The raspy one said, “He’s going.”
“Well, that’s it,” his partner told him.
“You think he was faking it?”
“I don’t know how he could.”
Sounds were too faint now to register and I felt myself being jostled around, then the sleep came and the strange, fuzzy chemical dreams that had no direction or substance, shooting off into one area after another like a firefight pattern of tracer bullets gone wild.
Awakening was in slow motion, one part at a time. I stayed immobile until I had things back in focus again, trying to remember what had preceded the odd stupor I was in. Then the mental door unlatched and it was all there, not totally clear, but discernible enough.
The ropes holding me in the chair had been loosened, with just enough tension there to keep me from falling off the chair. I shook them loose, then leaned forward and stood up. I was shaky, so I didn’t move for a minute.
No drugs were lousing me up now and I could see better in the light from that dull bulb than I could before. I was in some kind of a garage, the oil and grease smell thick, dull forms of heavy machinery on either side of me. On the floor, in front of my feet, was my hat. Next to it was my .45.
Bending down was easy. Getting back up wasn’t. I put the .45 back in the holster and straightened out my hat.
No, that wasn’t a mugging. That was as far away from a mugging as you could get. I still had my money in my wallet and when I looked at my watch it read four fifteen.
A wide sliding door was on the other side of the light with a normal door built into it. I twisted the lock, pulled on the knob and went out to the street. A sign over the door read SMILEY’S AUTOMOTIVE in old hand-painted letters. I walked to the corner slowly, saw where I was, then crossed the street and went another long block to where the lights were, waited a good five minutes, then flagged down a taxi.
The driver’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “You okay, mac?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just been one of those nights.” I gave him my address and closed my eyes.
Pat looked at me with total disgust and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Mike, what kind of clown crap you call this? You let ten hours go by before you give me the story of what happened. You think we wouldn’t have responded right away?”
“They were pros.”
“Pros can leave marks behind,” he reminded me.
“What did you find?”
“Okay, nothing of importance. The chair, ropes. Somebody spit blood on the floor. Type O positive.”
“And that’s half the population,” I said. “At least there’s somebody with some teeth out of whack and another dude with a busted nose probably sporting a pair of beautiful black eyes right now. You get anything more from the owner?”
“Zilch, that’s what. Smiley’s place has been in that spot for over twenty years. During the slow season he shuts down and heads for the tracks. Playing the ponies is his one vice.”
“That’s not a great area to leave a business alone, buddy.”
“What’s he got to steal? A couple of hydraulic presses for straightening car frames? What’re you getting at anyway?”
“The guys who had me knew the place would be empty.”
“Hell, there were two other places down the street that were empty too.” He stopped and breathed in deeply. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a broken nose or de-toothed slob who has grease marks on his shoe soles we can identify.”
“Don’t bother. They would have thought of that too.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Because I was beat. There wasn’t one damn thing I could have done.”
“When those interns called 911 we had you ID’d in fifteen minutes. Every car in the city was scrounging around looking for you.”
“How about the car they threw me into?”
“A black Mercedes. Late model and nobody got the number. One intern said the right rear taillight was out. So far, we haven’t located it.”
“So what are you all pissed off about?” I asked him. “I’m here, nothing’s happened and we know somebody else is looking for the Penta character too.”
Pat took another of those comforting deep breaths, quieted down and then told me, “We have all the information on the late Anthony DiCica.”
“Oh?”
“Forget those minor counts in New York. DiCica turns out to have been an enforcer for the New York mob. He was a suspect in four homicides, never got tapped for any of them and gained a reputation of being a pretty efficient workman.”
“Then how’d he get to be a delivery man?”
“Simple. Somebody cracked his skull open in a street brawl and he came all unraveled. He was in a hospital seven months and left with severely impaired mental faculties.”
“Who sponsored him?”
“Nobody took him in. He remembered very little of his past, but he could handle uncomplicated things. He had been working with that printer you used for over a year. The hospital had no choice except to release him.”
“What’s the tag line, Pat?”
“He could have made enemies. Somebody saw him and came after him.”
“In my office?”
“Anybody with a hate big enough to take him apart like that wouldn’t be rational about it. He’d take him when and where he could and your office was it. He spotted him, followed him, then went in after him. If your unknown client did show up afterward all the activity scared him off.”
For a minute I thought about it. There was still the “walker” Maria Escalante had seen, but for now I was keeping that to myself. I said, “Why the hell was I abducted then, Pat? Nobody wanted me. They wanted Penta.”
A detective came in and handed Pat a thick folder and left. Pat flopped it open, scowled, then closed the office door, sealing out the confusion on the other side. “Mike, you remember Ray Wilson?”
“Sure. The old intelligence guy?”
“He’s had Penta on the computers with Washington for two days. Usually we get some sort of a reply in a short, reasonable time. With Penta it’s all delays and referrals to other agencies.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Probably nothing,” Pat said. “Ray seems to think that when Penta was mentioned a flag went up somewhere down the line. When that happens we’re into something pretty damn heavy.”
I let out a laugh. “And I can see what will drop on you if they know we have such great heart-to-heart talks.” I looked around. “This place bugged?”
He looked startled a second, then grinned. “Go screw yourself, pal. You’re my pigeon and I’m running you.”
“Good story,” I said. “Stick to it.” I looked at my watch. It was almost four o‘clock. “When’s the next briefing?”
“Like now,” Pat said. “Let’s go.”
This time the Ice Lady wore a cool blue sheath of a fabric that seemed to caress her whenever she moved. She knew what it did and every motion was beautifully orchestrated for her audience. Their response was just as carefully calculated, as though they were totally ignorant of this vibrant woman who was one of them too. They saw us come in, but only stopped talking when we were close enough to hear what they were saying.
