by David Archer
There was more information, but Chance had heard enough. Dixon had been fairly sure that Loftin knew something about the case, even though he didn’t seem to be the man behind it all. It appeared that Dr. Cardwell, or perhaps Finnigan, was erasing all the tracks that could lead back to her, and it suddenly dawned on Chance that all of the women who were victims of her brainwashing were probably in danger.
He took out his phone and called Jensen. “It’s Bill Simmons,” he said when the detective answered. “Listen, the guy who ran the Rivers Center has apparently been murdered. Pete was pretty sure he knew something about this, but that he wasn’t the guy behind it all. It looks like maybe Cardwell is tying up all the loose ends. And by the way, I think I know who the man was that Yolanda saw in her room; Vincent Fratello, I’ve got a picture of him and it matches the man she was seen with the day after she disappeared.”
“Fratello? I know about him being found dead, and I knew that the woman who did it is claiming not to remember anything, but it hadn’t occurred to me there was yet another connection to these cases. Fratello was known as a defector, because he washed out with the Italian mob and went to work for Finnigan.”
Chance rolled his eyes. “Okay, it’s all starting to fit together, then. We’re pretty sure Cardwell is the one doing the brainwashing, and she works for Finnigan. They would’ve needed somebody to actually handle the brainwashed victims, to trigger them so that they would do what they were told to do. That’s apparently where Fratello came in, but maybe he learned too much or thought he could get a bigger piece of the action. He was eliminated the same way as the other victims, and now Loftin has been killed, as well, apparently by an unknown woman. I’m betting that he was either getting paid to keep his mouth shut, or else he was helping to find the right kind of people for the brainwashing. Either way, somebody decided he knew too much and needed to be taken out of the equation.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Jensen said. “I’m going to put extra security on the Martinez girl, and suggest they do so for all the others, as well. If Cardwell finds out about the video we got of Martinez, she’s likely to disappear.”
“But you still don’t have enough to pick her up? Maybe you could get her to cave in, maybe she would end up confessing if you put enough pressure on her.”
Jensen clucked his tongue. “Yeah, well, not much chance of that. I actually wanted to bring her in for questioning earlier today, and was told not to even consider it unless I had solid evidence with her name attached to it.”
“Solid evidence? It almost sounds like Finnigan is trying to protect her, pulling strings even way up over your head.”
“Well, that may be true,” Jensen said, “but it may not do him any good much longer. The FBI just arrived, and they’ll be looking into the case as of tomorrow morning.”
“And that will help?” Chance asked.
“It’ll help some,” Jensen said. “If they decide to question her, the DA won’t be able to stop it. I’m going to do my best to convince them that’s the direction they need to go in.”
“Alright,” Chance said. “Let me know if I can do anything.” He hung up the phone and put it into his pocket, then drove on to the bordello. He wanted to be there before Finnigan arrived, ready to make his own play.
And then an idea struck him.
TWENTY-TWO
The bordello was located in a large house, almost a mansion, that was set in the middle of a parklike estate. There were a number of trees around the place, and it was completely surrounded by a brick wall that was about twelve feet high. Chance parked the Corvette a block away and made his way through the sparsely populated neighborhood until he got to the wall on the south side of the property.
As a kid, Chance had often done his share of climbing. It wasn’t difficult for him to find handholds on the brick, and he made his way up the wall in only a minute or so. He clung to the top of it and looked around, but was fairly sure there was nobody who could see as he swung his legs over and dropped to the ground inside.
There was a gate on the driveway, and it was manned by a couple of large fellows who were obviously armed. Since Josephine had specified that this was not one of the legal bordellos, Chance figured it was probably something that belonged to the Irish mob, and that made it a criminal operation. He hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with the security, but decided they had made their own beds. If it came down to a gun fight, they would have to be eliminated.
He found a spot behind a large bush where he could see the gate clearly, but not be observed from the house or the gate itself. He settled down to watch, and it was nearly half an hour later when a large limousine pulled through the gate and a redhaired, thin man stepped out.
Chance watched as Finnigan went inside the house, leaving his two bodyguards standing outside by the car. He watched for several minutes as the two men settled on the hood of the big limousine and lit cigarettes, then reached inside his boot and retrieved the Ruger.
There was no one else visible at the front of the house, and the gate was almost an eighth of a mile away. If he moved quickly, he could deal with the bodyguards without being seen, so he scurried from tree to tree until he got close enough that he could hear the two of them talking. At that point he stood, keeping the gun behind him in his right hand, and stepped out from behind the tree.
“Hey, you guys,” he said. “You busy at the moment?”
The two bodyguards turned and looked his way. “What do you want?”
Chance broke into a big smile. “I need a little help, okay? This bimbo, she’s a little drunk and I can’t get her back inside the house. You mind?”
He’d played a hunch that the thought of seeing a drunk girl would get their attention, and it paid off. The two men grinned and put out their cigarettes, then started walking toward him. When they were less than fifteen feet away, he motioned for them to follow and turned and walked into the shadows behind the trees.
