The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  “Her face,” he said. That was all. He had barely glimpsed it when he first came in. He hadn't realized they had done that to her.

  “Being knocked unconscious,” Elena said gently, “helped save her life. The doctor said so. Because of it she swallowed less. Even being left in the snow helped to slow the absorption of. . .”

  “Yeah, look . . .” he said without turning. “Leave us alone, will you?”

  Elena backed out. She closed the curtain. Behind her, a tapping on the glass partition. Molly was there, her expression anxious.

  Elena listened as Molly told her the events of the past fifteen minutes. The two who did this have been taken. One of Bannerman's people has been hurt. Flesh wounds and powder burns under his armpit, a knife wound low in his chest. The injured man is himself a doctor. He insists that his injuries are not immediately life threatening. It is his own wish that he not compromise the rest of them by seeking treatment here at this hospital. Does Elena know of a reliable doctor?

  “Yes,” she answered, “but in Zurich. Can he last so long?”

  “He expected Zurich. He says he will make it. He's now in a warehouse just up the hill. We broke in to give him shelter. It's a lot to ask, but can you go there with me now in your car?”

  “My cousins will help. Two moments. I'll tell Mr. Lesko I'm leaving.”

  She stepped through the curtain surrounding the bed. “I must go. One of their men needs help.”

  “Yeah. Go ahead,” he said hoarsely. He still did not turn.

  She brushed against him, reaching to touch Susan, to remove a strand of hair from her face.

  “Look,” he snapped. “I asked you. Leave us alone.”

  Elena stepped back from the bed. She paused, hugging herself as if she did not know what to do with her hands, benumbed by the unexpected brutality of his dismissal. There seemed nothing to say to it.

  “Good-bye, Lesko.”

  She turned and walked away.

  The three cars, by turns, headed north from Davos. Billy drove one BMW. Bannerman rode in the front, Carla in the rear seat with her feet upon the back of a bound and gagged Lurene Carmody. The corpse of Harold Carmody rode in the trunk. Bannerman directed Billy to his Klosters apartment.

  Elena, with Molly, swung by the Davos railroad station in her Mercedes and signaled her two cousins to follow in the second BMW. They found Gary Russo where, profoundly humiliated, he'd insisted upon being left. He was pale, still badly shaken, but not yet in shock. His right arm and left hand were clamped over compresses that Molly and Paul had hastily fashioned out of articles of clothing. Elena's cousins helped him into the Mercedes which, Elena in the rear seat and her cousin Josef driving, departed at once for Zurich. The other cousin, who, with a bow to Molly, introduced himself as Willem Brugg and offered to see her safely to Klosters in the BMW. As Willem bowed, his topcoat fell open and she could see an Uzi slung outside his suit.

  Arriving at the garage beneath his building, Bannerman left the car while the others waited. He checked the garage for any other presence, then took the elevator to his apartment two floors up. He unlocked his door, then rapped sharply on the elevator's metal wall and sent it back down to the garage level. Billy pulled Lurene from the car and was about to lift her onto his shoulder when Lurene mumbled urgently to Carla, communicating with her eyes that it would be more decorous if she walked and that if she hadn't screamed thus far she was not about to start now. Carla nodded to Billy to let her stand but to leave the gag in place.

  Quickly, they walked her into Paul's apartment and sat her in the middle of his living room floor. Paul had drawn the drapes. Carla walked into the bedroom, where she gathered all pillows and blankets while Biííy moved all the upholstered furniture as close to Lurene as possible.

  She understood what they were doing. Soundproofing. For an interrogation that could last the day and the night. Now came Carla with the bathroom shower curtain which, Lurene cooperating, she spread on the floor beneath her. Lurene mumbled again, this time shaking her head irritably. Her eyes, aimed at Carla, said all this is dumb. Take off the gag.

  The buzzer sounded. Molly was let in. With barely a glance at Lurene, she began making coffee and setting out mugs while reporting on the status of Gary Russo. Lurene rolled her eyes, then crossed them, all the while nodding furiously at Carla.

  “You mind?” Carla said to Paul.

  He shook his head. She bent over Lurene and unfastened the gag.

  Lurene sat silently for a long moment, breathing deeply, waiting for the moisture to return to her mouth.

  “Don't suppose you have any bourbon around here,” she said to Carla, finally.

  Carla looked at Paul, who gestured toward the three bottles of wine that had sat on the counter since he came back from his marketing and found Susan gone. Carla chose a Chablis and uncorked it. She poured a glass and held it to Lurene's lips. Lurene nodded gratefully.

