Abel Baker Charley

by John R. Maxim

  Tanner blinked but didn't smile. “Maybe you're one of those people who think any actress has to be promiscuous.”

  “No, really.” Baker took a step toward her. Damn! “Tanner, it's really nothing like that at all.”

  “Well, I'm not.”

  “Tanner. . .”

  “Except tonight. Doggone it, Peter, tonight I'm not going to be alone. You can't just walk away after what's happened to me. If you do, I swear I'm going to get on that phone and call the first man I know who's awake and get him up here no matter what I have to do to keep him here.”

  “You could call a woman friend to stay . ..”

  “Dumb!” Her chin began to quiver.

  “I'm sorry. I suppose that was stupid.” Baker said it, but he wasn't sure why. He would have thought that the last thing she'd want was a man near her or touching her. Baker didn't like that thought either.

  ”I can call room service.” Her face brightened a shade. “You offered me a drink before, Peter. You can stay at least that long,” she said in a small fading voice. Baker knew that she was still very much afraid and that her control was an actress's control. It was only his presence and, in no small part, the mystery of him that kept her mind from focusing back on the knives, the terror, the screams. Baker listened for a warning from Abel. None came. The other one was silent too. The only voice he heard was his own. It reminded him that the hour was late and that he needed a quiet place to rest and to stay. It said he wanted very much to stay. With her.

  His expression must have told her that. She moved quickly toward him as he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. Tanner Burke stopped inches away, her hands raised toward his shoulders but not touching him.

  ”I... I don't want to make you uncomfortable,” she said, swallowing back a hot feeling that welled in her throat. “Just so you're . . .”

  “Close.” He nodded. ”I know the feeling.”

  In Greenwich, forty miles north, Tina Baker sat bolt upright in the dark of her bedroom. It had come again.

  She looked at the illuminated clock by her bedside. Almost one in the morning. An hour since the last feeling came. But this time was different. Not scary like before. No knives and wet leaves and yelling. This one was all warm and neat. Exciting neat. Like when you see your best friend after a long time and she's just as laughing glad to see you. Daddy? Daddy's with a friend of mine?

  No, that isn't right. It's a grownup. It's somebody pretty and it's okay for Daddy to be with her because he knows her and I know her and . . . The television! Tina felt something about the television. What? Well, turn it on, dummy.

  She slid her legs from beneath the light blanket and dropped her good leg to the floor. With both hands gripping the bedpost, she pulled herself upright and then held on, biting her lip, waiting for the blood to sear through her other foot. She counted ten seconds and then pressed the injured foot against the carpet. Tina walked the five paces to the dresser on which the television sat. It was working, she thought. The more she tried to keep the foot from knowing that it hurt her, the less it seemed to try.

  The set snapped on, washing the room in an instant blue light. Tina had no idea what she was looking for. A Kojak rerun? That was on Channel 5. Channel 4. Hurry. She clicked the changer one stop. Clairol Nice 'n' Easy. The end of a Clairol commercial. She waited. The commercial faded and there was Johnny Carson saying goodnight to a couch full of guests. Was it one of the guests? No. She didn't even know them. The commercial. It was something about the commercial … she thought.

  One by one, she scanned the other channels just in case. There was nothing. Just movies. Tina reached for the remote control unit, which she kept on the set itself. She refused to use it from her bed. The set and the room went black.

  She retraced her five paces. Daddy? I couldn't find it. Was it the Clairol commercial?

  Tina sank deeply into her bed, her blanket hugged up against her chin. That was a good one, she smiled. That was a really good one.

  A long crosstown block from the Plaza, where Sixth Avenue dissolved into a northbound road that snaked through Central Park, a near-frantic Michael Biaggi struggled to collect his thoughts. That he'd lost Baker and the girl was the least of his problems. Anyone could lose a tail in Central Park. Baker would turn up. Sooner or later, he'd turn up at the St. Moritz.

  But how would he explain the rest of it? How would he explain Baker finding that one particular punk in the whole goddamned city of New York? And if Baker meant to find the kid, why was he so damned surprised when the kid said his name? How do you explain that? And how would he explain just lying there watching it happen when he could have stopped it? Tortora would cut his heart out if he knew. But what was he supposed to do? Shoot Baker? Then Duncan Peck would have had his ass.

