Come on in."

I tossed my hat on a chair and followed her into the living room. She walked against the light and for a brief moment her naked body was silhouetted through the fabric of her housecoat and she did a half turn, looking back at me impishly, and I knew she was well aware of what she was doing.

"Like?" she asked.

"Cute."

"Just cute?"

"Kiddo, you are one helluva broad, as they used to say."

"Oh?"

"Especially in the buff."

"But you've only seen me once in the buff."

"It made an impression then too." I grinned at her. "Now go finish dressing."

"That I will do, believe me." She held out her hand and took mine. "You, Mike, are going to sit and watch and tell me all about the presidency." Without any hesitation, she led me toward the bedroom, ushered me in and pointed to a satin-covered chair next to her vanity. "And, of course, you are going to be a gentleman. You realize that, don't you?"

"Certainly." She was playing my game right back at me and my voice sounded hoarse. I sat down, but I wasn't comfortable.

Women are born clever. They begin life as little girls who have an instinct base that turns little boys inside out. They never seem to lose any of it, just getting better every day. They can comb their hair or put on lipstick in a way to make any guy feel a sultry ache in his groin, and now I had to watch her sitting there, deliberately opening the housecoat around her shoulders, letting it slide down to her elbows so that it lay across the fullness of her breasts, seeming to balance on her nipples. She studied herself in the mirror, her tongue licking out to wet those luscious lips before she touched them with a feathery brush end.

Her reflected glance met mine. "You were saying?"

"The police have been pulled off the Penta case."

"Our office was notified." She did the trick with her tongue again.

"If you . . . and I mean you personally . . . suddenly came up with something very explosive that would put you in the headlines even bigger than you expected when you busted into this affair . . ."

Her eyes held mine again.

"It's another step up. The DA's office is next."

She took the hairbrush now, running it through the blond silkiness. It made a quiet, snaky sound and the muscles played very gently under her skin with the movement of her arm. The back of the housecoat slid down almost to her waist.

"Your office isn't the police department. It's still an investigative agency if it chooses to be."

Her eyebrows arched an affirmative and she put the hairbrush down on the vanity, studied herself again and stretched herself, arms out, fingers splayed in an odd theatrical gesture. She crossed one leg over the other, the gown falling away carelessly, leaving one side nude to the hip.

I said, "You have the intellect and the machinery to do something I need and do it fast. The cops have snitches out there you can reach if you play your cards right. Most likely you already have programs in place you can tap for the information I want."

She seemed to glide around on her seat until she faced me, the movement an instinctive feminine device that shocked a man's nerve endings, making me feel as if I were giving up to a slow drowning. Then a survival instinct jerked me back and I watched while she folded her hands in her lap, the motion letting the housecoat fall all the way, so she sat there, seemingly unconscious of the fact that the lovely swells of her naked breasts were mine to see.

She smiled and I said, "You're a pretty beastie, lady."

"Are you disturbed?"

"Not that much."

"You lie, Mike."

"Nicely, I hope."

"Yes. Very nicely. Now, what is it you want of me?"

"Something has our local organized crime group bent out of shape. It's big enough to squash them if it gets out and big enough to kill for to keep it quiet."

She said, "You'd better explain."

"It started with Anthony DiCica," I told her, then laid the details out for her one by one. She let me finish without saying a word and when I got to the end she unconsciously pulled the robe up around her again, frowning in thought.

She tilted her head at me, her eyes carefully shrouded. "No games?"

"Straight, kid."

"I'm simply an assistant district attorney."

"Nevertheless, you have the clout. Your boss has enough on his desk to keep him busy. All he wants is to get into court anyway. The legwork isn't his speed."

Candace nodded and asked, "Will Captain Chambers cooperate?"

"Why not? Interagency cooperation isn't active participation. He'd like to screw that State Department patsy anyway."

"Oh, Bennett Bradley is all right. He's pretty disappointed at not having found Penta after all these years. When all of a sudden the name showed up here . . . well, you can imagine how he feels, especially with a replacement for him due."

"Well, hell, he doesn't give a damn what we do about DiCica anyway. All he wants is one last clear shot at this Penta character. When can you get things started?"

She got to her feet before I could and smiled down at me. "The first thing in the morning, Mike."

Her tongue made her lips wet and she held out her hands and when I took them, she pulled gently and I stood up, feeling her fingers kneading my shoulders.

"Where do people like you come from, Mike?"

"Why?"

Girls can do strange things with their clothes too. With barely a movement, everything can suddenly fall away and they are naked and bare and nude all at once, the poutiness of their flesh pressing against your clothes like a hot iron, and they can squeeze themselves into the forbidden areas of your body the way water follows the contours of the earth.

Her mouth was soft, warm lips so cushiony and alive, feeling and tasting that it was like a kiss within a kiss. I enjoyed the flavor of her, the pillowed sensation of being enfolded by nakedness, and when it got too much, I pushed her away gently.

I knew what the look in her eyes meant. I knew what her smile meant. I grinned at her and took my lumps because she was getting back at me for the last time.

"You're the real bastard," I said.

The corner of her mouth twitched. "Uh-huh."

I took a long look at her standing there, soft, sensual musculature that was never motionless, the light outlining the gentle ripples of her body.

"Think we can start over?" I asked her.

She smiled. There was a glint in her eyes. "Why not?" she said.

I got my hat from the chair and got out of there. Downstairs there was a chill in the air and New York was getting that funny smell back again.

8

I had the cabbie drop me at the corner and picked up a late evening paper from the kiosk. There was a mist in the air and the streetlights had a soft glow around them, and lighted windows in the apartments were gently blurred. It was the kind of night that dampened street sounds and put a dull slick on the pavement.

The doorman at my place generally paced under the marquee, but tonight I couldn't blame him for staying inside. I hugged the side of the building out of the wind, moved around the garbage pails outside the areaway that ran to the rear and saw the feet inside the glass doors as the guy jumped me from behind.

Damn. The second time.

One arm had me around the throat and a fist was ready to slam into my kidneys, but I was twisting and dropping at the same time, so fast the fucker lost his rhythm and went down with me. His arm came loose and he rolled free, and I forgot all about him because the other one had come out of the hallway with a sap in his hand ready to lay my skull open. I let the swing go past my face and threw a right smack into his nose, saw his head snap back, then put another one into his gut.

This time everything was working right. The guy behind me came off the sidewalk thinking he had me nailed. I didn't want any broken knuckles. I just drove my fist into his neck under his chin and didn't wait to see what would happen. The boy with the sap was still standing there, nose-stunned, blood all over his face, but not out of it at all.

You don't have to waste skin on guys like that at all. I kicked him in the balls and the pain-instinct reaction was so fast he nearly locked onto my foot. His mouth made silent screaming motions and he went down on his knees, his supper foaming out of his mouth.

The doorman was just coming out of it, a lump already growing on the side of his head. "Can you hear me, Jeff?"

He grimaced, his eyes opened and he nodded. "That bastard . . ."

"I have them outside. You give the cops a call."

"Yeah. Damn right."

The big guy I had rapped in the throat was trying to get away. He was on all fours scratching toward the car at the curb. I took out the .45, let him hear me jack a shell into the chamber and he stopped cold. That old army automatic can have a deadly sound to it. I walked over to him, knelt down and poked the muzzle against his head.

"Who sent you?"

He shook his head.

I thumbed the hammer back. That sound, the double click, was even deadlier.

"We . . . was to . . . rough you up." His voice was hardly understandable.

"Who sent you?"

His head dropped, spit ran out of his mouth and he shook his head again.

Hell, neither one of them would know anything. Somebody had hired a pair of goons to lay on me, but they would sure have something to say to me about it.

"Why?" I asked him. I kept the tone nasty. I rubbed the gun harder against his temple.

All the big slob had in his eyes was fear. "You sent . . . the guys . . . a bullet."

I heard the siren of a squad car coming up Third Avenue. "How much did they pay you?"

"Five hundred . . . each."

"Asshole," I said. I eased the hammer back on half-cock and took the rod away from his head. A grand for a mugging meant the victim would be wary and dangerous and these two slobs never gave it a thought. I gave him a kick in the side and told him to get over beside his buddy. I didn't have to tell him twice.

Wheels squealing, a car turned at the corner and the floodlight hit me while it was still moving. The cameraman came out, rolling videotape, a girl in a flapping trenchcoat right behind him, giving a rapid, detailed description of what was going on into a hand mike, and I even let New York City's own favorite on-the-spot TV team catch me giving the guy another boot just for the hell of it.

When the squad car got there I identified myself, gave my statement and let the doorman fill in the rest. The two guys had waited near the curb nearly an hour, spotted me at the corner, then one came in, grabbed the doorman, waited until the other jumped me and laid a sap on the doorman's head before joining the fun. Luckily, the sweatband of his uniform cap softened the blow. Both the clowns had knives in their pockets along with the old standby brass knuckles and a blackjack. It took one radio call to get an ID on them and they were shoved, handcuffed, into the rear of the car.

Enough of a crowd had collected to make it an interesting spot in the late news coming up and the girl said, "Any further comment on this, Mr. Hammer?"

At least she remembered my name.

"They just tried to mug the wrong guy," I said. Then I winked into the lens and walked away.

Upstairs I called Pat, but somebody had already given him a buzz. I ran through the story again, then added, "It's all coming back to DiCica, buddy. They're making sure I know they're watching."

"You don't scare them, Mike."

"If they think I have access to what Anthony had I can sure shake them up. Did Candace Amory get in touch with you?"

"Sly dog."

"That's what Peppermint Patty says to Charlie Brown."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Shit, you're going nuts, y'know?"

"How about Candace?"

"She'll stay busy. I assigned two damn good men to clue her in."

"Good."

"Listen, buddy . . . you have a problem."

"No way. I'm going to hit the sack."

"You see the time? That TV newscast will be on in one hour. That's how fast they can get that tape in . . ."

"So?"

"If Velda sees it, she is going to be upset as hell."

"Baloney, I did a funny at the end."

"They edit, idiot. They'll keep it hard and tight as they can. You know those two."

He was right. I said, "Look, I'll grab a cab and head up there."

"I'm closer," he told me. "I'll see if I can get there first."

"Keep her quiet."

"Will do."

I hung up. This time I took my own trenchcoat when I went back out into the night. It was a heavier mist now. Soon it would start to rain.

It was faster getting to Velda's room from emergency admitting, so I had the cab drop me off there. I went through the handful of people waiting to be helped, pushed through the double doors, took the stairs two at a time to the floor I wanted and half ran down the corridor.

The cop on duty was the one who had checked me out before. He grinned and waved to slow me down, his motions indicating everything was okay. I came to a walk to get my breath back and stood there a second, listening. I looked at my watch. The show would be running, but there was no sound from the room at all.

"What's all the hurry?" the cop asked me.

"Didn't want her watching television," I panted.

"Hell, the captain took care of that twenty minutes ago. He went in and pulled the plug on her set." He rubbed his jaw and frowned. "The show's all that bad?"

"Just didn't want her getting excited."

"Nothing should bother her. Her doctor sedated her an hour ago. She just had a couple of orderlies in checking on her."

"For what?"

"Beats me."

"You know them?"

"I think I've seen them around. They had their ID badges on anyway."

I said, "Damn," and went through the door. The same night-light was on and she was still there in the shaded glow of it, her breathing soft and regular. I took her wrist, felt her pulse, then let the tension go out of my shoulders.

The nurses had combed her hair out, and makeup had erased some of the discoloration on her face. The bandage was smaller and all the beauty that was Velda was beginning to reappear. A sheet was drawn up to her chin, but it didn't hide what was under it at all. She still swelled out beautifully in all the right places.

She smiled first, then opened her eyes. "I know what you were thinking," she said. Her voice was gentle, but wavering, the sedation heavy on her.

"You ought to. That's the way I always think."

"What are you doing here . . . so late?"

"Just checking."

She closed her eyes in a drowsy fashion, then seemed to force them open. "Mike . . ."

"Yeah, doll?"

"There was . . . a doctor here."

"I know . . . Burke Reedey. He gave you a sedative."

Her head rolled slightly on the pillow. "No . . . another doctor."

"An orderly?"

"He . . . looked like . . . a doctor. He said . . ." Her eyes drifted shut again.

"What did he say, honey?" I took her hand and squeezed it.

Sleepily, her eyes opened again. "He was going to . . . give me . . . another shot."

My hands suddenly went clammy. "What!"

Once again, she shook her head. "He didn't . . . do it." Her lids started to close again, then jerked open. "He told me it would make . . . me sleep better . . . and he took . . . my arm . . . when the other doctor came in."

"Another orderly?"

"Like . . . a doctor. Maybe. That first one . . . said something and . . . and left."

I said, "Son of a bitch!" and tried to let her hand go, but her fingers had a determined grip.

"Mike . . ."

I stopped trying to ease her fingers loose and looked at her. She was fighting to talk through the sedative and everything was wearing her out.

"When he spoke" -- her eyelids wavered -- "he sounded like . . . the one on the phone . . . Saturday . . . who wanted to meet you . . . at the office."

He was here. The lousy bastard was here in the hospital and was making a run on Velda.

I dropped her hand, patted her cheek gently and, when her eyes closed, I ducked through the door. The big cop looked at me quizzically and I nodded an okay, then asked him, "Describe that first orderly who went in there."

"Big guy, real heavyset," he said. "About five-eleven, two hundred forty pounds, dark hair going gray, Vandyke beard and mustache. Real doctor stuff. Almost like a black-and-white movie caricature."

"You said you saw him before."

"I did. I've been thinking about that. He went by here twice in the past couple of days."

"He say anything?"

"No. He just went by. The first time he was pushing a cart of surgical instruments."

"How about that second orderly?"

The cop knew something was going down and he had an anxious expression on his face. "Hell, man, he's over at the nurse's desk right now." He pointed toward the middle of the corridor and I didn't wait to hear any more.

His name was David Clinton, address on the West Side. He had been an employee of the hospital for three years, which the head nurse documented. I gave him back his ID card and took him away from the desk.

"The police officer told me you checked the lady's room tonight."

"That's right. I clean up, make sure nothing is left on the table, the lavatory is serviced . . ."

I didn't let him finish. "There was another orderly in there tonight too."

"Oh, him. That jerko was on the wrong floor. Imagine that. Those new people don't even know which button to push on the elevator."

"You report him?"

"For being on the wrong floor?"

"Never mind. Had you seen the guy before?"

He shrugged and spread his hands apart. "Well . . . I don't think so. But people come and go . . ."

"With Vandyke beards and real doctor faces?"

"I must admit, he did have a look about him . . . but no, I never saw him before."

There are times you want to spit and your mouth goes dry and this was one of those times. I went back to the desk, picked up the phone and got security. I gave a description of the guy to the officer in charge downstairs and told him to cover all exits. If the Vandyke crap was a disguise, he'd be big enough to recognize by height and weight.

One more call and a small argument got the operator to put a call in for Pat on the PA system. A minute later there was a click and he said, "Chambers here."

"Mike, pal. Where are you?"

"At the main desk downstairs waiting for you to come in. Where the hell have you been?"

"Hang on. I'll tell you in a minute."

The elevator took me down to the foyer and when I stepped out I saw Pat in a three-way conversation with Burke Reedey and Bennett Bradley.

I waved to the group, then pointed at Pat and motioned for him to get over to me. Quickly, I told him what had happened and said to be easy, I had alerted hospital security and Velda was all right.

"You sure?"

"Positive. The sedation might have slowed her down, but she recognized the voice. She didn't identify the face, but by damn, if Velda laid an ID on the voice it's good enough for me."

"But why go for her, Mike?"

"We got a fast-thinking killer, that's why. He tried whacking her out the first time so there would be nobody to identify him, and even if he did get a good shot at her, there's a probability she could make an identification, and that probability he can't take a chance on."

"That's what Bradley said," Pat told me. "He made an appointment to meet Burke here tonight and possibly talk to her, but your doctor buddy had already given her the sedative and didn't think it advisable."

"Nobody told me about that."

"Relax. Bradley spoke to me this evening and I told him to speak to Burke. Your girl's okay, pal. She never saw the show, she won't think the smartasses nailed you . . ."

