The Killing Man

the crap. But I can't figure that way. How the hell you do it, I'll never know. I've said that before too, haven't I? How the hell you go from kicking around in the streets to substituting for the vice president of the United States in a murder scheme defies belief. Where do you come from, Mike? I've known you all these years, but I don't think I know you very well at all.'

'Pat . . .'

He shook his head. 'You've been running me, haven't you? Here I thought you were my boy and I was running . . . all the time you have something else going down.' He paused, wiped his hand across his face and took a deep breath. 'What's happening, Mike?'

I shrugged. 'What else is in the box?'

'Forty-two one-thousand-dollar bills,' he said.

'Be hard to cash,' I told him.

'What's happening, Mike?' he asked again, ignoring my remark.

'Tomorrow, Pat. I have to make sure of something first.'

'You know, I'm a lousy cop, old buddy. I have you inside this package like you're the PC or something. I have my neck out, giving you information, breaking all the rules-'

'Balls. You had no choice. Like Candace Amory said, I'm an adjunct of the law, licensed by the state, subject to conditions no ordinary citizen has to operate under. Consider it professional courtesy.'

'I must be off my rocker,' he said.

'You going by your office?'

'I have to.'

'Good. I want to use your phone.'

When we reached Pat's office I slid behind Pat's desk into his chair and punched the number into his phone. I had one foot up on Anthony DiCica's antique toolbox, which Pat had in the kneehole, but took it off when I realized what it was.

She picked up the phone on the first ring and there was no sleepiness in her voice at all. I said, 'This is Mike, Candace.'

'Well, I've been waiting to hear from you.'

'The grapevine working?'

'Not until after the Brooklyn soiree was over. I understand there were two bodies found.'

'Both shot.'

'I don't suppose you'd care to explain further.'

'Right. All information will come from official sources. It's strictly a police matter.'

She had to probe with a lawyer's instinct. 'But you were there?'

'The police acted on my information. I went along for verification.'

'Very neat.'

'What's new on that load of cocaine?'

'Something extremely interesting. It's totally hearsay, but often enough what sounds like a fairy tale is factual. Your friend Ray Wilson came up with another lead, an old dealer who is straight now and doesn't want his name mentioned in any way.'

'So?'

'He had heard about the shipment being set up. It was delivered by freighter at Miami, concealed as bags of coffee beans. The shipper was genuine and the destination was a reputable buyer. Nobody knows just how the switch was made, but the cargo was offloaded into a tractor-trailer.'

'Do you realize how much stuff that is?'

'In dollars the final street value is incredible. Anyway, it came up via Route Ninety-five into the New York area. The trailer was delivered to a depot in Brooklyn, all the paperwork completed, and the next day another tractor signed for them, hauled them out and it hasn't been seen to this day.'

'You can't just hide a trailer,' I told her. 'I can see the run being made, but you'd still be dealing with a driver who probably had a helper along.'

'Thanks to Ray Wilson we found a possible line on that one too. He went into the computers for known mob persons who could handle trucks. Not live ones, but deceased. He came up with two names of men who were found dead in a car that had apparently been sideswiped and knocked off Route Nine-W up near Bear Mountain. Two days later the brother of one was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Newark.'

'That took care of the driver and a helper,' I said. 'Your hearsay is making pretty good sense.'

'But somebody would know where the cargo went to. Whoever gave the instructions to the two men DiCica killed would know.'

'Sure,' I said. 'The driver and the helper would have known. Those guys were probably made men who would lay down their lives for their bosses. They were taking no chances on any hijack action so they planned the delivery themselves, which could have meant repainting the truck or changing the lettering somewhere along the way. The legitimate driver on the first leg of the run really took the odds for the mob boys. His making it to Brooklyn meant the job was coming out clean.'

'Then the driver and helper were the only ones who knew?'

'Why not? The fewer the better. They picked their own hiding spot for the shipment, made up a map and delivered it to the bosses. On the way out they were followed by the hit men and taken out in a supposed accident.'

'Why kill . . .'

'The bosses didn't want anybody but them knowing where the stuff went to,' I told her. 'Unfortunately, they were in line for a hit themselves that night. And unfortunately, they closed off the mob's only access to the stuff.'

'And DiCica had it all.'

'Wild, huh? Tell me something. How much is the street value of the junk today?'

She told me. I let out a low whistle. No wonder Penta could afford to pass up the VP for an old hood. Nine- digit figures are understandable.

YOU DIE FOR KILLING ME.

Okay, DiCica. You were the hit man. That was your trade. Who did you kill and how did you work it? That note was for you after all, wasn't it?

'Mike . . .'

I shook myself out of my thoughts. 'Sorry, kid.'

'Unless we find that cargo, nothing will ever end.'

'Is Ray checking out all the leads?'

'The trailer would take a certain size building to be concealed in. He's working on the assumption that something was bought, rather than leased. By now taxes would be owing and if anything matches, we'll be on it.'

'You don't have that much time.'

'Any other options?'

'A lot of luck. We still have a killer out there waiting.'

'For what?'

'Pat will have to tell you that. Or Coleman or Carmody or Ferguson.'

'You going to be around?'

I told her I would. She said she'd call tomorrow and I hung up. I would have gone home and crawled into bed, but I called in to check the tapes on my phone and a deep, sultry voice said to call at any hour.

When the call went through, General Rudy Skubal answered it himself. As soon as he recognized my voice, he said, 'I couldn't stand not having more pieces of the puzzle, Mike. I went back to when they were feeding information into the computers and zeroed in on Fells and Bern. We ran constant checks on our men without their knowledge, especially those whose performance was getting shoddy.'

'Bern and Fells are dead,' I interrupted.

'Killed at the safe house, I presume?'

'Good guess, General.'

'It wasn't a guess. That safe house was supposed to be known and used by Bern and Fells only. I have two