FACETS (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS Book 6) (6 page)

“If you studied my cases, you also know it didn’t turn out too well for some of the people involved.”

Maura Dallas reached into the pocket of her suit and took out a photo, which she slid across to Scarne.

“One in particular, Mr. Scarne. You asked the reason why I came to you. This will explain.”

Scarne picked up the photo. It showed two young women in ski clothes, sitting together with arms around each other at an outdoor table at what obviously was a resort. It was probably a summit restaurant, to judge by the skis piled against a wall in the background and the red cheeks on the girls. Both girls had steaming cups in their free hands as they posed. One of the women was Maura Dallas, younger, with shorter hair, but looking not much different than she did now. The other girl was a lovely blond. He looked up at Dallas, too stunned to speak. Noah Sealth walked around the table and took the photo from Scarne.

“Jesus Christ,” Sealth said.

“She was my best friend,” Maura Dallas said. “I named my daughter after her.”

She looked at Scarne.

“And I know how much Alana Loeb meant to you.”

CHAPTER 6 - TWO ALANAS

Maura Dallas turned to Anastasia.

“Vincent, I would like to talk to Mr. Scarne alone. Perhaps you and Mr. Sealth can go in the other room and catch up on old times. Compare bodies.”

Sealth looked at Scarne, who nodded. Then without another word he and Anastasia left, shutting the door behind them. Scarne sat, facing the woman. She picked up the photo from the table.

“This was taken when we were both in high school, or what passes for high school in France. We attended Notre Dame des Monts, Our Lady of the Mountains, in Chamonix. Do you know it?”

“The ski resort. I’ve been there. Is that where the photo was taken?”

“No. St. Moritz, in the Engadine Valley in Switzerland. On holiday. We skied all over Europe. Mostly Chamonix, of course. It was basically right out the door of the school.”

“I never heard of Our Lady of the Mountains.”

“Not many people know about the school. It’s private, run by a small order of nuns, and specializes in young girls who, for one reason or another, are hard to handle. Not troublemakers, exactly, but what I like to call free thinkers. Rebellious. Also, girls whose families wanted them educated far from their home environments.”

Maura Dallas smiled.

“I qualified on all counts, and so did Alana Loeb. We naturally gravitated toward one another, and eventually roomed together. Once we realized how much we had in common, we told each other everything. My father would have had a stroke, if he knew. But, then, he tried to warn me away from Alana because of her past. Needless to say, that only made her more intriguing to me. We were both, after all, innocents corrupted by forces beyond our control.”

Maura Dallas looked at the photo and smiled grimly.

“You would never know by looking at this how many miles were on each of us, would you? After we graduated, I came back to the States and Alana returned to Mendoza in Argentina. We always kept in touch, through college and then law school. When my brother was killed, she came out to San Francisco, and was my rock. My father was a wreck, but even he knew she was something different. He even apologized for trying to keep us apart in France. But after that I became more and more involved in my family’s business and Alana settled in Miami. Neither of us were the kind of girlfriends who exchange recipes or compare contestants on
Dancing With the Stars
over the phone, but we’d touch base a couple of times a year. I never saw her after my brother’s funeral. I guess we were each other’s only real friend. Knowing that was enough. Do you understand what I mean?”

Scarne thought of Dudley Mack.

“Yes.”

“We never spoke about our respective business, but I was in a position to hear things, and I knew Alana was into some very heavy stuff with that Ballantrae situation. Who was I to judge? Glass houses and all that. But the last time I spoke to her, she sounded like she was on the verge of getting out from whatever she was in.” Maura Dallas paused. “And she told me about you. I think she hoped you were going to be part of her escape. But it didn’t work out that way, did it?”

Scarne was silent.

“Then she disappeared,” Dallas continued, “and I heard more things from our contacts with other families, particularly the Ukrainians. I won’t ask you if they are true, or what really happened. But in our last conversation, Alana said you were the only man she ever loved. You had saved her life at great risk to your own. You were tough and could be trusted. I filed it away, never thinking I might need someone like you. Someone outside the family. But now I do. I can’t dismiss the possibility that someone has betrayed me.”

“By taking your child? If this is an inside job, why wouldn’t they just come after you directly?”

“Because I’m a woman. Because they might think I will collapse and be forced to hand over the reins. I don’t know. I didn’t say it was likely. But I cannot afford to ignore any possibilities.”

“Who in your organization stand to gain from a change in leadership?”

