Final Stroke (36 page)

And so, when he was aware of an absence of footsteps or any other sounds in the hallway, he eased the push rims forward, his left hand doing the work while his right hand went along for the ride, peeked out in both directions, saw an aide, waited, peeked out again, saw a resident, waited, peeked out again, and finally, flew beyond the edge of the cliff.

As he rolled down the hallway toward the elevators, he could hear the sound of the large screen television in the lounge behind him. He kept turning to look, but saw no one at the rear of the television lounge where the man in the baseball cap would have had a view of the hallway, saw no one coming out of a doorway, saw no one at the nurses’ station.

After he turned into the short entry hall leading to the service el evator hallway, Steve spun the wheelchair around and peeked back,
his breath coming in gasps while he waited. In a little while he saw what he wanted to see. Amid the stroboscopic flashes of the television, changing scenes rapidly as a commercial played in the background, he saw the man who was obviously there to watch him. The man did not have on his baseball cap, nor his leather jacket, and he was too far away to recognize, but Steve knew it was the man just the same.

The man backed his wheelchair slowly away from the flash of the commercial so he could have a good look down the hallway. Yes, it was him, down to shirtsleeves for the long night ahead because the heat was up due to the change of weather. As he watched the man in the television lounge, obviously looking down the hall toward the room where the clump of blankets slept, a jet on takeoff passed over
head, rumbling the hallways of Hell in the Woods and vibrating the wall against Steve’s cheek. When the man rolled back forward and was out of sight, Steve turned and pushed his way through the door to the service elevator hall.

After wheeling up to push the button for the elevator, he backed up quickly to get beneath the range of the ceiling-mounted closed-circuit camera. When the elevator arrived he sped onto it so fast he bounced off the back wall. As the elevator dropped, he felt a surge of strength, and anger. Nothing to lose if Jan was hurt. Right, nothing to lose. He’d even go to hell if he had to.

The second floor rehab center was quiet, as he knew it would be. Running the rats through their mazes had ended for the day and the staff had gone home. Unfortunately, they had also locked the double doors to the center.

He checked the ceiling behind him for a camera. Although there was none in the short entry hall, he knew there was one in the long hall that ran perpendicular, the hall he had just come down. Maybe one of the guards from the front desk on the first floor was already on his
way. But then again, maybe not. He had rushed down the hall and probably been on the screen only a few seconds. Later, after he and his wheelchair are found in the trunk of a Lincoln, both of them shot to death, they’d replay the tape and see he had escaped alone.

A joker. Envisioning his wheelchair folded into the trunk of a Lin
coln, shot to death. If there were a mirror handy he’d probably see an idiot smile on his idiot face. But maybe thinking this way was some
thing he’d always done. Self-preservation. Envisioning himself shot to death so he’d be careful. At least careful enough to do everything he could to find Jan. And if there was some shooting, maybe he’d be the one doing it. Especially if they’ve done something to Jan.

Janitors’ closets were handy things to have around. Especially if one needed to spill water on a floor to make it appear an elderly stroke victim out on an adventure slipped in a puddle and died. Or especially if one needed a place to rendezvous with a cohort for some illegal ac
tivity. Or especially if one needed something with which to pry open a locked double door.

The right double door was securely locked in at floor and ceiling. But the left door, which was locked to the right door, had enough play in it so he could just get one edge of a window squeegee between the two doors. Once this was done, he backed up and used the full length of the long wooden handle on the squeegee as a lever. The squeegee bent and he thought the handle would break. But the separation be
tween the two doors widened slightly and he was able to spring open the loose door by kicking out at it with his left foot.

Although he saw no wires at the entrance, he could not be certain it was not alarmed. No alarm sounded when he broke through, but again, one of those guards might be coming, and so he raced into the rehab center and hid himself in Georgiana’s speech therapy room.

