SILENT GUNS (34 page)

“
Hell. He’s an officer.” They
laughed.

“
I hear he’s here because he
cracked up his destroyer. They say he’s been permanently beached.
That’s probably why he’s pissed-off all the time. He and the
Admiral don’t hit it off, either, I hear tell, “ Rankin
mused.

“
He’s ridin’ for a fall,”
predicted Wilson

“
Ten bucks he doesn’t come
back.”

“
You’re on.”

“
Easy pickin’s.”

“
Count me in.”

“
We did one good thing,
though,”

“
What?”

“
That second shell didn’t get
fired off.”

* * *

Sam Simons brusquely flipped through a pile of mail
stacked on his desk. He shook his head and then shoved the whole
pile into the round-file. He eased back and glanced at the wall
clock: it read 1546. It was Friday. No appointments were noted on
his calendar pad. He reached inside his jacket pocket. “Shoot!” he
said, patting himself down. He leaned over and rummaged about in
his lower desk draw. Empty: he viciously kicked it shut. “Let me
bum a cigarette, will you Jim?” Slipping a pack out of his pocket,
Jim Frances tossed it too him.

“
How about this headline for a
real grabber?” Frances said, reading from the afternoon Seattle
Times.

“
TOMORROW IS DOOMSDAY FOR CITY,”
and they quote the Mayor, “terrorists have threatened the City with
another shell from the battleship
Missouri
tomorrow,
Saturday, at five a.m. The target is the Bartell Drug Store on the
corner of Fourth and Pine. The Navy is very close to having the
terrorists routed out…Stay home… listen to your radio…”

“
Is the City going to pay?”
Frances asked.

“
Beats me,” Simons shrugged,
snapping a match. “The politicians insist on playing chicken while
the shells keep falling.”

“
Trent’s dossier is on your desk,
I stuck it under Division Reports.”

“
Good thing you told me; it could
have died there.” Simons drew, blew smoke and stared at the glowing
red tip. “I never could get much out of these things.”

“
Then why smoke them?”

“
They save my fingernails. What
else is in the paper?”

“
Pictures of the
Missouri
.
More pictures covering the Smith Tower and an interview with
Conover. Nothing you don’t know about.”

“
What’s in the
dossier?”

“
Not too enlightening. Trent was
born at Eastside Hospital, Manhattan. Good family. Smart kid. Wrong
neighborhood. No police record, but they knew him. Not much money
in the family. Got into Annapolis. The Navy marked him an up and
comer.”

“
Well, he made Lt. Commander,
didn’t he?”

“
No signs of mental aberrations,”
Frances shook his head, “I don’t get it.”

“
You won’t find the answer to
Trent in a folder.” Simons pulled open a desk draw and lifted his
foot to the lip. He extracted a can of black shoe polish and
applied a waxy paste to his shoe. Brushing vigorously, he asked,
“What else?”

“
He was the XO of the
Missouri
when she collided with and sank the
Duluth
.
The incident made big headlines seven years ago. He took the blame.
His ex, Myrna says his insides turned upside down after the
incident. He went South after his court-martial. He was never the
same after that, real upset, just couldn’t get over it. There are
clippings in the dossier. Names. She told me Trent figured he was
set up and hung out to dry. After the trial, some Navy appointed
lawyer made a fuss, claimed he had some incriminating evidence on
some of the witnesses, but nothing ever came of it. The Navy’s
brass stonewalled the whole incident, closed ranks. His lawyer was
discharged two years later. Trent’s career lay in ruins, that’s for
sure.”

Sam Simons rubbed his hands, “Real upset. Eh!”

“
Another fag?” Frances held out
his pack.

“
Naw! Forget it!”

“
His ex contends his hatred
festered. Revenge consumed him, correcting a wrong, he would say.
He became obsessed, harder and harder to live with. Separation was
just a matter of time; he didn’t fight the divorce. I thought he
might have feared for his job, but that didn’t figure. I checked.
He just got a big promotion. You never know what’s buried deep
inside a guy, do you?”

“
People do strange things for even
stranger reasons,” Simons added.

