Bannerman's Law (43 page)

Not that it mattered much. No child had been born
there for more than two decades. Stolen and brought there,
yes, but not born there. What young wome
n
they did get
these days were often so ravaged by drugs and disease
that the act of impregnating them was repellent and the
resulting child, if it survived, was often stunted.

Carleton Dunville the younger had never been at peace
with the practice of breeding babies for use as props and he loathed the stealing of them. That was another thing.
He had grown up in an environment where such activities
were a perfectly routine part of the family business and
yet they had always bothered him. He took it as one more reason to hope that he was unsullied by the genes of Vitto
rio
D'Arconte
and Ca
r
leton Dunv
i
lle the elder. In any case,
one of his first acts as chief executive of Sur La Mer was
to put an en
d
to the trafficking in children.

There were many things he'd intended to do differently. Being more selective for one. Attracting a better class of
special guests. The Hong Kong Chinese, for example. Hong Kong was certain to be a gold mine as 1997 drew
near. Dunville had already begun outlining special pro
grams for all those Chinese who, having been denied legit
imate British or American passports, will be dripping in
dollars with no place to go.

Placing Orientals had its problems, of course, but it
would at least be more morally satisfying than, for exam
ple, that crew that came through during the late 1940s.

They were the real boom years to hear Count Victor
tell it. Sur La Mer's golden age, when its capacity was
strained with fleeing war criminals, Nazis in particular,
and several French and Dutch collaborators, all of whom
had made their way to California with sizable fortunes in
gold, gems, and stolen art.

But the greatest of the art thieves was in fact a Pole.
One Tadeusz Ordynsky turned up in the early 1950s with
a two-inch stack of canvasses by Rembrandt, Renoir, and Corot plus a Botticelli on wood. Most of the Corots turned
out to be fakes but the others were genuine.

Tadeusz Ordynsky, after a ten-month stay, emerged as
Theodore Marek and, that same year, created the art auc
tioning firm of Richardson-Marek, which then grew to be
come California's answer to Sotheby's. The real impetus behind the growth of Richardson-Marek was not so much
art auctioning as art theft, which Marek brokered. That, and the sale of counterfeit art, including the Corots.

Marek had once remarked to Carleton the elder that although
Ca
mi
lle Corot painted only eight hundred canvases in his life
time, four thousand ended up in American
collections.

During the 1980s, as art soared in value, Theodore
Ma
r
ek was among the first of the art auctioneers to ap
preciate the money-laundering potential of his chosen pro
fession. He could sell a painting to a drug dealer for a
suitcase full of cash. The federal authorities paid little attention to the cash flow within auction houses and none
at all to the intrinsic value of the objects being sold be
cause, in the art world, there was no such thing. A bit
later, Marek would auction the drug dealer's painting for
him, always at a profit, always for an unconscionable com
mission, and the drug dealer would then have clean
money.

His association with drug dealers had other benefits.
Foremost among them was the fact that he had, at his
disposal and, therefore, at the disposal of th
e
Dunvilles a
small army of thugs who would resolve any unpleasant
ness that might arise in the course of their business
dealings.

On
e
such thug was Harry Bunce, who had been asked
to resolve Mr. Hickey. Another, to whom hurting people
was more of a hobby, was Theodore
Marek's
own son,
Peter.

Well, not actually his son, thought Dunville. Peter was
provided by Sur La Mer. His real father was Ca
r
leton the elder or, more accurately, the semen of Carleton the elder. No surprise, therefore, that the young man was psychotic. He ha
d
been born a handsome enough child, according to
Dunville
’s
father, but one had only to look into his eyes
to see that something was awry.

Not that his subsequent environment was likely to im
prove matters. Theodore Marek, for all his acquired polish
and studied charm, was the single most execrable human being Dunvile had ever met. Small wonder that the drug
dealers sniffed him out so readily. He must
give off a
scent.

There was a certain irony to the fact that Carleton the elder and Peter Marek now lay, equaly dead, in adjoining
rooms in the basement of Sur La Mer. To say nothing of
Henry. It was Ca
r
leton the
...
Ca
r
leton the
dead
.
.
.
who had offered Peter as a replacement for Luisa Ruiz, whom Theodore Ma
r
ek had virtually destroyed before
trading her in for a newer model.

Marek was down there with his son. Dunville tried to
imagine the scene. Was Theodore Marek capable of shed
ding a tear? Or was he looking at him in the way one
looks at the ten-year-old clunker in his driveway when it
will no longer start: Well, I got my money's worth. Time
to check the ads.

Thoughts of cars led Dunville to recall that Harry
Bunce had arrived driving a white Lexus. That, it seemed to him, was Peter
Marek's
car. He realized, with a shock,
that Peter had used his own car. God knows how many bystanders had seen him being dragged back to it after the
shots were fired.

Dunville sighed deeply.