He sat in Georgiana’s room for a minute or so, his wheelchair
rolled back into a dark corner. As he waited for his breathing to settle down, he became aware of pain throughout his right side from neck to toe. The only part of his right side that didn’t hurt was his head. Yes, up there where the ambushed brain cells on the left side lay dead or injured or screaming for help.

Idiot. He’s had a stroke and here he is thinking he can do this. Easy to say mind over matter when your entire right side isn’t on fire. Oh so easy for a therapist to tell you it’s all nothing but circuitry and that all you have to do is recreate neural pathways by eliminating learned non
use. Right, nothing but signals passed from neuron to neuron.

He closed his eyes. He envisioned Jan before him, laughing at the situation and the explaining he’d have to do for being down here. Then he envisioned Jan not smiling, Jan somewhere else and not smil
ing at all. Like when he first had the stroke and she came to him. When she was there he felt comforted, but when she was gone … when she was gone, the circuitry remaining tricked him into wonder
ing if she’d really been there at all.

Within the world of circuitry that was his brain, he spoke to his right side, telling the muscles they were no longer flaccid, telling the muscles they could perform if given the opportunity. He envisioned right side nerve endings like skinny octopi wriggling their tentacles, mocking him while they send an overload of pain signals back to the brain. So why couldn’t he send signals back to the little fuckers? Maybe he could, if he concentrated hard enough. Concentrate. Concentrate!

He rolled forward to Georgiana’s desk, turned on the small desk lamp, and set up the tape recorder. His plan was to douse the light if he heard someone coming, then slide out of his chair and hide beneath the center opening of the desk.

With a fresh cassette in the recorder, and the microphone pulled close so he would not have to talk loudly, he leaned in to the desk,
rested his elbows, turned out the light, closed his eyes, and relaxed the way Georgiana had taught him to relax before trying to do a speech exercise she had prepared. He imagined Georgiana sitting here, smil ing at him, her short brown hair like that of a little boy. He imagined Georgiana sitting here because he needed to relax to do this. And if he made it seem like simply another speech therapy session, perhaps he could do it.

After he felt relaxed enough he opened his eyes and turned on the lamp. He pulled a notepad to him and wrote down the words he wanted to say. Since he’d been at Hell in the Woods, his left-handed writing had improved greatly. At least that’s what Georgiana said.

He read the words over and over, not out loud, but imagining Georgiana saying them. Some of what he’d written didn’t sound quite right, so he changed a few words. These were sentences, he knew, but the only way to get through this was to treat each word separately. It was the only way he could get his message across without a face-to-face meeting. The only way to avoid complications that would waste time.

And so, when he finally got down what he wanted to say, he set the tape recorder to Record-Pause so he could simply push the microphone button to start recording and release the button to stop recording. Then he closed his eyes and tried to relax again, this time working at it very hard in an attempt to forget what the message said, because he knew if he could forget what the message said and concentrate on one word at a time, he might be able to do this.

When he opened his eyes, he began meticulously recording one word at a time. He did this by pointing to the word with his finger, staring at it and concentrating only on the sound of that word. Then he would push the button, say the word, release the button, and go on to the next word and do the same.

The names were the hardest. Staring at them brought faces into
view, and faces brought recognition, and recognition brought people, and people in the real world brought complication. But he clenched the microphone in his left hand and, instead of thinking of the people who went with the names, he thought of Jan in danger and, finally, was able to utter the names that went with the faces that, momentarily, seemed to float disembodied in his head.

It took nearly an hour to make the recording. He played it back several times, then fixed a couple of the words he felt he had done badly. When he was finally ready, he pulled the telephone from the other side of Georgiana’s desk, rewound the recorder, set it on Play-Pause and made the phone call.

He almost panicked when Tamara’s direct number was not an
swered after four rings. But when her voice mail came on saying cheer
fully that he should leave a message, he decided this was the only thing he could do. After all, there would be no discussion about the matter. Either his message would work and Tamara would do what he asked, or she would refuse. Or, worse yet, she wouldn’t retrieve the message and it would remain in the circuitry, useless.

