Sidney Sheldon (14 page)

K
ELLY ALIGHTED FROM
a taxi in front of Diane’s apartment building, stormed up to the front door, and pressed the bell hard.

The door was opened by Detective Greenburg. “Can I—?”

Kelly saw Diane in the living room and moved past the detective.

“What’s going on?” Diane asked. “You said you—”

“You tell
me
what’s going on. I told you to tell your Mafia friends to leave me alone. They tried to grab me again. Why are your Mafia buddies trying to kill me?”

“I—I have no idea. They wouldn’t—maybe they saw us together and thought we were friends and—”

“Well we’re
not
friends, Mrs. Stevens. Get me out of this.”

“What are you talking about? How can I—?”

“The same way you got me into it. I want you to tell your buddy, Altieri, that you and I just met, and you don’t know me. I’m not going to let someone murder me because of some stupid thing you did.”

Diane said, “I can’t—”

“Oh, yes, you can. You’re going to talk to Altieri and you’re going to talk to him
now
. I’m not leaving here until you do.”

Diane said, “What you’re asking is impossible. I’m sorry if I got you involved in this, but…” She was thoughtful for a long moment, then turned to Greenburg. “Do you think if I talked to Altieri he might leave us both alone?”

Greenburg said, “That’s an interesting question. He might—especially if he thinks we’re watching him. Would you like to talk to him personally?”

Diane said, “No, I—”

Kelly interrupted. “She means yes.”

A
NTHONY ALTIERI’S HOME
was a classic stone and frame colonial-style house, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The enormous house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, on fifteen acres of land, surrounded by a huge, high, iron fence. On the grounds were tall shade trees, ponds, and a colorful garden.

A guard sat in a booth inside the front gate. As the car with Greenburg, Kelly, and Diane drove up, the guard walked out to meet it.

He recognized Greenburg. “Afternoon, Lieutenant.”

“Hello, Caesar. We want to see Mr. Altieri.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“It’s not that kind of visit. This is a social call.”

The guard glanced at the two women. “Wait here.” He walked inside, to the booth. A few minutes later he came out and opened the gate. “You can go in.”

“Thanks.” Greenburg drove up to the front of the house.

As the three of them got out of the car, a second guard appeared. “Follow me.”

He led them inside. The large living room was an eclectic combination
of antiques and modern and French furniture. In spite of the fact that the day was warm, there was a roaring fire in the huge stone fireplace. The trio followed the guard through the living room into a large darkened bedroom. Anthony Altieri was in bed, attached to a respirator. He was pale and gaunt and seemed to have aged greatly since the short time he had appeared in court. A priest and a nurse were at his side.

Altieri looked at Diane, Kelly, and Greenburg, then turned back to Diane. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and raspy. “What the hell do you want?”

Diane said, “Mr. Altieri, I want you to leave Mrs. Harris and me alone. Call off your men. It’s enough that you killed my husband and—”

Altieri cut in. “What are you talking about? I never even heard of your husband. I read about that bullshit note found on his body.” He sneered. “ ‘
He’ll swim with the fishes.
’ Somebody’s seen
The Sopranos
too many times. I’ll tell you something for free, lady. No Italian wrote that. I’m not after you. I don’t give a damn whether you live or die. I’m not after anybody. I—” He winced in pain. “I’m busy making my peace with God. I—” He began to choke.

The priest turned to Diane. “I think it would be better if you left now.”

Detective Greenburg asked, “What is it?”

The priest said, “Cancer.”

Diane looked at the man on the bed.
I’m not after you. I don’t give a damn whether you live or die…. I’m busy making my peace with God.
He was telling the truth.

And Diane was filled with a sudden, blinding panic.

O
N THE DRIVE
back from Altieri’s, Detective Greenburg looked worried. “I have to tell you, I think Altieri meant what he said.”

Kelly reluctantly nodded. “So do I. The man is dying.”

“Do you know of any reason why someone would try to kill the two of you?”

“No,” Diane said. “If it isn’t Altieri—” She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Kelly swallowed. “Neither have I.”