Speaking of cars, he thought, it was getting to be just about time to borrow a car from one of the guards, drive
down the hill, wait for the bank to open, and then begin
a leisurely cross-country trip with nothing but the clothes
on his back and the contents of a safe deposit box. Two
new life histories, two sets of documents. His choice of a
town house in New Orleans or a shore villa on Hilton
Head. No Sur La Mer alumnus within a hundred miles of
either. He would shave his head and grow a mustache. The Gordon Liddy look. He could even
.
.
.

“
Yuri Rykov
.”

The voice at Dunville
’
s door yanked him back to the
present.

“
Rank of captain, KGB, almost certainly a trained as
sassin and, by the way, still very much alive
.”

Theodore
Marek's
face pink and u
n
lined despite his
age. Four facelifts
.
.
.
one day his ears will meet, thought Dunville. He stood reading from a sheet of notepaper. His
tone was accusatory.

“
Ca
rl
a Benedict, contract agent, assassin, knife work a specialty. Molly Fa
rr
ell, contract agent, assassin, electron
ics a specialty. And someone named Paul Ba
nn
e
r
man,
apparently their control
.”
Ma
r
ek looked up
at him.
“
Quite a cast of characters
.”

Dunville chose not to reveal, just yet, that two of the
names were familiar to him. He stared blankly at the mention of the third. Clearly, Marek had been on the telephone
before arriving at Sur La Mer.

“
Rykov, Benedict, Fa
rr
ell
,”
Marek ticked them off on
his fingers.
“
All three have been positively identified by
the FBI. All three were at Joseph
Hickey's
apartment this evening. First Benedict, apparently, with her knife. Then
Rykov. Then Benedict and Farrell again. It was Benedict
who killed Hickey
.”
He jabbed one bony finger toward the
basement.
“
It was the Russian who did that to my son
.”

Dunville was astonished. He tried not to show it. That
young girl
'
s sister again. And now a KGB agent? Hilton
Head was emerging as his choice. It was farther away.

₃₁

“
Nothing
's
real here
,''
David Katz muttered.

Lesko rolled his eyes. It was the fifth time Katz had
said it.

Lesko had driven due west from the Brentwood Holi
day Inn. The signs said Santa Monica and the Pacific Coast
Highway. Being this close, he thought, he might as well
see the ocean. And Santa Monica was as good a place as
any from which to make his first phone call to the LAPD.

The message he left was: This is Raymond Lesko from
New York. Call Andy
Huff, wake
him up, get him down
there. I'll call him in one hour, one
a.m.,
on the nose. Tel
l,
him I got something hot.

He had killed the hour by first driving south as far as
Venice. There was a road along the coast that seemed
familiar to him. He asked Katz. Katz said that road was in a lot of movies. He said he'd seen it maybe te
n
times
on the old
Dragnet
show alone.

Katz didn't think much of the Pacific. You can hardly see or hear a single wave, he said, and you can't even see
the horizon because there
's
this dirty haze that looks yel
low even at night. Katz also thought it looked fake. Like
it was painted. And the people rollerskating up and down
this long boardwalk thing all looked like zombies. Just skating along, late at night, in bathing suits, faces blank,
no smiles. Katz thought all their brains must be fried on drugs but Lesko said that druggies don't skate. Druggies
don't do shit, he said. They just do drugs.

Lesko tur
n
ed back north and found Sunset Boulevard
again. The first part wound around through some dumb
little mountains and it eventually leveled off to the section
they called
“
The Strip
.”
This was also familiar. Katz had
seen it in movie
s
and on TV all his life but it also re
minded him of parts of Manhattan. Broadway in the seventies. Hookers and dealers on every other corner. Saloons,
porn shops, fag movie houses, shit shops like in Times Square, and fast-food restaurants.

What was different was the people again. More zom
bies. People in New York were more
.
.
.
like
.
.
.
awake.
On their toes. Lesko said it was just a different life-style.
Out here they were just more relaxed. Katz thought it was more than that. New York, he said, had its share of people who walked real slow, and talked real slow, and called
everybody
“
dude
”
and they were the same as these. Katz
said he knew cows that could make better conversation.

“
You know what the real difference is
?”
he asked.
“
Look what they're wearing
.”

Lesko saw. More skin than back east. More weird out
fits and junk jewelry. Clusters of punks with purpl
e
or
green hair. Fags dressed like bikers. A few yuppie-type
women but the men with them dressed like pimps. Girls not much older than twelve showing off their new tits.
“
What about it
?”
he asked.

“
They're in costume
,”
Katz said.

“
So? People don't dress up in New York
?”

“
No, I mean real costumes. Like this was all a movie.
And they all had parts
.''

Lesko shrugged off the observation. He checked his
watch.

“
You don't get it
,”
Katz pressed.
“
These people all
think they're actors. They don't think life is real. It's why
you don't need brain cells to live out here. Or maybe it's
like being in the Marines. Do you know why Marines only
need one more brain cell than horses
?”

