the Plan (1995) (40 page)

Kaz had written a short letter saying that David Robb's account was being reviewed by Medicare, and asking the medical plan to contact them at the enclosed number. They had five hundred copies of the bogus letter printed and sent it off, hoping nobody would notice that the envelope was mailed with a stamp instead of a government franking mark. They'd sent the letter to medical plans in warm-weather states and had received no responses until the call from Phoenix.

"Is this your home?" the voice inquired.

"Private extension," Cole said, trying to move the man along.

"I'm a little confused about your letter. You're doing some kind of check on David Robb . . . ?"

"Who's calling, please?"

"This is Dale Dennison, Southwest Age Benefit Program. We're connected to Medicare and we hold the current policy on Mr. Robb."

Cole had a pen in his hand and was fumbling in the drawer for a piece of paper. "Just to make sure we're talking about the same Mr. Robb, would you mind giving me his current address?"

"Our information lists him at the Wild Oaks Retirement Home in Phoenix."

"Could you give me his age, his underlying carrier and his social security number?" Cole said, figuring it was a possibility this was another David Robb.

"What is this about?"

"We're doing a demographic realignment so that the actuarial shift in benefits won't affect the baseline averag
e f
or sixty-plus men on Medicare drawdowns," Cole said, hoping some elaborate gobbledygook would sufficiently mystify Mr. Dennison so he'd stop asking questions Cole couldn't answer.

"Oh, I see," the confused voice said on the other end of the line.

"You were going to give me his age and underlying carrier and his SS number."

"Uh, right. Well, he's a federal employee on the Blue Cross Plan. . . . He's eighty-six and his Social Security number is 568-52-2713."

Kaz got home at eight. He'd been trying to find David Robb through the War Department and had been shut out. He was in a foul mood when he walked in, but when he heard that Cole had succeeded, his mood changed abruptly.

The retirement home was a low, one-story building on Route 357, the highway that ran through Phoenix.

Kaz and Cole paid the cab from the airport and went inside. What they found depressed them.

Wild Oaks was a vegetable garden where old people did a Thorazine shuffle under the prison-guard stares of attendants. Kaz introduced himself to a stout Navajo nurse named Arleen Cloud, who looked at them with open suspicion.

"I'm Joseph Robb; this is my brother Don. We're David's cousins from Altoona," Kaz said to the woman, who wasn't buying it.

"Who do you two guys think you're kidding? I've got David Robb's file; he doesn't have any relatives. He's outlived the whole clan."

" 'Cept for his uncle," Kaz said
.

"Which uncle?"

"Uncle Sam." Kaz pulled his old federal badge and flashed it. "So keep the attitude coming, Nurse Cloud, and I'll drop an obstructing justice charge in your mailbox."

David Robb had tubes sticking out of every conceivable orifice and one or two that had been created for him--lik
e t
he one in the center of his neck so a ventilator on a timer could pump oxygen into his lungs at four-minute intervals. He had bed sores and couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds. He was in a private room with one window. The best thing about David Robb were his eyes. They were deep brown and still held the light of intelligence. Kaz moved over to him, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

"Mr. Robb?" The man looked at him and nodded his head.

"I'm Solomon Kazorowski; this is Cole Harris." He held up his FBI badge for the man to see. "We need to talk to you about Gavriel Bach. Can you speak?"

The man nodded, then slowly opened his mouth. "Yes." The word seemed fished up from the bottom of a dusty well.

"You talked to him in 1971 about Meyer Lansky. You gave him some material. Is that right, sir?"

Again, David Robb hissed his reply, nodding his head slightly for emphasis.

"Sir, what did you give him?"

David Robb looked at them for a long, heartbreaking moment; his withered eyelids blinked across beacons of despair. He licked his lips, but put no moisture on them.

"Sir . . . what was in the suitcase?"

"Wiretaps," he said in a sandpaper whisper. "Conversations with the underworld."

"Illegal taps?"

David Robb nodded his head in response.