  The answer, he thought, is don't explain. Don't explain because you didn't even know. Let Harrigan figure out what the kid was doing in there. Let Harrigan find his name in the wallet. You never looked. Harrigan will know you were just as surprised as he. Christ, he thought miserably, how did you ever get into shit this deep.

  Biaggi peered onto Central Park South from behind the high stone pillars that marked the roadway entrance. The blue Oldsmobile was still there. He could see Harrigan's arm on the ... Biaggi stepped back. A uniformed policeman had stopped on the sidewalk and was looking over Harrigan's car. Now he was approaching Harrigan, shining a light on him. Good, he thought. It'll give Harrigan something else to think about besides trying to read my mind every time I blink twice.

  The policeman bent low to read the card Connor Harrigan held in the flashlight's beam. Even at a distance, Biaggi could see the anger and frustration in the older man's face. But the policeman seemed satisfied. He straightened, touched his cap, and continued toward Fifth Avenue at an easy pace. Biaggi waited until the foot cop had passed the Park Lane and was halfway to the Plaza fountain, then dashed across the street and slid into the passenger seat next to Connor Harrigan. Harrigan was still fuming at his luck.

  “What's the big deal?” asked the young man in the gray raincoat. Biaggi wiped a mixture of rain and sweat from his face. “You flashed a card, right? All the cop knows is that a fed is working his precinct.”

  Harrigan sucked noisily on his pipe. “If that cop has any career smarts, he will now call his sergeant who will call his captain. In fifteen minutes, they'll be down here putting a glass to us in case we're close to a bust they can get a piece of. What if one gets lucky and spots Jared Baker?”

  “On a fugitive want from Connecticut?” Biaggi began to relax. “That's a hell of a long shot.”

  “So were the '69 Mets,” grumped Harrigan. “Anyway, what about this girl Baker found? Wherever she is, Baker figures to be with her.”

  “If she ever got out of the park. That maniac might have left her all carved up someplace just like the other two.”

  “Baker's no maniac,” Harrigan said quietly.

  “You didn't see him work.”

  Harrigan chose not to correct him.

  ”I mean,” Biaggi went on, “one minute he looks like Joe Normal out for an evening stroll, and the next he's taking those two bums like they were Girl Scouts. And he's methodical, you know? Like he's trained for years. Like he knows he can do whatever he wants and they can't do shit back to him. Even when he had a knife hanging out of his hip.”

  “He's had no training.” Harrigan frowned at the thought of Baker being wounded. How bad? Bad enough to make him hole up? Don't hole up, Baker. Stay on track. Keep moving so old Uncle Connor can see who you flush.

  “Like hell, with due respect.”

  “What?” Harrigan had stopped listening.

  “Training,” Biaggi said. “Down at the Farm, I graduated second place in unarmed combat and first in silent killing. But I have to tell you, I don't think I could have taken Baker without an ax.”

  Harrigan stretched and yawned. ”I know Baker from the minute he was born,” he said. “He grew up in a box right here in the
apple. He went to school, played some sports, got a job, got married, and bought his own box up in the burbs. For a living, he pushes laundry soap. For kicks, he draws pictures and sails around on a little boat. For real excitement, he skis down hills. That's it. Never in any service. Never any training. Not the kind you mean.”

  Harrigan cracked the window and relit his pipe, gazing thoughtfully through the smoke that spread across the windshield. “Back to the girl. On the radio, you said she looked familiar.”

  ”I didn't get that good a look. Middle, late twenties. Dark hair. Very sharp, and I think I've seen her more than once. Not on the job, though. I'd remember.”

  “An actress or a model?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Would it help if you heard a name?”

  ”I don't know. Yeah. Maybe.”

  Harrigan chose not to comment on the clarity of Biaggi's reply. He reached for the radiophone and punched out a number. “Listen, Katy, this is Connor. Call up somebody, wake up somebody, who works for an outfit called the Celebrity Register. I'm looking for what youngish, brunette, good-looking actress is in town. She's probably staying in the East Fifties or Sixties, but give me everybody. Also, I had to flash my ID for a street cop from the Sixth Precinct. I told him we're staking out a hotel where some bad paper's been showing up. If anyone checks, you confirm that and tell them it's strictly little league, okay? . . . We'll be here, darlin'.”

