by Jack Lynch
“Bragg?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s go get a drink while they’re bringing in the luggage.”
I led him up to the terminal lounge. He made for an empty table in a deep corner away from the entrance. He spent a lot of time looking around at the other patrons until the cocktail waitress brought over his bourbon and water and a bottle of beer for me. He asked me some about myself and I told him some, but his eyes for the most part were on either the lounge entrance or his wristwatch. When he asked me if I had a permit and was carrying a sidearm I told him I was. And I figured that was a good time to get in a question or two of my own.
“Harry didn’t say why a guy as big as you are and who seems to carry himself pretty well might need a bodyguard.”
“I just told him I wanted some muscle to back me up. You never know when things might go wrong. You look adequate.”
“Thanks, I try to be.”
“I like your hands. They look strong, without being stubby, like mine. You know karate?”
“No, I figure most of that martial arts stuff is a little like playing the piano. If you don’t keep at it, it’s a waste of time. If you do keep at it, you don’t have time for anything else.”
“But you could probably bust heads, if you had to.”
“If I had to.”
“Ever been in combat?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t really trained for it. Not that kind, anyhow. I just happened to get thrown in with some marines a long time ago in Korea when everything was going wrong.”
“Yeah, I heard that was a fucked up war.”
“I heard they all were.”
He laughed and took a swallow of his bourbon. “You can sure say that again.”
When we finished our drinks we headed for the escalator that carried us down to the luggage merry-go-rounds on the lower level. I had an instinctive liking for Polaski that I’d never felt for Harry Shank. Polaski had a lot of rough edges, but he also had an open sureness about himself that would have led me to trust him, though I didn’t think I’d care to know how he made his living. I had a hunch his work would take him out at night a lot.
He had cop’s eyes, taking in a lot wherever he went. San Francisco International is a busy airport. It gave him a lot to look at as we stood down by the revolving luggage drums and the bags from his flight began to tumble out of the chute.
“Looks like maybe I don’t need you for now after all, Bragg. Tell you what. I’m just going to grab a cab and do a little errand. We can meet downtown. In the meantime there’s another thing you can do for me. Got a car here?”
“Yes, but Harry told me to stick with you.”
“That’s okay, you can do this on your way out of here. I’ll meet you in an hour or so at the downtown Hilton, okay?”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“Good. There’s my bag. Let me grab it and I’ll tell you what I want done.”
Still carrying the attaché case, he waded into the cluster of people at the edge of the turntable and grabbed the handle on a large piece of luggage that didn’t have nearly the miles on it that Polaski did.
It was when he came back out of the crowd, his hands filled with luggage, that he apparently saw trouble. He stopped in his tracks, his face showing not so much fear as it did surprise.
I spun around just as two men in white ramp coveralls coming out of a small airline office used to straighten out missing luggage problems raised their hands. They were carrying large revolvers and began shooting at the guy I was supposed to be bodyguarding.
There were a couple of seconds of pandemonium during the gunfire. People were ducking and screaming as the two men in white advanced on Polaski and emptied their guns into him.
Polaski tried to shield himself with his luggage, but he finally went down. I’d been as caught off guard as anybody, ducking at the first shooting, and now I clumsily tried to pull my own weapon free. I’ve never been much of a fast-draw artist, figuring that by now I’d been in the business for enough years so that I should know when to expect trouble and have gun in hand.
The two men were leaning over him to retrieve his luggage when I got my .45 out and fired three quick shots into the ceiling overhead. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hit them. I just didn’t want to hit anybody else in that badly panicked crowd, and while I hadn’t counted how many shots they’d fired, I figured they must have nearly emptied their guns.
They jumped at the return fire, hesitated, then bolted for the little office they’d just come out of. One of them glanced quickly over his shoulder to look at me. I took one quick glance at Polaski and knew it soon would be all over for him. So I took off after the gunmen. There was no attendant in the office. The two men had ducked behind the counter and went through a door into a back room. When I got there I saw that it opened out onto the luggage ramp area and plane concourse beyond. They were running across the rain-streaked concrete toward a far corner of the terminal building. Just before they got there, maybe thirty yards ahead of me, a dark sedan skidded around the corner and stopped. The two men in coveralls clambered in and the car spun wheels on the slick pavement. I stopped, braced myself, and emptied my pistol at them just as they roared back around the corner of the building and out of sight. I didn’t know if I’d hit anything or not. I changed magazines in the pistol then headed back toward the luggage ramp and the awful scene inside. Already there were sirens in the distance.
Things were a little hysterical back by the luggage drums. People were talking shrilly and rubbing places where they’d hurt themselves trying to get away from the gunfire. One man had been hit in the leg by a ricocheting slug.
Airport cops were going through the crowd trying to find out what had happened. A couple of them knelt over the dying Polaski, trying to talk to him and make him more comfortable.
I knelt beside them. “I was with him when it happened,” I said. “The men who did it got away. Give me a minute with him, will you?”
The two uniformed men rose warily as I leaned over Polaski. He opened his eyes and even tried a little smile. It faded fast.
