The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (17 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)
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Even Susan said so. Anyway, he'd decided, it's harmless. And it's better than nothing.

The trouble with Katz, though, aside from the fact that he was a fucking thief, for which Lesko still had not forgiven him, was that Katz did not always wait to be spoken to. He would just show up. In the beginning, he would show up mostly in dreams, usually the four-in-the-morning kind, the half-awake kind, walking in with coffee and Danish to pick him up for roll call like he did every morning for ten years because Katz mostly drove. But before long Katz was showing up in other places, too. Wide-awake places. Broad daylight. Lesko would be walking along, he'd see something, wonder about it, to himself, and Katz would answer him. Before long, it got so he couldn't even watch a Knicks game on TV without Katz shooting off his mouth about the Knicks having no bench because of dumb trades and lousy draft choices, which would have been irritating even when Katz was alive because Katz never knew shit about sports. But it was also good in a way. If Katz never knew basketball, but now he does, it couldn't really be him. Right?

The thing was, as much as he hated taking Katz's crap, Lesko missed him. He hadn't been around lately. Wouldn't come, even when he was called. Lesko knew why. What it was, he was sulking. Katz's nose had been all out of joint ever since he hung up from that first call to Elena.
“
Hey. Lesko. What the hell was that?
”
“
Huh? What was what?
”

“
You and Elena is what, damn it. That broad orders my
fucking head blown off and all of a sudden by you she's Doris
Day.
”

“
Yeah, well, this is about Susan. Anyway, it
9
s none of your
goddamned business.
”
“
Don't give me Susan. I heard you. You were schmoozing
with her, Lesko, the lady who killed your partner. But what's
to hold a grudge, right? Forgive and forget. Why don't you
take her fucking dancing?
”
“
David—
””
“
And I'll tell you something else. Forget it. Even if she was
straight—
”
“
She straight now. Shut up about this, David.
”
“
In a pig's ass, she is. But even if she was, she wouldn't
touch you with a garbage man's gloves because you're
—
”
“
How would you like me to rip out whatever brains you got
left?’
9
“
See that? That's why. It's because you're such a nasty son of a bitch and you got no class, Lesko. Plus which you're ugly
and if you think
—”
Lesko shook off the memory. Maybe it was just as well that Katz was staying away. He didn't need the grief. It was enough that he was starting to get grief from live cops. And who could blame them? They're hanging around Greenfield Hill, getting no sleep, while the allegedly dangerous Mama's Boy is sitting around his dumb travel agency booking blue-haired old ladies onto cruise ships and his gorilla, McHugh, is home helping his landlady wallpaper her dining room. His cops were getting disgusted. But at least they
were keeping
their ears open.
That was how, in the halls and washrooms of Greenfield Hill, Lesko picked up two rumors. One was that Palmer Reid had holed up in his home in Maryland. The second was that two of Bannerman's women plus a long-distance shooter named Glenn Cook had gone to pay him a visit. On hearing this last, he borrowed the car his cops came in and confronted Paul Bannerman at the offices of Luxury Travel Limited.
“This Cook guy, the sniper, he's down there to hit him, right? You promised me a piece of him.”
“He's there to observe,” Bannerman winced, motioning for Lesko to keep his voice down. It had not occurred to Lesko that Bannerman's reservations clerks might be just what they seemed. “As for Molly and Janet, they're long since back.”
“So why'd they go?”
Bannerman hesitated. But better, he thought, to tell at least part of the truth than to let him go on speculating. “They penetrated Reid's house. Molly rigged his phones.”
Lesko raised an eyebrow. “With a guy like Reid, it's that easy? He doesn't keep them swept?”
“Molly knows her business.” He dismissed the subject with a wave.
“So? What happens now?”

Until Roger Clew's visit, the answer to that had been clear. He could not afford to let Reid, guilty or not, take the initiative. Roger would understand that. And yet Roger had asked him to take no action. If he was being used, therefore, he was clearly not being used to destroy Reid, at least not by Roger. And Roger's friendship was valuable. That of Barton Fuller even more so. Still . . . something about Roger. Roger, unless Helge was mistaken, had lied to him about when he learned of the attack on Susan. Bannerman couldn't think why.

”I haven't decided,” he answered.
“What's to decide? You know he's behind what happened to Susan and Elena.”
”I don't know it. I think it.”
“You talked to Loftus, right? You connected Reid and his greaseball general, right? The guy didn't dig in down there because he's innocent. What more do you want? We sit here waiting for him to drop a bomb on Westport with a signed confession taped to it?”
Bannerman shook his head. “He won't move yet. Not until he knows where all the players are. He probably isn't even sure I'm here.” Reid had already tried to contact him twice in Westport and once more at his Klosters apartment. On that occasion, Lesko answered. Apparently, Reid babbled on for some time with offers of sympathy, men and money before he realized he was talking to a stranger. Lesko did not enlighten him.
“Bannerman,” Lesko slid into a chair. ”I want this guy. I'll work with you or I'll do it alone. But I want him dead.”
Paul said nothing. He seemed to sigh.
“Hey, look,” Lesko leaned toward him. “The last few days I heard a lot about Mama's Boy. All of a sudden you're not acting much like the guy I heard about. Does Susan, by any chance, have anything to do with the change?”
A small shrug.
”I also hear you're thinking about hanging 'em up, letting this guy, Zivic, run the show here. Is that true?”
“More or less.”
“Well, if you think backing off is suddenly going to make you better son-in-law material—”
”I don't.”
“Then what do you say you get off your ass?”
Bannerman shook his head. “You're a smooth talker, Lesko.” He reached for a pad and scribbled an address. He tore off the sheet and pushed it across his desk. “That's where Reid lives. You want to go after him, be my guest.”
“You don't think I will?”
”I think you might. You won't last a day.”
Lesko reddened. He stood up, paced the office, struggling to control his temper. “You got a better idea, let's hear it.”

