Under Siege (52 page)

“Don’t recognize him. Who is he?”

“The dude who shot Gideon Cohen yesterday. Maybe. A woman saw him in the lobby of the building as he was leaving. He was wearing surgical gloves.”

Freddy looked at the picture again, trying to visualize that face on a real man. He started to hand the paper back, but Hooper waved it away.

“Keep it. We’re getting thousands made. It’ll be on television nationwide in an hour or so and in the papers this evening and tomorrow.”

“It isn’t that good a picture,” Freddy pointed out. Hooper shrugged. “You’re a ray of sunshine.”

“So what are you going to do about Harrison?”

“Do?” Hooper muttered, donning a slightly puzzled look. “You gonna arrest him or what?”

“What would I arrest him for? What charge? Is there any proof that he’s done anything illegal?”

“I dunno. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Get some cops up here-uniformed cops. 1 want a cop at the ICU door and one at the floor nurse’s station twenty-four hours a day. And I want to hear immediately when Ford regains consciousness.”

Hooper summoned all his energy and extracted himself from the soft couch.

“Where you going?” Freddy asked. “Over to see what the hell those guys have turned up on the Willie Teal murders. You oughta see that place! Fourteen bodies! And we figured out which one is Willie. He was sitting on the crapper with his pants around his ankles when the grenades started coming in. Boy, is he ever dead!” Hooper scratched his head and glanced at his watch. “That search warrant for Mcationally’s place ought to be signed by now. I’d sure like to find those grenade launchers.”

Hooper looked at Freddy. “By the way, I haven’t let them tell the press about these Mcationally killings. We’ll hold onto that for a while and see what happens.”

“What could happen? The Mcationally brothers wiped out the Teal outfit. Now they’re dead. End of story.”

Hooper grunted and walked out. Freddy watched him go, then headed for the pay phone. The police department was undoubtedly going to be delighted to furnish two officers around the clock.

There was a light. He could see the glare but his eyes wouldn’t focus. Then the effort of holding his eyes open became too much and he closed them and drifted.

He had been dreaming and he tried to go back to the dream. It was July, that time of blue skies and hot, sticky days, and he was sitting on his grandmother’s porch counting tilde the squeaks as the swing went back and forth, back and forth.

He had the whole summer to loaf and play and yet the ly thing he could think of to do was sit in the swing and to the chain squeak as it rubbed on the hooks in the ceiling.

His grandmother had been in the dream, sitting on the steps stringing beans, and it seemed important to see her again. Crazy as it seemed, with all the events of his whole life, the most important one, the memory that he treasured the most, was of a summer day when he was very young, swinging on the porch and watching his grandmother. So he tried to go back to the porch and the swing and the dry cracking sound as the beans snapped and … But the light was back. Someone was moving around. “Harrison. Can you hear me?” He tried to speak but his mouth was dry, like sandpaper. He licked his lips, then nodded a tiny bit. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s me, Freddy. How you doing in there?”

“Where am I?”

“Hospital. You had a bullet in your back. You lost a lot of blood. They operated and got the slug and plugged up all the places you were leaking.”

He nodded again, which was difficult. He was having trouble movin . He had no place to go anyway. “Harrison, can you tell me what happened?”

He thought about it, trying to remember. It was difficult. The warehouse, driving around, all jumbled out of order. After a while he thought he had it straight. He said, “They came for me.”

“Anselmo?”

“And the other one. White guy. Pi … Pioche.”

That was right. He saw it clearly now. The stairwell, Fat Tony falling in the darkness, Freeman Mcationally screaming, the television shattering…. No. Something was mixed up some….

That scream. It had been almost in his ear, painfully loud, the man in mortal agony. And Harrison Ronald had enjoyed it. He lay here now immobile, his eyes closed, remembering. Savoring that scream. “What else can you tell me?” Why was Freddy so insistent? “He screamed,” Harrison said. “Who?” Who indeed! “Freeman.”

“Why.did you kill him?” Why? Well, hell, you idiot, because “Because.”

“Hooper is gonna be over here in a few minutes to question you, Harrison. You killed eight guys. That’s real heavy shit. Real heavy. I think you should think through what you’re gonna say to Hooper very carefully. You dig me?”

