Find Virgil (A Novel of Revenge)

by Frank Freudberg

  Saying that, Rhoads folded up the list and put it in his pocket. Dr. Trice did not look convinced.

  “Look,” Rhoads said. “The man is westbound. We know that for a fact. I didn’t read you the events that are scheduled back east because the man’s not in the east, is he? Las Vegas is the place. We know approximately where he is, and now we know where he’s going. He’s calling us more and more frequently, and it’s easier to know where he is.”

  Dr. Trice dropped her handbag to the floor and reached up to grab Rhoads by each lapel. She exhaled through her nose like a snorting bull. He smelled her too-sweet perfume and the mustard on her breath. She burned her eyes into his.

  “Rhoads! Listen to me. I’m telling you. Whatever he’s going to do, he’s going to do it soon, and he’s going to do it back east. He’s going to do it soon because he’s almost used up. He’s going to do it back east because you always build your snowman on your own front lawn. No one wants to spend all day building a snowman at someone else’s house, and if you do, you wish you were doing it at home. He lives in the east, so does the cat that was the source of the hair in the briefcase. He’s emotionally attached to that animal. He doesn’t leave it alone for long. Did the Behavioral Science guy write a report about that? I’ll bet you he goes home regularly to hold his cat, talk to his cat, overfeed the cat out of guilt. No, there’s no question in my mind. The grand finale will be in his hometown. If not his hometown, then the nearest big city.”

  Trice paused only long enough to catch her breath.

  “Now, think, Rhoads. He’s changed something. He let you find what appears to be a clue. He’s never done that before. But anything new in this behavior model means something has changed, and that is when you have to tread very, very carefully. What do changes in any one element of the behavior model suggest?” Trice asked.

  Rhoads shrugged. He knew Virgil was leading them, but he thought that the trail still pointed west.

  “Mr. Rhoads!” the doctor shouted, glaring at him like he was a sleepy student. “I asked you, what do changes in any one element of the behavior model suggest?”

  Rhoads thought for a moment, then half-answered and half-asked, “Cause-and-effect changes in other elements?”

  “Right, laddy! The grand finale is near. Forget about that four hundred and thirty people nonsense. That’s just a cod. If he is leading you to the west, I urge you to look to the east. I tell you, he is going to circle back on you. And he’s not going to wait much longer. I think the time is now.”

  96

  Asheville

  Valzmann’s assistant, feeling full of himself because Valzmann was in New York, strolled in hours late to work. He leisurely read the paper, then donned the headset to review the audiotapes of the night before.

  “Shit!” he said. There was something on one tape that he should have reported right away. He removed his headset and pressed a speed dial number on his telephone. Valzmann’s voicemail system automatically routed the call to Valzmann’s room at the Royal Carland.

  “They’ve had a big fight, sir,” the assistant said. Judging from the sounds of a television in the background, Valzmann had been watching professional wrestling. Valzmann clicked off the sound. “She kicked him out and he drove away pissed as hell. He burned rubber so loud I could pick it up off the bedroom bug.”

  Valzmann listened to his inarticulate assistant’s interpretation of what he had heard. Then Valzmann called Pratt.

  “With Dallaness being sent to New York,” Valzmann said, “I came up ahead of her. I figured it was a good possibility Rhoads would join her. Now this fight.”

  “That will complicate getting at them when they’re together,” Pratt said. “You might have to do them separately.”

  Valzmann didn’t like this. “Separate deaths will be more difficult to explain.”

  “Yes,” Pratt said, “but much easier than facing a grand jury.”

  “Remember your joke about the hit man who was able to get two birds with one stone?”

  “Yes, Valzmann, I remember. The problem is, you’ve told me that they’ve had a serious fight.”

  “People make up.”

  Pratt was silent, then excited, “Why wait? I’ll come up with some reason for sending Rhoads to New York. A strategy meeting with other tobacco security chiefs. Something.”

  Valzmann lit up. “Yeah, then I’ll set it up to look like they were in bed and Rhoads fell asleep with a cigarette in his big mouth. A hotel room fire with two fatalities.”

  Pratt sighed. “No, Valzmann. Don’t you think cigarettes have suffered enough bad publicity?”

  Valzmann winced at the gaffe. “Okay. Then what?”

  “This is the story you have to stage. Rhoads knows he’s going down for killing Benedict. Rhoads knows Dallaness has the goods on him. He kills her then feels bad about it and…”

  “Kills himself.”

  “Enjoy New York,” Pratt said, hanging up.

  97

  New York

  Valzmann called Pratt back within the hour.

  “Dallaness checked in half an hour ago, sir,” he reported to the CEO. “But it will be tough to get Rhoads up here. He’s in Asheville, all excited about going to Las Vegas where the Feds are setting their trap. What do you want me to do?”

  “Okay, then,” Pratt said without a moment’s hesitation. “Go get her. Forget about getting them simultaneously. Kill her now. I can’t take any more chances that she’ll open her mouth to the Feds or the media. Trichina was right. Anyone can bully Dallaness into anything.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll let you know when it’s done.” A rush of excitement shot through Valzmann. No matter how many times he’d done it, it remained the ultimate trip.

