Dirty Harry 12 - The Dealer of Death (5 page)

He occupied an office by himself. It smelled musty, as was to be expected with bundles of decaying records piled up, waiting until the day someone got around to putting them all on microfilm. There was no window in the office and that was what Gallant remembered most about it: the absence of any window, and the must in the dead air.

Something was missing though, a large framed painting of a rustic scene with a village and mountains in the background.

There was a bleached rectangle on the wall where it had been.

Turner looked much the same, his hair was sparse, but otherwise the six years had been good to him. For someone imminently expecting the end of the world, he appeared happier than any man had a right to be.

Because he could use the office as he wanted—with so many years on the job, he had his share of privileges and perks—he was able to conduct his illegal operations from it without fear of interruption.

Raising his eyes, Turner regarded the man who stood before him. He didn’t seem too pleased by what he saw. “You look like shit,” he said in a quiet voice.

“I’m supposed to be a corpse, remember? Corpses generally don’t look in the peak of health.”

Turner swivelled about on his revolving chair so that he was no longer facing Gallant. He was instead facing the blank spot on the wall. “What can I do for you?”

“I told you what I needed over the phone.”

“Yes, you did. Money you want, is that right?”

“And a car and papers, a Social Security card, driver’s license, that sort of thing. It shouldn’t be any problem for you.”

“No, it shouldn’t . . .” Turner agreed, swivelling back around to look into Gallant’s face again. “Here,” he said, tossing over a photograph to the other side of the desk. “You recognize that house?”

It was a mansion actually, that must contain well over forty rooms. While the photograph was not large enough to show all the grounds, it certainly suggested they were sizable, covering several acres that stretched over a hillside, above a body of bright blue water.

Gallant gazed admiringly at it for several moments. “I can’t say I’ve ever laid eyes on it before. But it sure looks like a pretty place.” Especially after a stretch in prison, he was about to say.

“Thirty-six thousand dollars a year in real estate taxes alone,” Turner said. To Turner it wasn’t enough that a residence exuded an aura of wealth, he had to know the exact dollars and cents value of it as well.

Gallant was suitably impressed and let out a low whistle.

“Why did you think I might know this?”

“A man named Jay Silk lives there. It’s in the woods right above Paradise Drive, ten, fifteen miles to the north of Sausalito.”

“Jay Silk? Should the name mean anything to me?”

Turner smiled. He delighted in springing surprises, but he abhorred the idea of being on the receiving end of them, which was why he was constantly anticipating the collapse of the economy followed shortly by the obliteration of the world. He didn’t want to ever be surprised.

“It should, yes. But seeing as it doesn’t, I will take it upon myself to enlighten you.”

All this while Gallant tried to puzzle out what this house had to do with getting his money and his credentials and his car so he could undertake his mission of vengeance.

“Go ahead.”

Turner liked to keep people in suspense which was why he took as long as he did coming to a point. “Jay Silk is the widowed father of a woman named Sheila Richmond.” His smile grew broader. “Now there’s a name I should think would be familiar to you.”

Gallant was speechless. He needed Turner, but he never really liked him, and now he knew why: Turner was always one step ahead of him.

“It’s familiar to me, yes,” he said, trying his best, and failing, to keep his voice neutral. But his mounting excitement was too palpable; his face was flushed and he realized his hands were trembling enough for Turner to notice.

“How would you like to go work for Mr. Silk? He’s retired now, but he lives very comfortably on his investments and still leads a lifestyle that most people would find enviable. I am told he requires a chauffeur with good references. A man who would, from time to time, have to double as a jack of all trades. You could do that, couldn’t you, Jimmy, act as a jack of all trades?”

It was as if Turner had been reading his mind. Gallant struggled to find the right words. On the one hand, he was grateful to be given an opportunity he might never have managed on his own. On the other hand, he resented Turner for preempting him, for seeing right through him, and ultimately for obligating him.

