GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5)

by Lawrence de Maria

  I hesitated. It’s one thing to lie to a neighbor, especially one with a nosy wife who would spread the truth all over the Western Hemisphere. But quite another to mislead a woman who may have been in love with Panetta. I opted for a version of the truth.

  “There are some inconsistencies in the evidence the police recovered in his house.”

  “What kind of inconsistencies?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t go into that. Let’s just say that there may be a chance the attack wasn’t a random break-in. More than that, I can’t say.”

  Joan Tolentine was nobody’s fool. She gave me an appraising look.

  “And why, Mr. Rhode, are you involved?”

  “Again, I can’t say. But certainly there can’t be any harm in talking to me.” I gave her my most winsome smile. “I promise to keep anything you tell me in confidence.”

  It’s a promise I’m usually able to keep.

  She seemed satisfied.

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “Were you interviewed by the police?”

  “Yes. Of course. Briefly. They mainly wanted to know if I had seen anyone or anything suspicious when I was with John. I told them I hadn’t.”

  I was sure the interview had been pro forma. While everyone who knew Panetta would initially be considered a suspect, it was likely that the police doubted that a woman, even a strong Pilates instructor, could break a man’s jaw and then strangle him with an electrical cord. Most women would just shoot a lover, if it came to that. And Vernon Maples had done his job well. Once the D.N.A. evidence pointed toward an unknown black man, the cops would have drawn an obvious conclusion.

  “The police knew you occasionally stayed the weekend at his house?”

  I thought she might get angry, but, instead, she laughed.

  “Of course. I think Ethel, the witch next door, put in on the Internet. I don’t know why the police even bothered to ask me what I’d seen. They should have just interviewed Ethel. You couldn’t fart on that block without her knowing about it.”

  I laughed.

  “If it’s any consolation,” I said, “Her husband thought you were the cat’s meow.”

  “Henry was a sweetheart.”

  “How did you meet Panetta?”

  “At Trader Joe’s, the food market. I shop there all the time. Their products are so much healthier than a regular supermarket. John was on one of his health kicks, which never lasted that long.” She laughed. “But this one lasted long enough for me to see him in the store a few times. We’d get to talking. I told him what I did and he showed up here and said he wanted to take some classes. Later, he admitted he just wanted to see me. He was new in town and lonely. I was recently divorced. We’d go for coffee. He was a good bit older than me, so I wasn’t particularly interested in a relationship. But I checked him out on the Internet. Can’t be too careful, nowadays. And when I found out about his war record, well, he was a real hero, so I started looking at him differently. We started dating and one thing led to another.” She laughed. “He was a funny guy. Said if we hadn’t taken up with each other he didn’t know what he’d do. The Pilates was killing him.”

  “Did he talk about the war?”

  “He never mentioned it when I first met him, can you imagine? Even after we started dating, he didn’t like to talk about it. Asked me not to tell anyone about his decorations.”

  “Did he ever talk about his life before or after Vietnam?”

  “A little. I know he came from upstate and after the Army he bounced around a lot. He even wanted to know if I wanted to go with him when he made his next visit to see his cousin. She still lives in the town he was born. I met her at the funeral in D.C. John was buried in Arlington, you know. It’s strange. We had only gone down there a few weeks earlier. He wanted to visit the Vietnam memorial. It was very emotional for him, looking at the names of some of his friends on the Wall. And we went to Arlington, to see JFK’s grave. And now John’s buried there, too.”

  Joan Tolentine’s voice broke and her eyes welled up.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Joan. And I’m sorry if my questions have dredged up painful memories.”

  “No, no. It’s fine.” There was a box of tissues on the cabinet behind her desk. She took one and blew her nose. “The memories aren’t painful. They are good memories. I only wish I’d had more time to make more with him. And thank you for saying that. To most people I’m just the girlfriend. They don’t really understand that two people who are older can become very fond of each other.”

  “Did John tell you why he moved to Staten Island?”

  “Because it was close to Manhattan and affordable. He liked the idea of being in a big city. He said he was going to rent at first but when he found the house in Eltingville he knew he could fix it up himself and resell it.”

