Dirty Harry 02 - Death on the Docks (12 page)

It was unfortunate this trio’s discussion couldn’t have been wired but that would be hoping for too much. It was to escape just such clandestine scrutiny that they met in a public place like this.

Then Harry decided to try a bold experiment that would very likely lead to a lot more trouble than he needed. He was going to expose himself and compel them to take action. It was now time to emerge from the woodwork.

Yet he was anxious not to make it seem like he had caught on to them. They would be then confronted with a dilemma: on the one hand, maybe he was staking them out; on the other, maybe his being at Zim’s at two in the morning was a pure coincidence. In either event Harry was operating on the premise that he would present them with too great a temptation to resist.

So he deliberately called attention to himself. Throwing himself into the role of a drunk who has had a few too many, he knocked his plate, still half-filled with a Spanish omelette, onto the floor. The crash resounded through the coffee shop, causing heads to turn. Harry pretended to ignore the curious faces peering at him.

When the waitress appeared, he told her the omelette was inedible, which was not the case at all. The waitress, who looked like she’d much rather be asleep, was justifiably indignant. “Sir, if you don’t like our food you can let me know but that doesn’t give you any right to throw it on the floor.”

Harry gave her a disdainful glance and brushed past her.

“Sir, you still have to pay for your food.” Under her breath she cursed him mercilessly.

Harry continued out of the coffee shop, dismissing her with a peremptory gesture. He reminded himself that when this was all over—if it ever did get all over—he would have to return and give her a good tip for taking part, however unwittingly, in this little charade he’d contrived.

As he made his way through the lobby at a very cautious pace, half-lurching in emulation of a man well in his cups, he tried to restrain himself from looking around. There was no question that his victims had noticed him and the commotion he’d created—everyone in the coffee-shop had—but had they correctly identified him and having done that, decided to follow him? Ah, Harry thought, how could they not? Callahan too bombed to even see straight: it was like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Instead of proceeding directly toward the lobby exit, Harry chose the door that led out into the deserted pool area. It would be assumed that in his intoxicated state he had mistaken one door for the other.

Although he heard someone shout at him, warning him that the pool was not open at two in the morning, no one attempted to impede his progress, such as it was.

He could hear footsteps in back of him but whose they were he had no way of determining. Not until he was at the pool itself did he allow himself the luxury of turning around.

Light was sufficient to catch a glimpse of yourself in the pool whose chlorine-blue water now appeared almost completely black. There were, however, enough shadows to get lost in. Which is exactly what Harry did.

But not quick enough . . .

“Over there, I see him over there!” Passaretti was trying to keep his voice down but in the silence and the still warm air it carried anyway.

“Where?”

“There, there!”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. Looks like he’s throwing up.”

And indeed it did. Harry was standing, with his back partially turned toward them, his head lowered out of sight. To complete the effect he began to retch. In the meantime, he had his .44 Magnum gripped firmly in his hands.

“Take him now.” Passaretti was speaking louder because he assumed that Harry, in his misery, would be unaware of any intrusive presence.

By his voice Harry had a fairly good idea of where Passaretti had positioned himself; he was just shy of the door to the lobby. Taking no chances, Lesko was walking away from him, moving to a point almost directly opposite Harry. His footsteps betrayed him but again, thinking that Harry was out of commission, he was less attentive to keeping them muffled.

Powell wasn’t with them. The Powells of the world never came in on the front line of this kind of operation. He was no doubt waiting for a favorable report in the lobby.

It was a matter of timing. Harry moved a moment too soon he might lose them. A moment too late he might lose himself.

He retched once again so as to reassure his impatient assassins that he was still thoroughly incapacitated. Then he dropped, spinning at the same time. Two shots, scarcely audible because of the silencers the men were employing, slammed into the wall a couple of feet above his head. Harry fired three times in succession, twice at Passaretti and once in the direction of his friend across the pool. Having no opportunity to properly aim at Lesko, he had to content himself with distracting him.

