Killing Orders
Page 24
I was bone-weary and stiff. I’d have gladly lain down in front of the family-room fire and passed out, but I willed my aching body down the front stairs to the street. Going by road, it was only a five-minute walk to my car instead of the half hour it had taken me cross-country.
My watch said three when I moved the stiff Toyota back onto the tollway. I found a motel at the first southbound exit, checked in, and fell asleep without bothering to undress.
XXIV
Baiting the Trap
IT WAS PAST noon when I woke again. Every muscle ached. I’d remembered to put the Smith & Wesson aside before going to sleep, but not the holster. My left side was sore from where the leather had pressed into my breast all night. My clothes stank. I’d fought Walter Novick in this shirt, put in a heavy stint of cross-country hiking, and slept in it. The smell bore acute witness to these activities.
I longed for a bath, but not if it meant redonning my repellent apparel. I picked up the Toyota and maneuvered its clumsy steering down the expressway to the Bellerophon. Mrs. Climzak gave me a darkling glance from behind the counter but forebore any criticism, so I gathered no one had tried burglarizing my apartment in the night.
It was only after a long soak in the stained porcelain tub that
I realized how hungry I was. Dry, reclothed, I stiffly descended the four flights of stairs.
What would the don’s reaction be to losing Novick? Would he be gunning for me, or would he realize Novick wasn’t salvageable and cut his losses? Only the Shadow knew. Just in case Pasquale was pissed, I braved Mrs. Climzak’s breathy protests and went past the front desk to explore the Bellerophon’s nether regions. The lobby’s back entrance led to a hallway where her apartment was situated. Her mules flopping, she scampered behind me like an angry hen. “Miss Warshawski! Miss Warshawski! What are you doing back here? Get out. Get out before I call my husband. Before I call the police!”
Her apartment door opened and the fabled Mr. Climzak appeared, in a T-shirt and baggy trousers. A day’s growth of beard helped hide his drink-reddened cheeks. He didn’t look as though he could throw me out, but he might be alert enough to call the police.
“Just looking for the back door,” I told him brightly, continuing down the passage.
As I undid the dead bolt, Mrs. Climzak hissed, “This is the last straw. You will have to find other lodgings.”
I looked at her before going outside. “I hope so, Mrs. Climzak. I certainly hope so.”
No hail of machine-gun bullets strafed me in the alley. Nor were any suspicious-looking cars hovering on the street. I found a Polish restaurant and ate heartily, if not healthily, of cabbage soup, chicken, dumplings, and apple tart.
I felt decidedly more human. Over a second cup of coffee, an idea began glimmering at the back of my brain. Preposterous. It would need Murray’s cooperation. And Uncle Stefan’s.
Illinois Bell, poverty-stricken by the AT &T dismemberment, had raised the price of pay phone calls to a quarter. After fishing for change, I reached Murray at the desk of the Herald Star. I’II gave him a big, huge story would he sit on it until it came to an end?
“Ain’t you dead yet, Warshawski? What am I supposed to do in exchange for this big huge story?”
“Run a couple of lines on the front page of the evening and morning editions.”
“I’m not the editor-I don’t control what goes on the front page. Or even page sixty-two of the middle section.”
“Murray! I’m shocked. You told me you were an important newspaperman. Can it be you lied? Can it be I have to go to the Tribune and talk to Lipinski?”
Grumbling, he agreed to meet me at the Golden Glow around five P.M. The schoolroom clock over the counter said two-thirty. Time to check things out with Uncle Stefan.
Another quarter to my answering service reminded me I hadn’t told Phyllis I wouldn’t be back to her place last night. Or Roger that I’d miss his board meeting. And Bobby wanted to see me to talk about Walter Novick. “Not your jurisdiction,” I muttered.
“What was that?” the operator said.
“Nothing. Any other calls?”
Dr. Paciorek wanted to talk to me. He’d left his paging number at the hospital for me. Frowning, I put another quarter in the machine. Twenty-five cents gets you three tries. Clicked from operator to operator at the hospital, I finally connected with Dr. Paciorek.
