Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  “Stay down and wait here,” said Mac Horgan, and quickly and quietly took off.

  The attorney general watched him go with his two bags, crouching low and hugging the shadows of bushes and trees. Then Horgan was against the cabin and lost in the darkness.

  Durning knelt there, listening to the great silence of the wood. Which really was no silence at all, but a thing alive with a thousand sounds and each one taking up its own separate pitch. He had never heard such a subtle din, and all of it trying to tell him something.

  But what?

  Then he heard the hoot of an owl off in a tree somewhere, and the rush of sound seemed to disappear.

  Durning never saw Mac Horgan returning until he was less than twenty feet away and approaching from another direction.

  “Exactly seven minutes to showtime,” he said, and casually flopped beside Henry Durning. He was not even out of breath.

  “How many charges?” Durning asked.

  “Four. One on each side. Something like this, you don’t want to fool around.”

  “What’s the dynamite equivalent?”

  “About a hundred and fifty pounds each charge.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Durning whispered.

  The PI grinned. “More’s better, right?”

  Durning hoped so.

  This quiet wood.

  Horgan said, “I just wish that fucking Donatti was in there too. Then I’d feel good.”

  Henry Durning was silent. There were those who took pleasure from such things. He himself just happened not to be one of them.

  “Better get below the crest of the hill,” said the investigator, and they moved back about another thirty yards.

  Moments later there was a crackling roar that Durning felt as a shudder in the earth beneath his body and saw as a blaze of red in the night sky.

  Then great chunks of things went whistling and tearing through the leaves overhead, and Durning felt the blast from the explosion roll back over him as he lay with his hands tight over his head. His face was down against the grass, and the yellow smell of the blast rolled over him in bitter smoke. Then it started raining bits and pieces of nameless stuff.

  When everything seemed to have stopped falling, Durning and Mac Horgan rose and walked back to the crest of the rise.

  To Henry Durning it was like staring down into the crater of a live volcano. A great hole in the earth, filled with smoldering chunks of fire, topped by rising spirals of black smoke. Nothing recognizable remained. Not a chimney, not a wall, not a piece of furniture, not a toilet, not a body.

  Later, of course, Durning knew that the experts would be able to place bits and pieces of things under high-power microscopes and make some sort of human identification. But it would only be of technical and academic interest. For all practical purposes, it might just as well have been the crater of a live volcano.

  The attorney general stood staring blankly into the smoldering hole. He felt numb all through himself.

  Horgan touched his shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to be anyplace near here when the locals start showing up.”

  They heard sirens in the distance but passed only a few cars on the way back to the old factory building.

  The attorney general turned and looked behind them several times as Horgan drove. He was looking for the red glow in the sky that would have been the mark of a spreading fire. But there didn’t seem to be even that much left.

  They reached Durning’s car behind the old factory at about 3:30 A.M. It really hadn’t taken all that long.

  “Right on schedule,” he said dryly.

  “Didn’t I tell you it would be a piece of cake?” said Horgan, not understanding one bit.

  Durning slowly nodded. “Yes, you did.”

  They sat in silence.

  “But I’d never call it a piece of cake,” said Durning.

  “What then?”

  “A bloody tragic massacre in which five people were blown to bits.”

  The private investigator laughed. “Same thing.”

  “No. Not at all the same thing.”

  Horgan shrugged. “Shit, man. They’re just as dead. What’s the difference what you call it.”

  “A big difference.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like between an ape and a human being.”

  Horgan looked at the attorney general. “And of course I’m the ape and you’re the human being.”

  “I guess it bothers me a little that you could do it so easily and take it so lightly.”

  The PI sat there with it for a long moment. He seemed to be giving these last words some deep and careful thought.

  “And it doesn’t bother you a little,” he finally said, “that those five people would never have been blown to bits at all if you hadn’t told me to do them?”

  “That bothers me, too, Mac. I can’t tell you how much. But I’m afraid that worse still lies ahead for me.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  Durning nodded toward the car window behind Horgan’s back. “Take a look over there,” he said.

  And when the PI turned in his seat to look, Henry Durning shot him twice in the back of his head.

  Although, as it worked out, once would have been enough.

  * * *

  Working with his usual calm and control under pressure, the attorney general carefully did everything that needed to be done.

  He started his own car a short distance away and left the engine idling.

  He took a five-gallon can of gasoline out of the trunk, emptied it over Mac Horgan and the interior of his car, and lit a match to a long, gasoline-soaked fuse.

  Then he drove off just as the flames went up. Later, he dropped the unregistered gun he had used into a nearby reservoir.

  The single moment of acute depression he allowed himself was for Mac’s children. But that, of course, couldn’t be helped. And the idea of setting up a generous trust fund for them made him feel better at once.

  Durning was home in Georgetown in time to shower, shave, and have breakfast with Mary Yung in the garden room.

  He kissed her as she poured his coffee. “Miss me?” he asked.

