Whistler's Angel (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  Whistler knew that even going back by themselves might not be the smartest thing either. But Claudia had gone to a library in Antigua and had spent a day poring through cruising guides to the whole of the eastern seaboard. She had already plotted the course they would take. To ease his misgivings, they would swing wide of Florida. Too many spotters. Too much Coast Guard activity. Too many random searches for drugs and for Haitians. The Coast Guard would find no contraband on board, but they’d wonder why he carried so many weapons and would surely check him out on their computer. They wouldn’t find much there either; his records were sealed, but that would make them all the more curious. It was better, he decided, to avoid such encounters. They would stay a hundred miles off shore.

  “Maybe we can send some birds on ahead.” He had said this, or muttered it, while marking a chart.

  She looked at him, oddly. “Beg pardon?”

  “Your friends. Your birds. Let them scout and report. Better yet, do you know any porpoises?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”

  She wonders about him. “Never mind.”

  Spending a summer in Maine did sound nice. Claudia read aloud from her cruising guide about all the quaint little seaside towns, all the romantic rocky inlets in between, and the dozens of pine-covered islands off shore. They could pick one, drop anchor and dig for clams in the shallows. They could buy a trap, she said, and catch their own lobsters. They could pick wild mushrooms, blueberries and onions. She said, think of the money they’d save.

  However, if they did elect to push on to Maine, they’d give the Washington area a wide berth as well. Nothing much nears that city without being monitored. No use rubbing their noses. Stay well out to sea. Especially don’t cruise up the Potomac on the former “Me & My Gal.” All they’d need was Felix Aubrey to get wind of it and be tempted to drop a few mortar rounds on them.

  He wondered if Aubrey could walk yet.

  TWELVE

  Vernon Lockwood had never liked Adam Whistler. He hadn’t liked him, sight unseen, from the day he learned that Whistler would be joining their unit. Some Special Ops hotshot, was all that he’d heard. He and Briggs had gone in to ask Aubrey why. They could not understand why they needed him.

  “This new guy,” he said to Aubrey, “they call him ‘The Whistler?’ What is he? A spook? What’s going on?”

  Aubrey gave him that faggy little curl of his lip without looking up from his desk. “He is not ‘The Whistler.’ It’s his name. Adam Whistler. His credentials have impressed our Mr. Poole.”

  “So that’s his real name?”

  “As I think I’ve just told you.”

  “Sounds more like a code name. Like some CIA bullshit.”

  “Unlike ‘Vern the Burn’ it is not a sobriquet. Unlike you, he must not feel that he needs a nom de guerre in order to intimidate the stupid.”

  Little turd, thought Lockwood. He said, “What I hear, this guy can kill at long distance. So what? Any pussy can work at long distance.”

  “He’s considerably more gifted than that, by all accounts.”

  “The other thing I hear, this guy’s mostly a loner. What makes you think he’ll play ball?”

  “He will not ‘play ball.’ He won’t even know the game. And you two are not to enlighten him. Avoid him.”

  It was Briggs who asked Aubrey, “So then why is he coming?”

  “Because this was done before I could object. Mr. Poole, as you know, can see into men’s souls. Or rather he can see that some men don’t have one. You two, for example. Now excuse me.”

  Lockwood said, “I think I’ll see what he’s got. You care if I push him a little?”

  “How little?”

  “Just enough so he knows who’s top dog around here. Let him know to keep out of my way.”

  Aubrey didn’t answer. All he did was shrug. Lockwood took that to mean he had a green light to make Whistler think twice about staying. Whistler’s first day was as good a time as any. He and Briggs caught Whistler alone in the washroom while Whistler was drying his hands. He said, “I’m Vern Lockwood. You heard about me?”

  Whistler never looked up. “No, what are you?”

  “I’m this.” He opened his jacket to show Whistler his gun, his Glock with the custom hollow points. Whistler still didn’t look, so Lockwood pulled it from its holster. He twirled it on his finger. That made Whistler pay attention.