  “Who did the two of you socialize with?’

  She laughed.

  “Each other. I tried to get John to meet some of my friends, but he always found an excuse. We went to movies, out to dinner, occasionally went into Manhattan for a show.”

  “What about his politics? Henry Mailer said he could get pretty worked up about that.”

  She shook her head.

  “John never talked politics with me. If I had to guess I’d bet Henry did most of the talking. With that wife of his he probably couldn’t get a word in edgewise half the time. John was probably his only outlet.”

  “Did he ever speak of anyone who might have it in for him? Did he mention any problems at all? Money? Business? Anything?”

  Joan Tolentine shook her head.

  “No. Do you really think someone besides a burglar killed John?”

  “I don’t think anything, Joan,” I lied. “That’s still the most reasonable explanation. I’m just covering all the bases.”

  I got up to leave.

  “You have my card. If you think of anything, anything at all, please call me.”

  “Of course.” Her eyes welled up. “I wish John had stuck with the Pilates. He wasn’t in the greatest of shape. Maybe he could have fought off whoever attacked him.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that he could have looked like Vin Diesel and it wouldn’t have made a difference to a pro like Vernon Maples.

  John Panetta was a dead man when he opened his front door.

  CHAPTER 11 - THE VILLAGE

  The next morning I loaded up my car with Alice’s “stuff.” Al Lambert, my vehicle maven, had recently talked me into ditching my old car and buying a three-year-old Hyundai Santa Fe from his used-car dealership. It was a prescient purchase. Alice hadn’t lived with me all that long while waiting for her Greenwich Village subletters to finish their lease, but I had to fold up the rear seats in the SUV to fit everything she wanted to move back to her apartment. It always amazed me how much clothing and accessories a woman, even one as organized as Alice, could accumulate. One box contained nothing but pocketbooks; another, shoes. I was meeting her for lunch at Knickerbockers on University Place at noon and had some time to kill. I threw an overnight bag on the seat next to me and drove up to Wagner College on Grymes Hill for a long-overdue workout.

  I have a parking spot and a locker at the Wagner athletic complex. Two of my best friends, Dom DeRenzi, the Athletic Director, and Dave Clapper, the Chief of Staff to Spencer Bradley, the school President, basically run the show on Grymes Hill. I’ve done a few favors for Bradley, as well, and he approved my lifetime membership to all the school facilities, on the assumption, he said, that given my capacity for getting into trouble, it wouldn’t last very long. I think he was kidding.

  I stopped by to say hello to Dom in his office, and told him I’d come by again when I finished my routine. I changed into running clothes in the locker room. I briefly debated leaving my workout gun, a small .25-caliber Beretta, in the locker. I had crafted a small belt/holster combination that ran around my waist but sometimes it rubs against my abdomen and chafes. But I’d rather be rubbed the wrong way than rubbed ou
t, so I finally decided to take it. I left the gym and headed out to Howard Avenue. I ran a half mile to a road whose name I never knew but which was universally known as “Snake Hill,” because it meandered almost vertically down Grymes Hill to Targee Street for another mile. I was smiling at a memory when I began my descent. Porgie Carmichael, then working for the Carlucci crime family, had once tried to tail me in his wife’s Volvo down Snake Hill. It didn’t work out too well for the Volvo, or Porgie’s relationship with his wife. Funny thing was, I eventually helped poor Porgie patch things up (Volvo and wife) and we became pretty good friends.

  By the time I got to the bottom of the hill this time, I was no longer smiling. My thighs were on fire and I was cursing myself. If a cab had come along I would have flagged it down. But I kept running. At least it was flat going for another mile, although I was already dreading the run up Hillside Avenue back up to Wagner. I made the turn up Hillside by a halfway house that in a previous incarnation had been a bucket-of-blood bar called the Clover Club, which in its heyday did its best to fill up halfway houses. Another mile up Hillside, with a pitch only slightly less brutal than Snake Hill. It was warm and I was sweating bullets. Speaking of which, the Beretta was wearing a hole in my stomach. I slid it around to my back, resisting the temptation to take the gun out and shoot myself. By the time I made it back to the gym I was thoroughly whipped. I leaned up against the building trying to catch my breath, hoping that some comely coeds would pass by and admire my fortitude. Except the school was between semesters and some men tending the lawn and foliage were the only ones witnessing my agony. They looked at me like I was nuts and I wouldn’t have argued with them. Then some post-running endorphins kicked in and I started feeling pretty good about what I’d just accomplished. Next time, I vowed, I’d reverse the course and run up Snake Hill! But perhaps I should write a will first.