"Sir, do you remember who was on the tapes? Was Joseph Alo on the tapes?"

The old man looked at them and said nothing. Then he closed his eyes for almost a minute. When he opened them again, he looked at Cole.

"So long ago . . ." The ventilator turned on and hissed and sucked as the accordion pump went up and down in aglass tube, forcing fresh air into the old man's sunke
n c
hest.

"Where are the tapes now?"

"Gay took the tapes, never returned." He closed his eyes and started to breathe heavily. Kaz and Cole looked across the bed at one another as the old man began to snore. As if to emphasize that the interview was over, the ventilator abruptly shut itself off.

"I don't believe this," Kaz said "Two months and all we get is, 'Never returned.' Gavriel Bach is dead."

"Gavriel Bach was sort of a lone wolf in the Israeli prosecutor's office. I remember that from when I covered the trial. He had that suitcase on the prosecutor's table the day the verdicts were read. He didn't leave it with the justices. I can't see him giving the tapes to the Israelis. Besides, once Meyer's case was over, what use would the Israelis have for any of that stuff? It was about U
. S
. criminal activity."

"What're you trying to say?"

"One of two things happened to them. He kept them or threw them away. You're a cop. Would you ever throw away evidence, regardless of whether you thought you'd ever need it again?"

"Of course not."

"So maybe he held on to it. Maybe that suitcase is in an attic someplace."

"In Israel?" His eyes rolled like an Atlantic City slot. "We're down to our last ten dollars. How the hell we gonna get to Israel?"

"I'll do the heavy lifting. You work on tactics," Cole said.

"Oh really?"

"Isn't Ryan Bolt loaded? Maybe we take him aboard, let him bankroll this pilgrimage."

"He's a cripple and an amateur."

"You got a better idea?"

They left the Wild Oaks Retirement Home and stood outside in the shimmering summer heat while Kaz tried to call Ryan Bolt on Penny Alo's cell phone.

It was after nine in the evening before he finally got through.

Chapter
56.

THE GHOST WAS DRESSED IN A SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Gas Company uniform. Over his right shoulder, he carrie
d a
canvas bag with a silenced Ruger Mark II and two 10
-
shot .22-caliber clips. He was wearing latex gloves and a b lue baseball cap. He found the alarm on the side of th e v alley apartment house and jumped it with alligator clips.

After he had deactivated the alarm box of apartment 4-C
,
he climbed the stairs and stood in front of the door. H
e s
lipped a lock pick into the door and opened it. The doo r c aught at the end of a chain, safety-locked from inside.

He listened, heard nothing, so he put his shoulder to the door and pushed hard. The safety chain popped off the door and landed halfway across the living room.

The Ghost closed the door behind him and began a careful survey of the apartment, checking to confirm it was empty. The dresser top paid a pictorial tribute to Ryan Bolt. One photo was taken at the studio; in it he was smiling, sitting in the front seat of an electric golf cart. Nameplate read THE MERCENARY. A few pictures were taken at industry banquets--Ryan and formally attired table mates with their chairs pulled together flashing manufactured smiles. The Ghost found a back door in the kitchen, whic h e xplained how the chain could be set on the inside. He checked the closet for men's clothing, checked the bathroom, but found no evidence that anybody was living with her. He discovered a small alcove off the kitchen from which he could watch the rear door. He pulled the Ruger .22-caliber automatic out of his bag and worked the slide, putting a round in the chamber. He made sure the silencer was screwed on tight. Then he settled back to wait.

The key turned in the lock at seven-thirty.

Elizabeth Applegate moved into her kitchen carrying a bag of groceries. The Ghost put the cold steel of the automatic behind her ear.

"Set down the bag and put your hands over your head.' . . . ? Who
?"

He pressed harder with the barrel. "Do what I said."

