Bannerman's Law

by John R. Maxim

  Dommerich was wearing his hat. The sign was on his roof. He was invisible. Pretty much. Even so, that was too close. Wouldn't it be funny, he thought, if Carla came along after him and parked right next to him also. He'd probably blush or something. Maybe give himself away. So, when the man walked down to the entrance of Hickey's building, Dommerich started his car and moved it across to the Exxon station where he pretended to be putting air in his tires.

  He could see in his mind what was happening inside. The big man would have no trouble finding the right apartment. Dommerich had left the door open for him and he painted that face on the door with the dead man's blood.

  He'd never done that before. Maybe he would from now on.

  The big man would go in. Real careful. And he'd find the body. He would be amazed. He'd say something like, whoever this Claude is, I really have to hand it to him. He'd say, Claude must be as big and strong as I am. Look at this. Hickey even had a gun and still he was no match for Claude.

  Dommerich would like to have been that big. And have that nice square jaw and look like a jock. Except he would have found a better barber.

  The arrival of the second car, the Lexus, interrupted his daydream. It pulled in right behind Hickey's car. One man went in. Real quiet. Maybe he was another friend of Carla's. Dommerich wondered why he wore a raincoat.

  Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. Then there was this shout. It sounded like Harry. The voice was scared. Dommerich knew that the shout came from Hickey's window because the man who'd stayed in the Lexus jumped out and ran into the building. Dommerich smiled. It must have meant that the one in the raincoat saw Hickey’ s face.

  But then there were shots. Two of them, real loud, then another one, not as loud. Even the man in the Exxon hat looked up from a car he was gassing but he couldn't tell where the noise came from. Then the window broke and the glass fell to the sidewalk. Now the Exxon man saw where. Dommerich waited.

  In about ten seconds, the men from the Lexus came out. The one from the passenger seat—Harry?—was half-carrying, half-dragging, the one in the raincoat. One of the raincoat’s arms hung limp. It just dangled and flopped. The other was over the shoulder of the man who was helping him. There were big stains. Dommerich couldn't be sure in this light but they must have been blood.

  They got to the Lexus. The man in the raincoat fell to the sidewalk, out of sight. The other man opened the door and bent down. Struggling. It looked, to Dommerich, as if the driver was heaving him into the back. Not on the seat. Down low in the well. The other man kicked at something, maybe feet, then slammed the door three times before it closed. He ran around the back and slid behind the wheel.

  Dommerich was sure that the man in the back had been shot. And probably the first man, the big one, as well. Maybe he should go see. Try to help him. Say he was just delivering a pizza and he ...

  No. That was crazy. Carla would show up. She'd hear his voice and it would be all over.

  He could just wait. Make sure she comes. Call the cops or something if she doesn't. But then tomorrow, when he calls her again, she'd want to know who the guys were in the Lexus, and where did they go, and why didn't he at least get their license number.

  The Lexus pulled from the curb.

  Dommerich ducked into his invisible car and followed.

  26

  It was half, past seven, almost fully dark, time to think about leaving. Weinberg gathered one file folder, still unread, and the medical files of himself, his wife, and of Nellie Dameon. He was closing Dunville's briefcase on them when the telephone rang.

  There had been only one other call since they had locked themselves in Carleton the younger’ s office. It was from Dunville's chief of security. Having discovered dead Henry in the basement, he wanted evidence that the remaining Dunvilles were still alive. Weinberg put young Carleton on the extension. The man asked if the Weinbergs were listening in. Weinberg touched a finger to his lips and shook his head. Young Carleton, obediently, said no.

  Weinberg listened as the chief assured Dunville that the killers of his brother would never get off the grounds alive. Dunville did not bother to correct the first assumption. He asked the chief if his plan provided for the survival of himself and his father. The question was answered with silence. Dunville suggested that he give the matter more thought and hung up.

  Weinberg presumed the second call to be from the same man with a more fine-tuned strategy. He placed a hand on the receiver and gestured for young Carleton to pick up the extension on signal.

  “Dunville,” said young Carleton, wearily.

  “It's Harry,” came the voice. “We have a problem.”

