The Last Cop Out (14 page)
Lupe saw the thing first and since it was nothing like he had ever seen before, just gaped instead of going for his gun, and by the time he thought of it the top of his head blew off when there was a soft
plop
from the landing. The Cobra almost lived up to his name, spinning with snakelike speed, his body lunging to one side while he tried to identify and aim for his target. The apparition had anticipated him and the second
plop
took away his gun, hand and all. The third went into his mouth and made a weird painting in blood and brains on the pale green wall behind him.
plop
from the landing. The Cobra almost lived up to his name, spinning with snakelike speed, his body lunging to one side while he tried to identify and aim for his target. The apparition had anticipated him and the second
plop
took away his gun, hand and all. The third went into his mouth and made a weird painting in blood and brains on the pale green wall behind him.
He took off the gas mask and wiped the sweat from his face, then put it back on again. No reason to take chances. It would be another five minutes before the ventilators cleared the stuff out enough for safety. He looked at his watch, waiting until the time was up, then slid the mask off and stuck it under his belt.
Ten minutes later the intercom on the stand clicked on and Leon Bray said, “The car ready, Lupe?”
“All set,” he said in a voice that matched that of the body on the floor.
The pencil-thin line of light from under the door dimmed, a set of latches clicked and Leon Bray came out, a briefcase under one arm. He used a key to turn one final lock before he turned around, ready to tell his bodyguard to take him home.
He tried to scream, but a vicious backhand chop caught him in the throat and the scream stayed paralyzed in his lungs. He hit the wall, started to slide to the wall, his instinct for survival making him claw the Beretta out of the kidskin shoulder holster he wore. For a moment he thought he had won and felt a flash of triumph deaden the pain in his chest.
It was only the briefest of flashes. The other hand that wrapped around his was too strong and it turned the Beretta in against his sternum and the twisting motion forced his own finger to squeeze off the leaden pellet that penetrated bone and flesh, hit his spine and ricocheted through the aorta.
He knew his keys were being taken from his pocket, but death was too imminent to cause him any concern. The door beside him was unlocked, the three sticks of dynamite carefully positioned and a lit match held to the tip of the length of slow-burning fuse.
Baldie Foreman laid down his cards and said, “Gin.”
Across the table, in the shabby furnished apartment, Vito Bartoldi penciled in the score and tallied it up. “I still got you,” he told his partner. He picked up the cards ready to deal again, then looked at the cheap alarm clock propped on the empty chair. “What’s the matter with them damn fags? They shoulda called by now.”
“You better watch yourself with those two, Vito.”
“What the fuck did the Frenchman have to bring them up here for anyway?”
“They got talent. I wouldn’t wanna mess with them unless
I had a chopper in my hands. We had a couple like that in
Korea. The pissers usta hold hands in formations and made it in the same sleeping bag. Their Looie never bothered ‘em. Damnedest killers I ever saw. Regular butchers and they loved it. Blood got ’em all sexed up. Y’know, they both got decorated.”
“Well they oughta called. They’re ten minutes late.”
“So Bray’s working overtime.”
“Bray’s a fuckin’ machine. He never goes overtime.”
“Then call ’em. That’s what they pay us for. To check.”
Vito threw a nervous glance at the clock again and tossed the cards on the table. He picked up the phone, dialed the building a half block away and heard the phone ring in his ear a dozen times. “No answer,” he said.
“Hang up and try again. Maybe you got a wrong number.”
He held the disconnect bar down, released it and tried again. The results were the same. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
They didn’t waste time trying to think about it. They both jumped up, yanked on their coats as they ran and cut diagonally across the street toward the building that had been so recently renovated. Nobody answered the bell, so Baldie used his key and unlocked the door, hoping it was a mistake and the fags had forgotten the routine.
But the door only opened a few inches. He had to push it the rest of the way because of the bodies that blocked the way and all he could say when he looked at the horror on the floor was
“Son of a bitch?”
He said it again when they stood on the next landing looking at the inert figures of Ollie, Matt Stevenson and Woodie, who lay there with blank staring eyes and mouths contorted in agony, their hands still clutching their own dead throats. The shattered remains that had once been a paper-thin glass container meant nothing to them and they both crunched the fragments underfoot as they went up to the next level with the automatics in their fists held ready to fire.
“Son of a bitch?”
He said it again when they stood on the next landing looking at the inert figures of Ollie, Matt Stevenson and Woodie, who lay there with blank staring eyes and mouths contorted in agony, their hands still clutching their own dead throats. The shattered remains that had once been a paper-thin glass container meant nothing to them and they both crunched the fragments underfoot as they went up to the next level with the automatics in their fists held ready to fire.
They saw the body of Leon Bray too, but it wasn’t the deaths that bothered them as much as what Frank Verdun was going to say. They were still thinking about it when they went into the office, hoping that somebody would be there that they could kill that could make up for their own laxity.
Both of them were so tense that they didn’t recognize the smell of burning powder until they got close to its source and just as Baldie tried to yell for them to get the hell out of there the spark hit the charge and the two hoods dissolved into chunks and shreds of multi-colored material mixed with metal and bits of paper.
Ten minutes later the fire department was hosing down the area and the police were herding the occupants of the other buildings to safe places. The only reporter on the scene happened to have an idea of what the building had been used for. He took off for the nearest phone and called the city desk.
7
She was about to open the door of the cubicle in the ladies room when she heard the two cleaning women come in and the fat one who worked on her floor say, “... and that Manny of mine should keep his big mouth shut I told him. Because he’s in that fancy Newhope Restaurant and sees her there with somebody he knows is no reason to call her boss.”
