Rip cord, p.15
Rip Cord, page 15
“Dead? My God! What happened?”
More sobs. “I don’t know! The pig wouldn’ tell me anything.”
“You knew Howard?”
“We were going to be married.” She looked like she meant it.
He wondered if she could read, or she had ignored the headlines. Maybe she did not watch television.
“Oh, damn! I’m sorry to hear that. Look, maybe it’d help to have a drink?”
“I don’ know you.”
“I’m safe.” Wayne flipped open his credential folder.
“FBI? Really?”
“Really.”
“Howie worked for the governmen’ too, you know?”
He did? “I know.”
“All right. Jus’ one drink.”
She crawled into a beat-up MGB and led him to a neoned pizza joint a couple miles down the coast, on the beach side of the street. It was definitely not part of Newport Beach. He got out of the Escort and waited while she repaired her makeup in the cracked rearview mirror of the MGB. The sidewalk was covered with sand. Between the buildings, he could see the white flash of surf washing on the beach. Several couples wandered shoeless in the night.
When she was finished with her touch-up, they went inside, took a booth, and ordered two draught beers.
“You wan’ a pizza?” she asked.
“No, I’ve eaten, but you go right ahead.”
She hesitated.
“I’m buying.”
“Gian’ sausage and pepperoni with mushrooms, black olive, green peppers, onion, and anchovy.”
Grief had not affected her appetite. The waitress shook her head and walked back to the counter.
“I didn’t know Howie was getting married.”
“We’ve been talking about it for a year. Had been. Oh, God!”
“He was a nice guy,” Wayne admitted. “How much did he tell you about his work?”
“You governmen’ people’re worried about that, huh?” She sniffled. “Well, he didn’ say much, excep’ that he did special jobs every once in a while. He couldn’ talk about them. He was a hero in the war, you know?”
“I know.”
“He showed me the medals a couple times. You know wha’ a Bronze Star is?”
“Yes.”
“He had two of them. Little Vs on the ribbons. He was very brave.”
“That’s what I understood,” Wayne said.
“And they came and asked him to do special things for them, every now and then.”
“Maybe he was doing one of those special jobs and got hurt?” Wayne suggested.
“Oh, Jesus! You think so? He said they were dangerous, but I didn’ believe him. Sometimes, he liked to brag, you know?”
“I know. Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask your name.”
“Dazi Noyes. It used to be D-A-I-S-Y, but I changed it to D-A-Z-I.”
She dug in her voluminous bag, came up with a mirror and a department store sampler of eye makeup, and started again on her eyes. “I mus’ look awful.”
“Not at all. Quite pretty.” Her too-tight blouse squashed her breasts into flat melons.
She smiled lamely. “I feel awful for Howie.”
“Did Howie tell you which government agency he worked with?”
“Oh, no! It was secret, he said.”
“That’s right, it is. He mention the others he worked with?”
“The others?”
“I guess not. He wouldn’t have. But he did all right with his regular work?”
“For sure! He has that neat car, and the jet boat, and the condo, and the airplane, and simply jillions of dollars, you know?”
Wayne was getting tired of responding to “you know.” He waited.
Dazi’s eyes went dreamy. “His favorite song was the Green Berets’ thing, you know? By the sergean’? Only he mixed up the words when he sang it, like ‘a hunerd men will testify, only fools jump out of the sky.’ Something like that.”
“But he jumped?” Wayne prodded.
“Almost every day. I bet we jumped together fifty, sixty times.”
Steve arched his eyebrows. “That’s a surprise. I wouldn’t have picked you as an enthusiast.”
“Oh, yes! It’s neat.” She squinted her eyes at him. “I’ll tell you a secret, you don’ tell anyone. Twice, I jumped topless. Howie liked that.”
“I can imagine.” And he could.
“Usually, it was cold. I got all prickly, you know?”
“It must have been nice for him, being able to jump any time he wanted to.”
“Yeah. He never charged me, either.” She put her makeup away as the pizza arrived. Wayne ordered two more beers.
