The Bourne ultimatum (48 page)

“Please don’t give orders to me,” said the attorney from one of Wall Street’s most prestigious firms. “You’re really not in a position to do that,
wop
.”

“Hey,
farabutto
! You don’t talk to me like that!”

“I’ll talk to you any way I like. ... On the outside, and to your credit in negotiations, you’re a very masculine, very macho fellow.” The lawyer calmly uncrossed and crossed his legs. “But the inside’s quite different, isn’t it? You’ve got a soft heart, or should I say hard loins, for pretty young men.”

“
Silenzio
!” The Italian shot forward on the couch.

“I have no wish to exploit the information. On the other hand, I don’t believe Gay Rights are very high on the Cosa Nostra’s agenda, do you?”

“You son of a
bitch
!”

“You know, when I was a young army lawyer in Saigon, I defended a career lieutenant who was caught
in flagrante delicto
with a Vietnamese boy, a male prostitute obviously. Through legal maneuvers, using ambiguous phrases in the military code regarding civilians, I saved him from a dishonorable discharge, but it was obvious that he had to resign from the service. Unfortunately, he never went on to a productive life; he shot himself two hours after the verdict. You see, he’d become a pariah, a disgrace before his peers and he couldn’t handle the burden.”

“Get on with your business,” said the capo supremo named Louis, his voice low and flat and filled with hatred.

“Thank you. ... First, I left an envelope on your. foyer table. It contains payment for Armbruster’s tragic confrontation in Georgetown and Teagarten’s equally tragic assassination in Brussels.”

“According to the yid head doctor,” interrupted the mafioso, “you got two more they know about. An ambassador in London and that admiral on the Joint Chiefs. You wanna add another bonus?”

“Possibly later, not now. They both know very little and nothing about the financial operations. Burton thinks that we’re essentially an ultraconservative veterans’ lobbying effort that grew out of the Vietnam disgrace—legally borderline for him, but then he has strong patriotic feelings. Atkinson’s a rich dilettante; he does what he’s told, but he doesn’t know why or by whom. He’d do anything to hold on to the Court of Saint James’s and has; his only connection was with Teagarten. ... Conklin hit pay dirt with Swayne and Armbruster, Teagarten and, of course, DeSole, but the other two are window dressing, quite respectable window dressing. I wonder how it happened.”

“When I find out, and I
will
find out, I’ll let you know, gratis.”

“Oh?” The attorney raised his eyebrows. “How?”

“We’ll get to it. What’s your other business?”

“Two items, both vital, and the first I’ll give
you
—gratis. Get rid of your current boyfriend. He goes to places he shouldn’t and throws money around like a cheap hoodlum. We’re told he boasts about his connections in high places. We don’t know what else he talks about or what he knows or what he’s pieced together, but he concerns us. I’d think he’d concern you, too.”

“
Il prostitute
!” roared Louis, slamming his clenched fist down on the arm of the couch. “
Il pinguino
! He’s dead.”

“I accept your thanks. The other item is far more important, certainly to us. Swayne’s house in Manassas. A book was removed, an office diary, which Swayne’s lawyer in Manassas—our lawyer in Manassas—could not find. It was on a bookshelf, its binding identical with all the other books in that row, the entire row on the shelf. A person would have to know exactly which one to take.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“The gardener was your man. He was put in place to do his job, and he was given the only number we knew was totally secure, namely, DeSole’s.”

“
So
?”

“To do his job, to mount the suicide authentically, he had to study Swayne’s every move. You yourself explained that to me ad nauseam when you demanded your outrageous fee. It’s not hard to picture your man peering through the window at Swayne in his study, the place where Swayne supposedly would take his life. Gradually your man realizes that the general keeps taking a specific book from off his shelf, writes in it, and returns it to the same spot. That has to intrigue him; that particular book has to be valuable. Why wouldn’t he take it? I would,
you
would. So where is it?”

The mafioso got slowly, menacingly to his feet. “Listen to me,
avvocato
, you gotta lot of fancy words that make for conclusions, but we ain’t got no book like that and I’ll tell you how I can
prove
it! If there was anything anywhere written down that could burn your ass, I’d be shoving it in your face right now,
capisce
?”