“Victoria! I was afraid you wouldn’t get my message.” His normally controlled voice was rough and human. “Could you come back to the house tonight? I know it’s a lot to ask. O’Faolin’s coming out-I’m going to settle this matter.”
I rubbed my eyes with my free hand. Would this upset my other plans? Dr. Paciorek breathed anxiously in my ear while I considered. Maybe I could put a little advance pressure on the archbishop. “I guess so. Can’t make it before eight, though.”
“Fine. Fine. Thanks very much, Victoria.”
“Don’t thank me for anything, Dr. Paciorek. This story is not going to have a happy ending.”
A long silence, then “I realize that” and he hung up.
Jim Streeter met me at Uncle Stefan’s door. “The doctors say the old man can be release4~tomorrow. He’s been trying to reach his niece. I guess she’s planning on taking him home with her. What do you want us to do?”
Of course he would be going home with Lotty, I thought in irritation. “I’d better talk to him.”
Uncle Stefan was delighted to see me, delighted to be going home. “And why are you frowning, my little niece? Aren’t you pleased for me?”
“Oh, certainly. Yes, I’m very pleased. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Chipper. Yes, chipper.” He beamed proudly at producing this colloquial word. “Every day I go for physical therapy and every day I am stronger, walk farther. All I need now is chocolate.”
I grinned and sat on the bed. “I have a favor to ask of you. Please say no if you don’t want to do it, because there’s some danger involved. Not a lot, but some.”
He cocked a lively eye at me and demanded details. “Instead of going to Lotty’s, would you come home with me? I need you to pretend you’re dead for twenty-four hours, then arise from the grave with a flourish.”
“Lotty will be wutend.” He beamed.
“No doubt, if that means what I think it does. Console yourself with the thought that it’s me she wants to murder.”
He patted my hand comfortingly. “Lotty is a headstrong girl. Don’t worry about her.”
“You didn’t see a second man in your apartment the day you were stabbed, did you?”
He shook his head. “Just the-the thug.”
“Would you be willing to say that you saw him? He was there, you see. Just hovering outside until your thug had stabbed you.”
“If you say he was there, my dear niece, I believe you.”
XXV
Knight Takes Bishop
MURRAY GRUDGINGLY AGREED to run the story. “I’ll have to tell Gil the whole tale,” he warned me. Gil was the front page editor.
I explained the entire situation to him-Ajax, the Banco Ambrosiano, Corpus Christi.
Murray finished his beer and signaled to the waitress for another. Sal was busy behind the bar with commuting drinkers. “You know, it’s probably O’Faolin who backed away the FBI from the case.”
I nodded. “That’s what I think. Between Mrs. Paciorek and him, there’s enough money and power to strangle a dozen investigations. I’d like to get Derek out to the priory with me tomorrow, but he doesn’t listen to me at the best of times. Neither does Bobby. And today wasn’t the best of times.”
I’d spent a frustrating afternoon on the phone. I’d had a long talk with Bobby, in which he read me the riot act for not fingering Novick earlier. He refused to listen to my story. Refused to send men out to the priory to question the archbishop or Pelly. And was aghast at the accusation against Mrs. Paciorek. Bobby was a salt-of-the-earth Catholic; he wasn’t taking on a prince of the Church. Nor yet a princess.
Derek Hatfield was even less cooperative. A suggestion that he at least block O’Faolin’s departure for forty-eight hours was met with frosty contempt. As so often happened in my encounters with Derek, I ended the discussion with a rude remark. That is, I made a rude remark and he hung up. Same thing, really.
A conversation with Freeman Carter, my lawyer, was more fruitful. He was just as skeptical as Bobby and Derek, but at least he worked for me and promised to get some names-in exchange for a hundred and a quarter an hour.
“I’ll be at the priory,” Murray promised.
“No disrespect, but I’d like a dozen men with guns.”
