V 15 - Below the Threshold

by Allen L Wold (UC) (epub)

  “You never can tell,” Dahlgren said. “If one of them was involved somehow, they’d protect their own, wouldn’t they?”

  “Sure, but we don’t know that. And besides, I don’t believe in conspiracies.”

  “But isn’t that what Emily called you about in the first place?” Dahlgren pursued. “And doesn’t all that’s happened since then confirm that there is some kind of a conspiracy going on? Not like a Watergate, of course.” “It does seem that way,” Jack said, “and that’s all the more reason to not jump to that conclusion. If it’s not true, and we assume that it is, we’ll miss the real clues when they come along.”

  “I feel so helpless,” Joyce said.

  “So do I,” Jack agreed.

  File Seven: Tuesday Afternoon

  Jack pulled into his parking place in the deck under his building. As he got out he noticed a slender man in a sport jacket standing just a few cars away. The light was not very good here, and the man turned away almost at once, but he was somehow vaguely familiar, and Jack wondered if he was one of the dope dealers he’d passed so often these days. He bent down to lock the door of his car, and when he straightened up the man was walking away.

  When he got to his office it was nearly two o’clock. Mrs. McKinley informed him that his client was waiting for him. He listened to Mrs. Finkel distractedly, and as soon as she left, had Mrs.McKinley put a call through to David Mallard, a friend who was the assistant attorney for Freeport.

  “David,” he said when his call was answered, “this is Jack. Listen, you got a couple minutes?”

  “Ah, sure, Jack, what’s up?”

  “A client of mine disappeared last night,” Jack said, and told Mallard what he knew and had learned about Emily’s activities, and what he had surmised so far. He concluded by complaining about the police response to his inquiries. “They just don’t seem interested, and keep on putting me off with claims of too much to do and too few men to do it with.”

  “That’s all very true, ah, Jack,” Mallard said. “And as you say, it has not yet been twenty-four hours since you last spoke with her.”

  “But dammit David, what about all the rest? The man in her apartment, the fact that it was searched, the man Sorensen saw chasing Emily out of the Delmark Building? That’s not just a missing person, that’s a kidnapping.” “As far as you can tell, yes, but, ah, I see your point. Even if everything you’ve said is wrong or misinterpreted, the police should be taking it seriously.”

  “They should. And they aren’t. Why not? Is the police force so corrupt that they just don’t bother with a kidnapping if there’s no profit in it for them?”

  “Some, yes, but not all, Jack. Not all. It does seem rather strange, I’ll admit. Ah, who did you talk to?”

  “A Lieutenant LeGrange. He didn’t sound busy, he sounded like he was putting me off. Can you look into this for me, just kind of ask around to find out what’s up? I’m really afraid Emily’s life could be in danger.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but it may take a while. You understand I’ll, ah, have to be discreet. But I’ll call you back later, whatever.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Jack said, and they hung up.

  His three o’clock client was a Mrs. Voile. She had been seeing Jack for almost two years, trying to come to terms with her sometimes disabling Alien Anxiety Syndrome. During the last month or so she had shown a dramatic improvement, and though she was not yet in full control of her fears, her diminished anxiety made Jack think about his own reaction to the Visitors lately. As he wrote up her report, after she’d gone, he realized that even he was a lot less concerned than he had been just recently.

  He had no other appointments that afternoon, but several for the early evening—people who just couldn’t take the time off from work. And as his lunch seemed to have disappeared, he decided to go out for a light supper. He told Mrs. McKinley of his plans and went down to the parking deck below the building.

  The lights in his part of the deck, never very bright in the first place, were now almost all out. As he approached his car in the rear darkness, a man stepped out of the shadows ahead of him, rather short and slender, in slacks and sport coat—the same man he’d seen before.

  Before Jack could react two other men appeared, one on either side. Even in the dimness Jack could see that the one on his left was ugly, wearing a brown suit, while the one on his right, in a dark blue suit, was totally unremarkable. He realized that he was just about to be mugged.