Dazi worked a wedge out of the pie, chomped on it, and asked, “You been ... out ... there? To ... Silk?”
“Silk?”
“Silk ... Dreams?”
“No. Where is it?”
She swallowed. “Orange County.”
Wayne checked his watch. “Hey, Dazi. I’ve got to run to another appointment. It was nice meeting you.”
“You just ordered more beer.”
“You can have them. Really, got to run.”
Her mouth turned down. “Come back some time.”
“I’ll try. I’m sorry about Howie.”
“So’m I.” She levered another wedge into her mouth as he got up. He stopped the waitress, paid her, and took his car back to the motel.
He used the multiple Yellow Page books in the lobby. Silk Dreams — Skydiving Instruction and Support was located at the Orange County Airport.
Damn, Carlos, my friend. You knew what you were talking about.
*
For the second night in a row, Delwin Blessing drank more than his normal evening two cocktails; his wife was keeping the tally. When he poured his fifth Jack Daniels, Delores got up and left the living room. She believed in silent punishment.
He carried his drink into his den.
The story in The New Mexican on Sunday had scared him mightily. Apparent to him was the fact that Rodriguez and Wayne knew a hell of a lot more than they were letting on. The story left him with a series of hopes, however.
He hoped that Wayne had killed the man responsible for the murders and the phone calls to him, and that the man had acted alone, as far as the calls to Blessing. It could be all over. Yes, with a little luck, it would all be over. He hoped that no one found the tape of the telephone call. The duplicate that he had received in the mail had gone into his trash masher. At one point, he had even hoped that the groundswell building for Luisa Rodriguez’s write-in campaign would be successful.
Now, maybe things were going to straighten themselves out. With this Razor Murders case out of the way, he could show people the kind of job that could be done. It was not his fault that the jerk had taped his conversation. Completely illegal.
The phone rang.
He did not want to answer it, but he did.
“Del, ol’ boy, just checking in. You did a nice job on the Willow broad there for a while, and believe me, we appreciate it. But I think you need to have another long talk with her. Real soon, hear?”
The dial tone buzzed amid Delwin Blessing’s shattered hopes and dreams.
*
Rebel had not been able to reach Boxer in two days, so he finally called Cottonmouth at his home. “Boxer show you a contingency plan yet?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s damned well time to put one in place. Those crazy sons of bitches are going after my people now.” Rebel was angry.
“You mean Wayne?”
“Yes, I mean Wayne. Boxer’s STRAC Unit isn’t supposed to be killing off my people. They’re deviating a long damned way from the plan, and they’ve got to be stopped.”
“It’s been going pretty well, Rebel. Think about what it means for the country, for all of us.”
“I am thinking about what it means for us. You’d better do the same.”
After a long pause, Cottonmouth said, “I’ll see if I can locate him.”
*
Willard Travis and Carl Battey stole a Chevy Caprice with air-conditioning in Brooklyn.
“Too bad Brooklyn ain’t with us,” Travis said.
“Yeah. He could show us the old homestead. He’s always talking about it, as if it were one step short of heaven.”
“Too bad Pilo’s no longer with us.”
“I don’t know how he screwed it up so bad,” Battey said. He had called Lew as soon as he read a day-old paper, but Lew had not given him much. Told him to finish the Koenig job and get back. But that was Lew. Always on the ball, always keeping his eye on the objective.
Travis was driving, lanky and nonchalant and slumped behind the wheel; in New York City or anywhere, he drove like he was on a deserted gravel road, hauling a trunkload of glass jugs topped off with moonshine. His eyelids were half lowered over blue eyes, and his short cornsilk blond hair was tucked under a rolled-brim straw cowboy hat tilted low on his forehead. He looked as if he should be toting either a Colt .45 or a flattop guitar.
He took Flatbush to the Manhattan Bridge, crossed, and turned onto Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Battey polished his rimless glasses and studied the pictures he had of Walter Koenig, close-ups of his face and snapshots of the whole man. He was in his sixties, balding, broadly set, and wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. He was a respected economist in some international circles.
