1 - Artscape: Ike Schwartz Mystery 1

by Frederick Ramsay

  They stared at each other in silence. Harry fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, found only an empty package, and reached for his jacket. He remembered the right-hand pocket had a fresh pack. His fingers closed around it and he felt something else—the phone cord he had removed three days ago.

  He slipped on the jacket, lit one of the cigarettes, and counted to twenty. He wanted to wait longer but he did not know how much time he had. He clutched at his stomach, and groaned.

  “What’s the matter with you, Grafton?”

  “Cramps. I guess too much…no drinks. I don’t know. I’ve got to use the john.”

  Donati stared at him, and then nodded. Harry, pain still etched onto his face, staggered past Red and into the bathroom. He kicked the door shut and moaned. He turned on the water in the sink and jerked out the telephone cord, connected its modular clips and punched in 9-1-1. Moan. Come on. Come on. Moan. To his surprise he found his diarrhea was real.

  “Go ahead,” the 9-1-1 operator said.

  “Lee-Jackson Motel, room fourteen, art thieves, hurry,” he rasped, his voice a whisper.

  “Sir, where are you calling from?”

  “Lee-Jackson Motel. The guys you are looking for are here but you have to hurry. Room fourteen.” He moaned some more, hoping he covered the words. Harry hung up and disconnected the cord as Angelo pushed the door open. He reached for toilet paper, palmed the cord into a wad, used it, and flushed it away. For the first time in over a week, Harry saw Angelo smile.

  “You that scared, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Harry answered, his voice somewhere between a moan and a croak.

  “Vito wants you back now.”

  Harry nodded, pulled up his pants, and reentered the room. Stall for time, he thought, just stall for time.

  The girl’s eyes were as big as saucers. He tried to signal her, will her to hear his unspoken message, hang on, help is on the way, just hang on.

  ***

  Dillon waited until the lights dimmed and turned to Ike.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “Nice show, sir, forceful, sincere, believable. You could get elected to office on that speech.”

  “Not interested. You think it went well, then?”

  “Yes, sir, very well. I just hope the hostages understand why they have to die.”

  “Can’t be helped, son. Collateral damage, isn’t that what you guys call it?”

  “Not us guys, Mr. Dillon, government wonks, people like Kenny, military types who need to justify a misplaced bomb strike, industrialists like yourself, who close plants and lay off thousands to preserve stockholder profits, but not us, not me. No, sir.”

  Dillon bristled at Ike’s tone. “What do you call it, then?”

  “An avoidable tragedy.”

  “How avoidable? We were right on top of this. We had no way of knowing about those students.”

  “Avoidable, Mr. Dillon. Avoidable if my office had been called in as soon as the robbery was discovered, not six hours later. Avoidable if someone had the good sense or even just the common courtesy to inform me of the move in the first place. I would have put a patrol down at the bunker. A move like that is an open invitation for just what occurred. Avoidable if someone had taken the time to check out Loyal Parker before giving him a license to set up his personal peep show. There is no excuse for that Lover’s Lane to exist, and both Parker and the hostages should be alive now. An avoidable tragedy created by academic and class conceit, by arrogance that assumes that out in the sticks, police are all bumbling rubes or Barney Fife. We can’t cut it so we need the government or our betters from the big city to come in and solve our problems for us.”

  Dillon blanched under Ike’s verbal onslaught.

  “Sorry, Ike, I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t want to know, Mr. Dillon, you assumed.”

  Dillon glared at Ike with a look that had melted more than one chief operating officer. Ike glared back. Dillon opened his mouth to say something just as Ike’s cell phone twittered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ike, 9-1-1 just called in an emergency. Listen.” Ike listened to the recording.

  “I’m on my way. Get Billy and Whaite on the road and call Scarlett’s people—and no sirens.”

  “Sheriff?” Dillon asked.

  “Got to go.”