  Sportcoat stepped up to him quickly, a bit in advance of the other two. Jack lunged at the man, striking out with his good right hand and feeling the satisfaction of a solid connection high on Sportcoat’s cheekbone. The man staggered back against a car, then slid to the pavement.

  This took the other two by surprise, and they lost a second in hesitation. But only a second. Jack turned to his right, then lashed out with his left foot at the ugly man in the brown suit, who was now right behind him. As his foot struck Brownsuit’s stomach, Jack pushed off and lashed out with his right hand, catching Bluesuit high on the shoulder.

  Sportcoat, on the pavement, groaned and rolled over, trying to get to his feet. With the other two momentarily off balance, Jack stepped over to Sportcoat and kicked him hard in the chest, knocking him back against the side of the car. Bluesuit was coming back quickly, almost leaping at Jack with open arms. Jack stepped into the man’s embrace and, almost face to face, struck him hard in the solar plexus. Bluesuit went to his knees.

  Pushing him aside, Jack turned back to see Brownsuit, his pink face, like a pig’s, contorted in pain, crouching a few feet away. Jack stepped up to him, ready to knock him down, but Brownsuit lurched upright and fled through the parked cars.

  Turning back to Bluesuit, whose face he had not seen even close up, Jack saw him also running away in a kind of pathetic hobble, half doubled over. Only Sportcoat was left, lying on the pavement.

  Jack went to him, grabbed him by the lapels of his muted plaid jacket and dragged him to his feet. The man’s knees buckled, so Jack leaned him against a car. The man tried to protect his face with his hands.

  “I wasn’t as easy a mark as you thought I’d be, was I?” Jack said, giving the man a shake.

  “Leave me alone, Page,” the man whined. “You hit me first, we just wanted to talk.”

  “Sure you did, that’s why you came at me from three sides like that.” He knocked the man’s hands aside with his left arm and grabbed him around the throat with his right hand. “You have the advantage over me,” he said, squeezing not too hard. “I don’t like people who know my name when I don’t know theirs. ” The man reached up to try to pry Jack’s hand loose, but Jack just squeezed harder and with his left hand reached into the man’s inner coat pocket. He found the wallet, pulled it out, and while the man choked and struggled ineffectually, flipped the wallet open. A driver’s licence was clearly visible in the transparent window, and even in this dim light, Jack could read the name—Rudy Salanis.

  “You want to talk?” Jack said, putting the wallet back. “So talk, Mr. Salanis.” He relaxed his hold on Salanis’s throat a bit.

  Salanis tried to lunge away but Jack struck him on the side of the head with his gloved artificial left hand and took a firmer hold with his right.

  “Come on,” he said, “what’s this all about?” “Nothing, man,” Salanis choked out, “we’re just looking for some pictures.”

  “Sure you are,” Jack said, thinking maybe this was some kind of pornography roust. “What makes you think I have any pictures?”

  “If you don’t know,” Salanis rasped, trying again to remove Jack’s hand from his throat, “I sure ain’t gonna tell you.”

  Jack had no trouble keeping hold of him with his one good hand, abnormally strengthened in compensation for the loss of his left, but he didn’t want to strangle the man, he wanted him to talk. Very carefully, he kneed Salanis in the groin. Salanis gasped, and quickly found new positions for his hands.

  “Co
me on, now,” Jack said. “You can talk. I can keep on dishing this out if you want. What pictures?”

  “The pictures Velasquez took the other night,” Salanis cried, still trying to protect himself.

  “I think you know more than I do,” Jack said. “What about those pictures?”

  “Nothing.”

  Jack kneed him again; Salanis’s hands were no protection. Salanis gasped, but otherwise was silent. Jack hit him hard with his false hand, the metal of the thumb clanging against the side of Salanis’s skull.

  “Leave me alone,” Salanis cried.

  “How do you know about pictures?” Jack demanded, his face only inches from Salanis’s. “Where’s Emily?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The hell you don’t.” Jack tightened his hold on Salanis’s throat and slammed him back against the car several times. “Come on, where is she?”

