Bannerman's Promise

by John R. Maxim

  The man squealed. “Gun,” he shouted from his throat. It was Yuri's sense that he was glad to see him. Also good that he spoke English.

  “Your name?”

  “Zang . . . Zang ... ow ... iwwo.”

  Faster to see if he has a wallet, Yuri decided. He felt for the man's pocket. He found one. It contained two driver's licenses. One Italian, one international, but in two different names. There were also seaman papers, in still another name, showing an address in Genoa. These, thought Yuri, were probably genuine.

  “You are Vincente Zangrillo?”

  ”... uh.”

  “You work with Aldo Corsini?”

  ”. .. uh.” .

  “And you both work for Borovik.”

  ”. .. uh.” A flicker of surprise. But no denial.

  “He knows that Corsini is dead?”

  ”. . . uh.”

  Yuri nodded toward the broken communicator. “And he sent you to avenge him. To kill Carla Benedict.”

  “..er...ah... uh?”

  This new series of sounds told him that the question was too complex to be answered with grunts and gulps of air. Also, this man seemed to be asking if he had succeeded. Yuri wished that he had thought to slice his tendons instead of breaking his neck, but there had not been time. Also, he might have bled to death. It would have meant more to clean up.

  This questioning, phrased for yes and no answers, would take time. First to learn Corsini's intentions, the role of General Borovik, the extent of KGB involvement, the purpose of the network, other names, and, above all, whether General Belkin is in danger.

  He thought of pulling up a chair. But no. It would make him too impatient, just sitting. Instead, he would get the bucket, some detergent, and some rags. Begin cleaning this place as he asked his questions.

  Ten minutes passed.

  He was on his knees, scrubbing a section of carpet by the front door. Lydia's blood. The subject at hand was heroin. It was the third subject he had tried in his effort to learn the scope of this network's activities. So far, it was involved in everything he mentioned. Missing nerve gas would come next. Already, there had been a reference to it. The man with the broken neck, the intended avenger of Aldo Corsini, had managed to pronounce “Sudanese.”

  Yuri heard sounds from below. A sudden scurrying of rats. He put his hand over the butt of the Browning. Probably nothing, he imagined. A dispute over one of Corsini's ears. He had left the trapdoor open for the sake of convenience and as a quick way out if needed, but possibly that was not such a good idea. This boathouse was too easy to enter. A new squeaking sound. Very faint. Not a rat.

  It sounded, perhaps, like a metal stair being tested. He drew the Browning from the small of his back and eased off the safety. Very lightly, he moved to the wall behind the front door, listening now for sounds from the wooden steps as well. If men were coming, they would come both ways.

  He wished he had a Makarov. With the Browning, he would have to go for head shots. No question of shooting through walls and doors. He sighted against the lip of the open trapdoor.

  “Yuri?”

  A woman's voice. Down below. He held his breath.

  “Friends, Yuri. Don't get anxious.”

  A creak outside. Now the wooden stairs were being tested. In his mind he saluted Carla. She had probably loosened the boards herself.

  “Come on, Yuri. We have to be sure it's you.”

  He swallowed. “Name?”

  “You'll know the face. May I see two hands before I show it?”

  Israeli accent. It seemed familiar.

  “Hands are touching ceiling,” he said. He raised them, easily reaching the plaster. He rapped the Browning's barrel against it. “Now show yours.”

  He listened, tensed and ready, as the metal stairs took her weight. He saw the crown of a knitted cap. The eyes below it should be able to see his hands. Now he saw one black glove, then another. The second held a silenced machine pistol, upside down, dangling from one finger.

  She showed her face. He did not recognize it. It had been blackened.

  “It's Miriam,” she said.

  “What Miriam? From where?”

  “From Anton Zivic.” She showed more of her body. Slim, all dressed in black. “You still don't know me?”

  She pulled the cap off. Dark hair tumbled to her shoulders.

  “From Elena's wedding,” she said patiently. ”I taught your Maria how to make kreplach. She told me how to make pot-au-feu. Also we played Bach together.”

