The Evening News (39 page)

Nodding to the area in front of the fire, "Can we go
there
?
”

"Of course
.”

Salaverry noticed that the man kept his gloves on. Maybe, he
thought, it was a personal fetish or perhaps the fellow had a deformity
.
They were now in front of the fireplace. After the slightest of nods to
Helga, the man asked, "Is anyone else here
?
”

Salaverry shook his head
.”
We are alone. You may speak freely.,
,
"I have a message
,”
the man said, reaching into his trench coat. When his
hand emerged, it was holding a nine-millimeter Browning pistol with a
silencer on the muzzle
.
The liquor he had drunk slowed Salaverry's reactions, though even had they
been normal it was unlikely he could have done anything to change what
happened next. While the Peruvian froze in amazement, and before he could
move, the man put the gun against Salaverry's forehead and squeezed the
trigger. In his last brief moment of life the victim's mouth hung open in
surprise and disbelief
.
The wound was small where the bullet entered-a neat red circle surrounded
by a powder bum. But the exit wound at the rear of the head was large and
messy as bone fragments, brain tissue and blood splattered out. In an
instant before the body fell, the man in the raincoat had time to notice
the powder bum, an effect he had intended. Then he turned to the woman
.
Helga, too, had been riveted by shock. By now, however, surprise had turned
to terror. She began to scream, and at the same time attempted to run
.
In both efforts she was too late. The man, an accurate marksman, put one
bullet through her heart. She fell and died, her blood pouring onto the rug
where she had fallen
.
The hit man, who was Miguel's paid assassin dispatched from Little
Colombia, paused to listen carefully. The silencer on the Browning had
effectively muffled the sound of both shots, but he took no chances
,
waiting for possible intervention from outside. If there had been any noise
from neighbors or other signs of curiosity, he would have left immediately
.
As it
was, the silence continued and he proceeded, swiftly and efficiently, with the remaining things he had been instructed to do
.
First, he removed the silencer from the pistol and pocketed it. He put the
pistol down temporarily near Salaverry's body. Then, from another pocket
of his coat, he produced a small can of spray paint. Crossing to a wall of
the apartment, he sprayed across it in large black letters the word
CORNUDO
.
Returning to Salaverry, he allowed some of the black paint to drip onto the
dead man's right hand, then wrapped the limp fingers around the can and
pressed them, so Salaverry's fingerprints were on the can. The hit man
stood the can on a nearby table, then picked up the gun and placed it in
the dead man's hand, again squeezing the fingers so that Salaverry's prints
were on the gun. He arranged the gun and the hand so it would appear
Salaverry had shot himself, then fallen to the floor
.
The hit man did nothing to the woman's body, leaving it where it had
fallen
.
Next, the intruder took a folded sheet of stationery from his pocket on
which were typed words. They read:

So you would not believe me when I told you she is a nymphomaniac whore, unworthy of
you. You think she loves you when all she feels for you is con tempt. You trusted her, gave her a key to your apartment. What she did with it was take other men there
for vile sexual games.
Here are photographs to prove it. She brought the man and allowed his photographer friend to take pictures. Her nymphomania extends to collecting such pictures for herse
lf.
Surely, her use of your home so monstrously is the ultimate insult to a machismo man such as you
.
-Your Former (and True) Friend

Moving from the living room, the hit man entered what obviously had been
Salaverry's bedroom. He crumpled the typed sheet into a ball and threw it
into a wastebasket. When the apartment was searched by police, as it would
be, the paper was certain to be found. The probability was strong that it
would be regarded as a semi-
anonymous letter, the authorship known only to Salaverry when he was alive
.
A final touch was an envelope, also produced by the hit man, containing
some fragments of black-and-white glossy photos, each fragment burned at
the edges. Entering a bathroom that adjoined the bedroom, he emptied the
envelope's contents into the toilet bowl, leaving the pieces floating
.
The pieces were too small to be identified. However, a reasonable
assumption would be that Salaverry, after receiving the accusatory letter
,
had burned the accompanying photos and flushed the ashes down the toilet
,
though a few unburned portions still remained. Then, having learned of his
apparent betrayal by his beloved Helga, in a jealous rage he shot and
killed her
.
Salaverry would then have sprayed the single word on the wall, a pathetic
message describing what he felt himself to be. (If the investigating police
officers did not speak Spanish, someone would quickly enlighten them that
the English version of the word was "cuckold
.”