Travis got off on 42nd, just before the United Nations enclave where their man was making big deals in some kind of economic conference. They would never find him there, they knew, and Travis drove on up to Sixth Avenue, turned north, and found a parking place a block south of the Taft Hotel at 50th.
Battey got out and wandered up the street to the hotel. He wore a navy blue leisure suit with white stitching he had bought in 1971. He wasn’t big on ties.
Travis sat behind the wheel and watched the girls and smiled at some of them. They all smiled back at the cowboy. Two of them bent over next to the car, showed him some tit, and suggested private parties. He begged off politely. He was a happily married man, and Doreen had just as much, and more, to offer.
At 8:20, Travis saw the Cad limousine approaching in the side mirror, and he crossed the ignition wires to start his engine. As soon as the limo passed, he pulled out behind it and followed it to the front of the hotel.
Koenig got out, his door opened with a flourish by the uniformed doorman.
The limo eased away. Travis drove ahead and stopped in its place.
Battey pushed away from the brick wall he had been leaning against, skirted the doorman, met Koenig head-on, and threw an arm around him, turning him back toward the Caprice.
“Damn, Walt, it’s good to see you!”
The man spluttered.
“Hell, we’ve just got to have us a drink or two, ol’ buddy.”
Travis leaned back over the seat and shoved the rear door open.
Battey heaved Koenig into the backseat and crawled in with him.
Travis pulled the Chevy out into traffic, dodged a taxi, and flipped the cab driver a finger.
Koenig continued to splutter. “Vat’s this? Vat’s this? Who are you? Vat are you doing vith me?”
SOB couldn’t even speak American.
“Somebody’s bound to call it a mugging,” Battey said. “Lots of muggings in this burg, I heard. Don’t you think so, Country?”
“Sure do.”
Battey broke Walt’s neck.
The crack of snapping vertebrae was crisp over the hum of the air-conditioning.
“Go with God,” C.B. said.
THIRTEEN
Brooklyn, C.B., and Lew took out a Saudi Arabian deputy minister for oil export. The man was objecting to a large contract with US oil companies because he thought they were trying to break his country’s monopoly, though STRAC never worried unduly about the reasons. The unit was apolitical, or at least, learning to be. If anything, they were simply patriotic. As in ’Nam, they always assumed their contracts were in support of American objectives, and that was the only rationale necessary.
Maybe they never grew up.
The target had a lavish apartment in Riyadh and the STRAC Unit arrived in Riyadh by way of commercial flights through Paris and Cairo. They checked into the Hilton under false passports, and decided right away to make it a quick trip.
No liquor. Not even a lousy beer.
Lew called the airport and finalized their return tickets for 9:40 the following morning.
“It’s got to be today, guys,” he said.
“Fine with me. Sooner the goddamned better,” C.B. said. He was still sullen about the customs agent confiscating a full quart of Jack Daniels.
Lew opened his hanging bag. It had come through as regular baggage, and even though the customs agents had gone through it, they gave up their search as soon as they found his bottle of J&B Scotch.
In the bottom of the bag was his aluminum-sided camera case. He took it out, opened it, and extracted the big video camera from its nest of soft rubber. The customs agent had done that too, holding it up on his shoulder, and faking a pan of the customs area. He had grinned hugely at his own good humor, and Lew had grinned back at him.
Now, he popped the camera’s film cassette cover and pulled the cassette out. Prying the lid of the cassette open with his penknife, he poured the barrel and frame of the Walther onto the bedspread. There hadn’t been room in the cassette for the grips.
Two of the five spare cassettes also gave up automatic pistols. The three silencers were in his Dopp kit, wrapped in plastic and submerged in aftershave, shaving cream, and toothpaste containers.
The three of them disassembled and cleaned the pistols, double-checked the feed of the magazines, and reloaded them. Then they left the room and went down to find a taxi.