Three minutes later, Chance stepped out alone. Each of the men had died instantly, with two twenty-two caliber rounds perforating their foreheads. The little Ruger was quiet enough that the guards on the gate heard nothing.
Apparently, when Finnigan was coming, the place was closed to all other business. The limousine was the only car out front, and the guards on the gate were turning customers away. Chance walked directly to the house and up the front steps, then rang the doorbell.
A foppish-looking man opened the door and looked confused when he saw Chance standing there. “May I help you?” he asked. “How did you get in here?”
“I’m with Mr. Finnigan,” Chance said. “He told me to make sure I let him know if anything important happened, so I need to talk to him for a moment.”
The little man stared at him for a moment. “Mr. Finnigan is currently indisposed,” he said. “I’m afraid you…”
“Look, he told me not to wait if something important happened. We got a lot going on right now, you really think he wants to wait to find out? Fine, that can be on you, then. You just make sure you tell him I tried, you got that? I don’t want him getting pissed at me, you know?”
The fop grimaced, then motioned for Chance to step inside. “Up the stairs, second on the right,” he said. “And I shall be certain to tell him that I tried to keep you from disturbing him.”
Chance grinned at him. “You do that,” he said. He started up the stairs, looking around and noticing that there seemed to be no one else in sight. Something told him it couldn’t be as easy as all that, however, so he knew there were others around someplace.
He found them. Several women and a couple of large men were in what looked like a sitting room on the second floor. He noticed them as he walked past, but none of them paid him any attention. He went to the second door on the right and knocked.
“Who the hell is there?” Finnigan called out.
“Mr. Finnigan, I’m afraid it’s very important,” Chance said. “You know I wouldn’t disturb you otherwise, but it’s very important I sp
eak to you.”
There was some cursing from behind the door, and then Finnigan could be heard approaching. “It damn well better be important,” he said, and then he yanked the door open to find the barrel of the Maxim pointing directly into his right eye.
“Step back into the room, and do it quietly,” Chance said. “You and I need to have a little talk.”
Finnigan took a couple of steps backward, and the girl on the bed sat up and looked curiously at the tableau in front of her. Chance, in disguise, was pointing a gun directly into the face of the most powerful man she had ever known. Either he was about to die a horrible death, or this was a man who was far more powerful than Finnigan ever hoped to be. She simply watched calmly, confident that men like these would only consider a woman to be a decoration, rather than a witness or any kind of difficulty.
“You realize you’re going to die, right?” Finnigan said. “Even if you kill me, you’ll never get out of here alive.”
“Well, then it’s probably a good thing that I’m not going to kill you yet,” Chance said. “Believe it or not, it’s definitely in your best interests to cooperate with me at the moment. You see, I’m kinda straddling a fence at the moment, because I’m torn between the desire to kill you, and the fact that I need information I can only get from you. You give me what I need, and maybe you get to live another day.”
Finnigan’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of information I got that you might want?”
“Elizabeth Cardwell,” Chance said. “I know she’s been brainwashing people into committing murders for you, but I also know they’ll never convict you of anything connected to it. You give her up to me, I let you live. You don’t, I put a bullet through your brain. Simple enough for you to understand?”
Finnigan grinned. “Cardwell? The shrink? You think you can touch her? She’s got more people in her pocket than I do. She’s been working with some pretty powerful folks, you got any idea how many politicians and cops she’s had in her office? You can’t touch her, nobody can.”
Chance stared at him for a moment as he thought about what he had just heard. If Cardwell had been programming politicians and policemen, then it might be impossible to know who he could trust. The DA? Hell, Jensen? If any of them had been programmed to protect her, any move he made against Elizabeth Cardwell would probably be his last.
Still, without evidence to back up the brainwashing theory, Yolanda, Maggie and others might still be doomed to spend the rest of their lives in prison. He had to try.
“Nobody’s untouchable,” Chance said. “Just the fact that I’m standing here right now should prove that. You can help me bring her down, or you can die. Your choice, but make it quick. If I have to kill you, then I have other work to do tonight.”
Finnigan continued grinning, but there was something about his eyes that told Chance the man was getting nervous. “So what do you want? You want some kind of evidence against her? I can give you that, but it won’t do you any good. Nobody is going to prosecute her, it’ll never happen.”
“We’ll see about that,” Chance said. “What kind of evidence can you give me?”
Finnigan started to relax. “You got one of those phones? The smart kind, where you can record your phone calls?”
Chance nodded. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Why?”
“Get it out, and dial this number.” Chance took out his phone and set it to record a call, and then Finnigan recited a number. Chance dialed it, then put the phone on speaker and held it out to the man.
“Who’s this?” came a female voice.
“Lizzie, it’s Daniel. I got a little problem.”
“What kind of problem? The usual? Somebody we need to take care of?”
“Yeah, that kind. It’s that drunken private eye, Dixon. How soon can you send one of your slaves out to cut his throat? He’s in the hospital right now, should be easy.”
There was silence on the line for a moment, then she came back. “I’ve got a girl who works at the hospital, and she’s on duty right now. I can have Connor call out there to activate her, if you want. Do you really need it to happen tonight?”