"Then get some of your guys to cover this place. Hospital security-"

"Relax," Pat said again. "Most of the security here are retired NYPD guys." He went over to the phone, made two calls and came back. "Any more orders?"

I shook my head.

"What a pisser you are. With a time lapse like that, don't you think the guy would have been out of here ? What kind of pussy you think we're dealing with?"

Burke and Bennett Bradley had been watching us curiously, so we cut it short and walked over to the desk. Burke said, "What's with you two?"

I told them what had gone on upstairs and Bradley's face went tight, his eyes drawing almost closed, and he breathed out the word "Penta" like he was saying "shit" in a foreign language.

All I could think of was that I had heard enough of Penta for a lifetime. It was a damned red-herring myth screwing up the works and nobody wanted to listen to me at all. I was the one it all started over, just me and Anthony DiCica, and now everything gets woven into a fairy-tale spider-web.

I said, "Bradley, don't give me this Penta bullshit. You got no prints, no witnesses, no motive . . . you don't have a damn thing to bring this Penta into this except a fucking stupid note that was left on my desk beside a mutilated corpse."

He let the hardness out of his face, grimaced gently and said, "Put it this way . . . we're all looking for a killer."

"He almost did it again," I said. "Velda might possibly identify his voice, but that's not hard evidence. If we could nail him with a voiceprint on tape, that's another story."

"You have a tape to match it?" Burke asked.

"We're not sure," Pat said.

"I wish somebody would be sure of something," Bradley told us. "I'd like the years I've spent following this Penta to come to something. A punctured career is no way to leave the service." He looked at the date on his watch, holding it up close so he could read the miniature letters. "I have one more week before my replacement takes over." He dropped his arm. "But it has been an exciting life, gentlemen."

Burke said, "I'll be here at eight A.M., Mr. Bradley. She should be alert enough to talk to and maybe the both of us can get her to remember something. That all right with you, Captain?"

Pat glanced at me for confirmation and I nodded. "Do what you want. I don't think you'll get anywhere, but it won't hurt trying."

"We'll go easy on her," Burke told me.

A tall, slim guy in a hospital security uniform turned the corner and walked up to Pat. Until he got close you wouldn't think he was over forty, but this one had all the markings of an old street cop and he sure knew Pat all right. He knew me too, but I couldn't place him. His men had covered the exits, checked out the premises and questioned people on every floor, but there was no sign of anybody to answer the description of the guy in Velda's room. Pat thanked him, gave me a resigned look and I put on my hat.

Pat said, "You want a lift?"

"No . . . I'm going to my office and get the directions to our old buddy's place. I'll see you when I get back."

"When you going out?"

"First thing in the morning."

I said so long to everybody there and got a cab that was just pulling up to the door. The rain had let up, but the sky was rumbling away and at irregular intervals the overcast would brighten momentarily with a hidden lightning stroke inside the clouds.

The cabbie bobbed his head when I gave him my office address and we went down the drive past the row of cars that were packed bumper-to-bumper again. I looked at the place where the black Mercedes with one taillight out had been parked. This time there was a white Thunderbird and it was jammed in too tightly to go anywhere.

9

For fifteen minutes I had been poking through my desk and the assorted boxes on the shelves looking for General Rudy Skubal's address. I found everything I didn't need, but not the single sheet of a loose-leaf notepad I remembered writing it down on. My filing habits were strictly garbage-style, and if I had given it to Velda in the beginning I would have had it by now. I kicked the bottom drawer shut with my foot and sat on the edge of my chair feeling like a damn idiot.

Sometimes . . . sometimes without being asked, Velda would put things away she thought I might have use for. A piece of folded-over paper would be too much to ask for, but I gave it a try anyway.

I went outside to her filing cabinet, pulled out the drawer marked S and thumbed through the bank of folders.

And there it was, single folder, SKUBAL, RUDOLPH, GENERAL. Inside a single piece of unfolded paper from a loose-leaf notepad with directions to the old mansion on Long Island where the powerhouse from the old, wild days was kept like an aged lion, regal, but raggedy from conflict, scarred, worn and with too many years for head-to-head fieldwork. Here was where he was putting together a lifetime of notes, cryptic data now unclassified that would turn out to be the manual of manuals for covert espionage or the hairiest piece of fiction ever.

It had been a long time since I had seen him.

I was hoping he was still alive.

When I went back to the outer office I stood there a minute. The cleaners had gone over the area, the rug had been replaced, but there was still that almost imperceptible smell of Velda there. For a single second my mind flashed to the crumpled, smashed heap the killer had left her in and I knew the explosion was coming on unless I forgot about it.

One by one, I let my fists unclench, the tautness go out of my shoulders and my breathing slow down. When I was okay I locked up the office and took the elevator down. It stopped two floors below mine, and Ed Hawkins, who likes to work all night, got on with his usual two briefcases, said hello and started complaining about business. This week was bad. He barely doubled his quota and that big million wasn't coming in fast enough.

Together we walked through the foyer, signed out with the guard at the desk and pushed through the doors. We were heading in opposite directions, said so long when I saw a car break away from the curb with a wild swerve, straighten up and lay on speed. The driver's window was down, and there was a pro sitting there bringing up an Uzi automatic in his left hand to squeeze off an unimpeded burst of incredibly rapid fire.

Motion seemed to be slowed down. I was yelling, falling and grabbing at Ed's jacket all at once, then he was twisting in the air as the muzzle of the Uzi came alive with a string of unmuffled fire that sprayed bullets directly over our heads. My action had blown the gunman's rhythm and the speed of the car took him past us, and while the glass was still falling out of the doors behind us, it was all over. The car squealed around the corner and was gone.

Ed was on his face, eyes staring in terror, papers from one briefcase spilled out around him. I said, "You all right?"

He turned his head, still bug-eyed, and said, "I don't feel anything."

"You hurt?"

"No." He moved a little, his arms, then his legs. "I think I'm all right." He sat up and grinned foolishly, turned and saw the shattered doors in the office and said soberly, "Why would anybody want to kill me?"

Before I could answer, the guard came out, his service revolver in his fist. He made sure we were both unhurt, then got back to the phone and called the police. I got Ed back inside, sat him down at the desk, gave him a glass of water and grabbed the phone as soon as the guard put it down.

By now Pat would be on the way home and there was no use getting him in on this. I dialed Candace's home number, let it ring half a dozen times, then an obviously sleepy voice said, "Yes?"

I didn't want to risk an irate cut-off, so I threw it at her fast. "This is Mike, kid. Somebody just tried to hit me here at my office. It was nicely set up, an Uzi from the car window and he almost got two of us."

Suddenly the voice wasn't tired any more. "You are . . . uninjured?"

"Only my vanity was hurt. Damn, everybody wants me dead."

"Where are you?"

I gave her the address.

"Have you called the police?"

"Squad cars are on the way."

"You stay right there. I have to see you."

"Hell, I'll give my statement to the cops when they get here. I just wanted you to know this thing is coming to a fucking head."

"Stop swearing. And stay there."

This was one night the cars were in the area. The cops from two cruisers came in, visually checking the area, then came directly to the desk. I went through the ID bit again, gave them the details that were confirmed by the guard and the shaken Hawkins. There would be a followup of detectives coming by at any second and I was hoping Candace Amory got there first to keep the pressure down.

She did. She came in with a white trenchcoat thrown over a powder blue jogging suit and nobody had to tell the cops who she was. The detectives were right behind her wondering what the hell was going on, but the Icicle Lady got them all squared away in a hurry. I knew the plainclothes guys and they were giving me those strange looks that guys who have an in with girls get. She caught it too, and just let it pass.

Somehow, most of the activity had bypassed Ed and when his nerves were back on straight, he finally stood up and looked at me like Jackie Gleason's Poor Soul character and said, "They didn't want to kill me at all."

Nobody said anything.

"They were trying to kill . . . you, Mike."

"Yeah, I know."

"Nothing ever happens to me," he said dejectedly.

"Enjoy your near miss," I told him.

He packed the rest of his papers in his case, nodded good night and made his way to the door, stepping over the neat piles of glass the janitor was sweeping up.

Candace had a magic way of clearing the aisles for us. There were no more questions and I knew the back way out to get around the reporters and the pair from the TV news broadcast. I wondered if that pair ever slept. Candace picked me up on the opposite street where the garage exit was and I climbed in.

I asked her, "Where to now?"

"It may sound silly, but your place or mine?"

"Let's go to yours."

"Why?"

"Because I can get out of yours."

Once again, I got that inquiring sideways look.

"It's hard to be a nice guy and get a broad out of your apartment," I explained.

"Talk about macho," she said.

"Let's talk about now. They're coming down on my head like a ton of bricks. This being-a-target shit is for the birds."

"Stop the nasty talk."

"I've heard you cut loose. Just get yourself shot at and see what you say then."

"All right. What about tonight? Who knew you'd be at your office?"

"I said it loud enough at the hospital. I was talking to Pat, but ten other people would have heard me. But that doesn't matter . . . my place had been staked out. That car was waiting there. Hell, if the mob guys want my ass, they could keep a dozen guys placed for a hit."

"They told me about the attempted mugging."

"Sure, that was for getting wise with one of the big boys. They don't like that attitude. I guess they didn't like what I did to their goons any better. By now they think it's time to go all the way."

I sat back in the seat, mulling it over again. She reached her building, let the doorman park the car for her, and we went up to her apartment. She flipped on four locks and a chain, threw her trenchcoat over a chair and went to the bar and made a pair of drinks. All the activity seemed to have run up some static electricity and the power blue jogging suit clung to her like Saran Wrap. Now she looked like a blue nude.

When she handed me the drink she motioned for me to come over to the desk. There was a sheet of paper there with the city letterhead. It was full of numbers, ending in a nine-digit figure. She put her finger under the $905 million total and said, "That's what they want to kill you for, Mike."

I put the drink down without tasting it.

"You were right. It all went back to DiCica, straight back to when he shot those two gang leaders and picked up that envelope."

"And you know what's in it?"

"Yes. Directions."

"To what?" I picked up my drink and finished half of it. I was beginning to feel that I was going to need a boost.

Unconsciously, she flicked on the record player and the opening movement of Franz Liszt's Dante Symphony flowed out of the speakers. If she wanted suitable background music, she was going to get it.

"When does a rumor become fact, Mike?" Her voice was thoughtful.

I could have answered, but it was her show and I let her play it out.

"The officers your friend had assist me knew what they were doing. They didn't even bother assembling data or gathering evidence. All they did was have me talk to a half dozen people. Strange people. Workmen in the underworld. Everyone had the same thing to say, more or less. Do you know what the cocaine consumption in the US is?"

"I can give you the latest estimate," I told her, "and that's probably five thousand percent too low."

"Why?"

"Because interception accounts for only five percent of the narcotics trade. The suppliers have an insatiable demand to fill. Hell, they'll put up twenty percent of volume to keep the narcs away from their main shipments. Our guys used to throw a party when they grabbed a few kilos of H, and now that's real low-volume stuff. The coke coming in now runs in tons. Can you imagine that? Tons of pure shit . . . and translated to street money, it can pay off our national debt."

Liszt was getting heavy now, gently thunderous.

She turned, faced me, her eyes watching me. "Twenty years ago we never thought of deliveries in tonnage. It seemed almost impossible. There wasn't the manpower to enforce action against anything that large. The street dealers at that time weren't even set up to handle a quantity like that. Money wasn't available, the farmers, the initial producers weren't organized to grow a crop that size. Right?"

I nodded.

"Wrong," she said. "That cartel was way ahead of us. The farmers were producing, the laboratories were set up and while nobody thought it possible, those cocaine exporters were ready to unload on us and they made the contacts with the East Coast families to get in on the deal at a beautiful price."

Now I remembered hearing about that years ago. It was a rumor then and it was a rumor now.

She went on: "Remember, this is street talk. It's been around a long time and could have escalated with the telling."

"I know," I said.

"The cartel made the proposition through Juan Torres. The families got together, checked it out, pooled their money and bought a tractor-trailer solidly loaded with the purest cocaine you could find."

Just the thought of that much stuff hitting the street made me want to vomit. "You realize the money involved here?"

"Certainly, but imagine what it would be on the retail end when it's cut down."

"Someplace a lot of hundred-dollar bills changed hands," I said.

"They store it in temperature- and humidity-controlled bins now," she told me. "Their banking systems equal anything in Geneva, Switzerland. The cartel was given the key to the money and they gave the directions to the trailerload of coke to the organization's representatives. When DiCica killed them and picked up that envelope he turned the whole deal upside down. He held nearly a billion-dollar shipment in his hands. No way the cartel would deliver a duplicate set. Their end of the deal was over. From here on in the organization handled it themselves."

"That's some rumor," I said. "Why did they let Torres keep operating?"

"No way Torres could have bucked the organization. He could have had the shipment, but not for long. The other side had all the guns."

I rattled the ice around in my glass, then drank it down. "So it was DiCica all the way, huh?"

"All the way. A stupid man who did a stupid thing. He knew where the trailer was. When they finally found him they were supposed to take him somewhere where they could squeeze the information out of him the hard way. They have some interesting ways of extracting information. The trouble was, he put up one hell of a fight and one of his attackers leaned on him a little too hard with that pipe. The fight was interrupted by a police cruiser so they didn't drag him off, but the trauma from the pipe took him out of action very effectively." She paused and took a deep breath. "I wonder what he would have done with all that cocaine?"

"He would have used it for one hell of a big bargaining chip, that's what. Even the mob would have cut a clean deal with him and let it go at that. Our own government would even set him up for life under an assumed identity to get their mitts on that load."

For one second her back went up and she started an angry denial.

I held up my hand. "Smarten up, lady. We have people in politics as dirty as those on the other side."

"Well," she told me, her face still tight, "he really paid for that mistake in your office."

"You know," I said, "you're back to me again. It always comes back to me. With the kind of money going down on this project, somebody could afford to call in an outsider like Penta to nail my ass . . . but that leaves one fucking, excuse me, big hole in the picture."

"Like what?"

"Who the hell needed him? We have pro hitters in this country."

She seemed to look at me for an eternity. "He said you killed him, Mike. What was he talking about? Could that note really have been for DiCica?"

"All I know, baby, is that it wasn't meant for me."

"It isn't over, you know." She finished her drink too and set the glass down beside mine. The first side of the Dante Symphony slid to a close and the machine flipped the record over. Now the real meat of Liszt's symphony would begin to show. "What are you going to do?"

"What I started out to do," I said. "That one son of a bitch is going to fall. I don't give a damn what happens to all the money or all the coke as long as I get that bastard under my gun. We're playing around with somebody who likes to kill, likes to get paid for killing and likes to sign his name in chopped-off fingers."

Coolly, she said, "One of you is going to find the other, Mike."

This time I grinned. "Has to happen. But before it does, sugar, I'm going to make sure you have your truckload of nose candy. When you do, you're going to let Petey Benson in on the story, lay some credit on Ray Wilson and his espionage system, then you can hop into your boss's chair and be on your way to the White House."

The beautiful blue icicle moved toward me and the static fire in the jumpsuit crackled minutely, and when her body touched mine, I felt shock that jumped from her nipple tingle in my chest, and whatever that charge did to her melted the ice completely and her mouth was on mine, eating at me, swirling and tasting, trying to vulcanize us together.

For a second I tried to hold her away, but her arms were around me and she was melting into me again. I let my fingers run down her back, following the muscles that moved along her spine, then my hands were at her waist and I knew what she wanted. I didn't do it, so she did it herself, sweeping the top of her jumpsuit off in a fast, fluid motion, and deliberately letting me have a long look at the lovely swell of those firm breasts before she pushed my coat off my shoulders and laid her breasts against my shirt so I could feel the heat, the incredible body warmth of her nakedness.

She started to smile, an impish quirk of her mouth. "Can you take off your gun?"

I unsnapped the belt loop, pulled the shoulder strap off and laid the rig on the chair. "A man's gotta do what he's gotta do," I told her.

"John Wayne said that," she mentioned.

"Many times, in many pictures."

"Now you do what you gotta do," she directed.

