Hire a Hangman (26 page)

Hastings nodded. “You haven’t heard about Operation Fingerprint, I guess.”

Canelli frowned. “Operation Fingerprint?” Turning, he anxiously scanned his superior officer’s face. Had he missed something, some essential interdepartment bulletin?

In return, Hastings smiled. “Don’t worry, Canelli.” Quickly he outlined Friedman’s plan to lift fingerprints for a match-up of prints found on the cartridges in the Llama’s clip. As he spoke, he saw Friedman leave the van and cross to their cruiser. Grunting laboriously, Friedman got in the rear seat as both Hastings and Canelli turned to face him.

“So?” Friedman asked. “Anything?”

“According to Dolores,” Hastings said, “Vance might’ve bought the gun. Sixty percent, she says.”

“Sixty percent, eh?” It was a skeptical question, dubiously asked. Then, gesturing to the apartment building, Friedman asked, “Is Vance in there?”

“I don’t know,” Hastings answered. “He came in at about a quarter to eight. That’s when Dolores Chavez eyeballed him. I got here about eight-fifteen. I tried to call him on my car phone, but all I got was a machine.”

“Maybe he’s screening his calls. Could you get into the lobby, try his buzzer?”

“I didn’t want to stir him up.”

“So we could be shooting a blank here. If he’s at home, it’s no go. And it sounds like he’s at home.”

Hastings shrugged. “There’s no guarantees in this line of work. Or have you forgotten?”

“Is the back covered?”

“No. Are you all set to go?”

“Yes. We’ve already done Pfiefer,” Friedman said. “No sweat. Except that I got a couple of drug dealers’ radios from the property room. And they’re not all that great. I got a good lock person, though.”

“Lock person?”

“A lady locksmith,” Friedman answered. “Very nicely packaged. She said she worked with you a few weeks ago. Another, uh, touchy job, up on Nob Hill. Illegal entry, in other words.”

“Ah.” Remembering, Hastings smiled, nodded. “Nicely packaged, no question.”

“Okay.” With the air of an executive getting down to business, Friedman leaned forward, spoke crisply, concisely. “I’ve got Alan Bernhardt and the lock lady and a fingerprint guy in the van, Bernhardt and I have civilian walkie-talkies, like I said. At Pfiefer’s, I got a couple of precinct guys to cover the front and back. We rang Pfiefer’s bell, and got no answer. Pfiefer lives in an apartment building about like this one”—he gestured to Vance’s building—“only fancier. Sylvia, the lock person, and Bernhardt—they were posing as a locksmith team, if anyone got curious—they let themselves into the lobby, no sweat. They also got into Pfiefer’s luxury apartment, no sweat. Bernhardt picked up a couple of drinking glasses, took them down to the van, got the prints lifted. He replaced the glasses and got out, everything as slick as a whistle. So—” Friedman gestured. “So that’s what we’re going to do here, same plan. Let’s use surveillance channel three. Canelli, you take the back, and tell us when you’re in position.”

“Yessir.”

“Okay.” Friedman swung open the car’s door. “Let’s do it.”

8:52
PM

He opened the big steel-clad door marked
REAR STAIRWAY
, glanced back down the deserted corridor, then stepped through the heavy door, letting it close slowly on its pneumatic cylinder. He stood motionless on the textured steel landing for a moment, listening. Silence. He touched the unfamiliar cold steel bulk of the pistol thrust into his belt, zipped up his leather jacket over the pistol’s bulge, and began slowly descending the staircase. On the metal stairs, the sound of his running shoes was muted.

The three flights of the service stairs were functionally lit: large incandescent bulbs protected by wire cages. At the first-floor landing, one door led outside, one led to the garage. Slowly, cautiously, he drew the huge bolt that secured the outside door. He rotated the knob, pulled the steel-clad door open. Once outside, he eased the door closed on a book of matches. If no one used the utility door during the time he was gone, then he would return this way. Otherwise he would walk to the front of the building and enter through the lobby.

He was standing in a paved accessway that led to the street. He wore a “Save the Whales” baseball cap, and was careful not to look up at the windows above as he walked quickly to the street, where he’d parked the Buick. As he walked, he took the set of rental-car keys from his pocket: two keys attached to a large plastic tag. Did he have his regular keys? Yes, he must have them; otherwise he couldn’t have locked the apartment when he left.