  Ike raced out to the parking lot and within thirty seconds his car spun out of the parking lot, kicking gravel on several expensive corporate cars. It had happened fast, too fast. Real professionals would fence around for hours, days even, before one would break and run. It could be a crank call, or did someone get through? Why? Who? What’s-his-name, the ex-Bureau guy, the locksmith, the one who bought the clothes; it had to be him. No matter what else happens to people, they never change, and according to Charlie, the man was a good, honest technician. He hoped that the message meant the hostages were still alive, that Grafton, that was the name, called in not only to save his own skin, but the kids as well. He hoped.

  ***

  Harry talked, stalled, and tried to kill time. Donati stared at him, revealing nothing. Angelo maintained his state of apparent transcendence. Finally, Red interrupted.

  “Stuff it, Grafton. You are not going to talk your way out of here. Fact—some of us have to go. First, we take those two out.” He nodded at the girl and in the direction of the still unconscious boy. “Then, Rummy, it’s you. Donati and the Italian sphinx over there, well, we go back a ways. I figure we’ll just fade, fold this hand, and play another some other day, right, Donati?”

  Donati continued to stare at a point midway between Harry and Red. He handed Angelo the Colt and in a barely audible voice said, “Angelo, do it.”

  Red picked up his wallet and had the Hi-Standard derringer out, cocked and aimed at Angelo in less than a second. He was not fast enough. The silenced Colt gave a gentle burp and sent a copper-jacketed slug between Red’s eyes. Harry launched himself out of his chair toward Angelo, who stepped aside. Harry’s momentum carried him past Angelo and to the girl. He collapsed on her, half protecting her. He braced himself for the shock of the bullet. Nothing happened. He turned to see what had happened, grateful for the respite, even if brief. Jennifer fainted.

  Angelo faced Donati. “I am sorry, Patrone.” He looked woebegone. “You see it is this way, the Giacamo family? Their youngest…you were contracted to eliminate. They put out a contract on you. You understand how it goes, yes?”

  “Wait a minute. My contract also said Martelli would cover me. Angelo, there are always these contracts, but they go away when they need me again. This will be no different, you will see. Now take care of—”

  “No, Vito, it is different this time. Martelli, he found out who contracted us. He wants no part of this new thing. He said he did not want anything to do with you now.”

  “There is no new thing. We are paid to do a certain job, that’s all. What is so different about this one?”

  “These people are with the ones who killed all the people in the World Trade Center. He says we don’t do business with them.”

  “Since when has the Family made such a distinction? We run cocaine for South American dictators and heroin for the people he now says we cannot do business with. It’s crazy.”

  “Even so, he told Giacamo to proceed. Giacamo has my mother and father in Sicily, you know, my sister, too, and they say if I do not do this, they will do terrible things and then kill them. They will. In Sicily, they are very true about those things, you know. Giacamo will see to that.”

  “Si, Angelo, I know. So now you must shoot me, and you would have to, no matter what, yes?”

  “Yes, Vito, I must. I have no choice in this.”

  Donati looked at Angelo for a long time, saw the gun steady in his hand and sighed, “So shoot.”
>
  “Not me. This Red person, he will be the one who does it. First, he kills these three, then he tries to kill you and you shoot each other.”

  Angelo picked up the derringer and leveled it at Donati.

  The door crashed open at the same instant the gun fired. Donati pitched backward into the dresser, the snub-nosed Smith and Wesson from his ankle holster halfway out. Angelo spun toward the door. Ike crouched, gun held two-handed and ready. For a split second, Angelo hesitated, unsure which gun to use. He lowered the derringer just as Ike’s three fifty-seven magnum barked. Angelo, chest crushed, slammed into the wall and onto the floor.

  Ike straightened up and looked at Harry.

  “You called?”

  Harry swallowed and nodded.

  “You must be Grafton. Where’s the other kid—is he okay?”

  Harry motioned toward the wall. “I think so, knocked silly, and in shock. Doesn’t know what happened to him. She,” he pointed to Jennifer, “on the other hand, can give it all to you.”