  Yuri remembered. So many of them at the wedding, he did not know all the names. But he remembered this one— formerly Mossad—swapping recipes for soup with Maria. Also accompanying on Elena's piano when Maria was asked to play her cello. Also teaching Billy McHugh's new wife to play “Chopsticks.”

  “No music tonight,” she said, stepping into the room. “Tonight, it seems, I am the cleaning lady.”

  She whistled for the man outside.

  44

  None of this was his fault, thought Ronny Grassi miserably.

  It's what happens when you have bodyguards.

  They're all dickheads. Every one of them.

  These guys ... they spend all their time doing absolutely nothing but hanging around looking tough, watching everyone in sight, occasionally getting to put their fingers up against someone's chest who was probably only going to ask for directions.

  They get bored. They keep hoping that something will happen so they can show their stuff. For your part, you try to hire guys who are reasonably levelheaded because you don't want them reaching for a piece when some poor stiff happens to be looking at you and scratching his ass at the same time.

  You try to hire guys who have a little something upstairs, bring them along, give them other jobs to do when they're ready. But bodyguards are rarely a source of executive talent, because the guys who would do that sort of work in the first place tend not to have gone to Harvard.

  The only part that was maybe his fault was that he lost it a little when he heard that Corsini tried to kill Carla and she turned him into a veal chop.

  Two guys show up.

  They're perfectly polite. They row out to Temptress in a dinghy and they ask if they can come aboard. They say no to a drink and they ask, nicely, if the girls can maybe go down below. He knows at least one of them. French guy, used to do odd jobs for Bannerman. Is otherwise a tennis instructor. The other one, it turns out, lives right here in Monaco and has a shop that rents tuxedos.

  These occupations cause one of the bodyguards to smirk. He winks at the other one. They've both been sizing these two up, deciding they're not so much. The French guy pays no attention but he does ask if the bodyguards, too, could give them some privacy. Sorry. House rule. They stay close.

  But things are still nice. There's a little small talk about mutual acquaintances which leads to the wedding which leads to Aldo Corsini. They want to know what Corsini was up to and was he working with a partner.

  Their use of the past tense is not immediately noted.

  He asks them why they're interested and the French guy, tennis instructor, tells him what happened with Carla. He listens, dumbfounded. He listens through a fog because all he sees is months of his own work maybe going up in smoke and a dozen deals collapsing all because of Corsini.

  He says he has to think about this. You're both in town. Give me a number and I'll get back to you.

  But they don't want to leave. They want some answers. He's got too much at stake here so he says maybe tomorrow. His bodyguards take this as a cue. One of them jerks his thumb at the door and reaches for the tennis instructor's arm and the other—if you believe this—he pulls back his jacket to show his piece. The rest happens too fast to yell stop.

  In half a second, one of them's on the floor with a broken thumb and the other, who was now reaching for his piece, notices that the tuxedo renter has beat him by a mile and he's looking into the squared-off muzzle of a Glock. The meatball decides to go for it anyway beca
use when he tries this in front of a mirror he always wins. He drops to a crouch, one knee, but the knee doesn't even touch the ground before it's shot out from under him and he slams face-forward on the rug and his gun hand gets stomped.

  The tuxedo guy doesn't say anything but it's clear that he considers this a breach of etiquette. He puts a round each into the icemaker and the intercom. He walks up to the wheelhouse and puts another round each into the radar, the sonar, the loran, and the computer screen. He takes out eighty grand, easy, with a dollar and a half worth of bullets. On top, he says he'll take that drink now.

  He was sorry they didn't blast the cellular phone, too, when they finally left, because it rings, he picks it up, and now he hears Irwin Kaplan, who, one minute into the conversation, is threatening life-long misery if he's even thought about dealing in chemical weapons.

  Who knew what the fuck he was talking about?

  He didn't need this.

  “Irwin . . .”

  “Straight out, Ronny. Are you into any shit like that?”

  “No.”

  “Don't fuck with me.”

  A weary sigh. He motioned for the crewman who was scrubbing up blood to leave. “Some things I don't touch. You know that.”

