The police surgeon peeled the thin, transparent plastic gloves from his hands, and closed his eyes against the stench of preserving fluid and putrefying flesh as he pulled the mask from his nose and face. He turned to the police lieutenant beside him and said, “Let’s go into the office.”
In the small office of the laboratory the surgeon poured them each a coffee from the Cona and pointed to the bowl of sugar and the jug of cream. “Help yourself, Lieutenant.” He stood slowly stirring his coffee with a plastic spatula.
“I’d say he’s been in the water from between seven and ten days. The body is too decomposed to give you a detailed report but I can give you enough to establish the manner of death. Firstly, he wasn’t drowned, although he did die from asphyxia. There’s no trace of sea-water in his stomach or lungs. The asphyxia came from a wire or thin nylon cord round his throat. He was garrotted. And he was stabbed twice. Once, just below the sternum and then in the mouth.”
The police lieutenant said quietly, “I guess that tells me enough. The wound in the mouth and the garrotting are both typically Mafia.”
“The other thing I can give you is that there is some evidence that the stabbing and garrotting were virtually simultaneous and that means that there was more than one man involved. At least two, and maybe three.”
“There’s no doubt about his identity?”
“No way. The dentist’s records were well kept.”
“OK. Thanks doc, when can I have it in writing?”
“Is it urgent?”
“Not really. I’m not going to waste much time tracking down the killers. If they want to kill themselves off so much the better.”
The body of John Roselli, one of the three Mafia men at the first CIA-Mafia meeting in the Fontainebleau at Miami, had been fished up in a partially submerged oildrum in Miami’s Dumbfounding Bay. Apart from the stab wounds and the garrotting, his legs had been sawn off at the thighs and stuffed into the oildrum with his body and several yards of heavy metal chain.
He had left his house in Florida to play golf and his empty car was found at Miami airport.
The word had gone back to the mob, despite tight security, that Roselli, after years of harassment by government agencies, was beginning to succumb to the relentless pressures. He could be nearing the point where he might consider cooperating with the authorities in exchange for a quiet life. The CIA and the Mafia both believed that silence was golden.
Symons shone the light down the girl’s throat and cursed quietly to himself. She was right. She had got an abscess in her throat. It was larger and the infection was greater than the time way back when he had first treated her.
He snapped off the light and sat back. “How long have you had it?”
“A week, but the real pain only started yesterday.”
“OK. I’m going to give you some capsules. Take one every four hours today and tomorrow, and I’ll come and see you the next day.”
He doled out the capsules from his medical case and she looked at them as she held them in the palm of her hand. Then she looked up at his face.
“I won’t be able to sing by Saturday, will I?”
“You won’t be singing for at least another month. This is worse than that first one you had and it’s in almost the same place.”
She smiled. “You sound very stern and cross.”
He smiled. “I am stern but I’m not cross. I couldn’t be cross with you.”
“D’you want to go to bed with me?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“I don’t know. Most men want to do it to me. You’ve never even asked if you could. You’re the only man I’ve ever met who cares about me without wanting to have me.” She shrugged. “When you want to you’ve only got to say.”
“You’re very beautiful, Debbie.” He smiled. “Just have one guy who doesn’t want bed as his reward.” He stood up. “Now take those capsules. One every four hours. No messing about or I will be cross.”
It took seven weeks for the abscess in Debbie Shaw’s throat to heal. And in the process she lost the little-girl voice and ended with a deep husky voice that would have made her fortune as a singer except that the narrow range of her new voice made singing out of the question. During the seven weeks she saw the doctor every day, and that was her only consolation.
When it was finally obvious that her career as a singer was over the doctor helped her make a claim for compensation from the US Army. The claim was dismissed on the grounds that there was no evidence that her original disability was caused by neglect on the part of the armed forces nor through her entertaining service personnel. After further pressure organized by the doctor it was eventually settled by paying her the full balance of her contract. A sum of 9,700 US dollars. Plus an ex-gratia payment of 11,000 dollars, no medical charges and free transport back to England.
8
The two of them walked together the two blocks from the Library of Congress, and Grabowski was waiting for them in one of the wooden booths at Sherrill’s Bakery and Restaurant. There was a heavy yeasty smell of baking in the air that put an edge on their appetites even at eight o’clock in the morning.
Symons ordered egg on steak and Petersen and Grabowski settled for fried oysters. It wasn’t until they were sipping their coffees that Grabowski said his piece. He was very much their senior in both rank and age, and his heavily-built body in the blue cotton T-shirt and jeans bespoke a physical toughness and strength that the two younger men would never aspire to. Even