Had
he locked the door when he left? Specifically, precisely, he couldn’t remember. But habit was like that: the conscious act became subconscious rote. And, yes, in his left pocket, where he always kept them, he felt the reassuring bulk of his regular keys. The keys were strung on a key ring she’d given him last Christmas. A stocking stuffer, she’d called it. Fourteen-karat gold.

The keys in this pocket, the big nickel-plated pistol in his belt: both of them symbols. One symbolizing security. One symbolizing a way out.

He was standing beside the Buick, which was parked on the street, half a block from the accessway. Strangely, he couldn’t remember walking from the utility door. It was as if he’d somehow levitated from the door of the building to the Buick. Yet he could remember the smells of the accessway, the bits of garbage and refuse left by the garbage trucks.

What was the word for the sense of smell? Olfactory? Yes, olfactory. On a quiz show, that random bit of knowledge might win a prize.

The first key worked in the Buick’s door on the driver’s side. He swung the door open and looked up and down the quiet street before he slid into the car. He was careful to keep the keys in his hand, ready to insert into the ignition. Once, years ago, he’d lost the keys to a rental car. He’d had to wait for two hours, until a man on a three-wheel motorcycle brought him a new set of keys.

Now, in the warm September night with the stars just emerging in the darkness overhead, two hours would be a lifetime, the end of everything.

A lifetime?

Or two lifetimes?

He put the key in the ignition, trod twice on the accelerator, twisted the key. Instantly the engine came to life. General Motors. His salvation. He switched on the headlights, maneuvered out of the parking space, carefully checked the traffic, and drove into the stream of light traffic. He would be a little late arriving at the yacht harbor. Five minutes late, maybe more, depending on traffic. Why? For this most important meeting of his life, why was he running late?

It was the gun—whether or not to keep the gun. The gun could endanger him; the gun could save him. Pick a number, take a chance. If they found the gun on him, he would be finished. But if he left it behind, and they found it and tested it for ballistics, they would surely arrest him for murder. So he must throw the gun down a sewer, or into the ocean from the seawall beside the yacht harbor.

But without the gun, the big, lethal .45 automatic, he couldn’t protect himself, defend himself, save himself. And so, standing with his hand on the doorknob of his hallway door, immobilized, knowing he’d be late, he’d tried to decide. But indecision followed indecision, compounding. In minutes—only seconds, perhaps—he’d felt utterly exhausted, as if all his energy had been short-circuited, drained away by the agony of indecision. Leaving him here in this strange car, driving through the warm September night with the pistol thrust in his waistband.

9:15
PM

Crouched awkwardly below the window line of the surveillance van, Friedman keyed the walkie-talkie.

“Alan. How do you hear?” He released the Transmit button, listened to the crackle of static, tried again.

“Maybe you should get out of the van,” Hastings offered. “All this metal doesn’t help.”

Impatiently, Friedman shook his head. “Wrong. I’ve got the goddamn thing hooked into the van’s outside antenna. The problem is these concrete buildings, all that reinforcing steel.”

“Too bad we can’t use our radios.”

Friedman shrugged, tried Bernhardt again. “Maybe they’re in the elevator. I think elevators are the worst of all.” He tried once more. This time, faintly, a scratchy voice answered.

“Yeah. Pete. Gotcha. Out.”

“Maybe he’s in the corridor,” Hastings offered, “and doesn’t want to talk too loud.”

Without comment, Friedman nodded. Beside him, with his equipment arrayed on a small fold-down table, John Ames, the lab’s senior fingerprint technician, yawned as he glanced at his watch. In the driver’s seat, Hastings switched on the van’s radio to the surveillance channel, keyed the microphone, which he held in the palm of his hand. “Canelli. How do you hear?”

“Loud and clear, Lieutenant.”

“They’re inside the building.”

“But they aren’t on this channel. Right?”

“Right. They’ve got civilian equipment. So you communicate through me.”

“Roger.”

“What’s your position?”

“I’m parked across from a dead-end alleyway that leads to the utility area. It’s the only entrance to the building back here. Is the subject inside his apartment?”

