I was feeling alert and awake, the Seconal hangover easing off. I had slept some on the plane, nodding off half-way through a Freed article explaining the link between the Zionists and the Illuminati. But before I’d dropped off, I learned something extremely interesting about extremist Freed: his home base was right here in the Quad Cities. His campaign headquarters for the coming presidential election was a suite of offices in the Blackhawk Hotel. His private estate was nearby, “just outside Buffalo, Iowa, in America’s heartland.”
Well, somebody in America’s heartland wanted Freed dead. And if I could figure out who that was, I’d know who I wanted dead.
I sat on the bed in the motel room, knowing I wouldn’t need to sleep for a while, and decided to get to work. I checked the phone book for Victor Werner, but there was no listing. It figured that he’d be unlisted. I had an address for him, in the Broker’s papers, but it was ten years old, that address. Would he still be there?
Only one way to find out.
I had left the Browning nine-millimeter behind, of course, but the other two, a matched pair of Smith and Wessons, were still with me. So was an Automatic Weapons Company HP-9 suppressor, a dark round tube that attached to the end of about any nine-millimeter, my S amp; Ws included. With a silencer like this, all a nine-millimeter made was a little thump you could sleep through. Forever, if necessary.
I attached the suppressor to one of the nine-millimeters and rolled the gun up in a bathroom towel. I still had my shoulder holster, but the silenced weapon was too bulky to wear that way. I had a dark blue sweatshirt along, which I put on, still wearing the jeans, and threw the lighter blue CHICAGO BEARS windbreaker over that. With the rolled-up towel under my arm, I looked like I was going to the Y for a work-out.
I wasn’t. I was on my way, in my rental Buick, to Davenport, via the free bridge at Moline; traffic was brisk, but that was to be expected on a Friday night. In Moline I made a stop at a 7-11 and bought a roll of wide adhesive tape and a plastic-wrapped packet of clothesline. Soon I was cruising four-lane River Drive, which connected Moline and Davenport, and to my left was the Mississippi, its shiny black surface reflecting the lights of the cities across the way, and to my right was a slope on which perched various homes, many of them mansions or anyway near-mansions.
Werner’s was a big white would-be Tara, with six pillars in front, its slope of lawn winter-brown at the moment, unmarred by sidewalk. I drove up the nearest side street and found you entered via an alley, off of which was the house and its three-car garage. But the place was dark. Well, it figured. Friday night.
I left the car several blocks away and walked back to Werner’s and waited. I waited in the shrubs near the garage. I never did do home invasions. That wasn’t my style. I always worked as part of a two-man team, one of whom would do most of the watching, the surveillance, getting the target’s pattern down before choosing the right time and place, when the other team member would do the actual hit. Which was usually me.
But home invasions, no, and so I had only the most rudimentary experience with things like alarm systems. A connected guy like Werner would have a sophisticated one, too, and possibly a live-in bodyguard or two, though after an hour no one checked the grounds.
The night was overcast and cold and a little foggy up on this higher ground; the streetlamps in the alley glowed like halos. I should have been chilled, in the light jacket, but for some reason I couldn’t feel it much. I felt dead, even if my breath in the cold air indicated I wasn’t.
Finally, just after midnight, a security company car crawled down the alley. One of the two uniformed, brown leather-jacketed men got out and walked the grounds with a flashlight, while the other waited, sipping steaming liquid from a styrofoam cup. It was only a half-hearted effort, the one with the flash not even brushing the bushes where I hid with his beam. Good thing. Coldinspired laziness had saved a couple of lives.
And at one-thirty-something, a jade green Lincoln coasted down the alley and pulled in the drive; one of the three doors of the garage swung up upon electronic command, and the big boat of a car docked itself within.
The door shut itself, and a man in a camel’s hair overcoat and a woman in a mink exited the garage via a side door. The woman was in the lead, a harshly attractive blonde in her late forties who was staying perhaps too thin in an effort to hold onto her youth. The man was shorter than his wife, and in his mid-fifties though his hair was jet black; he had a round, youthful face, but his mouth was a tight gash. He was pulling on his gloves.
“We’re going to the game,” Mr. Werner said, irritably.
“You’ll go alone,” the apparent Mrs. Werner said. Her voice was as icily crisp as the air.
“Isn’t it enough I give those phony bastards my money? Do I have to…”
She turned and pointed a finger in his face; she was wearing black leather gloves. “The Arts Council is the most important thing in my life. Don’t louse it up!”
“We don’t have to be at every goddamn meeting…”
“Well, I do,” she said.
By this time they were at the back door. The woman stood with her arms folded, tapping her foot as if to some inner and no doubt unpleasant tune while Werner worked a key in the lock.
“I’m going to that game,” he said. “I didn’t spring for season tickets to stay home.”
“I’m co-chairperson, Vic. Don’t forget that.”
“Would that I could.”
He had the door open, now. The whine of an alarm system sounded.
“Doesn’t mean a thing to you the Hawks are number one in the nation, does it?” he asked, as he reached around inside to work another key in a wall socket, turning off the alarm.