Lesko shook his head.

“
So they don't shit while they're marching
.”

Katz laughed at his own joke.

Lesko had to smile. For Katz, that wasn't bad. Then,
when he realized he had never heard it before, he frowned.

This was the part that bothered him about Katz still
being around. It was okay when he remembered jokes that Katz had told over the years. It was even okay when Katz
noticed things he didn't or shot the breeze with him or
even argued with him. Because these were the kind of
things Katz
would
have said if Katz were still alive. Or
had
said before he got killed. And most of the time, Lesko
knew, it was all in his own head. He
'
d held on to Katz
because of all the memories and because Katz was better
than nothing. And for a couple of years there, nothing was
all he had. Except for Susan.

But when Katz starts tellin
g
him things he flat out never
knew or, like now, tells him jokes he's sure he's never
heard before, that, Lesko thought, has to make him wonder
if he's got a full deck after all.

“
Hey, Lesko. You know why this town looks fake
?”

Lesko decided to ignore him.

“
I
figured it out. I think
.''

His watch said five to one. He looked for a pay phone.

“
It's all those TV shows they shoot here. When you
actually come see the place, everything looks like a set
.''

He saw a restaurant up ahead, well lit, in a lush tropical
setting. Lesko flipped his turn signal.

“
Another thing
,”
Katz pointed.
“
You see all those
plants? Where's the only other place you ever saw plants
like them? Hotel lobbies, right? Fake plants in hotel lob
bies. So when we see the same plants out here, and they're
real, to us they look fake
.”

This last did not ease Lesk
o's
concern. Either that was
really Katz talking or that dumb-shit observation had come
from his own mind.

It was useless to ask Katz about it. Katz thought he
was still alive. Try asking a ghost if he's a ghost when
the guy you're asking thinks he's your partner, still alive,
riding with you like always. Try telling him you saw him
when half his face was shot away. He'll look at you like you're nuts.
“I
'm sitting here, right? I got a face, right?
Lesko, what the fuck is wrong with you
?”

Screw it.

Lesko pulled into a slot and almost patted his pockets
for some change before he stopped himself. All he needed
was Katz reaching to fish out a quarter.

Andy Huff was waiting for his call. He asked Lesko
for his old badge number and for a few other personal
details. Huff had obviously called the NYPD in the mean
time. Lesko answered his questions. He appreciated the
caution.

In addition, however, Huff also wanted to know if
Lesko had really once bitten a pe
r
p's finger off and swallowed it and whether, although he understood that Lesko
couldn't answer, he had really blown away five g
r
easeballs
and the woman who had sent them to kill his partner.

It wasn't five. It was three. And he didn't shoot Elena.
He left her standing there. And the finger thing was like
fifteen years ago. Anyway, he didn't swallow it. That's
how you get hemorrhoids.

Huff, in any case, lost interest in old war stories as
soon as Lesko began to lay out
Bannerman's
proposition.
He asked if he could get his partner on the line. Lesko
appreciated that as well. Lesko took it from the top as
soon as Huff cut off the partner who wanted to know
if
it's true that once this Brooklyn leg-breaker poked a finger
against
Lesko's
chest and Lesko took the finger and
.
.
.

The offer to deliver the Campus Killer had won Huf
fs
full attention. Lesko explained, in as few words as possible, the relationship that had developed between Carla
Benedict and this man
.
.
.
sounds like a kid
.
.
.
probably
lives near USC, who was known to Carla as
‘‘
Claude
.”
That the carved ex-cop,
H
ickey, may well have killed Lisa
Benedict. That Claude, not Ca
rl
a, killed him. That two
other shooters, connection unknown, had apparently also
turned up at Hicke
y's
with the intention of killing him.
That Lesko has this friend, sort of, named Paul Ba
n
-ne
rm
an who
.
.
.

“
Banne
rm
a
n
's here? In LA
?”

“
Maybe
.”
Lesko hesitated.
“
What's your interest in him
?”

“
Until now? None
,”
Huff answered.
“
But he scares
the shit out of the feds
.”

“
Tell them not to get nervous. All he wants to do is
go to a funeral and then go home. In the meantime, he
doesn't need any press and he doesn't want any of his
people held
.”

“
Will he talk to us
?”

“
If necessary, he says. And privately
.”

“
And that's the whole deal? We leave him alone for
a couple of days and he gives us this creep
?”

“
Pretty much
.”
Lesko explained about the possible
involvement of someone at a place called Sur La
M
er.
Carla's
sister went there the day she died. Guy at Sur La
Mer denies it. Ba
nn
e
r
man would like Huff to run it down,
tell Lesko what he finds out.

“
How do I get back to you
?”

“
I'll call you. When
?”

”I need two hours, maybe more. I'll have to get the
feds in here, the DA, my own brass
.
.
.
”

“
Two hours. I'll call you
.”
Lesko broke the con
nection.