Holy Terror (31 page)

‘The fatality was thirty-six-year-old stage hypnotist Ramon Perez. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene of the shooting, room 711.

‘Another stage hypnotist, seventy-eight-year-old Sidney Randall, was shot twice in the chest and remains in a critical condition at New York University Medical Center. Sebastian Speed, thirty-three, an interior designer, and nineteen-year-old Ric Vetter, a dancer, both sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to the New York Hospital, where their condition was said to be “comfortable”.

‘Police questioned the occupant of room 711, forty-six-year-old Victor Labrea, who describes himself as an international investment banker. They questioned him for over four hours before releasing him without charge. According to Mr Duke Johnson, Mr Labrea's lawyer, Mr Labrea was forced to open fire to defend himself and his wife against a “violent and threatening intrusion” by Conor O'Neil and his associates.

‘He was unable to say why Mr O'Neil should have attacked him.

‘Mr Labrea came to public attention in New York last year for his fight to close down the Bengers and Gench musical,
Evangelists
. A fervent supporter of the Global Message Movement, which espouses the cause of worldwide conversion to strict Baptist principles, he attempted to prevent the staging of
Evangelists
on the grounds that it was “blasphemous, and a gross insult to all Godfearing people”.

‘Police tonight appealed for anybody who sees Conor O'Neil to contact them on the following number. You are warned not to approach him as he is likely to be armed and dangerous.'

Joint anchorman Larry Hoffman turned to Edridge and asked, ‘Do we have any idea what O'Neil was doing in the company of two stage hypnotists?'

‘Not so far, Larry. It's certainly a mesmerizing case.'

Conor flicked over to another channel.
Star Trek Voyager. He
flicked again.
The Simpsons
. He flicked it off. Eleanor said, ‘Maybe I should call the hospital to see how Sidney's doing.'

‘Give it a little time,' said Conor. He stood up and took hold of both of her hands. ‘The best thing we can do for him right now is pray.'

‘I don't know if prayer ever does any good.'

‘My mother did. She even used to pray for her soufflés to rise.'

‘And you?'

‘I'm a good Catholic, Eleanor. Good Catholics believe in the power of prayer.'

It was 6:17 p.m. As soon as Conor had returned from his meeting with Luigi Guttuso at F.A.O.
Schwarz, he and Eleanor had gathered up their clothes and their belongings from Sebastian's apartment and taken a taxi downtown. Now they were here on Bleecker Street, in the Village, on the top floor of a large Federal brownstone. Conor could only guess that Guttuso used the apartment for visiting friends. The floors were polished teak, with colorful handwoven rugs, and the living room was furnished with off-white leather couches and chairs and spindly Italian lamps. The walls were hung with large abstract oil paintings in vivid crimsons and aquamarines. A vast skylight filled the room with gilded early-evening sunshine.

It was almost eerily quiet up here, isolated from the street below.

‘Do you want a coffee? A drink?' asked Conor.

‘I'm fine for now,' Eleanor told him, although her voice was watery and she was looking extremely tired. Conor was hardly surprised, considering that she had believed this afternoon that she had lost Sidney for good.

On the table, Sebastian's mobile phone rang. Conor immediately picked it up.

‘Mr O'Neil!' said an arch, over-familiar voice. ‘And how are you this evening?'

‘Who is this?'

‘Don't you recognize me? This is your friend Victor Labrea speaking.'

‘Labrea? Are you kidding me? You don't seriously think I've got anything to say to you, after what happened today?'

‘Oh, come on now, Mr O'Neil, you have to take most of the blame for that yourself, now don't you?
That was a very rash and ill-considered thing you did, busting in on us that way. It could have turned out a whole lot worse.'

‘Ramon's dead; Sidney's critical. I can't imagine how.'

‘Well, you could have shot
me
, couldn't you, and if that had happened – I very much doubt that your little Lacey would still be livin' and breathin'. The Reverend Branch isn't normally a vengeful man, but he and I go back a long, long way. We're more than friends, if you understand what I mean. We're
soulmates
.'

‘Is Lacey all right?'

‘For the time being, yes, she's in the best of health. But if you try to pull any more stunts like you pulled today … well, I wouldn't like to give you any guarantees about her future sex appeal.'