Pat motioned to the table. “Shall we sit down?” I didn’t bother with the chair bit this time. I took a seat across from Jerome Coleman and when he was ready, he nodded to the man next to him and said, “This is Frank Carmody and his assistant, Phillip Smith, both of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On my right is Mr. Bennett Bradley, representing the State Department, and his special assistant from the CIA, Mr. Lewis Ferguson.”
It’s funny how cops look like cops. When they’re federal they seem to dress alike, groom themselves identically and use the same body language. There were slight differences in the color and pattern of their suits, but not much. They were all in their early forties and probably had the same barber who gave proper haircuts and shaved close.
At least Bradley, the guy from State, was different. His suit was a light gray, his tie was red and he wore a mustache, which was more hair than he had on his head. Like Yul Brynner‘s, it was shaved off on the back of his skull for convenience. But he was still State, bore the bureaucratic attitude of tired integrity and seemed anxious to get on with the meeting.
Pat said, “I’m Captain Chambers and this is Michael Hammer. I believe you want to ask him some questions.”
I held up my hand before they could talk. “This is a strange interagency relationship here. Cooperation between the FBI and CIA is pretty damn rare. Not to mention State. Do I need a lawyer here?”
The Ice Lady said, “You are not in jeopardy, Mr. Hammer.”
“My licenses are intact, I presume.”
“For now.” There was no inflection in her voice at all.
I gestured with my hand and sat back.
Carmody spoke up first. “We want to know about Penta, Mr. Hammer.”
“So does everybody else,” I told him.
“Yes. We’ve all read the statement you gave Captain Chambers. The witnesses at the hospital saw the assailants, saw you abducted, and we know what you have said.”
“What’s your point?”
It was Bennett Bradley from the State Department who broke in. “Mr. Hammer ... when your name came up in this matter I remembered having heard it before. After an inquiry or two I opened a file that made interesting reading.”
Pat grunted and said, “Everything he does is interesting.”
Bradley simply ignored him and said, “You testified at a trial as to the possible inaccuracy of the polygraph test. In fact, you gave a demonstration using an authorized operator of the device and succeeded in lying without being detected.”
“There were two others who did the same thing, Mr. Bradley. If you know how to do it there’s no trick to it at all.”
“The State lost that case, I might add.”
“So be it,” I said. “What’s that got to do with now?”
“Could you possibly do it under sodium Pentothal?”
They were playing with me now and I was getting ticked off. “I suppose there could be a trick to that too.”
All of them watched me, waiting.
I said, “Why are you so interested in nailing this loony?”
It was Lewis Ferguson who looked to Pat for confirmation and when Pat nodded slightly, he said, “This one ... this Penta murdered one of our men. You seem to have enough ... familiarization with police departments to understand how we feel about this.”
“I know how the cops feel about it.”
“We’re no different.”
“Cops don’t have the State Department backing them up,” I said.
Bradley gave me an enigmatic smile. Those State guys had a thing with them that made me want to belt them right in the mouth. “The agent who was killed was carrying some very valuable information. If he gave it up before he died, the security of the United States could be compromised.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, I’ve heard that ‘compromised’ line a million times. What the hell can one man carry that could destroy us? You know damn well nobody can afford to start tossing nukes around and live to brag about it, so how the hell do we get compromised?”
“I’m not referring to the big nations, Mr. Hammer. Some of the Third World countries have nuclear capabilities nobody likes to speak about. They may not have the same moral attitudes we have.”
“So why kill your agent?”
“Because he knew which country was planning to let the first bird fly. He was about to deliver that information.”
“Damn,” I said, “here I was thinking about how altruistic you were about your agent getting killed. Things are starting to blossom out.”
“Mr. Hammer,” Ferguson said. “Did you lie to your abductors about Penta?”
I shrugged. It was better than words. Finally I told them, “I don’t know. I was under the influence of drugs.”
They were very polite and thanked me. The Ice Lady looked at me and her eyes were as cool as her dress. She turned just a little bit and the fold of her neckline opened enough to show the fullness of her breasts, snowy white against icy blue. I didn’t try to hide my appreciation, and let her see the edges of my teeth under a smile.
Pat and I looked at each other in the empty room and he said, “Want to go have coffee?”
“Sure. Think we can get Ray Wilson to go with us?”
“He’s always glad to go anywhere.” He pushed back his chair. “What do you want him for, anyway?”
I said, “You reminded me that he was in the intelligence unit.”
“Fourteen years’ worth.”
“Didn’t he head up the operation when Qaddafi threatened personal attacks on Reagan?”
“He headed up the New York command post.
Incidentally, he’s our liaison with some international counterparts.“ He frowned, looking at me quizzically. ”Why?“
“Maybe he can straighten out a few things for me.”
“Beautiful. Never say New York’s Finest doesn’t do its damnedest to keep the public happy.”
“Come on, pal, I pay my taxes,” I said.
“Don’t forget your license fees.”
“Never,” I grinned. “Now, do we go downstairs together or one at a time?”
Pat shook his head at me. “After all these years, this department has given up on you and me.”
“Not the DA’s office, though.”
“Ah, them,” Pat said. “They come and go with the elections. Just don’t underplay Candace Amory, buddy.”
Musingly, I said, “The Ice Lady.”
“Yeah, her.”
“She’s going to supper with me,” I told him.
“Bullshit.” He seemed startled. “When did this happen?”
“As soon as I ask her, kiddo.”
Ray Wilson was already at a table when we got to the deli, a half-eaten pastrami sandwich and an empty coffee cup in front of him. “Couldn’t wait for you guys,” he explained. “Want coffee?” We both nodded and he held up two fingers. Before we were in the booth the waiter had the coffee down. The old cop went back to his sandwich, had another bite and added, “Nobody ever asks me out for anything unless they want something.”