  I went into the gym and did an hour on the weight machines, concentrating on my upper body. I knew my legs couldn’t take much more abuse. Then I went to Dom’s office. He was sitting at his desk reading the newspaper. I grabbed a towel off a rack.

  “Jesus, Alton, you look like you just finished the Bataan Death March.” He reached into the small fridge behind him and threw me a bottle of water. Then he put a bottle of Sam Adams Light beer on his desk. “Hydration is important.”

  I inhaled the water and then started on the beer.

  “Oh, fuck it,” he said. “A man can’t drink alone.”

  He grabbed a beer for himself and we shot the breeze for a half hour. He told me about a sexual “sandwich” he’d recently had with two women of his acquaintance.

  “I was the lunch meat,” he said happily.

  “Aren’t you getting a little old for that kind of thing, Dom?”

  “I’ll know when I’m too old.”

  The college athletic complex had an Olympic-quality pool and after leaving Dom’s office and taking a shower I decided to go for a swim. That’s where I’d met Alice, who in addition to being a philosophy professor, coached the women’s swim team. She was originally from Mission Viejo, California, and had been a scholarship swimmer at UCLA. I was still rehabbing from some recently acquired war wounds and she was huddled with a group of sinewy college kids in clinging racing suits. But even with all the distractions of the nubile young flesh, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I noticed her legs; she noticed my bullet holes. At first, our relationship, complicated by the fact she was involved with a Wagner professor, hit a few snags. Fortunately for me, the professor turned out to be criminally involved in a case I was working on that had the potential to embarrass the school. He was going down anyway, but I took great pleasure in running him out of town on a rail. After that, I pursued Alice like a shark after a sea lion, and she slowed down enough for her to catch me. My bullet holes are filling in, but she still has the legs.

  I did 30 laps, leisurely, took another shower, and headed into Manhattan.

  ***

  I beat Alice to Knickerbocker’s and ordered a beer at the bar, after receiving assurances I’d get a table when I wanted it. I loved the place. The bar was small and homey and there was always someone interesting to talk to, usually a writer on the way up or down the publishing food chain. The restaurant was clubby and served everything from meatloaf to things I couldn’t pronounce. I once sat in a booth next to Susan Sarandon, who was having lunch with a handsome young man who looked young enough to be her son. I saw their picture in the papers a while later. It was her son. That made me happy.

  Alice walked in and came over to the bar. A few men sitting at nearby tables glanced at her as she passed. She gave me a peck on the cheek and I asked her if she wanted a drink before lunch.

  “No. I may have a glass of wine at the table, but we have too much work to do this afternoon.”

  I caught the “we.” My worst fears were confirmed when she added, “And I wouldn’t mind if you behaved yourself, drink-wise.”

  I paid my bar tab and we followed a waiter to our table. Alice ordered a chardonnay; I stuck with beer. Figuring I would need all my strength for whatever domestic horrors Alice had planned for me at her apartment, I decided to go with the Black Angus meatloaf. Alice opted for the Chicken Paillard. We clinked glasses and she asked what was new on Staten Island. I told her. When I finished, she asked for another glass of wine.

  “I guess I don’t have to behave myself,” I said.

  “I can’t believe that after you dropped me at the ferry you went home and a hired killer was waiting for you.”

  “Well, on the plus side, he wasn’t waiting to kill me.”

  “He shot you with a dart!”

  “It could have been worse.”

  “And he had a dart for me!”

  “He said he would have regretted shooting you. He liked the cut of your jib.”

  “Wonderful. A professional assassin has the hots for me.”