  “How long's it been, Carla?” she asked.

  “About ten years.”

  “I heard you retired. Settled down somewhere.”

  Carla glanced again at Paul but said nothing.

  Lurene scanned the other faces. “Old Billy McHugh, I'd know anywhere. And I heard you call the one Harold stuck Doc. That'd be Doc Russo. Who's the pretty lady?”

  “That's Molly Farrell.'`

  “Heard of you, too,” she nodded respectfully, ruefully. “Professional courtesy's reached a sorry state when the likes of us start killin' each other off.” Then to Carla, “Did you have to bust up my face, by the way? You had me cold once I turned that corner not lookin'.”

  “You might have been armed,” Carla shrugged. “I wasn't.”

  That, Lurene thought, was like sayin' Dracula was unarmed, but the point wasn't worth arguin.’ Harold was dead. She'd be with him soon enough. The only question now was how easy or how hard they were going to make it. Be grateful old Doc Russo got put out of action. The way they tell it, he could make a dead man talk once he started stickin' and carvin'. The hard part might be convincing these folks that she and Harold knew as little as they did.

  “Paul,” she said, not looking at him, “are you who I think you are?”

  He didn't answer.

  “You're Mama's Boy, aren't you?”

  Still nothing.

  “Is there a way in the world I can convince you that Harold and me never once made that connection until I saw Carla and Billy here?”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Sure as heck would,” she raised her eyebrows. “For one thing we would never have let you see us. For another, even if we took this job, which I'm not real sure we would have, we would have charged triple our going rate and we wouldn't have fooled with drugs. Harold and me don't like 'em anyhow.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “I truly want to answer that, Paul. Me and Harold got an awful careless briefin' so I'm not feelin' real loyal to the son of a bitch who left out all those details. I got a suggestion.”

  Paul waited.

  “Let me go home after this and I'll let out his air myself. My word on it.”

  “Carla?”

  “She'd keep her word. But no.”

  “Billy?”

  “That's games. Don't play games.”

  “Molly?”

  “Let's end this, Paul.”

  “I agree.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic glove containing the suppository. He tossed it to Carla.

  Lurene made a face. She knew what it meant. He was making her an offer. There sure were worse ways to die although she was gettin' damned tired of symbolism. Still, given the choice, she'd take easy.

  “The man I'd have got for you,” she said, “is Oscar Ortirez. He's a general down in La Paz. I swear they got more generals than bathtubs.”

  “He's connected with Elena?”

  “Was. They go ‘way back.”

  “And after Susan, you were to kill Lesko and Elena, in that order?”

  �
��Yep. For half a million.” Would have earned it, too. If they hadn't had to go back for a second shot at Susan. And they wouldn't have had to do that if Harold hadn't jammed the zipper on Susan's pants tryin' to get at her with that plug of cocaine. Poor Harold. Got a touch of arthritis, and he's just not used to workin' this kind of climate. Fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be.

  “How am I involved?”

  “You tell me.”

  “How is Palmer Reid involved?”

  The eyebrows went up again. “If he is, Paul, we didn't know it. Me and Harold got our standards.”

  Molly touched his arm. “We've been busy back home. I haven't had a chance to bring you up to date. Whenever you're ready, you can call Reid's home number and ask him yourself.”

  Paul held her eyes. Anton had started to tell him. Now he knew why she went down to Chevy Chase.

  “For now,” Molly said, “why don't you get back to the hospital. We'll clean up here.” She caught Billy's eye and, with a motion of her head, asked him to stay with Paul.

  “I don't know. There's not much point…”

  “Paul,” she tugged him toward the door, “get down to the damned hospital.”

  “Open wide now.” Using a napkin, Carla held the suppository to Lurene Carmody's lips.

  “Oh, Carla honey,” she screwed her face in disgust. “You do know where that's been, don't you? At least bring over that jug so I can wash it down.”

  Carla obliged. Lurene pinched her nose and swallowed. She drained a tumbler of white wine and took a slab of cheese Carla found in the refrigerator. Not so bad, she thought. But damnationally unhygienic.

  “Well,” Carla, poured a glass for herself, Molly declining, and sat down cross-legged with Lurene, “what'll we talk about?”

  “How ‘bout last requests? Any chance you'd do me a favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “I don't guess my body or poor old Harold's will ever turn up.”

  “Fair to say. Unless we send a piece of each down to your friend, Ortirez.”

  “I could have done without hearin' that.”

