01. Labyrinth of Dreams (31 page)

"It was pretty bad in there, even by Camden standards," she told me. "You don't have no constitutional rights in a system like this. What the judge says goes. I thought this was a democracy!"

"It is. It just isn't our kind. Were they rough?"

"Standard good-guy-bad-guy routine, hours and hours, with threats of violence but no real violence. They wanted the truth, that's all, and I couldn't give it to 'em, if they'd have believed it anyway. The worst thing was, they made us stay in our bathin' suits. Can you believe that? And Jamie was drippin' wet when they took us in to book us! She fell in a couple times on that sailboat while tryin' to keep us in range."

I thought for a moment. "You see the dead girl's body? The shooter, I mean?"

"No, but they told me about it and I didn't want to. Five slugs, all in the back. A real mess. Not much blood, though, 'cause she fell in the water."

I sighed. "Brandy, I think it's time we went home."

"Huh? You mean Camden?"

"Or something like it. In a little more style. As soon as they say I can get out of here, we go. I think I now have as much of the story as it's possible to know without the guilty ones filling in the blanks. The trouble is, I can't prove a thing. I think it's time to take a leaf from old Phil Marlowe's book. Go get Bill Markham and tell him I also have to talk to Whitlock. I think I have a way to get him back in the good graces of modern society again."

"I usually follow right along with you," she noted. "Sometimes ahead. But I can't figure you now."

"Oh, let's just say that maybe if I can never love this line of work, I can at least be good at it."

9.

The Agent in the Muddle

It had been less than five weeks since this insanity had begun, at least on the world where it had started, and now the drama was drawing to a close, this time at a Holiday Inn off I-95 in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, just south of Philadelphia International Airport.

Agent Marshall Flynn Kennedy hadn't changed any in that time, not even his suit, and he walked into the lobby and directly back to the elevators and punched the up button, then got on and rode up to the eighth floor, then got off, walked down the hall, and knocked on 832.

"Who's there?" a muffled man's voice asked.

"Agent Kennedy, DEA, sir," the federal man responded.

The chain was slipped off the door, which opened to admit the agent. When it was closed again, the federal man shook hands with the real and authentic Martin J. Whitlock IV.

"We've had quite a time with you, Whitlock," Kennedy noted. "I'm glad to see you've gotten some sense. Frankly, we weren't sure if you were even alive. The last we heard, you had skipped off to the west coast dressed, ah, unusually."

"A friend, Mr. Kennedy. Two friends, both of whom resemble me because we're from the same family. I assure you this is the way I normally look, on and off the job. I'm just tired. I want to get this over with. My wife and kids must be frantic by now, and I miss them."

"You understand that it'll never be like it was. Turning state's evidence against mob figures makes you and yours a real target. Everybody will have to be relocated."

"I understand. What they do is up to them. I'm a target now, with no real place to go. At least this way I can see them, in protected circumstances, explain things to them, give them the facts and the choices. I have—alternatives—for my future." He gave a slight smile at that, as if it were some private joke.

"You are absolutely certain you can hand us Big Nose Norton as tight as we have Big Tony?"

"Tighter. I can trace and document his entire money laundry, start to finish, and hand you his entire distribution system as well, for all of central Jersey."

"Very well. I have a car and some protective personnel downstairs. We might as well go now and get this ball rolling."

"I—I thought we could handle much of it here, informally," Whitlock told him nervously. "I really don't want to be in some solitary cell guarded by officers until this is over. This was not part of our agreement over the phone, Mr. Kennedy."

Kennedy reached in his coat and pulled out a .38 revolver. "I'm afraid I must insist, Mr. Whitlock," he said evenly.

Whitlock stared at the gun. "That's not necessary."

"I think it is. Now turn against the wall here, please, hands behind your back." The cuffs went on quickly and professionally. "Now, let's leave this room, nice and quiet-like. I don't want to make a mess here, or even a fuss, but I can be
very
painful if I have to be. And no heroic escape attempts, please. I have men at your home, looking after your wife. Her future depends on your cooperation."

Whitlock turned and stared at him. "You! It was you all along! Nail Big Tony and put Norton, your boy, in on the inner council. Why, you corrupt son of a bitch!"

