Top Hook (25 page)

“What about Rose?”

“Rose is a rock, you know that. She's okay. Anyway, I don't think he'll hurt her, because he needs her—if I'm right that he implicated her in the first place to cover himself, then he needs her out there for the same reason.” He hesitated. “Just to be on the safe side, I told her to carry.”

“A
gun
?”

“No, a sandwich. Jesus, Abe. He could be a dangerous guy! You're the one who said that everything is personal for him.”

“We keep saying ‘he'—you're sure it's Shreed? That's a pretty sensational conclusion, Mike.”

“I'm not sure. Nothing's sure. I'm just trying to find a place to stand on, Abe—that's why I'm coming to you.”

After he had hung up, he stared at the chart on the door for several minutes. Then he walked over and wrote in the dates and approximate times of the tire-slashing and his having spoken Sally Baranowski's name to Carl Menzes. After a moment, he added Peretz's mugging and, way off by itself, the death of the Iranian agent in Kenya. Then he sat at the desk again and thought about how he would use three agents he had asked for to help in the investigation. While he drafted an outline of assignments for them he was thinking about Sally Baranowski and the CIA Internal Investigations Directorate.

When he had the outline, he went up the hall to talk to his boss, who, instead of giving him the three agents even part-time, told him to spend less money, not more.

“I got a budget meeting Monday, Mike; I gotta show some cuts. No, you can't have three agents; you can't
have
one
agent, and I'm tempted to jerk Triffler back so I can put his salary someplace else. Forget Siciliano for now; it's a long-term thing. Word from ONI is to concentrate on the inter-agency abuse of power—it's cheaper.”

Going down the hall, Dukas thought,
Like hell I will,
and he grabbed his telephone, thinking about Sally Baranowski and the slashed tires, and dialed Carl Menzes's number.

“Carl, Mike Dukas,” he said as soon as the call was answered. “You got a leak in your office, and if you don't plug it today, I'm going to interview George Shreed under oath.”

That was the day that Ray Suter got ready to kill Tony Moscowic. For Dukas and Triffler, it was a day of frustration—paperwork, dead ends, more questions. The
Jefferson
made its way through Suez. Sally Baranowski, frightened, stayed in the Peretzes' house all day and shadowed Bea Peretz like a child shadowing its mother. George Shreed waited.

Ray Suter had to concentrate on every detail of driving, every stop, every turn, because he was so excited he felt as if he was on a drug. If he took his hands from the wheel, they shook. His knees felt weak, his thighs liquid. He kept belching.

The little .22 and its cardboard silencer were taped under the dashboard. He was in it now, so high on the idea of killing that he didn't care whether the silencer worked or not. He was just going to do it.

I can do anything
.

Moscowic was waiting for him outside a Wendy's on Route 1.
Another of his goddam stupid tricks
, Suter thought.
Countersurveillance routes, secret phone calls, out-of-the-way pickup points—what a shithead!
Moscowic always dictated the wheres and hows, and Suter had let him; it had suckered Moscowic into thinking of Suter as a loudmouthed jerk who paid big money.

And now the loudmouthed jerk was going to kill him.

“Wet,” Moscowic said when he got in. A drizzle was sifting down, and he had beads of moisture all over his cheap rain jacket. “What's up, you gotta get me out on a night like this?”

“You said you were going out anyway.”

“A manner of speaking.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

“You said you wanted to show me something,” Moscowic said.

“That's right.”

“What, for Christ's sake? I was watching television.”

“Then you aren't sacrificing anything, are you?”

Moscowic began to tell him all the things that were good about television. Suter let him talk, glad to have him distracted while he drove to Bladensburg and the remains of an old pier that was crumbling into the North Branch.

“Hey, where we going?” Moscowic said, at last aware of the industrial landscape around them. Or maybe he had always been aware; he was sharper, Suter had to remind himself, than he seemed.

“Where I can show you this thing.”

“What is it?”

“I have to show you.” Suter heard suspicion in Moscowic's voice, so he added, “It's about the kid. The hacker.”

“Nickie?”

“That hacker, yes.”

“What's he done? I bet he done nothing. He's good—you know the judge that sent him up called him a menace to the new economy? What's he done?”

