The Sweeney 02 Page 7

  Regan started to eat the two burned eggs very slowly.

  “Last night we made waves.”

  “Waves?” Regan inquired.

  “The Chief was sore. I phoned him three a.m. I ask him does he know where the Galliano group are. He says he doesn’t. He says all that information belongs to the FBI. He doesn’t think we’ll get it out of them. I hate the FBI. So that clinches it. I have taken on your problems.”

  Regan studied him for a moment and then nodded.

  “I lied to Seebohm. I said we would not make waves for the bureau. I also said we need a setup. I think Seebohm will come across with facilities to put you in a setup.”

  “What setup, what facilities?”

  “Somebody’s trying to kill you. Not talk, negotiate, bribe you, but kill you. You arrested the Galliano group in London, piled their papers in a sack, brought them here. Then we presume it was associates or employees of Galliano and company who hyped you. They had you in their fake office —they didn’t kill you. They let you go. Then they check the papers you brought them, they discuss it. They decide to kill you. They decide you know too much. You said last night you know nothing. You’re wrong, Jack. You know something—you just don’t know you know it.”

  Regan studied the blackened stumps of yolk and white— he might be able to extract some rock-hard yolk. “I’m... not so hungry.”

  “Have a Scotch... Hair of the dog?”

  Regan dropped his fork on the plate and felt nausea swim over him. “Er ... no, thank you.”

  “So this is what we do. We don’t know where Galliano and company are. We have to find them. Somebody’s tried to kill you twice. We have to set you up so they try again. This time we’ll be ready for them.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I have an idea. But we’ll discuss it. In my experience ‘this time we’ll be ready for them’ doesn’t always work out that way.”

  The .44 Magnum sat uncomfortably in a loose holster under Regan’s left shoulder. The holster had been tailored to Cassidy’s proportions, which had a lot of inches over Regan. He paced through the stony grass up to a huge rock that crowned the top of the hill, from where he could look down over the whole two-mile width and sweep of the Hudson.

  The elevation up here was about a thousand feet. The fall down to the river a series of green landslides of grass and pine and cultivated redwoods, and sharp among those trees the low white profiles of the bungalows of the weekending rich. The cold river air had dispensed with his hangover but left him glazed, except for the physical impressions of the landscape, the fine trees, the gray plate of the river, the call of birds muted in a low wind brushing up the steep incline of hill. He had never guessed that a country haven like this could exist an hour upriver from the devil’s island of insanity and pandemonium, New York.

  He strolled and breathed pine air. It was the right time, in this solitude, to work out a few things.

  Cassidy, with or without Ciales, was a sound man who could offer a lot to this investigation. Though Regan wasn’t so sure about Cassidy’s conclusion—yes, somebody wanted him killed, but it could be for a hundred different reasons. Well, this time he would have to face a .44 Magnum.

  Regan pulled the gun out and palmed back the hammer. He extended his arm, then raised it forty-five degrees, pointing out over the Hudson River. He pulled the trigger and felt the instant thump hit his shoulder, the shock crossing from his right to his left shoulder to find an echo of pain still dormant in his wound. This wasn’t a pistol Cassidy had given him; a better classification for a .44 Magnum is ordnance. He had now judged the recoil; he turned and aimed down at a tree root forty feet away. He squeezed the trigger. The root split and flew.

  He started to stride along, heading for a wind break of pines farther down the escarpment.

  Yes, he decided, Cassidy was sound, and Cassidy’s idea had been simple and solid. Assuming that the starting place for the man who had tailed and tried to execute him in the Plaza had been the Alex Hotel, Cassidy had handed Regan a gun, told him to go back to the Alex and check out, then move across town slowly and carefully, take the train to Peekskill, and a cab from the station to the little white bungalow that would by then have been prepared for the setup.

  It was a reasonable scheme but it relied optimistically on a number of factors that maybe shouldn’t be relied on at all. Like, did anybody follow Regan from the Alex Hotel to Croton-on-Hudson? Regan could only work on instinct. He had a feeling that he might have been followed across town and onto the commuter train, but he had not positively identified any tail.

  Regan moved through the thick carpet of pine needles, into the close-packed trees.

  Three days now in New York, he had suffered one appalling humiliation and two attempts on his life. He had to question what it was that made him stay on. He thought he knew the answer. It was as if someone had presented him with a challenge so impossible that it could only stimulate him. He had nothing, no direction to take on his case, no idea why any assassin out there wanted him dead. But questions had to be answered, and if that meant sitting alone in a bungalow, Magnum on his knees, awaiting a third visit, then for the moment anyhow he was prepared to resign himself to that.

  Cassidy had done everything he could to check out all the city detective bureaus’ contacts with any of the Aerial Hotel men, Galliano, Cohen, Senti, and Altbach. A Puerto Rican friend of Ramo’s in the Washington FBI had not so far come up with anything, but promised a quiet call if he did.

