01. Labyrinth of Dreams (26 page)

"I saw no other way. I called in the federal bank people with a phone call—anonymous—to just the right people with just the right information. He had to skip before they caught him and hung him up to dry. His only chance then was to get me first. If I turned up dead, it would be a gangland revenge slaying, he'd be legally dead, and free to spend the money. Better than before, since he had contacts with the opposition, access to the Labyrinth somehow, and, being dead, he could hardly be disgraced. All he needed was my body, and all I needed was a trail far away from me that he would follow. That, however, necessitated using the fourth me—another female version, as you well know, because we needed a female me then. I made a fuss over getting the clothes from the lesbian center, which got them suspicious enough to follow me. I tell you, they were so incompetent I had a lot of trouble not losing them! Then we cleared out of the apartment, leaving the card. Right at the start, before I even called the feds, I called and made that Sunday reservation for San Francisco just to give an extra signpost and make it easier to find the pair going west."

"Uh huh." It was pretty much as we figured, but the fine details were not falling into place and it didn't make me feel too great. The guy had almost drawn us a map and detailed instructions, and we thought we were hot shit to have sniffed him along! It was pretty humbling.

"We needed another 'Amanda' just in case they were convinced that there were two of me, male and female. Mandy played me as a male, which she could do as long as you didn't know me, and the other one, who I understand was also Amanda—it was our grandmother's name—played herself. She had to look enough like me to make the whole scenario we invented fall into place. Of course, the joker was Nkrumah, who didn't roll over or put out a contract but instead set the dogs on us—pardon, no offense meant. You got to each of the points in the trail first. I have the feeling that after the first breakthrough, because you were related to Minnie, they all allowed you to be the stalking horse, and just followed the trail. One of the people along the way who you contacted or questioned is our traitor. He, or she, along with the other me, followed your leash as well. When you went up to McInerney, they followed, although I think they already suspected the destination. The two Mandys, I'm afraid, were the bait our security people used. That's why they hung around where they did, and why they stayed in the motel rather than getting out fast. The trouble was, you were the odd couple, the complication
we
couldn't figure."

I nodded. "Yeah. You knew we came from Nkrumah or somebody in that organization, but you didn't know if
we
were the hitters instead of the other Whitlock, or if we maybe were setting up the girls for the kill."

"Exactly. Little Jimmy initially just figured you to draw the heat away from his boys, but you got results and he let you run. We couldn't figure you—except that we could trace you to Little Jimmy's corner of the world, and that was good enough. The trouble was, we took our eyes momentarily off the ball while we, too, followed you. We figured you
had
to be with the opposition, knowingly. And because everything was concentrated on you, we let my counterpart and a contract hood who was free-lance but had done a lot of work for Big Tony's family get by. That hood knew his business. A real pro. No phone, no lights, and the girls in a room with no back exit in the middle of a concrete block of motel units. I was a crack shot in the Marines, and so, of course, was the other me. He would nail them in the room, or keep them pinned down until the hood could get right up to them and just shoot them down—all before security could get there, thanks to the train. Then you stepped in and saved them."

"I got the hood on sheer luck," Brandy told him. "I was blind as a bat, at that distance. Guess he just didn't figure we had that kind of firepower. One of your girls got—you—with a rifle."

"You can see, though, how it looked to security when they arrived. They still didn't know which side you were on, or whether you'd nailed the hood because there was no way he could tell which was which in the dark and at that distance. They figured the girls sounded the alarm, not you, Mr. Horowitz. Nothing was really clear, so they just rousted you until they could treat the girls and get the full story. By the time you reached our judge, we knew you'd saved them, but we didn't know why, or what game you were playing, so it was decided to buy time. Trap you there until we could find out everything about you, and what was going on and where you stood, and go from there. We just hadn't realized how resourceful you could be."

It made sense. It all hung together. Case solved. Except for a number of very puzzling details.

"You still don't know who that traitor was, then? He's still in place there, someplace?"

Whitlock nodded. "Yes."

