Day of Reckoning (4 page)

A telephone sounded in the background again. There was some confusion. She was off-screen, then back quickly.
'It's a hell of a story, thanks to Sammy Goff. However,
although I'd like to expose it, Blake, life is uncertain, and
the other day poor dying drunken Sammy was the victim
of a hit-and-run driver. Now, was that an accident? I don't
think so. He just knew too much.'
The screen seemed to jump and her voice scrambled for a moment. Things returned to normal. She smiled brightly.
'So there you are, my darling Blake. I'd like to believe the good guys win, but life can be such a bitch. If you're
watching this, that probably means that the bad guys won
this time.' The smile slipped for a moment, then came back,
a little more tentative this time. 'Take care, and remember,
in spite of everything, I've always loved you.'
Helen Abruzzi switched off. Blake sat there, eyes dark.
'I'd appreciate you running that back, Sergeant.'
'It's evidence, sir.'
'Just get the man a copy,' Parker told her.
Blake got up and walked to the window. After a moment,
he turned. 'Okay, Harry, arrange a meeting with the bas
tard.'
'I'll have to check with the District Attorney.'
'Try the Pope if you like, but I want to face Jack Fox.'
'Maybe you should take time, sir,' Abruzzi told him.
Blake took a document from an inside pocket and unfolded
it. 'You've never seen one of these. Sergeant. Harry has. It's
a Presidential warrant. You belong to me, not NYPD, and so does he. Now let's get moving.'
It was the following morning when Parker picked up the
Buick at the Plaza Hotel. The woman in the rear of the
police car was very personable, around forty and smartly
dressed, a briefcase on the floor beside her.
Blake sat in front and Parker said, 'Assistant District
Attorney Madge McGuire.'
She shook hands as they drove away. 'I understand you're FBI, Mr Johnson.'
'Used to be.' He turned to Parker. 'Did you tell her?'
'How could I?'
Blake took out his Presidential warrant and passed it across.
Madge McGuire read it. 'Jesus Christ.'
She handed it back and Blake put it in his pocket. 'So,
what do you think?'
'We're wasting our time. Dammit, Mr Johnson, we all know the reality, but we can't prove it. You'll see – Fox will be all sweetness and light: any way he can help, he
will, but when we finish we'll be no better off than when
we started. His attorney, Carter Whelan, will be there, by
the way. That one is a serpent.'
"Fine by me.'
`Okay. I'm bound by that warrant, but let me do my job,
Mr Johnson.'
-'Be my guest.'
When they got there, Fox was sitting behind a desk,
wearing an excellent navy blue suit, his hair swept back
from his handsome face. The man who sat beside him,
Carter Whelan, was small, balding, and wore a black suit.
'I'm Madge McGuire, Assistant District Attorney, and this
is Captain Harry Parker.'
'Pleased to meet you, Miss McGuire. I'm sure you know my attorney, Carter Whelan. And you are aware, I'm sure,
that I'm an attorney myself. May I ask who this other
gentleman is?'
'Blake Johnson, also an attorney,' Blake told him. 'I believe you knew my wife.'
Whelan said, 'He's no right to be here.'
Fox cut in. 'I've no objection. I was distressed to know
of Katherine Johnson's untimely end. You have my sym
pathy.'
Parker said, 'Evidence would suggest that Mrs Johnson's
death was no accident. Could you assist us in that matter,
Sir?'
Whelan said, 'Jack, you don't need to answer any of this.'
'Why not?' Fox shrugged. 'I've nothing to hide. I knew Katherine Johnson, gave her interviews, and she did an article about me for
Truth
magazine. It's in the latest edition. Quite flattering, actually.'
'Except for the references to the Solazzo family.'
'Just how well did you know her, sir?' Parker asked.
Fox said, 'I knew her well.'
'How well?'
Fox seemed to struggle with himself. 'All right, we had a brief affair. It only lasted a few weeks, and I didn't want to
mention it, because I didn't want to damage her reputation
in any way. For God's sake, the lady is dead.'
It was an impressive performance.
Madge McGuire said, 'Did you ever know her to use
heroin?'
Fox struggled with himself again, got up, went to the
window, turned, face working. 'Yes, once. I caught her at
her apartment. I was shocked, tried to remonstrate. She said
she'd only just started and promised to stop, but ... I guess
she didn't.'
Whelan said, 'She was obviously not very practised with
it and must have accidentally given herself too much, or had
a particularly lethal batch.'
'Still, there are certain anomalies,' Parker told him.
'Which have nothing to do with my client.' Whelan turned
to Madge McGuire. 'Are we finished here?'