“Just remember, Miss Warshawski: The pen is mightier than the pencil,” Murray said portentously.
I laughed reluctantly.
“We’ll tape it,” Murray promised. “And I’ll have someone there with a camera.”
“It’ll have to do… And you’ll take Uncle Stefan home with you?”
Murray grimaced. “Only if you pay for the funeral when Lotty finds out what I’ve done.” He’d met Lotty enough times to know what her temper was like.
I looked at my watch and excused myself. It was close to six, the time I was to call back Freeman at his club before he left for a dinner meeting.
Sal let me use the phone in the cube she calls an office, a windowless room directly behind the bar with one-way glass overlooking the floor. Freeman was brisk, but brief. He gave me two names, Mrs. Paciorek’s attorney and her broker. And yes, the broker had handled a twelve-million-dollar transaction for Corpus Christi to buy Ajax shares.
I whistled to myself as Freeman hung up. Worth a hundred twenty-five dollars. I looked at my watch again. Time for one more call, this time to Ferrant, still at his Ajax office.
He sounded more tired than ever. “I talked to the board today and tried urging them to find my permanent replacement. They need someone managing the insurance operations, or those will go to hell and there won’t be anything left to take over. All my energy is going into meetings with legal eagles and financial wizards and I don’t have time to do the only thing I do well-broker insurance deals.”
“Roger, I think I may have a way out of the problem for you. I don’t want to tell you what it is, because you’d have to tell your partner and your board. It may not work, but if a lot of people know about it, it definitely won’t work.”
Roger turned this over. When he spoke again, his voice had more energy than I’d heard for some time. “Yes. You’re right. So I won’t press you… Could I see you tonight? Dinner maybe?”
“A very late dinner-say ten o’clock?”
That suited his schedule; he would be closeted with eagles and wizards for several hours yet. “Can I tell them we may have a break coming our way?”
“As long as you don’t tell them who you heard it from.”
When I got back to the table, Murray had left a brief note torn from his steno notebook informing me he was off to talk to Gil to try to make the last edition.
The one advantage the rented Toyota had over my little Omega was that its heater worked. January was sliding into February without any noticeable change in the weather. The thermometer had dropped below freezing New Year’s Eve and hadn’t climbed above it since. As I slid out of the underground garage and turned onto Lake Shore Drive, the car was already warm enough that I could take off my coat.
Exiting at Half Day Road, I wondered how safe it was to drive right up to the Pacioreks’ front door. What if Dr. Paciorek agreed with O’Faolin that I should be bumped off? It might save his wife’s reputation. What if O’Faolin knocked him out with a crucifix and shot me?
The doctor met me at the door, his face grave and pinched. He looked as though he hadn’t slept since I left him the night before. “Catherine and Xavier are in the family room. They don’t know you’re here-I didn’t think Xavier would stay if he knew you were coming.”
“Probably not.” I followed him down the familiar hallway into the familiar, hot living room.
Mrs. Paciorek sat, as usual, by the fire. O’Faolin had pulled a straight-backed chair up to the couch on which she sat. As Dr. Paciorek and I came in, they looked toward the door and let out simultaneous gasps.
O’Faolin was on his feet and coming toward the door. Paciorek put out an arm, strong through years of sawing people open, and propelled him back into the room.
“We need to talk.” His voice had recovered its firmness. “You and Catherine haven’t been saying anything to the point; I thought Victoria could help us out.”
O’Faolin gave me a look that made my stomach jump. Hatred and destruction. I tried to force down my own fury at the sight of him-the man who tried to get me blinded, who burned my apartment. Now was not the time to try to strangle him, but the urge was strong.
“Good evening, Archbishop. Good evening, Mrs. Paciorek.” I was pleased to hear my voice come out without a quaver. “Let’s talk about Ajax and Corpus Christi and Agnes.”
O’Faolin had himself back under control. “Topics about which I know very little, Miss Warshawski.”
