The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (27 page)

“They had guts.” Billy said quietly.
“I could never walk in a line like that past all those stone
walls, never knowing when some farmer was going to
put a hole through you.” Billy reached for a piece of
amber sea glass that he studied for a long moment.
“Paul,” he said finally, “I would like not to die just yet.”

Paul looked up at the bigger man, “I'd like that, too,
Billy.”

“Is that why I'm here? You're going to tell me it's
time?”

“I think I'm looking for a reason not to tell you that.”

The bartender from Mario's let out a sigh. “You want
me to say I'll never go off on my own again.”

Paul gave a small shrug but didn't answer.

“I sure would like to, Paul.”

“You don't think you can?”

“Last week I would have. But then that woman
came in. Paul, you just can't imagine how she carried
on.”

“I know. Molly told me.” Eventually. At dinner.
About the other woman, not Kitzy Sweetzer, who had
had one whiskey sour too many.

“I mean, have you ever heard of such a thing in your
whole life?”

“Not like that, exactly.”

“But I did get hold of myself, Paul. And it wasn't
really too late. I had that Gelman feller from behind and
I said to m
y
self, this isn't right. I promised Paul. I prom
ised Molly. Then I said, what I'll do is get him good and
drunk, then I'll tighten up on his neck just enough to
put him peaceful, and then I'll leave. I'm not saying I
wouldn't have left his
balls in the soap dish for when he
woke up but at least he would have been alive and he
never wouîd've seen my face.”

“Who actually killed him?”

“You said Molly told you.”

“She did, but in broad strokes.”

“Well,” he hesitated, “I'm not sure I should say more.
Nobody but me deserves to be tarred for this one.”

“Okay.”

“What's okay mean?”

“I'll think about this. How are you doing otherwise?”

“Rea
l
good. Did you know I've been keeping com
pany?”

“With Mrs. DiBiasi,” Paul nodded, a soft smile.
“How long has that been going on?”

“I don't know,” He shrugged. “We just got to talking
more and more, watching TV together, going to the
food store and stuff. She's teaching me how to play her
piano. She says no one is ever too old to learn about
music.”

“I think that's great, Billy.”

“You know she's not one bit afraid of me? Nobody in
this whole town so far is afraid of me. Except maybe the
Doc, sometimes.”

“Gary is probably a little nervous about all of us,
sometimes. He'll come around.”

Billy raised one eyebrow at Paul's reference to the
future. “Paul, if that means I haven't used up my
chance, I sure would like to hear you say it straight out.”

“What happens the next time someone hurts one of
your friends?”

“I go straight to Molly. Then we sit down with you
and talk about what was done and what's the best way to
teach that person a lesson if he deserves it and it's not
none of our business.”

“What if someone harmed Mrs. DiBiasi?”

“The same thing.”

“That wouldn't be hard for you?”

“Sure it would. But I know you and Molly would
want to fix the guy just as much as me and I know you'd
let me be in on it.”

“What if you saw some of Palmer Reid's people nos
ing around?”

“Straight to Molly or you.”

“Or to Anton. But not to Carla or Gary for a while.”

Billy dropped his eyes, then nodded that he under
stood. He would never have said anything that would get Dr. Russo in trouble. Or Carla. But they never had
to let that Gelman see their faces. They walked in
meaning to kill him. And they wanted him to see who
did it. Which is bush-league. When you go to kill, you
kill. It's not a game.

“What i
f
you can't reach any of us?”

“I disappear. Then I wait to see if it's because Reid
got you.
T
hen I make it real expensive for them.”

Paul picked up a piece of broken shell and tossed it
toward the black Lab, who sniffed it disinterestedly.
Then the dog moved forward and offered its head to be
scratched. “Billy,” he seemed to be searching for words,
“I want you to know how much I hate having to talk to you like this.”

“I was afraid of a lot worse.”

Paul grimaced, shaking his head. “I'm talking to you
like a kid. You're a man. A very special man. And you
never talked to me like this even when I
was
a kid.”

“Different times. Different ballgame.” Billy reached
for the dog's back and found a spot that started its hind
leg pumping. “Most of my life I worked alone. Here,
you got thirteen people to think about and I got to think
about them, too. I can't screw it up for the rest of you.
We got a good thing here and I. . . .”
Billy let his voice
trail off. He gazed out over Long Island Sound. Come spring it would be covered with sailboats. Come sum
mer he meant to go for a ride on one. And he'd get a suntan. Once in a man's life he ought to get a suntan
besides just on his face and hands. “I sure do like it here,
Paul.”

“I know.”

“Mrs. DiBiasi says when it gets warmer we
can. . . .” Again the thought faded. “You know who she
reminds me of, Paul?
Mrs. DiBiasi, I mean?”

“Who?”

“Your
Ma. Cassie
Bannerman.*'

Paul nodded slowly. They were nothing alike, at
least in appearance. But he could see why Billy would
feel that way. They were probably the only two women
Billy had ever been with long enough to get to know
them. Not counting Molly and the others. Up until Mrs.
DiBiasi, Cassie Bannerman might have been all the
kindness and gentleness he'd known in his life. She had been, in her way, what Susan was becoming in his own
life. Until they killed her.

“You know,” Billy said dreamily, “more each year
you look like your mother. And you got that same soft
and easy way of talking. First time I laid eyes on you I
knew you were like her. You remember that day?”

“I remember.”

Fifteen years. He was twenty-three. And he'd flown
to Vienna to claim the body. They'd had it cremated.
Who gave you the right, he asked? She'd expressed that wish, they insisted. Where are her things, he asked? Her
belongings. We're sorry, they said. There was a fire. Faulty wiring. When she had her heart attack the oven was on. No one thought to turn it off when the ambu
lance came to take her away. What ambulance? What
doctor? And what kind of a company is this anyway?
What exactly did she do for you?

It was a reporter for the German Magazine,
Stern,
who told him. The company was a front. American In
telligence. What did she do for them? We have only
rumors, the reporter answered, but she must have been
an operative because she had had a code name. They called her “Mama.”

What kind of operative? Again, only rumors. Tell me
some of them. That she was a coordinator of certain
specialists, he answered. That she died of bullet wounds,
not a heart attack. That others died in her house as well
and the fire was set to conceal the damage done by
machine-gun fire. I don't believe a word of that, Paul
had told him. I know my mother. She was an art buyer.
She bought and sold paintings. Perhaps, the reporter
answered, you did not know her so well after all. I will show you where to look for the truth, who to start ask
ing, who her bosses were. Why? Why would you help
me? For the story, of course, the reporter answered.

But they would tell him nothing. Only lies upon lies.
And then one day he returned for the fourth or fifth
time to the burned-out shell of the house at 16 Gruen
strasse and he saw another man standing there, his eyes
red, his shoes and pants covered with soot, a charred and sodden book in his hands. Perhaps he knew her.
Perhaps he knew something about what had happened.
Paul approached him.

“Did you know the lady who lived there?” he asked.

The man turned slowly toward him. Burning eyes.
Terrible eyes. It was a full thirty seconds before they
flickered in what seemed to be recognition.