“Jesus, it hurts,” he rasped with a little cough. “Guess we didn’t do so hot, Bragg…”
“Save your strength. We’ll get you out of here and patched up in no time,” I told him, knowing it sounded stupid to the two cops standing over us and anyone else in the vicinity, including Polaski himself. He shook his head. He knew.
He crooked one finger in a fold of my jacket and gave me a featherweight tug. He was struggling to form what he wanted to say as a trickle of blood appeared at a corner of his mouth.
“The car…”
He seemed to choke a bit.
“Get—for air…”
His head lolled back and he was dead. I got up slowly.
“What did the gunmen look like?” one of the cops demanded.
“They were big guys in white coveralls. I chased them through that office over there and outside. They ran down to the corner of the building and were picked up by a waiting dark sedan. I didn’t get close enough to tell much about it. They’re miles away by now.”
At that moment it looked as if about half the San Mateo County sheriff’s department was spilling into the area with helmets, rifles and shotguns. Somebody must have figured it was an airport terrorist action and blown the whistle hard. Even a roving van from one of the local TV stations had arrived. An ambulance crew was pushing their way through the crowd with a gurney. One of the airport cops I’d talked to escorted me into some nearby security offices. A uniformed sergeant joined me a couple of minutes later, looked at my ID, listened to my story and told me to sit tight. The officer he left with me let me use the telephone. I called Harry Shank.
“It didn’t work, Harry,” I told him when I got him on the line. “He was cut down by two men while we were picking up his luggage.”
“Cut down?”
“Yeah, a couple of thugs emptied their revolvers into him. He’s dead. They got away. If you�
�d told me it could go this way I might have been ready for it.”
“But I had no idea…” His voice was taking on a familiar whine I remembered from years past. “Peter, did they take anything belonging to him?”
“No. They made a grab for his luggage, but I finally remembered why I was standing around and managed to scare them off with a few shots of my own.”
“Good for you. Can you get it?”
“The luggage? No, not being his next of kin, I can’t.”
“Did he tell you anything. Before he died?”
“He tried to, but it didn’t make much sense.” A couple of men who looked like sheriff’s detectives came into the room. “Harry, I have to go now. I’ll stop by when I’m through talking to the people here.”
The sheriff’s men were named Craig and Bromley. Craig was the younger of the two, thirtyish, sandy-haired and sleepy-eyed. He did most of the talking while Bromley took notes. They looked at my ID and gun-carrying permit, sniffed and checked the .45 and asked me to tell them my story. When I was finished Craig asked if I knew anybody in the San Francisco department. I gave them the name of John Foley in homicide. Bromley left the room to check it out, while Craig asked me to repeat my story about the incidents leading up to the actual shooting. I did, and by the time I was done Bromley had returned. He’d spoken to Foley. The older detective nodded curtly in my direction.
“Reasonably clean. Reasonably cooperative with the department. Actually helpful at times.”
Craig leaned against a desk and crossed his arms. “What does reasonably cooperative mean, Mr. Bragg?”
“It means I try to share anything I’ve got that they need to know in order to do their job and couldn’t be expected to dig up on their own. It doesn’t mean I volunteer everything down to where my mother had her birthmark.”
He made a little face. “Okay, what you told us about the shooting agrees with what other witnesses told us. What I don’t like is the part about your not knowing why this Polaski might have been in danger. Why he needed protection. What he might have been carrying.”
“I don’t like that part of it myself.”
“But you were carrying a weapon.”
“On a hunch.”
“Who hired you?”
I stared at the floor a moment. “That I’d rather not say just yet. Not until I have a chance to speak to the party.”
The airport officer who’d been my escort stirred in the corner. “He made a phone call.”
Craig turned. “What?”
“This guy,” said the officer. “He made a call before you got here. To somebody he called Harry. Told him about the shooting.”
“Who’s Harry?” Craig asked.
“The guy who hired me.”
“We’d like to talk to him.”
“So would I. I’d like to ask him some questions myself.”
“Then why be so protective?”
I waved a hand in borderline fashion. “He isn’t somebody who just walked in off the street. I’ve known him a few years. Just give me a couple hours after you’re through with me here. I’ll tell him to give you a call. If he doesn’t want to, I’ll tell him I have to give you his name anyhow. He’ll call. Not that I’m sure it’ll help you all that much.”
“How come?”
“Harry hired me at Polaski’s request. Not me specifically, but a bodyguard. Harry might not know any more about it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Polaski did. This could all be trouble that Polaski got into back home.”
“Where was that?”
“New York City is what he sounded like. And that’s where his flight was from.”
“All right, Mr. Bragg,” said Craig, glancing at his watch. “You have until six o’clock. One or both of us will be back in the office in Redwood City then. We’ll want to hear from this Harry or yourself. Without fail.”
“Fair enough. But look, those men who gunned down Polaski were after his luggage. They were going to grab it when I began shooting back. Have you checked his bags?”
Craig nodded, then turned to Bromley. “Why don’t you bring them in here a minute, Joe?”
