The Killing Man

'Just do it, okay?'

For a second I thought he was going to tell me to forget it, but he read my eyes a second and nodded slowly. 'Sure,' he told me. 'Only because of one thing will I do it.'

'What's that?'

'We got computers and fax machines now and I don't get tied up for a week scanning old copy.'

I threw five bucks on the bar and ordered beers for Petey and his baseball buddy, then went back to a table with Candace. I answered her question before she could ask it. 'The killer was after DiCica or me. Now, I know all about me, and I know something about DiCica. What I want is to know all about DiCica.'

'We know all about DiCica.'

'Hell, kid, not even DiCica knew that. He led two completely different lives.'

She waited until the waiter brought the drinks, then toyed with her glass while she put her thoughts together. She knew I was watching her, feeling her with my eyes, reading the little bits of body language that she let slip, and let her mouth go firm.

'Don't do that,' I said.

Her expression questioned me.

'You got a nice, sensual mouth, kid. Don't squeeze it shut like that.'

'Please!' She glanced around quickly, afraid someone had heard me.

I grinned at her. 'Now talk to me, pretty lady.'

This time she shook her head and smiled back. 'Why do I go from hot to cold with you?'

'Because you're playing the game too, doll.'

'And what does the winner get?'

'I'm not sure what the prize is yet,' I told her.

She let her teeth slide over her lower lip, folded her hands under her chin and gave me a studied gaze. 'You're going to be a winner, aren't you?'

I didn't answer her.

'That's what's disturbing me. Disturbing everybody. You're the piece that doesn't belong, but has to be there. As my friends say, a lousy private cop in a position they can't shove around. Why is that, Mike?'

A slight shrug was the best I could do.

'My boss defers to Captain Chambers. He recognizes his professionalism and appreciates his opinion. Somewhere you have a niche in all this and nobody but you seems to know where it is.' She paused dramatically. 'Where is it?'

'Right in the middle of the shitpile,' I said.

'Gross.'

'Not really. You ever been shot at?'

Her head made a slight negative movement.

'When it happens,' I told her seriously, 'you'll know what I mean.'

'But you'll still be a winner.'

'Candace honey, whoever stays alive the longest wins. Right now something is happening and nobody wants to spell it out. We have federal agencies sniffing around, the State Department playing footsies in a murder case because they're afraid they might screw up the political scene. Right now all that's a lot of crap. We're working on a murder, a killing that comes under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department.'

'No murder is simple.'

'And a kill isn't complicated,' I reminded her. 'Only the motives are complicated.'

She took her hands down now, settling back in her chair. Her head tilted slightly and she gave me that odd stare again. 'See . . . that's the other thing about you that's puzzling.'

This time I waited.

'Someone wanted to kill you. Most likely he still wants to kill you and you don't seem to be scared a bit.'

'Don't fool yourself.'

'You're scared?'

'Not the way you'd count scared. I'm cautious. And you have to be alive to be scared.'

'That's a thought.'

'I'll give you another,' I said. 'Be scared, but don't let your hand shake.'

'Later I'll ask you to explain that.' She snapped her pocketbook open and pulled out a vanity, glanced at the mirror and put it back.

'Later?'

'After you take me home,' she said impishly.

They forget sometimes, these beautiful women. There are times when they can lift their skirts up to their eyebrows and nobody will even blink because they did it in the dark, and right then my eyes were closed.

When the cab pulled up to her building and the doorman did his little sprint, I said, 'When your hand shakes, you miss the target, kitten.'

She glanced at me, frowning, and asked, 'Is your hand shaking?'

'It doesn't matter, honey. I'm not aiming.'

I kissed the tip of my finger and stuck it on the end of her nose.

This time she smiled and got out of the cab. It wasn't an impish smile at all.

7

The workout at Bing's Gym let me tear at something physical for a change. Weight machines were enemies I could push and shove at, my jaws clamped hard in the effort. I could pound at the heavy bag and rap the hell out of the light one, and even if it wasn't the real thing, there was something therapeutic about it that made me feel better.

I would have kept it up, but Bing reminded me that I was overdoing it for this session and ushered me into the steam room with a towel wrapped around my middle. Nobody else was there, so I sat and let my mind drift through the details of an old hardcase being mutilated and killed in my office.

One lousy murder and the whole world fell apart. The DA's office is in, the FBI is in, the CIA is in, the State Department is in, because a guy they call Penta took out a wacko hood. And that put me in too.

But there was one thing that only I knew for absolute certainty . . . I really wasn't in at all. There was no way at all that I could have any involvement with the killer. Even if he was the Penta everybody was after, he was after nobody else except DiCica. It sure as hell wasn't me.

Question. Which DiCica? The old hit man he was before he had memory smashed out of his skull? In that case, the motive was pure revenge. But why wait so long? DiCica hadn't been in hiding. Even the mob boys knew where he was. Right now Pat would have his inquiries in the works and Petey would be working from another end. Something could show up here . . . possibly.

DiCica with his memory back could be something else. The mob didn't care about him as a person. All they wanted was what he had that could bring pressure on their organization. They could kill him, but that left his information liable to a possible discovery. Their misconception that he had contacted me for assistance meant that they didn't order the kill.

So . . . another part of the organization, an upstart group or person wanting to get control or possibly another family entirely, knew DiCica had flashes of memory recall and went after him.

In that case, did the torture session get it out of him?

Who set up the appointment to meet me in my office? Could that have been legitimate and the guy scared off by the action that day? Logical and possible.

The screwy thing was the trademark mutilation by somebody named Penta our government and the British government seemed to know all about, and it sure wasn't likely that someone in the mob circles was able to contact anybody working on Penta's level.

I let it run through my mind again and the only answer I could come up with was that somebody had picked up some stray facts about Penta and did a duplicate, but more elaborate job of mutilation on the DiCica kill to throw in the most beautiful red herring I ever saw.

And I still was in the middle of it.