  Holding the gun, not on Whistler, just holding, he said, “So it’s clear, we don’t want you. And me, I don’t like you. If you stay, you and me…well, we’re going to have a problem. You don’t really want to mess with me, do you?”

  Then Whistler sucker-kicked him. He would never forget that. All he’d done was show Whistler the gun. Briggs was standing right there, but he didn’t do shit. Even Whistler stood waiting for Briggs to do something. Briggs didn’t. He let Whistler walk out.

  Later on, Briggs said, “That was your show, not mine. You were begging for a kick in the nuts.”

  “You saw that coming? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “You thought what? That the guy would piss in his pants? I think he’s seen a gun before, Vern.”

  “Yeah, well, next time…”

  “Next time don’t just stand there. This guy is no pussy. Next time, put him down first, then talk.”

  There wasn’t any next time. Not for weeks after that. Poole heard about the washroom. He said leave him alone. He said, “The darkness within him must be made to serve the light. Forbear, Mr. Lockwood. Forbear.”

  That was how Poole spoke. No one ever understood him. Anyway, Aubrey tried to keep Whistler busy. He kept him traveling, scouting targets for raids, but soon Whistler started asking questions. Why this target? Who is he? Where’s the evidence that he’s dirty? Then he wanted his instructions in writing.

  Even Poole began to realize that this guy had to go, but by that time it was too late. Aubrey’s notebook, which was stupid to have in the first place, turned up missing from his house and it wasn’t hard to figure who had taken it. Aubrey should have had him pop Whistler on the spot, but he wanted his ledger back first. Next we know, there’s Whistler’s father getting into the act. Whistler’s father turns out to have some kind of juice. The father’s not even here; he lives somewhere in Europe, but he still gets Poole to roll over. Poole is seriously spooked; he starts that “Forbear” shit again. Even Aubrey wimped out for a while there.

  Well, screw this, thought Lockwood. You don’t just let the guy walk. You at least try to find some kind of edge.

  Lockwood said to Briggs, “I’ll tell you what we do. Whistler knows these two women; it’s this girl and her mother. They’re why he’s been going out to Denver. It figures that Whistler is porking the daughter, but it figures he wouldn’t have told them what he does.”

  “That would be a good bet. But so what?”

  “We go see them. We tell them who this prick really is. We wave the flag,

  maybe. We say that both him and his father are dirty. We get them to flip on whatever they know.”

  They did that. They tried that. It didn’t work out. They went out there with all kinds of stuff from their files. They brought photos of killings they said Whistler had done. Briggs brought a report some shrink had written up, showing that Whistler was a sociopath. Except the profile wasn’t Whistler’s. It was Lockwood’s own. It was from years ago when he’d tried to get a job with the Central Intelligence Agency. They had him do a bunch of tests and after that they wouldn’t take him. Unsuitable, they said. Yeah, well, fuck you, too. He hadn’t known that Briggs had brought it along until Briggs started reading parts of it to those women. This was Briggs’s idea of a joke.

  “What joke?” Briggs asked later. “You said scare them. That was scary.”

  “You couldn’t have pulled Whistler’s? You had to pull mine?”

  “His is sealed. Yours was handy. I blacked out your name. Hey, it’s not like it’s news that you’re one twiste
d fuck. That’s what got you hired by Poole.”

  Aubrey wasn’t happy that they went to see these women, especially when they got nothing out of it. Those women didn’t scare; they just got mad. Aubrey reamed them both out. He said the damage was done. But he said, “Let’s see what we can salvage.”

  He said, “What we need is to neutralize Whistler. Go find me something to trade.”

  They knew what he meant. He meant set them up and bust them. This was something they’d done a hundred times. They knew how. But who’d have figured that two nervous cops would start blasting at a shape that came out of the darkness. Fucking girl. It was an accident. They happen. And who would have figured that within, like, one day, Whistler has this fucking army invading the place. No one knows who they were or where they came from.

  So now look at Briggs. Until then he had a face. They put it back together the best they could but his skin still looks like a lampshade. Briggs hasn’t been worth a damn since.