  “Are you dealing with the Russians?”

  “Who isn't?”

  “What are you moving?”

  “Hey. Let's save time. Instead of doing this on the phone, why don't I just fly over to Atlanta in the morning and check myself into the federal prison?”

  But Kaplan didn't care who might be listening.

  “Okay. Let's back up. Do you know Aldo Corsini?”

  He hesitated. ”I did.”

  “Otherwise known as Barca?”

  “Barca like in sailboat? I don't know. Over the years, this guy's been the Actor, the Genoan, and the Count. He likes shit like that.”

  “He works for you?”

  ”A few years back, he did. Then he went with some Russians.”

  “What's he doing for them?”

  “As far as I know? Buying companies, mostly.”

  “Do you know for what purpose?”

  “To make things, Irwin,” he answered patiently. “To sell things. It's called investing.”

  A brief silence, heavy with doubt.

  “Irwin, there's a ton of Communist-party money floating around. They're looking for ways to park it and make it grow. They come to Italy and they get people like me and Corsini to help set up foundations and corporations that are not tied to them or the party in case the former Soviet Union gets its act together and tries to get it back.”

  A pause. “So you're laundering.”

  “That's one way to put it.”

  “And they stole the money.”

  “They took it, yeah. Before someone else could.”

  “And this doesn't bother you?”

  Grassi drew an exasperated breath. “Irwin . . . pay attention to this. Last winter, the Germans sent five truckloads of donated butter to St. Petersburg. The butter and the trucks disappeared the same afternoon they got there. Vanished, Irwin. Never seen again. The whole country is a rathole and I didn't make it that way.”

  Silence. An echo of distaste. Then . . .

  “Has Corsini been smuggling on the side?”

  “Same answer. Who isn't?”

  “Are you?”

  “I'm not Mother Theresa, Irwin. That's what I do.”

  Another silence. This time to gather his thoughts.

  “This Corsini. What might he want with Carlá Benedict?”

  ”I don't know. I just heard about that. Couple of guys from Anton Zivic came asking what I know. Which is almost zilch.”

  “From Zivic?” A surprised pause.

  “Listen, Irwin. I need you to tell Bannerman that I'd never hurt Carla. If I had any idea that Corsini would try to hurt her, I would have whacked him myself.”

  “Ah . .. what are you saying?”

  “All I did, when I heard he was making a move on Carla—”

  “Wait. Hold it. He set out to hook Carla? This was planned?”

  “Some ... people wanted to know what Leo Belkin was up to. This drug thing with Elena. Carla looked like a way to get close. He gave it a shot.”

  “What was in it for you?”

  ”I wouldn't mind getting close to the Bruggs myself. All I did ... if Corsini could get Carla to maybe put in a word for me, I told him, there's some nice change in it for him. I’m leveling here, Irwin.”

  “Back up again. What's this about hurting Carla?”

  Grassi blinked. “You don't know?”

  “Know what?”

  ”I just heard this myself. Carla found a wire on him. He tried to kill her. She iced him but now Bannerman's going to go bullshit on anyone who had anything to do with him.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait.”

  Suddenly it's Kaplan who's going bullshit. Yelling in his ear.

  Kaplan had a hundred more questions. Most of them, Grassi couldn't answer. He wanted to know when this happened, how long Bannerman knew, what he might do next, and how likely was it that someone might want to even the score. Like, for example, against Lesko and Elena who were right now in Moscow totally clueless about any of this.

  He could answer about who was up in Zurich with Corsini. Sicilian wharf rat named Zangrillo. Crewed on Temptress a few years back. Radio operator. A fag, but good with a knife. Zangrillo just might try Carla if the guys who just shot up the boat don't get to him first.

  He could answer about who was Corsini's contact in Russia. Name's Viktor Podolsk. KGB major. Been to Italy a few times. Been on Corsini's boat. But this guy's nowhere near the top yet.

  This was Grassi's impression because his own Russians, the ones who'd been aboard Temptress, had asked him what he thought of this Podolsk. It was like they had their eye on him for bigger things.