The cab driver only had command of ten or twelve words of English, and Lew just pointed in the direction he wanted to go, tapping him on the shoulder whenever he wanted a turn made. They passed the address and C.B. almost mentioned it, but Lew rapped him on the knee to keep him silent.
A block later, he ordered a right turn, then a stop, and they got out. After the cab was gone, they started back up the street.
It was hot and dry. The sunlight glared harshly, reflecting off white concrete sidewalks and buildings, and making Lew squint. He put on his sunglasses.
Brooklyn said, “This is a first. Daytime and all.”
“First daylight shot since ’Nam, anyway,” C.B. said.
“Maybe it’s not so good, Lew,” Brooklyn said. “Hell, we stand out as foreigners.”
They were dressed in lightweight summer suits, complete with white shirts and striped ties. Except for C.B.’s, their shoes shone with spit shines.
“There are foreigners all over the place,” Lew told him. “All of them after oil.”
“They sure as hell ain’t after a drink,” C.B. said.
The apartment building was eight stories high, set back from the street, with a large, two-story parking garage at the back. Probably full of Mercedes and Cadillac limousines. Modem building, all cement with a coating of stucco, including the balcony walls.
One security guard in a small guardhouse at the single gate, handling both pedestrian and auto traffic.
Brooklyn walked up to the guardhouse, tapped on the window, and when the guy looked up at him, shot him in the heart. Glass cracked and tinkled. The guard dropped like a steer banged between the eyes with a mallet. Country had told Brooklyn about meat-packing plants one time, and Brooklyn didn’t eat meat for a month.
Brooklyn used the silencer mounted on his gun to break out the glass around the bullet hole, reached through, and toggled the gate motors. The gate slid to the side, and they all walked through. C.B. stepped into the guardhouse, straddled the body on the floor, and put the dead man’s peaked cap on his own head. He closed the gate, then leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes.
Lew and Brooklyn walked up the wide sidewalk, entered a marble foyer, and rang for the elevator. It was on the first floor and the door opened immediately. They got in and Lew used the knuckle of his forefinger to press the button for the third floor.
The oil minister wasn’t supposed to have bodyguards, so Brooklyn knelt on the carpeted floor in front of his door and worked the lock with picks. Lew watched the hallway.
The lock gave after three minutes, Brooklyn pushed the door open, and they went inside. Magnificent place. Acre of deep pile, plush white carpet. Black sofas spotted around. Glass-topped tables on brass legs. Wall of glass overlooking a broad, concrete balcony with yellow wrought iron furniture. Lew thought the prints and paintings hanging on the walls were all good, very expensive, and wished he had space to take a few back with him. Brooklyn had never seen a stereo entertainment center that cost $30,000 before. That’s what the background brief had said. He didn’t think it looked much better than the one he had paid a grand for.
Nobody there.
Then they heard giggles coming from the back.
They went down a long hallway and walked through the open doorway into a bedroom with a round bed that must have been twenty feet in diameter.
Lavender and pink upholstery. Same for the drapes. Big bed. Large enough for four, with room to spare for more.
Right now, it held a frozen-faced, balding oil minister with a goatee and a lapsing erection. Also, three naked, first-class broads, one each of blonde, brunette, and redhead. They were spread all around the minister, ministering to him in various ways.
“Sweet’s gonna shit, I tell him about this,” Brooklyn said. “Ten to one, he’d have had the endurance for all three.”
“No bet,” Lew said, appreciating all of the flesh. Made him wonder if Sweet didn’t have the right idea, just once in a while.
The oil minister said in English, “What do you want?”
“Nothing you’ve got,” Lew said.
A slight relaxation of his face.
Then Lew shot him. Phhht! One right in the left temple. Not much blood. Just a tiny hole.
Girls screaming, yelping, rolling.
Brooklyn surveyed all those lovely breasts jouncing as the girls tried to scramble out of the bed.
He shot two of them, and Lew took care of the third. The STRAC Unit never left a witness behind.