  “The truth?”

  Durning’s nod was tentative.

  “Bad night?” she asked.

  “The worst.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to despise me any more than you already do,” he told her.

  “I don’t despise you.”

  He was careful to leave that one alone.

  Mary Yung held her coffee mug in both hands, as though needing to warm them. “It’s getting easier to do and harder to shake off, isn’t it?”

  “What is?” Durning asked, although he knew.

  “The killing.”

  He shrugged. “I can handle it.”

  “Of course you can. I know that. You’re Henry Durning.” A slow look of hers lighted on his face, held there for a mo ment, and went straight through him. “The question is, do you want to?”

  “It stopped being a question of wanting a long time ago.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Why not?” he said.

  “Because, someone like you, once you want something, you can make it happen.”

  Durning stroked her hair, gently, thoughtfully. “Then it’s just a matter of my deciding?”

  “Exactly.”

  His smile was as wistful as it was loving.

  “What a truly lovely thought.”

  66

  DON CARLO DONATTI was awakened by a knock on his bedroom door in Sands Point. A digital clock told him it was 6:27 A.M.; he had returned from Italy less than twelve hours ago.

  “Yes?”

  “Telephone, Don Donatti,” said his houseman.

  “Who is it?”

  “The chief of police up in Liberty. He says it’s important.”

 
; Warnings going off in his brain, Donatti picked up the phone. “What’s wrong, Pete?”

  “Sorry to wake you, Mr. Donatti. But there’s been a terrible tragedy up here at your cabin.”

  Donatti felt the warnings spread down through his chest and stomach. “What happened?”

  “Christ only knows. There’s not a damn thing left but a big hole in the ground, rubble and charred bodies. It looks like fucking Hiroshima.”

  Donatti’s hand was frozen on the phone.

  “I hope no one close to you was up here,” said the chief.

  “No.” Donatti stared at nothing. “There were no survivors?”

  “Survivors? We’ll be lucky if we can find half the parts.”

  Donatti heard voices and yelling in the background. The chief was obviously calling from the site.

  “Do you know who was up here?” asked the police chief.

  “Not off hand. I’ll have to check around. Some of my people use the place for hunting and fishing. They don’t always tell me. What about the cause? Could it have been accidental?”

  “Hell, no. Not with that size hole. Some demolition people said the explosion carried a blast force of close to seven hundred pounds of dynamite. We’ll know more when the Bureau people get here.”

  Donatti’s mouth was dry. “You called the FBI?”

  “It’s automatic with this kind of explosive power,” said the chief. “They’re afraid of terrorists. You got any known enemies. Mr. Donatti?”

  “I’ve got nothing else, Pete. You’ll have to form your suspects in alphabetical lines.”

  The policeman’s laugh was flat.

  Donatti said, “I guess you’ll want me up there for questioning.”

  “At your convenience, Mr. Donatti. I know the feds’ll want to talk to you. But if you could get us some names of those in the cabin, it would sure help.”

  “I’ll take care of it. And thanks for calling me personally, Pete. I appreciate it.”

  “Sorry it had to be such tragic news.” The chief paused. “All things considered, Mr. Donatti, you’d best watch your ass.”

  “You can count on it.”

  “One last thing, Mr. Donatti. An unidentified male body was just found roasted in a car not far from here. He had two bullets in his head and the remains of a detonating device in his trunk.”

  Donatti called the attorney general on his office secure line at about noon. It had taken him that long to settle down enough to decide how best to approach the situation. Not that he felt there were any true choices available to him.

  “It’s me,” he said when Durning got on the line.

  “What took you so long? I expected to hear from you hours ago.”

  Carlo Donatti ignored the flippancy. “I think we’d better talk as quickly as possible. If you can make it this evening. I’ll fly down to your area.”

  “Fine. The usual place at eight?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  The don hung up and felt the cold stir of oppression. It was not new to him. He had been born to it, had literally spent key portions of his life chatting at one cliffside of disaster or another. In fact, he had long ago learned to judge the measure of a man by how well he could sit with danger. But sitting with this man, this Henry Durning, was the closest he had ever come to sitting with the devil. There were no fixed, no recognizable, no previously landmarked parameters of behavior. The only certainty about Henry was that he had the sharp teeth and appetite for flesh of the true carnivore.

  They sat in the hotel room near Washington’s National Airport.

  This time there was not even the pretense of the ritual embrace and other amenities. The pistols, so to speak, were now loaded and on the table. Donatti could all but smell the gunpowder with each breath. If he had one final wish left to him in this world, it would be to be able to shoot Henry Durning dead center between the eyes and go home with impunity. Even the thought of scotch, his usually dependable spur and appeaser, simply threatened to turn his stomach.

  As for Durning himself? He appeared no more than mildly amused, a man so thoroughly in control of his fate and fortune, that nothing could mar the perfect veneer of his humor. Yet beneath the veneer, something perilously close to desperation.

