Interface (Crime Masterworks) (18 page)

Apparently he saw nothing to disturb him. He bought a candy bar, went down to the central cluster of departure gates munching it, then entered a small dark intimate bar under the huge departure board.

Here he found a table facing the door, ordered and sipped a tall pilsener glass of draft beer while agreeing with the comments of the short-skirted waitress about the freeway accident by South San Francisco which apparently had tied up all the south-bound lanes. He left too much silver on the table, lounged under the departure sign for two more minutes, then limped down the corridor to the nearest men’s room. Another three minutes there.

After all this, Docker went back through the main terminal and outside to the
ARRIVALS
curb, where he stood weighing up the various uniformed porters. He finally selected one, talked with him. A twenty-dollar bill changed hands.

Docker went back inside, this time to cross directly to American Airlines and queue up at the
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
window. Waiting, he set the attaché case between his feet, toed it along ahead of him as the line inched forward.

Eventually the overweight blonde in stretch pants and mink coat stepped aside with her ticket. Docker returned the smile of the well-groomed, uniformed, utterly forgettable young man behind the chest-high counter, and accepted his offer of aid.

‘I’d like,’ he said precisely as he looked down to toe his attaché case forward again, ‘a ticket to –
hey!
’

On the final word he turned quickly, stepping back so his heel came down firmly on the foot of the youth with the scraggly beard and comic book. Somehow the attaché case slid six feet across the floor in the process. Because Docker was whirling with such energy at the same time that the youth was anchored firmly in his path, his elbow struck the captive a numbing blow in the chest.

‘
My attaché case!
’ Docker was yelling and pointing.
‘He tried to steal my attaché case!
’

The boy was staggering back, mouth open to yell protests. Docker stumbled as he did, apparently losing his balance because of his suddenly very noticeable bad leg. To save himself, he reached out to grab the youth’s jacket front with both hands.

Somehow, in passing, the hands clapped the boy smartly and simultaneously on each side of the head. Not hard enough to rupture the ear drums but hard enough to compress them sharply.

The boy did what any normal person would do in such a situation. He screamed.

His scream so disconcerted Docker that the big man lost his footing, sprawled full length on the floor. His outstretched hand closed firmly around the handle of the attaché case. People were exclaiming, jostling. Uniformed security guards were converging.

‘All right, what happened—’

‘What’s going …’

Docker, struggling to rise, had a grip on the boy’s belt. The boy was still yelling. Docker was shouting about his attaché case. The guard trying to help him up was pointing out that the attaché case was in Docker’s other hand. The other guard had hold of the boy by this time.

‘That kid tried to
grab
my case,’ Docker finally got out.

‘I didn’t!’ The boy had stopped yelling, was rubbing his ears. ‘I was just standin’ there …’

‘… knocked me down, ask these people …’

‘… pushed that man, I saw …’

‘… bad leg …’

‘
Quiet!
’ roared one guard. He got a semblance of it. ‘Now, who saw what happened?
Really
saw, not just heard the commotion?’

A bland-faced black porter pushed forward through the crowd.

‘I saw it, officer.’ He spoke almost apologetically. ‘It’s like the gen’man says. He was in line, went to move his case with his foot, an’ this here kid’s hand was jes’ pullin’ it away. He try to grab it, the kid shove ’im …’

The guard turned to the hippie youth firmly in the grasp of the other guard. The boy’s mouth was still spilling protests and his eyes had become almost frantic with the realization of what was happening.

‘That’s it, son,’ said the guard.

‘He hired that porter …’

‘Oh, Christ!’ said the guard in a disgusted voice.

Docker, meanwhile, had been tapping his watch, shaking his head, backing away. He said, ‘I’m going to miss my plane if I remain here any longer.’

The guard seemed to not realize he had bought no ticket. ‘Hey, but wait a minnit, mister. You—’

‘I’m sure this gentleman can furnish the full particulars.’

‘Mos’ surely can,’ supplied the porter.

‘But …’

‘I’ll be back from Los Angeles tomorrow, officer, then I will be fully prepared to prefer charges against this young beast.’