In this he succeeded. Lesko had in his effort to reposition himself slipped on a damp patch of cement and was struggling to regain his balance.

Passaretti had been hit. Only one of Harry’s two slugs had entered him but one was enough. On impact he’d been flung into the pool, creating a noisy splash. He was still alive, grappling desperately with the water to get back to the surface. The water was fast filling up with his blood and soon there was so much of it that you couldn’t see what had happened to the little guy. He never did come up for air. There was nothing much he could have used the air for in any case, with one lung shredded and hemorrhaging like crazy.

Lesko meanwhile had gotten himself vertical again and was firing back at Harry or where he thought Harry should be because by stumbling, he’d lost sight of his target and now couldn’t find him again.

Confusedly, Lesko began to circle the periphery of the pool, certain that Harry must be somewhere nearby but where? All at once he found out. The tip of a .44 pressed up against his head. No sense, he realized, in trying to turn around. No sense in doing anything but coming to a dead stop.

“Drop it.”

Lesko obeyed. His handgun bounced on the cement and flipped off into the pool, joining Passaretti and his gun. There was nothing but a blood-red cloud in the water; it would be one hell of a surprise for the people who came out for a dip the following morning.

“Now walk.”

Lesko walked. It seemed under the circumstances a reasonable alternative.

As they approached the door leading to the hotel lobby the door swung open. There silhouetted in the lights from the lobby was none other than Mr. Powell. Evidently he anticipated nothing but good news, for his cigar was still protruding from his mouth; he was puffing away on it contentedly.

He could not see Harry from where he stood since Lesko pretty much hid him from view. On the other hand, there was no way he could miss all the blood in the pool. He assumed that it had to be Harry’s blood.

“Where’s Passaretti?” he asked.

Lesko didn’t react. Harry hadn’t given him instructions and so he wasn’t about to say a word, not with a .44 strategically placed to expel the contents of his brain.

“You can tell him,” Harry whispered, having drawn up a .38 that he kept strapped about his ankle in reserve. With a pistol in each hand he was confident that Powell presented no threat.

“In there.” Lesko nodded towards the pool.

Powell frowned. He didn’t seem to have understood. “What the hell do you mean in there?”

“What I said. Passaretti’s finished, caput.”

He didn’t sound particularly aggrieved.

Now Powell understood. He took a couple of steps backward; if the light were any better you could have seen how pale he’d gone.

“Stay where you are,” Harry commanded.

Powell swore and turned and bolted. Or tried to bolt. Harry raised his .38 and fired a warning shot that stirred up the surface directly beneath Powell’s feet. He leapt up, did a little aerial ballet, but being so close to the door he didn’t stop.

Again Harry fired, meaning to catch him in the leg. But Powell was moving too fast, zigzagging like crazy, and so the bullet missed him. But it did succeed in scaring the hell out of him because in his effort to escape he bumped up hard against the glass, cutting his brow.

With Lesko in front of him, Harry rushed toward Powell. Powell, stunned by the collision, must have realized that his opportunity had eluded him. Tugging a .357 Magnum out of a holster that had been hidden by his jacket he fired back. This gun of his lacked a silencer and so made quite a powerful concussive noise that probably awoke all the Richelieu’s sleeping guests. There was in response a spurt of water at the far end of the pool. Clearly, Powell wasn’t much of a shot.

Harry, still using his smaller caliber gun, returned the fire. Glass shattered but Powell was not harmed: Almost simultaneously Powell got off another couple of rounds, better targeted this time. Harry by this point was nearly on top of him—with Lesko still between them, doing what he could to escape the crossfire. But it was not Lesko’s lucky day. Hit in front he fell in the way of the .38 and was hit from behind. He screamed, then in an oddly graceful movement pitched forward into the pool.

Powell seemed to think that Lesko, in his death throes, would provide him with the distraction necessary to finally make it into the lobby. Now that the battle had come down to just him and Harry he realized that he’d better act quickly. If two professional hit men such as Lesko and Passaretti could not kill Harry then what chance did he have? He could depend only on chance, and he knew that men who depended on chance didn’t survive very long in this world.