But as he was penniless and without identity, he was in no position to decline the offer. He wasn’t sure how this scheme of Turner’s could succeed either. “This guy Silk would have seen pictures of me. Sooner or later, he’ll figure out who I am.”

Looking again at the photograph in his hands, he had the sense a man with a house like this would enjoy an immense amount of power.

“You let me worry about that. We’re going to fix you up so that that won’t be any problem. And don’t forget, you’re supposed to be dead.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He’d momentarily forgotten this crucial fact himself.

“And once we get you fixed up we’re going to give you a bit of schooling.”

“Schooling?”

“You know anything about art? Can you distinguish a Leger from a Braque from a Miro? You know what Wedgewood looks like? Can you distinguish a pre-Columbian tapestry from a fake? I didn’t think so. Well, you’re going to learn. By the time we’re through, they could appoint you curator of the Getty Museum.”

Gallant frowned. “Is this thing going to take long?”

“What’s the matter with you, you afraid of a little education?” He laughed. “No, Jimmy, it won’t take long. Nothing I set out to do ever takes long.”

It wasn’t until after midnight that Gallant was able to free himself from Turner. Turner had insisted on taking him to what he called his retreat—somewhere deep in a wooded area just north of Santa Rosa—where a group of wild-eyed fanatics were in training with M-16’s and a variety of .45’s and .38’s Turner said were U.S. Army issue. There was no telling where they’d gotten them. Gallant guessed they’d pillaged a stockade one day.

There, among this deceptively rustic setting, Turner had found new clothes for him and a car, a ’76 Plymouth that could have done with some shock absorbers, and a gun. The gun was an interesting one that Gallant had never used before. It was a Dan Wesson—Dan being a relation to the Wesson of Smith & Wesson—and came accompanied by six barrels ranging from a two-inch stub to a twelve-inch attachment that was better for bringing down a buck deer than a human being. It took both .357 and .38 ammunition.

Turner also provided his former associate with two hundred dollars—“enough to get you started” was how he put it. Aside from the wad of cash, Turner bestowed upon him a Social Security card, advising him the other I.D.’s would have to wait until later. He did not say how much later, but Gallant was satisfied that he’d obtained this much. He really didn’t expect Turner to be so cooperative, and began more and more to wonder how much Turner expected of him in return. It would be a higher price than a simple appraisal of Jay Silk’s collectibles he suspected.

Promising he’d return to Turner’s retreat the following afternoon, Gallant drove away in his newly acquired car. He regretted the fact that he lacked a driver’s license, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d just have to wait for Turner to get him one.

It was comforting to have a gun in his possession again, but this was not the gun he intended to employ. This was a gun meant only as insurance. The gun he had his heart set on, the only gun that would suit his purpose, belonged to Harry Callahan.

C H A P T E R
F o u r

G
allant didn’t know exactly why he decided on going back to Sheila Richmond’s apartment. He hadn’t been able to decide what his fascination was with her. But there was something that drew him to her. He still had to get himself a place to stay that night—he supposed some cheap hotel or boarding house would do, might as well stretch his two hundred dollars as far as he could—but he wasn’t really sleepy, exhausted yes, but sleepy no.

He pulled up across the street from her apartment and looked up to her windows. The lights were still on. He could vaguely make out a woman. She seemed to be reading a book or else watching television. He wished he’d remembered to ask Turner for a pair of binoculars. It would have helped at this point. But the more he scrutinized the figure in the window the more he was convinced this wasn’t Sheila. Wrong build, wrong way of moving, wrong something.

No more than ten minutes had elapsed since he’d begun his surveillance when another car came around the corner, then slowed, and came to a stop just in front of the building. A man got out and opened the door for the woman sitting on the passenger side.

It was Sheila. And the man?—he was sure he knew the man. His resemblance to Harry Callahan was so striking Gallant was positive that was who it was.

What was this? He could scarcely believe his eyes. Fate, which for so many years had borne down on James Gallant and given him nothing but abuse, had suddenly, mysteriously, taken a liking to him. Everything was going right.