The Dante Symphony was coming to the end now. It was pounding, forcing the notes into an eerie crescendo so that you could see the flames, feel the passion and hear screams like none other anywhere. It was exhilarating to the point of absolute exhaustion and left you shaken with tremors that never came any other way.

Traffic was light going out of town. I picked up the Long Island Expressway, stayed at speed limit and let my mind wander back to when General Rudy Skubal was the main man in covert activities. During World War II he had his own unit, working under the Office of Strategic Services, and had been reassigned after the Nazi collapse to nailing war criminals trying to get out of Allied control.

He took a discharge in 1949, but the CIA was waiting then. The big action was tuning up in the cold war and it got hotter when Korea and Vietnam made their imprints on modern history. It was when the Middle East took on its own dramatic stance and developed terrorism to a high point of sophistication that the general's expertise was called on.

Then, suddenly, Rudy Skubal wasn't there any more. Somebody else occupied his office and the carefully couched words were that he had decided to retire. In a pig's ass he had decided to retire. He had rubbed some politico's feathers the wrong way and the power of the party had gone to work and squeezed out a real top gun and threw in some insipid party hack instead.

But old Skube didn't make any waves. He didn't have to. From then on he just made them pay for his services and kept himself the hell out of harm's way. Any more medals he didn't need.

I wondered what kind of light he was going to throw on Bern and Fells. Until now, I had never heard of any of his tigers going sour. But there always had to be a first time.

At Number 67 turnoff I picked up Route 21 North, ran past the little town of Yaphank and looked for the posts that marked the entrance to the old Kimball estate. It took thirty minutes searching and backtracking before I recognized them under a covering of wisteria, surrounded by sumac bushes. Unless the road was used almost daily, the ground covering obscured the tire tracks. I made a hard turn off the road, bounced over the culvert and felt a little relief when I knew the ground under the wheels was hard and firm.

After the first turn I was in another world. The seemingly uncared-for roughage of the exterior became a carefully tended wildlife area that quickly ended at a vast lawn surrounding a brick mansion right out of the Roaring Twenties.

Even now the general was taking no chances. Any invasion of his privacy could be clearly seen from any angle of the house, and the floodlights that were spotted around the building could turn night into day instantly.

I stayed on the driveway, going slowly, making the two large S-turns that gave the residents extra time to survey their guests, then drew up under the portico and got out of the car.

Maybe I should have called ahead. Nobody came out to meet me.

Then again, this wasn't the 1920s and the years of servants and butlers.

I walked up the stairs to the huge main door, pushed the button and heard a plain old-fashioned doorbell ring inside and then somebody appeared.

Some women can hit you with a visual impact you'll never forget. There aren't many of them, but there don't have to be many to leave a trail of men whose minds will always be impressed by a single contact. They don't have to be beautiful in any special sense, or with bodies specifically tuned to certain concepts, but to each viewer, they are the total thing that makes them woman.

This one had crazy electric blue eyes that could smile, as well as a full-lipped mouth, and when she said "Good morning," it was like being licked by a soft, satin-furry llama.

She had on a suit. The shoulders were broad, but not with the padding that was in style in 1988. She was real under the jacket and the military cut. It was tailored around beautifully full breasts, but short enough to show the generous swell of her hips. And she had a dancer's legs, muscularly rounded, but perfectly curved. They hardly make them like that any more, I thought. What she's doing here has to be a story by itself.

I said, "Damn!" under my breath and grinned back at her. "My name is Michael Hammer, ma'am. I'm an old friend of the general and I have something very important to see him about, and I'm hoping he'll have time to hear me out." I held out my wallet with the PI license and gun permit behind the plastic windows, wondering where the hell my city schmarts had disappeared to.

She let out a disconcerting laugh. "Well, Mr. Hammer, it is nice to see you. Please, come in."

"Thanks." I stepped up and walked past her. She was another big woman, with elfish grace, yet strangely athletic motion. She closed the door with a sweep of her hand, then thumbed open a panel and touched a red lighted button that went out momentarily and turned green.

"May I have your weapon?" she asked me.

I flipped out the .45 and handed it to her. She took it, slipped it inside a small wall closet and covered that too. "You didn't ask me for a throw-away piece." I said.

"That's because you haven't any." She smiled back. "Keys, pocket change and possibly a penknife, but nothing more. The instrument is very sensitive."

"Supposing somebody just comes busting in here-"

"Why talk of unpleasant things?" she said. "Now, I haven't introduced myself. I am Edwina West, General Skubal's secretary."

"Hold it."

She paused. "Mr. Hammer?"

"Let's keep it simple and square, Miss West. No secretary garbage."

"Oh?"

"You're CIA, aren't you?"

There was no hesitation at all. "Yes, I am. Why should you ask?"

"Women don't generally refer to a gun as a weapon. You knew what a throwaway was."

Her smile had real laughter in it. "I'll have to remember that," she told me. "Do you like me any less now?"

It was my turn to laugh. "You're some kind of doll, Miss West. You make a guy feel like he walked into a propeller."

"Please, call me Edwina."

"Okay, Edwina. Just tell me . . . is it genetic?"

She took my arm and folded it around her own. "My mother seemed to have some sort of attraction for men too. Don't all women have that?"

"Honey, not the way you have it. You must have been a terror when you were growing up."

"Do you know how old I am, Mr. Hammer?"

"Mike," I told her. "And I'd say you were forty, forty-two." Usually, when you lay that on a beautiful woman you feel the chill. A cold can come off them like a shore-bound fog and you get the thrust of mental death.

But not her. She said, "I am forty-eight. Does that disappoint you?"

I said, "Watch it, Edwina, you're touching nerves I didn't know I had."

She squeezed my arm with her fingers. It was a long, gentle, but soft grasp and she said, "Don't be surprised at what I know about you. I've read the profile the general has on you, the accounts the press have touched on and a lot of information you probably consider extremely personal."

I stopped, turned us around and looked at the door forty feet behind us. We were in a big foyer, a generous room lined with expensive fixtures I hadn't noticed until now. I said, "Kid, we just met, we walked about thirteen yards together and I could write a book about what's happened inside three minutes. Does that happen all the time?"

The way her mouth worked when it was starting to smile was startling. Those incredibly blue eyes were almost hypnotic. "Only when I want it to," she said. "And there is something else."

"What's that?"

She turned me around toward a pair of heavy hand-carved oaken doors, tugged very easily on an ornate brass handle and the door opened noiselessly and without effort. "That I will tell you later."

The house was real enough, the kind you could get lost in, the kind they used for background in period motion pictures, or classic horror films.

Edwina gave me a small, tour on the way to see the general, but everything got lost in the throaty rich tone of her voice. There was music in it, low and demanding. There was a light touch of lust and overtones I could feel, but couldn't describe, and when we got to the final door I began to wonder what the hell had happened to me. I was in some kid's damn daydream acting like I had my head up my ass and enjoyed it. I finally let out a laugh and she knew I was laughing at myself, gave me one of those lovely grins back and knocked on the door.

A buzzer clicked and the door swung open. We stepped inside and the door closed automatically.

A light was on us, so bright it cut off all vision of anything behind it like a solid wall.

I heard a chuckle, and a voice that hadn't changed at all with the years said, "Good afternoon, Michael."

The light went off with a metallic ping and another came on that lit up the office. Back there at the same old desk, but now surrounded by rows and banks of electronic equipment, was General Rudy Skubal.

I said, "Hello, General."

"What do you think?"

"Pretty damn dramatic," I told him.

"You're only looking at the surface." He waved at us. "Come on over here." He pushed himself out of his chair and held out his hand. I took it, enjoying the good grip the old man still had. "How long has it been, Michael?"

Hell, he would have known to the day, but I said, "Many moons, General. You still look pretty sharp."

"Eyewash. I'm becoming enfeebled. It's a pain in the butt, yet unavoidable." He tapped the side of his head. "Up here I can go on indefinitely, and with the machines much can be accomplished, but the old physical thrill of the chase is gone. I haven't popped anybody in the teeth in so long I hardly remember what it sounded like."

"It never sounds," I said. "They break off quietly. If you cut your hand on them, you can get one hell of an infection."

General Skubal squinched up his face and shook his head angrily. "Hell, man, you see that? You remember? Damn, you still get to do those things and have the fun. You kick ass and get laid and I push buttons."

"Don't sweat it, General. It's only fun when you live to remember it," I reminded him, "and with the security you have here you'll live long enough."

He ran his fingers through his mop of blazing white hair and let me see a small smile. "Don't overrate Edwina here. She causes me more anxious moments than the enemy. You know she's CIA, don't you?"

"Of course."

"You tell him?" he asked her.

"No, he knew," she answered.

"See, that's why I wanted to recruit this guy," he said. "What an agent he would have made." He paused, looked at the both of us a second, a wrinkle showing in his forehead. "He would have straightened you out, gal."

She looked straight at me, a bright blue stare daring me to say it. So I said it. "General, you never straighten out lovely curves like that."

I watched old Skubie frown again and look up at me from under his whiskery eyebrows. Finally he said, "Edwina, go rassle us some coffee and Danish, okay?"

She winked at us both, waited for the general to trip the door buzzer and left. "Crazy," I said.

"I never had that when I was young," the general muttered. "Now, Michael, I assume this is not a 'just happened to be in the neighborhood' call."

"Pure business, General."

"Our kind of business?"

"Right."

He flipped a set of switches on a control panel in front of him, then leaned back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. "One more assumption . . . this has to do with the death in your office?"

The old guy was on the ball all right. "That's how it started."

"Okay, shoot," he said. "Tell it your own way."

I gave it to him in detail the way it opened up, setting the stage with the way I found Velda and the mutilated body of DiCica in my office. He knew about the note, but when I mentioned the name Penta, his lips pursed, he took his hands down and wrote out the name on a pad, then sat back and listened again. I ran the whole thing down for him without bothering to tail off into DiCica's initial role. Anything he could give me I wanted to point directly at the killer himself.

Halfway through, the buzzer sounded. Edwina came in with the coffee and Danish, put them down on the desk and went back out again. When we stirred the coffee up, the general nodded for me to continue.

I took him through the details Russell Graves had dug up, the data Ray Wilson had brought out of the computers and the events that led to Harry Bern and Gary Fells being mentioned as cadets the general had in his old unit.

When I finished, the general leaned on the desk and touched his fingertips together. "You're stirring up old memories, Michael. The names you mentioned, I know those people well. Carmody has always been a good career man. If you remember, he was the one who grabbed that bunch hijacking trucks last year. Ferguson spent his early years in the European sector. Speaks four languages, I understand. The last administration brought him to this area. Bennett Bradley was always a good man for State. He had the makings of an operative, you know, but too conservative. His forte, as I remember it, was political science. Too bad they're forcing retirement on him." He stood up, pushing his chair back. "However, before we get to Bern and Fells, let me have a brief consultation." He nodded toward a computer bank. "Want to watch?"

"Sure," I said. "Why not?"

This was the new battlefield now. Nothing dirty, no wild screams of terror or staccato noises of fast-firing guns. No sliding around in muck or taking high dives onto hard flats to get out of a field of crossfiring rifles. No knives or insidious poisons or wire garrotes nearly decapitating a human. Now it was quiet button-tapping sounds and lighted letters and numbers flashing on the screen, being rearranged, rechanneled for new information, positioning themselves into faraway circuits, then returning in seconds.

The general had entered his request for knowledge of the one called Penta. It was caught up in the wizardry of electronics and General Skubal sat back and let the machine take over. While it worked, he said to me, "In case you're interested . . ."

"General, I'm very interested."

"My so-called retirement was not for very long. The idiots who pulled me were dumped at the next election and I was reinstated right where I wanted to be . . . here, and at government expense. These machines are owned and serviced by federal funds and are state-of-the-art equipment. And believe me," he added, "the government is getting their money's worth . . . and I'm living doing what I can do best."

"Tell me, General, how secure are you here?" I looked around at the enormity of the project, knowing that this was the best of miniaturization.

He said, "There are eighty people billeted here. That placid landscape you saw outside is one huge deathtrap of a minefield, each charge being detonated electrically from inside here, or isolated to operate independently. With the electronic sensors we use, no dogs are necessary, no patrols needed, so we look indeed like a quiet retreat in the country."

"How about power?"

"There's a solar collector on the roof. Storage batteries can last two weeks at full power. Of course, this is in addition to regular power supplied by underground cable. Beneath the building is a deep well with reserves for fire-fighting supplies. Our food larder can last a month and if you're a drinking man, those needs are supplied too."

"That's a siege condition, General."

"Yes. But these days, you never know, do you? At least this is what we're protecting." His hand indicated his vast electronic battlefield.

Then the face of the screen that was blank lit up. The name Penta appeared, then the sketch story about the one who appeared as a will-o'-the-wisp on the world scene.

Penta meant nothing. It was a code name assigned by the CIA. There was no physical description. Penta's activities had been linked with the Stern Gang and the Red Brigade. His terrorist actions were noted by certain dictatorship governments, and it is suspected that he often worked on their behalf. Sixteen known assassinations were attributed to him, all of them with various forms of digital butchery done to the victims.

I said, "Digital butchery?"

"Newspeak for finger-chopping."

"Great."

"Interesting note here . . . Penta is suspected of being a mole in the NATO organization. He had to have inside information to accomplish several of his kills. No proof offered, but circumstantial evidence is hard. Now look at this."

Three CIA reports came on-screen with information compiled by Bennett Bradley. Twice he had almost cornered Penta when national police action of one foreign country stymied his move. The third time he was shot in the thigh by Penta and his quarry got away. There was a fourth item suggesting Bradley be removed from the assignment. Now I could understand his last-ditch attitude, wanting to grab Penta before his replacement got into the act.

The words stopped appearing. Two lines of dots went across the screen, then five groups of letters, six letters to a set, appeared, the last group flashing on and off regularly. The general grunted, took a key from his pocket and walked to a safe against the wall. He spun the dial three times, opened the thick door, then used the key on a box inside.

"What are the letters in the last group?"' he called out.

"R T V W Y," I called back.

He closed the box, put it back and slammed the safe shut. When he sat down again he punched a key and the screen went blank. "This Penta person is over here on one hell of a high-level assignment."

"To kill me, General?" Damn, it was starting again, right here.

"You worth killing?"

"Not to anybody I know."

"How about to somebody you don't know?"

I sat down and my teeth were grinding together. I took a couple of breaths, relaxed and looked at the old guy. There was knowledge and patience and wisdom sitting there, and somehow he knew what I was thinking and was trying to direct my own thoughts in a logical direction.

This was one direction that didn't allow for logic. I shook my head. "No way. You can't go through me and locate Penta. The road to that guy is through Bern and Fells. That's the connection. Those two are looking for Penta and if we can run them down, we can get inside the reasoning behind all this. There's a motive, General. It's good enough to kill and destroy for and when we have that, we have Penta."

"I can give you Fells and Bern," he said simply. "You familiar with their history?"

"Somewhat."

"Wild ducks, that pair. Unstable, adventuresome . . . after they left the service, they laid down a pretty greasy trail. Three different countries hired them for covert work and they did a damn good job for them. Libya was their last employer."

He wasn't finished and I didn't push him. "The last three jobs attributed to Penta -- political assassinations of top personnel -- were at the behest of some Arab organization inside Libya."

"So the three were contemporaries in possibly related actions."

"Possibly."

"And now Penta and Fells and Bern are over here together," I said, "only now they've lost touch. Bern and Fells want to locate Penta badly. They think I have a lead and try to squeeze it out of me. Question: How did they lose track of Penta?"

"I know a better question," General Skubal told me. "Why were they looking for him in the first place? Penta is not an organization man, Penta is a loner, a total loner absolutely dedicated to his work."

"Let's go a step further, General," I suggested. "He is here, so his work is here. His targets never were minimal, so his target now isn't minimal, and so far he hasn't nailed his intended target." I saw the way he was looking at me and added, "Forget the crap about him going for me."

"Who shot at you, Michael?"

I didn't say anything.

"Okay, you have another angle too. I suspected that."

"I only want Penta. After what he did to Velda, he is mine. Just mine. What else he's here for won't matter. When I meet him, everything else gets wiped out along with him and it will all be over. Now tell me about Fells and Bern."