“No one I can think of. There are uncles, but they are old and fat, and happy to receive the dividends my legitimate businesses kick off. My sources in law enforcement tell me that the F.B.I. doesn’t even bother keeping tabs on them. All their wiretaps provided were descriptions of prostate problems and hip replacements. Some of their children, my cousins, are in the family business, legitimate or otherwise. We all get along, but I suppose one of them may be jealous. You may feel obliged to check all of them out, but, trust me, Vincent will beat you to it. And they have their own children, who grew up with Alana. It doesn’t make any sense.”   

Scarne stood up and walked to the window. He looked down at the skaters in the famous Rockefeller Center ice rink, which would be closing soon for the season. He’d never even been tempted to ice skate. He thought of Alana Loeb, and the last time he saw her in the Florida Keys. He thought of her skiing at Chamonix. She would probably have also been a wonderful ice skater. Maura Dallas named her daughter after her. A daughter who was kidnapped. A daughter who might be dead by now. Probably was. But maybe not.

Maura Dallas walked over and stood beside Scarne.

Without looking at her he said, “Where can I reach you, Ms. Dallas?”

“Please call me Maura. I’ve taken a suite at the Peninsula. I will give the information to your secretary. And a retainer. If you need more, just contact Vincent. I will give her all our numbers. I plan on staying in New York, but I may have to fly to the Coast on occasion. Vincent will stay here. Use him any way you want, although he will be making his own inquiries.”

Scarne turned to face her.

“This may not turn out well. You must realize that.”

She nodded. Her face betrayed no emotion.

“Just do your best, Jake.”

“It is probable that I will intrude on your life, and your business. Once I start something, I keep going. And I don’t take direction well. Can you live with that?” 

“I will make it clear to my people that you can be trusted. As for others in my line of work, I can let it be known that you are working on my behalf. Things are quiet. We are not in conflict with anyone, at least in any serious way. I cannot imagine that any of my enemies or rivals are behind this. The risks are too great. But I would not expect them, innocent or not, to be very forthcoming. I won’t micromanage your investigation. All I ask is that you report only to Vincent or myself.”

“What about your other lovers?” 

“I’ll give a you a list of the men, and women, recently in my life. It’s not all that long. I’m getting older, maybe wiser. I don’t think any of them are involved, but I know you will cover all the bases. In fact, I’d prefer it if you vetted them. I told Vincent to leave them alone.” Again, the thin smile. “I’m fond of them and his methods leave something to be desired.”

Scarne was not sure his own methods would be much different, especially when looking for a missing girl. But he let it go.

Maura Dallas looked back out the window.

“Aren’t you interested in the size of the retainer?”

“No.”

She looked back at him.

“No. Of course not.”

“Your daughter’s last name is the same as yours?”

“Yes. Alana Dallas. My father wanted me to change my name before I became too associated with his business. A silly conceit, I thought, and one which became less sensible after I took over that business, but I never changed it back. Alana was born a Dallas, and so she remains.”

“I will need her photo and whatever else you can think of. Names of friends, especially. Social Security number, credit cards, banking records, anything with her name on it. I know her smart phone is gone, but perhaps she has an old one with numbers still on it.”

“I’ll have everything sent over to you.”

“Did Alana have a computer?”

“Yes, a laptop, for schoolwork. We found it in her apartment. I had people go through it. Nothing out of the ordinary. She also had an iPad, which was not in the apartment. She probably had it with her when she was taken.”

“What about her emails?”

“We had someone hack her accounts, Twitter, Facebook and the like. Nothing suspicious. Alana knew enough to be very circumspect on social media.”

“If the cops were involved, they might find something you missed. A pattern, maybe.”

Maura Dallas’s laugh was harsh.

“I live in San Francisco, and have investments in Silicon Valley. I have access to some of the finest computer brains in the world. Despite what you see on those ridiculous crime shows on TV, the F.B.I. is still in the Stone Age compared to the people I had working on this. It’s a dead end.”

“Maura, these people who work for you. Won’t they be suspicious?”

“The computer geeks are in a world of their own. They are used to delving into people’s business without wondering why. And, needless to say, they would not be inclined to blab about anything to do with my family.”

“I want copies of all the videos from the kidnapper. And new ones, as they come in, if there are any more. You can arrange to get them to Evelyn.”

“Of course. You trust her?”

“With my life.”

“Is she efficient?”

“Evelyn could have run D-Day while getting her nails done. Trust her as you would trust me or Noah.”

Maura Dallas stuck out her hand. Scarne took it.

