“Well,” she said quickly, “I heard you coming down the stairs, and I thought I should introduce myself.”
“I’m very glad you did … Mrs. Mildemar?”
Hawker expected her to blush. She didn’t. Instead, her manner became frosty. “It’s Ms. Mildemar, Mr. Hawker. And now that we have met, I would like to ask you something that I should have perhaps directed my real estate agent to ask—”
“You don’t even have to,” Hawker interrupted, smiling. “I haven’t leased many apartments in my time, but I think I know all the questions. Let’s see … I don’t smoke. I don’t drink to excess, and I won’t be having any loud parties because I don’t like loud parties. Oh, yeah—I don’t play any instruments, so you don’t have to worry about that. I wish I did, but I don’t—unless you count a very bad baritone in the shower. I’m a little bit weak in the pet department, too. No chimps, lion cubs, poodles, or any of the other animals New Yorkers think are so cute and so chic to lead around on a leash.” Hawker tapped his finger against his cheek, thinking. “Let’s see, anything else? Yes—my hours are irregular.” Hawker held up the canvas backpack. “I’m a photographer, you see. I do a lot of night work. Available light stuff, so I’ll be coming in late sometimes, but that won’t bother you because I am extremely quiet.” Hawker gave her a pointed look. “And, of course, any visitors I may invite to my apartment are none of your business.”
Some of the coldness left Brigitte Mildemar’s eyes as Hawker spoke, replaced by a flicker of amusement. The look of amusement didn’t last long.
“That’s all very interesting, Mr. Hawker,” she countered. “But none of it has anything to do with what I wanted to ask.”
“I left something out?”
“Yes. One thing. I’m going to ask you a straightforward question and I want an honest answer.”
Hawker smiled. “You’re not studying to be the first woman priest or something, are you, Ms. Mildemar?”
Once again, she fought off an amused expression. “No, Mr. Hawker, I am not. What I wanted you to tell me is this: Do you or do you not work for Fister Limited?”
Hawker couldn’t help himself. Once he had recovered from his surprise, he burst out laughing.
As he laughed, the woman’s face became redder and redder. “Perhaps you will tell me why you find that question so amusing, Mr. Hawker?” she snapped. “For your information, my parents owned this house for a great many years. I grew up here. While I prefer to live in my apartment in Manhattan, I will stay here just as long as I must to make sure the thugs who work for that company don’t destroy it in an effort to make me sell.” She jammed her hands on her hips. “Now, tell me—why do you find that so funny?”
Hawker wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “Some day, Brigitte, if you ever drop that ice-water facade of yours, maybe I will tell you. Until then, you can rest easy. I don’t work for Fister Limited, and I don’t work for anyone who’s associated with Fister Corporation.” Hawker motioned toward his canvas knapsack again. “I’m a photographer, remember? And you know how we artists feel about big corporations.”
“Well, then,” the woman said primly, “I guess we have nothing more to discuss. It was … interesting meeting you, Mr. Hawker.”
As she began to push the door closed, Hawker called out, “And, Brigitte—if anyone comes around here from that corporation to bother you again, let me know, okay?”
Hawker thought he saw a dry smile touch the woman’s lips before she disappeared inside. “And what would you do, Mr. Hawker?” she answered softly. “Take their photograph and scream for the police? I was raised in New York, and I’m afraid I do know how you artists feel—about big corporations … and other things.”
twelve
Fister Corporation’s Mafioso goon squad was headquartered in a slummy section of Greenwich Village on the Hudson waterfront in Manhattan.
The lights of the giant tanker moored there couldn’t compete with the 11 P.M. skyline of New York. The city was like some humpbacked starship that had put down among the stink and squalor.
But Hawker didn’t spend much time gazing at the scenery. His eyes were glued to the three-story warehouse building that Detective Lieutenant Callis had fingered as the Mafioso stronghold.