So he turned and rushed headlong—this time avoiding a collision—into the lobby. For a moment he was convinced that he was safe; the well-lit interior was more reassuring than the partial darkness outside. That there were a scattering of people, guests and staff alike, who were observing his progress through the lobby in the general direction of Van Ness, that he still held his gun in his hand, did not occur to him. He was too busy escaping to notice such things.

Powell ran badly. He had no endurance; his lungs, so often filled with smoke, were not up to the task. He reached the exit out of breath. But he was grateful that he hadn’t been pursued. Daring to look back into the lobby, he for the first time glimpsed all the curious onlookers but they, intimidated by the sight of his .357, were making no movement whatsoever; certainly they weren’t about to stop him. But among them there was no Harry Callahan.

That was all that counted, that there be no Harry Callahan.

Powell stepped out on Van Ness. His car was parked too far away; he wasn’t about to walk to it. A cab was pulling up; the back seat was empty and right away Powell hailed it and got in. At the same moment the door on the other side opened and a man slid in next to him. It was Harry Callahan.

Putting a .44 within inches of Powell’s head and placing his .38 so that if discharged it would blow Powell’s balls into the stuffing of his seat, he said very quietly, “You’re it,” thereby ending this particular game of hide-and-go-seek. Powell, recognizing the futility of resisting further, agreeably surrendered his gun.

The hack, who’d witnessed the tag in his rearview mirror, had yet to say a word, no doubt greatly disheartened to see all this artillery and men willing to use it sitting in his back seat.

“I’m a police officer,” Harry announced, adding that the hack would just have to take it on faith since he couldn’t very well get out his badge with both hands occupied. He directed the unhappy driver to headquarters, then turned his attention to his prisoner, handcuffing him. “Now, Mr. Powell, just so this is all kosher I’m going to read you your rights.”

“And then?”

“And then if you don’t start answering the questions I’m going to ask, you just might end up envying your friends Passaretti and Lesko.”

C H A P T E R
E l e v e n

T
he assistant D.A. couldn’t have been more than thirty-five years old; he had the look of a Harvard Law grad who’d trained in the Southern District of New York, done some
pro bono
work, and somehow decided he’d be better off coming west and setting up shop on another coast altogether. Now it might be he was raised right here in San Francisco, but the impression Harry had was of someone who’d breathed the salt spray off the Atlantic Ocean until some dormant restlessness had sprung up in him and got him moving.

He still gave off an Ivy League aura; he was tall and not bad looking, but too serious in his bearing. He wore glasses that had a tint to them which subtly altered depending on how much light there was available and he dressed impeccably. His name was Robert Nunn. He beckoned Harry to a seat in front of his desk.

“Officer Callahan, I have been studying with great interest your report about the whole Tuber case,” he began, allowing his fingers to dance through a great sheaf of papers on his blotter.

Harry said nothing, waiting to hear that the evidence was so slender that it was not worth the State’s time and money to prosecute. Or else that the confession he’d elicited from Justin Powell was somehow unconstitutional and thus inadmissible in a court of law.

“You’ve been working on this for months now, haven’t you?”

Harry owned that he had.

Abruptly Nunn rose. “I like it,” he said. “I like the work you’ve done. I think we may have a problem with your promise to Powell. I’m a little disturbed, I don’t mind telling you, about the way you promised him immunity without clearing it with our office—” He put up his hand, uninterested in the protest he anticipated from Harry. “But that’s neither here nor there. I think we can work something out with our man Powell. The important thing is to get to Braxton, is it not?”

For the first time Harry regarded him with something other than skepticism and mistrust. Was it possible that he’d found an ally—and in the D.A.’s office of all places?

“I agree with you but you’ll notice Powell never named Braxton. He charged only that he’d received orders from Ryan and that all he did was to deliver them. That’s the way it’s always set up. Bull and Powell, they’re errand boys. They got power till Braxton snaps it away from them.”