  But his own Russians were none of Kaplan's business, because that's all it is. Business. It's what makes the world go round.

  45

  This was more than Lesko could absorb.

  Leo's stepfather, although he refused to call him that, was a monster, a butcher, an informer, a coward, and a criminal.

  He's a sneak, a liar, and a cockatrice.

  Leo said that.

  He called him a cockatrice. Lesko would look it up later.

  He is also a drug-smuggling, gun-running, profiteering hypocritical son of a bitch. If he's with two Arabs, it means he must be arming terrorists. It means he's probably into white slaving as well. Kidnapping young girls off Moscow streets and shipping them to the desert for when the sheeps' asses get too sore.

  He was also a lousy tenor. Ask anyone.

  “Tenor?”

  A sneer. “Was a tenor at the Kirov. Years ago. Leningrad. Was when he met my mother.”

  “An opera singer? Guy covers a lot of ground, doesn't he, Leo.”

  “Not opera singer. Was informer for the KGB under Serov. Whole company knew it. Any drunken Irishman can sing better.”

  Lesko still wanted to know why they had come to Moscow, why to this confrontation in particular, and why Elena went along with this. But Belkin was flying. Lesko was reluctant to break his rhythm.

  The part about Leo's mother, apparently, was news to Elena as well. And to Valentin. His chin was halfway down to the table.

  The story, in a nutshell, was that Leo's father was arrested in 1956. The usual. Anti-Soviet activities. Later, same year, they heard that he died in a labor camp. Suicide.

  Leo's mother had been working at the Kirov, designing costumes. They fired her because of her husband's arrest, but Kulik got them to keep her on. Brought them food. Took an interest in Leo. Was a great comfort. Before you know it, Kulik proposes. It took a while but they got married.

  . Kulik rises in the KGB. Encourages Leo to apply. Sponsors him. Years pass. Kulik is a general in the Special Inspectorate. Leo makes full colonel. That rank gives Leo access to old arrest records. He learns that his father had been
denounced by Kulik himself, labeled a dangerous enemy of the state, accused of organizing a prison revolt— evidence from Kulik again—and summarily executed. One bullet. Back of the head.

  Belkin wants to kill his stepfather but he goes to Andropov, former head of the KGB, now secretary general. Andropov didn't like Kulik anyway. Calls Kulik in, fires him on the spot, takes away all his medals. No wonder Leo is an Andropov fan. No wonder that crack about him being a family man.

  But this is December 1983. Andropov dies the following February. The new guy decides to sweep this under the rug. Records disappear. Kulik's reinstated. Belkin gets a sweetheart job in Bern in the hope he'll keep his mouth shut.

  “But you didn't,” Lesko said, nodding.

  Belkin seemed to shrink. Lesko understood. He had taken the payoff.

  “Kulik's still KGB?”

  He shook his head. “Out, finally, since after the Gorbachev coup. Those other three with him.”

  “Who are the rag-heads?”

  Belkin glanced at his slip of paper. “Sudanese. A military attache who is not in the military and a charge d'affaires who is not diplomat. Moslem fundamentalists, now that it suits them. If you thought the Libyans were trouble,” he said, “keep an eye on the Sudanese.”

  Elena asked Belkin what became of his mother. Another sad story. She divorced Kulik but was never the same.

  Blamed herself. Became a recluse.

  Lesko was only half listening at this point because he was watching the other table. They were into their second bottle already. Growing more comfortable. Belkin's stepfather still telling stories. Speaking English.

  Maybe he was getting louder. Or maybe it was just that his voice carried. Operatic training. But Lesko could pick up a word here and there. He heard the phrase ”. . . little Leo back there .. ”

  The stepfather, suddenly, put a finger to his lips. For some reason he was shushing the others. They all smiled. Looked down. Lesko wondered what this was about until he saw the waiter coming. Their waiter. Carrying a bucket of champagne. And he was bringing it straight to Leo Belkin. Someone at the other table snickered.

  “Compliments of General Kulik and his party,” said the waiter.