  The problem was simple. When Regan stepped off the plane, Galliano, Cohen, Senti, and Altbach were in FBI custody. When two hours later Regan parted with the papers, the FBI had had to release them. The last outfit in the world that the FBI were prepared to cooperate with would be any investigative team that included Regan among its number. Ciales and Cassidy did find out unofficially that the FBI had put a tail on Galliano, who had taken a plane to LA. The tail had lost Galliano in LA Airport. Galliano was the only one of the four with a pro forma career in finance and banking fraud. The other guys were two-dimensional. Turn them sideways, there was nothing.

  Regan strode through the umbrella of trees. He was moving down the gentle east slope of the hill toward even thicker rows of pine and sedge that verged the couple of acres of grounds of the bungalow.

  Cassidy had told him the New York City Detectives Bureau often used this bungalow for keeping people, like trial witnesses, under tabs. He’d also said that either he or Ciales or some other cop would be watching the bungalow and that there was a video camera up a tree screening the bungalow and sending a picture by land line to the Peekskill Police station house. Cassidy had added the postscript that a determined killer would not be stopped by a TV camera or a cop whose back was turned for a minute.

  Regan moved along the edge of the pines at the bottom of the dell. He reached the wire-containing fence and followed it along to the road up to the bungalow. He came out through the trees and saw again the gray spread of Hudson gleaming in the hard brittle light of the day.

  He moved up the broken macadam toward the house. About five yards to the left of the house, parked under trees, was the maroon Pontiac GTO coupe supplied from the police pool. He crossed to the car and climbed in.

  The key was in the ignition. He tapped it clockwise and heard the soft rumble of eight cylinders waking up. He eased the car out and ran it gently down the hundred yards of drive to the gateposts, and then on down past another bungalow to the upper river road. He turned left and headed in for Croton.

  He drove aimlessly for fifteen minutes, mostly slow, but on a couple of straights into town he kicked the accelerator to the floor and heard the suck of the two huge Stromberg carbs followed by the rip of the rear tires burning up, losing grip, then finding it and hurling the car forward like a stone from a catapult. He reckoned the GTO was about three years old. The police department mechanics had the car fine-tuned to a turn. He headed the car back to the bungalow.

  Little traffic around, a ye
llow cab, a lone cyclist, a VW minibus with cliche hippie group—bearded guy, girl, and wide-eyed, travel-strained children—parked on a verge, lunching on Coke, pastrami, and brown rice, pausing in their journey to no destination.

  He turned in the lower gates and drove up through the slippery compost of last fall’s leaves, past the other gates, and up to the bungalow.

  He got out of the car and walked to the house, went up the three steps, opened the front door—and threw himself flat, grabbing out the Magnum.

  She was standing by a bookcase near the door to the kitchen, looking at the titles on some paperbacks. Her surprise at Regan’s sudden appearance turned to alarm when she realized he was likely to use the gun he was pointing at her.

  “Back up,” he shouted, like he was ordering a brigade of Afrika Corps. “Face to the wall, hands high!”

  He wasn’t looking at her. He could see she was unarmed. He was studying the door beyond, to the living room, and the door to the right, to the kitchen. She turned, and he sprang up and grabbed her, got his left arm round her waist, spun her around, and propelled her backward into the kitchen. No one in the kitchen panicked and shot as she sailed in the door, smashed into a table, and went down with a dozen crockery items.

  Regan stepped into the kitchen.

  “Hey! Hey! What the hell!”

  “Don’t move!” he shouted. “Hands on top of your head.”

  She put her hands on her head.

  He stepped around behind her, the gun still pointed at her but able to traverse in a second’s reflex to cover the kitchen and the living room doors. “Who are you?”

  “Christa Beecham.” She couldn’t disguise the shake in her voice.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Ask Cassidy.”

  “You PD? Show me your identification.”

  “I’m not PD.”

  “Up slowly. Use the phone on the wall. If Cassidy sent you, you know his number. Phone him.”

  She probably had collected a painful bruise in the collision with the table and the collapse onto the floor, and had the air knocked out of her. She took a moment to evaluate the situation. He could see that she was getting angry, and then trying to get that under control.

  “I said phone,” he ordered her sharply.

  “When the mailman calls, does he get thrown across the house?”

  “Somebody’s tried to kill me twice in two days. I don’t know who you are. Phone.”

  She went to the wall phone and dialed. Regan studied her as she combed the fingers of one hand through her auburn hair. A well-dressed young girl wasn’t an obvious candidate for an assassin, but this was a setup where he couldn’t take any chances at all. He went through the usual tick-off list for the police records section of his brain. She was about five feet six, age twenty-three to twenty-five, weight approximately one-twenty, blue eyes, oval face, no distinguishing marks. But then he rethought the description. In fact, the face and body did have a distinguishing mark: she was beautiful. A perfectly made body, great legs, intelligent-looking face with good bone structure, clear skin, and good color on her cheeks. She would be nearer twenty-five than twenty-three. She was well dressed, the clothes very casual but expensive —dark green wool trouser suit and cashmere V-neck in brown-and-green check. Gold Piaget wristwatch and a Gucci bag, familiar to Regan because he’d once had a girl friend who’d had a cupboard full of them.