  “Mmm. . . this is not a good time. I'll have to…”

  Weinberg shook his finger. Dunville glared at him, then took a breath.

  “Is it done?” Dunville asked.

  ‘‘Yes, but not by us. Somebody ripped him apart. They did it like that psycho does ... the one who kills college girls. We found him that way.”

  Dunville stared. He looked as if he'd been slapped. Weinberg heard a steady hum and highway sounds in the background. The call, he thought, was from a moving vehicle.

  “It gets worse,” said the voice. “There was a man there. It was like he was waiting for us. He damned near tore Marek's throat out, bare hands, and then he shot him. I finished him but I think Marek's had it.”

  Weinberg was on his feet. He scribbled a note. Carrying his phone, he passed it to Dunville.

  Dunville ignored it. “What was Peter doing there?” he demanded.

  “He . . . wanted in on the hit. I couldn't stop him.”

  Weinberg jabbed at the note he'd written.

  “This other man . . . ” Dunville squinted at Weinberg’ s scrawl. “What did he look like?”

  “Real big. Tough looking. A pro, I think. Never said a word. Listen. I'm coming in. Have a doctor waiting.”

  “No. Don't. I've got a . . . ”

  Weinberg stopped him. He wrote another note, then held his pen ready.

  “Where are you now?” Dunville asked.

  “Just passing Ventura. Maybe thirty minutes.”

  Weinberg wrote again.

  “This man,” Dunville asked, “are you sure you killed him?”

  “He took three hollow-points. Trust me.”

  Dunville squinted again, reading. “And this man cut up Hickey?”

  ”I don't think so. Hickey was already cold. And this guy would have had blood all over him.”

  Another scribble. Dunville read it. “Did you see anyone else there?”

  “Like who?”

  Weinberg canceled the question with a gesture.

  “Look, I'm coming,” said the man called Harry. ”I don't think Marek will make it but your doctors better try or his father will want all our asses.”

  He broke the connection.

  Carleton the younger groped blindly for the cradle. He stared up at Weinberg. All color had drained from his face.

  “You're not surprised,” he said accusingly. “You expected this.”

  ”I was afraid of it,” Weinberg acknowledged. “But not this soon.”

  In his mind he saw Carla Benedict. She was sitting on Hickey's chest. Hickey's hands were tied. She was asking him questions, sticking him, cutting him, each time he hesitated. How she found him, he had no idea. How she knew, this quickly, that it was he who mutilated Lisa's pretty face, left her naked at a roadside, he could not begin to imagine.

  In his mind he also saw a big man, tough looking, a professional, who had taken three expanding bullets when one should have been enough, and who had the digital strength to rip out a man's throat. He saw a face. Although he could scarcely believe it, although he could not conceive of this Harry surviving an encounter with him, let alone besting him, the face in his mind was that of Billy McHugh.

  “We're leaving. Right now,” he said to his wife.

  Barbara nodded, sighing. Once again, she must wait to be told what has just happened here. Sh
e handed the MP-5 to her husband, then stepped to the desk and picked up two Smith & Wesson Combat Magnums that he had taken from the hallway guards. They had four-inch barrels. With these she crossed to where the older Dunville sat and bent his head forward. He squealed in fear, certain that he was to be executed. She pulled at the collar of his suit jacket, then flipped up the collar of his shirt. She slid the barrel of one revolver under his exposed necktie and twisted it so that the necktie was now wound once around the barrel, the muzzle held firmly in place against the back of his neck.

  She prodded him to his feet. Gagging, he rose stiffly, terrified. She steered him toward Carleton the younger’s chair. Young Carleton understood what she was doing. He pulled up his own collar as she approached and, for the sake of his own comfort, loosened his tie at the knot. Barbara inserted the second Magnum with one hand and twisted it. It held securely. No need to choke him. She stood him up. She now had both Dunvilles, in front of her, each at arm's length. She pointed them toward the door where three suitcases waited. She nodded to Weinberg that she was ready. He was kneeling at Nellie's side.

  “Nellie?” he asked softly. “Are you here?”

  Her eyes had been glazed. But light returned to them. She touched Weinberg's arm. “It's hard,” she whispered. “It's hard to believe.”