There was even a touch of artistry in that crudely printed parting cry
.
While not, perhaps, the kind of thing an Anglo
-
Saxon or native American
might do, it bespoke the volatile frenzy of a Latin lover
.
A final assumption: In despair, unwilling to face the consequences of his
act, Salaverry killed himself, the powder bum on his forehead being typical
of a self-inflicted head wound
.
As the experienced planners of the scene well knew, in New York City where
unsolved homicides were commonplace and the police detective force severely
overburdened, little time and effort would be spent investigating a crime
where the circumstances and solution were so plainly in view
.
The hit man surveyed the apartment living room, making a final check, then
quietly left. When he walked out of the building unhindered, he had been
inside less than fifteen minutes. A few blocks away, he peeled off his
gloves and threw them into a sidewalk trash can.
Norman Jaeger asked, "Do you think Teddy Cooper will come up with something
?
”

"It wouldn't surprise me
,”
Partridge said
.”
He has before
.”

It was after 10:30 and they were walking south on Broadway, near Central
Park. The dinner meeting at Shun Lee West had broken up a quarter of an
hour earlier, shortly after Cooper's declared opinion that the kidnap
gang's headquarters was within a twenty-five-mile radius of Larchmont. He
had followed the first opinion with a second
.
The kidnappers and their victims, he believed, were at that operating
center now, the gang members lying low until the initial searching eased
up and police roadblocks were decreased or abandoned-both of which would
inevitably happen soon. Then the gang and prisoners would move to some more
distant location, perhaps in the United States, possibly elsewhere
.
Cooper's reasoning had been considered seriously by the others. As Rita
Abrams put it, "It makes as much sense as anything so far
.”

But Karl Owens pointed out, "That's an enormous area you're talking about
,
densely populated, and there's no way of searching it effectively, even
with an army
.”

He added, needling Cooper, "That is, unless you have another
brilliant idea breezing up behind
.”

"Not right now
,”
Cooper had answered
.”
I need a good night's kip. Then
maybe I'll come up with-as you so kindly put it-something 'brilliant' in
the morning
.”

They ended the discussion there, and though the next day was Saturday
,
Partridge had summoned another task force meeting for 10 A.m. For tonight
,
most of the group went their separate ways by taxi, though Partridge and
Jaeger, enjoying the night air, decided to walk to their hotels.

"Where did you latch on to this guy Cooper
?
”

Jaeger asked. Partridge told him about discovering Teddy at the BBC, being impressed with his work and, soon after, finding him a better job with CBA
.”
One of the first things he did for us ir London
,”
Partridge continued
,
"was in 1984, at the time the Red Sea was being mined. A lot of ships were
getting blown up and sunk all over the place, but no one knew who the hell
was laying the mines. Remember
?
”

"Sure I remember
,”
Jaeger said
.”
Iran and Libya were prime suspects, but
nothing more. Obviously a ship was doing the filthy work, but no one knew
what ship, or whose it was
.”

Partridge nodded
.”
Well, Teddy started researching and spent days and days
at Lloyds of London, patiently going through their records of ship
movements. He began by bel
ieving that whatever ship had done the mine
laying
had passed through the Suez Canal. So he made lists of all the ships that
had gone through S
uez since just before the mine s
inkings started-and that
was a helluva lot of ships
.”
Then he went through more records and traced the subse
quent movem
ents of
each ship he'd listed as it went from port to port, comparing those
movements with the dates of mine sinkings in particular areas. Finally-and
I mean after a long, long search-he came up with the name of one ship, the
Ghat. It had been everywhere where other ships had struck mines, and in
each case just a day or two before. Talk about a 'smoking gun. Teddy found
it
.”

Partridge went on, "As we know now, the ship was Libyan and once the name
was in the open, it didn't take long to put proof together that Qaddafi was
behind
it all
.”

"I knew we were ahead of others on the story
,”
Jaeger said
.”
But I didn
’
t
know the rest of the yarn behind it
.”

"Isn't that usually the way
?
”

Partridge grinned
.”
We correspondents get
credit for work that guys like you and Teddy do
.”

"I'm not complaining
,”
Jaeger said
.”
And I'll tell you one thing, Harry-I
wouldn't change places with you, especially at my age
.”

He ruminated, then
went on
.”
Cooper's just a kid.
T
hey're all kids. This has become a kids' business. They have the energy and the smarts. Do you have days like me when you get to feeling old
?
”

Partridge grimaced
.”
Just lately, all too often
.”

They had reached Columbus Circle. To their left was the formidable
darkness of Central Park where few New Yorkers ventured at night
.
Immediately ahead lay West Fifty-ninth Street, beyond it the brighter
lights of mid-Manhattan. Partridge and Jaeger carefully crossed the
confluence of thoroughfares as traffic swirled about them
.”
You and I have seen a lot of changes in this business
,”
Jaeger said
.”
I
guess, with luck, we'll be around for more
.”