Elizabeth set down the groceries and tried to turn around to see who was behind her, so he grabbed her roughly, threw her onto the floor, then landed hard on top of her. Before she could say anything or scream, he shoved a dishrag in her mouth and secured her hands behind her with plastic strip cuffs he'd brought with him. He rolled her over and she found herself looking into the cold, blue eyes and round face of a red-haired man who she thought looked a little like Jerry Colonna without the mustache.

"Okay, Elizabeth, I don't want to hurt you, but I will if that's the way you want it. Your only chance of surviving me is to do exactly what I tell you. You understand?"

She nodded, her eyes blank with desperation. He smiled at her, then pulled her to her feet and pushed her, on numb legs, into the bathroom, where he closed the door and undid the cuffs around her wrists.

"Take off all your clothes," he commanded.

The Ghost had learned that stripping a subject before an interrogation made getting information easier. You eliminated resistance and introduced a sexual threat for both men and women.

She started unbuttoning her loose-fitting print dress, then let it fall to the floor. She was in her bra and panties.

"Let's go. All of it. I'm losing patience." With a shaking hand, Elizabeth undid her bra and removed her panties and stood naked in front of him.

"Isn't that better? Look at you," he said, smiling.

He grabbed her roughly and retied her hands with the plastic cuffs. "Now get into the tub." She moved backward and stepped into the tub.

"Lie down, Elizabeth, on your back."

She was about to vomit. Fear had turned her stomach to acid and she started to gag. The Ghost had been waiting for it. It almost always happened. He yanked the gag out of her mouth as she threw up on herself.

Then he forced her to lie in her own stomach fluid. She was lost in terror. "Don't kill me," she rasped a
t h
im through a throat burning with aspirated vomit. "That depends how good a girl you decide to be." "I'll be good."

"Wonderful. I'm here to find out about Ryan Bolt." "Who?" she said, not even knowing why she said it. He struck her across the mouth with the gun. Sh
e s
creamed as she felt her lip split open. Her mouth fille d w ith blood.

"What did you say?" he asked softly.

"Okay, okay, don't . . . don't . . ." And she started gagging on the blood flowing in her mouth.

"Where does Ryan do his banking? I went out to his condo on the beach; there's no financial records there. I need to know what charge cards he has . . . who pays his bills . . . stuff like that," he said.

"Uh . . . Who pays his bills?"

"That's right. Simple little answer to that question gets you home free, Elizabeth."

"Uh . . . uh, Jerry . . . uh, Jerry, uh . . ." She was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Slow down, take a breath. Jerry who?"

"Jerry Upshaw, his agent. They had like a business managing service where they'd do the bills and stuff for an extra five percent."

"So, where's this guy's office?"

"He's in a private building called The Mayflower on Vine. Jerry dropped Ryan as a client. But he's still doing his bills until Ryan gets back in town." She was looking at the redheaded man hopefully. "Can I get out now?"

"Hell yes. We're through, and Elizabeth, I want to thank you for your splendid cooperation. It's really been a huge help."

She struggled to get up. He waited until she was in a crouch and then fired the Ruger. The silenced automatic jumped in his hand. The bullet hit Elizabeth in the forehead. The back of her head exploded; and her brains flew up onto the tile splash. She reeled backward and hit the wall just under the shower head, then slid down and finally came to rest in her own vomit and blood.

The Ghost unscrewed the silencer and did a quick survey of the apartment to make sure he'd left nothing behind. He left by the front door, got into his car parked a few blocks away, and drove into the summer night.

Upshaw's office was on the first floor of The Mayflower building at Mayflower and Vine. The Ghost found the alarm in an outdoor utility box. Ridiculous, he thought. The alarm didn't even have a police dialer on it. He disarmed it and found a back window, worked it open with a screwdriver, and shinnied in. The computer he was looking for was in an office marked CLIENT ACCOUNTING. He turned it on and punched in "Bolt." Magically, there on the screen was Ryan's financial history. He moved quickly through the data bank until he found Ryan's credit card accounts. He started to scan them and then saw something that turned his mood black. Ryan had used his AmEx card in San Diego. He'd withdrawn ten thousand dollars.