The Killing Man

'Good training.'

'Should be. They were in the first cadre General Rudy Skubal commanded.'

Neither Pat nor I showed any change of expression, but we both knew what the other was thinking. General Skubal wasn't new to me at all. A long time ago he had tried to recruit me into his organization, even going to the trouble of having Pat put some pressure on me. Old Skubie, I was thinking, who took himself and the other tigers, as he called them, deep behind enemy lines for twenty-two months, a wild bunch of trained fighters fluent in Slavic languages, who raised complete hell with enemy communications until they rejoined with American units after the Normandy landing.

Most of those tigers went into frontline field work with the CIA in its early days and became shadow legends with government spooks.

'Where do we go from here?' Pat asked.

Bradley unclasped his fingers and made a steeple of them. 'Nowhere. That is, you don't. As of now, the police department is being removed from the case. Of course, Captain Chambers, you know what that entails, don't you?'

Pat nodded, saying nothing.

'As for you, Mr. Hammer, your total silence is required. Not requested, but demanded. There will be no more investigating the Penta affair or your assailants since this all will be in the hands of federal agencies. The nature of this case is so sensitive that the fewer involved the easier it will be to process. Now, are there any further questions?'

I said, 'Is looking into the murder of Anthony DiCica any part of the Penta business?'

Bradley unsteepled his fingers and gave a shrug. 'I can't see what DiCica has to do with it, Mr. Hammer. Penta was after you.'

'Thanks a bunch,' I said. 'Since I'm to be the quiet target then, do I get any cover?'

'I may sound callous, Mr. Hammer,' Bradley told me, 'but you've already made your sentiments very clear. You prefer to remain unguarded. Now, just to make sure we all understand your position, do you or do you not prefer a guard? I ask this because in your way, you too are a professional and licensed to carry firearms.'

'Just let me take my chances, Mr. Bradley. I get nervous when people are watching me.'

'So be it,' he said and stood up. The meeting was over.

When Pat and I got to the street, he said, 'You got to go anywhere?'

'No, but I'll walk you to the garage.'

'Sure, then maybe you can tell me about that bit with DiCica.'

'Come on, Pat, we're both thinking the same thing. It could have been DiCica he was really after and anything else was a sham. What have you got on the guy?'

We had stopped on the corner and Pat checked his watch. 'I'm going off duty. How about a beer?'

'How can you go off duty? It's afternoon.'

'I'm the boss, that's how.'

'Fine, a beer sounds great and Ernie's Little Place is right here. You ever been in Ernie's?'

'No.'

'Good. Neither have I.'

Over the beer Pat told me about Anthony DiCica. He had a listing of all his arrests, convictions that were a laugh, and the victims he was suspected of killing. Every dead guy was involved in the mob scene and two of them were really big time. Those two were hit simultaneously while they ate in a small Italian restaurant. It was suspected by the police that it was more than a social dinner. It was a business affair and the killer, after shooting both parties in the head twice, made off with an envelope that had been seen on the table by a waiter. Following the hit there had been an ominous quiet in the city for a week, then several more persons in the organization either died or were mysteriously missing before a truce seemed to be declared. It was two weeks later that Anthony DiCica's head collided with a pipe in a street brawl.

'Let's make a script out of this, Pat.'

'Okay,' he agreed. 'Our boy Anthony went a little bit further when he hit those mob guys. He knew they were plotting against his employer and grabbed the papers. When he saw what he had, he knew he was in a position of power, but didn't quite know how to handle it, so hid it somewhere.' He paused. 'Now your turn.'

'The mobs turned on themselves thinking of a double cross somewhere, then realized what had happened and cooled it. It took a couple of weeks to locate our Anthony, but they went a little overboard in bringing him in and cracked his skull. After that he was no good to anybody. They still needed his goods and had to wait for him to come out of the memory loss before they could move . . .'

Pat lifted his beer and made a silent toast. 'We really took his place apart, you know.'

'No, I didn't know. What did you find?'

'Zilch. There were no hiding places at all. We even tried the cellar area. If he had anything at all, it's someplace else.'

'Now what?'

'We wait the way we usually do,' he told me.

I grinned at him. 'Balls. When are you going to ask me?'

He grinned back and said, 'Okay, wise guy, when are you going to see General Skubal?'

'Soon. Since you're off this case I go alone, but there's no reason why we can't have a few talks together later, is there?'

'None at all.'

'And I'm not investigating the Penta affair at all. Just seeing an old friend. Right?'

'Right.'

'And the next time old Bradley boy demands I do something, I think I'll rap him in the kisser with a civilian citizen hook.'

'Good thinking. You know where Skubal is?'

'I have his address in my office. I'll get it tonight.'

We finished our beers and when Pat left I made two calls looking for Petey before I found him in his office at the paper. He told me to come on over. He sounded excited.

Until I saw his office, I hadn't realized Petey Benson's status at the newspaper. Most of the working reporters had a desk with a console in the quiet bedlam of the main section, but Petey had his own room, not a compartment, with a door that closed and his own bank of filing cabinets.

'Man,' I said. 'I thought you did all your work out of barrooms.'

'That's all eyewash for the peasantry.'

'You've ruined your image, pal.'

'Nope. Been around too damn long to do that. What you see here is seniority at work. Plus sheer expertise, of course. Technology and computer chips rule the system these days and he who has the most gadgets wins. Wait till you see what I've come up with.'

I tossed my hat on an old Smith-Corona typewriter and pulled a chair up next to Petey. 'You have a work-up already?'

He nodded. 'We're lucky we're dealing in areas that have good terminal systems. You know anything about computers?'

'Very little.'

'Okay, let me brief you a little. In backtracking DiCica, I was able to get into records of public information, had some friends on the other end do a little legwork and between the FOI Act and the power of the press, we've got some history on Mr. Anthony DiCica. Ready?'

'Hit it.'

Petey's fingers moved over the keyboard and the console came alive. 'Where do you want to start?'

'All right, we'll go for basics.' Then he brought Anthony Ugo DiCica up in green electronic reality. Born January 2, 1940, of Maria Louisa and Victorio DiCica in Brooklyn, New York. Victorio was a cabinet maker by trade, a World War II veteran honorably discharged in 1945. Maria DiCica had two stillbirths There were no other children. Anthony graduated Erasmus Hall High School, June 1958, worked one year in Victorio's cabinet shop, then left and was arrested for the first time a year and one week later.'

'How do you like it, so far?' Petey asked me.