Dirty Harry 02 - Death on the Docks

by Dane Hartman

  “Longlegs, let me know if I’m wrong. But my impression is that you know a shitload of people on the streets.”

  Longlegs knew Harry was getting at something but what? That he couldn’t figure out.

  “Oh yeah, I know lots of people. What kind of people you got in mind, officer Callahan?”

  “Scumbags generally. Professional scumbags.”

  Longlegs caught a glimmer of what Harry was driving at but only a glimmer. “Maybe I’m dense but—?”

  “Hit men, Longlegs. People who command a great deal of cash for their services. People who know how to avoid heat.”

  “Hey, Harry, you got me wrong. What happened tonight that was Lee’s fault. I didn’t even know his fuckin’ piece was loaded, man. We were going in there to scare the dude. I didn’t think Lee would pull that shit. I swear I don’t know what got into him.”

  Harry wasn’t remotely interested in his protests or apologies.

  “Longlegs, my man, you do not seem to understand. I do not care about tonight. I do not care about your late friend Lee. I am more interested in the connections you enjoy right now. On the streets of our good city. You are going to find me some men whose business it is to dispatch other people to the next world.”

  “Harry? Oh, come on, where am I supposed to find dudes like that? I’m a small-time man. What do I know? I’m simply chomp change. You need somebody else, not me.”

  “No, there you’re wrong, Longlegs. As of now you are working for me. Think of it as a temporary assignment. You find these people, you find them and you tell them you been hearing about some fellow, man with lots of bucks interested in arranging a hit. Give them the name Mark Kincaid. From now on in it’s Mark Kincaid when you refer to me. Understand?”

  Longlegs’ eyes widened with fear. “Shit, you got to be crazy, man. I mean you just got to be one crazy motherfucker.”

  “That may be, that very well may be. You think about it. Consider the alternative.”

  There wasn’t much to consider. With his record, Longlegs could look forward to celebrating a good many birthdays behind bars.

  “You’re asking an awful lot.”

  “Goodnight, Longlegs.”

  Longlegs was about to get out of the car, but he still had one further question for Harry. “Supposin’ I should just split town, I could do that and you’d be out one well-connected spade.”

  Harry laughed. “You could make it from here to Tierra del Fuego and you know I’d find you.”

  Longlegs rolled his head back and laughed, too. “The Man got you, he got you,” Longlegs said, and those were his parting words.

  Harry watched him sprint into the darkness. That was the thing about Longlegs; you could drop him off anywhere in this city and he’d find his way without a problem; the streets and the people who habituated them were in his blood. Harry had no idea whether Longlegs could find the sort of men he was searching for but it was worth a try. At this point anything was worth a try.

  C H A P T E R

  S i x

  It was becoming more and more apparent that the Giants were going to capture the pennant; they were leading Pittsburgh two games to nothing and were prepared to make a clean sweep of it that evening. Everywhere you went in San Francisco the talk was about nothing but the Giants and their prospects for the Series. People were already leaping to the conclusion that Pittsburgh was out of the running.

  Come evening, every radio, every TV set was tuned into the game. The whole damn city was on simulcast. By the second inning the score was tied, still nothing-nothing.

  So preoccupied by the game were people that virtually no one paid attention to the report, broadcast at six on the evening news, that John Bull Ryan had done better than even the Giants by capturing 89.5 percent of the votes cast by the Brotherhood in its postponed election. His overwhelming majority was assured, the commentator had explained, because the dissidents, with no candidate of their own to support, had simply boycotted the election. The murders of Bernie Tuber and his family were mentioned almost as an afterthought. Harry felt like he was the only one in the city to remember them.

  Although ostensibly he was still assigned to the case, so many leads had dried up, so many clues had proved unavailing that he was really left with nothing to go on. Which was why he was out tonight looking for Longlegs. Longlegs might not be his last hope, but if he came up empty-handed then Harry wasn’t sure where he’d go from there.

