Westport's first fatality, though it was not a resident who died, was due to massive internal bleeding, and it came at the hands of Dr. Gary Russo, assisted, by John Waldo. Russo's home and office had been burglarized. So had another home on Russo's street a night earlier, and a home on a nearby street the night before that. Waldo, a world-class burglar in his own right, agreed that such acts should be discouraged. He caught the two felons after two nights' surveillance as they were looting a large Victorian owned by two vacationing attorneys. Waldo, wearing a ski mask, disabled both men and then called Dr. Russo, who arrived wearing a surgical mask and mirrored glasses.
They chose the less defiant of the two burglars and invited him to watch and listen, tightly bound, as Dr. Russo questioned the other. The one to be questioned was advised that he could kick and scream all he wished, to the extent screaming was possible through a cloth gag soaked in methyl alcohol, but when the gag was eventually removed he would be expected to give his full name and address, that of his friend, that of his fence, and that of every burglar of his acquaintance who had scored in Westport during the preceding year. He was advised, truthfully, that his accomplice had already given two such names and it would be well if at least one of those appeared on both lists.
By the end of a leisurely two-hour interrogation, amid the considerable coughing up of watery blood, the man being questioned managed to sob out a total of sixteen names. Russo presumed the list to be largely accurate since it included the man's father. As he injected 50,000 units of heparin into the vein of the man he questioned, he explained to the other that they were now to be released. He was to take his informative friend back to their neighborhood in nearby Bridgeport and tell all his sixteen other friends what had happened, suggesting that in future they practice their trade in some other Connecticut community. Russo warned that he would be telephoning a few at random to make certain they had gotten the message. If the man failed to tell them first, therefore, foregoing the opportunity to put the best possible face on why he had had no choice but to name them, they would probably do him additional harm. Though Russo did not mention it at the time, he felt that the message would be further dramatized when the burglar he had injected died of massive heparin-induced hemorrhaging within four hours of returning to Bridgeport. He was as good as dead anyway, Russo felt, having betrayed the names of so many dangerous people.
Paul had no prior knowledge of these and other episodes, such as Janet Herzog torching the home of a woman who poisoned neighborhood dogs, but he might have expected them. His people were all specialists. Most were accustomed to taking decisive action in threatening situations. Individual initiative had always been encouraged, although usually within the framework of specific policy or in pursuit of specific objectives.
There was the problem. There was no more policy. There were no more missions, no more teams. There was only the implicit objective, actually more of a habit, of protecting their institutions against hostile interests. Their primary institution was now the town of Westport.
Nor would it have occurred to them to seek outside help, such as by calling the police, any more than it was in their nature to be passive victims. They understood the uses of a local police department but also its limitations. Their attitude toward the court system was similar. Both were for people who had no other recourse.
Paul had no intention of discouraging decisive action against people whose own actions were in need of discouragement. But individual initiative clearly had to be controlled. An advisory council was set up. Any act in violation of any law, certainly any act of violence, had to be approved by the council in advance. A plan of action would also have to be submitted for review. Under those guidelines, Russo's and John Waldo's action against the burglars probably would have been approved. Waldo's action against the neighborhood speeder would have been approved after a suitable warning was given and ignored. Carla's action against the radio-thief would not have been. It was too spontaneous, it could too easily have been witnessed, and the devastation of a young male thief by a tiny woman would have made her the object of unwelcome curiosity.
Billy McHugh's activities were another matter entirely. While Russo, Carla, Waldo and the others spoke freely within the group of their activities, although always after the fact, and tended to regard them as a form of volunteer community service, Uncle Billy regarded his as intensely private. In nearly all cases, they stemmed from humiliations suffered by his friends. It would hardly do to compound a humiliation by discussing it with others. Molly Farrell's first clue to Billy's uses of his leisure time came when the advisory council had been organized and each member was asked to explain its guidelines to the individuals within his or her charge. Billy listened closely, an expression of concern on his face that Molly first took to be one of sympathetic understanding. But then he started asking questions.
“You mean,” he nodded, “if we do something that affects any of us, you got to know about it up front.”
“Anything done by any member of the group can affect the group, Billy.”
“You mean, if it's something that would get the cops looking for whoever did something. Like shooting a guy or blowing up his car, for instance. Not if a guy just had some bad luck.”
“No, Billy. I mean anything at all.” She was beginning to get a bad feeling.
