The Lasko Tangent (23 page)

I remembered the other car. I wrenched the door open, half-falling. Then I righted myself and rolled out.

I heard no one. I crouched by the car, in the dark. It was as silent as a prairie night. Our beams were gone. Scattered out of earshot were distant lights from offices and row houses. The only near brightness was the green car’s headlights, piercing the gloom like hunter’s lamps. Their car had done a full flip and righted itself precariously over a ditch.

Still no traffic. It seemed that I was the only man on earth, come to visit a dead car. I waited. Then I took a few aching treads toward the green car, half-bent and nauseous. No sound or movement. I edged slowly toward the driver’s side, afraid of what I’d see.

What I saw first was the driver. He slumped, mouth mashed into the steering wheel trickling blood, his staring eyes completely blank. His neck had snapped. His arms hung awkwardly, like a large coat on a small hanger.

I looked up at the night. Then I butted my head in the direction of the car and looked again. He had been a stocky man with a red bulbous nose. My head gave a quick little bob, involuntarily, like a hiccup. I looked away.

But there was the second man. I crossed the front of the car while the dead driver inspected me. I saw a gun, then a leg, then him. His face was raw and scraped open beneath the crew cut and he was sprawled on his back, in the awkward attitude of death. His right hand was stretched carelessly toward the gun, as if he had thrown it away.

The man’s eyes gave me another once-over. I looked back toward the driver. Once they had surely been cold and efficient. Now they were about ninety bucks worth of lab chemicals, counting inflation. Because I had been lucky. I bent, wincing, and carefully picked up the gun.

The whir of a motor broke in. I squinted down the road. The headlights grew larger, coming from the direction we’d taken. I clicked off the safety on the handgun and stepped out to the road.

The car stopped and a middle-aged man stepped out, wearing black tie and a dinner jacket. A woman was in the car. I put the gun in my pocket and walked up.

The man had glasses and a worried moon-face. He peered out at the cars. “What happened?”

“They tried to run us off the road,” I said. “My passenger is badly hurt. What we need is an ambulance and Lieutenant Di Pietro of the Boston police. Homicide.”

“What is this?” he asked warily.

“Look, we need help. Please.”

He thought about it, too long. The panicky fear hit me that Martinson would die, for no reason, to punish my own arrogance. I moved toward the man. “If you let him die—”

He stiffened. “OK, I’ll call when we get to a phone.” He made a tardy effort at good fellowship. “Everyone else all right?”

I pointed wearily to the car. “Except for the dead guys.”

He stared, appalled. Driving cheerfully to a party, and instead to find this. But he got me to repeat Di Pietro’s name, gave some hurried assurances, and drove off.

They got there in about ten minutes, in a fanfare of sirens and flashing lights. A squad car, an ambulance, and two wreckers. What they found was me holding Martinson and sitting by the road, looking like an orphan.

Di Pietro was with two cops. He walked toward me. I pointed silently at the dead men. Di Pietro gave them a quick look. He didn’t need a long one.

The ambulance crew bent over Martinson. He was still out. I stood and let them work. Di Pietro drifted back, wearing his impassive mask. “You all right?” he asked, sounding sheepish.

I handed him the gun. “Just shook up and a little bruised.”

“How did this start?”

The ambulance crew was still kneeling. I pointed in their direction. “That’s Peter Martinson.”

Di Pietro’s eyes followed mine. “You visited the sanitarium,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You know,” he went on quietly, “I should have listened.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

His eyes dismissed the subject. “Give me a rundown.”

I did that, starting with Loring. Di Pietro folded his arms, asking an occasional question. In five minutes he was caught up.

The driver had been scooped on a stretcher. We watched them cart him to the ambulance. “What about him?” Di Pietro asked.

“I don’t know either one of them.”

He looked thoughtfully at the ambulance. “Well,” he finally said, “we’d better get your statement.”

The cops finished cleaning, leaving it just another patch of darkness. Then they took Martinson to the hospital and me to a squad car. The crew-cut man was last. They carried him by on a stretcher, covered with blankets. I didn’t look.

Thirty-One

We went to the same dim, green room where I had given the statement on Lehman. Di Pietro leaned in a corner while I sat in a folding chair and went through it again for the police stenographer. This stenographer didn’t smile. I wouldn’t have either.