  “Don't worry. Paul would think it's in bad taste. What's your favor?”

  “We have a lawyer in Lubbock, Texas. Name's Wormwood, if you can believe it. Harold and me had kin and the lawyer has a will plus instructions on what to do if we turn up dead or missing. I wonder if you'd give him a call to that effect.”

  “To say I killed you? You've got to be kidding.”

  “More like to say he won't be far behind if skimmin' comes to gougin'. This ain't no trick, Carla. That lawyer's apt to rob my grandchildren blind without someone around to put the fear of God to him.”

  Carla studied her, deciding the request was genuine. “Wormwood, Lubbock. My pleasure, Lurene.”

  “That out of the way, you mind tellin' me how Paul caught on it was me and Harold? I'd hate to think we got set up.”

  “I don't know. Molly?”

  Molly's back was to them. She was pouring coffee. “You just had some bad luck,” she said.

  Carla brought the wine glass back to Lurene's lips. “If you want to know the truth, I was afraid Paul would think I did it. I didn't like him getting involved with an outsider who…Lurene?”

  Lurene had stiffened, her eyes wide and blinking. ”Ooo-eee,” she sang. “I think I just had what they call a rush.” She waited for it to settle, then, “I know what you mean, though. Common interests is what brought me and Harold together and kept us together. Lord knows in our line of work it's drainin' enough to keep a front without having to do it in the bedroom as well.”

  “And to stay on your toes.”

  “For a fact,” Lurene nodded. She was rocking now, having trouble focusing. “Who else is still runnin' with Paul? Anyone I'd know?”

  “Janet Herzog, John Waldo, seven or eight more. We all more or less settled down together.”

  “Hard to imagine Janet or John bein' housebroke, let alone settlin' down. But then of course there's Billy. First time I ever heard him talk, by the way.” Lurene leaned back as she said this. Her eyes were batting. Carla watched her in silence for several minutes. Her breathing became shallow. Carla reached to pinch her leg. Lurene did not seem to feel it.

  “She's on her way. Convulsions will start soon.”

  Molly sipped her coffee.

  Carla looked toward the silence. “Anything wrong, Molly?”

  “Not especially.”

  Carla turned back to Lurene, thoughtfully. “You know what's funny? Look at all the fluky little things that can end up killing you. If I hadn't been stopped when I followed that girl to Davos, Lurene and Harold would have spotted me for sure and they would have aborted. They'd still be alive, Gary wouldn't have been cut, and Paul and that girl would be up skiing right now.”

  ”That girl has a name. It's Susan.”

  “So it's Susan. What's bothering you?”

  “Whether you like it or not, they could have been good for each other.”

  “For how long? You heard Lurene.”

  “It's none of your damned business for how long. Six months. Six years. I'd take it.”

  “The Carmodys had more like forty years. How does good-for-each-other get any better than that? They were two professionals who…”

  “Bullshit, Carla.”

  “Now what did I say?”

  “They were shits, Carla. Two pieces of shit who would kill anyone at all for money.”

  “We were talking about their relationship. Personal standards are another subject.”

  “You were also saying how professional they were. I told Lurene she just had some bad luck. I lied, Carla. They made every possible mistake.”

  “Name one, besides not making sure she was dead and getting out fast.”

  Molly ticked them off. “They had no plan; they improvised. They go to lunch with Susan, they not only let her pay on a credit card, they left the receipt in her purse. They let Paul see them and get to know them on the train, so when he started wondering who Susan knew well enough to take to lunch over here, theirs were the first names he thought of. They didn't make sure she was dead. They let Paul sucker them into trying again. Then someone sounding like old Harold called to ask about her condition before he was even supposed to know she was there.”

  “They weren't so stupid,” Carla said stubbornly. “Paul was just smarter.”

  Molly knew better. It was Lesko who was smarter. Paul had admitted it. He'd been pretty much in a fog just like anyone normal. She shook her head. “Too many years, Carla. Too many easy killings. Never able to talk from the heart to anyone except another killer. Look at you and Lurene. You're killing her, but she's chatting away with you like this is a pajama party.”

  Lurene's leg kicked out, convulsing. Carla reached to feel her throat. The arterial pulse was erratic. Ail eye was twitching but her face was otherwise composed. Content. “I'd settle for that many years,” Carla said, putting down Lurene's wine glass. “Especially if at the end I could just go to sleep with a smile.''

  “That's all you want?”

  “I could do with getting laid more often.”

  “And that's your idea of being happy.”