‘Well, but …’

‘Officer, my plane …’

The hippie youth’s eyes were murderous, but there was no way he could follow. Docker, still casting worried looks at his watch, had pulled an empty plane ticket folder from an inner pocket and was consulting it assiduously as he moved off. His gestures and movements were precisely gauged to mime harassed worry without tipping over into parody.

At the far end of the terminal from American Airlines was a long ramp which slanted down one floor to the baggage area. It was directly beside one of the corridors to the waiting planes, so Docker, now well out of sight of guards, hippie and porter, skipped down the ramp.

The only person who reacted in any way was a short, worried, pudgy man in an almost electric green suit. He chanced to unglue himself from the wall as Docker passed, entered the phone booth he had been standing beside, dropped his dime and began dialling.

Docker went through the gate and past the revolving baggage carousels, past the deplaned passengers clucking over their luggage like hens around scattered feed, and down the escalator to the moving sidewalk. Two minutes later he was back on the ground floor of the parking garage.

He did not head off toward the yellow Montego directly, however. Instead, he went around to the far side of the huge concrete shaft housing the escalators, stairway, and slow groaning elevator to the upper floors. He punched the elevator button.

As he did, the short, out-of-breath man in the electric green suit came pounding around the corner of the housing, saw him, and pulled up short.

‘Ah … going up?’ he asked Docker with a lame bright smile.

‘Level C,’ said Docker.

They got on the elevator together. The automatic doors slid shut. As they did, Docker’s big hands closed around the little man’s throat. Skillful fingers found the carotid artery, and the little man went to sleep between Level A and Level B. Docker deposited him on Level C, left him slumbering in an artfully arranged cardiac arrest position, returned to the ground floor, and limped his way down the great empty echoing garage to his Montego.

It was dark in the corner where he had parked it. He stood well clear of the car, in shadow himself, for nearly a minute, head up, eyes questing. It could almost be imagined that his nostrils quivered for the smell of danger.

Finally he shrugged, an almost sheepish expression on his face, and went over to the car. As he bent to unlock the door, shoes scraped concrete behind him. He whirled.

Walking toward him was a small, dark man who could not have been over five-two. His black hair gleamed in the dim light and was slicked straight back. He wore a suit with very wide lapels and a necktie which was even wider.

‘Is that your car, sir?’ he asked.

‘Uh … rental,’ said Docker. He had the car key in his right hand, the attaché case in his left, and no hands left over to do anything about the small, dark man who seemed to be some sort of official.

‘Didn’t you see the No Parking sign, sir?’

‘Well, uh, officer, to tell the truth …’

‘Parking Authority. Security Division,’ said the man importantly. His eyes glittered. He stepped closer. ‘I’ll have to see your identification, sir …’

He was a yard away. He’d started to extend his hand, stopped abruptly and jerked it back, at the same time looking up at the ceiling.

‘What the devil?’ he exclaimed.

He put his hand up to the back of his neck as if to feel the water or whatever it was that apparently had dripped on him from the lower concrete above their heads. Docker’s face obediently turned upward, apparently in the almost automatic reaction the small man’s actions called for.

As it did, Rizzato’s hand darted downward in a blur of motion, gripping the commando knife he had just jerked from its neck sheath.

W
hen Gus Rizzato had arrived at San Francisco International, he had first sought out a white courtesy telephone as instructed, had duly spoken to Nolan Avery – who was a short, rotund, worried-looking man in a green suit.

‘He’s here now,’ Nolan Avery had said. ‘He’s having a beer in that little bar off the South Terminal concourse.’

‘Where’s his car?’

‘Bottom level, down at the north end under the air blower in a No Parking area. Our man missed it first time around, but went back—’

‘All right, I’ll page you again in a few minutes, give you a phone number. You call me there when Docker starts back for his car. Got that?’

‘Yes, sir, Mr Rizzato.’ Avery’s voice had paused. ‘That other man, that private detective or whoever he is, hasn’t shown up yet.’

‘Probably still on the freeway. There was a hell of a pile-up at South City. I went around, but cars that had gone by that exit before they started the rerouting are stuck until they clear it. He was a few minutes ahead of me, so he’s still sitting there.’ Rizzato had chuckled, then his voice had hardened. ‘Remember, when he shows up, you tell him nothing. Docker hasn’t shown, you’ve never heard of me. Got that?’

