The Killing Man

'Hell, I was only a year old.'

The cop grinned and went over to his station. Pat finished directing his crew and walked over to me.

'This better be good,' he said, and touched the button on his flashlight.

They hit with all the precision in the world, quietly and close-shouldered. One team went in from the rear, one swarmed over the rooftop and the hot squad went right in through the front.

I sat and watched and nothing happened. They all came out, untied their bulletproof vests and when I went over to where Pat was operating the station, he put down his earphone and said, 'Two dead men inside.'

'Who?'

'Damned if I know. Let's go see.'

And they were dead. These were the quiet dead. No big holes in them, just a fast slug into a vital part and dead. The shot was knowledgeable, direct and certain. No screams. Whatever happened to them happened so fast they only had a chance to gasp, then die.

Both of them were sitting at a table, coffee and soft rolls in front of them. Whatever hit them happened so quickly they never had a chance to react.

The killer had come in the door, shot the one who was facing him square in the forehead and the one sitting opposite in the back of the skull. The wound entries were about the size a .22 would make, but there were no exit holes and there was a strange expansive look about both the heads.

Pat looked at both the bodies carefully, a grimace drawing across his mouth. 'I've seen hollow-tips do this. They fragment inside the skull and create a pressure that can make features pretty damn grotesque.'

'Wasn't much of a safe house,' I said.

But now the picture was a little clearer. The two dead guys had been on the prowl for Penta, all right. He was their target. This thing had all the earmarks of a contract kill that went sour.

Penta had gotten wise. Penta had gotten to them first. Someplace Penta had picked up their trail, followed them to the safe house and eliminated them. That is, if they were Bern and Fells.

Dead bodies don't take long to smell. The odor from these two was starting to bubble up and when we had enough, Pat said, 'Look at their fingers.'

The tips had been cut off very neatly.

I said, 'Another signature.'

'The one on DiCica was even better. He had a real mad on when he carved up that guy.'

'Don't say it, Pat.' I knew what he was thinking.

Lewis Ferguson made the identification. He came in behind us and said, 'That's Bern and Fells, all right.'

'They're pretty bloated,' Pat said. 'You'd better be sure.'

'Positive. Prints will confirm it.'

Pat nodded and called one of the detectives over. 'Get all the preliminaries done, then sweep this place good. Like I mean take it apart. When you're done, I want it to look like the city wrecking crew was here. Pick your guys, keep the clowns out of here. I want some evidence, something, anything of what went on here. You got it?'

'Got it, Captain.'

Carmody and Ferguson were having a serious conversation with Bradley when we came out.

Jurisdiction seemed to be the heart of the matter, but Pat called a halt to that in a hurry. He said, 'Let's get something squared away, people. We got two more corpses inside my area and that's where it's going to stay. You guys can play around with any espionage or international bellyaches you want, but these bodies belong to NYPD and until I get a direct order from my superior, that's the way it goes.'

'Captain . . .' Bradley started.

Pat held up his hand. 'Don't challenge me, Bradley. NYPD is a bigger outfit than yours and if you want to see how clout works, just mess around with this investigation.'

'No intention of doing that, Captain,' Bennett Bradley said. 'Let's say that all of our agencies are anxious to cooperate in any way.'

Ferguson agreed. 'This has overlapped into strange areas. Stumbling blocks we don't need.'

One of the uniformed cops came up with a detective and got Pat's attention. The detective said, 'Patrolman Carsi here was working in the back. There's a garage attached to the building.'

'Not quite attached. A walkway goes into the cellar,' the patrolman told him. 'There's a car in there. Pretty lush.'

And there was the Mercedes. The rear tail-light was broken.

I said, 'If you find my prints in there, you know when it happened.'

There were New York State plates on the car, but a current Florida tag was on the floor under the front seat. In the glove compartment were all the goodies belonging to a Richard Welkes with a Miami Beach address.

A uniformed sergeant drove by and told Pat that the press had just arrived on the other block. Pat muttered an annoyed 'Damn,' then instructed the detective with him to go rough things in for them, playing it down as much as possible. An unidentified squeal on a couple of dead bodies could command the amount of police attention that was in the area, so there shouldn't be any kickback from the news hounds. Not right now, anyway.

Within an hour only the investigative crew was left. A pair of uniforms stayed out of sight in the doorway, alert and quiet. Carmody came up with containers of coffee and we passed it around. You could hear nails being wrenched out of boards inside the building and occasionally something came crashing down.

Forty-five minutes later a dust-covered detective came to the doorway and waved to Pat. 'You better come over here, Captain.'

He told me, 'Wait here,' and followed the cop inside.

In ten minutes he came out with a small box in his hands, nodded toward the cars and said, 'Let's go.'

I sat beside him in the back and didn't say a word. He was waiting for me to throw a question because it was my work that had opened the murders up. Twice, in his reflection in the window, I saw him watching me.

Finally I said, 'Now it jumps back into Bradley's hands, doesn't it?'

He said it very softly. 'How'd you figure that out?'

'I get tingling sensations.' I hit the window button and let some air in. 'Why did those two want to hit Penta?'

'He wasn't doing his primary job. He was off on something else.'

I looked down at the box in his lap.

'The assholes didn't destroy a letter of authorization they got. We can assume it was Penta they were after, but the person was simply mentioned as 'Subject.''

'What was Penta's primary job, Pat?'

'You mention this to anybody and you're on my permanent shit list.'

'Don't insult me, buddy.'

'Sorry, Fells sent a letter to Harry Bern. He had gotten a contact from their employer overseas who wanted to know if they wanted the assignment of killing the VP.'

'The who?'

'VP. I assume it stands for vice president.'

'Of what?' I asked him.

'Let's start with the United States.'

'Pat . . . why the hell would anybody want the vice president dead? I can understand the president . . .'

'Hold it, will you? Apparently Penta screwed up someplace along the line and his employer would only tolerate one mistake. Fells and Bern were offered his initial contract after they wiped him out. If those two could take out Penta, they certainly could hit the VP.'

'Somebody has a damn good reason. With the VP dead, think of the consternation it would cause in Washington. Man, they never could figure that one out. The VP doesn't get the personal coverage the president does, so he would be an easier target. But hell, that's still hitting right at the heart of our government.'

'What bigger target has he got than that, for Pete's sake?'

Pat just looked at me a couple of seconds. 'I can't believe it,' he said.

My eyes started to go tight. 'Believe what?'

'If the so-called subject is Penta, where you would come into the picture.' He stopped me before I could get a word out. 'I know, you're not in. He was after DiCica and all