Trevayne (41 page)

What, in God’s name, had he done?

Who had he involved?

“What happened to you?” asked the Brigadier coldly. “How seriously are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.… As to what happened, sir, I’ll need your help.”

“You’re insubordinate, Major.”

“Sorry. My neck hurts.”

“I don’t even know where you’ve been. How could I help you?”

“By first telling me why Trevayne’s Patrols were removed by untraceable orders so Trevayne could be led into a trap.”

Cooper shot up from the desk. His face was suddenly white with shock. At first he couldn’t find the words; he began to stutter, and once again Bonner found the impediment astonishing. Finally: “What are you saying?”

“My apologies, General. I wanted to know if you’d been informed.… You haven’t been.”

“Answer me!”

“I told you. Both sixteen hundreds. White House security men. Someone who knew the I.D. codes ordered them out of the area. Trevayne was subsequently followed and set up for execution. At least, I think that was the objective.”

“How do you know this?”

“I was there, General.”

“Oh, my God.” Cooper sat down at his desk, his voice trailing off inaudibly. When he looked up at Paul, his expression was that of a bewildered noncom, not that of a brigadier who had acquitted himself superbly in three wars; a man Bonner had held—until three months ago—in his highest esteem. A
commander
, with all that the name implied.

This was not that man. This was a disintegrating, frail human being.

“It’s true, General.”

“How did it happen? Tell me what you can.”

So Bonner told him.

Everything.

Cooper simply stared at a picture on the wall as Paul related the events of the previous night. The picture was an oil painting of a remodeled eighteenth-century farmhouse with mountains in the distance: the General’s home in Rutland, Vermont. He’d soon be there … permanently, thought the Major.

“No doubt you saved Trevayne’s life,” said Cooper when Paul had finished.

“I operated on that basis. The fact that I was fired upon convinced me. However, we can’t be sure they were there to kill him. If De Spadante lives, maybe we’ll find out.… What I have to know, General, is why De Spadante was there in the first place. What has he got to do with Trevayne?… With us?”

“How would I know?” Cooper’s attention was back on the oil painting.

“No Twenty Questions, General. My tour of duty’s been too inclusive for that. I’m entitled to something more.”

“You watch your mouth, soldier.” Cooper pulled his eyes off the painting, back to Bonner. “Nobody ordered you to follow that man to the state of Connecticut. You did that on your own.”

“You authorized the plane. You gave me your consent by not countermanding my proposed intentions.”

“I also ordered you to phone in a progress report by twenty-one hundred hours. You failed to do that. In the absence of that report, any decisions you made were of your own doing. If a superior officer is not apprised of a subordinate’s progress—”

“Horseshit!”

Brigadier General Lester Cooper once more stood up, this time not in shock but in anger. “This is not the barracks,
soldier
, and I’m not your company sergeant. You will apologize forthwith. Consider yourself fortunate that I don’t charge you with gross insubordination.”

“I’m glad you can still fight, General. I was beginning to worry.… I apologize for my expletive,
sir
, I’m sorry if I offended the General,
sir
. But I’m afraid I will
not
withdraw the question … 
sir!
What has Mario de Spadante got to do with Trevayne’s investigation of us? And if you won’t tell me,
sir
, I’ll go higher up to find out!”

“Stop it!”
Cooper was breathing hard; his forehead had small rivulets of perspiration at the hairline. He lowered his voice and lost much of his posture. His shoulders came forward, his stomach loose. For Bonner, it was a pathetic sight. “Stop it, Major. You’re beyond your depth. Beyond
my
depth.”

“I can’t accept that, General. Don’t ask me to. De Spadante is garbage. Yet he told me he could make just one phone call to this building and I’d be a colonel. How could he
say
that? Who was he calling? How?
Why
, General?”

“And who.” Cooper quietly interjected the statement as he sat down in his chair. “Shall I tell you
who
he was calling?”

“Oh, Christ.” Bonner felt sick.

“Yes, Major. His call would have come to me.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t want to believe it, you mean.… Don’t
make hasty assumptions, soldier. I would have taken the call; it doesn’t mean I would have complied.”

“The fact that he was able to reach you is bad enough.”

