Bannerman's Law (38 page)

He touched Bannerman
’
s arm in passing. The touch
said that Paul should feel no guilt for asking the favor.
He could not have known. There was no touch for Carla
or for Molly. He looked longingly at a scotch bottle that
sat unopened on a corner table. Bannerman fixed him a
drink over ice. He took ice water for himself. Belkin
noticed.

“
Do you intend to take action
?”
he asked.

Banne
r
man's gesture was noncommittal.
“
We have a
man
,”
he said,
“
Joseph Hickey, who apparently burgla
rized
Carla's
sister's apartment and may also have mu
r
dered her. We have a maniac, known to us only as Claude,
who is a serial killer being hunted by the police
.”

Standing, one foot on a chair, Ba
nn
e
r
man outlined the
events of the day as recounted by Molly and Ca
rl
a. Tha
t
this Claude, apparently, had known Lisa by sight. That he resented being blamed for her death. That he had spotted
Carla this morning, followed her, and later felt compelled
to tell her that he was innocent of her sister's death. He
told her that she was also being followed by another man
who turned out to be Hickey.

“
Yo
u
keep saying
apparently
.”
Carla stared at the
floor.
“
The man had Lisa's things. Everything else Claude
told me turned out to be true
.”

Bannerman held up a hand.
“
For the record
,”
he told Be
l
k
i
n,
“
the police don't believe that Claude killed Lisa
either
.”
He recounted how Hickey had been traced
through his license numbe
r—p
rovided by Claud
e—a
nd
how Yuri had rushed to that address while Carla tried to
keep Claude on the phone.

Molly started to speak, as if to correct a detail. She
thought better of it.

“
Yuri found Hickey dead. Murdered, no doubt, by Claude, who by then was gone. Claude had mutilated
Hickey. He did so in much the same way that Hickey, we
think, mutilated Lisa. Two other men came to Hickey
’
s
apartment. One of them fire
d
through the door, using a
silenced pistol, which means he probably thought he was shooting at Hickey. Yuri, wounded by now, grappled with him. He had found a gun, apparently Hickey
’
s. Yuri man
aged to injure one of the men
.
.
.
”

“
He tore out his fucking throat
,”
said Carla.
“
Half of it was still under his nails
.”

“
All the same
,”
Bannerman said patiently,
“
those two
men were gone by the time Molly and Carla arrived. Yuri
was unconscious. They did what they could for him. They
stayed with him until an ambulance arrived
.”

Left unsaid, was that they didn't have to stay. If Yuri
were not a friend, they would, and should, have left un
seen. A flicker of appreciation on Belkin
’
s face said that he understood this nonetheless.

“
The complications are these
,”
said Banne
r
ma
n
.
“
Molly and Carla had an encounter with the FBI this
morning. They were subsequently identified as former con
tract agents. By now, two women matching their descrip
tions will have been placed at
Hickey's
apartment. The
FBI will know that they arrived after the fact but they'll
surely want them arrested and held as material witnesses
.”

“
What do you intend
?”

Bannerman looked at his watch. “L
esko
should be here
within two hours. The local police know him by reputa
tion. I will ask him to act as intermediary. If I can, I'd
like to keep Molly and Carla out of custody and certainly
out of the media
.”

“
What of the two men
?”
asked Colonel Belk
i
n.
“
Why
would they want to kill Hickey
?”

Bannerman shrugged. He gestured toward the television
set.
“
All we know about him is that he's a former cop,
fired for cause. Lesko should be able to find out what he's
been up to since then
.”

“
Other than burglary. And murdering young girls
.”

“
Yes
.”

Belkin sipped his drink. Doing so, he noticed that
Molly Fa
rr
ell was looking search
i
ngly at Paul. He caught
her eye. She looked away.

“
What are you not telling me
?”
he asked Bannerman.

Bannerman had noticed the exch
a
nge.

“
There is
,”
he chose his words,
“
another element.
Molly thinks that Lisa Benedict may have been killed be
cause of something she learned about an institution called
Sur La Mer. It's a rest home for movie people. She thinks
that Hickey may have been in this institution's employ
.”

“
And ordered to kill her
?”

”I.
.
.
find that hard to believe. Molly has been through all of Lisa's notes. Even she acknowledges that there was
nothing in them worth killing for
.”

“
Someone surely had
a
reason to kill Hickey. And
surely you intend to look into it
.”

”I do
,”
Ban
n
e
r
ma
n
nodded.
“
But through the police.
Through Lesko
.”

“
You will take no action on your own
?”

Bannerman made a face. They had already argued this
question.
“
Such as what
?”
he asked.
“
Ca
rl
a wanted to
go there tonight with John Waldo. Find someone in author
ity. Stick a knife against his eyes and begin asking ques
tions. But that person, to say nothing of the institution,
could be totally innocent of all this and John Waldo would
probably have had to take out a guard or two on his
way in
.”

