Trevayne (37 page)

Trevayne was standing by his desk, its surface covered with torn-off pages of a yellow pad. “For God’s sake, what is it? What
are
you doing here?”

“You mean, neither Sam nor Alan called you?”

“Sam did. You left in a hurry. Is this … current tactic so you can take me apart? The Army way. You could probably do it.”

“Oh, shut up! Not that you haven’t given me reason.” Bonner crossed to the single large window.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I thought it was necessary.”

“Don’t you have curtains or a shade here?”

“They’re electric. Buttons on either side. Here, I’ll show—”

“Stay back there!” Bonner barked his order sharply as he found the button and two slatted, vertical blinds came out of each side of the window. “Jesus! Electronic shades.”

“My brother-in-law; he’s obsessed with gadgets.”

“One Douglas Pace. Two Lear jets. Chartered between such diverse locations as San Francisco, San Bernardino, Houston, Boise, Tacoma, and Dulles Airport.” The blind closed, and Bonner turned to face Trevayne. For several moments neither spoke.

“You’ve put your well-known resourcefulness to work, haven’t you, Paul?”

“It wasn’t difficult.”

“I don’t imagine it was. I’ve been engaged in a little behind-the-lines work myself. It’s overrated.”

“You’re understaffed. You don’t know what you’ve left
back there.… Someone’s after you, Andy. I judge no more than a couple of miles—if we’re lucky.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bonner told him as rapidly as possible, before the maid came downstairs. Trevayne’s reaction to the patrols at the hospital was immediate, panicked concern for Phyllis. Paul reduced the issue by explaining the precautions he’d taken. He minimized the encounter in the Barnegat woods, saying only that the injured man was unconscious in Trevayne’s garage.

“Do you know anyone named Mario?”

“De Spadante,” answered Andy without a pause.

“The Mafia boss?”

“Yes. He lives in New Haven. He was in San Francisco a couple of days ago. His people tried to cover for him, but we assume it was him.”

“He’s the one on his way here.”

“Then we’ll see him.”

“All right, but on our terms. Remember, he was able to remove the patrol. That connects him with someone—someone very important—in Washington. His man tried to kill me.”

“You didn’t put it that way.” Andrew replied in a monotone, as if he didn’t quite believe Paul.

“Details are time-consuming.” Bonner reached into his tunic and withdrew a gun, handing it to Andy. “Here’s a weapon; I reloaded it. There’s a full magazine.” He crossed to Trevayne’s desk and took out bullets from his trousers pocket. He put them on the blotter; there were eleven. “Here are extra shells. Put the gun in your belt; it’ll frighten what’s-her-name. Lillian.… Is there a door down here, or back here, that can get me to the garage without going out front?”

“Over there.” Trevayne pointed to a heavy oak door that once had been a ship’s hatch. “It goes out to the terrace. There’s a flagstone path to the left, past that window—”

“It leads to a side door at the garage,” interrupted Paul, remembering.

“That’s right.”

The sound of the maid’s footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

“Does Lillian scare easily?” asked Bonner.

“Obviously not. She stays here alone, often for weeks at a time. We’ve offered to get her a companion; she’s always refused. Her husband—he’s dead—was a New York cop. What about Phyllis? The hospital. You said you’d check.” Andrew watched Bonner closely.

“Will do.” Paul reached down on the desk for the telephone as Lillian opened the door. Before closing it, she snapped the wall switch in the lower-level hallway, and the lights went out. Trevayne took her aside and spoke softly while Bonner put through a call to 1600 Security.

The Major suffered through the whining discourse of 1600’s problems but was satisfied that the relief men were on their way to the hospital, if they weren’t there already. His memory temporarily wandered back to the nurse.… Phyllis was in good hands. Bonner hung up as Trevayne spoke from across the room.

“I’ve told Lillian the truth. As you’ve told it to me.”

Paul turned and looked at the maid. There was only the single light of the desk lamp, and it was difficult for him to see her eyes. Always the eyes. But he did see that the strong, middle-aged face was calm, the head firm.

“Good.” Bonner crossed to the hatch door. “I’m going to bring in our friend from the garage. If I hear or see anything, I’ll get back here fast, with or without him.”

