Villiers Touch

33. Russell Hastings

Russ Hastings sat in his little office with a hand wrapped around a beaded cold can of soda. Bill Burgess was staring at the Post headline-“JUDD SUCCUMBS”-as if he hadn’t already read the entire story twice. Hastings said, “I am going to miss him.”

“He must’ve been quite a guy.”

“He was a good man.”

“Not much you can add to that,” Burgess said, and glanced at the ticker. His shoulders stirred; he changed his tone: “Dow Jones down more than fourteen points today, Russ-Exchange Index down sixty-two cents. Amazing how much impact one man’s dying can have. I wish I’d met him. What’s that you’re reading? You look like you’re trying to memorize it off the page.”

“The Act of Nineteen-thirty-four. Ever read it?”

“On my list of favorite reading, it’s second only to God’s Little Acre,” Burgess said. “I confess I have not read it. You find something fascinating?”

“Rule Ten B-Five.”

“Oh, sure. Yes. Absolutely. Now I comprehend everything.” Burgess rolled his eyes upward and threw up his hands.

“It says here,” Hastings drawled, “all investors have an equal right to material information that might affect stock values. In other words, anybody who’s privy to inside information can’t act on it before it becomes public knowledge-otherwise he’s guilty of fraud.”

Burgess sat up. “Ah-hah!”

“Villiers had information about Elliot Judd’s health before it became public knowledge, and he acted on it, and we can prove it.”

“How much could we hit him with?”

“On that charge? Maybe a three-year sentence.”

Burgess slid back down in the chair. “Or maybe we get a bleeding-heart judge who slaps his wrist and turns him loose on a suspended sentence. It’s not good enough, Russ.”

“Better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“Christ, I wish we could act on the evidence we got out of Wyatt. Villiers gave the orders to burgle Claiborne’s files.”

“But all we’ve got is Wyatt’s word against Villiers’. You know what happens to Wyatt’s credibility in front of a jury when some crack lawyer gets done tearing him to shreds. He could swear the sun came up this morning and you wouldn’t get twelve men to believe him.”

“Well, hell, Russ, we’ve got Wyatt tying him into stock fraud and we’ve got Manny Berkowitz in Chicago tying him into the Mafia, and-”

“If Wyatt makes a poor witness,” Hastings cut in sourly, “what would you call Berkowitz? We can’t go into court without witnesses more reputable than those two-we’d get laughed right out of the building. We’ve got to find an unimpeachable witness, or concrete evidence. Diane doesn’t know enough. The only things we’ve got on paper so far are documents that implicate Wyatt. That’s no help at all.”

“Then what do we do? Sit on our hands?”

“We’ve got to wait for Villiers to make a mistake. We’ve got a four-man surveillance team tailing him. We’ve got a tap on his phone in the hotel, and by tomorrow we’ll have bugs in his suite and George Hackman’s office. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I don’t-Wait a minute.” He turned in his chair, picked up Wyatt’s signed statement, switched on the desk lamp, and hunched over the deposition, thumbing pages back rapidly. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I know,” Burgess said. “I saw the light go on.”

Hastings found his place. “Here. Wyatt says Isher kept warning Villiers he wasn’t going to be able to raise enough money to finance the operation, and Villiers kept saying he had a source of capital if he needed it.”

“So?”

Hastings closed the deposition and turned off the lamp. “So what’s the source?”

“I don’t get you.”

“What’s his source of money, Bill? We’ve closed his Montreal operation. He certainly can’t go to the usual sources-banks, brokers, factors, insurance companies, investment trusts, professional moneylenders. After this morning they’d slam the door in his face; they wouldn’t risk lending a dime to a man in his position, let alone the hundreds of millions he needs. He didn’t have the money on tap already, and yet he’s confident he can get it whenever he wants it. Now, even if he had a legitimate source for that much money, they wouldn’t produce it fast enough to do his scheme any good. They’d have to investigate the whole thing down to the last line of fine print. They’d have to spend weeks drawing up legal documentation. Narrow it down, it’s obvious-knowing his background. He’s got to go to the mob for the money.”