As Callis had put it, “More bodies have disappeared out those windows into the Hudson River than most undertakers handle in a year. The men you see coming in and out that front door are nothing but scum. Some of them are drug addicts and kill to finance their habit. But most of them just have bugs in their brains. They like to kill. It’s how they get their kicks. Hell, the regular Mafia disowned them—that’s how sick these dudes are. But they aren’t too sick for Fister Corporation. It says something about Blake Fister’s methods, doesn’t it?”
Callis had paused for a moment, reflecting. He said, “Every now and again, we’ll bust two or three of them. But the courts let ninety percent of those we do arrest go free. The other ten percent do three to five years before the parole boards decide they’re fit to hit the streets again.”
Disgusted, Callis had smacked a big fist into his hand. “I’ll tell you, Hawk, just once I’d like to hunt those bastards the way they deserve to be hunted.”
So now Hawker was doing just that.
He sat across from the building inside his van. Lights glowed in the windows of the first and second floors.
The third floor was dark.
There seemed to be some kind of meeting going on inside. There was a line of cars parked outside, and Hawker could occasionally see the silhouettes of men crossing before the shades.
He looked at his Seiko Submariner watch. The green numerals said it was 11:14.
Hawker wondered what kind of a meeting it was. Arriving in the middle of a Mafia hoe-down wasn’t something he had expected.
As he sat in the van, his brain scanned the various possibilities of what he might do.
The one thing he couldn’t do was go through the front door—not without drawing one hell of a lot of attention, anyway. Two stocky guards in cheap suits sat outside the doorway, smoking, expressionless.
It had been Hawker’s plan to slip inside, waste anybody who got in his way, then collar one of the Mafia goons and beat him until he revealed where Blake Fister was and how they communicated with him.
Divide and conquer—that’s what he wanted to do. But it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Hawker found a stick of chewing gum in his pocket and waited.
He was still waiting at midnight.
Twice he thought the meeting was breaking up when handfuls of men came out and drove off in their cars. But, each time, other cars arrived, and more men filed in—like replacements.
Finally, tired of waiting, Hawker decided he might be missing an ideal chance to get into the building unnoticed. He got his bag of weaponry from the back of the van and stepped out onto the street through the rear doors.
It was a hot, muggy night on the New York waterfront. Out on the Hudson, a tug nudged the silhouette of a massive black barge up the river. Its yellow beacon and green starboard lights added a yuletide note to the white glare of Hoboken. Somewhere, a diesel horn moaned.
Hawker walked calmly down the street, away from the Mafia headquarters. When he was about two blocks away, he cut back across. There was an alleyway beside the building, and he turned down it.
The alley was sour with the stink of garbage and urine. All of the windows of the headquarters had been painted black, so there was no way Hawker could look in. But there was a fire escape—about nine feet above street level.
Hawker slung the knapsack over his shoulder. He jumped up and grabbed the under-rung of the fire stairs. He was just about to pull himself onto the first step when a voice stopped him cold.
“Freeze it right there, motherfucker! Don’t drop. Don’t climb. Don’t do a god-damn thing—just hang there!”
Hawker saw a huge figure materialize out of the shadows at the end of the alley. The man had a hoarse, gravelly voice t
hat barely exceeded a whisper. He was crouched low, his right fist thrust forward. The stainless-steel revolver he held reflected the weak alleyway light.
The figure came closer. Hawker could make out the wide, meaty bulldog face. The man wore a gray suit, and his hat was cocked jauntily over one eye. A cigarette, freshly lit, smoldered in the corner of his mouth.
Silently Hawker cursed himself for not fixing the silencer onto his Browning before he entered the alley. Even if he did get an opening to use it, the noise would bring the entire goon squad flooding onto the street.
The man with the gun stopped a body length away. Hawker could see his face clearly now. He was grinning. His left eye was wedged shut against the cigarette smoke that curled into it.
“You fucked up bad,” the man said as if amused. “You fucked up real bad. No matter why you’re here; no matter what you plan to do, ’cause you’re dead. You’re dead just as sure as I’m standing here.”