  ”I know,” he said.

  “I'm old, Alan. And not very strong. I can't run long or far.”

  “We'll run,” he said. “But then we'll stand. And in the meantime, I will show you things. Wonderful things.”

  Her eyes brushed over the open safe and onto the briefcase that sat waiting on Carleton’ s desk. ”I did have children,” she said. “Didn't I?”

  “Yes.”

  A tiny fist gathered the fabric of her hooded robe. She looked at Carleton the elder. He, with his son, seemed to dangle like marionettes from the ends of Barbara's pistols.

  “Is he one of them?” she asked. ”I would like the truth.”

  Weinberg hesitated. “It ... seems so.”

  She smiled, ruefully. “Then the others can't be bargains, can they?”

  “You'd be surprised,” he said, offering his arm. “Let's go see.”

  Molly heard sirens in the distance. She approached the apartment house slowly, windows down, head cocked as if sniffing the air.

  “There's his Honda,” Carla said, pointing. “Pull in behind it.”

  “What was Yuri driving?”

  ”I didn't see.”

  “You're sure that's Hickey's?” Molly asked.

  Carla squinted at the hotel notepaper on which she'd written the license number. “That's it.”

  Molly allowed the Chevrolet to coast. Then, almost abreast of Hickey's car, she cut the steering wheel and depressed the accelerator. The Chevrolet crunched into the Honda's side. It startled Carla but she understood at once. The car was now side-swiped. A reason for being here.

  The sirens seemed nearer.

  Molly passed the front entrance. She saw movement inside. A man in a T-shirt. He seemed agitated. She double-parked near a hydrant and stepped from the car. Carla followed.

  Molly saw the blood. It left a weaving trail from the steps of the apartment house to the empty curb space in back of the Honda. She was afraid it was Yuri's. The man in the T-shirt stepped out through the door. He looked at them, then past them, as if waiting for someone else. He seemed in shock.

  “Did something happen here?” Molly asked.

  “Two guys,” he managed. “Upstairs.” He, too, noticed the blood. ”I called the cops.”

  “I'm a nurse,” said Carla. They pushed past him and took the stairs, following the sound of voices.

  They saw the open door. Four holes through it, each the size of an egg. The peephole had been shot out. A knot of people stood near the door, some of them peering inside. A young black woman wearing shorts and a halter leaned against the frame, her fist to her mouth, hyperventilating. A black man, older, tried to soothe her. Carla slipped between them and into the apartment. She flipped on the lights. “Oh, my God,” said another man behind her.

  Molly entered. She recognized Yuri by his size. Carla was already at his side. Molly walked past. She looked down at the face of the second man, at the hideous grin, eyes staring. Her nose told her that his bowels had let go. She returned to Yuri.

  “He's still alive,” said Carla. Carefully, she opened his mouth. The jaw, broken, made a crunching sound. One cheek was gashed, one eye swollen shut, a bit of his ear had been shot away and a dozen splinters of blond oak peppered one side of his face. She blew into his mouth, hard, to clear his air passages. His chest bubbled. “Help me,” she said. She reached for the broken right arm and, with Molly's aid, rolled him onto his shattered left rib. It did more damage there, but she hoped to keep the good right lung from filling.

  Molly straightened his arm. She used her scarf to stop the blood flow. Carla, opposite, gently pried the revolver from the fingers of his left hand. At least two were broken but not cut. And yet, oddly, the thumb and fingertips were bloody. She saw flesh under the nails. She examined the gun. The cylinder was missing, the metal deeply gouged. It looked as if it had stopped a bullet. The shape of the gun, she saw, roughly matched the marks on Yuri's face. She found the cylinder on the rug nearby. Three chambers were empty.

  The sirens stopped outside.

  Strobing lights flashed through the room, some red, some blue, from several vehicles. Sounds of running feet.

  “We live in the building,” Molly whispered to Carla. “We don't know Yuri.”

  She stepped to the door where the tenants had gathered, still afraid to enter. She approached the black man. “What happened here?” she asked.

  ”I don't know,” he sighed. ”I heard someone yelling. Minute later, I heard three shots.”