Finnigan was grinning straight into Chance’s face. “Yeah, tonight,” he said. “The sooner the better.”
“Alright,” Cardwell said. “Consider it done.”
The line went dead and Chance dropped the phone into his pocket. He looked into Finnigan’s eyes and adjusted his grip on the pistol.
“You see, boy,” Finnigan said. “You thought I didn’t know who you were, right? You got your hair all black, you got the stupid glasses on, you thought that was a disguise, right? My boys been watching you and Dixon for the last few days, I knew exactly who you were the minute I saw you. Now, you can stand here and dick with me, or you can maybe get to the hospital in time to save your buddy. What’s it going to be?”
Chance smiled. “How about both? And, would you like to know something ironic? Pete Dixon is the reason I’m here. I am the Angel of Justice, and you murdered his family.”
The sudden shock of recognition that crossed Finnigan’s face sent a thrill through Chance. He gave the man a couple of seconds to realize what he had said, then squeezed the trigger, and the Maxim made its door slamming sound as the bullet entered between his eyes and Finnigan’s head exploded.
The girl on the bed squealed. “Geez, you said if he gave you what you wanted, you weren’t gonna kill him,” she said.
Chance looked at her for a second. “I lied,” he said. “Now, I’ll tell you something that’s true. If you sit there quietly for ten minutes, and then remember that it was a jealous husband who came in and blew him away, you will live through the night. Good enough?”
The girl blinked, then took her fingers and pretended to zip her lips shut. Chance grinned and turned around, then opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He stood in the open door and looked into the room, then said, “Yes, sir, no problem.” He shut the door, then walked calmly down the hallway and past the sitting room. The men and women inside continued to pay no attention to him as he walked by, and he continued down the stairs and out the front door.
The gate guards were walking toward the house, but they didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. Chance walked down the front steps and went straight to the limousine, slid behind the wheel and let out a sigh of relief when he saw the keys were still in the ignition. He started the car up and put it in gear, then grinned as the gate guards hurried back to their post. By the time he got to the gate, one of them had already opened it, and Chance waved as he drove onto the street.
He hustled the big car around the corner until he came to the Corvette, and hopped out of it while it was still moving. It continued rolling down the street for another block before it struck a tree and came to a stop. Chance was already racing toward the hospital by then, his phone in his hand.
“This is Detective Jensen,” he heard the sleepy voice say. “Simmons?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I have a recording of Daniel Finnigan ordering Elizabeth Cardwell to send a brainwashed killer after Pete Dixon tonight. Finnigan also says Cardwell has politicians and cops in her pocket. Tell me, Jensen, are you one of them? Have you been to see her?”
The voice was no longer sleepy. “Me? Hell, no. I won’t even go to a regular doctor, much less a shrink. How did you get that recording?”
“Finnigan gave it to me voluntarily, believe it or not. Terrible thing, though, right after that, some bastard came into the room and shot him right through the head. Damn shame, he seemed like such a nice guy.”
Jensen hesitated for only a couple of seconds, then laughed. “You’re a lot like Pete Dixon, aren’t you? I’m getting my shoes on, I’ll see you at the hospital.”
There was no time to change the barrel in the Maxim, so Chance decided he needed to hide the gun. He spotted a public flower garden of some sort, then stopped the car long enough to jump out and wrap the pistol in plastic, which he stuffed into a large bush. He could only hope it wouldn’
t be found, but he didn’t have time for any other precautions at the moment. He hurried back to the car and raced toward the hospital.
Eight miles away, at the hospital, a nurse named Kathy Flores was sitting at the nurse’s station on the third floor, two floors below where Pete Dixon was still in the ICU. She was making some notes on a patient chart when the phone rang, and she answered it automatically.
“Third floor, Nurse Flores.”
“Kathy Flores?” It was a male voice that asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“It’s time for a lark, a lark, a lark, it’s time for a lark and the time is now. We need you to take care of something. There’s a patient on the fifth floor, his name is Pete Dixon. He’s a very dangerous man, and he’s going to kidnap your children unless you stop him. You need to go up there now, and make sure that he can never hurt your children. Go, you need to do it now.”
The line went dead, and the nurse looked at the receiver in her hand for a moment, then put it back on its hook. She sat there for another moment, then turned to the computer and looked up the information for Pete Dixon. Fifth floor, ICU, the man was in critical condition but expected to pull through. She couldn’t allow that to happen, because then her children could be in danger.
She got up from her chair and walked toward the elevator, then rode it up to the fifth floor. She walked into the ICU, where she worked at different times, and went to the supply cabinet. She opened it and took out three syringes, then filled all of them with morphine. She recapped the needles and put them into her pocket, then walked down the row of patients until she found the bed that Dixon’s record had indicated.
She stood and looked at him for a moment, the anger building up inside her. How dare he threaten her children? How dare anyone threaten her children? She reached into her pocket and withdrew the syringes, then stepped up to where the IV lines were hanging. Holding two of the syringes between a couple of fingers, she pulled the cap off one of them and stabbed it into the line.