Kennedy smiled. "Now, we both know it was more complicated than all that, but you have the general idea. There's nobody better placed for this than a federal officer, is there?"

"You're going to kill me!"

Kennedy shrugged. "Not right away. Savor the moments, Mr. Whitlock, not the expectation. We all have to go sometime. I couldn't just let you come in with all you know and blow Norton to hell in the federal record, now could I? This has been messy enough, but I can still grab the brass ring."

They went out and down the hall, reversing Kennedy's trail. There were some raised eyebrows in the lobby, but Kennedy just said, "Federal officer. This man is a fugitive from federal warrants. Don't worry, it's all over before it started," and continued on out the door.

A big blue sedan pulled up almost immediately, and Kennedy opened the door and Whitlock and he got in. There were two other men in the car, both real mean-looking.

"This is Georgio, and this is Frank," Kennedy told Whitlock as they drove off. "They are both highly reliable employees of Mr. Norton's with years of experience."

They drove north into the city, then took the Walt Whitman Bridge to New Jersey, and then up I—295 for a while before exiting to the west. They finally stopped at an old factory site, now abandoned, right on the Delaware River. They stopped, killed the lights, and then the three men and their handcuffed prisoner got out.

"Mr. Norton uses this place a lot," Frank explained. "It's nice and quiet and deserted, and there's big old oil drums over there right along the riverbank. We got a couple of eighty-pound bags of Sacrete in the trunk, but we don't like to start mixing until the barrel's already full and we're all right on the water. You understand."

"You're not going to get away with this, Kennedy," Whitlock said, sounding pretty brave. "The Company knows that Norton was the object. We know all about Gritch and the Nkrumah double. They'll take Norton out just like you took out Big Tony, only cleaner, and they'll just appoint my successor to handle the likes of you."

Kennedy chuckled. "Sure. Like you handled me, right? Hell, even
I
never expected you to just call up and walk into my arms, but I made myself the logical one, didn't I? As for Norton—he'll stay. My unit at DEA here is attached to the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force.
Tsk tsk tsk.
All you nasty mob types for me to handle. Norton gives us the Philadelphia council chairmanship and a seat on the inner council. We are well positioned to protect Norton, and also to nail anybody you might send up against him. He's not the only inner-council member we've got, you know. With maybe a little bloodletting, he tips the balance our way. Boys, I think it's time we got this over and done with. I promised my girlfriend I'd be in early tonight."

Car lights went on, illuminating the quartet, and I stepped out from behind one set. "Who created this whole crazy mess, Kennedy?" I asked. "Machiavelli?"

Kennedy's hand went to his shoulder holster, but the two mob men had theirs out first and rather noisily. Both of their guns were pointed not at me but at Kennedy, and he realized it almost immediately and relaxed.

"Horowitz! You son of a bitch, it's always
you,
isn't it? My biggest mistake in all this was not just throwing you in the slammer that first day at Whitlock's house."

I shook my head slowly. "No, no. You have much too big an ego, you're much too clever for
that.
That's your problem, Kennedy. It was just too damned complicated a scheme and involved too many people. It was so intricate it was bound to fail."

"It almost worked!"

"No it didn't. You blew it right off, when you didn't figure the drag-queen masquerade. It was so outrageous it confused the shit out of you. You didn't know if you had one Whitlock or two, and your pretty plans for replacing the eastern regional director of the Company with a double went right down the tubes. Then you decided to put the screws on Nkrumah when it all started coming apart, and he handed you Big Tony, just like you hoped. But you couldn't just finish him off. That got me wondering. Why let Nkrumah live, and why bring in a double who'd tell me just where he ran to? It hit me just the other day. You didn't just need information, you needed Nkrumah, because Big Tony had to be nailed legitimately. But old Marty, here, went to Nkrumah after your boy finished with Little Jimmy, and the big fart skipped the country. You were left without a live body to swear on those affidavits and give testimony before legal witnesses, so you imported a double for him to do that. But the double really was another Little Jimmy, heart and soul. He looked at the bills here and saw they were the same as the bills on his world, which must be pretty close to this one. He knew he'd do his thing here, then go back home—and he wanted Little Jimmy's restitution money, too. So he told me about Grand Cayman, hoping I might point the Company that way or maybe go there myself and get him knocked off. How am I doing?"