With a patrician downward glance at him, she said, “I enjoy the games. Driving all the way to Iowa City doesn’t thrill me, but I’m as much a Hawk fan as you are…”
“I doubt that.”
“I just have my own priorities.”
So did I.
They stepped inside and I stepped in with them, putting the nine-millimeter’s silenced nose in the back of the woman’s neck.
“God!” she said.
Werner was looking at me through narrow eyes, as if trying to comprehend that I was really standing there. The kitchen was dark, but the alley was well lit and that made for some visibility.
“Don’t turn on the lights,” I told her, “and don’t turn around.”
“Don’t rape me,” she said. “Please don’t let him rape me, Vic!”
“Shut up,” he said.
I tossed him the packet of clothesline.
“Tie her in that chair,” I told him. To her I said, “Keep your back to me. Don’t see me.”
“All right,” she said timidly.
“Sit,” I said.
She sat.
Werner, moving with slow, quiet disgust, tied his wife into the chair. I watched him carefully and he performed his task well, making it tight enough and knotted well enough to get her bound, but not hurting her. Despite their bickering, he seemed to care for her.
While he was doing that, I asked him: “Anyone else in the house?”
“No.”
“No children?”
“We have two kids, both at college.”
“Neither home at the moment?”
“Neither home at the moment.”
“Any live-in help?”
“No.”
“No bodyguards?”
“No. I used to have live-in help like that. No more.”
“Why?”
“I’m a respectable member of the community. Respectable members of the community don’t go around with bodyguards.”
He got up from where he’d been kneeling to tie her legs to the chair and said, “Now what?”
“Her mouth,” I said, and tossed him the adhesive tape.
He sighed and put a slash of tape across her mouth. I saw him smile reassuringly at her, squeezed her shoulder once. Said, “Don’t look at him, Virginia.
”
She nodded.
“Now what?” he asked.
“How often does the rent-a-cop car come by? Don’t lie.”
“Twice a night.”
“When?”
“It varies.”
“Usually.”
He shrugged. “About midnight. Then again around three.”
“Let’s go outside.”
“Why?”
“I have the gun. The one with the gun gets to ask the questions.”
“Right,” he sighed. He turned to his wife, whose back remained to us. “Just sit there,” he said pointlessly. “Don’t try to do anything.”
She nodded again, which was about all she could do, anyway.
And her husband and I went out into the cold foggy air. The distance from house to alley was moderate, but the yard was wide and protected from neighboring houses and their big yards by walls of shrubbery.
“What’s this about?” he asked. He didn’t seem very afraid.
“I used to work for the Broker.”
That only seemed to irritate him. “Well, what are you coming around here for, then? And what’s the idea of the gun, and tying up my wife?”
“Simple precaution,” I said; he seemed to have taken me for somebody else, which could prove interesting.
“Look… Stone, is it? None of this has anything to do with me, and I don’t want to have anything more to do with it. You can tell that to Ridge.” He sliced the air with the side of his hand, karate-chop style, in a gesture of finality. “I’ve done all I’m going to do.”
“I may not be who you think I am.”
“Well, you’re Stone.”
“No I’m not. I know who you mean. I worked with Stone, a few times. But I’m not Stone.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m someone else who used to work for the Broker.”
“Someone else? Who?”
“What’s in a name.”
“Look, a lot of people worked for the Broker. But that’s ancient history. That cunning old son-of-a-bitch died years ago.”
“I know,” I said. “I was there.”
He wasn’t impressed yet. “Were you really.” It wasn’t a question.
I said, “He pointed you out to me, once, Mr. Werner. He said you were a rising star who fell.”
He laughed humorlessly. “That sounds like him.”
“He said you were destined for big things in the Outfit, but that you made some mistakes. You were lucky to stay alive, actually, let alone hang onto your vending business, hotel interests and other holdings locally.”
“I have very little to do with those people anymore,” he said. “I am, as I told you, a respectable member of the community. What are you, down on your luck? Looking for work? If you’re auditioning, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re just a thief, now, well, there’s little of value in my house, but I’m willing to lead you to what there is, if you’ll be done with this and go. We have perhaps a thousand in cash, some negotiable securities, some jewelry, a few paintings, though the latter might not be anything you’d want to fool with.”
“Well, you’ve seen me, Mr. Werner. You’d give my description to the authorities.”
“But I wouldn’t. I’m still connected enough that I don’t relish investigation of any sort. If they caught up with you, you might tell them what you know about me, and while I don’t think much would come of it, it could prove embarrassing.”
“Embarrassment is the least of your problems. I said I used to work for the Broker.”
He looked at me sideways, drawing back a bit. And then it hit him. The blood left his face. “You… you’re not the one he called… Quarry, are you?”
“That’s right.”
And now he was scared. He was starting to breathe heavy, his country club cool melting on him, even in this weather. He started backing up.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
He stopped; suddenly his breath was smoking up the place. “I thought… I thought…”
“You thought I was dead? And why is that?”
“Look-I was just doing a favor for a friend… I…”
“What friend? What favor?”
He patted the air with his palms. “Let’s be reasonable. Let’s just be reasonable. I can explain.”