“Bullshit,” Hawker bluffed. “Ask Fister before you go shooting that cap pistol of yours. He sent me. Said something about the feds might be bugging the place. Wanted me to slip in at night and check all the telephone wiring up top.”
The man smiled and nodded, but he did not lower his weapon. “So why didn’t Fister notify us? You got an answer for that one, smartass?”
“I don’t have any answers to anything,” Hawker snarled. “And, if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t waste them on you. All I know is what I’m told to do. Now I’m going to drop down—”
“If you do, you’re dead,” the man snapped.
“How damn long you think I can hang up here?” Hawker demanded, still looking for his opening.
“As long as you want to stay alive—that’s how long.”
Hawker let go of the fire escape with one hand and swung the canvas bag to the ground. “Look in here if you don’t believe me, you dumb shit. All you’re going to find is telephone-testing equipment. Hell, I don’t even have a penknife on me.”
The man looked at the bag suspiciously. “You better not be carrying—because, if you are—”
“Just look in the damn bag,” Hawker ordered. “Fister isn’t going to like this. He doesn’t like one of his administrators taking shit from the hired help.”
“Well, I don’t know that you are with the organization,” the man said in mild defense. “But, even if you are, I got my orders, too. I got orders to secure this alley and, by God, that’s just what I done.”
Hawker was watching him the way a cat watches a bird. His resolve weakening, the man slowly approached the canvas satchel. He took a last look at Hawker before leaning down to inspect it.
The moment he bent over, Hawker jackknifed his legs upward and kicked the man full in the face. The man staggered backward but managed to hang on to his revolver. Hawker came off the fire escape in one fluid motion and used the cutting edge of his right hand to knock the gun to the asphalt.
The Mafia goon swung a wild left that caught Hawker on the side of the head. Hawker stumbled to the ground, his ears ringing. The goon plowed into him, and soon they were a tangle of arms and legs, wrestling for position.
The man was huge—close to three hundred pounds. But Hawker managed to slide around behind him, pulling the Randall survival knife from the scabbard on his calf as he did.
As he did, the goon lurched for his revolver. He rolled and brought the gun up to fire. In the same instant, Hawker drew back the knife and threw it just as hard as he could.
The knife didn’t stick.
It didn’t need to.
It hit the goon a glancing blow, point first, in the face. Few knives are sharper than the fine Randall, handmade by Bo Randall and his craftsmen in Orlando, Florida. The blade razored the flesh away from his face so that, for the microsecond before the blood began to pour, it looked as if the only thing holding his eye in was the pale cheekbone.
The goon gave a bearish scream, and the gun flew into the air as the man’s hands pawed at his ruined face.
Hawker wasn’t feeling merciful, but he didn’t want to risk the noise of a gunshot. He used his elbow to crack the man unconscious, then retrieved his knife.
The man’s scream had drawn enough attention. From the front of the headquarters, Hawker heard a voice inquire, “Hey, Hugo—what’s going on in there?”
Hawker returned the knife to its scabbard and slung the knapsack over his shoulder once again. He swung himself up onto the fire escape and trotted silently up the steps to the top floor.
Below him, he could see the two door guards working their way carefully down the mouth of the alleyway.
It would be a matter of minutes before they found the goon, Hugo. And, since the fire escape was the only way out of the alley, Hawker knew he had to buy himself some time.
And the only way to buy time was to stop them.
From the knapsack, Hawker pulled the Cobra crossbow. He cocked the drawstring back and loaded one of the short aluminum killing arrows. He brought the sights to bear on the trailing guard and squeezed his hand closed. There was a thin whoosh of air before the man jolted backward, a shocked expression on his face.
He would die with that same expression.
Calmly but quickly, Hawker cocked the bow again and loaded in another killing bolt. The second man swung around as his partner fell.
“Joe—hey, Joe! What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded. As blood spouted from Joe’s chest, it became all too clear what was wrong with him.
The second man swung his gun nervously from one side of the alley to the other, backing away from the fresh corpse.
Hawker brought the Cobra’s cross hair to rest on the man’s head. He didn’t want to give him the chance to fire his weapon reflexively.