The general poured himself another cup of coffee and popped in a few cubes of sugar. "That pair are on FBI and CIA wanted lists, and that's for starters. Unfortunately, they've been too well trained for our people to put them down. So far, nobody made any inquiries to me, or I might have steered them to a few points that might bear fruit with a stakeout."

"They know they're wanted?"

"No doubt," he confirmed. "But now they're here, and there's one thing they've probably forgotten about. Like any of the people in our work, they have safe houses to hole up in right in their enemies' backyard. We establish these places for them, or when necessary they can make the arrangements themselves. Fells and Bern like to do their own work. They didn't want anybody knowing where they had a safe house, including me. However, I realized that, and knowing the way their personalities were developing, I made sure I ran down the three places they had on the East Coast. They never found out and I never published the information because they were operating in Europe most of the time."

"They came back often enough."

"Sometimes it is better to watch the rats to see what's happening than kill them outright. They didn't make the high-priority wanted lists until fairly recently."

"Where are the houses, General?"

"This I don't bring up on the computers. Wait here. I want to make some phone calls."

I sat there, made another cup of coffee for myself and finished a Danish before he got back.

He sat down and looked at the piece of paper in his hand. "One was in Freeport, Long Island."

"Was?"

"It burned down a year ago. Another was in the Boston area. The city ran an expressway through the site. Forget it."

"Damn, is this going down the tubes too?" I demanded impatiently.

"The last one's in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, it's in an area slated for demolition. I have an operative checking on the situation now."

"Hell, can't we just move in and . . . ?"

"These guys aren't amateurs, Michael. They'll have everything covered. First we find out what the status is, then you can plan your move. My man is going to call back. He'll leave one word as to the situation. If he says yes, then it's a go. It's all yours, my boy. There's no help unless you ask for it and I doubt if you're going to do that."

"You doubt correctly, General. Just tell me one thing."

"What's that?"

"How come you invite me right into your super-world and let me peek at all the classified goodies and give me such undivided attention when all I am is a plain old private-style investigator?"

"Your personal profile, my boy," he said cheerfully. "I remember every word of it. Besides, one more after Penta can't hurt anything."

"Baloney," I said.

His cheerful smile disappeared and his face was flat. All of a sudden we were two nasties ready to go after the other nasties. "You're a damn killer, buddy," he told me. "We need people like you."

"What are my odds, General?"

"Against Fells and Bern? I'll give you the edge there. They have the training. You have the instinct on top of it."

"What about Penta?"

He pushed a button on the desk, waited until Edwina answered and said, "I'm going to take my nap. I want no calls and no visitors. Mr. Hammer will stay until he gets his message. Please see that he is taken care of." He wiped his eyes, moved his shoulders in a shrug, then peered up at me. "You die for killing me," he said softly. "A riddle. A veritable riddle."

"All riddles get solved," I said.

When Edwina came into the room he handed her a slip of paper. "If the caller says yes, then give this to Michael here. It's an address he'll want to look into. Let's not send him on a wild goose chase if it's not necessary."

She looked at the paper, went to a small machine, dropped it into an opening and pushed a button. A puff of smoke came out. She smiled and said, "Security," holding out her hand to steer me to the doorway.

"Would you like to see the house?"

"I'd rather see the security systems."

"That's a negative, of course."

"Let me tell you something, kid. My imagination is enough to figure out everything they have laid down. Frankly, I hope it's the best. The only part I don't like is the lack of manpower on the perimeter. Some wise guy can always figure a way to interrupt any kind of electrical system."

She ran her fingers down my arm and took my hand. "That's what they have me for. I'm supposed to distract them."

We started walking toward the glass-enclosed veranda. I gave her a long, inquiring look. "That's the other thing. Just what is a doll like you doing here anyway? You're not a secretary."

At the door she opened the panel box and flipped a switch, then closed it. "No, not primarily."

We walked out onto the enclosed porch area and looked over the vast openness of the estate. It had a strange color of green, and I knew we were looking through one-way glass. "Don't give me the bodyguard bit. Women can be good, but the strong-arm act goes to the men."

"True," she agreed.

I dropped her hand, took her by the shoulders and kept her back to me. She tightened a little bit when I ran my hands over her, under her arms, down her sides, then felt each thigh down to her knees.

When I stood up she said, "You forgot to look for a derringer between my titties."

I did a gentle probe and said, "Satisfied?"

"How did you know?"

"You turned the alarm off, sugar. I'm clean, so that leaves you with some hidden metal that could trigger the gizmo."

"Mike, you are clever. No wonder the general thinks so highly of you."

"I'm curious, lady."

She smiled at me. A damp, coy smile that was a ripe invitation.

Three brass buttons held the jacket closed and my thumb flipped them loose one by one, the last one almost springing away from the pressure of her breasts. She shrugged, and her jacket fell to the floor and she put her arms around my neck, her big blue eyes full of pleasure and adventure. Inside the sheer silk blouse she flowed like honey, not needing a bra to keep her breasts high and firm.

I touched her lightly again and she knew what I was feeling for. She made a little gesture with her head and didn't try to stop me. But there were no scars from surgical implants or reconstruction work.

Around her waist she wore a three-inch-wide leather belt with ornate silver decorations in a flowing Mexican pattern. "That's what would set the alarm off," she told me.

I fingered the hand-tooled buckle anyway and tugged it loose. The belt was a beautiful piece of work, every bit of the leather touched by the artisan's hand. Even the silver was embossed with intricate design work in delicate patterns.

All but two pieces. They weren't silver. They were a dull-finish alloy and I opened the catches and took the .22-caliber shots out of the midget chambers, two little slugs that could rip far into your guts up close, enough to ring your bell for keeps.

"Cute," I said. "You are strong-arm after all."

"Well, I couldn't really wear a piece the size of yours, could I?"

"Why the snakey stuff, Edwina?"

"Regulations. We have to be armed at all times. The choice of weapons is at our discretion in situations like this."

"And that's what I asked you to start with. What is your assignment here?"

Her arms came from around my neck and she laced the fingers of her hand around mine. With her other hand she took the belt from me and dropped it on top of her jacket. "Would you believe me if I told you?"

The blue eyes were yearning, trying to say something. She wet her lips gently, and I had to stare at the slickness of her mouth. Her lips parted and I could see the pinkness of her tongue. "R and R," she said.

Rest and recreation.

"This is a hell of a place for that."

"I needed the rest. They made me take three months of it."

"But why?" I insisted.

She took her hand away, ran the zipper down on the side of her skirt and it dropped to the floor. The flimsy silken bikini bottom only enhanced what it tried to hide and when she pulled her blouse open, I saw what had happened. Her belly had been ripped by three bullets that went in the front at an angle and exited the sides through the soft flesh, and the healed pucker marks were still red and angry-looking.

"Who did that, Edwina?"

"It doesn't matter."

I nailed those blue eyes with my own. I knew my teeth were showing in a nasty grin.

"I was in the field," she said. "I wasn't careful enough."

"Anybody drop the guy?"

"No. He got away." She was looking at me carefully now. "Does it disgust you?"

I shook my head. "I got a couple myself. They're medals, kid. Treat them like medals." I put my hands on her naked waist and pulled her in close to me. "You are one special woman, Edwina. The air seems to shimmer around you. I can feel your body heat and watch you pulse with whatever's going on inside that body of yours. Those scars on you aren't ugly. They tell the world all about you. Hell, on you they even look good."

Sparkling blue. The eyes went sparkling blue and grew sleepy-lidded. I saw her mouth come close, soft and damp, and I leaned forward to meet it, and tasted the deep essence of her. For that short interval I was completely absorbed into a strange wonder, locked tightly with a naked woman on a huge windowed veranda, far away from all the wild thoughts of the past days.

Very slowly I came back to the real day and held her away from me just to look at. "All this in a few hours," I said,

"You told me something earlier, Mike. Now let me tell you. What you saw in me, I see in you."

"A crazy world, kid," I said softly.

A softly muted bell hummed behind me. Edwina turned, picked up the phone, waited a moment, then put it down again. "That was your contact."

My breath hung in my chest.

"He said yes."

I just looked at her and a little sadness came into her eyes. "R and R," she told me again. "I've had the rest, but I think the recreation is going to have to wait."

This time I hauled her into me. Not gently. She didn't need gently any more. I handled her like she needed to be handled and her mouth on mine was a firebox that moved all over me. She felt my hands on her and knew what they were saying, that there would be another time and another place because it had to happen, maybe just once, but it had to happen.

Our mouths were bruised, but it had been a happy war, and she gave me the address I wanted, got back into her clothes and led me to the huge front doors. She gave me my .45 back, closed the doors as I was going down the stairs, and I got in the car and headed back to New York.

There was no way I could make a quick pass around my block to see if I was being singled out. If somebody wanted me, they would know my car, the approaches to the apartment, and stay out of sight. Two blocks away I parked in a public area under an office building, and started walking back. The stop at the newspaper kiosk on the corner was more an excuse to take a look around than buy a copy of the News, but when I picked it up, I saw one of the four-color tabloids that turned a goodnight kiss into a Roman orgy, and my face and Velda's were spread right across the front of it under the masthead: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR TO AVENGE LOVER'S ATTACK.

Until now Velda had just been an innocent victim when the intruder came into my office. Now she was hot copy. Her name was only mentioned in the initial reports of the event, then forgotten.

I remembered the way that reporter had looked at me when I casually said what I'd like to do to DiCica's killer. He suddenly had a sex angle bigger than the murder itself and got into national circulation damn near overnight. One day I was going to meet that little sucker again, and we were going to have a nice talk in a quiet place.

When the light on the corner changed, I buried myself in a group of people, stayed with them to the garage entry of my building and turned in with a car going down the ramp to park. I knew the area down here and it was easy to make sure I was clear. I took the elevator up all alone, got out with the .45 in my hand, then put it back in the holster when I saw no one in the corridor.

10

I was sweaty from the drive and had to change clothes, pissed off at the time I'd had to waste making sure the area was clear. I took a fast shower, got dressed and called Pat. He was still at the office and barked a hello into the phone.

"It's me, buddy," I said. "I got an address for Fells and Bern. They still use an active safe house in Brooklyn."

"Mike, damn it, there's nothing we can do on that end of it."

"Then call Bradley and let him straighten it out. If the other agencies can't get close on this, they'll have to go along with us."

"This address a positive?"

"You got it."

"Where are you?"

"Home."

"Stay there. I'll buzz Bradley and call you back."

I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to nine. I walked to the desk, got the bottle of Canadian Club out and made myself a normal-size drink, splashing in the ginger ale over the ice. I turned the TV on, watched CNN for ten minutes, switched to the sports channel and finished the drink.

The phone went off. I grabbed it and Pat said, "Bradley okayed the deal. We're all meeting in my office in an hour."

"I'll be there."

"Give me that address first. No telling what can happen to you on the way over."

"Thanks," I said, and gave him the street and number.

My car I left sitting in the garage. It was easier to have the attendant flag me a cab down on the street, then hop in, covered by the parked cars on the street. Twenty minutes later I was walking into Pat's office. He had already contacted a precinct in Brooklyn and was organizing a layup for the raid.

I caught him between calls and asked, "Any problems with Bradley?"

"He sounded glad something positive was happening. He's picking up Ferguson and Frank Carmody."

"Carmody? The FBI is still holding an interest?"

"They're observers on this deal. NYPD makes the collar and they head up the interrogation, which is okay with me. You're along on this out of the goodness of our hearts and because there's no way of keeping you out of it. Keep your nose clean, will you?"

"Don't sweat me out, pal. You have the safe house staked out?"

"Nobody is getting in or out of that block until we say so. You ready to move?"

"Anytime."

Behind me Bennett Bradley came in with Ferguson and Carmody, their faces serious. Bradley was the only one not carrying, which was fine with me. Bradley tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I understand you came up with this lead."

"I lucked out."

"Who was your source?"

"Confidential, Mr. Bradley."

"I hope it pans out," he said. "How are we getting there?"

Pat slipped into his jacket and checked the .38 on his belt. "There are a couple of unmarked cruisers downstairs. Now, I'm going to run over our positions just once. Remember, you're observers. We do the active work."

He took five minutes outlining what he wanted on a green blackboard, then got us out of there.

They said Brooklyn never changes, but it does.

There was a different time, but now is now and the stupidity of progress had taken over. The neighborhoods had dissolved into complexes and the highrises had become the crucibles of trouble, the old trying to retain what they had, the new ones caught up in the money world where all is a quick fuck, a coke high and a hole in the ground.

I thought, A long time ago, I was born here. Menahan Street. It's buried now under a pile of rubble, reconstructed later into a sand-and-plaster heap of garbage.

The cop said, "What's wrong, Mike?"

"I used to live here."

"When?"

"Before it changed."

"You're an old timer," he said.

"Hell, I was only a year old."

The cop grinned and went over to his station. Pat finished directing his crew and walked over to me.

"This better be good," he said, and touched the button on his flashlight.

They hit with all the precision in the world, quietly and close-shouldered. One team went in from the rear, one swarmed over the rooftop and the hot squad went right in through the front.

I sat and watched and nothing happened. They all came out, untied their bulletproof vests and when I went over to where Pat was operating the station, he put down his earphone and said, "Two dead men inside."

"Who?"

"Damned if I know. Let's go see."

And they were dead. These were the quiet dead. No big holes in them, just a fast slug into a vital part and dead. The shot was knowledgeable, direct and certain. No screams. Whatever happened to them happened so fast they only had a chance to gasp, then die.

Both of them were sitting at a table, coffee and soft rolls in front of them. Whatever hit them happened so quickly they never had a chance to react.

The killer had come in the door, shot the one who was facing him square in the forehead and the one sitting opposite in the back of the skull. The wound entries were about the size a .22 would make, but there were no exit holes and there was a strange expansive look about both the heads.

Pat looked at both the bodies carefully, a grimace drawing across his mouth. "I've seen hollow-tips do this. They fragment inside the skull and create a pressure that can make features pretty damn grotesque."

"Wasn't much of a safe house," I said.

But now the picture was a little clearer. The two dead guys had been on the prowl for Penta, all right. He was their target. This thing had all the earmarks of a contract kill that went sour.

Penta had gotten wise. Penta had gotten to them first. Someplace Penta had picked up their trail, followed them to the safe house and eliminated them. That is, if they were Bern and Fells.

Dead bodies don't take long to smell. The odor from these two was starting to bubble up and when we had enough, Pat said, "Look at their fingers."

The tips had been cut off very neatly.

I said, "Another signature."

"The one on DiCica was even better. He had a real mad on when he carved up that guy."

"Don't say it, Pat." I knew what he was thinking.

Lewis Ferguson made the identification. He came in behind us and said, "That's Bern and Fells, all right."

"They're pretty bloated," Pat said. "You'd better be sure."

"Positive. Prints will confirm it."

Pat nodded and called one of the detectives over. "Get all the preliminaries done, then sweep this place good. Like I mean take it apart. When you're done, I want it to look like the city wrecking crew was here. Pick your guys, keep the clowns out of here. I want some evidence, something, anything of what went on here. You got it?"

"Got it, Captain."

Carmody and Ferguson were having a serious conversation with Bradley when we came out.

Jurisdiction seemed to be the heart of the matter, but Pat called a halt to that in a hurry. He said, "Let's get something squared away, people. We got two more corpses inside my area and that's where it's going to stay. You guys can play around with any espionage or international bellyaches you want, but these bodies belong to NYPD and until I get a direct order from my superior, that's the way it goes."

"Captain . . ." Bradley started.

Pat held up his hand. "Don't challenge me, Bradley. NYPD is a bigger outfit than yours and if you want to see how clout works, just mess around with this investigation."

"No intention of doing that, Captain," Bennett Bradley said. "Let's say that all of our agencies are anxious to cooperate in any way."

Ferguson agreed. "This has overlapped into strange areas. Stumbling blocks we don't need."

One of the uniformed cops came up with a detective and got Pat's attention. The detective said, "Patrolman Carsi here was working in the back. There's a garage attached to the building."