  “You should be honored. Most of the really good assassins I’ve known have exquisite taste.”

  Our meals and second round of drinks came. Alice was fully involved in lunch now, fascinated by my story. The chances of talking her into some of Knickerbocker’s signature cheesecake, baked in a mason jar and topped with fruit compote, were improving.

  “And now this Maples character wants you to find out who ordered the murder of Panetta? Just because you two served together? And you are going to do it? Why?”

  “He called me skipper.”

  Alice looked at me. We probably knew and understood more about each other than anyone else, but I’d probably never be able to explain to her the loyalty that men in close combat feel for each other. Given the chance, Maples and I might try to kill each other someday. But in the meantime he’d asked for my help to right a wrong and I had no choice.

  She opened her mouth to say something. Hesitated, and then, as usual, said the right thing.

  “I don’t understand. But as long as you do, you have no choice.”

  She reached across the table and took my hand.

  “Will it be dangerous?”

  “Probably. But I’m not in this alone. Cormac is working behind the scenes, and so is Arman.”

  “Arman? Why him?”

  “He knows things. Promised to keep his ears to the ground. Maks was a soldier. Didn’t like what happened to Panetta.”

  “I love Maks.”

  I was pretty sure that was a sentence never uttered about Kalugin, maybe not even by his mother.

  “What will you do now?”

  “Try to talk you into the cheesecake.”

  “I mean with the case, Sherlock.”

  “Head up to Panetta’s home town. See what I can find out.”

  “They probably don’t have good cheesecake upstate. I think we’d better order some.”

  ***

  “We have a lot of work to do,” Alice said when we got to her apartment and dropped some boxes on the floor. The rest were downstairs with the concierge. “But I’m a little buzzed. How about we burn
off the alcohol with sex first?”

  “I don’t know. You ate half my cheesecake.”

  My voice was hoarse and we were both almost out of our clothes, helping each other undress. A moment later Alice stood naked before me. My legs felt weak, but I knew it had nothing to do with my run up and down Grymes Hill that morning. Small-breasted, Alice has the taut body of a competitive swimmer.

  “Let me just look at you,” I rasped.

  “Stop pointing,” she said.

  “I’m not …” then I looked down and realized what she meant.

  I quickly picked her up and headed to the bedroom.

  “Is that a gun in your pocket,” she teased, “or are you glad to see me.”

  “I don’t have any clothes on,” I said, easing her onto the bed. “Hence, no pockets.”

  “Well, let’s see if we can find someplace to put whatever it is.”

  We did. The perfect spot.

  ***

  Almost two hours later, we lay in each other’s arms, our heart rates almost back to normal.

  “If you have any energy left,” Alice murmured. “Perhaps we can get to work on the apartment.”

  “Right now, you could get me to paint the outside of this building.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?”

  I lapped a nipple and said, “yowza.”

  “You always know the right thing to say.” She kissed me. “I want to take a shower.”

  “I’ll join you. I’m going for a personal best. Three showers in one day.”

  “But no hanky-panky in the shower, lover boy. We have work to do.”

  “I think you’re safe. I’d need a blood transfusion. Or a transplant.”

  She laughed and reached down and touched me.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Oh, you poor baby.”

  ***

  The rest of the day, and most of the next, we worked around Alice’s apartment. Her tenants had been fairly neat, but not as neat as Alice, whose standard of cleanliness rivals that found in labs that make computer chips. When living with me, our only real disputes involved her opinion that while I was very neat for the male of the species, I was still a male. We scrubbed floors, sinks, tubs and toilets. Alice vacuumed and dusted, since my efforts in those areas left her tut-tutting. She did allow me to hang pictures, photos and plaques, and she actually said I had some talent as a touch-up painter. We ate all of our meals at local Village restaurants, visited bookstores and boutiques, and even took in an off-off-off Broadway show that seemed Tony-worthy when compared to Dying Is Wasted on Corpses. On my last night, we brought in Chinese and watched Elementary, the TV show featuring Jonny Lee Miller as a modern-day Sherlock Holmes in New York City with Lucy Liu as his Watson.