It was unfair. Yeah, unfair like a stroke that shoots up the place. His entire plan hinged on whether or not Tamara retrieved a phone message. He’d counted on Tamara listening to his recording and doing what he asked. Now he had to count on her getting the mes
sage in time.

He and Tamara had been lovers once, long ago before he met Jan. Now, as he recalled Tamara visiting at the hospital before he came here to Hell in the Woods, as he recalled her reminding him they’d once been lovers, he remembered she had not been upset or angry when he did not immediately respond. Because of this, he knew she would do what he asked. She would do it because she had to do it for his and Jan’s sake. Taking a chance that she would retrieve the message in
time was the only way.

At the tone, he said, “Tam. Steve. Very important do. Please.”

Then, when he pushed the Pause button, the recorder played the message he had prepared.

“Tam. I recorded because I cannot say directly. Need help right away. Need help finding Jan. Please access motor vehicles on com
puter. Get year and make and license on all vehicles registered to fol
lowing: Tyrone Washington, Chicago address. Max Lamberti, Chi
cago or suburb. Antonio Gianetti, Chicago or suburb. Dino Justice, alias Dino Deveno, Chicago or suburb. Phil Hogan. When you get information, call my home number and leave it on voice mail. I will call it up. Please, Tam.”

Because Tamara was not there, he quickly rewound the tape and played it once more. Then he hung up the phone, took the tape from the recorder and put it in his pocket, shut off the lamp, and turned his wheelchair toward the exit.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

As the Learjet ??XR broke through the clouds hovering
over central Florida, the seatbelt lights went out and both Valdez and Hanley left their seats to go to the plane’s refreshment center. Hanley selected iced tea from the refrigerator. But Valdez, anticipating the cold Chicago weather, heated water for his tea in the microwave. Both men had removed their jackets and golf caps for the flight.

Back in his seat, Valdez put his teacup on the fold-down writ
ing table and finished stirring in sugar. When he finished stirring he stared for a moment at the bull’s-eye turbulence in the teacup. Valdez looked up from his cup, across to Hanley. If he were flying with any
one else he might have commented about the bull’s-eye as an imagined scene from a disaster flick. The tea in the cup bull’s-eyed by a defect in one of the engines. But he knew Hanley was much too serious a person for such a comment.

They sat in the middle two swivel chairs. The other four swivel chairs and the aft fixed seat were empty. The only others on the plane were the pilot and copilot behind the closed partition. Valdez looked
out the starboard window while sipping his tea, trying in vain to spot lights from cities along the east coast. When he turned his chair to ward the port side of the plane, he saw that Hanley had finished his iced tea and had put the tall glass on his writing table.

Valdez did not have to speak loudly to be heard above the gentle whine of the engines. “You’re going to have to use the facilities with that much tea in you.”

Hanley swiveled his chair. “I’ve never been in this model. Where are the facilities?”

Valdez pointed aft. “You lift up that seat in back. There’s a di
vider that slides across.”

“At our age we need to plan these things in advance,” said Hanley. “If I drink up early in the flight I’ll have time to empty it out a little at a time past my swollen prostate during the remainder of the flight.”

“Good thinking,” said Valdez, toasting Hanley with his teacup.

“How is security on this plane?” asked Hanley.

“Security?”

“You know what I mean. Word was they recorded these flights.”

“That was long ago,” said Valdez. “A couple administrations back they were that worried about special prosecutors. As far as I know none of the recordings were ever used and the new director had them destroyed.”

“Good,” said Hanley. “I don’t know how they expected anyone to get any work done.”

“I took a couple flights back then,” said Valdez. “It was very quiet on board.”

“I can imagine.”

Valdez took a gulp of tea and put his cup down on his writing table. He reclined his chair slightly and leaned back. “So, are we going to go over things before we both doze off?”

Hanley reclined his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Yes.”

“And?” asked Valdez.