D
ETECTIVE GREENBURG ESCORTED
Diane and Kelly back into Diane’s apartment. “I’m going to get to work on this now,” he said, “but you’ll be safe here. In fifteen minutes there will be a police cruiser outside your apartment building for the next twenty-four hours, and we’ll see what we can find out by then. If you need me, call.”

And he was gone.

D
IANE AND KELLY
stared at each other. There was an awkward silence.

“Would you like some tea?” Diane asked.

Kelly said perversely, “Coffee.”

Diane looked at her a moment, irritated, and sighed. “Right.”

Diane walked into the kitchen to start the coffee. Kelly wandered around the living room, looking at the paintings on the walls.

When Diane came out of the kitchen, Kelly was studying one of Diane’s paintings. “Stevens.” She turned to Diane. “Did you paint this?”

Diane nodded. “Yes.”

Kelly said in a dismissive tone of voice, “Pretty.”

Diane’s lips tightened. “Oh? Do you know a lot about art?”

“Not much, Mrs. Stevens.”

“Who do you like? Grandma Moses, I suppose.”

“She’s interesting.”

“And what other primitive painters touch your heart?”

Kelly turned to face Diane. “To be honest, I prefer the curvilinear, nonrepresentational form. There are exceptions, of course. For instance, in Titian’s
Venus of Robin,
the diagonal sweep of her form is breathtaking, and—”

From the kitchen, they could hear the coffee percolating.

Diane said curtly, “The coffee is ready.”

T
HEY WERE SEATED
across from each other in the dining room, taciturn, letting their coffee get cold.

Diane broke the silence. “Can you think of any reason why someone would try to kill us?”

“No.” Kelly was silent for a moment. “The only connection you and I have is that both our husbands worked at KIG. Maybe they were involved in some top secret project. And whoever killed them thinks they might have told us about it.”

Diane paled. “Yes…”

They looked at each other in dismay.

I
N HIS OFFICE,
Tanner was watching the scene taking place in Diane’s apartment, on one of the wall television sets. His chief security guard stood next to him.

“No. The only connection you and I have is that both our husbands worked at KIG. Maybe they were involved in some top secret project. And whoever killed them thinks they might have told us about it.”

“Yes…”

T
HE STEVENS APARTMENT
had been wired with state-of-the-art television and sound. Just as Tanner had told his partner, the house
was filled with cutting-edge technology. There were concealed video systems in every room of the apartment, with a Web-based camera the size of a button resting among the books, bent fiber-optic wires under the doors, and a wireless picture frame camera. In the attic, a video server the size of a laptop computer had been installed to service six cameras. Attached to the server was a wireless modem that allowed the equipment to function through cellular technology.

A
S TANNER LEANED
forward, watching the screen intently, Diane said,
“We have to find out what our husbands were working on.”

“Right. But we’re going to need help. How do we do that?”

“We’ll call Tanner Kingsley. He’s the only one who can help us, and he’s trying to find out who’s behind all this.”

“Let’s do it.”

D
IANE SAID, “YOU
can spend the night here. We’ll be safe. There’s a police car stationed outside.” She walked over to the window and pulled the curtain back. There was no car.

She stared for a long moment and felt a sudden chill. “That’s strange,” Diane said. “There was supposed to be a patrol car here. Let me make a phone call.”

Diane took Detective Greenberg’s card from her purse, went to the telephone, and called a number. “Detective Greenburg, please.” She listened a moment. “Are you sure?…I see. Then could I speak to Detective Praegitzer?” There was another moment of silence. “Yes, thank you.” Diane slowly replaced the receiver.

Kelly looked at Diane. “What is it?”

Diane said, “Detectives Greenburg and Praegitzer have been transferred to another precinct.”

Kelly swallowed. “That’s a real coincidence, isn’t it?”

Diane said, “And I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“Detective Greenburg asked me if Richard had done or said anything out of his usual routine lately. There was one thing I forgot to mention. Richard was going to Washington to see somebody. Sometimes I travel with him, but this time he insisted it would be better if he went alone.”

Kelly was watching her with a surprised expression. “That’s strange. Mark told me
he
had to go to Washington, and had to go alone.”

“We have to find out why.”