“I have to show you.”

Suter glanced over, saw, in the lights from another car, Moscowic's frown. Moscowic seemed to like Nickie. Or was it simply that Nickie was his discovery?

They passed the darkened Indian Queen Tavern, and Suter made a quick right and left, and Moscowic said, “Hey.”

“What now?”

“Where the hell?” Moscowic was turned almost all the way around to look behind them. “We're heading
for the fucking river. There's nothing over here.”

“There's a place to stand. The only place you can see what I want to show you.”

“It's across the river?”

“Exactly.”

“How come we aren't across the river?”

Suter gave the sort of sigh he hoped sounded like righteous exasperation. His right leg was vibrating on the gas pedal, and he felt as if he was going to jump right out of his skin, leaving his clothes and his skin sitting there, driving the stupid car with this stupid boob in it. He took deep breaths.

“This is not a good neighborhood,” Moscowic said. “Jesus, why didn't you tell me, I'd've brought a weapon. Jesus, Suter.”

Suter let the car glide to a stop. A hundred yards farther along, the lights from a marina glowed between the leaves of sodden trees. On their left, a wall of greenery hid the highway, and on their right a twisted hurricane fence guarded what had probably been a junkyard. Beyond it, across the river, the lights of an old working-class town and the high-rises of a project were haloed by drizzle.

“No way you can see Nickie's apartment from here!” Moscowic said.

“I didn't say you could. Come on.”

When he got out, Suter thought his legs would give way. He leaned one hand on the car and took another deep breath. “Come
on.
”

“I think you're a wacko,” Moscowic said, but he got out.

Suter opened the glove compartment and took out a pair of lightweight binoculars, which Moscowic studied, even leaning back in a little to see what Suter had.
He
knows,
Suter thought.
Or he's just always suspicious.

“Here.” He handed the binoculars to Moscowic. “You'll need these.”

He had thought the binoculars were a brilliant touch. They gave him cover as he closed Moscowic's door and then grabbed the .22, feeling his hands almost too strengthless to pull it loose from its tape. He held it by his side with his left hand as he locked the car.

“Let's go,” he said. He started down the path beside the hurricane fence. He didn't look back, didn't wait; he had planned all of this, every step, but he hadn't factored in his own tension. It was the worst thing he had ever gone through. Not from any horror of killing, not from repugnance at the act, but from the tension.

I can do anything.

“This better be good,” Moscowic said behind him.

The path was greasy with mud, and there were puddles right across it in several places. Suter couldn't balance well enough to take the sides; he simply waded through. Moscowic took the sides, chuckling at Suter. “Ruining your shoes,” Moscowic said. “This really worth a pair of shoes, Mister S.?” He laughed again.

The path led to the dilapidated dock. Three aluminum rowboats were dark shapes on the riprap. Suter picked his way over chunks of broken concrete and stepped onto the dock's slimy planks.

“Come on.”

“That's not safe.”

“I walked all the way out when I was here before.” His voice was shaking. He had to clear his throat to speak. “We're not going all the way. I just want to show you what I found.”

Moscowic edged up beside him. He had picked up a stick to use as a cane, and he poked ahead of himself
like a blind man. The water swirled ten inches below their feet.

“You got the binoculars? Look across the river—the second high-rise from the left? It's the fourth window from the top—” He had to make it sound as if there really was something there to look at.

Tony raised the binoculars in a half-hearted way but didn't quite put them to his eyes. Suter transferred the pistol to his right hand behind his back. He found that Moscowic was a little closer than he had intended, almost leaning on him. Suter moved to his own left; one foot slipped, and he started to fall, caught himself.

“You okay?”

Suter was starting to hyperventilate. “Look where I tell you, will you? I want to get out of here!”

“
You
wanta get outa here! Listen to the guy!” Moscowic raised the binoculars to his eyes.

Suter put the cardboard tube against the other man's left mastoid and pulled the trigger.

There was a slightly muffled report and a brilliant flash in the darkness, and shredded paper suddenly appeared on the hair at the back of Moscowic's head, plastered to it by the wet. Suter smelled burning hair and paper.