"Not quite attached. A walkway goes into the cellar," the patrolman told him. "There's a car in there. Pretty lush."

And there was the Mercedes. The rear tail-light was broken.

I said, "If you find my prints in there, you know when it happened."

There were New York State plates on the car, but a current Florida tag was on the floor under the front seat. In the glove compartment were all the goodies belonging to a Richard Welkes with a Miami Beach address.

A uniformed sergeant drove by and told Pat that the press had just arrived on the other block. Pat muttered an annoyed "Damn," then instructed the detective with him to go rough things in for them, playing it down as much as possible. An unidentified squeal on a couple of dead bodies could command the amount of police attention that was in the area, so there shouldn't be any kickback from the news hounds. Not right now, anyway.

Within an hour only the investigative crew was left. A pair of uniforms stayed out of sight in the doorway, alert and quiet. Carmody came up with containers of coffee and we passed it around. You could hear nails being wrenched out of boards inside the building and occasionally something came crashing down.

Forty-five minutes later a dust-covered detective came to the doorway and waved to Pat. "You better come over here, Captain."

He told me, "Wait here," and followed the cop inside.

In ten minutes he came out with a small box in his hands, nodded toward the cars and said, "Let's go."

I sat beside him in the back and didn't say a word. He was waiting for me to throw a question because it was my work that had opened the murders up. Twice, in his reflection in the window, I saw him watching me.

Finally I said, "Now it jumps back into Bradley's hands, doesn't it?"

He said it very softly. "How'd you figure that out?"

"I get tingling sensations." I hit the window button and let some air in. "Why did those two want to hit Penta?"

"He wasn't doing his primary job. He was off on something else."

I looked down at the box in his lap.

"The assholes didn't destroy a letter of authorization they got. We can assume it was Penta they were after, but the person was simply mentioned as 'Subject.'"

"What was Penta's primary job, Pat?"

"You mention this to anybody and you're on my permanent shit list."

"Don't insult me, buddy."

"Sorry, Fells sent a letter to Harry Bern. He had gotten a contact from their employer overseas who wanted to know if they wanted the assignment of killing the VP."

"The who?"

"VP. I assume it stands for vice president."

"Of what?" I asked him.

"Let's start with the United States."

"Pat . . . why the hell would anybody want the vice president dead? I can understand the president . . ."

"Hold it, will you? Apparently Penta screwed up someplace along the line and his employer would only tolerate one mistake. Fells and Bern were offered his initial contract after they wiped him out. If those two could take out Penta, they certainly could hit the VP."

"Somebody has a damn good reason. With the VP dead, think of the consternation it would cause in Washington. Man, they never could figure that one out. The VP doesn't get the personal coverage the president does, so he would be an easier target. But hell, that's still hitting right at the heart of our government."

"What bigger target has he got than that, for Pete's sake?"

Pat just looked at me a couple of seconds. "I can't believe it," he said.

My eyes started to go tight. "Believe what?"

"If the so-called subject is Penta, where you would come into the picture." He stopped me before I could get a word out. "I know, you're not in. He was after DiCica and all the crap. But I can't figure that way. How the hell you do it, I'll never know. I've said that before too, haven't I? How the hell you go from kicking around in the streets to substituting for the vice president of the United States in a murder scheme defies belief. Where do you come from, Mike? I've known you all these years, but I don't think I know you very well at all."

"Pat . . ."

He shook his head. "You've been running me, haven't you? Here I thought you were my boy and I was running . . . all the time you have something else going down." He paused, wiped his hand across his face and took a deep breath. "What's happening, Mike?"

I shrugged. "What else is in the box?"

"Forty-two one-thousand-dollar bills," he said.

"Be hard to cash," I told him.

"What's happening, Mike?" he asked again, ignoring my remark.

"Tomorrow, Pat. I have to make sure of something first."

"You know, I'm a lousy cop, old buddy. I have you inside this package like you're the PC or something. I have my neck out, giving you information, breaking all the rules-"

"Balls. You had no choice. Like Candace Amory said, I'm an adjunct of the law, licensed by the state, subject to conditions no ordinary citizen has to operate under. Consider it professional courtesy."

"I must be off my rocker," he said.

"You going by your office?"

"I have to."

"Good. I want to use your phone."

When we reached Pat's office I slid behind Pat's desk into his chair and punched the number into his phone. I had one foot up on Anthony DiCica's antique toolbox, which Pat had in the kneehole, but took it off when I realized what it was.

She picked up the phone on the first ring and there was no sleepiness in her voice at all. I said, "This is Mike, Candace."

"Well, I've been waiting to hear from you."

"The grapevine working?"

"Not until after the Brooklyn soiree was over. I understand there were two bodies found."

"Both shot."

"I don't suppose you'd care to explain further."

"Right. All information will come from official sources. It's strictly a police matter."

She had to probe with a lawyer's instinct. "But you were there?"

"The police acted on my information. I went along for verification."

"Very neat."

"What's new on that load of cocaine?"

"Something extremely interesting. It's totally hearsay, but often enough what sounds like a fairy tale is factual. Your friend Ray Wilson came up with another lead, an old dealer who is straight now and doesn't want his name mentioned in any way."

"So?"

"He had heard about the shipment being set up. It was delivered by freighter at Miami, concealed as bags of coffee beans. The shipper was genuine and the destination was a reputable buyer. Nobody knows just how the switch was made, but the cargo was offloaded into a tractor-trailer."

"Do you realize how much stuff that is?"

"In dollars the final street value is incredible. Anyway, it came up via Route Ninety-five into the New York area. The trailer was delivered to a depot in Brooklyn, all the paperwork completed, and the next day another tractor signed for them, hauled them out and it hasn't been seen to this day."

"You can't just hide a trailer," I told her. "I can see the run being made, but you'd still be dealing with a driver who probably had a helper along."

"Thanks to Ray Wilson we found a possible line on that one too. He went into the computers for known mob persons who could handle trucks. Not live ones, but deceased. He came up with two names of men who were found dead in a car that had apparently been sideswiped and knocked off Route Nine-W up near Bear Mountain. Two days later the brother of one was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Newark."

"That took care of the driver and a helper," I said. "Your hearsay is making pretty good sense."

"But somebody would know where the cargo went to. Whoever gave the instructions to the two men DiCica killed would know."

"Sure," I said. "The driver and the helper would have known. Those guys were probably made men who would lay down their lives for their bosses. They were taking no chances on any hijack action so they planned the delivery themselves, which could have meant repainting the truck or changing the lettering somewhere along the way. The legitimate driver on the first leg of the run really took the odds for the mob boys. His making it to Brooklyn meant the job was coming out clean."

"Then the driver and helper were the only ones who knew?"

"Why not? The fewer the better. They picked their own hiding spot for the shipment, made up a map and delivered it to the bosses. On the way out they were followed by the hit men and taken out in a supposed accident."

"Why kill . . ."

"The bosses didn't want anybody but them knowing where the stuff went to," I told her. "Unfortunately, they were in line for a hit themselves that night. And unfortunately, they closed off the mob's only access to the stuff."

"And DiCica had it all."

"Wild, huh? Tell me something. How much is the street value of the junk today?"

She told me. I let out a low whistle. No wonder Penta could afford to pass up the VP for an old hood. Nine-digit figures are understandable.

YOU DIE FOR KILLING ME.

Okay, DiCica. You were the hit man. That was your trade. Who did you kill and how did you work it? That note was for you after all, wasn't it?

"Mike . . ."

I shook myself out of my thoughts. "Sorry, kid."

"Unless we find that cargo, nothing will ever end."

"Is Ray checking out all the leads?"

"The trailer would take a certain size building to be concealed in. He's working on the assumption that something was bought, rather than leased. By now taxes would be owing and if anything matches, we'll be on it."

"You don't have that much time."

"Any other options?"

"A lot of luck. We still have a killer out there waiting."

"For what?"

"Pat will have to tell you that. Or Coleman or Carmody or Ferguson."

"You going to be around?"

I told her I would. She said she'd call tomorrow and I hung up. I would have gone home and crawled into bed, but I called in to check the tapes on my phone and a deep, sultry voice said to call at any hour.

When the call went through, General Rudy Skubal answered it himself. As soon as he recognized my voice, he said, "I couldn't stand not having more pieces of the puzzle, Mike. I went back to when they were feeding information into the computers and zeroed in on Fells and Bern. We ran constant checks on our men without their knowledge, especially those whose performance was getting shoddy."

"Bern and Fells are dead," I interrupted.

"Killed at the safe house, I presume?"

"Good guess, General."

"It wasn't a guess. That safe house was supposed to be known and used by Bern and Fells only. I have two reports that a third party had access to it on several occasions. No description."

"Penta," I said.

"What makes you think so?"

"You said he was here on a high-level assignment."

"That was a generality."

"Now it's a specific. He had a target . . . the vice president. He didn't make it a priority and was probably considered unreliable. Bern and Fells were sent to kill him. The only real contact they had with him was through me, so they tried the interrogation under narcotics in Smiley's garage. Hell, they probably used Smiley's premises before when they were on your team."

"Shall I check on that point?"

"No use, General. One of them came back and knocked off Smiley so nobody would make the connection. Their mistake was using their old safe house again. If they had let slip to Penta when they worked together where that safe house was, he could have used it himself. It wouldn't have been much of a trick to get keys to the place. A nice piece of information to have just in case."

"He used it well," Skubal said. "I imagine he staked it out and killed them both together."

"Looked like a small-caliber hollow-point at close range, right in the heads."

"Penta has used that technique before. One shot each?"

"He didn't need any more."

"What else can keep him in the area, Mike?"

"Explain."

"He killed his first person in your office. He's killed two men assigned to wipe him out. If the reports are correct, nothing is going to keep this Penta from fulfilling his contract."

"Why should somebody want to kill the vice president?"

"No one can really understand the political mind. What happens at those levels aren't mine to consider, outside investigative situations. I collect facts now. However, there is one thing for you to reflect on."

Here it came again and I beat him to it. "He doesn't want me, General."

"If you say so. But somebody wants you. Why?"

I said, "They still think I know where their billion dollars went to."

The word billion stopped him momentarily. "For that much money," he told me, "I think they would go to far sterner methods to get you out of the way. Where are you now?"

"In Pat's office. I couldn't be safer."

"You realize, of course, that you're vulnerable. Have you seen the tabloid that's on the newsstand?"

"I picked it up on the way home."

"Then anyone who knows of your true connection with Velda can have a secondary target. Have you checked on her yet?"

"No, I was planning to, but-"

"Get in gear, Michael. That girl had better be kept under close cover. The vice president is under security, money can always wait, but don't let that girl get killed. She was your primary reason for getting involved in this to start with, so keep it that way."

"Okay, General, you got it." He hung up with a grunt before I could say good-bye.

Pat was looking at me, washing a couple of aspirins down with a drink of water. He squashed the cup in his fingers and tossed it in a wastebasket. The clock on the wall said it was five minutes after midnight. He said, "It's tomorrow, pal. I think we should talk."

"You feel it too?"

He nodded. "It's all closing in and I'm sitting on my thumbs. It started out as the murder of a nobody and now we're into all kinds of shit. Over in the other corner you're playing footsies with the Ice Lady and leaving me out in the cold. So let's put the pieces together. Sooner or later they are going to be asking me questions about your involvement and how and why I tolerated it and I'd like it all to go down clean and neat so that I'm off the hook and back on pension drive again. Now, let's do it."

Talk. I pushed myself out of the chair and walked to the window. A few drops of rain hit it and inched down the pane, gradually soaking into the New York grime. Talk. Nothing but air and sounds unless it made sense. I turned around and stared at Pat. He had settled down in the desk chair, slowly folding his hands behind his head. He propped his foot on the toolbox and pushed himself back into a leaning position, waiting for me to talk.

When he saw me grin with my teeth tight and my lips pulled back, he started to frown because he knew something had happened. I picked up the phone. I called Candace again and told her to get down here right away. She got all pissed off this time and insisted I tell her why. I said because she wanted to be president, that's why, and she didn't give me any more argument. I went to the coffee maker, poured a stale cup, stirred in enough sweetener so it didn't matter and sat down on the edge of the desk.

Pat was giving me all the time in the world. I picked up a copy of Combat Handguns magazine, October 1988, and read the article titled "The Assassin: Who, When, Where, Why." "Got a later issue?" I asked him.

He shook his head.

I had just started reading the advertisements when Candace came in. She was mad, curious and beautiful, and now Pat took his hands down, leaned forward, waiting to see what I had to say.

"You were on the right track, Pat."

"What?"

"How come you didn't send that toolbox to the property clerk?"

"It's active evidence, that's why." He reached down, picked up the box and set it on the desk.

"Figure it out?"

I got that odd look again. "It didn't belong there. It was a keepsake. His old man made it." He fondled the handle of one of the chisels and put it back again. "You know what's queer here, don't you?"

"Sure," I said. "He had no memory of his past except for the toolbox. They delivered him to his mother's house. He didn't know her, but spotted the box and just took it. He never even said why, except for one word. Mrs. DiCica said he told her 'Papa' and that was all."

"Mike, please," Candace interrupted, "get to the point."

"After he had his brains scrambled, he went to the hospital. His mother picked up his belongings and took them to her house. This toolbox was in his apartment. When he saw it again after his confinement, something registered in his mind. Something had left an impression heavy enough not to have been wiped out."

I dumped the tools out on Pat's desk, looked at each piece carefully, then put them aside. Nothing was wrong with them at all. So it had to be in the box itself. The construction was sturdy, of hand-fitted three-quarter-inch-thick pine boards, the wood delicately carved and polished. The inch-thick dowel rod that ran the length of the box was worn smooth from constant handling in the center, with clever swirls growing deeper toward the ends. The box itself was more than a repository for tools. It was a personal thing whose maker was artisan as well as carpenter.

And the damn thing was all solid wood. No hidden compartments, no secret places that I could see at all.

But you aren't supposed to see secret places. They were made to remain unseen.

I turned the box over and studied the initialed V.D., felt the grooving with my fingertip and probed where it fitted into the sides. Nothing. There wasn't one damn thing out of order.

Pat was getting an exasperated look. There was disgust in his eyes and he pulled his hand across his mouth in an annoyed gesture.

Candace still had some hope. Her eyes never left the box and when I put it back on the desk, finished with the examination, she still couldn't take her eyes off it. She had taken me at my word and saw the presidency sitting there because I had told her I would do it.

Pat said, "I hope this isn't a game, buddy."

I looked down into the empty box trying to think of something to say when I saw something that wasn't there at all. The wood grain of the bottom was typically pine, clear unknotted pine. I turned the box over again and looked at that part, beautifully clear unknotted pine.

But the grain patterns were not identical. Close, but not identical.

There was a famous knot in a rope that nobody could untie until the rough boy took his sword and slashed right through it and that ended that deal.

I picked up the hammer, turned the box over and smashed it into the bottom. I didn't bother to look at how delicately or how cleverly the panel was built into the box . . . I just pulled out the envelope, and three oversize one-hundred-dollar bills from the turn of the century, still redeemable in gold. I handed the bills to Pat and the envelope to Candace.

Pat's face had no expression to it at all. We looked at Candace as she opened the envelope and took out two typed sheets of paper. She glanced at it quickly, her eyes widening abruptly. Then she turned the pages around for us to see.

"It's in code. The whole thing's in code."

I said, "Pat . . . ?"

There was no hesitation. "Let's get Ray Wilson. He can set up the computers and have a go at it."

"Decoding isn't that easy," Candace said.

"Ray can get a few hours in on it before we even get it to the experts in Washington. Send them a copy anyway, but Ray gets first crack at it." He reached for the phone and started to run down Wilson.

"Mike . . ."

"Yeah?"

"You think this is it?"

"What else can it be?"

"If we can locate this cache . . ."

"Don't go getting your hopes up, baby. All you'll get will be the coke. There won't be any line to the buyers or the sellers by now. What you're getting is like digging up a live blockbuster bomb left over from World War II. All it's good for is destruction. You take the potential destructive value away, then everything goes back to square one. The status stays quo. There's no use for the previous owners waiting for the stuff to show up or go on searching for it. It's over."

