The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (45 page)

Lesko. If he ever finds out Donovan was murdered,
there'll be no stopping him, short of killing him. Maybe
they still should. Leave him alive and he'll surely try to
retrace Donovan's last two days and all the phone calls
he made. And, damn it, the first thing Lesko would look
for is Donovan's notebook and when he sees it's gone
he's going to know Donovan didn't die of any heart
attack. But kill Lesko and
Bannerman would hear about
it right away. It wouldn't take him long to connect the
two deaths. He might even know already that Donovan
was making inquiries about him. He'd see Reid's hand
behind this in a minute and then they'd all be as good as
dead.

Jesus.

And as if killing Donovan isn't bad enough, Reid has
something else cooking.
Giving Bannerman something
to think about,
he said.
Take away his momentum,
he
had said. A hit on Bannerman? No. Bannerman had
already told him that his involvement would be as
sumed, whatever the circumstances. A hit on either
Lesko or Elena, maybe. They both have other enemies.
And the way Reid thinks, killing either one would break
a chain that probably doesn't exist in the first place. He
could rig an accident, or he could make it look like the grease
balls did it.

“Sir,” Loftus cleared his throat. Palmer Reid had
moved to another hunt painting. They seemed to be a
series. “Sir, if I'm to serve you properly, I really should
know what you're planning.”

“My father used to ride, you know. In Philadelphia. I
still have his pinks.”

“Sir . . . ?”

“They're not just ordinary pinks.” Reid still hadn't
turned. “He was Master of Hounds. The Master is not
normally in on the kill, Robert. But he awards the tro
phies to the lead riders.”

“So there is to be a kill.”

Reid cocked an ear toward him. “I said nothing
about a kill, Robert. What I've ordered—suggested re
ally—is a distraction.”

“But nothing illegal.”

“That is always implicit.”

Loftus sighed inwardly. A distraction. And Reid doesn't know the details. Which means he left them in
the hands of his creepy little assistant, Whitlow. Which
means he has deniability if anything Whitlow does back
fires. And Whitlow, who's never done a day's fieldwork
in his life, thinks he's a mastermind of grand and com
plex schemes that almost always go wrong.

Jesus Christ almighty.

This whole fucking thing is out of control.

“You say something, pal?” The cab driver looked
through the rearview mirror as he cruised along
Queens Boulevard.

“No.” Lesko blinked. “Long day. Talking to myself.”

“I know what you mean.”

Lesko looked out the window to discourage further
conversation.

“Hey
. . .
Katz.”
This time he said it in his mind,
though even more self-consciously than when the
driver heard him.
“Help me think. What smells like
fruit?”

No answer.

He tried envisioning Katz on the seat next to him. It
wasn't working. Anyway, he was embarrassing himself.
Maybe there was nothing wrong with a dumb little
head game of trying to sort things out like they used to,
but now he was starting to act as if he really thought
Katz was there.

Knock it off.

A long day.

Just get home, have a beer, maybe take a nap.

Shit.

“Come on, David. What the hell did I smell back
there?”

Anton Zivic had arrived at Mario's fifteen minutes
after Lesko was seen to board the 5:45 to New York. Carla Ben
e
dict arrived separately. She now sat huddled
with Gary Russo at the far end of the bar. Molly Farrell
motioned Zivic toward a corner table for two. She
joined him there.

“Carla's not very happy about this,” she told him. “She says he's now seen four of us.”

“Seeing is not identifying,” he answered patiently.
“Anyone who's stopped here for a drink more than once
has laid eyes upon that many of us.”

“I know. That's just Carla.”

“What did Billy think of him?”

“Billy didn't know who he was until after he left. But
he wasn't at all surprised. Billy says he could see in
Lesko's eyes that the two of them were a lot alike. The
only troubling thing is that Billy says he thought Lesko
could see that, too.”

“But Billy saw no threat in him?”

She shook her head. “Billy kind of liked him. He says
they could be friends.”

“Better Dracula and the Wolf Man be friends. The
world would be safer.” Zivic looked at his watch. “Paul
has left for the airport. Glenn Cook is driving him. Do
you see any reason why he should be told of Lesko's visit
before he boards his plane?”

“No. But it's your call.”

“Lesko's curiosity would not trouble him. This he would regard as human. His only co
n
cern would be overreaction.”

“Carla?”

Zivic nodded. “I will talk to her. Lesko is not our
enemy unless he defines himself as such. No action is to
be taken.”

“There's an easier way.”

“Which is?”

“Just tell her Billy likes him.”

Zivic shook his head wearily and reached for the menu.

“I begin to see why Paul needs his vacations,” he
said.

“AmyI nitrate, ”
the voice said to him.

Lesko stirred. He thought for a moment that he was in bed. His body felt heavy and it tingled. But now he
felt the cool vinyl of his Barcalounger.

“What?”
he murmured.

“AmyI nitrate is
what
smells
like
fruit.''
The
voice
came from Lesko's right, as if Katz had pulled up a chair
of his own.

“I asked you that before. Where were you?”

”I
don't know
.
“
Katz paused before he said that, as if
he was trying to remember.

“Never mind.
A
myl nitrate?”

“
Y
eah.”

A bit of the fog lifted in Lesko's brain.
“How the hell
do you know that?”

“We took this two-day lecture once in forensics, re
member? The guy was telling war stories about ways to
kill with toxins so we'd know what to look for. What'd
you do, sleep through it?”

“Oh, wait, yeah.”

“You spray a guy with hydrogen cyanide . . .
what's the other name for it?”

“Prussic acid.”

“Right And it's like he has a heart attack. But you
got to hold your breath and you got to spray your own
face with amyl nitrate first because it accelerates your blood pressure or something in case you sniff a little
yourself
.
Of course, if the guy happens to sneeze back in
your face, you're fucked anyway. ”

“And that's how Donovan got it?”

“I don 't know
.
”
Katz shrugged.
“Maybe. ”