“Hey!” Moscowic said. He put his left hand to his head and turned. “Hey!”

Suter stared at him. The stupid sonofabitch had moved just as Suter had pulled the trigger—that was all he could think. Moscowic had turned his head, maybe feeling the tube brush his hair, and Suter had fired a shot that hadn't killed him.

“What the
hell—!
” Moscowic was gasping. He took his hand away and looked at the blood, almost as dark as the river in the dimly reflected light.

Suter felt as if somebody was choking him. He gagged.

He fired again, the shot loud this time. Moscowic grunted and clapped his left hand to his chest. His eyes were wide.

Suter fired again.

Moscowic swung his stick and whipped Suter across the face. The pain was shocking. Moscowic seemed to be chanting: “You shit—you stupid dumbfuck shit—”

Suter fired again and then again. Moscowic groaned and sagged to his left. Suter realized he might go over into the river alive, and, sobbing in his terror, he grabbed the front of Moscowic's jacket, pulling him off the dock so that he fell to his knees on the broken concrete.

“I knew, you slimy sonofabitch, I knew…” Moscowic's voice was thin.

Suter was blubbering, vocalizing gasps—“Unnh—uh—unnnn—uh—” He picked up a piece of broken concrete and brought it down on Moscowic's head. Still he didn't go all the way down. He groaned again, a horrible, animal sound, and Suter brought the concrete down again, and this time Moscowic fell at his feet, still alive, still able to roll on his side and try to grab Suter's leg.

Suter screamed at the touch. He smashed the concrete into Moscowic's face. And again. And again. Until Moscowic was quiet.

Suter backed away into the cover of the bushes, weeping; then he threw up. He felt a little better, but he was numbed by what had happened. He had had no idea how hard it is to kill another man.
Five shots.
Then,
What the hell had he done with the gun?
Panicked, he felt in his pockets, his hands on fire, torn by the concrete. He turned his burning hands up into the rain, like a man asking for mercy.

Moscowic groaned.

Suter sobbed, and he went down on his knees to look for the gun.

Moscowic moved.

Suter scrabbled around on all fours, going toward Moscowic, away from him, sideways toward the dock, back. He found the .22 in a pocket between two chunks of concrete. The cardboard silencer was gone.

He crawled to Moscowic and put the barrel right against the man's left eye and pulled the trigger. Then Tony Moscowic was dead.

Suter wanted to run, but he made himself sit there. He made himself go through it and think what he was supposed to do next: It didn't matter about the cardboard silencer, so let that go. It didn't matter about the cartridge casings, because he'd handled them with gloves on, so let them go. The rain—maybe—would wash his blood away; nothing he could do about that, anyway.

Book
, he thought. Tony's notebook, in which he kept all his cases, incredibly messy, incoherent, but a record that would damn him if anybody could figure out Tony's code. He put a hand on Tony's chest and felt the wet, went through Tony's pockets and found the little spiral book in the upper pocket of the nylon jacket. One of the .22 slugs had gone right through it. He found Tony's keys and threw them into the river; he wanted it to look like robbery, and he knew now he could never go into Tony's house and search it, anyway. He couldn't. He took Tony's wallet.

The rain fell more heavily.

He tried to pull Tony Moscowic to the dock. Just as he had had no understanding of how hard it is to kill a man, so he had had no realization of how heavy and unyielding a corpse would be. Before he had Tony's
buttocks on the dock, he was weak from the exertion. Ready to give up. But he had the desperation of the cornered animal, and he pulled and pulled, then pushed the body and rolled it. At last he was far enough out on the rotting dock that he could see the lights of the marina a hundred yards downstream. He felt naked out there with those faint lights silhouetting him. He began to shake.

He looked down at the lights, then across the river.

He crawled back and picked up a piece of broken concrete and put it inside the bullet-riddled nylon jacket, then put another in the other side and zipped the jacket up. His hands were so cold he could hardly grasp the zipper pull.

He toppled Tony Moscowic's body into the brown water. It sank head and torso first, as if Tony were having a look around, snorkel fashion, and the dark water carried it downstream, spinning slowly and sinking away.

Ray Suter watched it go, unable to move.