Abel Baker Charley

by John R. Maxim

  “But why are you here, Baker?'' he'd asked during the plane ride that beat Baker's flight by half a day. And again as he stared through prisms of rainwater on the windshield of the blue Oldsmobile. Could it simply be to visit your daughter? Or to be reprogrammed by the mysterious Dr. Sonnenberg? Or to make someone else disappear? Or, more precisely, to make your little girl disappear! In that case, Mr. Baker, if that's it, and I'm growing goddamned sure that it is, I'm afraid I'll have to take some action. Because if you get away with her, we'll never see you again, will we, Mr. Baker?

  There, said Harrigan to himself. That much is reasonably straightforward. Not what you'd call buttoned up, but straightforward. I spend these many months getting to understand you, watching you develop your talent, watching you run recruitment errands for your Dr. Sonnenberg, and then, I think, watching you begin to regret that talent. I have an overpowering intuition that you were about to become a dropout twice removed, funded, apparently, by the casino establishment of Las Vegas, Nevada. I suspect, incidentally, assuming Sonnenberg taught you to forage for funds in that manner, that Las Vegas is at least one source of his own considerable income. Yes, Baker, this business gets more straightforward all the time.

  Until tonight, that is. Tonight, Baker, something very peculiar happens. Let's consider it together. Baker takes an idiotic stroll through the park. Baker comes upon two young pigs who are about to ravage a covergirl type. Baker goes Wolfman again and rips the bejaysus out of them. Except one of them isn't just any pig. He's Domenic Tortora's pig. I know you weren't tailing him because I was tailing you. No way, therefore, for you to know that those particular bums would go looking for action in this park on this particular night. And even if you did know, how would you find them? Young John and his mesomorph friend certainly didn't leave a map showing where they hoped to waylay a screen goddess if one should happen by.

  What does that leave? It leaves coincidence. Or it leaves that Baker knew where he'd find them. Coincidence leads nowhere of interest. We'll ignore it. So if you knew, Baker, and we skip over the question of how you knew, the next question becomes why. Why would a man who goes so far out of his way to lay low do something that is sure to bring Tortora and everyone Tortora can buy right down on his ass? It doesn't make sense, Baker. It probably makes no more sense to our friends Sonnenberg and Tortora, or even Duncan Peck, all of whom are no doubt going through this same exercise about now. The difference is that I've got you, Baker. Or do you have me? We're about to find out, aren't we, lad?

  12

  Connor Harrigan knelt at the edge of the bathtub in Tanner Burke's suite, grunting as he worked his fingers over the dead man's pockets and the lining of his uniform. Behind him, Baker stood quietly, apparently indifferent to Harrigan's work. Now and then he would stare thoughtfully at his own image in the washstand mirror.

  The more Harrigan searched, the more certain he was that he had not executed a New York City police officer. The man's second weapon, a gas pistol equipped with either killing or tranquilizing darts, tended to argue in that direction, but the possibility remained, however dim, that he was a legitimate cop moonlighting as a contract killer. Possible, but not at all likely, he thought. The man carried nothing. Not a label. Not a scrap of paper except the blank sheets of his notebook. Only a single coin.

  He was not likely to be an associate of Stanley Levy, who worked alone except for accompanying muscle, or any other criminal hireling. Contract killers rarely, if ever, bother to strip themselves of traceable documents and never of cash. Too much of an inconvenience for a useless theatric that would cause only a modest delay in their identification. Nor would the ordinary hoodlum worry much about protecting his patron's anonymity once he himself was cold meat. Even religious killers seemed unwilling to pass anonymously to their reward these days.

  What abut Sonnenberg? Could he be another of Son-nenberg's spooks? Probably not. Sonnenberg, in his arrogance, would have laid a masterful trail of false paper before he'd do anything so banal as a stripping of documents. The coin, Connor. Why a coin? Coins are for telephones. You were going to call someone, weren't you, you rascal.

  Suddenly, very suddenly, Harrigan felt a change inside him. It was a curious surging. An emotion. An anger. And then it passed. He waited for a moment, thinking it might return, but it did not. There was only the sensation of Baker behind him. Baker was moving.