“We don’t know yet. Bernhardt’ll ring the bell, then he’ll go inside if the apartment’s empty. That’s what he should be doing right—” Hearing Friedman talk into the walkie-talkie, Hastings broke off, listened for a moment. Then: “Bernhardt’s inside, Canelli. So Vance obviously left. Bernhardt’s going to give the place a light toss for the gun. Then he’ll find a couple of drinking glasses, things like that, bring them out to be printed. Then he’ll put the stuff back. So it’ll be fifteen minutes, something like that. Clear?”

“Yessir.”

Hastings switched off the microphone and turned to Friedman, who was glowering as he unwrapped a cigar, dropped the wrappings on the floor of the van, and jammed the unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth. This mannerism, Hastings knew, was one of the few visible indications that Friedman was irritated.

“I
think
Bernhardt’s inside. Mostly what I got was static, with a voice saying something.”

“Well,” Hastings offered, “if he isn’t inside the apartment, then he’ll be out in a couple of minutes, probably. So relax.”

“Hmmm.”

9:20
PM

She was looking past him, beyond him, out over the waters of the bay. Even though the dockside light was dim, he could clearly see her eyes. Stranger’s eyes. Once lovers. Strangers now. Bound together now by fear, a bond stronger than love.

Love?

No, not love.

A compulsion, yes. An addiction, certainly. But not love. He knew that now. Too late, he knew that now.

From the nearby yacht club came the sound of laughter, counterpointing the sound of music: soft, civilized rock, carefully calculated to please the younger yacht-club members without jangling the nerves of the affluent oldsters.

The Sound of Music …

It was a movie made more than twenty years ago, in a distant age of innocence. His innocence. Lost.

Lost …

A squeeze of the trigger, blossoms of blood spreading on a shapeless cotton housedress, and everything had changed. Forever lost.

He saw her eyes shift, saw her expression change, sensed her body stiffen as she said, “You can’t leave. If you leave, they’ll know. Don’t you see that, for God’s sake? They’ll
know.”

“If I don’t leave, they’re going to arrest me. I can see it in Hastings’s eyes. I can hear it in his voice. He’s already questioned me twice. Both times, he asked about you—about us.” As the words registered, he saw her stiffen. Had he planned this—planned to frighten her, therefore to test her? Or did he only want to rouse her, break through her reserve, anything to spark those calm, cold eyes. Even making love, even in climax, her jaw clenched, teeth exposed, head thrown back, eyes tightly closed, her reserve was never threatened, never breached—never shared.

Strangers, standing on a dark, deserted dock.

Slowly, deliberately, she turned to face him. She was frowning slightly, as if she were troubled by some small, trivial problem. She spoke slowly, precisely. “How much does Hastings know about us? How much did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything. But he—he knew. God knows how.” His voice, he realized, was rising, thinning. In response, he saw contempt chill her eyes.
The eyes are the windows of the soul,
someone had written. How long ago had it been since he’d first lost himself in these eyes?

Lost then, out of passion …

Lost now, out of fear.

“Have you still got the gun?” she was asking.

He nodded, reflexively touched the bulge beneath his jacket. Following the gesture, her eyes widened. “You’ve got it now?”

Was she frightened? For the first time, frightened?

“If I’m going to run, it doesn’t matter. I’ll need a gun.”

“It
does
matter.” She spoke urgently, sibilantly. “They can compare the bullets. It’s all they’d need.”

“In Mexico, it won’t matter.”

“Mexico …” She pronounced the word as if it were an obscenity.

“I need money.”

“You
need money?” Contemptuously, she was mocking him.
“You?”

“It’s Friday night. I’d have to wait until Monday to get some money.”

“Are you asking me for money? Is that why we’re here?”

“I need ten thousand. At least.”

“If you can’t get it before Monday, neither can I.”

“You could, if you wanted to do it. But you won’t. Will you?”

“I don’t want you to run. If you run, it’ll lead them to me.”

“Then come with me. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

“It’s like signing a confession if you leave. Don’t you see that, for God’s sake?”

“They won’t know until I’m already in Mexico. I’ve already thought of a name. Charles Wade. Beginning tomorrow, at the airport, I’m Charles Wade. But I’ve got to have cash. Credit cards can be traced. You’ve got to get me some cash.”

“You’re crazy.” She spoke quietly, coldly matter-of-fact. Emphasizing:
“Crazy.”

“They won’t arrest you. They’ll come for me, not you. So you can still talk. But I’ve got to act. I’ve got to act before they act. They—Christ—they could be following me right now.”