Brandy frowned. "Yeah, but who called off the feds and scared shit out of Little Jimmy so's he fired us and scrammed? Who
could
have that kind of power and clout?"

"Good question. And everything in the east is stuck in limbo until we find out. Little Jimmy got out clean. We haven't been able to trace him at all. We didn't think he'd run, considering we offered to cover his losses. He must have had that escape route plotted for years. Either that or he's in a concrete barrel a mile down off Cape May."

I grinned, my memory going back what for me was more than a year, although to Whitlock it was still current events. "I think I can find him, if he actually got away and wasn't hit right then. I don't think he was. I don't know why—maybe—" I snapped my fingers. "Sure! Big Tony! Somehow he fed 'em Big Tony on a platter before he split. He tied up the mob for a day or two on that, and tied up any possibilities of Big Tony's mob making the hit then. He bought time that way. No wonder he was scared to death! He was so scared I doubt if he even realized it, but he told me where he was headed, generally speaking. I think I could find him, if he was telling the truth—and I think he was."

"Big Tony, of course, was a tool I sometimes used, but he had no direct knowledge of the Company and its reach. They would hardly use Big Tony's mob to hit Nkrumah—or would they? They had motive—the missing money—and they would be the perfect foils to do the opposition's dirty work with no traces. Hmmmm. . .." Whitlock paused for a moment, thinking. "Interesting. You know he left clean. Didn't take the money. Hell, the
paperwork
wouldn't be done on it by now!"

"Clean. . . . No, not clean, and not with a slush fund, either, although I think he has one. Somebody else agreed to cover him first. That means he knows something." I had an unpleasant thought. "Once well away, though, they could hit him without it even making the papers. Save themselves money and a leak. They just got him out so he wouldn't turn stoolie to the feds. But the feds'd give him protection, and no money. He took the offer of a hideout and money from whoever it is, instead, but he's asking for a bullet now, if it hasn't been done already."

"You think he wouldn't guess that and maybe run somewhere else?"

Brandy laughed. "Sure, he'd take all the precautions, but he wouldn't run no matter
how
scared he was until he had the money. Money
is
life to Little Jimmy."

I thought a moment. "You know, if I don't shave, he wouldn't recognize either of us right now. Nobody drops a hundred pounds in this short a time, or grows a full real beard. Maybe, just maybe, there's a chance they haven't hit him yet, want to let things cool down first, up in Philadelphia; distance the hit from the rest of the stuff."

Whitlock smiled. "You
are
interested in the job, then."

Brandy held up a hand. "Uh uh, baby. Wait a minute. Yeah, we're interested. Real interested. But this is strictly free-lance right now. You can hire Spade and Marlowe, but you can't buy 'em. Not yet."

"Fair enough. Unlimited expenses, but one condition."

"Yeah?"

"Jamie goes along. You tell her what you need and she'll get it. She'll be the comptroller and contact on this. For obvious reasons I can't show my face anywhere right now, and I can't dare even try to clean up this mess until everything's tidy. I love my wife, you see. I love my children, too. I don't want them endangered or pulled into this, but I miss them. You have the vast resources of G.O.D., Inc. at your disposal. Find Nkrumah, if he's alive. Find that traitor. Let me go home."

I looked at Brandy, and she looked back at me and winked.

By God, the game was afoot!

8.

Taking on the Competition

We still didn't quite know what to make of Jamie, other than the obvious fact that she was holding our leash. We could pretend we were independents with a client again, but we knew better. We were there because Whitlock needed us; because all his money and power and fancy resources couldn't take him into the neighborhoods and classes where we worked best. What I mean is, you couldn't really penetrate Jamie's masks. She could accept without a qualm working for a company that at least aided and abetted half the crime in the Western World, yet she detested the crime-ridden cities and the atmosphere of fear that such activities helped promote. She seemed perfectly at home in our world, yet was a native of a place that had old-time steam trains, castles, baronies, and no electricity or working toilets. She had also seemed quite mannish, maybe more than a little butch, back in her own world, yet seemed girlishly feminine now. She was a bundle of contradictions, and when you saw that, you knew you never saw the real person at all, just whatever act or mask they wanted you to see at any given time.