Kelly walked over to the window and pulled back the drapes. “There’s still no car.” She turned to Diane. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right,” Diane said. “I know a little out-of-the-way hotel in Chinatown called the Mandarin. No one will ever think of looking for us there. We’ll call Mr. Kingsley from the room.”

“I
KNOW A
little out-of-the-way hotel in Chinatown called the Mandarin. No one will ever think of looking for us there. We’ll call Mr. Kingsley from the room.”

Tanner turned to his chief security officer, Harry Flint, with the perpetual half smile. “Kill them.”

H
ARRY FLINT WILL
take good care of the women,
Tanner thought with satisfaction. Flint had never failed him.

It amused Tanner to think about how Flint had come into his life. Years ago his brother, Andrew, poster boy for the bleeding hearts of the world, had started a halfway house for newly released prisoners, to help them adjust to civilian life. Then he would find jobs for them.

Tanner had a more useful plan for ex-felons, because he believed that there was no such thing as an ex-felon. Through his private sources, he would get inside information on the backgrounds of recently released prisoners, and if they had the qualifications that Tanner needed, they went from the halfway house to working for Tanner directly, doing what he called “delicate private tasks.”

He had arranged for an ex-felon named Vince Carballo to come to work for KIG. Carballo was a huge man with a scraggly beard and blue eyes that were like daggers. He had a long prison record. He had
been on trial for murder. The evidence against him was overwhelming, but a member of the jury stubbornly held out for acquittal, and it ended up in a hung jury. Only a few people knew that the juror’s little daughter had disappeared and a note was left behind:
If you keep quiet about this, your daughter’s fate will be determined by the jury’s verdict.
Carballo was the kind of man Tanner Kingsley admired.

T
ANNER HAD ALSO
heard about an ex-felon named Harry Flint. He had investigated Flint’s life thoroughly and decided he was perfect for his needs.

Harry Flint had been born in Detroit, into a middle-class family. His father was a bitter, failed salesman who spent his time sitting around the house complaining. He was a sadistic martinet, and at his son’s slightest infraction, he enjoyed whipping him, using a ruler, a belt, or anything else that was handy, as though he wanted to beat success into his son to make up for his own inadequacy.

The boy’s mother worked as a manicurist at a barbershop. While Harry’s father was tyrannical, his mother was devoted and doting, and as young Harry grew up, he was emotionally whipsawed between the two.

Doctors had told Harry’s mother that she was too old to have a child, so she considered her pregnancy a miracle. After Harry was born, she lovingly fondled him and was constantly hugging him, patting him, and kissing him until eventually Harry felt smothered by her love. As he got older, he loathed being touched.

W
HEN HARRY FLINT
was fourteen years old, he trapped a rat in the basement and stomped on it. As he stared at the rat slowly, painfully dying, Harry Flint had an epiphany. He suddenly realized he had the awesome power to take life, to kill. It made him feel like God. He was
omnipotent, all-powerful. He needed to have that feeling again, and he began to stalk small animals around the neighborhood, and they became his prey. There was nothing personal or malicious about what Flint was doing. He was just using his God-given talent.

Angry neighbors whose pets were being tortured and killed complained to the authorities, and a trap was set. The police put a Scottish terrier on the front lawn of a house with a leash to keep her from running away. They staked out the site, and one night, as the police watched, Harry Flint approached the animal. He pried the dog’s mouth open and started to insert a lit firecracker. The police pounced. When Harry Flint was frisked, he had a bloody rock and a five-inch fillet knife in his pocket.

He was sent to Challenger Memorial Youth Center for twelve months.

One week after Flint arrived, he attacked one of the other boys, maiming him badly. The psychiatrist who examined Flint diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic.

“He’s psychotic,” the doctor warned the guards in charge. “Be careful. Keep him away from the others.”

When Harry Flint had served his time, he was fifteen years old and was released on probation. He returned to school. Several of his classmates looked upon Flint as a hero. They had become involved in petty crimes such as snatching purses, lifting wallets, and shoplifting, and Flint soon became their leader.

In an alley fight one night, a knife sliced a corner of Flint’s lip, giving him a permanent half-smile.

As the boys grew older, they turned to carjacking, burglary, and robbery. One of the robberies became violent, and a shopkeeper was killed. Harry Flint was convicted of armed robbery and abetting a murder, and sentenced to ten years in prison. He was the most vicious prisoner the warden had ever seen.