The deadly crossbow jolted, and the second man immediately somersaulted backward and landed grotesquely on his knees and neck—with the stub of arrow protruding from his right eye.
Hawker released a long breath of tension before he packed the crossbow away and drew out the Ingram submachine gun. Quickly he screwed the sound arrester into place and switched the weapon to automatic fire.
He headed up the fire escape then, keeping a careful eye on the alleyway below.
He didn’t want any more surprises.
The iron steps ended abruptly at a third-floor window. As he expected, the window was locked.
Hawker drew the Randall once again and forced it beneath the windowsill. He moved it back and forth until he found the lock, then smacked the butt of the knife handle until he heard the lock break.
He slid the window open and climbed into the dark room. As he turned to make sure the window didn’t slam closed, a voice out of the darkness said, “Drop the weapon, asshole, and press your hands against the wall.”
Hawker knew he had used up more than his share of luck, and he didn’t believe in second chances.
He didn’t drop his weapon and he didn’t put his hands against the wall.
Instead, he dove to the floor as three rapid-fire shots crashed through the window above him.
He rolled and came up on one knee, with the Ingram spurting flames.…
thirteen
London
When the punk rocker who had been following Hendricks swung him against the brick wall of the alley and reached for the revolver, an inexorable feeling of déjà vu came over the old butler.
It was just like the last time, back in Berlin, 1945, when he had killed Karnakov, the Russian.
The moist odor of the alley was similar to the stink of Hitler’s bunker. The punk rocker, like Karnakov, was physically repulsive, with bad skin and bloodshot eyes.
Hendricks looked deep into those eyes, just as he had Karnakov’s.
And, once again, the stainless-steel needle pick he had used in those last days of the war was still cool to the touch; still cold, innocuous, and lethal.
Hendricks held it now as the punker tightened his grip on the old butler’s neck, squeezing until Hendricks thought his wind
pipe would collapse.
“You’ve reached the end of the line, Sir Halton,” the Cockney hood whispered as he lifted the knife. “And rarely has a job given me such pleasure, because, me boyo, I got a real thing about you proper Londoners.”
Slowly Hendricks brought the steel needle up as if he were making a helpless gesture to knock the punker’s left hand from his throat. But, at the last moment, he used his knees to drive the needle up through the soft underside of the hood’s jaw, deep into his cranium.
The punk’s eyes grew wide and glassy, still looking into Hendricks’s eyes. The knife clunked to the brick pavement as he released his grip on the butler’s throat. He took two choppy steps backward as he brought his hand up and searched the underside of his jaw. It was as if he only wanted to straighten the tie he did not wear.
Strangely, he looked at the knife on the ground, then looked at Hendricks. His face showed both surprise and fear.
His mouth opened as if to speak, but only a guttural aurrggg passed his lips before he took three more mechanical steps and collapsed in a heap.
Calmly Hendricks checked both ends of the alley to see if anyone had observed.
No one had.
Quickly then, he went to the dead Cockney hood and drew out the needle and wiped it clean on the corpse’s slacks.
Before continuing on his way, Hendricks straightened his bowler and slid the needle back into the lining of his pocket.
In the distance, Big Ben gonged out 3 P.M.
Hendricks realized he would have to hurry if he didn’t want to be late for his meeting with Laggy.
Sir Blair Laggan’s offices were in the old Brougham Building near Westminster—one of the few major nineteenth-century structures that had escaped Luftwaffe bombs.
Hendricks presented his card to the doorman and, a few moments later, was ushered inside.
The interior of the building was a model of understated English grandeur: coats of arms, red tapestry, suits of armor standing guard over a hundred generations of tradition.
Sir Blair’s offices were on the eighth floor. Hendricks rode up on an ornate old lift with a gilded telescoping door. But once he reached the eighth floor, the remnants of England’s past peeled away, and Hendricks was deposited into an ultra-modern complex of neon lights, room-sized memory banks, and employees working intently at their computer terminals.
Deadly in New York Page 6