“Yeah, but what if it's something personal, like I did my friend a favor and my friend doesn't even know I did, and the cops don't look twice at it and the problem goes away.”
“I've got to know, Billy. And I've got to tell Paul.”
“Paul's got a lot on his mind, you know. We ought to be more considerate.”
“What does that mean, Billy?”
“I don't know.” He looked down, fingering the corners of his apron.
“Billy, sweetie, what have you done?”
“In Iran and Rome and like that, I used to do a lot of things for Paul I didn't worry him about.”
“Are you talking about killings?”
“And like that. Yeah.”
“Billy,” she rubbed her temples as if she felt a migraine coming, “have you done anything like that in Westport?”
“Paul didn't need anything here so far. Except if you ask me, he wouldn't worry about so much if he'd let me get that Reid guy off his back.” Billy gestured toward her head. “You know what's good for that? Two aspirins and a Bloody Mary with lots of horseradish.”
The answer almost relieved her. But she did a mental double-take on the qualifier. “Aside from what Paul needs,” she asked carefully, “have you killed anyone at all here in Westport for any reason?”
Billy shuffled uncomfortably. “I helped out some people. But they don't know it was me.”
“For Pete's sake, Billy. Who did you help out and how?”
“The people who come here.” He swept an arm over the empty bar stools. “They come in here, they look like they're feeling pretty good. But you'd be surprised the problems some of them had.”
Had.
Past tense.
“And you solved their problems.” Molly closed her eyes. She tried to think of any unsolved murders in the area over the past year or so. But then she remembered how Billy worked. “How many?” she asked. “How many are dead?”
“Is Paul going to be sore at me?” His eyes were moistening. Molly thought of a little boy caught stealing Twinkies. “I mean, it's not like I left them lying all over the street.”
“How many, Billy?”
“Eleven, I think.”
At an emergency council meeting, a shattered Molly Farrell took Paul and the others through a reconstructed list of Billy's victims. She was aided by press clippings photocopied at the Westport Library by Carla Benedict and then burned in the ashtray at the meeting's end. It helped only slightly that all eleven were essentially unattractive people. Two had multiple drunk-driving convictions, one had two arrests, but no convictions for sexually abusing a stepchild, two were wife-beaters and three were divorce lawyers. It
helped a bit more that none of their deaths had been deemed suspicious by the authorities.
“It's my fault,” Molly was near tears, “I promised I'd control him.”
“Let's not waste time assigning blame,” Paul said quietly. “I know him better than any of you and I never even suspected. And we've all sat around congratulating ourselves on Billy's miraculous rehabilitation.”
Anton Zivic spoke, “It does not seem useful to punish Billy for doing what he has always done, just because no one thought to tell him that it was no longer appropriate. Nor is it necessary to cover for him because he seems to have done quite a good job of that by himself.”
Paul had to agree. All eleven cases were officially closed. Nor had Billy ever mentioned them again to the individual friends involved.
“What is indicated here is probation. He now knows the rules which, in fairness, we must admit were late in coming. Also in fairness, we should give him a chance to live by them.”
“The problem is,” Gary Russo sat back, “for us to conclude he can't, he has to kill someone else.”
“You have an alternative?” Paul asked.
“Keep him sedated,” Russo shrugged. “It's not a solution but it might take the edge off.”
Molly hated that idea. She looked pleadingly at Paul.
“On the other hand,” Russo continued, “we're not running a clinic for the emotionally stunted here. We want to help Billy but we can't let him risk everything we've built. This is the only home most of you will ever get a chance of having.”
Paul noticed the use of you rather than us but didn't bother to comment. He looked at Carla, who hadn't spoken. “Do you have any thoughts?”
“I don't like this drug business,” she said firmly. “If we ever need Billy we want his head clear. Let's not have Gary making a zombie out of him.”
It was the answer Paul expected from Carla. Although she genuinely liked Billy, she tended to think of people in terms of function.
“Molly,” Paul asked, “are you sure that Billy understands the rules now?”
She nodded quickly. “I made him repeat them back to me. No action of any kind without consulting us. The only exception is if we're attacked or taken in which case he has his instructions. Billy is very sorry for any trouble he's caused and he asks for just one more chance.”
“He understands that it would have to be his last?”
“He says he's sure he can do it. But if he makes another mistake, he says he'll take himself out.”
“Okay,” Paul gathered the clippings on the table, “we give Billy one more chance but we all watch him more closely. We're not going to tranquilize Billy because we're not going to start manipulating each other. If you see any problem arising, I want to know about it, but you go to Molly first because he remains her responsibility and we're not going to start going around each other, either. Anyone disagree?”