“Is it? Is it any worse than the hundreds of contacts you’ve made? From Vientiane to the Mekong Delta to … the last, I believe, was San Francisco? Is De Spadante so much less reputable than the ‘garbage’ you’ve dealt with?”

“Entirely different. Those were intelligence runs, usually in hostile territory. You know that.”

“Bought and paid for. Thus bringing us nearer whatever our objectives were at the given times. No different, Major. Mister de Spadante also serves a purpose. And we’re in hostile territory, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“What purpose?”

“I can’t give you a complete answer; I don’t have all the facts; and even if I did, I’m not sure you’d be cleared. I
can
tell you that De Spadante’s influence is considerable in a number of vital areas. Transportation is one of them.”

“I thought he was in construction.”

“I’m sure he is. He’s also in trucking and waterfront operations. Shipping lines listen to him. Trucking firms give him priority. He gets cooperation when it’s necessary.”

“You’re implying we
need
him,” said Bonner incredulously.

“We need every
thing
and every
body
we can get, Major. I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Go up on the Hill and look around. Every appropriation we ask for gets put through a wringer. We’re the politicians’ whipping boys; they can’t live without us, and they’ll be goddamned if they’ll live
with
us. The only supporters we have belong in fruitcake farms. Or in the movies, charging up some goddamn San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt.… We’ve got
problems
, Major Bonner.”

“And we solve them by using criminals, gunmen? We enlist the support of the Mafia—or aren’t we allowed to use the term anymore?”

“We solve them any way we can. I’m surprised at you, Bonner. You amaze me. Since when did someone’s way of making a living stop you from using them in the field?”

“Probably never. Because I knew I was using
them
,
not the other way around. And whatever I did was pretty far down the line. Dog territory. You live differently down there. I had the mistaken idea that you people up here were better than we were. That’s right, General,
better.
”

“So you found out we’re not, and you’re shocked.… Where the hell did you people in ‘dog territory’ think you got your hardware, soldier? From little old ladies in tennis shoes who shouted, ‘Support our boys’ and presto, there were ships full of jet fuel and cargoes of ammunition? Come off it. Major! The weapons you used in the Plain of Jars may have been loaded out of the San Diego waterfront courtesy of Mario de Spadante. The copter that picked you up ten miles south of Haiphong might just be the ‘snake’ we squeezed off a production line somewhere because De Spadante’s friends called off a strike. Don’t be so particular, Bonner. It doesn’t become the ‘killer from Saigon.’ ”

Deals were made on the waterfront, in the factories. Paul knew that. But that was different. That was as far down the line as “dog territory” was for him. De Spadante and his gunmen weren’t on the waterfront or at a factory last night. They were at Trevayne’s
house
. Couldn’t the brigadier
see?

“General.” Bonner spoke slowly but with intensity. “What I made contact with eighteen hours ago, on the property of the chairman of a subcommittee appointed by the President and the Senate, were two hired killers and a Mafia boss who wore iron spikes on his fist and took a lot of skin off my arm and my neck. For me that’s different from stealing files and trying to louse up or outsmart some congressional committee that’s determined to knock us out of the box.”

“Why? Because the fight’s physical? Not on paper but in the flesh?”

“Maybe.… Maybe it’s as simple as that. Or maybe I’m just worried that the next step will be for the De Spadantes to be appointed to the Chiefs of Staff. Or made part of the faculty at the War College.… If they’re not on both already.”

“Is he dead?” asked Robert Webster into the telephone, holding his briefcase between his knees in the booth on Michigan Avenue.

“No. He’s a tough old guinea. They think he’ll pull through now,” said the doctor at the other end of the line in another public phone booth in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“That’s not particularly good news.”

“They worked on him for three hours. Tied up a dozen veins, spliced twice as many and patched walls all over. He’ll be on critical for a few days, but the odds are he’ll make it.”

“We don’t want that, doctor. That’s unacceptable to us.… There’s got to be a miscalculation somewhere.”

“Forget it, Bobby. This place is swarming with guns. Every entrance, the elevators, even the roof. The nurses aren’t even ours, they’re his. Four priests rotate the last rites watch inside his room; if they’re priests, I’m Mother Cabrini.”