"Pretty fair. When you deal with trash, you have to expect treason and greed sometimes."

"So Little Jimmy Two runs down to pick up that payoff money and runs smack into Little Jimmy One," Brandy continued, picking up the story. "He knows he just should blow Little Jimmy One away, but he finds he can't do it. It's like blowin' himself away. So Little Jimmy One panics and runs for the Grand Cayman hideout. That's where it gets a little fuzzy. Why'd you keep him alive at all, let alone pay him off and send three girls to guard him?"

"Simple," Kennedy replied. "Big Tony's boys figured immediately who had fingered their boss and went gunning for him. They nailed our Little Jimmy thinking it was the original. That left me with only the original, and I was going to need a live body at the trial."

"So you told Gritch to get you three identical beauties to the ones Little Jimmy expected on his boat, and Gritch had already prepared a whole list of duplicates, if need be, from his world. Right?" I put in.

"You got it." Kennedy turned to the two mob toughs. "These are, I take it, not the same pair I've dealt with before."

Brandy grinned. "Yeah. Two can play at that substitution game."

"Can you tell me how you figured it was me?"

"That wasn't so hard," I told him. "It had to be somebody who knew the whole tri-state mob scene intimately, and was in a position to make things happen in it. It also had to be somebody who could find out who we were working for, and pull that switch of Nkrumahs. We talked to nobody about Oregon until we were in Bend, and at Bend I made only two phone calls. One was to the phony Nkrumah, the other to you. It was you who told me that Little Jimmy didn't even appear on the federal warrants list. The only reason for that was if he was a state's witness—but I knew Little Jimmy was splitting because he'd just told me he was, and with his ripped-off money restored. You might offer protection, but not even Big Tony would be worth a two-and-a-quarter-million-dollar restitution. Then the fake Whitlock shows up in McInerney to blow away the real one, who isn't there, and with him is one of Big Tony's best soldiers. Now, who knew they were there? I only told Little Jimmy—and both the real and the phony split—and you. And, of course, there was Nan's composite of Gritch, supplemented by Bill's detective team up at State College and some old photos from the obit files. It was a long time ago, for me, but that guy sure looked like a dead ringer for that fellow in the car with you the first time we met, the one who never got out. I have a thing for faces."

"But you weren't positive," he noted glumly, "so you fixed up this charade. Whitlock offering to deliver Norton to us on a platter. It made sense, since the Company's only way of getting things back to normal was to block Norton in a way that didn't seem to directly involve them. I figured Whitlock planned to deliver the goods, then split to one of the other worlds. Big Tony was already out on bail and sure to fight, and he figured he'd bumped off Nkrumah so there'd be no star witness at his trial. Whitlock, here, could deliver both—but wouldn't. He'd just deliver Norton. We can hit Big Tony now, but without Norton it's nowhere. I had to take him out once and for all, like I tried to do from the start."

"Frank, can you get the key from old Kennedy here and get poor Mr. Whitlock outta them handcuffs?" Brandy asked. "Thanks."

"So now what do you do?" the agent asked us.

"First," I replied, "we go back to Philadelphia. I have to admit, if you hadn't taken the bait, or if you'd just let Whitlock come in and send Norton up, we were stuck. I didn't have a shred of concrete evidence on you, and we couldn't just take out a federal officer without getting things
real
messy. With Big Tony feeling free, and Norton poised for a hit and a takeover, though, I figured that handing you all you needed to wrap it up in a nice package would be damned near irresistible—and it was. We taped the hotel-room scene, by the way, and our people are in place now to get it. There's nothing said there about the Company or other worlds or anything. It's strictly a picture of a dirty cop about to blow away a major witness. The U.S. Attorney is going to love it. Spout all you want to about other worlds and doubles and all that. That might just get you an insanity plea that'll work, but I doubt it. But before we head for Philadelphia, we're going to stop by a few friends of ours from the Company and they're going to give you a little implant."