Harrison sorted through it one more time. He felt like dog shit and he was getting sleepy again. “Nine guys.”

“Nine?”

“Think so. It’s pretty confusing.”

He was drifting again, back toward the porch and the swing and the bright, hot days when he heard Freddy say, “You sleep now. We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah,” he said, and tackled the problem of why his grandmother had white hair even back then. She was small and wiry and her hair was white as snow. It had been that way as long as he could remember.

“Senator Hiram Duquesne to see you, Mr. Hooper.”

The secretary rolled her eyes heavenward and stepped clear so that Senator Duquesne could enter. He was fatnot plump, not overweight, but fat-in his middle sixties. His double chin swung as he walked. Embedded in the fleshy face were two of the hardest eyes that Tom Hooper had ever stared at. They swept him now.

The senator dropped into a chair and waited until the door was closed behind him. “I’ve just come from a conference with the director,” he announced. “Yessir. He called me.”

“I want to report an incident. I want a report made and an

vestiption done. I want it all in writing and dated and and I want a copy.” Hooper grunted noncommittally. If FBI reports were going to be handed out the director would do the handing, not Hooper.

Just as Duquesne opened his mouth, the telephone rang. “Excuse me a second, Senator.” He picked up the instrument. “Yes.”

“Freddy is on the other line. Harrison is awake.”

“Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As he cradled the phone Duquesne said, “You could ask her to hold your calls.”

“I don’t have that luxury, Senator. Tell me about this incident.”

Duquesne told him. From the first approach by T. Jefferson Brody several years ago to the incident last night in the parking prage of the Senate office building, he gave Hooper every incident and the details on every check. Hooper made notes and asked questions to clarify points. It took fifteen minutes.

Finally Duquesne announced, “There it is,” and Hooper leaned back in his chair and reviewed his notes.

“I want this pimp Brody arrested,” Senator Duquesne said. “I’ll take the heat.”

Hooper laid the legal pad back on the table. “What do I arrest him for?”

“Attempted bribery, extortion, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. Assuming that all the contributions to the PAC’S he controlled were made according to law, and you have given me no information to suggest otherwise, there’s nothing illegal about a notorious criminal making a political contribution. And people ask you to take positions on public issues twenty times a day.”

“Brody didn’t ask. He threatened me. I’m sure you can gmp the distinction between a request and a threat.”

“Threatened you with what? You said he said he would call a matter of public record to the attention of the media if you didn’t do what he wanted. I don’t think that qualifies as a threat.”

Duquesne’s face was turning a deep brick hue. “Listen to me, you little badge toter. Don’t give me one of those pissy nothing-can-be-done hog-crap sandwiches! I’m not going to listen to that!”

The expression on Hoopcr’s face didn’t change. “Senator, you have been had by a pro. Now listen carefully to what I’m going to say. By your own admission the man has done nothing illegal. He was the only other witness to this conversation, and believe me, he will deny everything that even throws a shadow on him.”

Duquesne was taking it hard. His throat worked as he sat and stared at the desk between them.

“Now, here is what we can do. We can look into the accounting and see if he obeyed all the rules on his PAC’S and his contributions. That will take time but might turn up something. Brody sounds cute, but the law in this area is a minefield.”

“That asshole wouldn’t slip up like that,” Duquesne said softly.

“The other thing we can do is put a wire on you and let you have another conversation with Brody. Maybe he’ll say something this time that does compromise him.”

“And me!”

“Perhaps. That’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Who else has this man approached? How many other members of Congress has he tried to influence?”

“I don’t know. But I seem to recall that somebody said he was giving money to Bob Cherry and three or four others.”

“That’ll be in their financial statements, right? We’ll look and see if we can find these names.”

“Where does that get us?”

“I’ll be frank, Senator. It may take someone someplace they don’t want to go. Freeman Mcationally is dead. He was killed last night.”

Duquesne was speechless. “Who did it?”

“We’re investigating. This information is confidential. We have not released the news of Mcationally’s death and would like to hold on to it for a while.”

Duquesne’s color faded to a ghastly white. Out of the clear sky he had just supplied the FBI with a motive for the of a man who had just been killed.