  Longlegs was not hard to find. He was seated in a dive off Pacific, a dank place smelling of piss, booze, and failure. Like almost everyone else in town he was watching the ballgame on a color TV squeezed into a nook above the counter. Everyone clustered around the bar, shadowy forms in the harsh, grim lighting; it looked like one more straight gin would send them toppling over from their stools.

  Harry approached Longlegs from behind and saddled up next to him. For about two minutes Longlegs pretended not to notice him, continuing to rest his eyes on the TV. But he knew very well that Harry was there. Longlegs might have fucked up at just about everything he tried to do in life but he was a survivor; he had the sense of a survivor. A nuclear holocaust or an ice age, it wouldn’t matter; in the devastation, in the frozen wilderness the man would still be running his scams.

  “Officer Callahan,” Longlegs said, taking a sip from the shooter clutched in his hand. “How do you do?”

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  “Straight to the point. No wasting time.” There was suddenly a lot of shouting in the bar. The Pirates had just succeeded in loading the bases. The crowd was roaring at the Giants’ pitcher: “Take the son of a bitch outta there!”

  Harry was not interested. Gripping Longlegs by the arm, hard so that he would feel it, he repeated his question.

  “Because if you don’t have anything for me I am afraid I’m going to have to take you in.”

  “Hey, lay off, man.” Longlegs had the kind of plastic face that could express outrage with utter conviction. Harry’s grip remained as taut as before. “Ok, Ok, I talked with some cats. I can’t guarantee satisfaction, but I’m told they’re some of the best in the business.”

  “How many?”

  “Two. I didn’t meet them personally. They are not cats I want to be on intimate terms with, you catch my meaning? I went through a friend. A heavy dude.”

  “Where?”

  Longlegs gave him the name of a bar near Fisherman’s Wharf. The owner of the bar was reputed to have Mafia connections.

  “Thursday, 4 P.M., the cat you want is gonna be wearing a red flower in his buttonhole and a red hankie in his pocket. He’ll be waiting for you.”

  By four in the afternoon on Thursday Harry had managed to make himself look like a wealthy man, a little on the flashy side with a sportscoat a trifle too loud, glasses tinted an interesting shade of light chartreuse, white ducks, and a sporty blue cap perched on an abundance of blond hair that he’d fitted securely to the contours of the hair that was his by birth.

  The bar where the rendezvous was to occur faced bayward, open to the sun and sea; there was a great big glorious sun in the west, spreading generous doses of light into the place. The bar was mostly inhabited by tourists and out-of work sailors who were looking for somebody to get them drunk and listen to their stories of fifty-cent whores they’d balled in the Far East.

  There were a few cream-colored tables set out beyond the bar area, and at one of them was seated the man Harry wanted. As Longlegs had said, the contact had a red flower pinned to his lapel and a slightly less brightly colored handkerchief springing out of his breast pocket. He did not look like a hit man. He did not look like anything really; just a complacent businessman putting away a few too many to pass the afternoon.

  “I’m Mark Kincaid,” Harry said.

  “Sit down, why don’t you?” the man said.

  “I was told you’d be with somebody.”

  “That’s correct. He’ll be along presently. My name, by the way, is Jeff. You’ll want to be cal
ling me something so you can call me that.”

  He spoke distinctly, with no trace of an accent so that it was impossible to tell from what part of the country he came. His eyes had a hazy, diffuse quality to them; they didn’t appear to be focused on anything at all.

  Harry ordered a drink and waited for Jeff to say something. But Jeff evidently had no intention of speaking until his companion showed up. His companion was shorter, paunchier than Jeff; he looked as though he’d recently undergone a face lift. No telltale lines of age could be detected at all. Both men were tanned, reflecting their apparent good health. Who knows, Harry thought, maybe a life as hit man wasn’t as nerve-wracking as he would have suspected.

  “This is Hank,” said Jeff.

  Hank nodded and pulled up a chair.

  No one was anywhere around them. But Jeff wanted Harry to know that they could discuss their business freely here.

  “What sort of arrangements did you have in mind, Mr. Kincaid?” Jeff was apparently going to do the talking for both men.

