The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (26 page)

Molly could have kissed him.

But that was then and this was now. There was still
the Gelman matter and Paul would have to resolve it
before he could leave Westport again. There were one
or two other matters as well.

“Molly,” Paul paused at the entrance of the
Szechuan restaurant. John Waldo's car was still creeping ahead, fifty yards at a time, showing no sign of breaking
off their flank. “I'll call Billy from here and ask him to
meet me down at the beach early tomorrow. Just the
two of us, okay?”

“Okay,” she answered, asking him with her eyes to
go easy.

He touched her, nodding, then he took a long look
back up the road behind them and then down past John
Waldo's car. He was frowning. “Do you smell something
in the air?” Paul asked.

“Anton seems to. Does he know anything I don't?”

“Only a few more details about my talk with Reid. I
guess it bothers him that Reid went so far out of his way
to see me.”

“It doesn't bother you, though.”

Paul rocked his hand and shrugged. “We can let
Reid's mood swings keep us on our toes or we can let
them paralyze us. Down at Windermere I probably
rubbed his nose in it more than I should have. But it will
take a lot more than that to make Reid risk a shooting
war.”

“There's one difference between you and Anton.
You think Reid's a deliberate man. Anton thinks he's
unstable.”

Paul let out a sigh. “Do you want me to cancel? Or at
least postpone?”

“No. Take your vacation. Take your lady and go.”

Paul reached for the door, then paused. “Listen, on a
related matter, Susan is meeting with her father to
night.”

“I know.”

“I'll want to know everything she says over the
phone about me afterward, and any information she gives about our travel plans.”

“Of course.”

“Then after we leave, if we leave, I want you to
remove that bug.”

“You're not going to want to know how she feels
about you later?”

“Enough's enough.” He opened the door. “Let's
eat.”

CHAPTER 9

Four in the morning.

Lesko had been dreaming again. In
and out. More
half-awake dreams.

What it was, was last night at Gallagher's coming up
on him like a bad Mexican dinner. Susan was in it. Look
ing happy. Nice tan. Her life going good. Except in this
dream she's not only still talking about all that Westport crap, she's actually making a presentation about it, com
plete with big charts on an easel.

She's on this one big graph showing suicide and acci
dental-death statistics by year, and one year goes com
pletely off the chart. Lesko is not paying much attention
because he's already made up his mind she's blowing
smoke and besides, there are too many other things
going on. Most of them aggravating.

First there's Katz, wherever the hell he came from,
sitting down at the table with her in his cashmere jacket
and Rolex, and the jerk is agreeing with her. His mouth is open and he's nodding up and down like one of those fake dogs in the back window of a car. At another table
there's Buzz Donovan taking notes. He's holding his
notepad low, the way you'd hold a poker hand, because
there's that Loftus guy kind of hovering behind Dono
van trying to see what he was writing.

Lesko was about to get up and belt Loftus again just
on general principles when he saw someone he wanted
to hit even more. This was a guy he'd never seen before,
but he knew it had to be Paul Bannerman because the
guy was
standing behind Susan running his goddamned
hands all over her shoulders and down her front. Lesko
hated the son of a bitch on sight. A big guy, twice her
size and twice her age, and he's got this sneaky, leering
face. Lesko decided to smash it in no matter what kind
of shit Susan gave him for doing it but just then he glanced toward Gallagher's window and there's Elena
standing out there in the snow. Just standing there.
Watching. In that same fur coat. She sees him looking at
her and she gives him this shy little nod.

Lesko's stomach does something funny. A part of him wants to say, all right, come in, you don't have to
stand out there in the cold, but what he says is, look,
why don't you just get out of here before I change my
mind again. She gives him this sad look like her feelings
are hurt and she backs away.

Yeah, well, give me a break. What do you want from
me, lady? We should be friends? Anyway, for your own
good, get out of here before the Loftus guy spots you.

“
D
a
ddy?''

“What?”
Susan's calling him over to her charts. All of
a sudden everybody else is gone except Katz who's still
sitting there with his stupid little smile and nodding.

“Uncle David agrees with me that there's something
weird in Westport. He spent three years in homicide and
he thinks. . . . ”

Lesko glared at Katz and jerked his thumb toward
the door.
“Take a walk, David. It's bad enough I have to
listen to your shit without you bothering Susan with it.

