Bernhardt's Edge, page 6
part #1 of Alan Bernhardt Series
They always waited upwind, the jungle killers, lying in the tall grass, watching, waiting. For hours, they waited. Protective coloration: the right clothes, the right car—the right time, the right place—and you were home free.
In eight years, he’d played a lot of characters. He’d played a messenger once, and once he’d played a rock musician. That had been a good one, that part. He’d really gotten into it, bought leathers, a two-hundred-dollar cowboy hat, with a snakeskin band. Mostly, though, he played the simplest part of all: an ordinary hoodlum who’d kill for whatever he found in the mark’s pockets. Because if the cops thought it was a mugging that misfired, they forgot about it. But a hit, a professional job, they never forgot, because they could sniff the headlines, the ink. So, whenever he could, he pretended to be a hood, robbing on the street. Meaning that he had to go through their pockets, turn them out, pull off the rings, the gold chains. Sometimes he found something, sometimes he didn’t. Once he’d found nothing. Absolutely nothing. The mark had been rich, too: a union official, with a Coupe de Ville. A fancy car, a fancy house, a fancy wife—but nothing in his pockets. Zero.
And then once, in New York, on a skinny mark who’d looked like a bum, he’d found thirteen thousand dollars, in an envelope, stuck down the front of the mark’s pants. And he got to keep it all, part of the deal.
So it averaged out. Whatever he could take, that was his commission, plus his fee.
Fifty thousand dollars, Nick Ames was worth.
Fifty thousand—his biggest fee ever.
The first time, that bookie who was holding out, he’d done it for five hundred dollars. And he’d almost died. On bad nights, he could still see it: that gun barrel, pointing at him, with the hole so big, so black, filling the whole world. And the click, when the gun misfired. He could still hear the click, the difference between living and dying, a defective firing pin, or a cartridge that wouldn’t fire.
That first time—those first years—protective coloration hadn’t been a problem. He’d operated where he’d spent his whole life, in Detroit, the whole city a slum, all of them killing or getting killed, all of them black, animals feeding on animals, living off garbage, pissing in doorways, breeding like maggots, fucking like dogs, everywhere.
Then he’d gotten the assignment in Kansas City. Venezzio had put him in line for the job, coached him, given him the plan, told him the moves, then given him the money: a thousand up front, another five, when the job was done. Later, he’d discovered that Venezzio had taken half, his fucking commission, he’d said.
In Kansas City, he’d learned about protective coloration, learned how it felt, a black face in a lily-white suburb, sticking out like a snake on a rock.
It had taken him a week, to get the job done—a week until he’d finally figured it out, finally bought some jeans and a workshirt and a floppy hat, and posed as a gardener, while he staked out the mark, memorized the mark’s schedule, like Venezzio had told him.
A snake on a rock—Kansas City, so many years ago—Beverly Hills, only two years ago. They’d been the same, those two. The same problem.
And now Santa Rosa, the smallest town he’d ever worked. He’d arrived five hours ago. He’d slept last night at a hotel near the San Francisco airport. He’d left a call for seven o’clock. He’d had breakfast, rented a car, made the drive to Santa Rosa in exactly an hour and forty minutes.
And so far he hadn’t seen one black face. Mexicans, yes. Lots of Mexicans. But not a single black face. Meaning that, wherever he went, whatever he did, they’d remember him. He’d seen it in the motel manager’s eyes, seen that look, the look you always lived with, the look you never could quite forget.
He’d picked the Holiday Inn, always a good choice, probably with the most rooms in town. He’d washed up, changed into a sweater, took the heavy suitcase, went out the back way, to his car. He’d put the case in the trunk and driven to the Starlight Motel, on the other side of the city. His first drive by, his first trip around the block, had told him a lot—told him that it would be very simple, to keep track of the Toyota.
And very difficult, very goddam difficult, to get to them, get to the mark and the woman, get the job done. Because the motel was in a residential neighborhood: one-story houses built lot line to lot line, white picket fence to white picket fence, with no gaps, no vacant lots between, no alleys, even, that he could use. Meaning that, to get to unit twelve, he’d have to hop a fence, risk barking dogs, risk lights coming on, even husbands in pajamas, with guns.