  “Fifty-ninth? Lieutenant Cassidy, please.” There was a pause; then she was talking to Cassidy. “Don. Christa. I’m at Croton. I think you ought to have a word with your English friend.”

  She held out the phone for Regan.

  Regan took it from her. “Don, Regan here. Just wanted to check—You didn’t tell me anything about a girl...”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Cassidy said vaguely, as if he’d been interrupted in the middle of something important, and this was not important. “Hold on.” A telephone was ringing on Cassidy’s end of the line. He picked it up and shouted a couple of yeses and noes into it and banged it down. Then he was back on Regan’s line. “What about Christa?”

  Christa tapped the index finger of her right hand on the barrel of the Magnum that Regan was still vaguely pointing at her. “Will you shoot if I go get my cigarettes?”

  “No. Okay,” Regan answered.

  She walked out of the kitchen.

  He questioned Cassidy. “All right, who or what is she?”

  “She’s a cook, Jack. She’s come to cook for you.” Cassidy hesitated. “But don’t let her get too ambitious. Steaks, fresh vegetables, maybe a reheat job on Sarah Lee Danish. Her coffee’s lousy. That I know. Don’t drink her coffee.”

  “Hold it,” Regan said loudly, anticipating that Cassidy was about to put down the phone. “What are you pulling? Who is this girl?”

  “She’s a great-looking broad and you have to relax.”

  “What does that mean—I have to relax? What are you saying?”

  A pause came on the other end of the line and then a grating noise that lasted five seconds. It was Cassidy laughing. “She’s a nice, respectable girl. You need a lay. My feeling is you won’t get to lay her. Who knows? Meanwhile she talks, she cooks, and she makes the place look decorated. Now fuck off, I’m working on your case.” He put the phone down.

  Christa walked back in as Regan replaced the receiver. She stood and looked at him as she lit her cigarette.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  “I usually don’t walk uninvited into houses. It was cold outside. The cab was gone. The door was unlocked. And Don mentioned there had been attempts on your life. So I should have realized you’d be jumpy.”

  “I’m jumpy and I’m sorry.”

  She said nothing.

  “I was just about to make some coffee. Like some?”

  She nodded.

  Regan carefully stowed the Magnum back inside the shoulder holster, picked up the percolator, and took it to the sink. “So you’re the visiting cook for the police department. What kind of a life is that?”

  She smiled, and it was a nice smile. Regan decided that this was a cool and sophisticated girl, but obviously warm under the surface. He liked a girl with some reserve. Equally he liked a little humor.

  “Don and I are old friends,” she said. She had a nice voice, too, deep and softly accented. “I phoned him this morning. He told me he had an English detective out here and he’d just realized you might not be able to cook. I got appointed.”

  Regan filled the percolator. “Did he tell you the idea of this place? I’m supposed to be drawing gunfire.”

  “He told me.”

  He weighed his responsibility. He was positive in his own mind that a man or men could walk in any second shooting, just as the guy in the raglan coat had done in full public view in the Plaza Hotel. But then he realized that Cassidy would also know this, and her, and would have calculated it all before sending her out. He filled the percolator and plugged it in.

  “Did I bruise you when I pushed you into the table?”

  “I’ll check that out later.” The blue eyes were studying him carefully. “I never thought a guy could move so fast.”

  “The speed of a coward.”

  “I don’t think self-preservation has anything to do with cowardice. Let me help you with the coffee.”

  Regan made the coffee. She organized a tray and cups, took it into the living room, and put it down on a table by the window that overlooked the Hudson.

  “Have you known Don long?” he asked her.

  “Five or six years.”

  “Childhood friend?”

  “Flattery.” She smiled. “I was nineteen when I met him.”

  “The meal you’re cooking, is it dinner tonight?”

  “Right.”

  “Any ideas what you’d like to do between now and dinner?” “Well, I had thought about that. I haven’t been out of New York in months. I’d love a walk—if that’s compatible with your security.”

  “If we k
eep in the open it should be okay.”

  She sipped her coffee and was quiet. “Fine view,” she said finally. She was looking down at the Hudson, moving gray and slow below. She obviously had another talent, the instant capacity to relax—Regan liked that in a girl—the ability to arrive in a strange house, take off her shoes, and curl up in a chair.

  “What d’you do when you’re not in your kitchens?”

  The blue eyes came around on him. “What kind of answer would you like?”

  “D’you work? Do you have a career?”

  “No, I’m divorced. Maybe that is a career.”

  “Divorced long?”

  “A year.”