  “But you called, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want anyone hurt, because they were going to kill Jennifer, the girl, both of them. Me, I didn’t care about. Hell, this just isn’t my line of country.”

  “So I hear.”

  “What now?”

  Ike studied Grafton, saw the pain, old pain, in his eyes, and recognized it. He looked at the girl, fainted. Just as well.

  “Grafton, according to my information, you went camping up in the Adirondacks last week. And you have twenty seconds to get out of here, into that rental and away. If you are smart, you will lose that car in Richmond, go north for a day or two, camp out, and then go home. You are the one that got away.

  “When you get back to your apartment, you will be contacted by some people who will want to talk to you about a job, a real job. You will talk to them, Grafton.”

  Harry read the implied threat in Ike’s face, nodded and glanced at the girl, Ike, and the bodies on the floor.

  “Thanks, I owe you.”

  “You sure’n hell do, Grafton.”

  Harry was driving out of the motel parking lot when Ike heard the sirens.

  “I said no sirens.”

  The girl came to, her eyes focused, and she shuddered.

  “You’re the police.”

  “Right the first time. And you are Jennifer…somebody.”

  “Ames. Where’s Har—the other one?”

  Ike smiled. “What other one? Oh well, shoot, he managed to get away in the confusion.”

  “Get away? How? He really did?”

  “Slick as a weasel.”

  “I’m glad. You know, he didn’t belong in this.”

  “You’re glad?” Ike asked, surprised and relieved.

  “Yes.”

  “Then do me, and him, a favor. You never saw him, are we clear on that?”

  “He wasn’t here. The man who did the alarms was, ah.…”

  “Short and dark.”

  “Short and dark, and was called.…”

  “Hareem, Achmed Hareem. Sounds a little like Harry, doesn’t it?”

  “Hareem, yes, that is what they called him. Jack may remember Harry, but then he was in such a state, who’ll believe him. Hareem.”

  “Hareem was Interpol’s guess. They will be happy to find out they were right.”

  The sounds of sirens and screeching brakes announced the arrival of the state police. Ike winked at Jennifer. She winked back.

  Chapter Thirty

  Two hours passed before Ike could break away from the crowd. Dennis Kenny pestered him with questions and took Jennifer’s statement. Asked her again about the man who got away. She lied smoothly and convincingly. Essie called to tell him about a shooting in Lexington. A witness said they saw a man leaving the area who might have been Bialzac. Later, a neighbor identified Bialzac as one of two men who rented the apartment where the shooting took place. They had not identified the victim yet but the neighbor thought they were “an item.”

  Ruth arrived as he finished filling in Scarlett’s people. Kenny stared at him, a puzzled look on his round face.

  “What happened here?” he asked.

  “Agent Kenny, go home and tell them you lost your guy. How you’re not even sure it was your guy.”

  “I’m not looking for anybody in particular. Why do you think that?”

  “Because your plan to retrieve the paintings had nothing to do with them or the hostages. You wanted Harry Grafton and you were willing to sacrifice the rest to get him.”

  “You—”

  “Don’t even say it. I’m tired and I’m pretty sure they sent you in the hope you’d screw this up, so they won’t mind much if you end up on extended sick leave for injuries received in the pursuit of your duty. I don’t want to sound mean, but are you sure this is what you want to do the rest of your life?”

  Kenny looked at his feet and sighed.

  “Tell you what you do. Stick with the Achmed Hareem story. It’s better for you and the Bureau. That way, they won’t put you on permanent desk duty.”

  Kenny gave him a rueful smile and started to say something, then thought better of it and left.

  “You could have been killed, Ike,” Ruth said as she watched Kenny sidle away. “I was worried.”

  “All in a day’s work, Ruth,” Ike said, with more nonchalance than he felt. No doubt about that, he could have been killed. He guessed he was getting too old or, maybe old enough to realize that he did not need this kind of excitement anymore.