'Yes,' Madge said. 'That'll do for now. Thank you for your cooperation.'
She stood up, and Fox said, 'Hasn't Mr Johnson anything
to say?'
Blake stood up, face pale, eyes very dark. 'Not really. It's
all pretty clear,' and he turned and walked out.
In the car, Madge said, 'There's no case, people. It's not even
worth trying to bring one. He just gave the explanation for
the lack of track marks – she'd just started shooting and
didn't know what she was doing.
'
'But if she'd shot up before, wouldn't there be
some
tracks?'
'If it was only a few times, not necessarily. Whelan would
laugh it out of court, Mr Johnson. There's evil here and we
don't know the half of it, but there's nothing we can do,'
Madge told him.
'It gets harder the older I get.' Parker shook his head. 'I've been a cop long enough to know when something stinks, and this surely does.'
Blake lit a cigarette and leaned back. 'But what about
justice?'
'What do you mean?' Madge asked.
'What happens if it isn't done, and the law doesn't work?
Is someone entitled to take the law into his own hands?'
'Well, I know one thing,' Parker told him. 'It wouldn't be
the law they were taking.'
'I suppose not.'
'What will you do, Blake?'
'Go back to Washington. See the President. Arrange a
funeral.' The car pulled in at the Plaza. He shook hands with Parker and turned to Madge. 'Many thanks, Miss McGuire.'
He got out and went up the steps to the hotel. As the
car moved away, Madge said, 'Are you thinking what I am, Harry?'
'If you mean, God help Jack Fox, yes.'
At the office, Fox waited for a computer printout he'd ordered on Blake Johnson. It finally appeared and he was reading through it when there was a knock on the door and Falcone entered.
'Just checking, Signore. Is there anything I can do?'
Fox passed him the printout. Falcone read it. 'Quite a
record.'
'It sure as hell is. War hero, FBI, took a bullet saving the
President. But there's a block there. What's he been doing
lately? I'll have to get my top people to work on it.'
'Is he a threat?'
'Of course he is. He didn't believe me for a moment about
his wife. Aldo, I've stared at the face of the enemy in Iraq, and I know what I saw in Blake Johnson's eyes. There was
no rage in them, only revenge. He'll be coming, and we must be ready.'
Always, Signore.'
Falcone went out, and Fox went to the window as a flurry
of sleet brushed across Manhattan. Strange, he wasn't afraid. He was excited.

4

Fox had an impeccable source when it came to computer-accessing: an ageing lady named Maud Jackson, who was a retired professor in communication sciences at MIT, seventy
years old – and a confirmed gambler. A nice Jewish widow
who lived in Crown Heights, she was always chronically short of money, because she was an easy mark and liked
the game anyway.
Fox met her in a local bar by appointment. She sat there,
sucking on a cigarette and drinking Chablis, while he told
her about Blake Johnson.
'The thing is, there's a block on the guy.'
'Like any roadblock, Jack, it's made to be gone around.' 'Exactly, and who better than you to do it?'
'Flattery will get you everywhere, but if this guy used to
be FBI and there's a block, this is serious stuff.'
She took out another cigarette and he gave her a light,
revolted by the thinning dyed red hair, the cunning old eyes, but she was a genius.
'Okay, Maud, I'll pay you twenty thousand dollars.' 'Twenty-five, Jack, and happy to oblige.'
He nodded. 'Done. There's only one problem. I want it,
like, yesterday.'
'No problem.' She swallowed her Chablis and stood up
and nodded to Falcone. 'Now, if this big ape will take me
home, I'll get on with it.'
Falcone smiled amiably. 'My pleasure, Signora.'
It took her no more than three hours of devious double play to make her breakthrough and there it was: Blake Johnson, ex-FBI, now Director of the Basement for the President, and what a treasure house that turned out to be. The President's
personal hit squad, and such an interesting cross-reference
to London. It seemed that Johnson was very cosy with the
British Prime Minister's personal intelligence outfit, led by
one Brigadier Charles Ferguson, its muscle supplied by an ex-IRA enforcer named Sean Dillon. It was all there, past
exploits, addresses, homes and phones. She telephoned Fox
and asked to be put through.
'Jack, it's Maud.'
'Have you got something?'
'Jack, I don't know what's going on, but what I've got is
pure dynamite, so don't screw with me. Just send Falcone
round with thirty thousand in cash.'
'Our deal was for twenty-five, Maud.'
'Jack, this is better than the midnight movie. Believe me,
it's worth the extra five.'
'All right. I'll have him there in an hour.'