Belk
i
n had been watching Molly. He cocked his head
toward her.
“
May I
?”
he asked Bannerman. Bannerman frowned, but nodded.

“
Are they innocent
?”
he asked.

”I don
'
t think so
.”

“
You have reasoned, I take it, that because Hickey
stole materials that pertained to this information, the insti
tution must have sent him
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
And there is no doubt that Hickey stole them
?”

“
He had some of Lisa's things in his apartment. Claude
described them to Carla
.
He has them now
.”

“
This
.
.
.
maniac
.”
Belkin seemed dubious.
“
This
sequence killer
.”

“
Serial
killer. Yes
.”

“
How do you know he didn't have them right along
?”

Molly started to answer. She found that she could not.

“
It's a very good question
,”
Paul said to her.

Carla shook her head.
“
Then he would have volun
teered that he found them. He didn't. I had to tell him
what to look for
.”

“
There's more
,”
Molly said to Belkin.
“
There's this
girl, DiDi Fene
r
ty, who had copies of the stolen notes.
Hickey followed us to her house so he knew we talked to her. After I left, she called Sur La Mer to ask if Lisa had
been there the day she died. They said no. Soon after that, she got a call warning her to lay low, keep people around
her, and not to trust anyone she doesn't know except Carla

and me. The caller, a man, slight accent, probably Ger
manic, knew our names
.”

The KGB Colonel looked at Ba
nn
e
r
man, one eyebrow
raised.
“
Paul? You intended to keep this from me
?”

Bannerman sighed.
“
What would you have con
cluded
?”

“
That you have an ally at Su
r
La Mer
.”

Bannerman shook his head.
“
Any number of police
men, FBI agents, perhaps even reporters, knew their names
by that time. The Fene
r
ty girl's name was left on Lisa's
tape machine. They would have expected Car
l
a to look
her up. I don't know who would call with such a warning
or why. But it
'
s just as easy to believe that we have an
ally among the authorities
.”

Belk
i
n heard little conviction in these words. A Los
Angeles policeman or a federal agent with a German ac
cent? He knew that Bannerman himself did not believe
it. “
Y
ou were afraid, I take it, that I would send my own
people to this place
?”

“
It crossed my mind
.”

Bannerman decided that he'd like a splash of Dewa
r
's
after all.
“
That's all we'd need
,”
he said, pouring.
“
First
we have Carla and Molly, both of whom have had a KGB price on their heads at one time or another, identified as
former agents of mine. Then we have a KGB
captain, although not yet identi
fi
ed as such, found in a room where the possible killer of Carla Benedict's sister
has himself been carved like a roast. We have Carla, who incidentally is known to work with a knife, placed at that
scene. Next we have one faction or the other raiding an
old folks home for actors, a place that may or may not
have employed
Hi
ckey, and almost certainly leaving a few
more bodies behind
.”

Bannerman sipped
.
“
The media would notice, Leo.
And given the players, a dozen intelligence services would
start wondering what's going on here. Your mission would
be blown. You'd be expelled within a day
.”

Susan, sitting on the bed, shook her head as if to clear it.
Good point, she thought wryly. Can't let a Russian spy
go home empty handed.

Belk
i
n read her expression. He touched her shoulder in
passing, patting it. The gesture was meant, variously, to say that he understood, that he was fond of her, and that
his purpose here would not, in any case, result in nu
clear winter
.

“
My suggestion
,”
Banne
r
man was saying,
“
is that we
proceed in this way. We'll let the police investigate Hick
ey's role in all this and any connection he might have
with Sur La Mer. They will look for th
e
two men who
shot Yuri, and, given that one of them is badly hurt, they'll
probably be successful. We will involve ourselves only if
they fail but by then, through Lesko, I hope to know every
thing they've learned in the meantime
.”

The smaller man nodded. His expression said that this
was sensible. He waited.

Bannerman
’s
eyes met Susan's. They moved to Ca
rl
a.
“
We'r
e
also going to try to take Claude
,”
he said.

“
Hey
.”
Her chin came up.
“
Wait a minute
.”

Bannerman made a face.
“
What are you going to say,
Carla? That he's on our side
?”

“
He's on Lisa's side. He gave us Hickey. Without him,
Hickey would have been dead anyway and we wouldn't
know shit
.”

“
We'll know even more if we can question him
,”
he
said.
“
But that's not the point. If we take Claude we'll have something to trade. No publicity for us, none for Leo, Yuri is not detained and you two stay out of jail
.”

“
He's been straight with me
,”
Carla said quietly.
“
He
didn't have to stick his neck out for me
.”

“
For Pete's sake, Carla
,”
Molly muttered.

