The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (26 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)
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Covington's eyes narrowed. He glanced toward the bins.
“Not them,” Bannerman reassured him. “Something useful.”
The truck slowed, then stopped. Covington hesitated. He held out a hand. “Am I ever going to know who I'm thanking?”
Bannerman took it. “You're a good man, Mr. Coving-ton.”
They dropped Harry Greenwald where he had left his car. He seemed stunned. His collar was wet with perspiration. Yet he was reluctant to leave them.
“Fucking Lesko,” he muttered. “That's your idea of asking a few questions?”
“Hey,” Lesko snarled. “Who figured on the moose? Who figured the dry cleaner goes ape shit? Anyway we got their attention.”
A car slowed to a stop a half-block behind them. It blinked its lights. A second car pulled up. It did the same. Greenwald's hand went to his hip.
“They're friends,” Bannerman said. “We'd better go.”
Greenwald shook his head. A machine gunner, a sniper, and a firebomber. Everyone should have such friends. “When do I hear?”
“Tomorrow.”
“If Hector talks.”
“Tomorrow,” Bannerman repeated.
The truck swung east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, following the signs to 1-95 and New England. One of the two cars moved ahead. The other stayed to their rear. Bannerman had asked Lesko to drive. He would remain in the back. It was time to begin that talk.
In the random wash of light from other vehicles, Banner-man reached into the bigger man's bin and pushed back his hood to reveal long hair worn in dreadlocks and an ear studded with several rubies. The man made no sound, no movement. Bannerman checked the pulse at his throat. Then he turned to Hector Manley and unknotted the cloth that gagged him.
“What's this one's name?” Bannerman asked.
No answer. A hard stare.
”I know it's not Buster,” he said. “Because Buster Bang was thrown off a roof a few nights ago. Why do I think you did that, Mr. Manley?”
Still no answer.

Bannerman shrugged. He reached into the big man's bin and pulled loose a plastic garment bag. He knotted it at the shoulder, then pulled it over the big man's head. With the cloth that had been used to gag him, he secured the bag around his throat.

“What are you doing?” Hector rasped.
“If you won't talk to me,” Bannerman said, his manner resigned, “we need some way to pass the time. We'll just sit here and watch him die.”
The Jamaican turned away. He stared through the window.
“You're not cops,” he said finally. “You're not friends of the cleaner man. What is this?”
Bannerman didn't answer. He reached to tuck a loose end of the plastic into the cloth that held it.
Hector kept looking through the glass. His eyes narrowed. “Are we going to Connecticut?”
“Yes.”
“What town?”
”I think you know.”
“Will you tell me...do you live there?”
“Yes. I do.”
Hector Manley fell silent. He seemed to smile. Then, “This is pointless. Let him breathe.”
“Explain, please.”
“The way to change my mind about Westport is to do it with money.”
Bannerman blinked. Then he understood. Hector had refused the job after all. “Bad guess, Hector. The Arab didn't send me. I'm the intended victim.”
“Then it is all the more pointless.” The man squirmed to face him. ”I would not have done it.”
“Who is ‘the Arab?’ ”
”I don't know.”
Bannerman stretched his arms. He sat back.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Peel your face off.”
“Peel . . .”
Bannerman closed his eyes.
“What are you talking about?” the Jamaican asked.
“It will be done on an operating table.” Bannerman stifled a yawn. “Then you will be taken back to New York and released on the street where you live. You will have no face, no eyes, no tongue. Your friends will find you stumbling about, trying to scream. I need them to see you that way.”
Hector tried to spit. His mouth was dry.
Neither man moved or spoke for several minutes. Bannerman appeared to doze. He waited, giving Hector Manley's imagination time to see himself groping from one parked car to another, hearing the screams of women, children running from him, older boys tearing at his pockets, taking his jewelry.
”I don't believe you,” he said finally.
”I know you don't. Get some rest.”
“This, I take it, is to frighten me? To make me talk?”
“Talking won't save you. But you will talk. Trust me.”
They were silent again. The truck reached the tolls at New Rochelle.
”I told the truth,” Hector Manley said hoarsely. ”I would not have done it.”
Bannerman checked his watch in the light of the unmanned booth. “Done what, Mr. Manley?” he asked.
Hector bit his lip. “Car bombs. Scattered throughout Westport. Timed to go off all at once.”
“Forty of them?”
“Yes.”
“Where, exactly?”
“The Arab had a street map. He drew boxes on it, one where each car was to be left. Remove that plastic and I will show you those that I remember.”
“Who is the Arab? Where do I find him?”
”I don't know. This is the truth.”
“Very well.” Bannerman lowered his chin.

”I was not interested because it was stupid,” Hector Manley said, his voice more firm than before. “Think about what he asked. Forty stolen cars, driven by black men into a town where even one black man is noticed. The Arab is a fool. It could never be done.”

