Reckoning (13 page)

Wandering around the Charleston historic district with a guidebook and a camera was an easier cover than any hitman had a
right to expect. The locals were used to all sorts of domestic architecture nuts setting up cameras on tripods to photograph
ornate drainpipes and handcarved eaves and such. Dockrell kept his distance from the house and used his telephoto lens to
take shots of it from 360 degrees. On its acre or so of grounds, the house was visible at odd angles from surrounding streets,
from leafy lanes, from the upper windows of historic mansions open to visitors.

Dockrell burned up 24-exposure films. At night he developed them in his hotel room and used a newly purchased enlarger to
blow up those of interest. He photographed in black-and-white and in color. At the
end of four days, he had pictures of Paul Savage, a very old white lady, an elderly black man who worked in the garden, an
elderly black woman who did the marketing and another black women in her thirties. He had nothing on Peter Ligeti.

Two or three times a day, Savage, who kept his car in a garage on the grounds, opened the big gate and drove away fast. He
was usually gone only for an hour or so. Dockrell was unwilling to risk following him, because it would be almost impossible
to do so without being noticed. He realized now that he had no option but to try. Was Ligeti still in the house? Or was Savage
keeping him stashed in a safe house and visiting him—maybe having trouble persuading him to stay there? Was this some kind
of trap Savage was presenting him with? Dockrell decided that he had no choice but to nibble on the bait and see if there
was a hook inside.

He followed Savage but kept so far back in his own car that he quickly lost him. The next time he waited and watched, not
at the house but at the point where he had lost him. Savage might take different routes—probably would—but this was near enough
to the house to catch him before he branched off.

Sure enough, Dockrell picked him up a few hours later when he made another of his runs. He picked him up on Queen and Logan
Streets, followed him north on Logan and east into Beaufain and Market Streets. He parked south of the market, now closed
and empty for the day. Dockrell kept going and turned right into East Bay Street. He took his time to find a legal parking
space and then walked back to the market. There was no one around Savage’s car, at least not anyone to pay him attention,
as he bent down and slapped the magnetic device to the gas tank. He did see one old dame fiddling in her purse at a washed
down counter in the market. He didn’t connect her with the one in his photographs.

“It’s a bomb,” Mrs. Talbot hissed at Dartley, whom she knew as Henry Staines. “Henry, I forbid you to go near that car.”

Dartley smiled. She had been working on him nonstop since he’d been in her house. Give her another couple of months, and he’d
be like Ligeti, telling strangers about the importance of the Talbot family.

“I saw him put it there, Henry. You may not know this, but they don’t need alarm clocks anymore for time bombs. They use microchips.
Henry, I’m ordering you not to go near that car.”

“Did you bring a mirror in your purse?” Dartley asked.

“I wouldn’t step out of my house without one. Mind you, I’m no believer in heavy make-up—”

Dartley held out his hand and she found the small mirror for him. Dartley placed it back down on the road beneath the car’s
trunk. He moved it around with his foot until it reflected up what he wanted to see.

“Evangeline, it’s a radio transmitter, not a bomb.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes, get in the back and lie down on the seat.”

“I haven’t had to go around in a car like this since I was a young girl.”

“Make the most of it.”

“It’s exciting,” she said and ducked out of sight.

He headed back for the house. If Dockrell had been watching, everything was lost. But Dartley was willing to bet he hadn’t
hung around. He would be watching from someplace where he felt in control, and that was why Dartley wanted to make it look
like he was alone.

“That transmitter has a limited life,” he told Mrs. Talbot. “I want to make our move tomorrow morning, while its radio beam
is still strong. You think Peter will stand up under the strain?”

Mrs. Talbot looked determined. “Henry, while I’m along, he’s not going to have any choice.”