“
So what about Graves, Hirsch and
the rest of them?” Simons raised his head, his black eyebrows erect
like quills on a porcupines’ back. He pondered a full
minute.

“
I figured they’d crack by now.
Infighting. Split up. It hasn’t happened. Something powerful is
holding them together.”

“
Money?”

“
Maybe.”

“
What then? Loyalty to Trent?
Never got the Navy out of their systems? Recapture old times,
maybe?”

Sam Simons clasped his hands behind his head and
thrust out his chin as he sucked in his lower lip and sighed
pensively, “Who knows. It could be they’re pissed off, too.”

“
Christ! You mean the
Missouri
is a publicity stunt?” Frances
exclaimed.

“
If it were, I’d know what to do.
Could be they’re just trying to prove something.”

“
What the hell do you do with
that?”

“
Nothing. Either way, just pay
them off and hope they go away.”

The phone rang. Simons listened then hung up.

“
They brought in Trent’s
girlfriend.”

* * *

The SPD interrogation room was meant to be
intimidating. And it was. It barely had room for three jammed-in
chairs and a small, scarred wooden table. Dark green linoleum floor
squares irritated the artistic senses. A one-way window, cut into
the far wall, fooled the eye as it made the room appear distorted.
Lisa Mallory leaned against the table, her pointed breasts pressed
hard against the edge. Her long, elegant hands were relaxed and
casually folded. She stared impassively at Officers Frances and
Gleese seated across from her. Chief Simons, meanwhile, had settled
comfortably into a soft chair behind the one-way glass. He listened
half-heartedly with one ear. He dismissed routine questions asked
hundreds, no thousands of times before, patiently waiting for that
one slip up. He was transfixed by the fascinating sternness about
this woman. Her demeanor was of stone and telegraphed icy contempt.
Her attitude was in total contrast to her appearance: someone had
chiseled Lisa Mallory’s out of creamy, soft Italian marble.

“
Miss Mallory, do you know why you
are here?”

Defiance flashed in her eyes, “No. And I’m ticked
off. So you read me my rights. Big deal. You got no cause to haul
me down here.”

“
What do you do for a
living?”

“
Collections. People don’t always
pay their bills.”

“
Do you always carry a .32 in your
purse?”

“
A girl needs it for safety. I
wouldn’t have to carry one, if you cops spent more time rounding up
real criminals,” She said with a smirk.

“
You work for the NARDO AGENCY,
don’t you?” Lisa flashed a quizzical look.

“
I’ve done collections for them.
Yeah! So!”

“
Do you know an Anthony Trent?”
Lisa’s eyes narrowed.

“
So, what if I do?”

“
You’re his contact, aren’t
you?”

“
For what?”

“
Extortion!”

“
What! You’re crazy!!”

“
Haven’t you read the
papers?”

“
No. I’ve been out of
town.”

“
We figure Trent has spent a
quarter-million setting up an extortion caper. Thirty million is a
damn good return for NARDO, don’t you think?”

“
What are you talking about?” she
glared.

“
Don’t play games with us. Trent
is out on the
Missouri
and he’s threatening to blow up the
City.”

Lisa stared at Frances, disbelieving. “He’s out
there getting her ready to tow to Long Beach!”

“
Then, explain your contacts with
Trent? What about your meeting with Maxie Hirsch? And Hank Graves?
Trent works for NARDO, too, doesn’t he? You’re here to protect
NARDO’s investment. Right! You’re the funnel! You’re the
go-between! We want answers,” Jim Frances jumped up and shouted,
his voice rising in intensity. A battered Lisa recoiled at the
onslaught, her eyes widened and lower lip trembled, and her mouth
fell open in bewilderment.

“
Tell us about Trent’s plans.”
Annette cajoled deftly, her voice cooed in soothing mellowness.
Lisa’s eyes formed narrow slits.

“
It’s all lies! All of it lies!”
she snarled, her marble facade shattered. “Why are you doing this
to me?” Her face twisted up with fury. Her voice charged with
emotion: words poured out as a high-pitched screech. Lisa’s
shoulders caved, she lowered her head and slumped forward, sobbing.
Sobs were of sadness, abandonment, not the sharp edge of
contempt.