Di Pietro stepped out and came back with a report on Martinson. The bullet wound was superficial but he was still unconscious, and they didn’t know yet how bad that was, whether there was brain damage, or when he would come out of it. I asked all the questions I could think of. Di Pietro was patient and sympathetic.

The sympathy was for both Martinson and me. “He’s no help to you now,” Di Pietro summarized in a glum tone. “And they don’t know whether he ever will be. What we’ve got now is your hearsay about what Martinson told you. That might help get an indictment, but it’s not admissible in court.”

I nodded. “Even if he wakes up, Martinson may decide after all this that it’s better to shut up and take his lumps. I don’t know that I could blame him if he did. And Lasko will have succeeded.” I felt my hands shaking. “Got a cigarette?”

He stepped out and came back with one from the front desk. “I haven’t seen you smoke,” he said, handing it to me.

“I haven’t in years. This seems like a good night to start.”

He nodded. “You were lucky.”

“I know.” I lit the cigarette. It tasted hot, and the smoke seemed to fog my brain.

Di Pietro went on. “If those two guys hadn’t been killed, they would have killed you. But that leaves us without witnesses to work on maybe tracing this thing back to Lasko.”

“You know, they match the description of the men Martinson said snatched him off St. Maarten.”

He nodded. “We’ll try to identify them, see if we can tie them to Lasko some way or another. And we’re going to check the shopping center where that car that killed Lehman was stolen. Maybe someone saw them there.”

“So where does that leave Lasko?”

“I can question him,” he paused, scowling, “but I can’t hold him.”

“When are you going to do that?”

“Now,” he said, rising. “He’s pretty close—Beacon Hill. Listen,” he added, “let someone run you to the hospital.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I can’t now. Do you have a phone?”

“Yeah.” We got up together and left the room. He went out for Lasko. I found the phone and called Tracy Martinson. Her joy that he was alive carried her through the bad news. She took that in and said she would fly there to be with him. I promised for Di Pietro that one of his people would meet her at the airport. She thanked me again. I accepted that with the shamed awareness that my brand of help was less than she deserved. But then, so was Martinson.

I found the coffee machine, went to Di Pietro’s office, and sat. I felt displaced, like a man in a strange motel. I finished one cup and killed a second. I bummed another cigarette from the guy at the front desk, a Camel. I looked at it. No filter. He wasn’t scared. I looked up. 12:15. I went back for my third cup.

I was standing by the coffee machine when they brought Lasko in. He dwarfed the room and everyone in it. Di Pietro was with him, looking inscrutable. Cops milled, mumbling in fragments, while Di Pietro talked over the desk. Lasko stared around, marking faces. He saw me then. I leaned casually against the coffee machine, looking as alive as possible.

He blinked and for that moment the fear was in his eyes. Not fear of me. Fear of losing all he’d had—the power and wealth—and going back to Youngstown, or worse. The humiliation opened up before him, and showed in his features. Then they twisted in the terrible intensity of the monomaniac. I felt it then. His drives were basic—pride and anger—and consumed him utterly. It was a hell I never wanted to know.

It vanished from his face as suddenly as it came. His features resumed their mask of controlled calculation, and he gave me a mirthless half-smile that derided the weakness of my position. I was without proof, without Martinson, without connections. It was still only me. The eyes said he could deal with me, one way or the other.

It was a surreal moment. We both knew he had tried to kill me and that I couldn’t prove it. And that I was safe only as long as I stood there, inside the police station. Then he turned quickly and followed Di Pietro down a hallway. I watched the retreating backs knowing that Di Pietro would get nowhere with him. Nowhere at all.

I walked slowly to Di Pietro’s office and sat, feeling fear and a wrenching frustration. I hadn’t gotten Lasko, and he had plenty of help. But there was one thing going for me. No one at the ECC knew about tonight, I figured. That gave me maybe another twelve hours.

I decided to try for a short nap. I scraped the chair back against the wall, leaned against it, and dropped into a deep, achy sleep that felt like shock.

“Want some coffee?” someone was asking.

I flailed at gauzy curtains, trying to escape. My eyes opened then. It was Di Pietro. I looked at the clock. 2:10.