“
He didn't
,”
Carla insisted.
“
He would have
.
.
.
”

“
What he
did,``
Molly said through her teeth,
“
was
rape and butcher six other college girls just like Lisa. What
he
will
do is rape and butcher at least six more if he isn't
stopped. Tell Paul the rest of it
.”

“
What rest
?”

“Tell him what I heard while you were still on the
phone with him
.”

“
What? That I didn't want Yuri walking in on him
and ending up like Hickey? Sure. I told him to get away
from there
.”

“
That's not the reason you gave Claude. Tell Paul what
you said to him
.”

Car
l
a stared at her, angrily though blankly. She seemed
not to remember.

“
You said he was your friend
,”
Molly reminded her.
She looked up at Paul.
“
She told Claude he was her
friend
.”

It was not so much that Weinberg was angry with her.

Well, yes he was.

He had as much as given his word that neither of the
Dunvilles would be harmed. She answered that the father and
son were at odds. To the son, killing seemed a last resort. To
the father, it seemed a first principle. The father might well
have prevailed. Better to leave the son unencumbered.

He could not deny the logic of her explanation. And
he did, as always, trust in her judgment. She was there,
after all. She'd heard them both. The son said that the
father would leave no witnesses, perhaps not even himself.
The father did not think to deny it. She made her decision.

Except that he did not believe her. Logic, he felt sure,
had very little to do with her decision. He knew her. He
had looked into her eyes as he listened to her words. He
saw the remains of recent tears. They were hardly for
Carleton Du
nv
ille the elder. Barbara wanted Ca
r
leton the
elder dead. That was, the long and the short of it. Still, he
would like to have been consulted.

They had driven west, then south, from the Casitas
Reservoir, crossing the San Gabriel Mountains, following
the signs to Pasadena.
Weinberg's
reason for going there
was that there was no reason. He knew nothing of Pasa
dena except that it was associated with an annual football
game, a sport to which he was wholly indifferent, and a
parade involving roses. Nothing in his background would have suggested that he might go there. Logic would have
suggested that he drive through the night, far north or far
west, putting as much distance as possible between himself
and Sur La Mer, probably leaving the state.

Weinberg, like Banne
r
man, chose a Holiday Inn as their
place of rest for the night. It was near a convention center.
Large, busy, undistinguished, no bellboys, no need for any
one but Barbara to be seen. Barbara registered, paying
cash in advance. She wrote that she was Mrs. Gabriella
Ca
n
sino, traveling with her child, Maria
,
and would need
a cot in their room.

Weinberg, with Nellie, waited in the bathroom while
the cot was delivered and again while a room service tray
was brought in. Alone at last, Weinberg sat with young
Carleton's
briefcase and opened it. Barbara took it from
him. She told him to shower and shave.

Nellie, picking at a crabmeat salad, could not get
enough of the television set in their room. There were
thirty-one stations, or channels as Alan called them, and
all were in color. She could go forward, or back
ward, or jump from one to the other just by pressing little
square buttons with arrows on them.

She had heard about television. She had even glimpsed
it once through a window at Sur La Mer. But she had not
imagined that there was so much to see. There were programs about nature, cooking, world events, westerns
...
there was even Ga
r
bo doing Anna Ka
r
enina again, as a
talkie this time. And in color!

“
Where you live
,”
she asked Barbara, wide-eyed,
“
do
you have one of these
?”

“
Um
.
.
.
what's that
?”
Barbara glanced in from the
bathroom where she was cleaning a residue of adhesive
from her husband's face.
“
Oh
,”
she said, smiling now.
“
Yes. Almost everybody has one
.”

“
And it's free? All of it
?”

”Almost all.
For what it's worth
.”

Nellie raised an eyebrow at the indifferent response.
“
But it's like having a theater right in your home. Dozens
of theaters. How could you bear to do anything else
?”

Another smile. Barbara checked her watch.
“
It's almost
ten, Nellie. Aren't you sleepy
?”

She shook her head.
“
I'm too excited
,”
she said,
squirming.
“
Thank you, Alan. This truly is wonderful
.”

Weinberg blinked. Then he remembered his promise.
”I didn't mean television, Nellie. I meant
.
.
.
” He
stopped himself. Barbara was wiping his upper lip with
alcohol. Just as well.

He turned to the vanity mirror, examining the result.
“
You haven't told me what you think
,”
he said.

No, she hadn't.

She would have said that she liked his old face better.
But she wanted to hear him say that to her. First. And
also that it didn't matter. That to him she was still beauti
ful. Even more so. She needed to hear that.
“
It doesn't
look very Jewish
,”
she said.

He grunted. So I'm told.
“
It's sort of the J
e
wish gang
ster look
,”
he said.
“
Like George Bancroft
.”

“
Who
?”