  Valzmann hung up and moved to the bed. He sat down, removed his leather shoes and placed them on the rug, side by side. He reached down and found his sneakers and stepped into them. He tied them quickly and snugly, his mind working out the logistics.

  He relished the science of meticulous planning, reducing his personal risk to three places to the right of the decimal point. That was a luxury he didn’t have today. On the other hand, pulling off a successful spontaneous job was a mark of the gifted professional.

  Nevertheless, he shook his head in quiet disappointment. He’d have to use a method he detested, that of the lumbering brute, and he’d have to move fast. One quick motion, into the room, seize her from behind and get his hand, the one wearing the padded glove he had stitched together himself, over her mouth. Instantly. He’d have to pick her up by turning and thrusting his hip into the small of her back so she couldn’t kick effectively and then he’d carry her into the bathroom. Then, boom, throw her as hard as he could, head first, like a ripe tomato against a tree trunk, against the porcelain edge of the tub. He’d only have one shot. Multiple concussions would not appear consistent with an accidental fall in the bathroom. He’d have to make it hard enough, but not too hard.

  Then, if he did it well, she’d be inactive but still alive, still breathing. That would be essential. Next, he’d strip her down, turn the shower on, and set her body in a position that made sense. The drain would have to be blocked with a washcloth under her so the water would rise in the tub high enough to drown her.

  Not very artful, he thought, but any port in a storm.

  He looked forward to removing her clothes, but that pleasure would be muted. She’d be unconscious, and there’d be no fear for him to inhale.

  Valzmann walked to the wall his room shared with hers and pressed his ear against it. The wallpaper felt cool, the wall dense and solid. He could hear nothing, but, he reasoned, she should still be in there.

  Maybe asleep. Napping would be perfect. He’d be on her before her brain could organize a scream.

  He picked up the key to her door, dropped it in his pocket, and let himself out of his room. No one was in the hall
way to see him.

  98

  Mary Dallaness sat on the bed in her room wearing only panties and pink polish on her fingernails and toenails. Anthony had hated pink. She carefully poured saline solution onto her contact lenses in the tiny matched cups of the plastic case balanced on her knee.

  Outside in the hallway, Valzmann listened at her door.

  Again, he heard nothing. He stepped back and checked the hallway in both directions. Still no one coming or going. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the key. He steadied himself and positioned the key to slide into the lock. Then, using only lateral pressure from his thumb, he slid the key forward as slowly and gently as he could.

  He cringed at a tiny click.

  Mary heard it, too, or heard something, and turned reflexively toward the door. The movement of her torso was enough to disturb the balance of the contact lens case. It fell from her knee.

  Shit! She shot her hand out to catch it. Too late. The case had fallen to the carpet and under the bed. In an instant, she was down on her hands and knees in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, searching the carpet fibers with her fingertips for the transparent lenses.

  The door crashed open with a deafening boom.

  The sound startled her so that she convulsed as if shocked by an electrical current.

  In an instant, Valzmann’s trained eyes had taken in the entire room, including the open closet. The heavy entrance door bounced back and slammed closed. Where the hell is she? He took one long stride and was in the bathroom. In another instant, his hand found the light switch. He looked behind the shower curtain.

  Not in there either.

  His adrenaline pumped at high pressure. If she wasn’t in her room, where had she gone?

  That didn’t matter. In a second he’d be out of there. She wouldn’t have been alerted. A free peek, but he would have preferred to have accomplished the mission.

  Valzmann reached for the doorknob.

  He opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and scanned for people.

  All clear.

  He began to pull the door closed behind him when he abruptly stopped. Valzmann closed his eyes for a second, smiled, and went back in. He had almost left the bathroom light on.

  99

  The hotel security people insisted to Mary that what she heard had to have been the slamming of a nearby room door.

  “What about the bathroom light going on and then off?”

  The security people looked at each other and shrugged, saying sometimes power surges could be the culprit.

  She still hadn’t heard back from Rhoads.

  100

  Amtrak Station

  Indianapolis, Indiana

  Muntor, wearing a fake mustache, looked out the lounge car window as the train creaked to a halt at Track 5. A moment later, the door hissed open and Muntor disembarked wearily, carrying a doctor’s black bag.

  A conductor offered him help. Muntor shook his head.

  The conductor saw that in the elderly all day long. Independent. Don’t want assistance unless they ask for it, and when they do, don’t dawdle. The conductor watched the old doctor make his way slowly to the escalator, holding his bag, until he heard shouts coming from several cars down the track. The lounge car.

  “Get an ambulance!” someone shouted. “Some guy’s choking to death back here. Call 9-1-1!”

  The conductor took a step in the direction of the escalator, but it was too late. The doctor had disappeared.

  Muntor intended to find a decent hotel and get some much-needed sleep. Maybe he’d even stay a day or two in Indianapolis. He didn’t want to think about Bozzie. He’d never see the sleek, leopard-spotted cat again. What a beautiful cat, what a smart cat. How it used to wake Muntor by tap-tap-tapping one of its velvet paw pads on Muntor’s nose.