“Daddy, he's not bothering me. We were trying to
figure out why.
. . . ”

“I don't want you talking to him,”
Lesko barked,
“And Katz can't
figure out a damned thing because he's
dead.”

“Oh, right. Right”
Susan remembered. And now
her hand was on Katz's arm with the Rolex and she's
leaning close and speaking excitedly like she forgot he's
been away and they had a lot to catch up on.
“Uncle
David, as long as you're dead, why don't you look up
some of those people from Westport and ask how
come they . . . ?”

“The thing is, I'm not going to be dead that long,”
Katz explained.
”l been talking to your father and I
think he's going to help me fix
it,
”

“In a pig's ass, l
am. And if you don't get away from
Susan I'm going to take your head off all over again.”

Lesko was yelling now. He didn't stop yelling until
his feet hit the floor at his bedside.

“Christ!”

Lesko rubbed his face.

What's today?

Thursday.

He looked at his clock. Not even five yet. Less than
three hours' sleep since he finally got home from Gal
lagher's. The dream was receding but the details were
still
vivid enough. He hated this. Four A.M. dreams. All
he needed now was for Katz to walk in with his bagels or
Danish. He'd shove them right up his
ass.
.

All right. Settle down. What's bothering you?

He remembered the Bannerman guy with his hands
all over Susan. But that's not it, he told himself. You're always doing that with guys she's seeing. You always
think they're creeps until you meet them and talk to
them. Then you always think they're wimps. Whatever
Bannerman turns out to be, he's nothing like the guy
you just dreamed about. In fact, the guy in the dream
looks more like you. Because Susan told you he reminds
her of you. Which is probably why you don't like him.
That's all that meant.

So what else is wrong? It's not that Westport stuff.
That's
not even worth thinking about. It's not Katz be
cause him at least you're getting used to.

It's Elena.

Face it.

You could have done without hearing her name
again. Seeing her look at you. You're never
going to see
her again but wherever she is, you hope she's okay.
Admit it.

It's also Loftus. He bothers you.

But why?

Because he's after Elena? Maybe. But that really
isn't it, either. What it is, he should never have told you
that. Not if he's a professional, not even after you
pounded him a little. And if he's FBI, he went to one of
the best surveillance schools in the world and yet he did
the most piss-poor job of tailing you ever saw. Even
Donovan spotted him the first ten minutes.

Donovan.

Donovan would be making his calls today.
We'll see.
Now come on.

Get some sleep.

That morning in Westport, three hours later, Billy
McHugh drove past the shuttered gate house at the
entrance to the Compo Beach parking lot. He spotted
Paul's blue Honda among the handful of cars parked at
odd angles along the breakwater. It was the only car
facing away from the water, he noted approvingly. Rear
tires on a solid surface. Not on sand or gravel like the
others.

McHugh chose a spot not far from Paul's and parked
his car in a similar manner. Pocketing his keys, he
stepped onto the rocky beach and saw Paul at once.
Paul had his back to him, though Billy was sure he'd watched him come. He was sitting on his heels talking
to a black Labrador retriever who was wet and frizzy
and had a coating of sand up to his shoulders. The morn
ing sun was warm; last night's unseasonable weather
was holding. Billy could see two other dogs running free
along the beach, their owners ambling behind them. It
was nice that they did this. If Billy
had a dog he would
take him for long walks all the time. Or he could come
down here and go clamming like the men at the far end
and the dog could keep him company.

The black Lab backed off at Billy's approach, then
pirouetted playfully as Billy eased to a squat alongside
Paul. The dog took Billy's scent and, deciding he was
friendly, settled down to watch the two men as they
gazed out over the gray-green waters of Long Island
Sound.

“Did you ever read what it says on that statue up
where you drive down to the beach?” Billy gestured in
the general direction of the bronze statue of a minute-man and the historical marker that told of a British landing at this spot during the Revolutionary War.

“I've read it.” Paul nodded.

“It says,” Billy told him anyway, “they landed for
what they call a lightning raid on Danbury, to capture
stores of rebel arms.” He shook his head bemusedly.
“Some lightning raid. Forty miles on foot. It took them
two days in full pack, wearing redcoats that made beau
tiful targets every step of it.”

Paul ran his fingers through the polished stones at his
feet, saying nothing.