  A glance over his shoulder told him that it was not danger that he felt. Baker made no move toward him. The tall man's eyes were upon the policeman's black notebook, which lay on the tile floor.

  Harrigan pushed to his feet. He threw a towel across the dead man's face and closed the heavy shower curtain. A drawer slammed shut in the other room and some wooden hangers clattered across a closet rod. Tanner Burke was dressing. The sound seemed to disrupt whatever it was that disturbed Jared Baker. His face softened. Baker glanced once in the direction from which the sound had come and then toward the bathtub, and his eyes saddened. Harrigan could almost read his mind. What was she feeling? he was wondering. What could she be thinking, knowing that she'd just held doors open so that the first corpse she'd likely ever seen could be carried in and dumped in her bathtub? Harrigan knew because he wondered those things himself. And what of you, Baker? he thought. Harrigan turned to study him, idly picking up the policeman's notebook as he did so.

  The two men had barely spoken. Harrigan's response to Baker's return of his greeting was only to take a weary breath and to reach for the feet of the dead policeman, indicating the heavier end as Baker's portion. “His eyes” was all that Tanner Burke had whispered, and Jared Baker bent to close them. Jared Baker the family man. Jared Baker the suburbanite from green and tranquil Connecticut. For most of his life, his bigger problems included whether his lawn had enough lime on it and what to do when the shit backed up from the septic tank. Now it's a year and a half later, and he can stand around a bathroom daydreaming after almost getting shot, after meeting a guy who's been dogging him for months, and after carrying two hundred pounds of dead beef through a hotel corridor with a movie star, for Christ's sake, trotting ahead of him. What does it take, Baker? What does it take for you to say fuck this, I can't handle it, and then give the job to your friend I saw in Dayton? I want to see that, Baker. I want to see you do it right up close and then I want to know how.

  “Does the woman know what you are?” Harrigan asked quietly.

  Baker straightened. “The woman? If you mean Ms. Burke, the answer is no.”

  “God save us.” Harrigan blinked. ”A feminist Frankenstein.”

  Baker ignored the remark. His eyes fell upon the notebook turning in Harrigan's hands.

  “If she doesn't know, she must damn well be curious after seeing you do your tricks in the park.”

  “She didn't see that.” Baker kept his voice low. “Not clearly, anyway. She didn't even know my last name until she heard you say it. Ms. Burke is not a part of this, Harrigan.”

  Harrigan jerked his thumb toward the shower curtain. “Can I assume that's why you sent in your scrub team against our friend in there? If it is, your consideration for the lady's sensitivities could have gotten all goddamned three of us killed. In fact, Mr. Baker, it seems that she's a hell of a lot handier in a brawl than you are.”

  A smile tugged at Baker's mouth and he looked away. The thought seemed to please him. Harrigan made a disgusted face. So much, he thought, for provoking Baker by impugning his virility. The pain in the ass is proud of her. She dances in with those dumb little kicks that she probably learned from some picture she did, kicks that wouldn't have knocked a zit off the cop except they surprised him, and he's proud of her. He lets her do the fighting while all the time he could tear the guy in half, but instead he holds on for dear life like he learned to do in the fourth grade and . . . Ohhh, Baker ... stupid me.

  “She's going to know, Baker. She's going to read the papers this afternoon.”

  Baker turned away. Toward the mirror. Slowly, hesitantly, he reache
d for the hot water tap and turned it on. Next, he reached for a hotel towel, which he held under the running water for several moments before bringing it to his face. Harrigan tensed. He lowered his hand and placed it over the gas pistol, which lay on the tub's edge. With one finger, he quietly worked back the bolt so that part of the chambered dart could be seen. It was yellow. A tranquilizer dart. Three cc's were enough for a water buffalo, and there would be more in the pistol's butt. Harrigan eased off the safety.

  But it wasn't happening. What he'd seen happen behind a towel in a Dayton, Ohio, boxing ring wasn't happening. No swelling sensation. No cooling of muscles. If anything, Baker seemed to be softening.

  “Charley?”

  No answer.

  ”I feel her, Charley. I feel her thinking my name. What is she thinking about me, Charley?”

  “scared.”