“I appreciate this, Jake.” She eyed him coldly. “You couldn’t save your Alana. Maybe you can help save mine.”

CHAPTER 7 - THE DALLASSIOS

After Maura Dallas and Vincent Anastasia left, Scarne and Sealth went into Scarne’s office. Evelyn Warr followed them.

“So,” Sealth said, taking a client’s chair, “we’re doing this.”

“Yeah,” Scarne said, sitting behind his desk. “That’s one tough cookie.”

“No one like her. You do realize this is going to be a hair ball.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a $100,000 hair ball, Noah,” Evelyn said, waving a check at him.

Sealth whistled.

“She had the check already written out,” Evelyn said. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Deposit it,” Scarne said. “Her money is as good as some of the fees we get from politicians. Maybe better.”

“She knew her man,” Sealth said dryly as Evelyn left for the bank.

Scarne shrugged.

“Tell my about the Dallassios.”

Sealth put his feet up on Scarne’s desk and tented his fingers.

“Well, they are based out of San Francisco,” he said. “Started out small, as fish wholesalers and minor racketeers in the 1920’s but eventually became the top dogs among the Dago mobs.”

Scarne, who was half Sicilian, did not take offense. It was cop talk. Sealth, part Indian, part black, didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body.

“That makes them top dogos, no?”

“Whatever. Anyway, I know most of this second-hand. We had our own guinea crime families in Seattle, the Bruttis being the most prominent. They kept us pretty busy.”

Scarne nodded. He knew the Brutti family well, having killed their top button man years earlier in Antigua during the Ballantrae debacle. It still amazed him that the Bruttis gave him a complete pass on that, thanks to his subsequent actions. And the intercession of Dudley Mack, Scarne’s best friend, a part-time New York criminal and full- time power broker, didn’t hurt.

“I was homicide, and the O.C. boys kept most of the tabs on the families, but once in a while our interests overlapped when someone got whacked.”

“That’s how you know Anastasia.”

“Yeah. My team had one of the highest solve rates in the history of Seattle Homicide. Would have been almost perfect except for the occasional random murder nobody solves and, of course, mob hits. We didn’t have many of those. The Bruttis ran a tight ship and the other gangs, the Viets, the Ukes, etc., took their lead from them. Bad for business, you know. That’s why Maria Brutti’s murder shook things up so much. It just wasn’t done.”

Scarne nodded his head. Noah Sealth had been the lead investigator on the killing of the innocent Maria Brutti. The macabre murder was designed to pit her family against the rival Ukrainian Boyko gang in a failed plot to distract both sets of mobsters from discovering that they were victims of a massive Wall Street financial fraud. Scarne was independently investigating another murder tied to that fraud. He and Sealth, at first adversaries, had been forced to work together, and eventually became friends. 

“I take it that Anastasia was a suspect in some of those unsolved hits.”

“Vinnie was, still is, I guess, the Luca Brasi of the Dallassios, the right-hand man and chief enforcer for old Joe Dallassio, Maura’s father, when he was alive. A couple of the hits occurred when Anastasia just happened to be in town. We think the Bruttis borrowed him from old Joe from time to time when they wanted to make sure their hands were really clean, or when using an in-house hitter might cause family problems. The Bruttis are kind of in-bred. Cousin-on-cousin whacks are bad for morale.”

“Spilled blood is thicker than spilled water,” Scarne said.

“Exactly. We never could prove anything, of course, but I sometimes went down to Frisco to talk to Anastasia, just to let him know we noticed.”

“I bet he was very forthcoming.”

Sealth laughed.

“First time I saw him, he said he wanted to know what took us so long to get to him. Said he was the second shooter on the grassy knoll in the JFK assassination. Interview went downhill from there. Vinnie is smart and completely loyal to the Dallassios. Never married. Doted on Joe’s kids, one of whom, Tony, got killed racing Formula One in Europe. Old Joe never got over that and started getting sloppy. That’s when Maura started moving into a position of authority, even before the old man croaked. It couldn’t have been easy, with both her brother and father dead within a couple of years of each other.”

A pigeon landed on a windowsill and started walking back and forth, head bobbing, seemingly with a purpose.

“Do you think that pigeon knows what he’s doing?” Sealth asked.

“I doubt it. He’s just being a pigeon.”

“I didn’t know they flew up this high.”

Both men said “global warming” simultaneously and laughed. The bird flew off.

“How did Maura manage it alone?”