The older investigator went out and returned a moment later with Polaski’s bag and attaché case. There were a couple of bullet holes in them, a smudge of blood on the attaché case and some residue of white powder near the handles where lab people had been going over them. Bromley put them on a table in the corner. Craig crossed and unsnapped the larger bag.
“He had a Smith and Wesson magnum revolver tucked down among his stockings and drawers,” Craig said. “The technicians have that, along with a couple of boxes of shells. Otherwise there’s nothing here but the shaving gear and clothing a man packs when he takes a trip. The lab will go over all this a little more thoroughly, but they’re pretty sure there’s nothing out of the ordinary. No secret compartments, no hollow bottoms.” He rapped one knuckle on the bottom of the bag.
“And the attaché case?”
“Yeah, that’s a little more interesting,” said Craig, setting the smaller case upright on the table and unlatching it. He paused to look over at me. “You say he was carrying this when he got off the plane?”
“That’s right. Kept it close by when we had a drink in the lounge. Still carried it when he walked over to pick up the suitcase. I figure if he was transporting something of value that’s where it probably was.”
“Like I said,” Craig told me, “that is interesting.”
He opened the case. It was empty.
TWO
I wanted to avoid the gang of newspaper and television people who by now were swarming around the terminal so I took a detour around the luggage area where the shooting occurred and slipped out a side door into the parking area. Now, of course, I wished that Harry hadn’t been so generous and given me a pass to park in the press area. But after a quick glance around, so far as I could tell there weren’t any people out there who might know me. I was wrong, of course.
While unlocking my car I heard footsteps approach. I turned. Advancing on me with a knowing grin was Bryan Gilkerson, a raffish sort of individual who manned the local Reuters bureau, an office leased in the Chronicle building.
“Why, Peter, what a nice coincidence. I heard there was a private detective involved in all of this. It must have been you.”
“Everything is off the record this time, Bryan, at least for a few hours. What brought you out of your hole anyway?”
“What do you suppose? Gangland style slaying at the airport. Witnesses see gunmen chased off by mysterious stranger with blazing pistol who later turns out to be private detective. It’s just our sort of meat at Reuters, old man. Better even than the dozen Italians drowning in a vat of wine that we resurrect every year or two. By the way, Peter, do you happen to know what the poor fellow inside had in his luggage?”
Gilkerson had his little reporter’s pad out and opened, with pen poised. There was nothing subtle about him. He was just a genial gadabout who’d worked for Reuters in bureaus around the world and for the past few years had managed to settle in fairly comfortably in San Francisco, using the Chronicle as a tip sheet to rewrite the more bizarre local stories. He was a native of England in his mid-thirties, a womanizer, steady drinker, always a little on the shorts, affable companion and one of the town’s bigger gossips.
“Well, let’s see, he had socks and underwear and shaving gear, some handkerchiefs, three of them white and a pale brownish thing, as I recall, a couple of shirts…”
He got the point and lowered his pad. “But it sounds like such a juicy one, Peter. You are the fellow who shot back, aren’t you?”
“That was me, but I hardly know what this is all about myself.”
“They told us inside you met the slain man when he got off a plane.”
“That’s right.”
“Polaski? Buddy Polaski?”
“Yes, and so far as I know he was from New York. We had a drink and made small talk waiting for
the luggage to be brought in. While he was collecting it off the luggage drum these two guys came down on him and opened fire. I shot back but it was too late. They got away. I don’t know what anybody might have had against Polaski. And the cops inside are pretty angry about that too.”
“But why were you here to meet him?”
“I’ll tell you, Bryan, but if you put it in your story I’ll break your arm.”
“What was it?”
“To be his bodyguard.”
“Oh dear, that is dreadful. I’ll just say he was to tell you the reason later on.”
“That would be nice.”
“Did he hire you?”
“No comment.”
“Aha, he did not hire you. Did somebody locally hire you?”
“No comment.”
Gilkerson lowered his pad. “Now, Peter, you know what a difficult job this is.”
“So get a different job, like I did.”
“Yes, like guarding people.”
“So long, Bryan,” I told him, climbing into the car.
“Peter, forgive me. Where did the men run off to when you began shooting?”
“They went out the rear of a small office near the luggage drums. It empties onto the ramp area.”
“You followed?”
“To the best of my ability, which wasn’t much.”
“Yes, but it’s a nice bit that none of my colleagues have. Just where did they go then?”
“They ran south alongside the building. When they got to the corner of the terminal a dark sedan pulled around the corner and picked them up. The car took off and that was that.”
“A getaway driver! How wonderful. What happened then?”
“I went inside and began talking to cops. Have you interviewed them?”
“Several. The head of the airport police was helpful.”
“The San Mateo detectives I talked to are Craig and Bromley. Maybe you can get something more from them.”
“Thank you, Peter. I’ll be in touch.”
He hurried back inside the terminal building. I breathed a sigh of relief and drove on out of the lot. I didn’t know if Gilkerson had his own transportation these days or not. I didn’t want him bumming a ride back with me and watching as I waltzed into Harry Shank’s office. The little Reuters man was a bit irresponsible in lots of ways but he was no dummy, and I didn’t want anyone connecting Shank with the killing just yet.