  And who does he blame? Not the woman who cut him. He blames Vernon Lockwood, is who he blames, for taking off and leaving him there. Well, two things about that. First, Briggs should have been on time. Second, only a dope would have hung around after knowing how much heat must have showed up in that town, what with everyone they knew disappearing. You get out until you know what you’re up against.

  This was all Whistler’s fault. It was all Whistler’s doing. But does Whistler get the bill? No, he goes off playing sailor. He’s off with that girl who should have been dead like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  And now look at Aubrey. Still can’t walk without crutches. The word is he’s minus a set of balls too, not that Aubrey ever used the ones he had. The worst of it is, he gave Whistler a pass. He folded because Whistler has his ledger, but so what? All that money listed in it had already been laundered. All that real estate they seized, all that other stuff they took, is so spread around over so many people that they’ll never be able to track it all down. And all Aubrey has to do is cook some new books and say that the other one was a fake.

  Aubrey doesn’t know who cut him. Neither does Briggs. Briggs says by the time he felt the first cuts he already had blood in his eyes. Aubrey won’t talk about what happened with him, but Lockwood had heard from other sources. The story is that Aubrey was taking a crap in a hotel room down in Richmond. He’s sitting on the bowl, his pants down at his ankles, when this woman shows up out of nowhere. He says he couldn’t see who because he’s reading reports. Anyway, this woman grabs his pants, yanks them up, flips Aubrey ass-over so his head’s in the toilet. She carves him up like a roast.

  Lockwood knew who it was. It was the mother, who else? It was the mother of the girl who got shot. Aubrey, however, says that isn’t right. They showed him pictures of the mother. He says that’s not her. Not that he ever got that good a look because his face was in the shit he just took. And not that it makes any difference who’s right. When a thing like that happens, you make somebody pay. Pick someone who’s handy. Like the mother. She deserves it. From the day those two women threw them out of their house, he knew they were in this with Whistler.

  Briggs says no, not the mother. He says leave her alone. He says she was there when they were stitching up his face. He says she was decent to him. She held his hand. See that? The guy’s perspective is shot.

  Next it’s Aubrey and Poole who say leave it alone. Aubrey says this is an order. Aubrey and Poole want to let Whistler go. They not only let the guy get out of this clean, they let him take off with that girl who got shot and let him live the life of Riley on some boat these two gave him. They also gave him cash, must be two or three million. A good chunk of that came from Lockwood’s pocket. Aubrey made Briggs kick in almost as much, but it was probably Aubrey who took the biggest hit. Or his relatives did. He cleaned most of them out. Poole started to say something about “Rendering unto Caesar” until Aubrey told him to shut the fuck up. That was something, at least. At least Aubrey was mad.

  Three times now, Lockwood had gone in to Aubrey with ideas on how to get even with Whistler. Okay, thought Lockwood, the money’s gone, but there’s a principle here. You let someone burn you and walk away clean, you got no credibility left. You have to let it be known that they did not walk away. You fix it so Whistler’s never heard from again. He went off on a boat? Make him look lost at sea. It happens, right? Boats go down all the time. How can anyone blame us for that?

  Aubrey doesn’t want to hear it. He says forget it. He says let’s just get back to work. The truth is, he’s…whats the word?…he’s traumatized right now. That woman who cut him cut deeper than she knew. He’s scared she’ll come back and he’s scared of Whistler’s father. But if you know she had to work for either Whistler or his father, if you make them go away, she’s no longer in the picture. That makes sense, right? She’s got to find some other work. The trick is, therefore, to get Whistler and his father, same day, both at once, and it’s over. We either coordinate, same day, different places, or we wait until they visit for a birthday or something. What we don’t do is sit with our thumbs up our asses, letting that bunch think they beat us.

  Aubrey agrees. He won’t say so, thought Lockwood, but he does. He could see how Aubrey was biting his lip and wanting, really badly, to get even with Whistler. All he’d say was, “You are to take no action. No action whatever. Am I clear?”

  “You mean until we know we can’t miss.”

  “There is no ‘until.’ There is no ‘unless.’ Must I write this on the back of your hand?”

  “So, you’re telling me…what? You got something else going?”