“That’s not illogical,” said the well-dressed attorney, once again uncrossing and crossing his legs as the resentful capo sullenly returned to the couch. “Flannagan,” added the Wall Street lawyer. “Naturally ... of course,
Flannagan
. He and his hairdresser bitch had to have their insurance policy, no doubt with minor extortion in the bargain. Actually, I’m relieved. They could never use it without exposing themselves. Accept my apologies, Louis.”

“Your business finished?”

“I believe so.”

“Now, the Jew shrink.”

“What about him?”

“Like I said, he’s a gold mine.”

“Without his patients’ files, less than twenty-four carat, I think.”

“Then you think wrong,” countered Louis. “Like I told Armbruster before he became another big impediment for you, we got doctors, too. Specialists in all kinds of medical things, including what they call motor responses and, get this, ‘triggered mental recall under states of external control’—I remembered that one especially. It’s a whole different kind of gun at your head, only no blood.”

“I assume there’s a point to this.”

“You can bet your country club on it. We’re moving the Jew to a place in Pennsylvania, a kind of nursing home where only the richest people go to get dried out or straightened out, if ya know what I mean.”

“I believe I do. Advanced medical equipment, superior staff—well-patrolled grounds.”

“Yeah, sure you do. A lot of your crowd passes through—”

“Go on,” interrupted the attorney, looking at his gold Rolex watch. “I haven’t much time.”

“Make time for this. According to my specialists—and I purposely used the word ‘my,’ if you follow me—on a prearranged schedule, say every fourth or fifth day, the new patient is ‘shot up to the moon’—that’s the phrase they use, it’s not mine, Christ knows. Between times he’s been treated real good. He’s been fed the right neutermints or whatever they are, given the proper exercise, a lot of sleep and all the rest of that shit. ... We should all be so careful of our bodies, right,
avvocato
?”

“Some of us play squash every other day.”

“Well, you’ll forgive me, Mr. Park Avenue, Manhattan, but squash to me is zucchini and I eat it.”

“Linguistic and cultural differences do crop up, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I can’t fault you there, Consigliere.”

“Hardly. And my title is attorney.”

“Give me time. It could be Consigliere.”

“There’s not enough years in our lifetimes, Louis. Do you go on or do I leave?”

“I go on, Mr.
Attorney
. ... So each time the Jew shrink is shot up to that moon my specialist talks about, he’s in pretty good shape, right?”

“I see the periodic remissions to normalcy, but then I’m not a doctor.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but then I’m not a doctor, either, so I’ll take my specialist’s word for it. You see, every time he’s shot up, his mind is pretty clear inside, and then he’s fed name after name after name. A lot, maybe most, won’t mean a thing, but every now and then one will, and then another, and another. With each, they start what they call a probe, finding out bits and pieces of information, just enough to get a sketch of the patient he’s talking about—just enough to scare the shit out of that lasagna when he’s reached. Remember, these are stressful times and this Hebe doctor treats some of the fattest cats in Washington, in and outside the government. How does that grab you, Mr. Attorney?”

“It’s certainly unique,” replied the guest slowly, studying the capo supremo. “His files, of course, would be infinitely preferable.”

“Yeah, well, like I say, we’re working on that, but it’ll take time. This is now,
immediato
. He’ll be in Pennsylvania in a couple of hours. You want to deal? You and me?”

“Over what? Something you don’t have and may never get?”

“Hey, come on, what do you think I am?”

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear that—”

“Cut the crap. Say in a day or so, maybe a week, we meet, and I give you a list of names I think you might be interested in, all of which we got information on—let’s say information not readily available. You pick one or two or maybe none, what can you lose? We’re talkin’ spitballs anyway, ’cause the deal’s between you and me only. No one else is involved except my specialist and his assistant who don’t know you and you don’t know them.”

“A side arrangement, as it were?”

“Not as it were, like it is. Depending on the information, I’ll figure out the charge. It may only be a thou or two, or it may go to twenty, or it may be gratis, who knows? I’d be fair because I want your business,
capisce
?”

“It’s very interesting.”