“Don’t you want me to help?” asked Trevayne.

“I don’t want you to leave this room! Lock the door behind me.”

The man named Joey was slumped forward in the front seat of the Army vehicle, his forehead resting on the dashboard, the blood from his scalp partially congealed in splotches. Bonner pulled him out the door and lifted the gunman’s midsection so he could slide his shoulder underneath and carry him fireman-style.

He returned to the side door of the garage and started back toward the terrace. Outside the door he walked along the side of the garage to where the driveway veered to the right, the flagstone path straight ahead toward the rear of the house.

He stopped. There was a dim reflection of light far off on the approach road. If he judged correctly, it was several hundred yards away, near where the man now slumped over his shoulder had tried to kill him. The light moved up and down, the motion emphasized by the falling snow. It was an automobile going over the bumps in the dirt road, the driver traveling slowly. Perhaps looking for a gunman.

Paul ran with his charge back to the study door and knocked. “Hurry up!”

The door opened, and Bonner raced in, throwing the gunman down on the couch.

“Good Lord, he’s a mess!” said Andy.

“Better him than me,” replied the Major. “Now, listen. There’s a car up the road.… I’m going to let it be your decision, but I want to present my case before you choose an alternative.”

“You sound very military. Is this Fifth Avenue? Sunset Boulevard again? Are
you
bringing out coffins?”

“Cut it out, Andy!”

“Was
that
necessary?” Trevayne spoke angrily, pointing to the unconscious, brutalized man on the couch.

“
Yes!
Do you want to call the police?”

“I certainly do, and I will.” Trevayne started for the desk. Bonner overtook him and leaned across the top, between Andrew and the telephone.

“Will you
listen
to me?”

“This is no private mock battlefield, Major! I don’t know what you people are trying to do, but you won’t do it
here
. These tactics don’t frighten me, soldier-boy.”

“Oh,
Jesus
, you’re not reading me.”

“I’m just
beginning
to!”

“Hear me out, Andy. You think I’m part of something that’s against you; in a way, maybe I am, but not
this.
”

“You have a remarkable ability for tracing itineraries. Doug Pace, two Lear jets …”

“Okay. But not this! Whoever’s in that car was able to reach right up into ‘sixteen hundred.’ That’s out of line!”

“We both know how, though, don’t we Major? Genessee Industries!”

“
No
. Not
this
way. Not a Mario whatever-his-name-is.”

“What
are
you people—”

“Give me a chance to find out. Please! If you call in the police, we never will.”

“Why not?”

“Police matters mean courts and lawyers and horse-shit! Give me ten, fifteen minutes.”

Trevayne searched Bonner’s face. The Major wasn’t lying; the Major was too angry, too bewildered to lie.

“Ten minutes.”

It was Laos again for Paul. He recognized the weakness of his exhilaration but rationalized it by telling himself that a man was cheated if he couldn’t practice what he was trained for; and no one was trained better than he. He ran to the end of the terrace, and by instinct, looked down the slope at the stone steps leading to the dock and the boathouse. Always know your environs, commit them to memory; you might use them.

He crept up the lawn, staying close to the side of the house, until he reached the front. There were no headlights in the distance now, no sound but that of the falling snow. He had to assume that whoever was in the car up the road had stopped, shut off the engine, and was on foot.

Good. He knew the area. Not well, but probably better than the intruders.

He saw that the snow was holding to the ground a bit better than it had been, so he removed his tunic in the shadows. A light khaki shirt was less obvious than the dark cloth of a uniform. A little thing, but then, there were no little things—not when patrols were removed without authorization and murder attempted. He dashed across the open lawn to the outer perimeter of the drive and began making his way silently through the bordering woods, toward the dirt road.

Two minutes later he had reached the end of the straight approach to the driveway. He could see the out-line
of an automobile several hundred feet down the road. And then he saw the glare of a cigarette within.

Suddenly there was the beam of a flashlight pointed downward on the side of the road, his side. It had come from the woods. Then there were voices, agitated, rising and falling, but never loud. Quietly shrill.