  “Three? There are four holes in this door.”

  Two policemen bullied past, their hands on their weapons. Two paramedics, with satchels, followed. Then two more police, one a sergeant. Molly held the man's attention. She touched the door, noticing for the first time the smile traced in blood. She gripped a loose splinter and pulled it free.

  “You didn't hear this?”

  He shrugged. ”I heard a little hammering, maybe, like someone hanging pictures. A little crashing around . . . like the man hanging pictures maybe fell off his chair. I didn't pay much attention till we heard the shots. My daughter poked one eye into the hall. There's two men, one could hardly walk, bleeding real bad from his throat. They ran out. My daughter here walks down, looks inside, starts screaming. I called the cops.”

  The policeman with sergeant's stripes approached. Even he seemed stunned. “Who called nine one one?” he asked.

  “This man,” Molly pointed. Suddenly, she sagged, gripping the black man's arm. “Oh, God. I'm going to be sick.” She shouted it, almost hysterically.

  Carla heard. She stepped around the paramedics. “I'm a nurse,” she told the policeman. “We're just below. Let me take her downstairs.”

  The sergeant nodded. The black man raised an eyebrow, as much at Molly's sudden loss of composure as at the reference to the apartment downstairs. He said nothing. The sergeant asked the black man's name. Carla guided Molly to the stairs.

  They reached the building's entrance, stepped out into the air. Another uniformed policeman approached. Molly began retching. The policeman hesitated. Molly lunged for the curb where spectators had gathered. They made room.

  Carla patted her back. A second ambulance came, distracting the policeman.

  “Our car,” Molly whispered. “It's blocked in.” “Screw it,” said Carla, easing her toward the spectators. ”I took Yuri's keys.”

  The moment of greatest danger, Weinberg felt, would come as they stepped through the main door of the chateau and onto the terrace. There would be guards, braced and ready, on either side. They would try to snatch or tackle the Dunvilles, then others would cut down the rest.

  He swung the doors wide as the tethered Dunvilles wait
ed. He sensed movement to his right. Weinberg tucked the MP-5 under his arm and slid the unsilenced Ingram— he wanted noise—between door and frame and fired a burst into a thick stand of acacia. He heard a squawk, more of fright than of pain. He turned the Ingram on Carleton the younger’s white Mercedes and emptied the clip into its gas tank and rear tires. The Mercedes sagged like a sitting dog but the tank did not explode as he had hoped. Still, he had their attention.

  “Here is what you will see,” he said into the night, reloading. “Both Dunvilles will appear first, guns at their necks, my wife directly behind. The guns are tethered to them. A head shot will kill my wife but she cannot help but fire as she falls. Nellie Dameon will be directly behind. I will follow. I have two machine pistols. I will fire at anyone, armed or not, whose hands I cannot see.”

  A long silence.

  “Mr. Dunville?” came a voice.

  Barbara poked Dunville the younger. “You know your lines,” she said.

  “Don't shoot,” he croaked.

  “Say, get out where we can see you,” she prompted.

  “No guns,” he improvised. “You'll kill us all.”

  That would have to do, she supposed. She jabbed them forward. The elder Dunville, eyes bulging, tried to raise the suitcase he carried so that it covered his chest. Barbara did not deny him that comfort.

  She steered them toward Carleton the elder's car, also a Mercedes but black and, therefore, preferred. They stopped at the trunk. Dunville fumbled for his keys and opened it. Weinberg led Nellie to the front passenger seat. The Dunvilles loaded the trunk and closed it. Weinberg covered her as she herded them to the rear right door. He opened it, taking the keys from Dunville’s fingers. His wife guided Carleton the elder in first and herself into the center. Young Carleton backed in last, Weinberg helping. Barbara straightened her arms, forcing their heads forward and against the opposing windows. She nodded to her husband.

  Weinberg stepped around to the driver's door and placed the key in the ignition. Standing, he lowered all four windows, then straightened. He turned his one eye back toward the chateau. He spotted the Dunvilles’ security chief, the goon named Darby, and waved him forward with the Ingram. Darby had an assault rifle in his hand but it was at his side. He stepped closer.