  What a president he would have made.

  “Congratulations, Carlo,” Durning said. “Until twenty-four hours ago I never suspected a thing. It was all very clever.”

  Donatti nodded, grimly accepting the compliment.

  Durning shrugged. “Then you got a little careless, and I got a little lucky.”

  “You’re too modest. But in the meantime, five more people are dead.” Donatti paused. “Six,” he said, correcting himself. “I’d forgotten your burned-up bomber with two bullets in his head.”

  They sat looking at each other in their locked room. Until Durning abruptly got up and put on the overly loud music he had neglected to put on earlier. When he sat down again, Donatti noted that he no longer appeared amused.

  “All right, let’s get down to it,” said the attorney general. “Tell me what you’ve got and what you want, and maybe we can work something out.”

  “You already know what I’ve got and what I want.”

  “All I’ve got so far is supposition, and I can’t make a deal on that. So let’s hear it straight out, Carlo.”

  Carlo Donatti smoothed his hair with the palms of both hands, although not a strand was out of place. “I have the woman. I have Vittorio Battaglia’s wife.”

  “And she’s not dead, as you told me? She’s alive?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying now, and that she’s really dead after all?”

  Donatti took three snapshots from his jacket pocket and handed them to the attorney general. They showed him standing beside Peggy, one hand on her shoulder, his other hand holding the front page of an Italian newspaper, date-lined two days ago.

  “She’s looking a lot different from when I last saw her,” said Durning flatly. “Where have you got her?”

  “Somewhere in Italy.”

  “And what has she told you about me?”

  “The whole story.”

  “Which is?”

  “Essentially that she was witness to your killing of a man and a woman in Connecticut ten years ago. She put it all on videotape for me. I have the cassette in the car. Would you like to see it?”

  Durning shook his head. “That wouldn’t add appreciably to my joy.” He looked at the don. “You realize, of course, that the cassette would be inadmissible in a court of law. That is, without the witness herself present to testify under oath and be available for cross-examination by the defense.”

  “I know. I’m an attorney too. Henry. Remember?”

  “Just trying to keep the record straight,” said Durning.

  Carlo Donatti was silent under the pounding of the music. Now he was just waiting for the devil to start dancing. He could almost feel and smell the heat of him.

  “I’m ready for the bottom line, Carlo,” said the attorney general. “What do you want and what are you ready to give?”

  “You know that, too.”

  “Yes, but we don’t want any misunderstandings, do we? So let’s hear it in real words.”

  “I want the originals of everything you have on me in your safety-deposit box, and you can have Mrs. Battaglia. Simple and clear enough?”

  Durning nodded slowly. But it seemed to Donatti that something else was stirring in the room, and he waited for it to make its presence known.

  “What about the boy, her son?” said the attorney general.

  “What about him?”

  “I want him along with his mother.”

  Donatti thought he had already touched the man’s low point. Evidently not. “You mean you—”

  “No, no. Not to hurt him, Carlo. Just to be sure he’s all right.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to understand. It’s personal.
You told me last time no one seemed to know what happened to him. Anything changed in that?”

  Donatti had the sensation of something cold and strange blowing in his face. “Matter of fact, I had a call from Palermo this morning. Seems the boy was spotted trying to get on the ferry to Naples. Then they lost him. It shouldn’t be too long before he’s picked up.”

  “And Battaglia and Garetsky?”

  “Still nothing. But better watch your back.”

  “Watch yours. I’m sure they want you as much as they want me. Maybe more, since you’re one of their own.”

  They both breathed the same air of stopped-up violence.

  “Well?” said the don. “Are you interested?”

  “How could I not be? It’s just the details that will be tricky. I mean the‘who tries to fuck whom’ of it.” Durning’s smile was pure ice. “One would have to be crazy to buy a used car from either of us. But since we each have everything to gain from making it work, maybe it will.”

  Durning stared at Donatti. “But what does our Mrs. Battaglia believe she’ll be gaining from her confessed indictment of me?”

  “Her boy. Not to mention my undying gratitude. I did, after all, save her life the other day, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did. Although you’ve obviously lied to her about having her son.”

  Don Carlo Donatti studied the tips of his fingers and nodded. When he spoke again, there was something gentle and tired in his voice.

  “That’s true,” he said. “I did lie to her. But everything considered, I can’t really see it mattering all that much. Can you?”

  67

  I’m going to die right here on this crazy ship, thought Paulie, among these smelly barrels, and no one will ever know what became of me.

  It was the middle of the night, with gale-force winds and pounding waves, and the constant thumping of engines, and no relief from any of them. And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, he was slowly being poisoned to death by the giant pizza he had pigged out on earlier.

  He had been asleep for a while under his truck tarpaulin, but had been awakened by recurring stomach cramps. The boy tried to fight down the pain. He wouldn’t give in to it. He would just lie quietly and wait, and it would go away.