“I’ll explain. Someone came to you, someone who knew you had mob connections, and requested the name of an assassin. And you used to be the Broker’s mob conduit, so you knew the names and even the whereabouts of some of his people. What made you pick my name out of the hat?”
A swallow and a sigh. “Broker said… he said something about you once.”
“What’s that?”
He looked at the ground. “I don’t remember. I just remember he singled you out.”
“No, really. I’m interested.”
He swallowed again, reluctantly met my eyes with his. “He said you were his best man. If I ever had anything… out of the ordinary, anybody important, you’d be the man for the job.”
Even dead, all these years, that cocksucker was still causing me problems.
“Well, I’m flattered,” I said. “And that’s why you gave out my name for this political contract, is it?”
He shook his head no, repeatedly. “I don’t know anything about the contract. I just know who put it in motion.”
“And who would that be?”
He thought.
Then said: “If I tell you, you have to promise me something.”
“Which is?”
His eyes were slits. “You’ll kill this man at your first opportunity.”
“No problem.”
“He’s… a friend of mine, you see, but he’s… he wouldn’t stop at anything, to reach his goals. If he knew I’d told you who he was, I’d be dead.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a self-made millionaire. Real estate.”
“What’s his name? Ridge?”
“Ridge,” he nodded. “George Ridge.”
“Lives here in the Cities?”
“In Davenport. That’s where his business is, too. It’s in Paul Revere Square on Kimberly.”
“I see. You’ve been helpful, Mr. Werner.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me keeping my mouth shut,” he said.
“Oh, I know,” I said, and raised the nine-millimeter.
“Wait! Wait. That’s not necessary!”
“You thought I was dead, Mr. Werner. Why?”
“George… George told me you hadn’t worked out. He asked me if I could give him another name. I… I gave him one.”
“Stone.”
He thought for a moment, then shrugged, what the hell. “Stone. I.. guess I let that slip before.”
“That’s right.”
“But that’s just what the Broker called him. He was living under another name. Brackett, I believe.”
“I know that, too,” I said.
“Oh, you do. But I have been of some help…”
“You have. Only something doesn’t track, here.”
“What?”
“The two men who tried to hit me. Neither one was this man Stone, Brackett, whatever. I don’t think they were pros, those two.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Well-I think Stone was going to get offered the job you turned down. George has people working for him who have pretty rough backgrounds. He might have used some of them.”
“How educated a guess is that?”
“Pretty educated. He did say to me… well, he said he was going to have to do something about you.”
“Because I was a loose end.”
“Something like that. He… I admit he makes me more than a little uneasy.”
“And why is that, Mr. Werner?”
“Well, hell-I didn’t want to be a ‘loose end’ myself.” He shrugged, lifted his eyebrows. “But I don’t really think George looks at me that way.”
“Why’s that?”
“He thinks of me as Outfit.
Which I still am, to a degree. It’s just that I’m strictly legitimate these days.”
“Do you love your wife, Mr. Werner?”
“What sort of question is that?”
“Do you love your wife?”
“Of course I love her.”
“Well, thanks to you, my wife is dead, and my unborn child. So when I’ve done you, I’ll do Mrs. Werner.”
“No!”
“And I may just look those kids of yours up for the hell of it.”
His eyes went wide with a terror like none I’d ever seen; I let it linger there a few moments, then shot him between them. The heavy camel’s hair overcoat cushioned his fall and he lay on his back staring up at the overcast sky, eyes and mouth open, in a look of empty yet reflective horror.
I had no intention of killing his wife or kids. I didn’t want to lower myself to that level. I just wanted him to think I would.
There’s no reason to believe there’s anything after this life but darkness, and I wanted to make sure the son-of-a-bitch spent at least a few seconds in hell.
7
The wide one-way of Brady Street burrowed through a valley of plastic and metal and cement that was America in all its fast-food, discount-chain glory. It was Saturday afternoon, and the four lanes were thick with cars; even in the unemployment-stressed Quad Cities, people seemed to have income to dispose of, as car after car would leave the pack and disappear into the jammed parking lot of this temple of Mammon or that one. And on the right, as the valley dipped, between McDonald’s and Payless Shoe Source, an auto lot sprawled, a virtual football field of vehicles,
new and used: BEST BUY BUICK amp; OLDS.
I pulled the rental Buick into the lot and stepped out, looking (I hoped) fairly prosperous in my suit and tie and brown leather overcoat. These, as well as a second suitcase and enough clothes of various sorts to fill it and my immediate needs, I’d bought at shops on the Illinois side of the Cities, at South Park Mall, which hadn’t been far from the Howard Johnson’s I’d checked out of. I had checked into the Blackhawk Hotel, just before heading out Brady Street, and all of this had eaten up most of the morning. It was now approaching noon, the sun bright and reflecting off the shiny new (and used) cars.
I began nosing around. Buicks and Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. Sporty cars and conservative ones. Expensive ones and less expensive ones. Here a two-tone barge with a vinyl top; there a low-slung number with a garish bird spread over its crimson hood. Symbols of status that told you who you were, in case you didn’t know.
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