Burgess blinked and stared. “Sure. Christ, it’s got to be.”

“All right, then. Who does he go to? Which mobster? That’s in your department, not mine; I don’t know who’s who in the hierarchy. But there can’t be very many Mafiosi he could approach who could come up with a nine-figure sum overnight.”

“Civetta,” Burgess said promptly. “Sal Senna is Villiers’ man in Montreal-and Senna traces back to Civetta’s organization. Civetta’s the money man in New York, he controls the loan sharks and the numbers. It’s got to be Civetta, nobody else fits.”

“Villiers has to get in touch with him soon, then. Can your people plant bugs in Civetta’s hangouts?”

Burgess made a face. “We’ve had him bugged for months. Either he knows it or he’s careful by nature. He rarely talks on the phone at all, only to his wife. When he wants a business conference he picks a nightclub with a loud orchestra or he drives his pals out into the woods somewhere and they talk half a mile from the nearest building. We’ve even bugged his car, but they don’t talk in the car. They get out and talk too far away for the mikes to pick them up.”

“Then we’ll have to bug Villiers.”

“I guess it’s worth a try,” Burgess said without great enthusiasm. “I’ll have a man bump into him in his hotel lobby and plant a miniature mike in his pocket. But those James Bond gimmicks rarely live up to their publicity. The transmitters are short-range, you’ve got to have your receiver within a few hundred yards of them, and Villiers moves fast-it’d be a miracle if we could keep up. All it takes is a flickering neon light or a radio station nearby or one of those handy-dandy executive jammers in a briefcase, and all you’re going to pick up is a noise like bacon sizzling in a hot frying pan. And even if you get past all those obstacles, you’ve got to have good acoustics and an absolute minimum of background noise before you can expect to get a signal clear enough to record on tape so that the voices can be recognized.”

“Do it anyway-we’ve got to use every tool we can.”

“What about the admissibility of that kind of evidence, even if we get it?”

“We’ll get a warrant. That way it’ll be admissible in court.”

“If we pick up anything. I hate putting all our eggs in a basket this flimsy, Russ.”

“Then find me another one. In the meantime, get your people moving on it. We’ll need a federal warrant and all the gadgetry and people to operate it. You’d better get going-no telling how much time we have.”

Shortly after the Market closed in the afternoon, Miss Sprague buzzed and announced coolly, “A Miss McCloud to see you, sir. She doesn’t have an appointment.”

“Send her in, please.”

He stood up, composing himself, surprised; he hadn’t expected her, he wasn’t prepared.

Carol appeared in the doorway. Her lovely eyes were round and wide, her uncertain smile was sweet and touching. Her hair made a thick, silky fall to her shoulders. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful.

“Hi,” he said. “Come in-shut the door. I didn’t expect-”

“I know.” She came into the room, moving lightly and quickly-soft, slim, stunning. Hastings veiled his eyes.

“I have to talk to you, Russ, and it couldn’t wait. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come. I feel awfully apologetic.”

“Nonsense.” He held the chair for her and perched on the corner of the desk. “I’m glad you came.”

“Are you? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m a little jumpy. You see, I’m pulling up stakes, and for me that can be a risk.”

“You’re leaving New York?”

“Taking the night flight to Rome. I’m all packed, I’ve given up my apartment, everything’s arranged.”

“But-how long will you be away?”

“I’m not coming back, Russ.”

“I see.”

“I’m going to disappear,” she said. “I’m going to assume another identity. I’ve got all the papers to document it-I’ve been working it out for years.”

“But what will you do?” he asked, hearing the lame sound of his own voice.