  “Swear to God,” Salanis choked out, “all I know is that she took some pictures at the Regency Friday night. We just wanted to find out if she’d showed them to you.”

  “She was kidnapped before she had the chance,” Jack said, almost shouting in the man’s face. “Now where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jack slammed him against the car again, and struck him across the face with the back of his gloved left hand.

  “Swear to God!” Salanis cried, “I don’t know where she is!”

  “And what’s so important about some pictures of an old theater?”

  “I don’t know, swear to God I don’t know.” “Somebody does, though, don’t they?”

  “I’m not talking.”

  Jack forced himself to step back, still holding Salanis’s throat but keeping him at arm’s length. He believed the man’s ignorance. Salanis was a coward, or he wouldn’t have said as much as he had, but it was clear to Jack that Salanis was more afraid of his boss than of being beaten further. He decided to try another ploy.

  “I think we should go talk to the police,” he said.

  “Fine,” Salanis whimpered. “Let’s do that. They won’t hold me. I’m the one who’s beaten up, what are you going to charge me with?”

  It was a good point. His bluff had been called. He let go of Salanis’s throat and took another step back.

  “Why don’t you go and report me to them now,” he said. “Tell them how you and two other guys jumped a one-armed man, and he beat you single handed.”

  Salanis leaned against the car, gasping, gingerly feeling his bruises, staring at Jack.

  “Tell your boss about it, too,” Jack said, shrugging his shoulders to straighten his coat and settle the straps of his prosthesis. Then, feigning a nonchalance he didn’t feel, he turned away and went slowly and deliberately to his car. He checked his watch as he slipped in behind the wheel. The whole affair had taken less than ten minutes.

  He looked back at Salanis and saw the man hurrying off. Shaking with reaction, Jack started the car and drove unsteadily up the ramp to the exit. After all, he still needed some supper. It was only when he pulled out into the late afternoon traffic that he realized why the man had seemed familiar. It was Salanis whom he’d seen in Emily’s apartment last night.

  It was after five when he got back to his office. Mrs. McKinley had gone home, but had left a pot of coffee for him. He tried to work, but his mind was in a turmoil. Dare he call the police, now, with this new bit of information?

  No, he decided, better to call Mallard, who should have had time to get home by now.

  “David,” he said when Mallard answered, “this is Jack. I’m sorry to disturb your dinner, but I’ve just learned something.” Quickly he told Mallard about the mugging, and what Salanis had said about Emily and the photos.

  “It, ah, all hangs together,” Mallard said when Jack had finished. “Salanis is known to be connected with, ah, the Freeport mob, so whatever those pictures were that Emily took, the mob is interested in them.”

  “You think the mob kidnapped Emily?” Jack asked, knowing the answer.

  “If Salanis was involved, then, ah, yes, I do.”

  “Is the mob putting pressure on the police about this?” “I haven’t been able to find out anything, Jack, but, ah, it’s quite likely. My contacts in the department, ah, just say they can’t talk about it, not even to me. Which makes it even more likely that, ah, the mob’s involved somehow. It would take somebody as influential as Vincent Kline to have that kind of influence.”

  “But it just doesn’t make any sense,” Jack said. Vincent Kline was known to be the boss of Freeport’s criminal organization. “Why would Kline be interested in pictures of an old theater?”

  “I really don’t know, Jack, and there isn’t too much more I can do without, ah, arousing suspicion. We know that several of the ranking officers on the force are in the mob’s pocket, and if I push too hard, ah, it could make things worse for Emily.”

  “Is there nothing you can do?”

  “Not until I get some kind of hard evidence, Jack. And that’s tricky, because, ah, the people who might provide it are probably in the mob’s pay, and I’m not sure I can trust everybody here in my department either. If I move too openly, it wouldn’t be hard for somebody to just have me fired, or worse.”

  “There’s got to be somebody in government you can trust. ”

  “I’m sure there is, but I don’t know who. Look, ah, I’m not being chicken, but I’ve got to be careful. I started work on this some time ago, before the Visitors came, and the situation has gotten worse. The way it is now, if the mob thinks I have something, but if it isn’t enough to move on in a really positive way and frighten some of the marginals into cooperating with me, I could be in danger of my life.” “Look, David, if I find out the truth about Emily’s kidnapping, if I can show a definite link between that and corruption in government and the police, could you do something then?”