"But we haven't found it yet," she said.

I could feel my stomach tighten up and I said, "Damn it to hell!"

Pat waved me to stop, but I ignored him and got out of there as fast as I could.

11

Now the rain was making itself felt. It wasn't a clean rain you could shake loose, but a clinging wetness that smelled of concrete and asphalt. This kind of rain hid things you wanted to know and touched all your nerves with an irritating kind of anxiety.

A Yellow Cab with a lady driver pulled over and I got in, giving her the hospital address. Her eyes bounced up to the rearview mirror. "You want emergency?"

"Right."

"You got it, mister." She hauled out into traffic and got heavy on the gas pedal. She made the first light, got right in the sequence and traveled with the green all the way to the turn. She went through a red signal, cut off a truck and went up the ramp as neatly as any ambulance. I handed her a ten-spot and didn't ask for change.

Sickness and injury never stop in the big city. It was a real bloody night in the emergency room, spatters of red on the walls, trails stringing along the floors, smeared where feet had skidded in its sticky viscosity. The walking wounded were crowded by stretchers and wheelchairs and my shortcut to Velda's floor was blocked.

Rather than try to bust on through I ran down the corridor and followed the arrows to the front elevators. I passed a dozen people, doctors and nurses, but running was common in a hospital and nobody questioned me. It was long after visitors' hours and if you were there at this time, you were authorized to be there.

There were three elevators in the bank and all of them were on the upper floors. I wasn't about to wait, found the stairwell and went up them two at a time. I stopped on the third-floor landing, my breath raw in my lungs. I made myself breathe easily and in thirty seconds a degree of normalcy came back. Wasting myself in a wild run up the stairs wouldn't leave anything left, and that I couldn't take a chance on.

When I reached her floor I pushed through the steel fire door into the corridor and the wave of quiet was a soft kiss of relief. The nurse's desk was to my left, the white tip of the attendant's hat bobbing behind the counter. Someplace a phone rang and was answered. Halfway down the hall a uniformed officer was standing beside a chair, his back against the wall, reading a paper.

The nurse didn't look up, so I went by her. Two of the rooms I passed had their doors open and in the half-lit room I could see forms of the patients, deep in sleep. The next two doors were closed and so was Velda's.

Until I was ten feet away the cop didn't give me a tumble, then he turned and scowled at me. This was a new one on the night shift and he pulled back his sleeve and gave a deliberate look at his wristwatch as if to remind me of the time.

There was no sense making waves when there was no water. I said, "Everything okay?"

For a second the question seemed to confuse him. Then he nodded. "Sure," he replied. "Of course."

All I could do was nod back, like it was stupid of me to ask, and I let him go back to leaning against the wall, his feet crossed comfortably. At the desk I edged around the side until the nurse glanced up. She recognized me and smiled. "Mr. Hammer, good evening."

"How's my doll doing?"

"Just fine, Mr. Hammer. Dr. Reedey was in twice today. Her bandages have been changed and one of the nurses has even helped her with cosmetics."

"Is she moving around?"

"Oh, no. The doctor wants her to have complete bed rest for now. It will be several days before she'll be active at all." She stopped, suddenly realizing the time herself. "Aren't you here a little late?"

"I hope not." Something was bothering me. Something was grating at me and I didn't know what it was. "Nothing out of order on the floor?"

She seemed surprised. "No, everything is quite calm, fortunately."

A small timer on her desk pinged and she looked at her watch. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Mr. Hammer . . ."

Now I knew what the matter was. That cop had looked at his watch too and his was a Rolex Oyster, a big fat expensive watch street cops don't wear on duty. But the real kicker was his shoes. They were regulation black, but they were wing tips. The son of a bitch was a phony, but his rod would be for real and whatever was going down would be just as real.

I said, "How long has that cop been on her door?"

"Oh . . . he came in about fifteen minutes ago."

It was two hours too soon for a shift change.

"Did you see the other one check out?"

"Well, no, but he could have gone . . ."

"They always take these elevators down, don't they?"

She nodded, consternation showing in her eyes. She got the picture all at once and asked calmly, "What shall I do?"

"This a scheduled call you make?"

"I have a patient who needs his medication."

"Where are the other nurses?"

"Madge is on her coffee break. I hold down the fort while she goes."

"All right, you go take care of the patient and stay there. What room is he in?"

"The last one down on the right."

"I'll call when I want you. Give me the phone and you beat it. Don't look back. Do things the way you always do."

She patted her hair in place, went around the counter and stepped on down the hall. She didn't look back. I pulled her call sheet over where I could see it and dialed hospital security. The phone rang eight times and nobody answered. I dialed the operator and she tried. Finally she said, "I'll put their code on, sir. The guards must be making their rounds."

Or they're laid out on their backs someplace.

Overhead, the call bell started to ping out a quiet code every few seconds.

I hung up and dialed Pat's office. He wasn't in either. I remembered his trying to get Ray Wilson and had the operator put me through to Ray's office. This time I got him.

I said, "Pat, I have no time for talk. I'm at the hospital and everything's breaking loose. There's a phony cop at the door, so the real officer is down somewhere. They're going to try to snatch Velda. If they wanted her dead, they would have already done it. Get some cars up here and no sirens. They smell cops and they can kill her."

"They moving now?" Pat got in.

I heard wheels rolling on tile and squinted around the wall. Coming out of the last door down on the right was an empty gurney pushed by a man in orderly's clothes. "They're moving. Shake your ass."

I hung up and stepped out into the corridor, whistling between my teeth. The guy pushing the gurney stopped and started playing with the mattress. I pushed the button on the elevator, looked down at the cop who was watching me too and waved. The phony cop waved back.

When the elevator halted, I got in, let the doors close and pushed the STOP button. I stood there, hoping the guy pushing the gurney wouldn't notice the lights over the doors standing still. The rubber tires thumped a little louder, passed the elevator, and when I didn't hear them any longer, I pushed the MANUAL OPEN button and stood there staring out into the empty corridor. I took my hat off, dropped it on the floor and yanked the .45 out of the holster. There was a shell in the chamber and the hammer was on half cock. I thumbed it back all the way and looked down the corridor.

The guy in the orderly's clothes was standing there with an AK47 automatic rifle cradled in his arms watching both ends of the hallway. His stance was low and when he swung, his coat flopped open and it looked like he was wearing upper-body armor. Half the gurney was sticking out Velda's door and even as I watched, it moved out and I saw her strapped onto the carrier. The man in uniform came out with a police service .38 in one hand and one hell of a big bruiser of an automatic in the other. Unless I got some backup, I was totally outgunned and no way I could close in on them without putting Velda's life on the line.

A quiet little code still pinged from the hall bell. Security still hadn't answered.

No wasted moves this time. The pair moved the gurney away from me and I knew they were headed toward the emergency-room exit. The orderly had draped a sheet over the gun on his arm, and the uniform had the .38 on the gurney next to Velda and the automatic hidden someplace in front of him.

I stepped back in the car, let the doors close, pushed the first-floor button and hoped nobody tried to get on. Like all hospital elevators, this one took forever to pass each level and before it stopped, I picked my hat up and held it over my .45. I stepped out. This time I didn't run. The gurney would be moving at proper walking speed, seemingly going through a normal routine, and as long as I hurried, I could meet it outside the building. There was no way this play could be stopped without some kind of shooting, and I didn't want anybody else in the way.

Ahead I could see the entrance to the emergency room and the elevator bank they would come out of. Now they had two options, going through the crowd, taking the risk of having their weapons spotted, or heading for the walkway door where I was standing. It wasn't made for gurneys, but it was ramped for wheelchairs and with some juggling, a gurney could get through.

They came out of the elevator just as I stepped outside and now I felt better. They had turned toward the walkway door and I was waiting out there in the dark. There were only a few seconds to look around for their probable course and find cover. The walkway curved down to the street, but the parking places were filled again with off-street overnighters, and the cars there couldn't handle a limp patient. Unless they had planned on a mobile van or station wagon, any transportation would have to be farther down the line, out of sight from where I was standing.

I moved on down the walk, reached the parked cars and got in the street behind them. The doors of the building swung inward. The guy in the orderly uniform came out first, the AK47 under his arm, still covered by a cloth of some kind. He never took his eyes off the area in front of him, juggling the gurney forward with one hand while the other man pushed from behind. It finally slid through and now the phony cop had the oversized automatic in his hand, the holstered .38 ready to grab.

Risking a shot was crazy. The pair were alert, well armed and probably handy with their equipment. They most likely had preplanned an escape exit if they were intercepted, and killing Velda would be a part of the play. I'd have to get off two perfect shots on the first try with a six-foot spread between targets in dim light at a bad distance, and I wasn't that good to try.

The gurney made the sidewalk and the two cranked it into a turn going away from the hospital. Both of them were still facing forward, both right on the edge of action. I let them pass me, crouching down behind the bodies of the cars, and when they were about ten feet in front, I kept pace with their movements.

A car turned up the road, momentarily lighting up the area. The beam swept over the gurney, but the two went on in a normal manner. I stepped between the parked cars and let the car pass. It was an unmarked sedan with a woman at the wheel. It seemed like an hour had passed, but it had only been a few minutes.

Hell, traffic was light. A squad car could have been here by now. Another set of lights turned up, a truck dropped down a gear and lumbered up the hill. I moved down two car lengths, still staying close, still silently swearing at the frustrating delays in emergency police actions. A car made the U-turn at the hospital and came toward me from the other direction and only when it got past me did a raucous blast from a loudhailer yell, "Freeze! Police!" and the power lights from the truck turned night into day, blinding the two men in the glare.

Everything happened so quickly there was a hesitancy in the movements the men made. The orderly wasted one second trying to strip the cloth from the AK47 and a pair of rapid blasts took him down and out. The phony cop jammed himself down in a crouch and his gun came up to shoot through the bottom of the gurney. He was out of sight of the others, but not out of mine, and I squeezed off a single round that took him in the shoulder and spun him around like a rag doll.

I was standing and had my hands over my head so the cops wouldn't take me out with a wild shot figuring me for the other side. Pat came running up, a snub-nosed .38 in his fist, and said, "You okay, Mike?"

"No sweat." I took my hands down in time to yell and half-point behind Pat, and he turned and fired at the phony cop who had pulled his .38 out of the holster and was about to let go at the gurney again. Pat put one into the side of his head, blowing his brains all over the sidewalk.

They all came out one side, so his face was gory, but still recognizable.

The area was cordoned off so fast no spectators had a chance to get near the bodies. Two cops took the gurney out to the truck, lifted it in the back way, and the lady cop from the first car got in with Velda and the unit lurched ahead, made a turn in the street and headed west.

Pat took my arm and hustled me toward his own unmarked cruiser close by. I said, "Where did you guys come from?"

"Come on, pal, I alerted this team as soon as you headed over here." He yanked a portable radio from his pocket and said into it, "Charlie squad, what have you got?"

There was a click and a hum and a flat voice answered with, "One officer down in the patient's room, Captain. We have a doctor here who says he was sapped, then drugged. There are two syringes on the bed table, both empty."

"Is the officer okay?"

"Vital signs okay, the doc says."

I tapped Pat on the shoulder. "Tell him to check the last room down the hall on the right."

He passed the message on and a minute later the receiver hummed and the voice said, "Got a nurse down in there too, Captain. She got the same treatment. The patient who was here is gone."

"He sure is," Pat told him.

We went to get into the car when the radio came alive again. Pat barked a "Go ahead" and the cop on the other end said, "Captain, four hospital security guys just got here. They answered a call in the basement and wound up locked in a storeroom."

"Good. Get a statement from them and check both those rooms out."

"Roger, Captain."

He turned the key and put the car in gear. Up ahead the truck was turning the corner and he leaned on the gas to catch up to it. "Mind telling me where we're going?"

"For tonight you're going fancy. The Ice Lady is putting you two up in her apartment."

"Great," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"You two aren't going to be targets any more. The crap's over, finished. Dr. Reedey is meeting us at Candace's to check Velda out. We'll hold you there overnight and get you squared away tomorrow. If you two weren't friends, I'd slap both of you in a prison ward to keep you out of trouble."

"Did you get a good look at the guy you shot?"

"I got a good look at both of them."

"Make 'em?"

He yanked on the wheel, pulling around a car and coming up directly behind the truck. "The slob playing cop was Nolo Abberniche. He started out as a kid with the Costello bunch. That bastard has knocked off a half dozen guys and all he has are three arrests on petty offenses."

"You seem to have a good line on him."

"Plenty of fliers, nationwide inquiries. Pal, you are traveling in some pretty heavy company. That other guy was Marty Santino. He's another hit man, but he likes the fancy jobs. This one was right up his alley."

"Who's paying for it, Pat?"

"That died with those hoods. You know damn well we won't find anything to tie them in directly with any of the mob boys, but we sure as hell know there's a connection somewhere."

"Beautiful," I said. "We wait for them to make another run on us."

"Not this time, Mike. You drop the code leading to a truckload of coke down our throats and we're going to treat you like royalty until it shows up. They don't know we own Anthony DiCica's little secret. Well, once it's in our hands they can go back to business as usual. You're going to be our little secret too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him.

"Simple, pal. We're taking you and Velda right out of the action. Both of you are too important as witnesses and possible targets to be exposed during the mop-up. I know damn well you're not going to let her out of your sight, so we're setting both of you up at a safe house of our choosing. Any objections?"

"No."

"Good. I thought you'd do it my way for once. You'll be covering Velda and we'll be covering both of you just in case. It may seem redundant, but we don't want to take any chances."

I nodded and looked back at the buildings passing by.

The truck slowed, edging toward the curb, and pulled to a stop in front of the apartment building. The way the doorman came out to run us off you'd think we were from Mars, but when the blue uniforms showed, he backed off fast, held the doors open while the gurney came out and helped get it on the service elevator. I squeezed on beside it, and when I did, Velda's eyes fluttered, then opened, and she looked at me. She didn't know what had happened or where she was, but she knew me and smiled.

Candace was waiting at her apartment and she wasn't alone. Bennett Bradley and Lewis Ferguson were deep in conversation, and Coleman and Carmody were at the bar. They stopped what they were doing to help get Velda into the bedroom where Burke Reedey was laying out his supplies. There was nothing I could do so I went to the bar and made a drink for myself.

"Make one for me too, please," Candace said.

I mixed the highball, turned around and handed it to her. "Appreciate your lending us the apartment."

"And I appreciate your trying to make me president."

"They shoot at presidents," I said.

"They shoot at cops too."

We clinked glasses, each taking a good pull at a drink. "How is Ray doing with the code?"

"All we can do is wait. He's linked in with Washington and Langley, and all we know is that it isn't an ultrasophisticated concept. Apparently he had a working knowledge of codes, and with the repetition the computers can deliver, it shouldn't take long."

"Who's going on the bust?"

"A select group. We're assuming it's within driving distance and the coordination is coming under federal jurisdiction. They can organize assistance from any local police departments if they have to."

"Where do you stand?"

"In the catbird seat, my wonderful friend." She looked past me and pointed.

Pat was finishing with the cops who had brought Velda up and was waving me over to the table where the men were conferring over a map. They had circled out an area in New York State northwest of Kingston with Phoenicia as a hub. Ferguson was a ski buff and knew the area well, but best of all, he had access to a cottage in the mountainous section and had outlined the entry roads and was explaining the place's benefits.

"From the building there is good three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility. Power comes in from the road, but the place is equipped with emergency Coleman lanterns, a hand pump for water if the power goes out, and always has a good supply of split logs on hand for the fireplace."

He shaded in a section on the map and explained, "The house sits . . . here." He tapped the pencil to indicate the spot. "And approximately fifty yards away toward the road are two stone outcroppings, excellent positions as guard posts. A man can be stationed at both positions with a good field of fire that would cover anyone trying to gain entry."

"What about the rear?" I asked him.

"A sheer cliff almost sixty feet high. They'd have to drop in by parachute. The foliage is just too thick for anybody to break through up there without a dozen machetes or brushhooks."

Pat said, "We're not dealing with trained woodsmen, Mike."

"You can buy them, kiddo."

"Not as fast as we can move."