Identification and papers were no problem; they'd brought all our stuff to the Bahamas as well, including our driver's licenses, P.I. licenses, and the like. I would have preferred ones with aliases, but we just didn't have the time. I certainly expected that if I found Nkrumah at all, he'd be stone-cold dead, but every minute wasted was one that might guarantee that fact. At least the Caymans weren't very formal, and we were already sort of in the Caribbean. Of course, I had no real idea of where the Caymans were, but I remembered hearing they were pretty loose and pretty poor.

I'd always wanted to fly as a passenger in one of those luxury business jets, sipping martinis at twenty thousand feet, but all they had on their island was a glorified Cessna with cramped quarters and seats that looked designed for the Army. The pilot was a big, black Bahamian man who looked like he'd been everywhere and seen everything and had never been impressed. He was very well paid, and he asked no questions of his passengers that had anything to do with business. He said to just call him Mike.

We flew over long stretches of water with just occasional tiny islands for hours, then came up on a huge landmass. Brandy leaned forward and shouted at Mike over the incessant engine noise, "What's that below we're flying toward?"

"Oh, dat's Cuba, m'um," he responded casually. "We hav'ta land there to get enough fuel to take us the rest of the way."

"Cuba!" both Brandy and I exclaimed at once. "You can't land
there!
We're Americans!" I had visions of being forced down by Migs and getting thrown in a Cuban jail for a year or two.

"No, m'um," Mike replied, sounding unworried. "You are passengers on a General Corporation plane on Company business. The government, dey see eye to eye with de Company on lots of t'ings. You bring hard currency, you be surprised how nice dey be down dere."

I seemed to remember that the Mafia had tried to bump off Castro once, but I guess the Cubans didn't hold grudges. And, he was right. We didn't land in Havana or anything like that but at a small general aviation strip somewhere deep in the country. Mike had been really pushing his plane and must have had confidence he knew it well; the gas gauge was right on empty when he landed.

We used the opportunity to stretch and make a pit stop—their Johns were smelly and full of flies—but both Brandy and I were more than a little nervous around there. Although there were mostly small planes in the airport, like ours, most had military markings or coverings and a couple had cccp and a hammer and sickle on their tails. Still, everybody treated us nicely, although almost nobody spoke any real English, and the plane was gassed, checked, and serviced efficiently. Watching a bearded guy in military fatigues pump fuel into a plane while smoking a big cigar, I had to wonder just how much of a threat they could be to anybody but themselves and helpless, stranded travelers.

The Caymans, it turned out, were due south of the extreme western tip of Cuba, really in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, there was only one town of any significance on the main island, and it didn't seem that big. This was not exactly a place on the normal tourist routes. Because of this, it was also quite poor, and money would talk rather loudly and quickly there, even from strangers. That was good, since we had no real local contacts down there. Even G.O.D., Inc., it seemed, had forgotten Grand Cayman Island.

We put down on a small airstrip well away from town. The thing wasn't much; Mike said it had been built by a crazy American who moved there and collected satellite antennas years before. There were supposed to be the usual government formalities—the Caymans were a more-or-less-independent country under the British Commonwealth—but there wasn't even a building at the airstrip, let alone a customs and immigration man. Just a wind sock on a pole and a tacked-up sign stating that all arrivals from abroad had to check in with customs and immigration in Georgetown during regular office hours. We were a little late for them today, so we decided we'd hit them ar our mutual convenience.

A Company official had phoned ahead on Jamie's instructions. There were no Company personnel on the island, but when you dropped cash on the phone you could get a taxi to pick you up and a cottage to rent. The taxi wasn't there when we arrived, but just as we were beginning to think about walking, an old and battered thirty-year-old Chevy came smoking up the road and turned in to meet us. Our coach awaited.