Brainquake (11 page)

So he agreed. It was the day Nixon ordered full bombing of North Vietnam, and the idea of dressing as a priest made sense to him. It was also his twisted sense of humor that appealed to him.

He became a hit man. A hit man survived on performance. A record had to be built up. A name. Those who did the hiring had a list. To get on that list was Flanagan’s obsession.

When he made the list, he was sent for by Hampshire of Galaxy Inc. It was then that he got the idea. As long as he impersonated a priest, why not go hell for broke and crucify the target? It appealed to him. He didn’t think it was insane.

Who gave a damn how you killed a target? The result was what mattered. But he had stumbled on a homicidal trademark that was original.

Some people in the news business, writing about his hits, called him a psycho. But that was just to sell newspapers.

He never thought of himself as a psycho, since he was sane enough to know that psychos never analyzed their acts. And didn’t he analyze everything he did? Didn’t he?

The helicopter approached the yacht anchored off Manhattan, gently set down on the deck constructed for it. The pilot hopped out. Wearing a baseball cap, leather windbreaker over tan polo shirt, levis and cowboy boots, he glanced at the skyscrapers and could see on top of one of them the enormous sign
GALAXY INC
. He looked at it with pride, as well he might. The pilot was Cornelius Hampshire.

His steel czar grandfather had financed a couple of revolutions. His father had floated Allied loans in the United States during World War II. And now, at 75, their heir sat atop an empire they couldn’t have imagined. He was the most powerful man throughout the civilized and uncivilized world of crime.

In the conference room below the aft deck, four lieutenants were waiting for him around a circular mahogany table. On it, besides drinks and coffee, was one book: the Congressional Directory.

There was no one else in the room. The lieutenants made their own drinks.

A phone sat by each chair. Wall clocks showed world time. Screens with figures gliding by showed the world’s latest trades, currency rates, interest rates.

On a television screen mounted in the center of one wall, Senator Orlando was giving a speech emphasizing the importance of supporting Hampshire’s battle against narcotics. It was a recording, and Orlando froze in the middle of his sentence as Cornelius pressed the Pause button on a remote control. He set the control down.

One of the lieutenants, a graying man in his fifties with worry lines deeply etched in his forehead, said, “Just decoded from Miley, U.S. ground jets wiped out Field 59 and downed our plane flying semi-refined coca base to the lab for processing.”

“Save Field 68,” Hampshire said. “Have Peters deliver antiaircraft guns to it. Round up every mercenary specializing in ack-ack.”

His eyes were on Senator Orlando, mouth agape, pointing index finger poised in mid-gesture. “Where do things stand with our friend there?”

Another lieutenant spoke up: “Orlando can’t be bought.”

“We’ve found nothing on him?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing on his wife?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve got to be able to get
something
on the bastard.”

“If we did, he’d give it to the press and resign. He’s that kind.”

“He’s holding up our deal with Atlantic.”

The third lieutenant: “He’s killed our deal with Atlantic.”

Hampshire digested the news, accepted it, moved on. No point getting angry. It was only money.

But they’d find a way to make Orlando pay for it.

He turned to the last lieutenant: “What’s the latest on that L.A. piracy last week?”

“Grapevine points at the bagman.”

“No bagman engineers his own death.”

“Piracy last night on the Hudson and in Jersey were aborted. Both hijackers dead. Brothers.”

“I know,” Hampshire said. “There was a mole in the Manhattan laundry.”

“And…?”

“There isn’t anymore. What about Menkin?”

The first lieutenant: “Menkin confirmed.”

“Bring me up on Jorjo.”

“The bribe didn’t work. Buenos Aires has him in investigative custody.”

“Goddam it.”

“Jorjo’s a sphinx.”

“Under fire a sphinx will name names. Have Jorjo hit immediately.”

“They have him tucked away pretty securely.”

“His mistress?”

“Tucked away.”

“What have we got?”

“I have a friend there who could round up a fire team.”

“Do it.” Back to the second lieutenant: “What about the turnover?”

“Status quo, sir.”

“Luxembourg and Australia?”

“They’ve agreed to join the pack.”