When she heard the word “Newhope” Helen Scanlon’s hand froze on the latch. That was where Gill Burke had taken her the night before last.
“So four calls he makes and he still can’t fine the man,” the voice went on. “I keep saying, ‘Manny, mind your own business,’ and he tells me to shut up. His own mother yet he tells to shut up.”
No, Helen thought, he didn’t reach Frank Verdun because he hadn’t been in the office and never gave a number where he could be reached. But he’d be in now because he always got in before everybody else. She waited until they were through changing the paper towels in the racks, gave them a few minutes to be out of sight, then walked down to her office.
None of the others were there yet, but she heard Frank Verdun’s voice on the phone in the other room and he seemed all upset about something. She made the decision quickly and when the Frenchman was off the line, she knocked and walked in. “Mr. Verdun?”
He looked at her without feeling. “Yes?”
“Something strange happened that you should know about.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Before I left the other day I had a call from Mr. Burke ... the one who caused all that ... damage outside. He wanted to take me to supper.”
The Frenchman kept on looking at her, his eyes flat.
“You had already gone, so I couldn’t tell you about it, so I went ahead and made the date to find out what he was up to.”
“Gill Burke,” Verdun mused. His eyes weren’t so flat any more.
“Yes. He was quite friendly. We had supper together.”
“And did you find out what it was all about?”
“He wanted to know about you.”
“Mr. Burke knows about me.”
“I gathered as much. He wanted to know more, particularly as pertains to Boyer-Reston—who comes to the office, the nature of your conversations.”
“And you told him ...”
“What I told him was flushable, if you know what I mean.”
For the first time Frank Verdun allowed himself a smile.
“What did you think of Mr. Burke?”
“One thing,” Helen told him, “he’s a cop.”
“True.”
“He’s on a definite assignment and that assignment concerns you.”
“That’s a pretty positive statement.”
“Please don’t forget that I lived with a policeman father for a long time. I
know
them ... their ways, their habits, all the little wrinkles they try to pull. I even asked Mr. Burke some questions myself, but he evaded them very nicely. I wish I could tell you more.”
know
them ... their ways, their habits, all the little wrinkles they try to pull. I even asked Mr. Burke some questions myself, but he evaded them very nicely. I wish I could tell you more.”
“No, that’s sufficient,” the Frenchman said. “I appreciate your loyalty, Helen. I take it you don’t approve of policemen.”
She turned on a look he couldn’t miss because Frank Verdun was a perfect reader of faces. Nobody could fool him or fake him out with an act no matter how expert they were and now he was absolutely satisfied with what he saw ... the distaste, the disgust and all the hatred that was inside himself. Her expression was real.
And it was. The only thing the Frenchman didn’t know was that she wasn’t thinking of Gill when he asked the question. She was thinking of Frank Verdun sitting on the other side of the desk.
The Frenchman didn’t need an answer at all. He said, “Tell me, my dear, did Mr. Burke ask to see you again?”
“Yes, he did. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t want to make it obvious either way.”
“Supposing you take him up on it the next time he calls.”
Helen hesitated, drowning. “Do you think that’s very practical? Don’t you think he’d suspect I was trying to draw him out?”
“Mr. Burke is a supreme egotist,” Verdun told her. “He isn’t capable of believing that he could be used by anyone, far less by a woman.”
She stayed calm and bit into her lip. “Well . . . I don’t know . . .”
“There will be a bonus in your paycheck from now on,” he said.
She made herself smile and nodded. “All right, but if he comes on too strong I’m going to cut out. There are a few things I don’t want to get involved with.”
“I understand,” he said. “And thank you, Helen.”
When she left he picked up the phone and relayed orders for that shithead Manny Roth to get a working over as a reminder to keep his lip shut. Any creep like that who would get the hots by blowing the whistle on one of his people would do it to him too. When Manny got out of the hospital he could start unloading trucks over at the Philly warehouse.
He looked at the closed door and barely smiled again. That Helen Scanlon was some doll. He felt annoyed at himself for even listening to that Manny Roth crumb.
The city editor of the morning paper had taken the gamble after a pair of expensive, discreet and immediate inquiries were made into the probable owners of the blasted building and the early edition hit the streets with a banner
GANG WAR
headline that even scooped the early TV broadcasts. The police hadn’t given out any identification of the bodies they found, but a knowledgeable resident of the area knew the score and passed it on in exchange for fifty bucks. With Jan and Lucien spotted, a quick check on the rest of Leon Bray’s personal entourage opened up other possibilities and what was hinted as being speculative was actual fact.
GANG WAR
headline that even scooped the early TV broadcasts. The police hadn’t given out any identification of the bodies they found, but a knowledgeable resident of the area knew the score and passed it on in exchange for fifty bucks. With Jan and Lucien spotted, a quick check on the rest of Leon Bray’s personal entourage opened up other possibilities and what was hinted as being speculative was actual fact.
Robert Lederer threw the paper halfway across the room and strode toward the leather chair banging his fist into the palm of his hand. “Damn it, Commissioner, how can we help it if somebody pulls the cork like that?”
The burly guy in the black topcoat glared at him. “You should have had that place under surveillance.”
“We didn’t know it was
there.
It had only been in operation a couple of weeks.”
there.
It had only been in operation a couple of weeks.”
“Somebody knew it was there.”
“Look, this can be an internal uprising and . . .”
“Shit, man, don’t try to con me. It’s a damn gang war like the paper says it is. Something’s happening to the goddamn syndicate and we don’t know what it is. They got so many frigging bodies laying around they haven’t got room to bury them and we got the public bugging everybody from Albany to Washington to go after us for inefficiency.” He looked at Captain Long and the two inspectors beside him. “How many arrests have you made?”
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