Lisa whimpered, softly. “Oh! My God. That bastard.
That bastard. I don’t know anything. I swear!” She looked at
Annette beseechingly, lowered her voice and fell silent again. She
raised her arm in a limp gesture. “Tony deserted me, I just know
it,” her whisper almost inaudible. “I love him. He was coming back
to me, he promised.” Her facial muscles quivered in disbelief. To
hide her pain, she covered her face with her hands.

Simons leaned forward. He regarded Lisa with a
flicker of sadness. For a lady used to turning up the heat, she did
not measure up well, he mused. Clicking footsteps halted as
Detective Jim Frances joined him. “Think she’s telling the truth,
Chief?”

“
I don’t know. If she’s lying,
she’s damn good.”

“
She could have known this was
coming and rehearsed,” Frances said. “Anybody in her racket has got
to be tough. They pester people to make them feel guilty, pay up;
but criminal conduct, it’s not their style.”

Simons observed, “Collections is a perfect cover.
She’s a professional and experienced. She might risk it. Especially
if it’s for the big kill.”

“
She might turn against Trent or
NARDO?”

“
If she turns on NARDO, she’s
dead. Maybe on Trent, but if he really means something to
her…”

“
They’ve been shacking up. It
could be serious.”

“
Could be,” Simons agreed. “I
think she’ll talk.”

“
I’ll go talk to Annette,” Frances
left.

Lisa sat alone, disturbed in her own thoughts.
Simons knew Lisa knew nothing.

Sam Simons, too, sat alone with his thoughts. His
face held no expression; he hid his behind a death mask. He
suffered in his knowledge and it proved a terrible burden, he
sighed. Only he knew Trent’s true motives. That the money was an
absolute must, but of minor importance. Did he dare confide in his
boss, the Mayor, in the truth? The truth would not stop the
shelling, of that he was certain. Would a miss-step trigger Trent
to greater violence? Most likely not! To Trent, it was not the
violence itself, but the threat of violence that held the key. And,
Trent had confided all this in him. Why? He sat back and stuck an
unlit cigar in his mouth. It reasoned the Navy was the target of
Trent’s strategy from the very start, the city a mere bystander, a
pawn in the game. And, yet, the city would be made to suffer and
nothing could be done to derail the carnage. Simons recalled
Trent’s words: I want my pound of flesh: the men who sentenced me
to a living hell. But, how did Trent expect to flush out Kindler,
Denton, Proust, and Burns, if they were the true targets of his
vendetta. No connection had been made, and none surfaced: only
Trent knew there existed a connection, a deep, hidden one. He
tossed the dilemma around in his mind and then exploded. “Damn his
hide, he expects me to uncover the connection. That’s his price.”
Simons angrily threw down his cigar, tromped on it, and stomped
out.

* * *

“
Where’s Security? Keep that damn
door locked,” Mayor Grille struggled to restrain his irritation.
Intense wrangling, shouting and a great deal of commotion filled
the hallway outside his office.

“
It’s the media,” A frazzled
Murial spoke.

Grille winced…sharks make better friends. Chief
Simons leaned back in a chair, one leg crossed over the other.
Simons pleaded he’d needed to be elsewhere, but the plea was
quashed at the Grille’s insistence.

Bud Mitchell set the phone down and promptly sat
down. He slipped a pencil from his pocket and made a note in a
pocket spiral. “Well, do we have the $30 million, Bud?” Grille
demanded, anxiously glancing up at the wall clock. “It’s after
0300…two more hours…”

“
Relax. The money is pledged.
Rounding up the cash isn’t so easy,” Mitchell sighed. “It’ll take a
day or so.”

“
What do you mean - ‘a day or
so?’” Grille blanched.

“
Just what I said! Tell Trent
he’ll get his money. Has he said how he wants it delivered?”
Mitchell asked, not turning his head, and in the same breath, “Any
chance the Navy…?”