“You know what my specialist says? He says we could start our own cottage industry, he called it. Snatch a dozen shrinks, all with heavy government connections, like in the Senate or even the White House—”

“I understand fully,” interrupted the attorney, getting to his feet, “but my time’s up. ... Bring me a list, Louis.” The guest walked toward the short marble foyer.

“No fancy attaché case, Signor Avvocato?” said the capo, rising from the couch.

“And upset the not so delicate mechanisms in your doorway?”

“Hey, it’s a violent world out there.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

The Wall Street attorney left, and at the sound of the closing door, Louis rushed across the room to the inlaid Queen Anne desk and virtually pounced on the ivory French telephone—as usual, tipping over the tall thin instrument twice before securing the stem with one hand while dialing with the other. “Fucking swish horn!” he mumbled. “Goddamned fairy decorator! ...
Mario
?”

“Hello, Lou,” said the pleasant voice in New Rochelle. “I’ll bet you called to wish Anthony a happy birthday, huh?”

“Who?”

“My kid, Anthony. He’s fifteen today, did you forget? The whole family’s out in the garden and we miss you, Cousin. And hey, Lou, what a garden this year. I’m a real artist.”

“You also may be something else.”

“What?”

“Buy Anthony a present and send me the bill. At fifteen, maybe a broad. He’s ready for manhood.”

“Lou, you’re too much. There are other things—”

“There’s only
one
thing now, Mario, and I want the truth from your lips or I’ll carve them out of your face!”

There was a brief pause from New Rochelle before the pleasant-sounding executioner spoke. “I don’t deserve to be talked to that way,
cugino
.”

“Maybe, maybe not. There was a book taken from that general’s place in Manassas, a very valuable book.”

“They found out it was missing, huh?”

“Holy
shit
! You got it?”

“I
had
it, Lou. It was going to be a present to you, but I lost it.”

“You
lost
it? What the fuck did you do, leave it in a ‘
taxi
’?”

“No, I was running for my life, that maniac with the flares, what’s his name, Webb, unloading at me in the driveway. He grazed me and I fell and the lousy book flew out of my hand—just as the police car arrived. He picked it up and I ran like hell for the fence.”

“
Webb’s
got it?”

“I guess so.”

“Christ on a trampoline ... !”

“Anything else, Lou? We’re about to light the candles on the cake.”

“Yeah, Mario, I may need you in Washington—a big cannoli without a foot but with a book.”

“Hey, wait a minute,
cugino
, you know my rules. Always a month between business trips. What did Manassas take? Six weeks? And last May in Key West, three, almost four weeks? I can’t call, I can’t write a postcard—no, Lou, always a month. I got responsibilities to Angie and the children. I’m not going to be an absentee parent; they’ve got to have a role model, you know what I mean?”

“I got Ozzie Nelson for a fuckin’ cousin!” Louis slammed down the phone, and instantly grabbed it as it crashed over on the desk, its delicate ivory stem displaying a crack. “The best hit man in the business and he’s a freak,” mumbled the capo supremo as he dialed frantically. When the line was picked up, the anxiety and the anger disappeared from his voice; it was not apparent but it had not gone away. “Hello, Frankie baby, how’s my closest friend?”

“Oh, hi, Lou,” came the floating, but hesitant, languorous tones from an expensive apartment in Greenwich Village. “Can I call you back in two minutes? I’m just putting my mother into a cab to take her back to Jersey. Okay?”

“Sure, kid. Two minutes.”
Mother
? The whore!
Il pinguino
! Louis walked to his mirrored marble bar with the pink angels flying over the Lalique inset above the whisky bottles. He poured himself a drink and took several calming swallows. The bar phone rang. “Yeah?” he said, carefully picking up the fragile crystal instrument.

“It’s me, Lou. Frankie. I said good-bye to Mama.”

“That’s a good boy, Frankie. Never forget your mama.”

“Oh, I never do, Lou. You taught me that. You told me you gave your mama the biggest funeral they ever saw in East Hartford.”

“Yeah, I bought the fuckin’ church, man.”

“Real nice, real nice.”

“Now let’s get to something else real nice, okay? It’s been one of those days, Frankie, lots of turmoil, you know what I mean?”

“Sure, Lou.”

“So I got an itch. I gotta get some relief. Come on over here, Frankie.”

“As fast as a cab can take me, Lou.”