She laughed. “You look so kind and concerned, Russ, your eyes are so fond. Please don’t worry about me. I’m not going to ‘do’ anything, in the sense you mean. I’m retiring while I’ve still got my looks and a little bit of my soul left. I’ve got plenty of money, I don’t have to work. Maybe I’ll join the jet set and drift from the grand-prix racing circuit to the film festivals and back. I really don’t have any plans-I just want to drift for a while until I decide what I want. I’ll dye my hair and change my style of doing things, and I doubt I’ll be recognized by anybody who knows me.”

He turned his hand over. “I don’t really know what to say.”

She laughed, and cut the laugh off; she reached out to touch his hand. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you, honestly. I’m very nervous-forgive me. I didn’t really make a special trip down here during your office hours to say good-bye. I would have called you on the phone. We’ve had a silly sort of time together, but you’re one of the few people I think of as my friend.”

“I’m glad to know that,” he said. “It means a good deal to me.”

“Then I’m happy.” She gave him a warm smile, but her eyes seemed to have lost focus; she pulled her head around toward the window and steadfastly kept her gaze in that direction, turned away from him, while she spoke: “But that’s not why I came. These are business hours, and this is business, Russ. I know the SEC is after Mason Villiers-I suppose by now a lot of people know it, but Mason isn’t worried, he thinks you can’t touch him.”

“He may be right, too. He covers his tracks better than an Apache Indian. But how much do you know about him?”

“I know a great deal about him,” she said in a low tone. “He’s owned me for years.”

He did not voice the instantly obvious question; he only watched her averted face. He could see the beat of a pulse at her throat. Disconcerted, she fumbled with her oversized handbag, sniffed, grinned derisively, and took a thick, folded sheaf of typewritten pages from it. She reached out to drop the document on his desk, near his hand; she said, “I’d prefer you don’t read that until I’m gone.”

“What is it?”

“The story of my life,” she said with a twisted mouth. “Some of it, anyway-the part that concerns Mason Villiers. It should make interesting reading in a courtroom. I’ve had it notarized-I don’t know whether it will stand up in court, but I’m afraid it’s the best I could do. I’m not going to testify in person, I’m too frightened, and I’ve got too much to lose. If that makes it worthless, then I apologize to you, Russ. But even if you can’t use it in court, you can find facts in it, and you can trace back to those same facts through other people. You’ll know where to look for proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“It’s all sordid and tedious, Russ, I don’t want to go over it with you, sitting here face to face like this. I want to remember your face with warmth in it. Once you’ve read my statement, you won’t think of me that way any more. I’ve done some unspeakable things.”

“We all have,” he said. “I don’t think anything you could tell me would change my feeling for you.”

“How do you feel about me? I know you made an absurd marriage proposal to me once, but you were drunk, and we were both upset, and none of it made any sense. Now we’re on your turf instead of mine, for the first time. Does it make a difference in the way you feel?”

“No.”

“I thought perhaps you’d thought about what I was. I had visions of your teeth grinding every time you thought about me.”

He laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t know very much about love,” she said softly. “Oh, I guess all women think about it, but I think there’s no room left inside me for love-I mean, the real kind, between a woman and a man. I’ve been used by too many men.”

“There are other kinds of love,” he said. “I’m not going to propose to you again, and I’m not going to fall to pieces when you leave for Rome. We’ll probably never see each other again. I regret that, but I’ll live with it. I’ll be grateful to have known you.”

“I’m glad,” she whispered. She stood up to go, but Hastings put out a detaining hand. Her back registered taut reaction. He turned her around toward him and put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly, and then her throat made a groaning sound, and her fingers bit deep into his back.

She wrenched herself away and smiled. Her eyes were moist. “You’re so incredibly good, Russ. I wish you everything.” She halved her smile, gazed at him intently as if to fix his image in her mind, and wheeled abruptly away, walking straight to to the door with lithe strides, going right on through without once looking back. His last glimpse of her remained in his vision like an afterglow after she was gone: God, she was so lovely. He turned back to his desk, sat down very slowly, and reached for the document she had left behind.