At ten o’clock the next morning, Dartley opened the big gate, went back to his car and drove out. He went north to Wentworth,
then over to Lockwood Drive and across the Ashley River. After the bridge, he exited north to Route 61 and slowed down in
case he had lost his tail. Dartley knew what a bitch it was to follow someone by a radio plant without making visual contact.
So long as you were close behind, the signal came in loud and clear. Then suddenly it began to fade and you knew the sucker
had taken that last turn and now you had to turn around and go after him. This was easier said than done on highways with
central dividers and exits, cloverleafs and so forth.

“You think he’s keeping up with us?” Mrs. Talbot demanded, lying on the back seat, out of sight.

“No idea,” Dartley said sharply.

“You could be more encouraging,” Peter Ligeti criticized him. Ligeti was lying on the floor in the back.

“You feel in need of encouragement?” Dartley asked him sarcastically.

Dartley was not too worried. Route 61 ran alongside the river’s southern bank and had few major turnoffs. Even if Dockrell
didn’t show—meaning presumably he had lost them—Dartley intended to repeat the run in the early afternoon and again the next
morning if needed. This seemed to him a reasonable way to handle things. It never occurred to him that the suspense of not
knowing was killing his two passengers in the back.

For a while, Dartley speeded and slowed, speeded and slowed, not wanting to make it look like he was playing easy to get.
Then he ran into traffic and moved along at a steady pace. He turned in the entrance of Magnolia Gardens, paid admission and
followed the plantation avenue between the trees. White peacocks perched on the lower boughs of some big pines.

Dartley passed the house and went to the car parks, small grass fields surrounded by tall evergreens which kept the vehicles
from making their unsightly presence known.

“Move it,” he barked and Ligeti got out of the car in his bright red-and-white checked shirt and bluejeans. Mrs. Talbot went
after him, dragging a big canvas bag. They entered the garden area, both clearly mad at Dartley because of the harsh way he
was treating them.

Dartley had been on their case since early that morning. The way the two fussed over each other bothered him. He couldn’t
afford soft bullshit like
people’s sympathy for one another on an operation. So he riled them to get their juices flowing, to squirt some adrenaline
in their bloodstreams. He was not in the business of love and understanding. Dartley’s reality had sharp edges, against which
people cut themselves and died.

For three centuries the Magnolia Plantation had been the home of the Drayton family. In the 1760s the Draytons had come to
the rough wilderness of the Carolinas from Barbados, instead of to the more heavily settled British colonies in Massachusetts
and Virginia. The first house and part of the gardens dated back to then. Houses were burned and rebuilt, and the Revolution
and Civil War took their toll. But through the mess of history, there were always a few gentle souls to take care of the magnolias,
camellias, azaleas, roses, hibiscus and lilies.

Dartley disliked flowers. He could tolerate cactuses, green bushes and conifers. Showy flowers were not his thing. Yet he
had been impressed on seeing this place—a blackwater swamp converted into a wilderness of azaleas and camellias, with dirt
paths winding randomly through it, with little bridges crossing dank ponds and creeks. It was the kind of mixture of the sinister
and flamboyant which appealed to him, insofar as a garden could appeal to him.

Dartley walked up and down near the entrance to the gardens, which were separate from the rest of the plantation. He glanced
at his watch from time to time
and behaved increasingly impatient, as if someone he had agreed to meet was overdue. Cars arrived, but he paid no attention
to them. An observer would have noted that he apparently did not expect the person to come that way. He paced up and down
for exactly twenty-two minutes.

Right on cue, exactly on time, Peter Ligeti appeared from a path in the garden’s interior. He and Dartley stood talking for
several minutes, to give anyone who might be watching a chance to definitely identify Ligeti. It was safer than it sounded,
because people coming and going made it difficult for a sniper to set up a shot. He would wait and hope they went into the
swamp garden, where the profusion of plants clearly offered abundant cover. Dartley and Ligeti turned around and entered the
garden, walking slowly side by side along a path between shoulder-high azalea bushes.