“How many is that?”

“Eight.”

“Good. Michael, what’s going on with Citra?”

“She’s being executed Friday.”

“Get our liaison to buy her freedom. Give him a million.”

“He’s being executed with her.”

“Goddam it! She’s the best distributor in Malaya.”

“She was.”

“What about Russia?”

“The ban on farms growing poppies shot opium prices sky high.”

“Addicts’ll pay the difference. Take advantage of the revolt of the ruble. And, oh yes, on the baseball scandal? Kill any bastard selling drugs to ballplayers. I love that game. Don’t fuck around with baseball. Ever.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Citra. Break her out. Understand? I don’t care how, but you break her out before Friday and find her a spot in Burma. Or in Thailand. How’s McCall doing?”

“Still hooked on his own heroin.”

“Send his ashes to some anti-smoking organization. What about that Fed mole in Chicago?”

The first lieutenant: “Turned out to be Arnie Campbell.”

The second lieutenant choked on his drink.

“Drown him,” Hampshire said.

The second lieutenant: “
He’s my wife’s cousin!
”

“I know,” Hampshire said.

“She won’t like him swallowing half of Lake Michigan.”

“Neither will he. What progress on Jose Alvarado?”

The first again, worry lines deepening: “The Left’s kidnapping candidates, the Right’s assassinating them. Jose doesn’t know what side to run for.”

Hampshire said, “Scratch him. That country’s too complicated. It’ll be another Panama or Nicaragua. Is Lopez still hiding?”

“Manhunt for him’s the biggest ever in the country. I recommend we drop him.”

“On the contrary,” Hampshire said. “Back the guerrillas, back the far right, back the death squads, back the government forces, back the rival narcotics gangs. Keep the war going…and Lopez’ll keep operating cocaine on the move while they blow each other up.”

Hampshire headed for the door.

“Oh—I had a drink with Randolph Railey last night before he went back to Philadelphia,” he said. The reaction to the name was palpable. The other four men were all ears. “In a few days, Railey’s buyouts will be announced as going bankrupt. National Trust took a beating. His two investments in banks are having heart attacks. He’s been spending his own personal funds to keep up his payrolls. His back’s against the wall and I’ve got a clutch on his balls. He’s busted. So I made a deal with him last night.

“Beginning this week, a bagman will deliver ten million to Railey every week on the nose for two years. Total of a billion. For that we’ll own him, down to the last stitch in his Fruit of the Looms. Everything he’s got. Just let Orlando try to stop us then.”

The third of the lieutenants, the youngest, was the only one who said anything.

“But sir, he’s under investigation. The Senate Committee will strip Railey bare-ass in public.”

“Not when it’s packed with our own men,” Hampshire said.

“It won’t work, sir. God knows I want it to work, but it won’t work. It can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know who’s the whip of the committee investigating Railey’s corporate structure?”

“Dan Witherspoon.”

“Exactly! And Witherspoon’s even more untouchable than Orlando. He’ll peel off layer after layer of those corporate shells until he reaches us. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve known Witherspoon for ten years.”

“You know who’s known him twenty? Randolph Railey. And unless
you
had your cock in his mouth last night, I think Railey knows him just a little bit better than you. Gentlemen,” Hampshire said, “we are adjourned.”

“Like to…like to talk to you.”

Paul held out the cellophane-wrapped rose.

Michelle stared. It was the taxi driver. The one who’d been delivering the flowers. The one who’d saved her baby’s life. She stepped aside and let him in.

He entered somewhat nervously, she thought. She shut the door, carefully pulled off the cellophane, and still holding the rose, she opened the small blue envelope stapled to the cellophane, took out the blue card and read the poem.

Like the sponge of a bulrush,
tipped with a dying flower
,
Ivory Face brought life to cattail brown,
Ivory Face didn’t let it down.

“It’s beautiful…don’t understand it, but it’s…” She saw no reaction in his face and quickly added, “Lots of poems I like I don’t understand.” Still no reaction. “Can’t you tell me anything about the person who wrote it?”

“…I did.”

“You?”

He nodded.