Hooper watched the senator with an expressionless face. He well knew what Duquesne was thinking and it didn’t bother Hooper a bit that he was thinking it.

“The good news,” the agent said after he had let Duquesne twist a while in the wind, “is that Freeman has made his last political contribution. In the fullness of time, probably fairly soon, T. Jefferson Brody will hear of Mr. Mcationally’s unfortunate demise. Of course he will still have a hold on you, but I doubt that he’ll be foolish enough to try to use it. He impresses me as a very careful fellow.”

“Cute. The bastard thinks he’s cute.”

“Ah, yes, don’t they all?”

Freddy was standing beside the nurses” station listening to a man sitting in a wheelchair with his head swathed in bandages tell the cop all about his recent hair transplant. “You don’t know how demoralizing it is to lose your hair. It’s like you’re visibly deteriorating, aging, you know?”

Hooper came through the door, took the scene in at a glance and led Freddy toward the waiting area, which was empty. Behind him the man was explaining, “It was male pattern baldness all the way. My God, I felt so-was

“How is he?” Hooper asked as he pulled the door to the lounge closed.

“Sleeping again. The nurse said he’ll probably wake up in a little bit and we can talk to him then. She’ll come get me.”

“We found a body over at Mcationally’s house. Vinnie Pioche, I think. And the place had been shot apart. Someone just stood inside the door of each room and sprayed lead everywhere. It’s a real mess.”

“Probably Harrison. He said Pioche came with Anselmo to get him. And he said he thinks he killed nine men, but it’s real confusing.” Hooper fell into one of the chairs. “Did he say why9”

“Because. He said he did it because.”

“That’s real helpful. Just what I need to feed to the sharks in the U.s. attorney’s office.”

“He’s still under the anesthetic, Tom. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying.”

Hooper grunted and stared at his toes. Then he took off his shoes and massaged his feet. “We should have wrapped this one up in September.”

“We didn’t have enough in September,” Freddy said.

Hooper eyed him without humor, then put his shoes back on.

Fifteen minutes later the nurse opened the door and stuck her head in. “He’s awake. Don’t stay more than five minutes.”

Harrison Ronald had his eyes closed when the FBI agents stepped up to his bed, but the nurse nodded and left them. Freddy said, “Harrison, it’s me, Freddy. Tom Hooper is with me. How you feeline.”

Ford’s eyes came open and slowly moved around until they found Freddy. After a moment they went to Hooper.

“Hey, Tom.”

“Hey, Harrison. Sorry about this.”

“It’s over.”

“Yeah.”

Ford’s eyes closed again. Hooper looked at Freddy, who shrugged.

“Harrison,” Hooper said, “I need to ask you some questions, find out what happened. Why did you go to that warehouse anyway?”

The eyes focused on Hooper’s face. They stayed there a while, went to Freddy, then back to Hooper. Harrison Ronald licked his lips, then said, “I want a lawyer.”

“What?”

“A lawyer. I ain’t saying anything without my lawyees approva .

“Aww, wait a goddamn minute! I’m not charging you with anything. You’re the sole witness to a serious

The word “crime” was right there on the tip of his tongue

he bit it off. He swallowed once. “All this has to be investigated. You know that. You’re a cop, for Chrissake!”

“I want a lawyer. That’s all I have to say.”

Hooper opened his mouth and closed it again. He glanced at Freddy, who was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the man in the bed.

“Okay. We’ll get you a lawyer. I’ll stop by tomorrow and see how you’re doing.”

“Fine. See you then.”

“Come on, Freddy. We have work to do.” Harrison Ronald Ford went back to sleep.

The first man the soldiers killed was Larry Ticono. At the age of sixteen he had dropped out of the seventh grade after falling it three times. In spite of the nine years he spent in the public school system, he was illiterate. On those rare occasions when he was asked to sign his name he used an illegible scrawl.

Larry Ticono had been arrested three times in his short life-twice for possession of illegal drugs and once for burglary-but he had spent a grand total of only five days in jail. After each arrest he was released on his own recognizance. He returned to court only when the police picked him up not. One of his possession arrests had apparently fallen completely through the cracks and been forgotten. He had pleaded guilty to the other two charges and had received probation.