  ”I thought Kate was inside the hotel.” Biaggi tried to make his question sound casual. He didn't like giving wrong information to Duncan Peck.

  “Baker got his own girl.” Harrigan shrugged. ”I sent Mulgrew back to Central.”

  Biaggi patted his raincoat and took a breath. “Oh,” he said, “speaking of ID, I took the watches and wallets off those two that Baker chopped up.”

  “What did you do that for?” Harrigan looked at him.

  Biaggi blinked. “Mostly to dirty things up so it looks like something else.”

  “You got good instincts.” But Harrigan saw an odd light in Biaggi's eyes. “What's the other part? The part that's left over when you say ‘mostly’?”

  ”I got curious. Those two weren't street bums or junkies. Good clothes, good watches.” He fished out the wallets and held them in his hand, the watchbands hanging from one finger. “You want a look?”

  Harrigan shook his head. “Toss them over the first bridge we cross.”

  “Even the cash? I mean, there's got to be money in these.”

  “You saying you want to keep it?”

  “No, but it's wasteful. Maybe the poor box, even, down at St. Patrick's.”

  “St. Patrick hasn't seen any poor people since he opened on Fifth Avenue. Deep-six it.”

  Biaggi fumbled with the one that had blood on it and riffled to the credit cards and papers of the one called Sumo. “The fat one is Warren H. Bagnold of Seventy-three Cedar Lane in Bronxville, New York. See, I told you. And here's a membership card for the Westchester Restaurant Group Dining Club. That's money up around there, right?”

  “The Westchester Restaurant Group is also Mob.” There was a quiet hum in the back of Harrigan's head like the buzz of a shorting wire.

  Biaggi was relaxing again. “Warren doesn't know from Mobs. He just eats. Except he's going to eat through a tube for a while if he makes it at all. This one's from the guy called Jace.” The other billfold was an ostrich-hide from Dunhill. Biaggi's hand trembled slightly. He slipped it open, “This one's also Bronxville. John C. Tortor...” He allowed the name to die on his lips.

  Harrigan jerked, disbelieving, then slid the wallet from Biaggi's fingers. Involuntarily, Biaggi wiped his hands against his raincoat.

  “Holy sweet Jesus,” Harrigan whispered. The wire was beginning to smoke. With his thumb, he folded back the plastic files of photographs and credit cards. Most of the cards were in the name of John C. Tortora. J. C . . . That's the Jace, he guessed. Other cards, however, were courtesy cards. A special parking permit issued by the local police and an accounting number for an Italian-American social club bore the name of Domenic Tortora. Harrigan folded the wallet shut and placed it lightly on the dash.

  “Domenic Tortora is the Westchester Restaurant Group, Michael, among many other things,” he said quietly. “And that was his little boy you left out there.”

  “What do you mean, I left—” Biaggi caught himself. Damnit! He was almost sure Harrigan was laying bait. Maybe not. Harrigan seemed bothered by more than who the kid was.

  “This is beginning to stink, Michael. This is too goddamned much of a coincidence.”

  “What coincidence?” Biaggi affected indifference. “What you got here is two punks who get their kicks prowling Central Park at night because cops don't go in there and sometimes stupid civilians do. They see a girl and they figure they'll rip off a piece of ass. Except the way it works out, one local Mob loses one trainee who's probably a psycho anyway. The punk has to be related to somebody, right? Why not Tortora?”

  “Relax, Michael.” Harrigan's bright and ambitious special assistant was suddenly talking nonsense.

  “And what was I supposed to do out there? Give the little bastard mouth-to-mouth in case his old man had connections?”

  “Michael,” Harrigan said calmly, “let us pass over your Christian duty for the moment. This very evening, I pointed out two of Tortora's known thugs wandering about the Warwick Hotel. Then, when Domenic Tortora's only son is revealed to be the victim of our very own Jared Baker, you act like there could be no possible connection.”