He glanced in the mirror, checked his watch: 3:15 P.M. In Detroit it was 5:15, less than twenty-four hours since “Carter” had called. No question, jet airplanes had changed the world. The telephone, the jet engine, communication satellites, they were changing everything. And computers, too. In a few more years, everyone would be hooked into a computer: big brother watching them all.
In Sacramento, they had a fingerprint computer that. could make a matchup in minutes, a matchup that would take months, by hand. Meaning that, if he left fingerprints, they could make him before he got back to San Francisco, if they were hooked into the FBI’s computer, in Washington.
The police had the computers—and he had the twenty-five thousand dollars, safe in the suitcase with the guns, and the silencer, and the ice picks, and the ammo—and the two pairs of surgical gloves, to take care of the computer.
Three-thirty, now. Three-thirty on September thirteenth. In four hours it would be dark, or almost dark: seven-thirty, time to go to work.
But in those four hours, they could leave, the woman and the man in unit twelve. They could check out, get in their Toyota, take off.
Possible, but not likely. Checkout time had come and gone. If they hadn’t left by now, checked out, they probably would stay the night. Probably. But not for certain. Meaning that, if he didn’t want to lose them, he had to keep watching the entrance to the motel.
Meaning that, to a dead certainty, he’d be noticed: a black man in a maroon Oldsmobile, hanging around. He could—would—keep moving. He could park a block away, and still see the entrance. Or else he could move forward a block, and see the entrance in the mirror. But that was as far as he could go: a hit man on a string, tied to his own stakeout.
Was “Carter’s” private detective on the scene now? Right now, watching? He should’ve asked more about the detective. It had been a mistake, not to ask more. But in “Carter’s” place, he wouldn’t have answered. Or, if he’d answered, he would have lied.
So, to be safe, he had to figure that someone was watching. A white man, probably. A white detective staying at the motel, probably. Watching.
And some of them, some private detectives, they carried guns.
Everything you get, his mother used to say, you pay for. Meaning that everything was a tradeoff. It was another law of nature, another jungle law. Or, more like it, the same jungle law, the only jungle law: pay or get paid, kill or get killed.
His mother had paid. God, how she’d paid. The polite name was B-girl. But the bedroom walls had been thin, and the men had been loud.
He’d been seventeen, when he moved out. He’d been working up on Twelfth Street, spotting for Clarence Brown. Right from the start, Clarence had liked him, let him ride with him sometimes, making the rounds, keeping the pushers on the ball, off the shit. “You’re a smart kid,” Clarence told him. “You watch. You remember. You got a future.” And when the wars started, for territory, Clarence had given him a gun, a Colt .45 automatic, army issue. He’d been in the car behind Clarence when the Beachum brothers had come up beside them, a van and two cars, with machine guns, fucking Mark 16s, the papers said. Clarence’s car had skidded to a stop against some parked cars and Clarence had rolled out, rolled behind some trash cans, told him to get out, too. He’d been riding beside the driver, with the .45 stuck in his belt. He could still remember the weight of it, the feel of it, pressed against his young belly. Nothing had ever felt so solid, so important.
He’d rolled out of the car, like Clarence did, dodged low, got behind the trunk of Clarence’s car, started shooting. He’d seen Alvin Beachum, right over his sights, lined up. He’d pulled the trigger, kept pulling it, felt the gun buck in his hands, saw Beachum fall.
They’d left him in the street, Beachum’s soldiers. They’d left him, and they’d left Alex Saugis, too, dead, both of them dead.
That night, Clarence had called him in, given him two thousand dollars, told him how good he’d done, told him that he was in now. Only seventeen, and in. “You’re a killer,” Clarence had said, smiling at him, saying it so they could all hear, some of them who’d rolled under the cars, not shooting, just protecting themselves. “You’re a natural killer, swear to God.”
Two thousand dollars…
He’d never have money like that again, money that meant so much, made so much difference. Never before, never again.
Almost four o’clock—almost an hour, parked in one place. Already, a police car had passed, cruising: a new-looking car, neat-looking cops, looking him over. On their next round, maybe, they’d stop, get out of their car, ask questions.