  “Scared of me?”

  “scared, telephone.”

  “She's afraid of the telephone?”

  “afraid to call, afraid to not call, abel says don't let her call”

  “Never mind what Abel says.”

  “now she thinks, don 't call police, don 't get baker in trouble.”’

  “Never mind that either. Charley, what's in that notebook? Why do I keep wanting to look at that black notebook?”

  telephone number, i saw a phone number there and you didn't.”

  “Whose number, Charley? Why is it important?”

  “ask abel.”

  “Tell me, Charley.”

  “abel says don't tell you. abel says send him out now. there are more bad people outside, abel says don't tell you who because you don 't send him anymore when i tell you. abel says you should have called him on the stairs before. abel says that's why I told you those men were there, i told you so you could send him and you didn’t.”

  “Charley, damn you...”

  “Jared?” Tanner Burke's fingers reached from the doorway and touched his arm. Harrigan saw the towel fall away from his face and he saw the face harden again. All but the eyes. The eyes took on a smitten look as they absorbed the lovely young woman who'd entered. She had changed into a brown tweed jacket, slacks, and a yellow turtle neck that made her natural coloring seem all the more healthy and clean. Tanner wore no jewelry save the simple gold studs in her ear and a single topaz ring. She was dressed to go out. Harrigan relaxed his grip on the gas pistol and smoothly tucked the weapon under his coat.

  “Jared,” she said quietly, not looking at the older man, “are you going to tell me?”

  Baker half-turned and reached out a hand. She took it tenderly and held it in both of hers.

  Oh, Jesus, thought Harrigan. And now we have the bride of Frankenstein. We don't have enough trouble already. What's worse is, if he gets away from me, he's going to try to tell her. He won't show her, but he'd tell her. And he probably hasn't sense enough to tell her a decent lie.

  “Jared,” she said, her voice firmer now, ”I sat in there staring at the phone. I came this close to calling the police and telling them that one of their officers is in my—”

  “He's not a policeman.” Baker shook his head. “There's nothing in his pockets except a coin and a phone numb—” Baker caught himself too late. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the wave of astonishment that crossed Connor Harrigan's face. By the time he turned fully, the notebook was in Harrigan's hand again and Harrigan was riffling through it a second time. And then he saw it. The light was right and he saw it, not in the notebook but written in ink across the spine of the black vinyl cover. There were ten digits. And they were written backward.

  Baker watched as the astonishment faded and a small satisfied smile began to take its place.

  ”I think we'd all better have a chat,” said the older man.

  “Here's the thing,” said Connor Harrigan, squeezing a tea bag over his cup. He was speaking to Tanner Burke. ”I wish with all my heart that you were not involved. I wish it even more than Mr. Baker—”

  “Could I ask who you are first?” Tanner interrupted.

  Harrigan wiped his fingers on a Kleenex and reached for his small cowhide case, which he opened and passed to her. “The name is Connor Harrigan. The card you're reading says that I'm with the Department of the Treasury. I am, but loosely. There are other cards in that case saying that I'm a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. Those are false. The absolute truth is that I am indeed Connor Harrigan and that I am in the permanent employ of the General Accounting Office of the United States Government.”

  Tanner looked blankly at him. Baker seemed to be barely listening.

  “Disappointed, aren't you?” Harrigan smiled pleasantly. “You wanted James Bond or some such.”

  “What I wanted,” she said evenly, “was to be told who you are and what your interest is in Jared Baker.”

  Harrigan shrugged and gestured toward Baker, inviting Tanner to ask his confirmation. Ask the man, he thought. Let's both find out what Baker knows.

  Baker met his eyes and held them. Harrigan thought he saw a twinkle, as if Baker was letting him know that he understood the game. Baker turned to face Tanner Burke.

  “It's true as far as it goes,” he said. “Harrigan's an investigator. He can investigate any department he pleases if the use of federal funds is involved. His base is the GAO because no one can fire him if he steps on the wrong toes in the course of any of the special jobs he takes on.”

  “And you're a special job?”