“You said it, Jake. She’s a tough cookie. And Anastasia taught her the ropes. Not that she needed much help. Everyone says Maura Dallas was born to the role, maybe even better than her dead brother. She has a head for business and many of the Dallassio family operations are legit now. And the ones that aren’t try to avoid violence whenever possible. Maura would rather buy a politician than assassinate a rival.”

“Must be expensive. So many of them are for sale.”

“Point is, I don’t think Anastasia does much killing anymore. That’s not to say he wouldn’t if she asked. And it’s not like he’s forgotten how to.”

“He’s getting on in years. How old is he?”

“He looks 50, but must be pushing 70. But don’t let that fool you. He’s still a stone killer at heart.”

“But you kind of like him.”

Sealth smiled.

“What’s not to like? He did most of his killing outside Seattle and the guys he probably whacked were no loss to society. He’s no sadist like some of these dirt bags are, and everyone says his word is good.”

“Maybe we should throw him a testimonial dinner.”

Sealth shrugged.

“You know better than most how it is, Jake. Without guys like Anastasia to cull the mob herds occasionally, things would really be fucked up. And we both know the real killers in this country use pens, not guns.”

“Why, Noah, what a Left Coast thing to say. You sure you were a hard-ass Seattle homicide dick?”

“Hey, I’m not the guy who threw a crooked councilman off a balcony at City Hall here.”

“I didn’t throw him off. Just held him by the ankles.”

“I like my version better. It’s what I say when I’m drumming up business with certain potential clients who like a dash of street cred.”

“What do you tell those who are looking for, ah, more professional representation.”

“I don’t mention you. Now, what’s our next move?”

“How is Juliette feeling?”

Juliette Loudin, the French agent Sealth fell in love with years earlier when on an exchange program with the Sûreté Nationale, France’s national police, was three months pregnant. Scarne had been best man at their wedding the previous year.

“I’ve learned some new Frog cuss words, but she’s finally getting over morning sickness. The first papoose is always the toughest.”

“Papoose? The baby will be half French.”

“Maybe more. I'm pretty sure one of my Indian ancestors was raped by a French fur trader.”

“I thought you told me they were married.”

“Rape came first. True love later. It may have been a tomahawk wedding.”

“Well, if you don’t mind leaving Juliette for a few days, I think you should go out West and see what you can turn up.”

“She’ll be OK. She has a lot of friends in the city now and her medical plan at the U.N. is great. They keep close tabs on her.”

Sealth’s wife had left the Sûreté and was now a senior security officer at the United Nations. 

“When is she going to take her maternity leave?”

“You know Jules. She wants to work right up to her water breaking. But that’s not going to happen. Her bosses wouldn’t stand for it, and neither will I. How do you want me to handle the trip?”

“Start with your old pals in Seattle P.D. See if the organized crime guys have sniffed anything. You still have contacts with the F.B.I. and some of the mobs, right?”

“They will all be delighted to see me.”

“No doubt. Then, do the same in San Francisco. Try to be discreet, although it’s not like this isn’t going to get out.”

“Hell, you mean I can’t hold anyone by their ankles?”

“Only as a last resort.”

“You really think some mob rival is behind this?”

Scarne put his own feet up on his desk, leaned back and put his hands behind his head.

“My gut tells me no. The mobs aren’t what they used to be. The Dallassio outfit being the exception. From what you say, Maura was compelled to take over the family business. Most of the mob kids who had any brains went to Wall Street to make their billions. The second-raters run a lot of the families. But there must still be some sort of code. Kidnapping or killing someone’s daughter breaks a lot of rules. Not only does it invite retaliation, but there are easier ways of making a point. Still, there’s the possibility that some loose cannon with a grudge is behind it.”

“Could it be a Ballantrae thing? Someone trying to start a war?”

“I hope the hell not. Twice in my lifetime is twice too often. But whatever it is, we better touch all the bases.”

“What will you be doing?”

“The same thing as you, on the East Coast.”

“I didn’t realize you knew that many mobsters.”

“A few, but I think I’ll let Dudley do the heavy lifting for me.”

“Yeah. He probably knows them all around here. Hell, he even knows some in California and came in handy when they wanted your scalp. But that still leaves a lot of the country.”

“Well, if some guy in Kansas City is behind this, we’re screwed. But I think Maura Dallas is right. The girl was snatched around here, and is probably stashed close to New York. So, while you hobnob with the mob, I’m going to see what I can find out at Barnard.”

Sealth laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“The thought of you running amok among academics. Me, I’d rather talk to mobsters.”