“Did you have to do that?” I asked.

He seemed to smile without changing expression. “I thought you might want to talk.”

“Well, if I heard right, I’ll take the coffee.”

He disappeared. I uncurled and rubbed my eyes. When he came back he was holding two plastic cups and walking with knees slightly bent, like a trained bear. But he didn’t spill any, even leaning over the desk.

“Thanks,” I said, reaching for mine. “Want your chair back?”

He waved away the offer with heavy amiability, and sat in front of the desk. I looked at him. The watchful stare remained, but the stiffness had gone out of him. I guessed that nearly getting killed had improved my image.

“So what happened?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. We can’t book him. We can’t hold him. He said Martinson entered Loring voluntarily and that he was visiting out of concern. Other than that, he didn’t say much, and nothing that wasn’t shit.”

I looked down at my fingers. They were writhing in random patterns. I felt my self-control suddenly slipping. I concentrated on that, and said nothing.

Di Pietro noticed. “Look at the situation, Christopher. We still can’t tie him to Lehman. There could be federal kidnapping charges, but only if Martinson wants to talk—if he ever can. The two hoods who tried to kill you are dead, so we can’t trace them to Lasko. What we need is some link between Lehman’s death, the attempt on Martinson, and you and your investigation—some reason for Lasko to do all this.”

I pulled myself together. “So you believe Lasko killed Lehman.”

“You made a believer out of me,” he answered quietly, “when they tried to kill you.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“For openers, I’m going to give you all the protection you need.” The flat voice picked up emphasis. “Right now, you’re the only person who can fuck him up. That means that he may kill you if he gets a clear shot.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing. Sit tight.”

“Look, you said you need a link between Lehman, Martinson, and my investigation. I’m close. One day, two days—if I’m right, and lucky, I can give you that.”

“And if you’re not lucky, you’re dead.”

“Lieutenant, tonight, sitting here, I finally had to face all this. If he wants to kill me, he can do it next month, next year, any time he wants. The only way to protect myself is to finish him.”

Di Pietro leaned back and closed his eyes in thought. “What would you do?”

“If I don’t tell you, then you don’t have to lie when someone asks.”

His eyes snapped open. “What the hell does that mean?”

So I told him a little about life at the ECC. He shook his head. “And I thought Massachusetts politics stunk.”

I smiled. “It does, Lieutenant. It all does. But I guess you can see my problem.”

“Who down there will help you?”

“I don’t know. But you will.”

He eyed his coffee cup as if the answers were hiding in it. “I could hold you here as a material witness.”

“That would be no favor to me.”

He said nothing. I looked at my watch. 2:30.

“When will all this hit the papers?” I asked.

He craned toward the clock. “It’s too late for the mornings. It’ll make the first evening edition, about noon tomorrow.”

“OK,” I said. “Listen, I’d like to take off.”

He gave me a hard look. “I’ll get someone to run you to the hotel and put an officer by your door.” It was his answer.

“Thanks.” He picked up the phone and called for a car. I remembered something. “By the way, Lieutenant, that car I rented is wrecked, isn’t it?”

“Pretty well. And it’s physical evidence. That’s a nice bullet hole.”

“Could you call the car rental at the airport?”

“Why?”

“I don’t quite feel up to explaining all this.”

He almost smiled. “All right.”

A cop showed up to drive me. I stood. Di Pietro raised a cautionary hand. “Look, Christopher, tomorrow Lasko won’t be liking you any better than he did tonight. He won’t leave Boston, but he’s got people who work for him. Don’t take chances you don’t have to.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

His face was full of misgivings. “Good luck,” he said finally, and waved me out the door.

The next morning I shaved, packed, and checked the expiration date on my Visa card. I made one phone call. Then I took a cab to the airport and caught a plane to Miami.

Thirty-Two

The phone call had been to Robinson. He’d picked up the phone and asked how I was, like you’d ask any friend who wasn’t there. Fine, I said, knowing then that Martinson and I hadn’t hit the morning papers. Then I asked for the number of his Florida friend, the state bank examiner. Could he do anything, Robinson asked. I said it would be easier for me to call. OK—when would I be back? I’d be leaving this morning, I replied. Which was true enough.