2
BERNHARDT ANSWERED THE TELEPHONE on the second ring.
“How’s it going?” Dancer asked. “Any change?”
“No change. Why?”
“I’ve just heard from the client. You can come in. Have you had dinner?”
“No.”
“Well, have a good dinner, on the expense account. Then come in.”
“Maybe I’ll stay here tonight, come in tomorrow. There’s something I want to see on TV. And the room’s paid for until noon tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself,” Dancer answered. “Got to go. Shall I wait for your expenses before I authorize the check? Or would you rather have your time now, and your expenses later?”
Bernhardt smiled. To Dancer, he would always be a charity case. So, to make a statement, he answered, “Why don’t you wait, write one check? Make it simple.”
“Fine. Got to go, another call.” Abruptly the line went dead. As Bernhardt cradled the phone, he looked out across the courtyard of the Starlight Motel. Dusk was falling: a soft, warm September evening. The Toyota was parked in front of unit twelve, where it had remained since noon, when Betty Giles and Nick Ames had driven to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch. Bernhardt had parked around the corner, walked to the restaurant, and sat at the counter, covertly watching them while he ate a taco and drank dark Mexican beer. Added to the few times he’d seen them together during the past twenty-four hours, and remembering Tuesday’s conversation with Nora Farley, the half hour’s surveillance in the restaurant had solidified Bernhardt’s estimation of Betty Giles. Certainly, she was intelligent. The economy of her gestures, the quickness of her glance, everything about her suggested a high level of intelligence, of awareness. But her gestures and her glances had also revealed a certain tentative uncertainty, a failure of essential self-esteem. Somehow, somewhere, Betty Giles had been damaged. She’d lost her way, perhaps permanently, become one of those women who didn’t think she deserved better than second best. Because, certainly, she and Nick Ames were a mis-match. Her mannerisms were reflective; his were abrupt, often truculent. She dressed with conservative good taste; he dressed to imitate the macho male. She was quietly polite; he sometimes sulked, sometimes blustered.
But, with all those obvious dissimilarities on one side of the equation, there remained on the other side the sexual component, nature’s wild card. And whether or not he would have picked up on it without Nora Farley’s cues, it nevertheless seemed clear to Bernhardt that Nick Ames was a bad habit that Betty Giles couldn’t break. So she—
Across the courtyard, the door to number twelve was swinging open. Wearing a gray sweater and navy blue slacks that clung to the contours of her hips and buttocks, Betty Giles walked to the passenger door of the Toyota—and waited while Ames got in behind the wheel, finally reached across to unlock her door from the inside.
Tempted to get into his car and follow them to dinner out of simple curiosity, Bernhardt decided instead to walk to the entrance of the motel’s driveway. He watched them as they turned north, toward downtown Santa Rosa. Seeing the Toyota slow for a stop sign at the first corner, he was about to turn back to the motel when he saw a maroon Oldsmobile approaching from the south. Years of surveillance suggested that the Olds was following the Toyota: Dancer’s anonymous client, taking over the surveillance—or the pursuit. Instinctively, Bernhardt stepped into the deepening shadow of a huge Monterey pine that grew close beside the motel entrance. To his left, the Toyota was still stopped, for cross traffic. Meaning that, yes, the maroon Olds was slowing to a crawl as it passed the motel entrance. Even in the gathering twilight, still standing in the shadow of the pine tree, Bernhardt had a clear view of the driver: a young black man, remarkably good-looking, his profile classically Negroid, his manner suggesting a certain pride of bearing, even arrogance.
Thoughtfully, Bernhardt watched as the driver of the Oldsmobile allowed another car to turn behind the Toyota before he proceeded across the intersection.
If Bernhardt had been conducting a single-handed moving surveillance, considering the hour of the day and the frequency of the traffic, he would have done exactly what the black man was doing.
3
“I CAN TALK TO him,” she said. “I know I can talk to him. We can talk to him. I’ll talk to him first. Then you can talk to him, tell him you’re sorry you did it. That’s all it’ll take, Nick. I swear to God, that’s all it’ll take.”