“I repeat,
some way
has
got
to be found.”

“Then you find it, but not here. If anything happened to him now, they’d burn the hospital to the ground with all of us in it. And
that’s
unacceptable to me.”

“All right, all right. No medical accidents.”

“You bet your ass!… Why the elimination?”

“He asked too many favors; he got them. He’s become too much of a liability.”

The doctor paused. “Not here, Bobby.”

“All right. We’ll think of something else.”

“By the way, the discharge papers came through. I’m clean. Thanks a lot. You didn’t have to add the citation, but it was a nice touch.”

“Better than dishonorable. You must have made a killing.”

“I did.” The doctor laughed. “If you’re strapped for a buck, let me know.”

“Be in touch.” Webster hung up and awkwardly manipulated his briefcase and the phone-booth door. He had to figure out what to do about De Spadante. The situation could become dangerous. Somehow he’d use the doctor in Greenwich. Why not? The doctor’s debt wasn’t nearly paid off. The doctor had run a series of abortion mills, in one Army hospital after another. He’d used government equipment and goddamned near advertised in base newspapers.
The doctor had made a fortune two years after he’d finished internship.

Webster hailed a taxi and was about to give the driver the White House destination. Then he changed his mind.

“Twelve-twenty-two Louisiana.”

It was the address of the Gallabretto Construction Company. Mario de Spadante’s Washington firm.

The nurse opened the door solemnly, silently. The priest removed his hand from his jacket, and the gold chain with the cross attached rattled slightly. He got out of the chair and whispered to the visitor.

“His eyes are closed, but he hears every fuckin’ word.”

“Leave us,” said the weak, rasping voice from the bed. “Come back when William’s gone, Rocco.”

“Sure, boss.”

The priest put his finger between the clerical collar and his skin and stretched his neck. He picked up his small leather missa solemnis and opened the door, slightly embarrassed.

The visitor and Mario de Spadante were alone.

“I can’t stay more than a few minutes, Mario. The doctors won’t let me. You’re going to be all right, you know that, don’t you?”

“Hey, you look good, William. Big West Coast lawyer now, huh? You dress
good
. You make me proud, little cousin. Real proud.”

“Don’t waste breath, Mario. We’ve got several things to go over, and I want you cognizant.”

“Listen to the word. ‘Cognizant.’ ” De Spadante smiled lamely. It took strength to smile, and he was pitifully weak. “They sent
you
in from the Coast. Imagine that.”

“Let me do the talking, Mario.… First of all, you went to Trevayne’s place in hopes that he might be home. You didn’t have his unlisted number; you were in Greenwich on business—you’re doing some work down here—and you’d heard his wife was in a hospital. You knew him in New Haven, reacquainted yourselves on the plane to Washington. You were simply concerned. That’s all. It was purely a social call. Perhaps a bit presumptuous on your part, but that’s not contradictory to your … expansiveness.”

De Spadante nodded, his eyes half-closed. “Little Willie Gallabretto,” he said with his faint smile. “You talk good, William. I’m real proud.” De Spadante kept nodding his frail affirmation. “You talk so good. So quick, William.”

“Thank you.” The lawyer looked at his gold Rolex watch and continued. “This is most important, Mario. At Trevayne’s house your car got stuck in the snow. The
mud
and the snow. We’ve got confirmation from the police. Incidentally, it cost a thousand with a man named Fowler, and the tracks have been erased. But remember, the mud and the snow. That’s all you remember until you were attacked. Have you got that?”

“Yes,
consigliori
, I’ve got that.”

“Good.… Now, I should go. My associates in Los Angeles send you their best. You’ll be fine, Uncle Mario.”

“Fine.… Fine.” De Spadante raised his hand an inch or two off the blanket. The lawyer halted. “Now you finished?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Now, stop talking the fancy talk and hear me. Hear me good.… You put out a contract on this soldier boy. I want it
tormento lento
. You put it out tonight.”

“No, Mario. No contract. He’s Army, federal. No contract.”

“You
dispute me?
You a
caporegima
dare to talk back to
capo di tutti capi!
I say a contract. Ten big ones a contract. Put it out.”