“I feel like I’m sitting in a dentist’s chair,” said Hanley.

“I’m the dentist, ready to pull your teeth, is that it?”

Hanley turned and smiled. “Unfortunately, I have no teeth to pull. Full dentures.”

“I’ve got all my teeth,” said Valdez. “A lot of caps, but I’ve still got the roots.”

“Any root canals?”

“A couple.”

They both sat in silence for a time, listening to the whine of the jets. Hanley continued looking toward Valdez. Valdez looked out the starboard window again, saw only darkness, turned back to Hanley.

“Kindly tell me something,” said Valdez. “Have you had a stroke or is there another reason for the delay?”

Hanley smiled. “I’m savoring it for a while. It’s been nice being one of a handful to know what went on in Chicago in 1980.”

“I thought you said this had to do with Presidential politics,” said Valdez.

“It does,” said Hanley, turning toward the port window for a mo
ment, then turning back. “Carter was President. Do you remember the high interest rates and the oil crisis?”

Valdez did not answer.

“Of course you do. We’re both old enough to remember. The speech Carter gave in 1977 was about sacrifice. He wanted all of us to use less oil. He wanted the nation to become energy independent. But if that had happened, energy prices would have plummeted. Busi nessmen, a lot of them from Texas, stood to lose billions during the following decades if Americans became conservers of energy. Ironic, isn’t it? Conservatives threatened by conservation. Anyway, a group
of influential business leaders determined that the best thing for busi ness, and, in their minds, for the country, would be for Carter to be defeated by Reagan.”

When Hanley paused, Valdez said, “And he was.”

“Right,” said Hanley. “But there was a plan set in motion to guar
antee it. Early in the campaign, Reagan’s victory was not assured. The plan was to make sure it happened.”

“How?” asked Valdez.

“Illinois.”

“They were going to steal votes in Illinois?”

“Not exactly,” said Hanley. “If Illinois went to Reagan, then he would win for sure.”

“As I recall, Illinois did go to Reagan, along with most other states.”

“Correct,” said Hanley. “However, there was a plan in place to send the Illinois results to the courts if need be. If Illinois had gone to Carter, massive corruption would have been uncovered in the Chicago area counties.”

“So that’s where the Gianetti family comes in?”

“That’s where Antonio Gianetti Senior came in,” said Hanley. “Back then he was still powerful enough to influence highly placed Democrats. Over the years, Gianetti corrupted them. If, after the 1980 results were in, they had been needed, Gianetti was in a position to leverage a win for Reagan in the state.”

“How would he have done it?” asked Valdez.

“The highly placed Democrats, in order to save their own hides, would have uncovered so-called corruption in the ranks below them. So much so it would have opened up a court case that was positioned to go Republican.”

“Why would Gianetti have gotten involved? I know he was a fan of Reagan, but a mobster’s got to have more reason than that.”

“You’re right,” said Hanley. “Even adding in the fact that Carter called for an assault on organized crime, there had to be more reason for Gianetti to put the Chicago mob on the line. As has been said so many times in the past, what you have to do in this case is follow the money.”

Hanley leaned forward, picked up his glass and drank down the water from melted ice cubes. He put the glass down, glanced back to
ward the aft of the plane at the fixed seat beneath which the hidden toilet waited, turned back to Valdez, smiled, and continued.

“If you recall, there was a huge drug bust in Chicago about that time. An equivalent street value in excess of a quarter billion dollars was confiscated. But the money that needs to be followed in order to find out what really happened was never recovered.”

“And the money is still out there?” asked Valdez.

“It is,” said Hanley.

“So what you’re saying is someone supplied drugs and money to set up a phony drug deal so the mob could walk away with the funds to guarantee Illinois to Reagan.”

“Not exactly,” said Hanley. “The original arrangement was that the mob would walk away with the drugs. But when the drugs were confiscated, they took the money instead. And, because he had the most leverage, Gianetti kept the bulk of it. On the whole he did pretty well for himself, managing to keep most of it out of the hands of his cronies, both in the mob and in law enforcement, and hiding it away for his heirs.”