  “Get out of my office, Mr. Lockwood.”

  This was very frustrating. It could have been over.

  Lockwood could have had Whistler if they hadn’t pulled him off. He and one of his guys had staked out Whistler’s apartment. They were waiting on his roof. Rain or shine, they didn’t care. Whistler would have shown sooner or later. But then Mr. Poole made this deal with Whistler’s father. It’s a stand-off. It’s over. They could make up their losses in a few months, tops, as long as Whistler’s father keeps his end of the deal and doesn’t go public with this thing.

  This was wrong. It was dumb. No one keeps a deal like this. Someone hurts you this bad, you go for payback, big time. You watch for your chance and you finish it.

  Twice now, since then, he’d almost got Whistler. He’d almost got Whistler and the girl in one shot. He’d gone after them on his own. A runner who owes him spotted their boat. It was on its way out of Belize. He told his guy, “Let them get out to sea. Then I want you to take them; send that boat to the bottom. If you can, board them first and take them alive. Have whatever fun you want with the girl and make Whistler watch while you’re doing her. Let them know before you kill them that this is from me. This is payback from me and from Briggs.”

  His guy almost had them, but he had to back off. He got close to their boat, said he needed some ice, but the girl must have not liked their looks. She gave them some ice, but she kept a gun on them. It was one of those shotguns with a twenty round drum and she looked like she knew how to use it.

  Same guy, same runner, sees her again. This time, a month later, it’s on Grand Cayman Island. She’s walking down the street and Whistler is with her. They’re walking along holding hands. His guy was there for a court appearance on a charge that the magistrate ended up dismissing after they’d talked a little business. Whistler and the girl turn a corner, disappear. There were restaurants there; he knows they must have gone in one. He looks in some windows and he spots them, he thinks. He goes in this one restaurant to make sure it’s them, but then he gets spooked by the girl again.

  He says he gets a feeling that she recognized him from last time down off Belize. He says he knows it’s crazy because, that time off Belize, she never got a look at his face. Off Belize he was watching her through a pair of binoculars from maybe four boat lengths away. On top of that, he’s now wearing a suit because of this co
urt appearance he had. He says there’s no way that she could have made him, but it’s like she sensed it, he says. She looks like she’s ready to stick him with a fork. He kept going past their table, took a leak, then went back out. He wasn’t going to try to take them alone, so he went back to his boat to round up some crew. By the time they get back, Whistler’s gone.

  After that, Lockwood told this guy to forget it. By now, this guy’s gone so mental on the girl that it’s better to use someone else.

  The mother, all this time, is sending faxes and e-mails and is talking to them on the phone. Lockwood had monitors logging these calls, but they only got fragments of what they were saying. A couple of times they were talking in German. Since when do these women know German? And since when, for that matter, does the daughter know guns? Since when did she learn to smell trouble? The answer has to be that she’s learning this from Whistler, but what is he training her to do? Be like him? They’ve got to be planning some kind of move and the mother has got to be part of it. The mother disappears for weeks at a time. She makes it look like she’s headed for Europe, but she’s probably flying a round-about route and meeting up with them on some island.

  The good news, thought Lockwood, is that now he’ll know where Whistler is at all times. Another guy he uses flew down to Martinique after Lockwood had traced some of their calls there. This was Kaplan, the guy who was with him on the roof. Kaplan’s not just a shooter. He does electronics. He was looking for a way to stash a tracking transmitter someplace on the boat Whistler lives on. But Whistler had this boat at a private marina that had security guards day and night. Kaplan had a hard time getting near it.

  But one day he sees Whistler watching some kid who goes down and cleans the crap off boat bottoms. Whistler talks to the kid. He wants to hire the kid. The kid gets seventy-five bucks for the job. Kaplan asked the kid how he’d like to make two hundred. He flashes ID, says he’s DEA, tells him Whistler’s a suspected drug runner. He shows the kid this little transmitter that looks like a dominos tile. He gives him some stuff, Crazy Glue or some shit, and tells him to stick it under the rail at a place where it wouldn’t be noticed.