“Buster Bang seemed to disagree.”
“Buster was a greater fool.”
“He didn't hear you say no.”
“He did the last time we spoke.”
“On that rooftop?”

The Jamaican tossed his head vaguely. ”I told him not to speak of it. But he tried to find others who would do this. It had become a sickness with him.”

“When and where, were you to see the Arab again?”
”I don't know. I've seen the man only twice. Each time he found me.”
“Mr. Manley,” Bannerman said patiently, “you're meeting him next Wednesday. Where? And what then?”

Manley seemed confused. Then his eyes widened as he remembered the conversation with Buster and he realized that it had been overheard. “That was a lie,” he said. ”I told Buster there was to be a third meeting only to keep him from doing what he did in any case. It is true that I would not have done what the Arab asked but I would have taken the payment he offered.”

“What sort of payment?”
“The offer was heroin. Five kilos on agreement. Fifty more when the cars were in place. After that, a guaranteed supply for two years at twenty percent below the market rate.”
“How much is that?”
“It depends. Many millions.”
“This did not tempt you?”
”I would have taken the five kilos. I might have taken the next fifty as well, and then I would have had to kill him. But I would not have done this thing in Westport.”
Bannerman did not speak.
“Is Ruby dead?”
Bannerman raised his head. The earrings. Now he remembered a ruby ring as well.
Ruby.
He reached into the other bin, his fingers finding the big man's throat. “Yes. He is.”
Hector Manley made a sound through his teeth. He turned away. “Will you tell me your name?” he asked.
“It's Bannerman.”
The Jamaican mouthed it, frowning. He shook his head. “What is your real name?”
Bannerman understood. He smiled. “It's not a street name. That's it. Paul Bannerman. Some people know me as Mama's Boy.”
The Jamaican mouthed this as well. He shook his head. If it had meaning to him, he gave no sign. If anything, Bannerman thought, he seemed to be wondering why anyone would choose such a name.
“Hey,” Lesko rapped against the panel. “Here's Westport. Where to now?”
“To the clinic. You know the way.”
“Then what?”
“Um . . .” Bannerman winced. “Actually, we have to talk about that. I have a dinner date in one hour. Someone you know.”
A long silence. “We'll talk, all right.” Another silence. “You prick.”
The truck swung onto the exit ramp.
Manley was staring at him. ”A clinic?”
“And an operating table. I believe I mentioned it.”
“For the last time”—the Jamaican's mouth went dry again—”I told the truth.”
“So did I.”

-18-

Two in the Morning. Zurich.

Urs Brugg groped for the telephone that chirped at his bedside. He brought it to his chest. Before lifting the receiver he made note of the line on which the call was coming. It was the line that had a scrambling device. He touched a button on his bed and his upper body began to rise. He lifted the receiver.

“Urs?”
“Yes, Leo.” He rubbed his face. “Good morning.”
“You said at any hour,” the KGB Chief of Bern reminded him.
Urs Brugg grunted, acknowledging the literal truth of it. It was a truth, however, that he had considered open to reasonable interpretation.
“We've located them, Urs. The three of them.”
He turned on one elbow. “The ones who—”
“Killed Josef, yes. And shot Elena.”
“Where are they?”
“They have gone to Spain. Apparently in search of new employment. It seems they have mentioned the killing of Dr. Russo among their credentials even though his death was not intended. Inquiries were made to verify their claims. This is how we learned who they are.”
“Where in Spain, Leo? What are their names?”
”Urs . . . this is not the way. If you like, my people will deal with them. They will bring you proof. It will be finished.”
Urs Brugg shook his head. ”I am already more in debt to the KGB than is comfortable for me.”
“Not the KGB,” the other man said. “This is Leo. Your friend. And there is no debt.”
A brief pause. Long enough to convey skepticism. Not so long as to be impolite. “Leo, where are these men?”
“Two are men. Their driver was a woman.”
“Their names?” Urs Brugg switched on his reading light.
The KGB man gave them. He read, from notes, what was known of the three. The leader was British. Educated, well spoken, fetish for cleanliness, sexually active, extremely so, although he is said to despise women. Second man, rarely speaks, Algerian but travels on a French passport. The woman, a German, is a known prostitute and drug addict. Between assignments, sells herself to keep them in funds. Otherwise, it appears, one of her duties is to find girls, preferably students, backpackers, for the Englishman. He likes to bathe them, then rape them.
Urs Brugg scribbled quickly. He looked at his notepad as if it were soiled.
“Their address, Leo?”
“It's not a good place for this, Urs. They are in Marbella, living in a rented house not far from the beach.”
”I know Marbella.”

“Then you know how easily it can be sealed. Getting men in will be one thing, getting them out quite another. My people, on the other hand, are already in place.”

“Leo, your friend asks you ... do not interfere.”

“Friends give advice, Urs. Either let me help you or give this to Mama's Boy.”

”I am sure, as it happens, that he will insist
on it. But I
am grateful to you, Leo.”

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