I took another jolt of the highball. "Let's give the other side a little credit. Suppose they had an observer at the hospital to catch the action. Suppose he saw what was going on and followed the truck back here."

"What's your point, Mike?"

"How are we getting out of this place without being spotted? They have men, money and machinery going for them too. They could have spotters with radios as well as the cops."

Pat gave me one of his noncommittal gestures again. "Suppose you just let us take care of that."

After what he pulled with the blast at the hospital, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Sure, pal, sorry," I said. I finished the drink and went back for another one. Candace had it ready for me. For the first time that evening I took a close look at her. There was no dress this time, just a beautifully tailored khaki jumpsuit that would look fashionable as hell at a cocktail party or would be casually efficient for a field sweep. Whatever she had in mind, she was ready for it. Those big sensual eyes were almost iridescent with anticipation, and the tautness of her body showed right through the twill of the jumpsuit.

She knew I was going to say something.

She was waiting to hear it.

The phone rang. Instantly, the room went quiet. She picked up the receiver. When she scanned the room with one quick glance and nodded, we knew she was talking to Ray Wilson. She picked up a ballpoint pen, stripped a page off the pad beside the phone and began writing down the instructions. She finished, thanked him and hung up.

"We have the location of the truck," she said. "It's in a barn on a farm north of Lake Hopatcong on Route Ninety-four, just before coming into Hamburg."

Bennett Bradley said, "I'll alert the Jersey highway patrol, and they can pick us up on the other side of the George Washington Bridge with an escort."

"You want any county police on this?"

"Forget it," Bradley told him. "We don't want to divulge any details of the site." He went back to the map they were using for our relocation and found what he was looking for. "Here," he said. "We'll have two more cars meet us at the junction of Routes Fifteen and Ninety-four." He picked up the phone, called the operator for the number of the Jersey highway patrol, then dialed it.

Ferguson was thumbing through a pocket-size pad of his own and told Carmody, "If we start crossing agency lines on this, we'll have one hell of a mess. Now, who wants it?"

"How many men do you think we'll need?" Carmody asked him.

"At least a dozen, heavily armed, to guard that stuff. We may be able to keep the raid quiet, but we can't plan on it."

"That load has got to be moved out. If the trailer's in good shape, we'll need a tractor to haul it and at least four mobile units for cover. The state guys can lead and be the tail on the convoy."

"Okay," Frank Carmody told him. "This whole thing is going to be interstate, so let me handle it. The FBI can get on this from our local offices a lot faster than Langley can. That satisfactory?"

"Fine by me," Ferguson agreed. "I'll stay on this end getting Hammer and his lady out of the area. Now, what's the time schedule going to be like?"

Both of them glanced at Bradley, who was putting the phone down. "That guy's ready right now," Carmody muttered.

"He wants to make some points before his replacement gets here. Can't blame him at all. However, he waits on this one. That stuff has been there so long a few more days won't matter. The major thing is we know where it is and we don't want to chance losing it at this point by a lot of hasty maneuvering."

Bradley came back, smiling gently, then raised his eyebrows at Carmody and Ferguson. "You two would make terrible poker players."

Carmody frowned, annoyed. "What?"

"I don't plan to barge right in on this," Bradley told him.

You could see the relief on their faces.

Bradley said, "One car will make the run first. We want the exact location, photos taken of the area, then we'll regroup for a final planning. The Jersey police will be given full authorization to work this under our command and will move on it the minute we call them."

"Who's going in the car?"

"Guess," Candace said.

"You think that's practical?" Ferguson asked her.

"A man and a woman riding together is a natural, gentlemen. Besides, I'm the only one who knows the fine details of the terminal point. Mr. Bradley and I will make a good team."

Bradley gave her a smile and a half bow. "It's settled then."

"And when do Velda and I move out?" I asked.

It was Ferguson who said, "First thing in the morning, buddy. We want to get you out of here at first light and settled in with guards on post before nightfall."

"Velda's going to need clothes."

Candace said, "We're both about the same size. I can outfit her with what she'll need."

I was going to object, but Pat stopped me. "Do it that way, Mike. And you can pick up what you need from any store in the area. I wouldn't suggest your going back to your apartment. You got any cash on you?"

"Enough," I told him.

"How much ammo you got for your forty-five?"

"Two full clips."

"Pick up a box."

"Who am I supposed to kill, Pat?"

For the second that he said nothing, I saw the note in my mind. You die for killing me.

"I'm sure you'll find somebody," Pat said jokingly.

Burke Reedey had changed Velda's bandage and helped her straighten up her hair. Under the makeup the signs of discoloration had almost faded and the swelling around her eye was nearly gone. Her lips were back to their natural shape and fullness, and I sat on the edge of the gurney and laid my palm against her cheek. "How you doing, baby?"

Her smile started before her eyes opened, then she said, "At least I'm not pregnant."

"Clever thought."

"Life around you is never dull, Mike. Dangerous, but never dull."

"Sorry, kitten." My fingers brushed the edges of her hair lightly.

"Burke didn't want to tell me what happened."

"How much do you remember?"

She closed her eyes, thought about it a moment and looked up at me. "I had been asleep. The doctor had given me a sedative. There seemed to be some noise that wakened me, and I knew somebody was in the room, but I thought it was Burke who had come back. Then a needle went into my arm and I was back asleep again. There were shots. I do remember shots, but they were part of my sleep." Her eyes narrowed discernibly. "They were shots, weren't they?"

"Two guys who tried to snatch you were killed."

"You?"

"I hit one in the arm, but Pat knocked him off. Snipers got the other one."

"Mike . . . why me?"

"To hurt me, doll. They still thought they could squeeze me for information I didn't even have, if they had you."

"What's happened?"

"Now we know what they want. That's why we're getting off the scene until this event is over."

"Since when do you cut out, Mike?" Her voice had an angry tone.

"When you need somebody to cover your ass, doll. Now shut up and take it as it comes." I leaned forward, cradling her head in my hands, and kissed her mouth. Then her hands came up and held me too, and our mouths were soft and gentle together, full of warmth that I had missed so badly.

Behind me, Candace coughed softly, and I eased Velda back. Burke had given her another sedative and she was getting sleepy. She had another jumpsuit outfit over her arm. "Let me dress her now," she said. "Then she'll be ready for the trip."

I nodded and went outside, half closing the door. Pat was on the telephone, two new plainclothes cops were in the room, and the other three were bent over the map again.

Five minutes later Candace came out and shut the door gently. "There's a suitcase of casual things and some underwear by the door. My shoes will be a little oversize on her, but it won't matter."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"I saw the way you kissed her."

"We're old friends."

"Bullshit. Why don't you just say you love her?"

"Why do girls always think-"

"Because we're jealous, Mike. When a girl's not in love, she's jealous of anybody else who is."

"You know . . ."

Candace put her finger on my mouth. "Don't say anything silly, big boy. We had a few wild moments and it was good. Crazy, but very good. You realize it never would have lasted for us."

I grinned at her and gave her hip a little pat. "Call me when the screwballs think they have you cornered."

"When will that be?"

"When you're president, kiddo."

Pat turned that sharp look on me when I said the word, and we both remembered we still had Penta in the picture somewhere. He was going to eliminate the vice president of the United States, but first he had to finish a job for himself.

12

The trip upstate started before dawn. It began with a ride in a police cruiser to the local precinct station, a switch to an unmarked car with us stretched out on the floor in the rear, winding up at the Fourth Precinct downtown with a shuffle to another car, indistinguishable in the shuffle of vehicles coming and going in the vicinity.

Now Ferguson was driving and I rode in the backseat with Velda's head on my shoulder, while two other cars hung back a few hundred feet, the occupants from the bureau's local office. Ferguson knew them all and assured me they were good men.

We crossed the bridge, headed north and picked up the New York State Thruway at Suffern and stayed at speed limit while the guard cars played little games to make sure nobody was following us. At our speed nearly everybody passed and kept on going or turned off at the exit ramps.

All the cars had constant radio communication and when we got to Kingston, we all turned off the thruway and gassed up. I found a store to pick up the clothes I needed, got a flashlight, extra batteries and a box of .45s. When we loaded up again, we picked up Route 28 going northwest and practically had the road to ourselves.

Now it was Ferguson's backyard. He knew where he was headed, took us past Mt. Tremper, through Phoenicia, and a few miles farther on he radioed the other cars he was turning off, would continue for a half mile and stop while they did the same thing a quarter mile up. If anybody was doing a delayed-action tailing job, they'd be spotted coming off the main road.

Where he pulled up was a shale-topped drive that had earmarks of having been long in use, but not very often. When we stopped, we waited for a full fifteen minutes before the all clear was given, then we drove ahead at slow speed, took a righthand fork for another half mile, then broke out of the woods that had surrounded us onto a grassy plain, and there ahead was the house and the rock outcroppings that made natural guard-posts.

Velda had slept through most of the trip. Now the sedative had worn off and she was having a rebirth, being in new surroundings, knowing her body was knitting together properly. Ferguson got our luggage and opened the cabin up while I got Velda out of the car and onto her feet. She was shaky and held on to my arm, taking each step carefully.

"Going to make it or do I carry you?"

"Across the threshold?"

I gave her a squeeze. "I think you're strong enough to walk this one."

Her elbow nudged my ribs. "A girl can always hope." Her grin had a pixie twist to it and I knew she was better. She was my girl again, the beautiful doll with the deep auburn page-boy hair that had a piece cut out of it now. The svelte-bodied beauty who still had colorful blue and purple shadows around one eye. The lush-hipped, full-breasted delight of a woman whom I had almost lost.

"What are you thinking, Mike?"

"No way I'm going to tell you that," I said, and gave her a little laugh. I didn't have to tell her anyway. She already knew. I moved her to a big, soft La-Z-Boy chair, got her comfortable and went to help Ferguson and the others get the place ready.

Two of the agency men who never seemed to have anything to say got their gear together, large thermos bottles of coffee, water canteens, packages of food, and rolled everything up in their watertight ponchos. Each one carried a holstered sidearm and a Colt AR-15A2 rifle chambered for a .223 cartridge, a fast-firing, accurate rifle with deadly capabilities. Each one was equipped with a night scope. A metal case held the spare clips. When they were satisfied, they strode off to the rock outcroppings. Neither one had said anything at all.

Ferguson came in from the kitchen and handed me a set of keys. "I'm leaving my car around the back in case you need it. It's out of sight, got plenty of gas and is facing forward in case you have to make a quick getaway."

"Why would I do that?"

"Just a precaution." He took a compact walkie-talkie from his pocket, thumbed the button and said, "Number one, check."

The radio said, "One, check."

"Number two, check."

"Two, check," the radio repeated.

He thumbed the switch off and laid the walkie-talkie on the table. "You have emergency contact with both guard positions. And for Pete's sake, keep radio silence as much as possible. Let them alert you if possible. When their radios are receiving, other ears as well as theirs can hear them."

"Got it," I said. "The phone working here?"

"Yeah, but the damn thing's on a party line, so stay off it."

"How about television?"

"You lucked in. They ran cable in here last year, so amuse yourself on thirty channels. Everything else is in working order, you got groceries, beer and plenty of toilet paper. You want any smokes?"

"I quit."

"Then enjoy yourself, pardnuh. Be nice to the lady."

"Do me a favor, Ferguson."

"Like what?"

"Have Pat call me when the bust goes down."

Ferguson held out his hand and I took it. He said, "Sure thing, Mike," then went outside with the others. The engines of two cars came to life, then slowly faded out of earshot down the road.

The sun had gone down behind the mountain and the shadow threw an early veil of darkness around the house. I made the rounds, locking the windows and doors, familiarizing myself with the place. The living room was a good size, the fireplace functional as well as ornamental. Both bedrooms were done in rugged Early American style, a bathroom opening off each one. The kitchen was a cook's dream and whoever spent time here was in the country without losing any of the benefits of modern civilization.

I checked out the porches, all the closets, and in the hallway I spotted an almost hidden ceiling hatch. I pulled a chair over, stepped up onto it, pushed the hatch cover up and stuck my head into the opening, probing the darkness with my flashlight.

Batts of insulation ran between the floor beams and most of the area was covered with sheets of plywood to provide storage space, but now there was nothing there but the roof supports and the hand-laid brickwork of the massive fireplace chimney. I pulled the hatch cover back in place and got down off the chair.

The windows had curtains that were nearly opaque and I closed them before I snapped on the TV set and let it give us all the light we needed. I brought over two egg salad sandwiches, opened the coffee thermos, poured out two cups and sat down beside Velda.

She said, "Tell me about it. From the beginning. Don't leave anything out."

So I told her from the beginning, but I did leave some things out. She asked questions and had me repeat events several times, putting the pieces of the picture in a framework that would contain something recognizable. Inside there she was looking for Penta too, searching for the killer who had almost killed her. There was no anger in the way she was thinking, simply a purposeful, quiet deliberateness that poked and prodded at the pieces, trying to get them to fit. I talked to her, held hands while she pondered, and when she came to the same blank stone wall that somebody had scrawled the name Penta on, she said, "I'm tired, Mike."

I got her into the bedroom and she turned around, put her arms around my neck and said in a tired voice, "Do me."

My fingers unzipped the jumpsuit, let it fall, then unsnapped her bra. She shrugged out of that too, letting herself sink to the edge of the bed. I pushed her back gently and pulled the covers up round her. "Good night, Tiger," I said.

There was no answer. She was already asleep.

I went back to the living room and sat in a wooden rocker. The news on TV was nothing spectacular. I tried CNN and caught a flurry of national stuff and the day's sports. There was nothing about a billion-dollar drug bust. I pulled a blanket off the other bed, turned off the TV, stretched out in the La-Z-Boy recliner and went to sleep with the .45 in my hand.

The sun came up the east slope, and I threw the window curtains open. The whole area was clear outside, and I picked up the walkie-talkie and said, "Either of you guys want breakfast?"

One said, "You go first, Eddie. I still have some coffee left."

There was no answer, but I saw some movement beside the clump of rocks and the one called Eddie started to trot toward the house, the rifle slung over his shoulder. Everything was real military double time with those two.

I held the door open, let him through and locked it behind him.

"You got hot water? I need a quick shower."

"Try the bathroom. They told me it all works."

I went to the kitchen and started the coffee going. There were eggs, bacon and precooked biscuits in the refrigerator, and I got them all out, cooked them up just as Eddie came out of the bathroom dressed, with damp hair, and still carrying the rifle. He ate, said thanks and went to the door. "I'll send Tunney down," he told me over his shoulder.

Tunney needed a shower too. He ate, had a second cup of coffee and said it had been a quiet night. During the day he and Eddie would each grab some sleep while the other stood guard. At suppertime they would come up one at a time, grab a bite before dark, refill their thermoses and canteens and get set for the night's watch.

The phone rang. I picked it up and Ferguson's voice said, "Everything all right?"

I said, "Great."

He said, "Fine," and hung up.

From Velda's bedroom I heard the sound of a shower running. I went back to the stove again. This morning I had the feeling Velda was going to have her old appetite back. The bacon strips were almost done. I made a square of them in the pan and cracked two eggs into the opening. I basted the eggs the way she liked them and they were done just as she came to the table. I laid out the biscuits and poured us coffee."

"Don't say it," I told her.

"You'll make a great wife, Mike."

"I told you not to say it."

"So punch me in the mouth with your lips," she told me.

"Wait till you swallow your egg," I told her.

We sat through another day and watched a steady stream of television block out hours and half hours. The news had nothing at all. The weather channel said a cold front was moving into our area and we could expect an early frost this year.

At ten minutes to four the phone rang again. Pat said, "The front car was confirmed."

"How soon you going in?"

"On the way, pal."

"Any problems?"

"Only political. B. B. will smooth things out."

I heard a click and a small lessening in the volume of Pat's voice. "Fine," I said, "see you," and hung up. I wanted to say something else to the party on the line, but I didn't bother.

Velda was sitting on the edge of her chair. "It's going down?"

"Bradley and Candace Amory have located the site. Pat said there's a political problem."

"What kind?"

"He didn't say, but it sounds like an inter-agency squabble. Bennett Bradley is going to handle it, and he damn well better be a good diplomat on this one. A hit like this is so big everybody wants a cut of it."