  His cell phone summoned him again. Lee Henry’s voice cut through the air like a mountain breeze.

  “They told me I might could get you at this number, lover-boy. Remember you asked me to keep my ears open about some truckers or something? Well, my friend and some of his buddies was together last night at the Midway and I sort of primed them, you know, and one of them said something about a pair of high cubes, painted like Titan Moving vans, but they weren’t because of the shape. Anyway, he saw them up and down I-81 for a couple of days, you know what I mean, Ike? Parked here, parked there, but looked like the same ones being shifted around. So I says ‘Where’re they at now’ and he said ‘They’re over to the big Phillips 66 stop.’ So there you are, Ike. Is that a help?”

  “I hope so, Lee. I sure hope so, and thanks. I’ll tell you how it comes out.”

  “You do that, honey, and you be careful, hear?”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  Ike snapped the phone closed. Ruth’s eyebrows were making question marks on her forehead.

  “We may have the paintings. There are two trailers still parked over at a truck stop ten miles north of here. I hope I can get there before Bialzac and his friends.”

  “Will it be dangerous, Ike?”

  “No, no, just routine. Catch you later.”

  Ike strode across the parking lot and slipped behind the wheel of his car. Just as the motor caught, Ruth slid in beside him.

  “Ruth, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going with you, Sheriff. See how the other half lives, so to speak. Be a nice change for me to ride in the front seat in one of these things.”

  “Ruth, you can’t. It might be dangerous.”

  “Just routine, you said. Come on, you are wasting time. I’ll be fine.”

  “No!”

  “What? Why no? I’ll stay out of the way.”

  Ike felt sick. The heat was oppressive, but he felt cold. He stared at Ruth—fear, panic, and memories, another time. Her words were the same.

  “Ike,” Ruth said, “this is not Zurich. Now go, or Bialzac will get there first.”

  Ike hesitated.
/>   “Go! You’ve got to go now or it will never be over.”

  Ike put the car in gear.

  ***

  There were fifty or sixty trailers parked in rows at the truck stop. Some, perhaps twenty, were attached to their tractors. The remainder stood alone, poised mantis-like on their stilt-like front props. Ike drove down one aisle, his eyes searching underneath, between, on the top of each. Halfway down the row he saw his man in the next row over.

  “Hang on,” he barked, and floored the accelerator. The police car leapt forward with a squeal of tires. A misplaced travel trailer blocked his entry to the aisle between the two rows of trailers. He jammed the car into reverse. It shot backward, fishtailing to the point where he had seen Bialzac. He was aware of the thump Ruth’s forehead made as she was thrown forward against the dash.

  “Seat belt on,” Ike muttered.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Ruth retorted, rubbing her forehead and bracing her shoulders against the seat back in preparation for what she assumed would be an equally abrupt halt.

  Ike braked and poured out the door in one disjointed but neatly executed motion. He tossed her his shoulder radio.

  “Call for help,” he said, his eyes glued on the figure between the two trailers, “And call the fire department.”

  Ike ran toward Bialzac.

  “I don’t know how to work these things.”

  “Just push the round button and talk,” he shouted over his shoulder, “someone will hear you.”

  Bialzac teetered on an extension ladder placed against the brightly painted side of one of the trailers. He had climbed halfway up, his progress impeded by the plastic five-gallon can he was hoisting up with him. Ike saw three more at the foot of the ladder and another four containers in the back of the minivan parked at the far end of the passage created by the two rows of trailers.

  He reached for his service revolver and then changed his mind.

  “Bialzac,” Ike called, his arms spread, hands held out, palms up. “Bialzac, stop. It’s all over. Don’t do it.”

  Sergei Bialzac paused in his climb and, owl-like, peered down at Ike. Ike didn’t like the look in those eyes and decided the little professor no longer inhabited this world. His eyes were wild, taking in some other scene, some other time. He stopped and watched, waiting for the opportunity to step in and disengage the man from his mission.