The silence that followed didn’t seem to make him uneasy at all, even when it dragged on. Michelle wasn’t exactly sure how she felt, but uneasy was definitely part of it. Was he telling the truth? If he did write the poems…if he was her anonymous admirer… But who
was
he? How did he even know her, to start coming by in the first place? “Did you know my husband? Frankie?”

He shook his head.

He couldn’t be the one who wrote it. This man? He couldn’t be.

“What’s a bulrush?” Michelle tested him.

“Sponge.”

“Sponge?”

He nodded.

“What type of sponge?”

“Swamp.”

She looked back down at the card.

“Ivory Face?”

“You.”

She turned away, set the card down. Felt rather than saw him still standing there beside her. “Would you like some coffee?” she said quietly.

When she didn’t get a response, she looked back and saw him nodding.

She put the pot on, then placed the rose in the vase, alongside the others. She saw him looking at the baby in the crib.

“Thank you. For…”

Paul nodded.

She brought the pot to the table and poured two cups.

“Please, sit down.”

Paul did.

She sat across from him. He kept his eyes on her very steadily. She couldn’t read what was behind his eyes, but she made herself meet them.

“How do you know me?” Michelle sipped her coffee.

“The park.”

“You saw me in the park? You mean the other day?”

“Two months ago.”

“And just decided to, what…follow me home?”

“Didn’t want to never see you again.”

“Why didn’t you just say something? In the park?”

Paul looked down, shrugged. His expression never changed, but something in his eyes looked embarrassed, even ashamed.

“You can’t talk well? There’s something wrong with your voice?”

Another shrug, a small nod.

“It’s okay—it’s okay,” Michelle said. “You didn’t do anything bad, it’s just…the whole thing’s a little strange.”

Sandpaper on stone: “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s…it’s okay.”

She pushed the other coffee cup toward him. Eventually he picked it up, took a tiny sip, set it down.

He looked like a brute, the worst sort of man, and with that expressionless face he could easily be one. But—

If he’d meant to hurt her, he could have. Instead, he’d saved her son’s life. Given her half a flower shop’s worth of roses. Written a book’s worth of poems. Clearly his intentions were something closer to the opposite.

Which in her prior life would’ve meant exactly nothing to her. But that was another life. Before Frankie got killed and her baby almost blown up, before she found herself alone, with the eyes of the police on her. Beggars can’t be choosers, and the attentions even of a man like this, if he wanted to help, were nothing to take lightly. There was so much she needed. And he seemed to want to provide.

And he was capable. When near-tragedy struck, it was incredible the way he knew what to do, and how fast he did it, to save her baby from choking to death. How very fast.

“You want to know me even though they call me a gun widow?”

Paul nodded.

“A gun widow means a gangster’s widow. That doesn’t bother you?”

Paul shook his head.

He was not bad-looking, she thought, if in a totally forgettable way. There was no other way she could describe him. Except for his eyes. There was something in his eyes that was sadly beautiful. She wondered if it was always there, or only now, while he was here with her.

And that thing in his eyes—it wasn’t lust. Attraction certainly; she knew she was beautiful, was used to the looks men got around her, could distinguish among them. Most men gave her a defensive feeling. She sensed with animal instinct when a man looked at her and wanted to lay her. This man’s look said he wanted something different. It was like he wanted to protect her.

“Were you there when the bomb went off? Is that where you got those bruises?”

He nodded, then shot to his feet when a knock came at the door.

So fast.

He raised one finger, dropped his other hand into the deep pocket of his coat.

Then a voice, a woman’s, said, “NYPD. You there, Mrs. Troy?”

She walked to the door and opened it.

Lieutenant Zara was standing there.

“We left your carriage under the stairway, Mrs. Troy.” Zara’s eyes swept to Paul, then back to Michelle. “Forensics decided to hang onto the monkey and the music box.”

“Burn them.”

“I don’t blame you. Still don’t want our protection?”

“If that psycho sees cops around me, he’ll think I
do
have the money.”

“He’ll phone again. What’ll you tell him?”

“The truth.”

“He won’t buy it.”

“Then I’ll tell him in person.”

“You’re not serious.”