The accentless voice was supercilious. “Xavier, I hope you have a confessor with a lot of pull.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, whether at my use of his first name or at the accusation. I couldn’t know.
“How dare you talk to the archbishop like that?” Mrs. Paciorek spat out.
“You know me, Catherine: brave enough to try anything. It all comes with practice, really.”
Dr. Paciorek held up his hands pleadingly. “Now that you’ve all insulted each other, could we get down to some real conversation? Victoria, you talked last night about the link between Corpus Christi and Ajax. What evidence do you have?”
I fished in my purse for the greasy photocopy of Rául Diaz Figueredo’s letter to O’Faolin. “I guess what I really have is O’Faolin’s involvement in the Ajax takeover. You read Spanish, don’t you?”
The doctor nodded silently and I handed the photocopy across to him. He read it carefully, several times, then showed it to O’Faolin.
“So it was you!” he hissed.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what was me, but I do know this letter shows you being advised that Ajax was the best, if not easiest takeover target. You’ve got a billion dollars in Banco Ambrosiano assets sitting in Panama banks. You can’t use them-if you withdraw the money and start spending it, the Bank of Italy is going to come down on you like lions on an early Christian.
“So you remembered Michael Sindona and the Franklin National Bank and realized what you needed was a U.S. financial institution to launder money through. And an insurance company is better than a bank in lots of ways because you can play all these games with loss reserves and your life-company assets and nobody will really be able to tell. Figueredo got someone to check out the available stock companies. My guess is Ajax looked good because it’s in Chicago. The money boys are myopic when something happens outside New York City-it’ll take them longer to notice what’s going on. With me so far?”
Catherine had gone quite pale. Her mouth was set in a thin line. O’Faolin, however, was at ease, smiling contemptuously. “It’s a beautiful theory. But if a friend of mine points out that Ajax is a good takeover target, that is not illegal. And if I am taking it over, that, too, is not illegal, although where I would get such money is a good question. But so far as I know, I am not taking it over.”
He sank back in his chair, legs stretched out, ankles crossed.
“Alas for the venality of the human condition,” I tried a contemptuous smile myself, but suavity is not my long suit. “My attorney, Freeman Carter, spoke with yours this afternoon, Mrs. Paciorek. Freeman belongs to the same club as
Fuller Gibson and Fuller didn’t mind telling him who handles the brokerage business for the Paciorek Trust. And then it wasn’t too difficult getting verification of the note Agnes left for me: Corpus Christi used twelve million to buy Ajax shares in the name of the Wood-Sage Corporation.”
He tried to shove me aside with his left arm. Since his weight was forward on that side, I grabbed the arm and pulled, sending him sprawling on his face into the hall. This small piece of violence unleashed the fury I’d been holding barely in check. Panting slightly, I waited for him to climb to his feet.
He got up, backing warily away from me. I laughed slightly. “Not scared are you, Xavier?” I curled my right fingers at the second joint, and came in with my left elbow to his diaphragm. He landed an inexpert blow on my shoulder, while I used my crooked fingers to push at his eyes. Holding the back of his head with my left hand I pushed up with the right while he shoved at me and kicked. Not a fighter.
“I might blind you. I might kill you. If you fight, you up the pressure.”
I felt an arm on my left shoulder, pulling, and shrugged it away, but it pulled more insistently. I came away, gasping for air, red rage swirling through my head. “Let go of me! Let go of me!”
“Victoria!” It was Dr. Paciorek. I felt a stinging on my face, realized he’d slapped me, and came slowly back to the marble hallway.
“He tried to blind me,” I panted. “He tried to burn me to death. He probably killed Agnes. You should have let me kill him.”
O’Faolin was white except for his eyes-the skin around them was scarlet from the pressure of my fingers. He straightened his clerical collar. “She’s mad, Thomas. Call the police.”
Paciorek let go of my arm and I leaned against the wall. As reality returned, I remembered the other part of my plan.
“Oh, yes. Stefan Herschel died tonight. That’s another crime that this prince of peace is responsible for.”