  “I think I could, Jack. That, ah, won’t help Emily much though, will it?”

  “No, but Emily is only one symptom of a larger disease, no matter how much I’m personally concerned.”

  “I agree, Jack. If you get me some hard evidence, if you can prove that somebody on the force, or, ah, somebody in city government is directly involved in Emily’s kidnapping, then I think I could bust this town wide open.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  “But Jack, be careful. This thing is so insidious, you just don’t know who you can trust. The thing that makes me wonder, ah, is why Emily Velasquez? As far as I know she has never been involved in anything even, ah, remotely connected with the mob or organized crime. So if it can’t be her, then, ah, it must be those photos, whatever they are.” “Hell, David, if they have Emily, they must have the photos, too. The police have had plenty of time to search her apartment, and I suspect they’ve been into her office as well. They bugged her phone, or somebody did. So in that case, why put the lid on the investigation into her disappearance? It makes me sick just to suggest it, but why not just dump her in the bay, and then let the law take it’s course? Why cover up the kidnapping of an interior designer, for God’s sake?”

  “1 wish I could tell you, Jack. Look, you’re her therapist; is there anything she ever told you that, ah, makes sense in this situation?”

  “Nothing, David. But I’ll bet it was those photos she was referring to when she called and asked to talk to me. She gave me nothing solid, but she did say something about a conspiracy. ”

  “If there wasn’t one before, ah, then there sure seems to be one now. You say those pictures she took were of a theater?”

  “Yes, the Regency, according to Salanis.”

  “Means nothing to me. All I know about it is that it’s scheduled to be tom down soon. A damn shame to, ah, destroy a fine old piece of architecture like that. Why was she taking pictures of it, do you know?”

  “Emily was working on a book on architecture and design. The Regency seems a logical subject.”

  “Makes sense. But who else would be intere
sted in pictures of an old theater, unless, ah, they were working on a similar book themselves? People like that don’t usually have mob contacts.”

  “What about Carpentier?” Jack asked. “Sorensen told me that the man Emily was running from was someone who had worked with Carpentier some time before. Can you think of any possible connection there?”

  “Not right offhand. Why was Emily at the Delmark Building when she was so anxious to meet you?”

  “Apparently she was just about to land a very important contract with WCTY. Could they have any secrets that the mob would want concealed? Does the mob have any connection with WCTY?”

  “I don’t think so, lack. TV, radio, and newspapers are pretty clean, all things considered. And so is Carpentier. She was involved with the Visitors up in Northampton about six months ago, and we ran a full check on her then— before, during, and after. She’s clean.”

  “Very interesting,” Jack said. “What was she doing for them?”

  “Helping to install a TV studio and transmitting station. I have no idea where. But you can bet, with Northampton being completely controlled by the Visitors, we were very careful about the possibility of treason or sabotage. Carpentier came through with flying colors.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’ve spoken to her, and she didn’t even mention it. There might be something she did or knows about that she wants to keep quiet, just because of those suspicions. And if there were any truth to them, then she would certainly be interested in keeping her role quiet. ” “But what the hell does that have to do with the Regency Theater?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me. You’ve investigated Carpentier. What kind of secrets might she have?”

  “Getting tired of being a psychologist, Jack? Going into business as a detective now?”

  “Hell, David, the police are doing nothing. And I have a very strong interest in Emily Velasquez’s welfare, both professionally and personally. I can’t just sit by while she’s in the mob’s hands.”

  “Sorry, Jack, it’s been another one of those long days at the office. Okay. Carpentier. We also checked into her when we approved her license for WCTY. Used to be the FCC did that, but they have no authority this deep in Visitor territory. ” He paused a moment, but Jack could hear him flipping through some papers. “Right,” Mallard went on. “She’s an expert in certain experimental TV broadcast techniques—this is all gibberish to me, Jack.”