  “It could still be.. ” Biaggi thought better of it.

  “And the other lad in Connecticut. The one Baker maimed to start off this whole business. Do you recall who the father of that one was?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Some hack judge from the Stamford Superior Court.”

  “Not some hack judge, Michael. Tortora's hack judge. The man whose murder caused Baker to take flight. Curious, isn't it?”

  Biaggi opened his mouth to comment, but Connor Harrigan waved him into silence. He needed a minute to back up. What did he know? He knew that, murder warrant or not, there was hardly anyone who believed that Baker had killed the old judge. Yet the warrant is kept alive. Why? To remind Baker that he's a fugitive? To keep him from coming back? There's a thought.

  Then there are Tortora's friends. Mobsters. They had been looking for Baker for a year and a half. Not looking hard, especially. Not even as hard as they'd look for someone who stiffed one of Tortora's loan sharks. But looking. The interest in Baker was there, all right, but it certainly didn't have the smell of a contract. More like keeping tabs on him. How about it, Baker? Why is it important that one dog or another keeps nipping at your heels? Why, before tonight, would Tortora even care? To avenge some batty old judge? Hardly. If anything, Bellafonte was becoming an embarrassment to him. Which, incidentally, makes Tortora a prime suspect in his murder. But if that's so, why doesn't Tortora just close the circle by putting an end to the fugitive Jared Baker? Do you know, Baker? You don't, do you? So why would you tempt fate so outrageously by grinding up Tortora's son? The answer, I think, is that you wouldn't. You don't know who that was, do you, Baker?

  And speaking of nipping dogs, the word is that old Duncan Peck has been busy strengthening his bench of late. Telling people who owe him one that he might need a favor soon. Dropping hints that his old friend Connor Harrigan might be selling out or losing his grip or both. What's he afraid of, Baker? What is it he thinks I'm getting too close to? The fact is, between you and me, that I don't know much of anything. Just pieces. I know that Sonnenberg is salting spooks all over the country, but I don't know why. I don't know what Tortora's interest is. I don't even know what Duncan Peck's interest is beyond what he told me. Only that there's much more. With Duncan Peck, there's always much more. But I don't have to know all these things, Baker, because what I do know is you. I'm getting to know you better every day.

  “Connor?” Biaggi rolled down the window to clear out som
e smoke.

  “Yeah?”

  “So what do we do? Do we toss this stuff or not?”

  “We don't toss it. We....” Harrigan looked past Biaggi's worried face toward the dark, wet treeline. He listened. “You hear anything?”

  “Yelling.” Biaggi bit his lip. “Yeah, screaming. I think Warren's discovered his suppository.”

  “Sounds that way.”

  “Well? Do we do anything?”

  Harrigan considered for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Go into the St. Moritz and call nine-eleven from the lobby. Tell the cop who answers that you're a guest there and you hear screaming from Central Park, like somebody's getting killed. You got change? You don't want the desk clerk remembering that you—”

  ”I know, I know.” Biaggi produced a quarter from his pocket and reached for the door latch. “What about the wallets?”

  “Let me think about that,” he said, reaming out his pipe.''Let me think about a lot of things.”

  Biaggi hesitated, just for a beat, his eyes on the billfolds. There was fear in his expression and Harrigan saw it.

  Her breath was coming soft and deep. Baker reached for her glass before it could slip from her fingers.

  Tanner had changed her clothes. The torn and soiled garments from the park lay in a wastebasket. She wore instead a full-length robe of Oriental silk. It was green with muted gold embroidery and it buttoned almost to her chin. She'd wanted to shower. She'd wanted to scrub and soak for hours to wipe away even the memory of those two men touching, but this other man would be gone if she had. The robe was enough for now. It was clean and warm. And the white wine from room service was making her even warmer.

  From a long way off, she heard the man . . . What did she decide to call him? Peter. Peter was whispering to her. Now his hands were on her shoulders and he was steering her gently through her bedroom door. She let her body fall across the deep quilt, all but one hand, which held fast to the hem of Peter's jacket. Stay, she asked him in her mind. She was too deeply tired to find the words that might make him stay close to her. Her fingers tightened on his jacket.