‘What the hell do you want me to do now?'

‘I want you to have patience, that's what. Most of the money has been wired to Norway already, but we do need two more personal appearances like you did today, just to reach our target figure.'

‘You don't seriously expect me to go out and raise more money for you?'

‘Has to be done, ol' buddy. Crusades don't come cheap.'

‘I'm not doing it unless you let me speak to Lacey again.'

‘Well … I can do that, but not just yet. I'm still at the Waldorf, waiting for my baggage to be taken up to my new suite. Couldn't stay in the old one, could I, on account of all of that blood sprayed around.'

‘You make sure that you call me. Otherwise, next time, I won't hesitate to pull the trigger. Not for one instant.'

‘Don't get yourself all hot and bothered, Mr O'Neil. I'll call you in twenty minutes to give you your next assignment. You can talk to her then.'

Victor Labrea broke the connection. Immediately, Conor called Luigi Guttuso.

‘Who is this?' asked the same slow, suspicious voice.

‘Conor O'Neil. I need to speak to Mr Guttuso right now.'

‘Nobody of that name here.'

‘For Christ's sake it's Conor O'Neil. I was talking to him only a couple of hours ago.'

‘Oh, right. Mr. Guttuso mentioned your name. Wait up a moment, OK?'

Conor sat on the couch with his head bowed, waiting for Guttuso to answer. Eleanor came and sat next to him, and took hold of his hand. ‘Don't let this get to you. Be strong.'

Luigi Guttuso answered the phone. ‘Conor? How's it going? How do you like the apartment?'

‘It's great, Luigi. It's much more than I could have asked for.'

‘Hey – you screwed the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club. You don't have to ask for nothing.'

‘Listen, Luigi. I think that Victor Labrea is just about to leave the Waldorf-Astoria and I think he's headed for the place where he's holding Lacey hostage.'

‘We've got half a dozen soldiers outside of the
Waldorf, don't worry. Wherever Victor Labrea goes, we're going to be right on his tail.'

‘Don't forget to call me when you find out where she is. Please. Don't do anything until I get there.'

‘Didn't I promise you that already? What do you think I am?'

Conor didn't know what to say. Murderer, extortionist, loan shark, drug dealer, pimp?

‘Just don't forget to call me,' he said.

He fell asleep while he waited for Victor Labrea to call back. He had a dream that Dennis Evelyn Branch was standing in the half-open doorway, watching him. Then he heard a whispery voice saying, ‘Two into one
do
go, and when they do, you'd better watch your ass.'

A bandaged, filth-crusted hand was held up in front of him, jingling a persistent little bell. ‘
Unclean
,' whispered the voice. ‘
Unclean
.'

Another filthy hand reached out toward him and he shouted, ‘
Don't touch me
!' and sat up with a jolt. He found himself back on the bed, next to Eleanor. It was 8:15 p.m. and the phone was persistently ringing in the living room.

‘Mr O'Neil? It's Victor Labrea. You got a pen ready? I'll tell you who you're going to meet tomorrow.'

‘OK. But let me talk to Lacey first.'

‘Sure,' said Victor Labrea, and handed over the phone.

‘Lacey? How are you, sweetheart?'

‘I'm all right. I'm all right.' She sounded close to
tears. ‘But please get me out of here, Conor. Please.'

‘Listen, try to stay calm. Everything's going to be fine, I promise you. If you can hold out for another hour or so, this whole thing's going to be over.'

‘Just get me out of here, Conor, please.'

Victor Labrea took the phone back. ‘You heard the lovely Lacey, Mr O'Neil. Just make those two meetings tomorrow, and we'll all be happy.'

He had only just hung up when the phone rang again.

‘Conor? It's Luigi. We found your friend's little nest for you. It's a hotel on West 29th Street, half a block away from the heliport – some dump called the Madison Square Marquis. Labrea's checked into room 525 under the name of Mr and Mrs Tapatio. The desk clerk said that “Mrs Tapatio” was blond and tall and good-looking. His actual words were extremely complimentary but I wouldn't say them in front of my mother, God bless her, if only I could.'

‘I know the Marquis,' said Conor. ‘Tell your guys to stay where they are and I'll come right over.'