  “Something fairly substantial. Something very clean.”

  “Ah yes. Clean.” Jeff seemed to like the sound of the word.

  “Like the Tuber hit a couple of weeks back.”

  Jeff allowed a slight smile to come to his lips. “I see. That kind of clean is going to cost you.”

  “I am ready to pay what’s necessary.”

  Jeff seemed to consider this for a moment. “Necessary, Mr. Kincaid, might be in the neighborhood of two thousand.”

  “Per person?”

  “Just how many did you have in mind?”

  “Five.” It was a figure Harry had pulled out of a hat. What he was doing, more or less, was improvising, playing it by ear.

  At the mention of the number Jeff frowned. Hank’s brow furrowed in sympathetic response with his partner. Killing five people seemed to displease them both.

  “Five,” Jeff repeated unhappily. “Mr. Kincaid, these five individuals, do you want them taken out all at once?”

  “That’s right. It was done with the Tubers.”

  “You keep bringing up the Tubers.” It was Hank who spoke now. He had a gruff hoarse voice that was painful to listen to. “That was something special. You’re talking about extraordinary circumstances when you’re dealing with the Tuber hit.”

  Harry shrugged, leaning back in his chair, giving the impression that he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “You’re telling me special is a problem?”

  “Yes, that is what I am saying, Mr. Kincaid.” Jeff was speaking now. “Five is a big problem.”

  “If it’s a question of money . . .”

  “Well, we’re no longer talking five times two thousand, not for the job you want. It would have to be much larger sum. Much larger. But money is not the issue here.”

  “If I understand what you’re saying I’m talking to the wrong people.”

  There was a moment of hesitation before Jeff resumed. “I guess you could say that. In fact, I think I could safely say that for what you want you’d have to look beyond the local boys. I mean the free-lancers.”

  “The hit on the Tubers?”

  “Outside. From what I hear the people they brought in on that were from Chicago, St. Louis. Hardcore folks all down the line.”

  “I see. How do I get in touch with them?”

  Jeff held up his hand. “I’m not the yellow pages, Mr. Kincaid. You have to do that on your own.”

  “Well, can you tell me whether they’re still available in San Francisco or do I have to go all the way to Chicago?”

  “Oh, from what I hear—and it’s just rumors we’re talking about—but from what I hear there are a couple of boys still around the bay area. They’ve got a new assignment the word is.”

  As offhandedly as possible Harry asked whether they had any idea of what it was.

  Jeff seemed to be deliberating as to whether he should release this sort of information. Then he answered, “From what I’m told there’s a contract out on a cop that’s been giving somebody a lot of shit.”

  “A cop?”

  ‘Detective name of Callahan.”

  C H A P T E R

  S e v e n

  The way Harry figured it, if what Jeff had told him was true, and he had little reason to think otherwise, he would no longer be obliged to search for the men who’d murdered Tuber and Meltzer. They would be coming to him.

  His problem was in avoiding Tuber’s fate and Meltzer’s. His problem was also in taking at least one of these professional killers alive. Dead, they wouldn’t be of much help to him.

  The assumption that Harry went on was that they would attempt the hit when he was off-duty. To kill him while he was pursuing police business would complicate the situation. Most likely they would make it look like the result of an accident; equally as possible, he would be picked up, taken somewhere far away, and allowed to disappear permanently. Harry Callahan would be turned into a dim fading memory.

  If Harry had suffered from paranoid fears before, if he was edgy, tense, and insomniac, he was worse now. Always on guard, he wouldn’t even get into bed without making sure his .44 Magnum was within easy reach.

  The days passed; they began to take longer than usual to end. And some days just didn’t end at all. Sunrise would find Harry sitting at the kitchen table, slugging down coffee, waiting, waiting until he thought he would go mad. It was possible, he thought, that he had been misled. Jeff and Hank might have been told who he was and had deliberately lied to him. A form of psychological warfare: torture Callahan with doubt.