Bannerman looked at him coldly. ”I don't need you, Lesko. Try to understand that. If my problem was in some New York back alley, you'd be the first one I'd call. You're tough and straight ahead. Reid is devious, cowardly, and probably crazy. But he'll dance rings around you.”

Lesko started to speak. He bit his lip. He knew that Bannerman was right. His expression softened. “Look,” he said slowly. “They hurt my daughter and I didn't do shit. All I did was almost louse everything up and then watch like a dummy while you take over and blow away the Carmody guy. They hurt Elena, they busted her up bad, and all I can do is go see her with this stupid plant and tell her I'm sorry. I have to do something. I have to at least be in on it.”
“Can I ask you a question?*’
Lesko made a face. “What's with me and Elena, right?”
Bannerman waited.
“The answer is I don't know. Look at her, look at me, try to figure. Anyway, what's it to you?”
“Just trying to know you a little better.”
“We're not going to be pals, Bannerman. All I want from you is one thing, one time. Are you going to do something about Reid or not?”
Bannerman leaned back in his chair. His eyes rested, thoughtfully, on a drawer of his desk. He reached to open it. From it, he pulled out a small address book. He reached for his phone and began punching out a number.
“Who are you calling?”
“It's time to find out what Reid's up to.”
“How do you do that?”
He motioned Lesko to the extension at the far end of his office sofa. “I'm going to ask him,” he said.
“Paul? ... Is it you? . . . Where are you?”
Palmer Reid held the phone as if it were a living thing. He snapped his fingers, silently, in the direction of his assistant. Charles Whitlow, lips pursed, one eyebrow raised, carefully lifted an extension from its cradle.
“I'm back in Westport, Palmer. You called. What's on your mind?”
The voice, thought Reid. Not at all cordial. Yet not hostile, especially. Preoccupied. Distant. Weary.
“The girl, Paul. How is she?”
“Look . . . Palmer . . .”
“Paul, we've had our differences.” Reid gathered himself. “You know that I would happily see you and all your people behind bars. But you cannot believe that I would have harmed that innocent girl.”
”I don't. Necessarily.”
Reid let the qualifier pass. “How is she, Paul?”
A brief silence. A sigh. “Somewhat better. She's here. I've been spending most of my time at her bedside.” He saw Lesko's eyebrow go up. He touched a finger to his lips.
“Who did this to her? Could she describe them?”
“She has no memory at all of what happened. She's barely lucid. There's apparently brain damage. Thank you for the flowers, by the way.”
“The least I could do,” Reid mumbled. His attention had turned to Whitlow who was busily scribbling questions on a pad, now holding the pad for him to see. Reid nodded, frowning. “Paul, I called your Klosters apartment two days ago. A man answered, pretending to be you.”
“Probably Lesko. He took his daughter's key to collect her things. Do you know where he is, by the way?”
“He's not with you?”
“Hardly. He blames me for what happened to his daughter. He's threatened to kill me for it. For all I know, he's still in Switzerland with that drug dealer of his.”
Reid blinked. A smile spread across Whitlow's face. He raised a tiny fist as if in triumph, then scribbled another question on his pad.
“Paul,” Reid asked, again nodding toward his assistant, “the Swiss police say the attackers were a man and a woman. Do you know who they are? Any sign of them?”
“They sank out of sight.”
“Probably shot your man Russo as well, don't you think?”
“It wouldn't surprise me. But they're only hired hands. I want who sent them. If you didn't do it, tell me who did.”
“Paul ... I have certain . . . evidence . . .” Reid was squinting, trying to make out Whitlow's scrawl.
“Evidence of what, Palmer?”
Whitlow wrote a name in block letters. He underscored it twice. He jabbed at it with his pen.
“Palmer? If you know something, tell me.”

”I hesitate because . . . Paul, there are people who would like nothing more than to see the two of us at each other's throats. People who would try to destroy me before I can expose them for the traitors they are.”

“Names, Palmer. Who are you talking about?”
'I’ll answer with a question. Why would Roger Clew, in a telephone conversation with Irwin Kaplan of the Drug Enforcement Administration, be so concerned that the purpose of your visit to Switzerland might be to meet with Elena Bragg?”
A long silence. “When did this call take place?”
“The week before you left. Paul, it gets worse. Much worse.”
“Tell me.”
“Drags, Paul. And Barton Fuller. That hypocrite has been using his office to facilitate drag traffic for years.”

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