Bonner instantly knew what provoked the excitement. The flashlight on the side had come out of the woods precisely where he had pulled the bleeding gunman to the Army car. The snow, still thin, still wet, had not yet covered the blood on the road. The footprints.

A second beam of light emerged from the opposite side. There were three men. The man inside the car got out and threw away his cigarette. Bonner crept forward, every nerve taut, every reflex ready to spring into motion.

He was within a hundred feet now, and began to discern the spoken words. The man who had come out of the automobile was issuing orders.

He instructed the one on his right to go down the road to the house and cut the telephone wires. The “lieutenant” seemed to understand, which told Bonner something about the man. The second, addressed as “Augie,” was told to walk back behind the car and watch for anyone driving up the road. If he saw anything, he was to shout.

The man called Augie said, “Okay, Mario. I can’t think what happened!”

“You can’t
think
, fratello!”

So Mario de Spadante was protecting his flanks.

Good, thought Bonner. He’d remove the artillery, expose the flanks.

The first man was really quite simple. He never knew what happened. Paul followed the telephone cables as he was sure the “lieutenant” would do, and waited in the darkness by a tree. As the man reached into his pocket for a knife, Bonner came forward and crashed a karate hand into the base of his neck. The man fell, urinating through his trousers. The Major removed the knife from the immobile hand.

Since he was a short distance from the study, Paul ran down the slope to the terrace and knocked quietly on the door. It was a time for instilling calm. In others. Andrew spoke through the thick wood.

“Paul?”

“Yes.” The door opened. “Everything’s going to be fine. This De Spadante’s alone,” he lied. “He’s waiting in the car; probably for his friend. I’m going to talk to him.”

“Bring him here, Paul. I insist on that. Whatever he’s got to say, I want to hear it.”

“My word. It may take a little more time. He backed his car up, and I want to approach him from the rear. So there won’t be any trouble. I just wanted you to know. No sweat. I’ll have him here in ten, fifteen minutes.” Bonner left quickly, before Trevayne could speak.

It took Bonner less than five minutes to pass De Spadante’s car in the woods. As he came parallel, he could see the huge Italian standing by the hood, lighting a cigarette, cupping the flame. He seemed to be kneading something in his hand. He removed the cigarette with his left and then did a strange thing; he placed his right hand on the car and scraped the hood. It was a harsh, grating sound, and incomprehensible to Bonner. It was some kind of furious, destructive gesture with metal against metal.

The man called Augie was sitting on a large whitewashed rock in a bend on the road. He held an unlit flashlight in his left hand, a pistol in his right. He was staring straight ahead, shoulders hunched against the cold wetness. He was also on the opposite side of the road from Paul.

Bonner swore to himself in irritation and backtracked swiftly, to cross the road unseen into the opposite woods. Once there, he edged his way west until he was within ten feet of his target. The man had not moved, and Paul realized he was faced with a problem. It would be so easy for the pistol to be fired in surprise, and even if it was silenced, as had been the weapon fired by his assailant, De Spadante would distinguish the sound. If there was no silencer, the report might be heard by Trevayne back in the study. Even soundproof rooms weren’t guaranteed against gunfire. Trevayne would telephone the police.

The Major did not want the police. Not yet.

Bonner knew he would have to risk murder.

He withdrew the knife he’d taken from the man at the telephone wires and inched his way forward. The knife
was a large utility knife that locked into position. Its point was sharp, its edge like a razor. He knew that if he inserted the blade in the lower-right midsection of a body, the reaction would be spastic: appendages, fingers, would fly out, open, rather than be clutched. The neck would arch back, again spastically, and there would be a brief instant before the windpipe had enough air to emit sound. During that instant he would have to yank the man’s mouth nearly out of his head in order to keep him silent, and simultaneously crack the pistol out of his wrist.

The man’s life was dependent upon three problems of the assault: the length of blade penetration—internal bleeding; shock, coupled with the temporary cutting off of air, which could cause a death paralysis; and the possibility that the knife would sever vital organs.

There was no alternative; a weapon had been fired at him. The intent was to kill. This man, this mafioso of Mario de Spadante, would not weep for him.