Read The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) Online
Authors: John R. Maxim
-12-
Choosing a space, he allowed his headlights to wash over the double storefront of Luxury Travel Limited. He saw no movement inside. The reservations desks were empty, their consoles silent. The only lights came from Bannerman's office in the rear and the small conference room adjoining it. He waited, gathering himself, then stepped from the car. He tried the door. It was unlocked. Bannerman had said it would be.
“You realize,” Clew asked, taking it, “I've been to Europe and back looking for you? I haven't showered in two days.*’
“Ships in the night.” Bannerman shrugged. He hoisted his own drink, mostly water, by way of welcome. “How's Susan doing?” he asked, although the question was unnecessary. Molly Farrell had called him from Greenfield Hill, the nearby psychiatric clinic where he himself had once been held and from which he had expelled Palmer Reid. The Leskos were being quartered there. Molly was helping them to settle in.
“Yes, ”
Molly had told him,
“she knows you're in
town. No, she hasn't asked to see you. ”
Bannerman felt a headache coming on.
“The Swiss have a message for you, too,” he said. “Theirs is, ‘You even think about going back after whoever hit Russo and the Lesko girl and they'll lock you up for ten years.’ ”
“I'm not thinking about it.”
“What does that mean? You already got them?”
“I'm not interested in shooters, Roger. You know that.”
Clew didn't like this. Bannerman should have been full of questions. He should have been asking for help. He looked down at his drink. ”I hear you figure it's Reid. Behind all this, I mean.”
“There is that chance.”
“For that you chased me to Europe?”
Bannerman had turned away. But not before Clew saw what he thought was a glint of surprise at being asked to do nothing. ”I went over as your friend. And to get you the hell out of there in one piece.”
”I did get out. But thank you.” Bannerman waited.
Clew stirred his drink with his finger. It gave him something to do with his eyes. “There's more,” he said. “You want it straight?”
“That would save time, Roger.”
“No chance, Roger.”
“I'm not talking like before. Not exactly.”
“Then how, exactly?”
“You have a hell of a team here, Paul. It's a lot of talent not to be put to good use.”
“What do you consider good use?”
“And you want us to start killing them off.”
Clew raised his brow. ”I didn't say that. Barton Fuller certainly didn't say that.”
“I'll try to pay closer attention. What did you say?”
“That sometimes . . . occasionally ... we could use a little outside help. There's a way we can use you, a new way, with almost no risk to you or your people. Besides, after three years in Westport they can probably use the exercise.”
“When they need exercise, I'll take them jogging.” Bannerman's expression darkened a shade. “Roger, someone probably said that to Palmer Reid once. If those files of his exist, that's how he started building them. In any case, I'm not interested.”
Clew brought his glass to his lips and held it there. He knew that he was handling this badly. After months of work, weeks of stewing over the best way to raise this subject with Bannerman, he'd practically blurted it out. But if Bannerman, by any chance, knew anything at all about the Ripper Effect, now was the time to find out. There was a new way, he'd told him. No risk. And Bannerman hadn't even batted an eye. That was how little he cared. That was also how little he knew.
He'd half-expected to walk in here, see those soft gray eyes staring up at him, watch Bannerman step to the door and close it, and hear him say, “I'd like the truth this time, Roger. Tell me how it is that you were heard discussing my travel plans over an unsecured line. Tell me about this computer that predicted what was done to Susan and what I might do in response. Tell me why you sat back and let all this happen. Tell me about the Ripper Effect.”
Bannerman could not have known. Clew realized that. Maybe, just maybe, he could know about the careless phone call but not the rest of it. But that was the thing about Bannerman. You just never knew. And if he did know, if he even suspected that he was being used as an experiment, a test case, it would be all over. Fifteen years would go right out the window. Those eyes of Bannerman's would bore right into him and then they'd turn dead. Clew had seen that look before. He didn't want to see it again.
But Bannerman didn't know. And yet, there was . . . something. Clew decided to press it.
“You're not Palmer Reid, Paul,” he said quietly. “For openers, Reid is nuts. Second, the people working for him are either there to get rich or they're a bunch of fucking robot flag-wavers all pissed off that we don't kill commies anymore. Your people are professionals. They get paid, they do their job, and they go away.”
“Roger—”
”I know. To Fortress Westport. Where you're independently wealthy, having ripped off a few million of federal funds and a dozen prime pieces of Westport real estate. But we're not even going to mention that. No hard feelings.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“We're just going to stay in touch. Any time you need a favor, even if you can't do anything in retum, being retired and all, boy, I'm going to be right there.”
Bannerman waited.
“That's very thoughtful of you, Roger.”
“What are friends for?”
“Okay.” Bannerman softened. “Maybe I owe you one for that.”
“I'll try to think of something.”
“One, Roger.” He held up a finger. “Medium size.”
“And you'll leave Reid alone?”
“For the moment.”
Clew studied him. “What kind of an answer is that?”
“It will have to do. Until you decide to level with me.”
Clew felt his color rising. “You think I haven't?”
“Not entirely. There's something else.”
“Like what?”
“I'll know when you tell me.”
”I did. It's Reid's private files.”
“Stop it.”
Clew leaned backward in his chair, folding his arms. Bannerman made a mental note of the body language.
Clew suddenly remembered the man on the plane. The one who wanted a smoke. The one who'd stood there, God knows how long, possibly reading the screen of his Toshiba. Could he have been one of Bannerman's people?
No. That's crazy. Still, just in case . . .
“What if I told you,” Clew said, grimacing, “that I'm working on something. It involves computers.”
He paused. Bannerman's eyes, if anything, glazed slightly.
”I can't tell you any more just yet, but when I do it'll knock your socks off. To go forward, there are some people I need. If you hit Palmer Reid, you will scare them off. This is the truth.”
“These people you need. Am I one of them?”
He nodded. “It's that favor we talked about. When I'm ready, I'll ask it. Whether you do it, that's up to you.”
“But you'll tell me nothing in the meantime?”
”I can't. Someday, I promise, I'll explain why.”
Bannerman stared at him. Those gray eyes. “I'll think about it,” he said.
“No hit on Reid?”
”I said I'll think about it. Roger?”
“Yeah?”
“When did you find out what happened to Susan?”
“When I got your message. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
Within an hour of his arrival at the clinic, Lesko was on the phone calling in favors. The first call was to Detective Lieutenant Harry Greenwald, with whom he once worked narcotics, Manhattan South and who had known Susan most of her life. Lesko told him what had happened to her.
What cops, asked Lesko, did they both know and trust, who were currently working undercover and might, therefore, not be missed for a few days? Greenwald named three. He said he would contact them.
Lesko had not encouraged questions. But by late morning Friday, his four cops could not help noticing that nobody else at Greenfield Hill seemed to share Lesko's sense of imminent peril. The clinic's grounds appeared otherwise unguarded. The few people there, apparently staff, went
about
their routines seeming to find nothing unusual or even noteworthy in seeing four rough-looking men in flak jackets tuming guns toward them every time they rounded a corner. They would nod politely, ignoring the weapons, and then go on. The three undercover cops were disappointed. Greenwald had begun to wonder aloud why he had given up several days off. And Lesko was becoming embarrassed. He would like to have revived their interest by telling them that those people passing them in the halls had probably killed more people than the average plane crash, but he had given his word. Unable to confide in the four New York cops and unable to get to Loftus who was stashed, under guard, somewhere else in town, he found himself looking for ways to be alone so that he might talk things over with David Katz.