The two walked up the stairs and went into the building. Some minutes later a taxi appeared and the young woman Gallant had seen originally, came down. This must be the babysitter, he reasoned, for he now recalled that the cop he’d killed had a kid. Of course, it was the babysitter.

Gallant hoped to catch a glimpse of something intriguing in the light of the window, but the light was soon extinguished. Everything was left to Gallant’s imagination. And it was one hell of an imagination, developed to a highly sensitive degree after six years of prison.

Since Harry seemed likely to spend the night, it stood to reason that he would at one point or another put aside his .44. It got in the way when one tried to make love, and it wasn’t very comfortable to sleep with either.

Gallant resigned himself to waiting. He waited for what seemed like hours, killing time listening to all-night talk shows. Then, at quarter to two, he left his car and ascended the steps to the apartment building. The front doors were unlocked, but not so the one just inside the vestibule.

What Gallant didn’t know about breaking and entering before he was sent away he’d learned once he was in jail. The geniuses that were behind bars could have solved the problems of the world if only their minds were bent in that direction, Gallant thought.

It said S. Richmond on the door of her apartment. Having thwarted the lock downstairs so silently and efficiently, he hoped to accomplish the same thing here. He certainly did not want to awaken anybody.

There were two locks. One was as easily defeated as the other. Fate was still with him. He had no idea how long this situation would persist, but he might as well go with it for so long as it did.

Now, the risk was stumbling into something in the darkness and toppling over the television set or a ceramic dish. But a trickle of light was seeping in from down the hall—the bathroom he saw—and so at least he had some sense of where he was going.

Suddenly, there was a shriek. Good God, he thought. I haven’t made a fucking sound! It must be the kid. He stood stock still, paralyzed. Then he heard a door opening. He slipped behind a couch and peered into the gloom to see what was happening. What had started as a shriek had turned into a prolonged scream, broken at intervals by breathless sobs.

Then Sheila appeared, a silhouetted figure in a white, nearly diaphanous gown, sweeping across the hallway in the direction of her daughter’s bedroom.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he heard her say.

The child’s sobbing grew more muffled.

“Were you having a bad dream?” Sheila asked.

Gallant forsook his hiding place, and slipped quietly down the length of the corridor until he stood just outside the door to her bedroom. He was gambling on a great deal, he realized, but if there was one thing he had learned in his life it was that procrastination got one no place.

He risked a glance into the bedroom. At first, he could see very little, but after a few seconds was able to distinguish various objects. There was someone in the bed. Harry Callahan. He was seized by the impulse to kill him now. In spite of the disturbance, he remained asleep, his head burrowed in the pillows. It would be no trouble, taking him out now. But that would be too easy. It would deny Gallant the satisfaction of a long drawn-out revenge. It wasn’t just Harry’s death he craved, it was his humiliation.

The little girl in the other room was still whimpering which meant Sheila would be detained a few minutes more. Soundlessly, he entered the bedroom, his eyes hungrily searching for the gun he knew must be somewhere nearby. He was sufficiently well acquainted with the habits of his onetime arresting officer to know he was seldom separated from the Magnum that had become his virtual trademark.

At last he saw it, snugly fitted into its holster and resting on top of the night table immediately by Harry’s side.

This was better than he could have hoped. He’d prayed he could simply snatch it and get away as easily as he’d got in. But this was not to be.

Of course, he did have the advantage. He held the gun, and Harry didn’t. He could take the Magnum at little peril to himself. But Harry might recognize him, so might Sheila. His deception would be exposed, his plan sabotaged from the outset. No, it was crucial that the author of this theft remain unknown.

Acutely conscious of each step he took, he was thankful the bedroom was carpeted, so he scarcely made any sound at all as he crossed its length. After what seemed an eternity, he reached the night table. He listened to Harry’s breathing. It was regular enough to reassure him that he was still asleep. But at one point he stirred and for a fraction of a second Gallant was certain he’d woken. Instead he changed his position so that his face was now turned toward him. His eyes remained shut, but the effect was disconcerting.