There was something in Harry Flint’s eyes that made other prisoners leave him alone. He constantly terrorized them, but no one dared report him.

One day, as a guard passed Harry Flint’s cell, he stared inside unbelievingly. Flint’s cell mate was lying on the floor, in a pool of blood. He had been beaten to death.

The guard looked at Flint, and there was a smile of satisfaction on his face. “All right, you bastard. You won’t get out of this one. We can start warming up the chair for you.”

Flint glared at him and slowly raised his left arm. A bloody butcher knife was deeply imbedded in it.

Flint said coldly, “Self-defense.”

The prisoner in the cell across from Flint never told anyone that he had seen Flint savagely beat his cell mate to death, then pull out a butcher knife from under his own mattress and slice the knife through the flesh of his arm.

T
HE CHARACTERISTIC THAT
Tanner most admired about Flint was that Flint enjoyed his work so much.

Tanner remembered the first time that Flint had proven to him how useful he could be. It was during an emergency trip to Tokyo…

“T
ELL THE PILOT
to warm up the Challenger. We’re going to Japan. There will be two of us.”

The news had come at a bad time, but it had to be taken care of immediately, and it was too sensitive to entrust to anyone else. Tanner had arranged for Akira Iso to meet him in Tokyo and to take a room at the Okura Hotel.

While the plane was crossing the Pacific Ocean, Tanner was planning his strategy. By the time the plane landed, he had worked out a win-win situation.

The drive from Narita airport took one hour, and Tanner was amazed by how Tokyo never seemed to change. In boom times and in depressions, the city always seemed to wear the same impassive face.

A
KIRA ISO WAS
waiting for him at the Fumiki Mashimo restaurant. Iso was in his fifties, with a spare figure, gray hair, and bright brown eyes. He stood up to greet Tanner.

“It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Kingsley. Frankly, I was surprised to hear from you. I cannot imagine why you would come all this way to meet me.”

Tanner smiled. “I’m the bearer of good news that I thought was too important to discuss on the telephone. I think I’m going to make you a very happy man, and a very rich one.”

Akira Iso was looking at him curiously. “Yes?”

A white-jacketed waiter had come to the table.

“Before we talk business, why don’t we order?”

“As you wish, Mr. Kingsley. Are you familiar with Japanese dishes or shall I order for you?”

“Thank you. I can order. Do you like sushi?”

“Yes.”

Tanner turned to the waiter. “I’ll have
hamachi-temaki, kaibashira,
and
ama-ebi
.”

Akira Iso smiled. “That sounds good.” He looked at the waiter. “I’ll have the same.”

While they were eating, Tanner said, “You work for a very fine company, Tokyo First Industrial.”

“Thank you.”

“How long have you worked there?”

“Ten years.”

“That’s a long time.” He looked Akira Iso in the eye and said, “In fact, it might be time to make a change.”

“Why would I want to do that, Mr. Kingsley?”

“Because I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse. I don’t know how much money you make, but I am willing to pay you twice as much to leave them and come to work for KIG.”

“Mr. Kingsley, that is not possible.”

“Why not? If it’s because of a contract, I can arrange—”

Akira Iso put down his chopsticks. “Mr. Kingsley, in Japan, when we work for a company, it is like a family. And when we can no longer work, they take care of us.”

“But the money I’m offering you—”

“No.
Aisha seishin
.”

“What?”

“It means that we put loyalty above money.” Akira Iso looked at him curiously. “Why did you choose me?”

“Because I’ve heard very flattering things about you.”

“I’m afraid you have taken a long trip for nothing, Mr. Kingsley. I would never leave Tokyo First Industrial.”

“It was worth a try.”

“There are no hard feelings?”

Tanner leaned back and laughed. “Of course not. I wish all my employees were as loyal as you are.” He remembered something. “By the way, I brought you and your family a little gift. An associate of mine will bring it to you. He’ll be at your hotel in an hour. His name is Harry Flint.”

A
NIGHT MAID
found Akira Iso’s body hanging from a hook in a wardrobe chest. The official verdict was suicide.