  But he couldn’t be sure. He had no way of checking the truth. No one out there, particularly no one on the force, was to be trusted.

  His apartment in the meantime was beginning to resemble the battlefield of Verdun. It cried out for cleaning. Plates were piling up in the sink. The refrigerator was nearly empty and what food was in it was no longer fit for human consumption.

  I must do something about this mess, Harry thought. He got himself a beer and did nothing.

  It was Sunday now, a bright blistering Sunday morning. From the window of his apartment Harry could hear the neighborhood kids playing softball in the street. The sound the ball made when it was whacked by a bat was loud and abrupt enough to send the adrenalin racing in his blood. The way Harry looked at it, he must have already depleted most of the adrenalin he had in stock. Exhaustion was settling in, starting to dull his senses.

  There was a knocking on the door, a barely audible tattoo. Harry’s hand instantly sought out his gun. Still, he reasoned, it was not very likely that hit men would knock before they set about their task.

  Nonetheless, he was real careful about how he opened the door, parting it an inch or so, while stepping back so as to avoid presenting a potential target.

  “Hi, Harry, I came to see how you were doing.”

  The voice was demure and insinuating at the same time. The eyes were beautiful but disconcerting in the intensity of their gaze.

  It was Keiko from downstairs. Harry let her in.

  Lithe, with the grace of a dancer, she was attired as she usually was, in a loose, half-open shirt and jeans that clung avidly to her lean, finely tapered legs.

  “God, it’s a mess in here,” she said, surveying the apartment.

  “My assessment of the situation exactly.” Harry gave her a choice of beer or wine, the extent of the refreshment he had available. She opted for the beer, then immediately began to run the water and wash the dishes. “You need a woman’s touch. Why don’t you hire someone to come in once a week and clean this place?”

  “It’s an idea whose time has come.”

  “And gone. Where have you been? I never see you around anymore.”

  “I’m keeping strange hours these days.”

  “New case you’re working on?”

  “Old case, growing moldly by the minute.”

  “I think you need a vacation, Harry.”

  “That’s what everyone tells me.
”

  He looked toward the girl, admiring the way her jeans molded themselves to her soft pleasing rump. Keiko had once long ago been a lover but quickly realized that no lasting relationship would be possible with someone like Harry. She was now a friend, but one who was concerned and always eager to help—if Harry would let her.

  But right now there was nothing she could do. Harry was devoted to the principle of taking action, getting the jump on an opponent before he could mobilize himself. But now he could do nothing but wait. That was the bitch of it. He strode over to the window and peered out. No sign of life. He could hear the kids playing softball but not see them. He wondered what had happened to the joker who’d been hired to follow him around town. Hadn’t caught a glimpse of him for several days now. Was this a good omen or not? Truth was he didn’t know.

  Just as he turned to face Keiko the window exploded, glass showering him before he could get out of the way. Blood began trickling down from his scalp where a sliver of glass had lacerated him.

  Keiko shrieked, not yet understanding what had happened. There was a second shot, a muffled detonation, and then an eruption of plaster from the opposite wall.

  “Get down!” Harry yelled even as he threw himself down on the floor.

  Keiko responded at once. Her voice betrayed her fear though she struggled to retain her composure. More plaster was thrown off the wall as the unseen sniper continued the fusillade.

  “What’s happening? What is it, Harry?”

  Grasping hold of the holster slung over the chair, Harry removed his .44. Keiko raised her head to better see what he was doing, but Harry immediately forced it back down. He regretted that she had decided on this moment to come and help him with the housework. It was one thing if he got himself killed, but he couldn’t bear the thought that a friend should be sacrificed through no fault of her own.

  “Be damned if I thought they’d do it this way,” Harry muttered to himself. He had not anticipated so brazen and relentless an attack. For a few moments there was silence; it was eerie, the silence you find in the eye of a hurricane. Outside there was a loud thump as a youthful batter connected. The sniper was using a silencer; the only noise came on impact inside of Harry’s apartment. The rest of the world kept on as though nothing unusual were happening.