'And, Jack, no rough stuff.'
'Don't be stupid. You're too important.'
An hour and a half later, Falcone returned with the
printout. What Fox didn't know was that Falcone had stopped on the way and had the printout copied.
Fox read the printout – Johnson's background, the London end of things, Ferguson, Dillon, the computer photos – and shook his head.
'My God.'
'Trouble, Signore?'
'No, just rather startling information. The old bitch did
well. Read it.'
Falcone already had, but pretended to again. He nodded
and handed the printout back, face impassive. 'Interesting.'
Fox laughed. 'You could say that. This Dillon.' He shook
his head. 'What a sweetheart. Still, it's always useful to know what you're up against.'
'Of course.'
'Good. You can go. Pick me up at eight for dinner.'
Falcone left, and was at Don Marco's apartment at Trump
Tower half an hour later, where the old man read the copy
of the printout with interest and checked the photos.
'You've done well, Aldo.'
'Thank you, Don Marco.'
'Anything else you find out, tell me at once.'
He held out his hand and Falcone kissed it. As always.'
Brigadier Charles Ferguson's office was on the third floor of
the Ministry of Defence, overlooking Horse Guards Avenue
in London. He sat at his desk, a large, untidy man in a
crumpled suit and Guards tie, working his way through a
mass of papers.
The buzzer rang and he pressed a button. 'Is Dillon here?'
A woman's voice said, 'Yes, sir.'
'Good. Come in.'
The door opened. The woman who entered was perhaps
thirty, wore a fawn trouser suit and horn-rimmed glasses,
and had cropped red hair. She was Detective Superinten
dent Hannah Bernstein of Special Branch and allocated to
Ferguson as his assistant. Many people had underestimated
her because of her looks, and they'd come to regret it. She'd killed four times in the line of duty.
The man behind her, Sean Dillon, was no more than five
feet four or five, with fair hair almost white. He wore an
old leather jacket, dark cords and a white scarf. His eyes held no colour, but his mouth was lifted with a perpetual
smile that said he didn't take life too seriously. Once an
actor, and later the most feared enforcer the IRA had ever
had, he had been working for what had become known as
the Prime Minister's Private Army for several years.
'Anyone heard anything?' Ferguson asked. 'We keep
getting rumours about secret IRA gun caches, but no
specifics. Sean?'
'Not a peep,' Dillon told him.
'So what's next, sir?' Hannah Bernstein asked.
The phone rang on Ferguson's desk. He answered it and
his face showed considerable surprise. 'Yes, sir. Of course ...
well, would you like to talk with him directly? He's right
here ... Just one moment.' He held the phone out. 'Dillon? President Cazalet would like a word.'
Dillon frowned in surprise and took the phone. 'Mr President?'
'This is a bad one, my fine Irish friend, involving Blake Johnson. Just listen . . .'
A few minutes later, Dillon relayed the news to Ferguson
and Hannah Bernstein. He walked to the window, looked
out, and turned.
'The funeral's the day after tomorrow. I'm going, Brigadier.'
Ferguson raised a hand. 'Sean, the three of us have all
been to hell and back with Blake Johnson. We'll all go. We
owe him that.' He turned to Hannah. 'Order the plane.'
Katherine Johnson's funeral at the crematorium two days
later was singularly unimpressive. Taped and fake-sounding religious music played, and a minister who looked as if he'd hired his costume from a TV wardrobe company threw out platitudes.
Ferguson, Dillon and Hannah arrived halfway through
the ceremony, just in time to see the coffin slide through the plastic curtains. The only other people there were the funeral staff and a couple of people from
Truth.
Blake distributed dollars, turned, and found his friends. His face said it all.
Hannah Bernstein embraced him, Ferguson shook hands; only Dillon stood back, very calm. He inclined his head and walked out.
They stood on the step, the rain driving in, and Dillon lit
a cigarette. 'I've heard what the President had to say, now
I want it from you. You've saved my life on a number of occasions and I've saved yours. There are no secrets between us, Blake.'
'No, Sean, no secrets.'
'So let's collect the Brigadier and Hannah and go and sit
in the limousine and we can all hear the worst.'
Blake told them everything, including all that Katherine had relayed to them on the videotape. Afterwards, they all
sat silent for a moment. 'From my point of view, the arms-
dealing with the IRA, the Brendan Murphy business, that's
the worst,' said Ferguson, shaking his head. 'And the Beirut connection, working for Saddam. We've got to do something about that.' He turned to Hannah. 'What are your thoughts, Superintendent?'