  Maybe they’d put Bozzie’s picture on the news after they found the house, some kind of psychological ploy. That’d be a dirty trick. That’d be a damned dirty trick, taunting me with my own cat. But I’d love to see him.

  101

  “Mary,” Rhoads said into her voice mail.

  He didn’t give a damn who was eavesdropping or what kind of laugh Pratt and his goons might have when they heard what he was about to say.

  “I got your message. Thank God you’re all right. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. And I know this is a hell of thing to say over the phone, but I’m saying it now. I’m falling in love with you, Mary, and I didn’t know it until I heard your message, heard how frightened you were. I want to be with you. The minute this Virgil mess is over, I’m going to disappear from Asheville, and I’m going to take you with me. Now, be careful. And I mean what I said. I want you, Mary. Focus on that—and you be careful.”

  102

  St. Louis, Missouri

  Alvin DeSotis, a clean-cut young recruiter for the Army Reserve in Montgomery City, stood in the shadow of the St. Louis Gateway to the West arch, accompanied by his two young boys.

  One of the kids held a half-eaten fluff of blue cotton candy, and the other had his hands wrapped around a large soda cup.

  DeSotis pulled a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, looked inside, and made a face. Empty. He dropped it in a nearby trash receptacle.

  He looked around. There was no cigarette machine or newsstand in sight. What he did see, however, was a well-dressed man wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette.

  “I hate to bother you, sir, but could I bum a cigarette?”

  The old man coughed, swallowed, and reached into his overcoat pocket.

  “My pleasure,” he said. He had an odd, strained voice. “They’re generic. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” DeSotis said, taking one. “My brand. Thanks. Mind if I bum a light, too?”

  “Can’t help you there. I had to stop someone to get this one lit,” he said.

  “All right,” DeSotis waved. “Thanks again.”

  DeSotis returned to his kids waiting at a wooden bench. One wanted to find a bathroom, the other sat glumly, swinging his legs back and forth.

  “We’re not going anywhere until I find someone with a lighter,” he said, “so just relax.”

  A middle-aged couple approached. The woman held a cigarette. “Stay here,” he said to his kids and got up, heading to intercept the couple.

  The kids watched as the woman handed their father a matchbook and kept walking. Sitting back on the bench, DeSotis struck a match, brought the flame to the cigarette, and drew in deeply.

  The youngest of the boys looked up at DeSotis and screamed.

  “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy!”

  The other child began to cry.

  A passing bicyclist turned toward the screeching. “What now?” the father said, exhaling.

  “I’m going to pee right now if we don’t get to a bathroom.”

  DeSotis turned to his other son. “And what are you screaming about?”

  “Billy’s pinching me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Then DeSotis turned to the first child. “Well, you’ll have to wet yourself then. Because I’m going to finish this cigarette.” He closed his eyes and took in five or six deep drags.

  When he finished, he rose, dropped the butt on the pavement, and stepped on it.

  “Let’s go,” he commanded. “I have to pee, too.”

  En route to the public restroom, the trio passed an open-air snack stand. Several people were there, some sipping sodas, others standing in line. Muntor sat on one of the snack-stand stools, his back to the passers-by. He had seen the father and his sons coming and did not want to make eye contact again. He allowed enough time for them to pass, then got up from the stool and walked away.

  A few minutes later, one of the snack-stand employees noticed that the man had forgotten a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a few dollar bil
ls all bound together by a red rubber band.

  103

  Salem, New Jersey

  Brandon’s finger trembled slightly as he stood in Bengal breeder Angela Rail’s kitchen and dialed Franklin on his cell phone. His heart beat so fast he worried about the possibility of following in the footsteps of two maternal uncles who died from sudden myocardial infarctions, both before the age of thirty-five. He had concealed that family history from FBI doctors during the pre-employment physicals.

  “Franklin,” the Deputy Director said, simultaneously picking up the telephone in his kitchen and lowering the flame under his crepe pan. Mrs. Franklin sat in the dinette reading Meeting Evil for the third time. She kept rereading it just for the subtle glory in the last paragraph.

  “Sir, it’s Brandon.”

  “Go, Ben.”

  “I’ve got the name of the man who is probably Virgil.”

  Franklin snapped his fingers and pointed to the phone, signaling to his wife that this could be the call they’d been waiting for.

  “Go on.”

  “Two summers ago, on August 1, a man from Philadelphia roughly fitting our physical profile of Virgil bought a male Bengal kitten. He paid Mrs. Rail with a check drawn on the Mellon Bank.”

  “You’ve alerted the Philadelphia field office?”

  “They just came back with the preliminary information. His name is Martin Muntor. He’s fifty-six. He lives in Northeast Philadelphia on Roosevelt Boulevard. Used to be a reporter and editor for the ANS wire service, the American News Syndicate. Forced into early retirement. Eight weeks ago, sir. Perfect timing. No NCIC hit on him. We don’t have much more than that right now, but we are scrambling.”