‘Yes, Mr Rizzato.’

Now Gus Rizzato sat in the phone booth, waiting for Docker’s return to the parking garage. Nolan Avery had the number. Rizzato’s face was composed, without impatience or expectation. He found a pimple under his chin, seemed to take sensual pleasure in popping it and wiping his thumbnail on his trouser leg. Twice, after making sure no one was in sight, he stepped from the booth to draw his knife from his neck sheath with that blinding, practiced speed. When the knife was in his hand, his eyes got a moist, hot look.

The phone rang. Avery’s voice said, ‘Docker’s just going down the ramp to the luggage area. I think he’s on his way to the garage.’

‘All right, peel off,’ snapped Rizzato.

‘I’d better follow him to make sure—’

‘Peel off.’

It took Docker a few minutes longer than it should have, but finally, standing in the shadows a few cars away from the yellow Montego, Rizzato could hear the echoing, uneven footsteps approaching. Docker stopped in the shadows a dozen feet from his car.

Rizzato drew his lips back from his teeth in a mirthless grin, began walking toward the big blond man whom he had never seen before but recognized instantly from the descriptions. He called, ‘Is that your car, sir?’

Then, in seconds, he was in position. He looked upward to draw Docker’s eyes, got his hand on his knife with a casual gesture. Then his arm swept down, the knife now an extension of himself, and drove the blade up under Docker’s sternum.

That’s when things went wrong.

Docker leaned back, mouth open, to see where whatever had apparently fallen on the small man’s head had come from. It should have left his solar plexus beautifully open to attack. But Docker kept right on arching back, past the vertical. As he did, his right foot moved back about eighteen inches and planted itself at right angles to Rizzato. His right knee flexed slightly, taking his weight.

But Rizzato was already driving his knife in and up at the place where Docker’s middle had been, face contorted with effort and with a delighted rage. There was no way he could check the lunge, even though Docker’s body had moved back just beyond the furthest reach of the knife jab. Rizzato grunted with effort as his blade found only empty air. Docker’s left knee already had pumped up to his waist and was snapping his leg straight out.

Docker’s big shoe, turned so the side of his foot was parallel to the concrete floor, crashed into Gus Rizzato’s chest. The force of the kick smashed the little man against the next car with his arms flailing for balance. The knife went flying, landed a dozen paces away where an overhead fluorescent glared down on it.

Docker got one quick stride toward it, cried out, and crumpled with both hands clutching his apparently traitorous right knee. Rizzato, seeing this, found strength to drag in air, enough to get to the knife and pick it up. He leaned back, gasping, against the side of a car with the knife gleaming dully in his right hand.

‘Old … war wound, Docker?’ he panted mockingly.

Docker was on one knee. The light glinted off his glasses. His head was up, his mouth open, as his left hand scrabbled around for the dropped car keys. His right hand found the handle of the car door to drag him up. He stood with his back to the car, slightly crouched, panting.

‘If my knee … wasn’t fucked up …’

‘It is, Docker.’ Rizzato had begun his gradual deadly circling as he moved in for the kill. He was doing what he lived for. He hissed, ‘It’s the fear that does it, Docker, knowing it’s coming. The piss’ll be running down your leg before I put it into you.’

‘Can’t we … deal? The briefcase … for … for my …’

‘For your life? I’ve already got that, Docker.’ Rizzato made a quick thrusting feint, playing with his man, then leapt back laughing from Docker’s clumsy attempt to parry. ‘Once or twice in the belly, Docker, to soften you up. Then the eyes. Then …’

Peeler Rizzato went in low, crouched and terrible and deadly, an exceptional knife-fighter carrying darkness with him like a man come to steal corpses. His face was murderous with delight. He was poised on the balls of his feet, balanced for move and feint and thrust as a boxer is, his vital areas well protected by the outthrust, always weaving blade. He moved it in short, swift slashes, ready now to disable Docker’s protective arms.

But that too was a feint. He jabbed instead, suddenly deadly, for the stomach. Somehow Docker, with a quick left-hand sweep and going up on his toes like a matador, was lucky enough to turn arm and blade clumsily aside. The steel rang against the car door.