Dartley, wearing a light, green tweed suit which gave him a reasonable camouflage in the bushes, slipped into the hiding place
he had previously selected. This position had to be passed by anyone following Ligeti to this part of the garden.

“Nothing,” Dartley whispered into his mouthpiece.

Ligeti heard the message through his Walkman-style headphones. He raised a tiny microphone to his mouth and said, “I hear
you.”

Dartley was being pleasant again. He wanted nothing to spook Ligeti at this stage. He’d even try to save
the asshole’s life if that was possible. But his priority was to get Dockrell.

“Nothing,” he whispered again and heard Ligeti’s confirmation. He did not want Ligeti to feel he was alone.

Dartley heard footfalls on the moist earth path. This was not the walking pace of an idle wanderer savoring the blooms—it
was more like that of someone determined and purposeful. A broad-shouldered man with cropped fair hair passed Dartley without
seeing him.

“We have a live one,” he whispered.

“Don’t let me down,” Ligeti pleaded.

“I won’t.”

Dartley had a problem. He was not sure what Dockrell looked like. No photos were available beyond one taken at fifteen. From
the brief look Dartley got at this man’s face, he saw no resemblance to the kid in the photo, except they both had fair hair.
But he looked like the man Dartley had seen climbing the derrick on Brent Delta. Both had broad shoulders and cropped fair
hair. Still, that man had been heavily clothed, which made all the men look broader than they really were. Nor could Dartley
swear this was the Wyoming mud engineer who had kept his distance in the flotel mess hall and coffee shop. A suit and a different
climate changed any man’s appearance or, on the other hand, might cause two different men to be confused.

To backshoot this man would not really be playing it safe. First of all, killing an innocent outsider often
brought all kinds of unexpected trouble. A hitman needed to know who he was killing. When the dead man deserved what he had
gotten, there was rarely any real effort to find his killer. The opposite was true when a harmless bystander was murdered
by mistake. Second, if this wasn’t the right guy and Dartley took him out, the right guy would still be on the loose without
Dartley knowing it. He had to wait and be sure.

“Where are you?” Dartley whispered.

“Point nine.” They had marked and numbered trees along the paths in this section.

“He hasn’t reached point twenty yet,” Dartley whispered. “Hold back.”

“Okay.” Ligeti sounded cool, considering the circumstances.

Dartley left the path and cut across a boggy section, ignoring water coming in over the tops of his shoes. He climbed onto
an ancient tree stump and watched through a gap in the bushes. He saw the man pass the tree.

“Point twenty,” Dartley breathed. “Start moving. Go slowly, Peter. Don’t panic.”

“I hear you.”

Dartley again cut across through bushes and trees until he came to a huge live oak draped heavily in Spanish moss. Again he
saw the fair-haired man walking much faster now along a path.

“Point fourteen, Peter. He’s moving fast and gaining on you. Go to point A. Respond.”

“I think I hear him. Jesus, he’s near. Point A. I’m running.”

The small transmitter which Dockrell had placed beneath Paul Savage’s car had worked well. As he had crossed the Ashley Bridge,
he had heard the pulses weaken as Savage pulled away from him on the lighter traffic on Route 61, and he had guessed correctly
in time to make the turn. Then Savage had alternately driven slow and fast, which was about all he could do, besides stopping,
to detect a tail on a straight drive without turnoffs. Dockrell made visual contact with his car on the driveway into Magnolia
Gardens, the transmitter coming in so goddamn loud it sounded like a submarine sonar.

Dockrell continued on for five minutes, then made a turnaround and went back. Savage hadn’t ducked in and out to lose a tail—the
transmitter indicated that the car was still here. Then he saw Savage! The man was walking up and down, waiting for somebody.
Feeling lucky not to have been spotted, he pulled the car out of Savage’s visual range, parked it and watched him. Curious
kids and slow-moving tourists made it impossible for him to set up a kill from where he was positioned, which was a pity,
because Dockrell had a damn good idea who it was Savage waited for.