  Baker shook his head. “It's not really me they're after. Harrigan's investigating a man who trained me to live under an assumed identity. He's trained others too. There's nothing illegal about that unless the fictitious identities are used to defraud. There's no fraud in this case, but there's the matter of aiding and abetting a fugitive. You might be guilty of that too if you knew that I'm wanted by the police. Of course, you don't know that because I've never told you.”

  Tanner seemed confused. Harrigan had given no sign that he was interested in arresting Baker. Baker understood.

  “Harrigan doesn't care that I'm wanted. All he wants to know is what the man who trained me is up to. In fact, he's not really up to much of anything except helping people start their lives over. Most pay him a fee. As it happens, however, the government has at least two relocation agencies of its own. Those people get paranoid when they learn that someone else has set up shop in competition with them or that they might be losing a numbered taxpayer here and there. As for me, I'm not up to much of anything either. All I want from this day on is to have some kind of life where I'm free and where I'm left alone.”

  Tanner nodded her sympathy and her understanding. She looked accusingly at Harrigan, who slapped his thighs and returned a look of pained exasperation.

  “Is it possible you believe all that pap?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  ”I believe in Jared, yes.” She reddened.

  “For Christ's sake, young lady,” Harrigan blustered, “you have a stiff in your bathtub wearing a phony police suit. You very possibly have another stiff or two in the park who were made that way by Clark Kent over here. You know that, and yet you rush to believe your new boyfriend when he says all that's going on here is a little bureaucratic curiosity?”

  “My new boyfr ” Tanner blushed angrily. “Jared didn't kill that man in there. You did, and you didn't even have to. And you have a wallet full of fake papers, speaking of phonies. And now you of all people want me to believe that what Jared says is a lie.”

  “My turn,” Harrigan snapped. He could see the anger in Baker's eyes as well. Get mad, Baker. Get goddamned mad. “Like he just said about me, it's true as far as it goes. What he didn't say is that none of these fictitious identities is some ordinary slob looking for a second chance someplace. And Baker here, if I have to point it out, is the least ordinary of the bunch.”

  “That's enough, Harrigan.” Baker's voice was low and quiet.

  “You think you're protecting her?” Harrigan spun
on him. “She's up to her neck right now. She's been made, Baker. She's been made by me, by Washington, which in this case is not the same thing, and very likely by Domenic Tortora. Is it possible you don't know that yet? Whoever paid that cop knew to send him to this room.”

  Baker seemed confused by the Washington and Tortora references, but he recovered quickly. He gestured toward the bathroom door. “You and your friends can get rid of the body, Harrigan. I'll handle anyone else I have to. But I'm not going to let you involve her.”

  Harrigan took a long, slow breath. When he spoke, his voice was almost gentle. “Baker, how are you going to stop me?”

  ”I think you know,” Baker whispered. His right eye twitched. He could feel the pressure building.

  “No, I don't know.” Harrigan raised both eyebrows. “Could you mean that you'll use physical force?”

  “Don't do this, Harrigan.”

  ”I mean,” the smaller man continued, “you might like to think you can bully a fat old fellow like myself, but the fact is you don't have the heart for it. You certainly don't have the skills. I think I might just slap you around a bit for even suggesting such a thing.”

  Baker was horrified. With a shock, he realized what Harrigan was trying to do. The first tear fell from his right eye, squeezed out by the pounding behind it.

  ”Ah,” Connor Harrigan raised one finger, as if struck by a revelation. ”I know. It's not going to be you all by yourself, is it, Baker? You're going to bring a friend. You're going to call out the man who was in the park, aren't you? The man I myself saw in Dayton. Well now, that's different. There's a man who might intimidate poor old Connor.”

  “What's this?” Tanner Burke asked uneasily.

  “Show her, Baker.” Harrigan slapped him.

  “Harrigan, don't do this.” Baker rose slowly to his feet, the fingertips of his right hand pressing against his temple. the pounding had become a stomping. From within the darkness of his brain a foot was slamming against the steel door that Baker had built there. The upper bolt half-turned under the impact. The bolt's housing began to bend, and stress lines showed white upon the metal. Another surge of pain. Now Baker saw dust trickling down from the hinges where they were set in cement. And Baker saw himself. He saw his own shoulder braced against the door from the outside, holding it, pressing Abel back.