Molly could have kissed him.
But that was then and this was now. There was still the Gelman matter and Paul would have to resolve it before he could leave Westport again. There were one or two other matters as well.
“Molly,” Paul paused at the entrance of the Szechuan restaurant. John Waldo's car was still creeping ahead, fifty yards at a time, showing no sign of breaking off their flank. “I'll call Billy from here and ask him to meet me down at the beach early tomorrow. Just the two of us, okay?”
“Okay,” she answered, asking him with her eyes to go easy.
He touched her, nodding, then he took a long look back up the road behind them and then down past John Waldo's car. He was frowning. “Do you smell something in the air?” Paul asked.
“Anton seems to. Does he know anything I don't?”
“Only a few more details about my talk with Reid. I guess it bothers him that Reid went so far out of his way to see me.”
“It doesn't bother you, though.”
Paul rocked his hand and shrugged. “We can let Reid's mood swings keep us on our toes or we can let them paralyze us. Down at Windermere I probably rubbed his nose in it more than I should have. But it will take a lot more than that to make Reid risk a shooting war.”
“There's one difference between you and Anton. You think Reid's a deliberate man. Anton thinks he's unstable.”
Paul let out a sigh. “Do you want me to cancel? Or at least postpone?”
“No. Take your vacation. Take your lady and go.”
Paul reached for the door, then paused. “Listen, on a related matter, Susan is meeting with her father tonight.”
“I know.”
“I'll want to know everything she says over the phone about me afterward, and any information she gives about our travel plans.”
“Of course.”
“Then after we leave, if we leave, I want you to remove that bug.”
“You're not going to want to know how she feels about you later?”
“Enough's enough.” He opened the door. “Let's eat.”
CHAPTER 9
Four in the morning.
Lesko had been dreaming again. In and out. More half-awake dreams.
What it was, was last night at Gallagher's coming up on him like a bad Mexican dinner. Susan was in it. Looking happy. Nice tan. Her life going good. Except in this dream she's not only still talking about all that Westport crap, she's actually making a presentation about it, complete with big charts on an easel.
She's on this one big graph showing suicide and accidental-death statistics by year, and one year goes completely off the chart. Lesko is not paying much attention because he's already made up his mind she's blowing smoke and besides, there are too many other things going on. Most of them aggravating.
First there's Katz, wherever the hell he came from, sitting down at the table with her in his cashmere jacket and Rolex, and the jerk is agreeing with her. His mouth is open and he's nodding up and down like one of those fake dogs in the back window of a car. At another table there's Buzz Donovan taking notes. He's holding his notepad low, the way you'd hold a poker hand, because there's that Loftus guy kind of hovering behind Donovan trying to see what he was writing.
Lesko was about to get up and belt Loftus again just on general principles when he saw someone he wanted to hit even more. This was a guy he'd never seen before, but he knew it had to be Paul Bannerman because the guy was standing behind Susan running his goddamned hands all over her shoulders and down her front. Lesko hated the son of a bitch on sight. A big guy, twice her size and twice her age, and he's got this sneaky, leering face. Lesko decided to smash it in no matter what kind of shit Susan gave him for doing it but just then he glanced toward Gallagher's window and there's Elena standing out there in the snow. Just standing there. Watching. In that same fur coat. She sees him looking at her and she gives him this shy little nod.
Lesko's stomach does something funny. A part of him wants to say, all right, come in, you don't have to stand out there in the cold, but what he says is, look, why don't you just get out of here before I change my mind again. She gives him this sad look like her feelings are hurt and she backs away.
Yeah, well, give me a break. What do you want from me, lady? We should be friends? Anyway, for your own good, get out of here before the Loftus guy spots you.
“Daddy?''
“What?” Susan's calling him over to her charts. All of a sudden everybody else is gone except Katz who's still sitting there with his stupid little smile and nodding.
“Uncle David agrees with me that there's something weird in Westport. He spent three years in homicide and he thinks. . . . ”
Lesko glared at Katz and jerked his thumb toward the door. “Take a walk, David. It's bad enough I have to listen to your shit without you bothering Susan with it.
“Daddy, he's not bothering me. We were trying to figure out why. . . . ”
“I don't want you talking to him,” Lesko barked, “And Katz can't figure out a damned thing because he's dead.”
The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) Page 14