'That Fox has problems. He's skimmed money from the Com
mission, he's fiddling from the London casino, the Colosseum.
Beirut and Ireland are desperate attempts to make cash.'
'And those hits with the
Jago
brothers are even more
desperate,' Dillon said.
'Do you know them?' Ferguson asked.
'No, but I'm sure Harry Salter does.'
'Salter?'
Hannah said, 'You know him, sir. A London gangster and
smuggler. Owns a pub at Wapping called the Dark Man.'
'Ah, I remember now,' Ferguson said.
'He's into warehouse developments by the Thames, also running booze and cigarettes from Europe.'
'But no drugs and no prostitution,' Dillon reminded her.
'Yes, an old-fashioned gangster. How very nice. He only shoots his rivals when absolutely necessary.'
Dillon shrugged. 'Well, they shouldn't have become gang
sters then. I'm sure he'll help us with the Jago brothers and
with Fox, though. He has a good team – his nephew, Billy
Salter, Joe Baxter, Sam Hall.'
'Dillon, these people are real villains,' Hannah said.
'Compared to Jack Fox, they're sweetness and light.' And
then Dillon smiled. 'Except that if you push them hard,
they'll be Fox's worst nightmare.'
There was a pause. Ferguson said, 'Yes, well, we'll see.
We'll talk about it more on the way back to London.'
Dillon said, 'Not me, Brigadier. I haven't had a vacation
in two years. I think it's about time I took one.'
Ferguson said, 'Sean, you're not getting into one of your moods, are you?'
'Now, do I look that kind of fella, Brigadier?' He kissed
Hannah on the cheek. 'Off you go. I'll see you in London.
I'll drive back with Blake.'
She frowned. 'Now, look, Sean...'
'Just do it,' he said, turned and walked toward Blake
Johnson's limousine.
Driving back to Manhattan, Dillon dosed the sliding window partition.
'I take it we're going to take Jack Fox to the cleaners.'
'You say we.'
'Don't mess with me, Blake. If you're in, I'm in, for more reasons than we need to state.'
'Nobody should die like she did, Sean. Can you imagine?
A dark, rainy night on the waterfront? Forced into taking
that massive overdose?' He shook his head. 'I'll see Fox in
hell, and don't talk to me about the law and all that kind of
crap. I'm going to take him down in whatever way I have
to, so my advice to you is to stay out of it.'
Dillon pulled open the panel and said to the driver, 'Pull
over for five minutes and pass the umbrella.'
The man did as he was told, and Dillon got out and opened
the huge golfing umbrella as Blake joined him. They stood
by the wall and looked out at the East River. Dillon lit a
cigarette.
'Listen, Blake, you're one of life's good guys, and Jack Fox is one of life's bad guys.'
'And you, Sean, what are you?'
Dillon turned, his eyes blank, face wiped of all emotion.
'Oh, I'm his worst nightmare, Blake. I was engaged in what I saw as war for twenty-five years with the Brits and the IRA.
Fox and his fucking Mafia think they're big stuff. Well, let
me tell you something. They wouldn't last five minutes in Belfast.'
'So what are you saying?'
'We take this animal out, only we do it my way. It's too
easy to shoot him on the street. I want this to be slow and painful. We destroy his miserable little empire bit by bit,
until he has nothing left. And then we destroy him.'
Blake smiled slowly. 'Now, that I would like. Where do
we begin?'
'Well, according to Katherine, there's this place called
Hadley's Depository in Brooklyn where they process cheap liquor.'
'So?'
'So let's take it out.'
'You mean that?'
'Sure. Just the two of us.'
Blake's face was pale with excitement. 'You really mean
this ?'
'It's a start, me old son.'
'Then you're on, by God.'
Hadley's Depository was beside a pier close to Clark Street
on the river in Brooklyn. It was eleven o'clock that night,
black rods of March rain falling, as Dillon and Blake drove
up in an old Ford panel truck and parked at the side of
the road.
They stood by a wall and Dillon lit a cigarette as they
looked the place over. 'This shouldn't be hard,' he said. 'You, me, and no one else. An in-and-out job.'
'There's just one thing, Sean. I don't want any victims
here.'
'No problem. If there's a night shift, we leave it. If there's
just security, we'll handle them. There'll be only one victim
here, Blake: Jack Fox and his income from the booze business.'
He laughed and hit Blake on the shoulder. 'Hey, trust me.
It'll work.'
The following day, Blake went through files and accessed city and police records to find out everything he could about
the Hadley Depository. When he saw Dillon for lunch at a
small Italian family restaurant, he was quite strong again, probably because he had an end in view.