“Jesus, Betty—” Ames sharply shook his head. “He tried to kill me.”
“You say he tried to kill you. But you’re not sure. There’s no proof.”
“That’s not how you were talking when we left Los Angeles.”
“We could’ve been wrong, though. Both of us, we could’ve been wrong. We’ve been assuming that he was behind it. But we don’t—”
“A week after I called him,” he said, “someone tried to kill me. Use your head, for Christ’s sake. I can’t afford to think anything else, except that he was behind it. And if you think about it, quit trying to make excuses for him, you’ll see I’m right. It had to be him.”
“But even if it was him, I still say we can—”
“Do you think he’s going to forgive and forget, just because I say I’m sorry? Is that what you think?”
“Have you got a better idea?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve been thinking about it. All day, I’ve been thinking about it. And we’ve got two choices. Either we come back at him, fight him, or else we run—go where he’ll never find us, start all over again.”
“You’d pump gas and I’d find a job in a dime store. Is that it?” She spoke bitterly. “I did that when I was in high school, worked in a dime store. I didn’t like it.”
“Listen, Betty—” His voice lowered, his face darkened. With a thud, his boots came down from the edge of the coffee table.
“Christ, Nick, you didn’t even tell me, before you did it. And now you want me to change my whole life. Everything I ever worked for, you want me to give up. You didn’t even consult me. You just—”
“You didn’t have to come with me, you know. I didn’t make you come.”
“Oh, Jesus—” She shook her head, slid off the bed, went to stand close beside his chair. “Look around you, Nick. We’re in a second-rate motel room. We’re scared, and we’re snapping at each other. And it’s going to get worse, not better. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see how it’ll be?”
“I see how it could be if we had a million dollars in the bank, that’s what I see. He thinks he can handle me. But if the two of us did it—called him, told him what we’d do, that’d make all the difference. He’d have to give in, if he knew you were with me.”
“But it’s a crime, Nick. We’d be committing a crime.”
“Like robbing from someone who robbed a bank, that’s what it is. The man’s a crook, for God’s sake. A goddam criminal.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Christ—” He got to his feet, facing her. His jaw was tight, his eyes were snapping furiously. Behind him, with the sound turned down, the TV offered a car chase through slum-blighted city streets. “Christ, that’s all we need now. Sweet little sayings. Words to live by, for God’s sake.” Rigid at his sides, his arms were muscle-bunched, his fists clenched.
Would he hit her?
This time, would he hit her?
“So now what, Nick?” Standing squarely before him, she spoke softly, quietly contemptuous. Her dark eyes were steady, challenging him. “Are you going to slam out again?” She pointed to the revolver lying on the bureau, a blue-steel obscenity. “Are you going to take your gun and go out and find a bar, and start drinking?”
She saw his mouth thin, saw his body tighten, felt the full force of his furious frustration. But then she saw uncertainty tug at his mouth, saw his eyes falter. She could sense his body slackening as fear diluted his fury, robbed him of the hostility he took for assurance.
“Oh, Jesus—” Raising his unclenched hands, he took a single step forward. “Jesus, why don’t we—let’s both of us go out, have some drinks. What’d you say?”
Smiling now, responding to the small boy’s fear that she sensed he was revealing to her, she shook her head. “You go. Have a couple of drinks. When you come back, we’ll talk.” She reached out, touched his chest with her fingertips. Because, when she touched him, she felt better. So far, anyhow, she’d always felt better.
Sheepishly, friends again, he shook his head, then nodded—then smiled. “Okay—” He touched her arm in return. “Okay. Bring you anything?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
4
HE’D ALREADY SLIPPED THE ice pick into its leather scabbard, already thrust the .357 into the holster at his belt, already put the surgical gloves in the side pocket of his jacket when he saw it: the Toyota, coming through the motel entrance, signaling for a left turn. He closed the lid of the saddle-leather suitcase on the Woodsman and the UZI. As he started the Oldsmobile, switched on the headlights and pulled out into the street, an oncoming car’s headlights revealed a single head inside the Toyota—a man’s head, unmistakably.