“I see,” said Valdez. “And now, with remnants of the Chicago mob trying to get their hands on the money, some very important people, who stand to lose their shirts if this ever came out, are becom
ing nervous.”

“You’ve got it,” said Hanley. “Very important people. Most of
them spending a good portion of their year in Washington.”

“There’s one more thing,” said Valdez.

“What’s that?”

“Exactly who funneled the money and the drugs to the Gianetti family?”

Hanley smiled more broadly, then turned toward the dark win
dow. After a moment, he turned back to Valdez, nodded, stood with a grimace, and walked slowly toward the back of the plane.

“Time for a pit stop,” said Hanley, before sliding the divider shut.

When Hanley came back from his “pit stop” he settled into his chair and continued where he had left off.

“The money,” said Hanley, “had been set aside over a period of years. It came from special investigation budgets that somehow man
aged to go under budget at the agency.”

“What about the drugs?” asked Valdez. “Where did that come from?”

“During the seventies, the drugs had been confiscated from flights originating in South America and the Far East. Coincidently, and conveniently, the drugs in question were warehoused for many years outside Chicago. Officially, the confiscated shipments were recorded as having been destroyed.”

Hanley took his glass and downed the remainder of the melted cubes. After putting the glass down he reclined his chair.

“That’s all there is to it?” asked Valdez.

“Pretty much so,” said Hanley. “In short, you and I have been as
signed to close down the search for the money and to make sure no one else knows how any of this originated. The hoods are in it now.

They’ve taken out our first contact and our second contact is floun
dering. The agency needs to be certain that, in the process of going after the money, the hoods don’t, as they used to say in mob parlance, upset the apple cart.”

“So they send in two old men,” said Valdez.

“Yep,” said Hanley. “It’s better not to involve more people who might begin to wonder how this thing originated.”

Valdez smiled. “Two old farts with not much to lose.”

“You’ve got a point there,” said Hanley. “But look at it this way. Who better to be seen at a rehabilitation facility than two old farts?”

“What makes you think the hoods will go back there?”

“They have to because the detective holds the key to what they’re after. Or at least they think he holds the key.”

“Should we see about our number one contact when we get to Chicago?” asked Valdez.

“No,” said Hanley. “I’m told he won’t be able to help. But we might run into the young and lovely Maria. She’s been told to return to the rehabilitation facility to watch the detective. A babe watching a Babe.”

Hanley’s smile irritated Valdez. Hanley continued.

“By the way, did someone from Langley send you the photographs of the hoods?”

“They did,” said Valdez.

“And you committed them to memory so we’ll know who’s who?”

“I did.”

“Good. So did I.”

Valdez turned back to the starboard window beside his chair. The cloud cover had cleared somewhat and in the distance, at the horizon beyond the wing, he saw the lights of a city. Depending on the route the Learjet had taken, it could be Knoxville or Winston-Salem.

As he stared out at the lights on the horizon, Valdez recalled the photographs of Max Lamberti and his cronies, but he also recalled the photograph he’d seen at the Miami office of the contact named Maria. A slender young woman with dark hair and eyes. A young woman who could pass for a college student or a nurse or the daughter of a stroke patient. A young Hispanic woman who could have been his daughter if he and his wife had had children.

He glanced away from the window and saw across the aisle that Hanley had closed his eyes. Judging from the smile on Hanley’s face, Valdez assumed he, too, was envisioning the young woman. A girl, really. A girl whose photograph reminded Valdez so much of his wife years earlier when they first met.

With memories of his wife at various ages playing back in his mind, Valdez turned back to his window and looked out. Only now he envisioned another woman. A more mature Maria, whom he had met several times at Hanley’s house in Naples. Maria, the woman who had made her way into his dreams of late, pushing the image of his late wife aside.