‘Glad to be of assistance. And – you know – may God be with you.'

Two shiny black Buicks with darkly tinted windows were parked opposite the Madison Square Marquis, with two men in each of them. The evening was insufferably hot. Conor approached one of the cars and tapped on the window. The window slid down and released the chilly air-conditioned aroma of Cerruti aftershave. A smooth-looking young man
appeared, with black slicked-back hair and a lime-green A. Sulka shirt.

‘Good evening, Mr O'Neil. How are you doing?'

Conor recognized him: Tony Luca, one of Luigi Guttuso's cousins and a particularly vicious enforcer of the Guttuso family's protection rackets. Luca had been arrested two or three years ago for stabbing a Chinaman in the eye, but the case had been dropped for the lack of any witnesses rash enough to testify against him.

‘Labrea still in there?' asked Conor.

Luca nodded. ‘From what the manager said, there's another two dudes up there, too. He didn't know what the hell they were all doing. He thought it was an orgy maybe.'

‘You want to help me ride to the rescue?'

‘That's what we're here for.'

Luca climbed out of the car and a thin, beaky man in his early forties climbed out of the driver's seat. John Convertino, another snappy dresser with perfectly sculpted scimitar-shaped sideburns and a record of extortion, drug dealing, arson, malicious wounding and suspected (but unproven) vehicular homicide.

‘Pleasure to see you again, Captain O'Neil,' he said, although his face was expressionless and his eyes were like two steel nailheads. ‘It's been a while, hah?'

They were joined on the sidewalk by the two Guttuso soldiers from the other car. Conor only recognized one of them: Frank Garibaldi, a dim but amiable palooka who usually worked as a doorman at one of Luigi Guttuso's nightclubs. He looked like
Jay Leno in a woolly black wig. The other man was huge, with a flattened boxer's face and a tight blue suit from Harry Rothman, who specialized in large, tall and unusual sizes. Conor had never seen him before, but he had a strong psychopathic aura about him, as if he were capable of pulling a chihuahua's legs off and seeing how far it could run.

‘So, what's the plan, captain?' asked John Convertino. ‘Mr Guttuso said these guys was holding the love of your life in there.'

‘We can't be confrontational, otherwise there could be shooting. That means we can't go charging into their room. We have to confuse them.'

‘OK,' said Luca, ‘and how are we going to do that? You got CS gas? Shock grenades? Barry Manilow records?'

Conor said, ‘Follow me,' and the five of them crossed the street to the Madison Square Marquis. The hotel was even further away from Madison Square than Madison Square Garden. It had been built in the mid-1950s and it had a decrepit, diseased look, with rusting metal window-frames and water-stained concrete. Its entrance was squarish and ill-proportioned, with rough-cast concrete pillars, and there was grit beneath the revolving doors so that they made a grating noise when they pushed their way through them.

Inside the flatly lit lobby, a young spotty man in a shiny maroon coat and a grubby white shirt was standing behind a reception desk that was upholstered in tan padded vinyl, cigarette-burned and ripped in places to expose the leprous yellow
latex foam beneath. A television on the wall was tuned to
Scooby Doo
. The young man was watching the television and talking on the phone and laughing a silly, high-pitched laugh.

‘No – you're putting me on! No – you're putting me on! You're putting me on! No! Really? You're putting me on!'

‘Did you ever hear such an excellent grasp of the English language?' remarked John Convertino, and pinged the bell right under the desk clerk's nose. ‘Hey, kid – how about some attention here, please?'

‘OK, OK – just a minute. You're putting me on! You – are –
putting
– me – on!'

John Convertino took the receiver out of the young man's hand and gently replaced it on its cradle. The young man stared at him in alarm. Then he looked at Tony Luca and Frank Garibaldi and the man with the flattened boxer's face, as well as Conor with all of his bruises, and he opened and closed his mouth two or three times.

‘I'm sorry, gentlemen. What can I do?'

‘You can stay there and keep your trap shut and don't say nothing to nobody. There is nothing wrong with your life. We control the vertical and the horizontal. In other words, you want to stay vertical, you do what you're told. You want to be horizontal, you just try giving me shit.'