"Damn," she said, "can they mess it up?"

"They can mess up a headhunter's picnic."

"What do we do?"

"Wait . . . and hope they can keep a lid on this."

She looked at me very seriously, her lower lip clenched between her teeth. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be, is it?"

"No."

"There's trouble. You can feel it too, can't you?"

I nodded. It was like that first Saturday when it all started. It was the way the big city so far away was able to swallow its victims and make them disappear without anyone knowing or caring.

The mountain shadow was coming down again.

I fixed coffee and sandwiches for the guys outside, gave them a fast call and Eddie came in, picked up supper for them both and went back to his vigil. Velda and I had a snack and went back to TV, staying on the local New York channel. So far nothing had happened.

At nine o'clock the weather predictions came true. The cold front had come in on schedule and was making itself felt. Velda pulled the blanket up to her neck and shivered.

"Want me to make a fire?"

"That would be nice."

I got the logs together and laid them up on the firedogs, stuffing some loose kindling under them, making a nice neat arrangement. "This is stupid," I said.

"Why?"

"Trying to keep comfortable while a damn killer's playing a game with us."

"It was his game, Mike."

"The slob didn't have to leave that note."

"Yes, he did."

"Why? Explain that. Why?"

"Mike . . . how did you kill him?"

I stood up and looked around the mantelpiece. "You see a can of fire starter around?"

"No. You didn't answer me."

"Screw it." I looked on both sides of the fireplace.

"Use the newspapers," she told me.

They were neatly stacked against the wall, about two weeks' worth of The New York Times. I grabbed a handful, squatted down and began stripping the pages out, twisting them into cylinders to go under the kindling.

I used up one day's edition and pulled the second one over and nearly ripped the front page off when the thing popped right off the page at me, a two-column photo of a face I hadn't seen in four years and an accompanying article headlined FRANCISCO DUVALLE DIES TONIGHT.

And now, Francisco DuValle was already dead.

"What is it, Mike?"

"They finally executed DuValle," I said.

She took the paper from my hand and read the article. "He had appealed the death sentence for four years. They just came to an end."

"It was my testimony that decided the case. Remember?"

"The verdict was justified. He was a deliberate murderer."

I took the page back and stared at the photo. The face seemed expressionless unless you knew him, because behind the black mask of a heavy, pointed Vandyke beard and an unruly mop of hair that swept forward across his forehead, there was anger and hatred that had erupted into fourteen murders. The eyes appeared flat, but in court they glistened and burned at anybody who had accused him.

When I was on the stand identifying him, they tried to eat me alive. He sat there, tight with controlled anger, not caring that what I said was true, but that his pleasure in the death act had been taken from him. I should have shot him instead of coldcocking him when he made that last attack on the girl, but I hadn't realized who I was taking out.

As I left the stand he said very softly, "You'll die, Hammer. I'll kill you." The guys in the press box heard it and a couple even reported it.

Velda was watching my face as I studied the picture. I could feel myself getting tight as DuValle's soft voice came back to me. My teeth were clenched so tight my jaws ached and she said, "What is it, Mike?"

I turned the page toward her. "Familiar?"

"Only from the court. I was there at the sentencing."

I frowned and said, "Of course . . . how could you see a connection? You only had a short contact and that under stress."

She still didn't get it. "With whom?"

"Have you got any of that makeup they use to cover up your black eye?"

"Erase? It's in my pocketbook."

"Get it."

She brought the tube over and uncapped it. It was a soft white creamy stick, and I laid the paper on the floor and used it on the photo. Carefully, I wiped off the Van Dyke, then took off the mop of hair. Now Duvalle was bald-headed, clean-shaven, and when I trimmed back the ends of the droopy adornment on his upper lip to form a conservative-style mustache, Velda saw the incredible similarity too.

She said, "It's Bennett Bradley."

"No," I told her. "It's Francisco DuValle. They're brothers."

"Mike . . . you'd better be sure."

"I'm sure, doll." I took another long look at the doctored photograph and said, "Penta. I finally got that bastard on the surface."

Francisco DuValle had said it, and Bradley had heard of it, and how he had to do it. You die for killing me.

All this time I had played myself for being the innocent bystander when I was the prime target. I had gone off on a wild-assed goose chase, putting Tony DiCica in the middle and getting one hell of a haul of coke and a possible presidential candidate when all the time the slob I wanted who damn near wiped out Velda was standing right there in front of me.

Stupid. I was stupid. And Bradley-Penta loved the chase. It got everybody involved and took all the heat off him. He could operate any way he wanted and all the blame would go in a different direction.

"How could it happen, Mike?"

"Maybe there was a genetic similarity, kitten. Both of them were cold killers. They made a damn study of the subject and killing became part of their lives. They just had different targets, that's all. DuValle went for the pleasure of killing. It was a sensual thing with him. He got off on each murder, enjoying the entire, senseless act. He was hard to run down because there was no motive except pleasure, like so many of the other serial killers."

"But Bradley, he made a profession out of it. Imagine the audacity of a man like that who could promote himself through the ranks to a position in the State Department. Damn!"

Velda couldn't quite comprehend it. She said, "But State would run a check on him, Mike, they don't simply-"

"Kid, his name most likely is Bradley. His early background could pass inspection, and no one knew about his current activities. He came in as an expert on Penta. Certainly he knew all about him. He could make his case histories look great, almost coming down on the guy, nearly nailing him and missing so closely they couldn't afford to let him go."

"You said he had a replacement coming in."

"Sure. He even arranged his own transfer as part of his cover. He was given an assignment to assassinate the vice president of the United States by an unfriendly nation because in his position he could work in those circles. He accepted the contract, probably made some deliberate errors on the Penta job that made State recall him, and got reassigned here."

"There was no attempt made on the vice president's life, Mike."

"No, because before he could lay the groundwork, they executed his brother and his mind went into one of those crazy turns that comes with being out of balance. He flipped, really flipped."

"For the first time he acted out of context. He was going to make his brother's promise come true. He knew about me, knew where I lived and where I worked. He had the whole scenario planned out and made arrangements to meet me that Saturday. His loose point was that he didn't know what I looked like. All he had to do was check a newspaper morgue, and he wouldn't have missed. My photo files are an inch thick. All that expertise he had developed went down the drain because he got emotional about a kill."

While I was telling her, I had jammed more paper under the logs. The matches were in a small cast-iron box on the mantel. I lit one and touched the papers off and we watched the fire take hold.

"Funny," I said. "In a way it didn't matter at all. That super ego trip he went on in leaving the Penta note got him right back in the business again. He was the only expert on Penta that State had and he was here, on the spot. Now he knew me. Now he wouldn't be careless again."

"What Bradley didn't realize was that his bosses overseas had a different way of thinking. They're fanatically nationalistic and had paid him for a political hit and instead he had opened himself up to a possible capture and interrogation which would disclose their scheme, and they wanted him dead."

She picked up the poker and stirred the fire. It was starting to catch, the dry logs beginning to crackle.

"There's no love lost in this crime business. Fells and Bern were old contemporaries of his. He had probably used them on his jobs, so they had a close-knit deal going for them for years. They were bound to know a lot about each other during those years. Now suddenly Bern and Fells get a contract offered them to hit Bradley for not going after his primary target."

"How would they know where to find him?"

"All they knew was what the newspapers mentioned about the note, but that was enough. I was their lead to Penta. They thought I would have to know something about him, thus the snatch."

"They could have killed you."

"No. They had too much professional in them. That would bring too much heat down anyway."

"They killed Smiley," she reminded me.

"Honey, those two were real jellybeans. They were in a hurry and used their old contacts on the job. When they got done with Smiley, they didn't want to leave any witness around so they snuffed him. Stupidly, they used an old place that was a safe house once without realizing Penta . . . or Bradley, knew about it too. Even Bradley's timing was great. He was always presumed to be doing something else."

"Scratch Fells and Bern," she mused.

"Two quick, accurate shots and gone. Too bad he didn't have time to shake the place down. Maybe he tried, but that house was set up by experts and those two had a clever hiding place." I let out a laugh. "I wonder if it's still owned by the government."

"Mike . . . when I was in the hospital . . ."

"That first orderly in your room was him. He wanted you dead, kitten."

"That's crazy!"

"Look . . . you might have had a quick look at him in our office."

"But I didn't."

"But you did have a tape of his voice. Someplace around there would be other tapes he made and a voice-print from yours would be another point of proof that could nail him. One thing. He wasn't dumb. He knew he'd made that call and wanted to double-check on it."

"Making that tape was almost accidental. I never thought . . ."

"He couldn't take the chance. Secondly, he wanted me to make myself vulnerable. He knew damn well I'd go ape if you got knocked off and come right out in the open. Luckily, Pat kept the cops on your door and stymied anything from him in that direction. Hell, he was getting plenty of openings on me anyway. He was there when I said I was going to the office and had plenty of time while I was there to get in position and damn near nail me from the car."

I stopped, looked at the fire and thought back to the way I'd kept sloughing off the motive. It was as though there had been none at all.

"You know what the pitiful thing is?" I said. "I was the one who couldn't see it. I got going on the DiCica bit and everything I did was a cover for Bradley. He was on top of the whole deal like the lid on a jar and everything was going his way in spades. If he could assist in nailing that drug cache, there would be no demotion . . . he'd go up another notch and be even more important to his employers than ever. He'd be able to pull off political assassinations almost at will."

"Look how he put himself into the middle of it. He didn't want any suspicion thrown on him now at all. He volunteers for the scout car with Candace, gives his report to our guys, but someplace he's stopped long enough to alert both federal agencies and get them in a political scuffle. He's supposedly off somewhere smoothing ruffled feathers while the bust is going on, and do you know where he is?"

"Where?" she asked. I could feel the tension in her voice.

"He's on the way back here," I said. "He can make his hit on us and still get back in the play in the city. Nobody will have missed him in all the excitement, or have bothered to look for him, since he would have already planted an alibi."

The fire was blazing away by now, but Velda shivered and I was getting that feeling again. I was computing hours and minutes and knew that what I had just said was true.

I gave Velda a yank away from the brightness of the fire, and we darted in the shadows where the phone was. I picked it up, listened and tapped the bar twice, then put it down.

"The line's cut, isn't it?" Velda asked.

"It would have to be at the main road. There are no poles around here so the wires must go underground out to Route Twenty-eight."

"You can tell the guards-"

"No. He'd have a two-way on this frequency with him. If the guard are on their toes, they might pick him up with those night scopes."

"Might?" There was an odd note of finality in her voice.

Time was going by fast. I had to get in the game and Velda wasn't going to be able to move with me. I said, "Come here," and pulled her into the hallway. I got the chair over, stood up and shoved the hatch cover back. "You're going up there."

She pulled back, her eyes on the black hole in the ceiling. "I can't."

"Nuts. You have to. I had to force her onto the chair, then lift her up into the darkness. When her feet were inside, I handed her the flashlight. At least she had something to hold on to. I told her to stay quiet and don't move, then felt for the hatch and put it back in place.

There was no way I could douse the fire, so I pushed a couple of chairs together in front of the TV, propped enough pillows from the sofa in them to make it look like they were occupied and went to the back bedroom and slid the window open. I crawled out, closed the window and stood there, trying to catch any sound while my eyes adjusted to the night.

When we first got there, I had imprinted the area on my mind and now I was bringing it all back into focus. If Bradley was out there, he could have night-vision glasses on him that could pick up any movement on the terrain.

I went down on my belly, crawling and stopping, trying to bury myself in the grass. Bradley wouldn't have had time for a ground survey like I had, so any small contour I might make could just be a hillock to him. The arc I made took me away from the rock outcropping, circled around it, then I came in from the other end.

Now I could see where the guard was. It was Eddie's station, and I could see him, a vague silhouette against the light. I didn't want him to make any sudden turn and blow me away so I didn't say anything until I was there, right on top of him, and reached out my hand and grabbed his arm.

The damn gun toppled out of his fingers and he fell over on me, the blood wet and sticky from where it was seeping out of his head. I picked up the rifle and sighted it at the other rock hill. What was night became a greenish-tinted dusk where everything was dim, but discernible. I turned the night scope on the other pile of rocks and saw a pair of legs sticking out where they shouldn't be and threw the rifle down.

The bastard was here! Damn it, I should have stayed in the house instead of trying to contact the guard posts. He'd had all the time he needed to nullify their positions and now he'd be inside. He'd take his time. He'd make sure he held the high ground and wanted to take me by surprise. If he found the place empty, he'd have to revise his thinking. But first he'd make sure. He would have found the car in the back, so we weren't far off. He'd realize that I couldn't move fast with Velda and that I sure wouldn't leave her.

So he'd search. First the rooms, then for less obvious places.

I was running like hell, the .45 in my hand. I got to the house and stayed on the grass, edging to the back. The lock would have been easy enough for a pro to open. Or he could have knocked a pane out of the door window, reached in and turned the knob. That didn't matter. What mattered was that he was in there.

My feet felt the gravel and I stepped over it, got to the window and pushed it up. This was the one time I could die in a hurry, but the window went easily, he wasn't in the room and I slid in as silently as my shadow.

In the living room the firelight was dancing, throwing a dull orange glow over the place, the sound of the logs burning obscuring any small sounds I might have heard. I stepped out into the weird patterns the fire was making on the walls, listened again, then got down almost to my knees and started an animal crawl across the room.

The beam of a pencil flash made a quick splash of light around the corner. Then I heard it, the drag of chair legs across the floor. A hand suddenly slammed against the ceiling and he laughed. The bastard laughed!

I went in just as I heard a muffled scream from Velda and there in the dim, weaving light patterns were a pair of male legs sticking down from the attic opening, slowly going up as he raised himself with his arms.

For a second I was going to snatch him down. I changed my mind.

I cocked the .45, took real deliberate aim and touched the trigger. The gun blasted into a roaring yellowish light and for that one second I saw the leg jerk and twitch with a grotesque motion, and even before he could scream, I did it again to the other leg and the whole man came tumbling out of the ceiling opening, his hand still holding onto Velda, pulling her down with him.

My foot kicked him to one side, and I pulled Velda to her feet so we both could look down at Bradley. The impact of the slugs had shocked him almost breathless. Then the pain really hit him. His hands reached out, clawing wildly. He looked up at me with eyes so full of hate they seemed nearly black.

Quietly, I said, "He was your brother, wasn't he?"

He started to go wild then, thrashing his body in fury and pain, still trying to drag himself away. He was leaving a trail of blood behind and his face was tight with a screaming grimace. "My twin, you bastard! You killed my twin brother. You killed me, you rotten . . ."

I leaned down and put the muzzle of the .45 directly against Bradley's forehead. "If I do," I told him, "I'll cut off more than your fingers, Penta. I'll do it with your own knife."

Velda was standing there, not interfering, coldly observing.

I said, "There's a CB radio in the car, doll. The state troopers guard Channel Nine. Call them."

She nodded once and went to the door.

I was grinning down at Bradley. I wondered what the State Department was going to say. In a way it was too bad he was going back alive. The publicity was going to be terrible. It was going to louse up the big story that would put the NYPD on top and give Ray Wilson a glory sendoff and make Candace president some day.

The grin got to him. I was grinning at him the way I had at his brother back in the courtroom. Suddenly his body wrenched into spasms. He started ripping his clothes and screamed, "You killed me!" He glanced down and was ripping at his clothes again and screamed, "You killed me!"

"Not yet," I told him. He tried to twitch his head away from the gun, but I held it on him. He had thrashed around so he was pointing away from me, blood spatters streaking the wall. I felt some of it on my face and grinned again.

His hands were trying to reach his shattered legs, the agony foaming at his mouth. He saw my grin again and choked out another scream, making it into words. "You killed my brother and you killed me!"

Then he found the small-caliber pistol his hands had really been groping for and brought it up in a sweeping, deadly arc, one finger tightening around the trigger.

There was one smashing roar of the .45. His blood went all over the place. Fresh specks of crimson were on the back of my hand. I stood up slowly and gave him a hard grin he couldn't see any more.

I said, "Now I killed you, you shit."