Hazard (12 page)

Is this all that I can give you, now, brother?

I have to
answer
for you.

Hazard turned from the grave, walked past the truck and out of the cemetery. Through streets of the town he'd never liked. And when he turned the last corner to home he saw his father. Mowing the front lawn.

They didn't say hello again.

Hazard went into the house and wandered around, restless. A glance into his father's study; the bound regiments of various law books. Nothing much changed. Into the kitchen to get an ice cube to suck on. Something he used to do. Back to the front room for a look out at his father still mowing. His father's face was set and unreadable. But Hazard suspected he was probably thinking he'd lost the better of his two boys.

Hazard had intended to stay a few days. Hadn't said he would, just intended. However, he went upstairs and repacked.

When he came out and down the front steps with his bag, his father was turned from him, mowing away. His father reached the far edge of the lawn, pivoted the mower, and began cutting toward Hazard.

Hazard went to him and wasn't sure his father would stop until he did stop. No need for Hazard to say he was leaving. That was apparent. And his father didn't urge him to stay. Hazard thought about just saying good-bye but overcame that and gave in to an embrace. Arms around tight, a long hold with encouraging slaps on one another's backs.

6

“
WHO
,”
ASKED
Keven, “holds the all-time record for the longest kiss?”

“The what?”

“Longest kiss.”

“I don't know.”

“Would you care to hazard a guess?” She grinned at the old pun.

He didn't.

She imitated the way he usually answered, fast and sure.

“A blue-movie star from San Francisco named Sally Beaver and a Hell's Angel from Fresno known only as Big J, for some famous reason.” She shrugged contritely. Hazard still wasn't amused. “On a beach in Monterey in 1971, August 12th and 13th to be exact, they kept their mouths in continuous contact for thirty-six hours and twenty-one minutes. During that time neither participant ate or drank but somehow both managed to smoke. A lot.” She inhaled, an exaggerated marijuana inhale, and held it so her next words came grunting out from the back of her throat. “Although the kiss, among other things, was performed entirely in a prone position, the couple finished five miles north of their starting point, impeded by a large boulder at high tide. They could have continued but the chrome studs on Big J's leather jacket were painfully incompatible with Sally's recent silicone injections.”

“You and your Irish imagination.”

“It's true,” she said with a straight face, then conceded with a grin, “Anyway, it might be.”

He had to laugh, a little.

That was what she was after. She went to him, tilted his head up and kissed him, short but sweet. “Not the longest but the best,” she declared.

Hazard was grateful for her attempt to lift his spirits. He smiled a good smile for her, gave her behind a playful swat and told her, “Back to work.”

They were at Carl's apartment. One of those furnished short-lease places designed for minimum comfort and maximum indestructability. Every possible surface was burn, scratch and stain proof. Wall to wall was synthetic carpet, a beige that could take city dirt. Framed paintings were screwed permanently to the walls, Paris street scenes ordered done by the dozen.

Keven was there to pack Carl's clothes into cardboard cartons that the Good Will people would come to pick up.

Hazard was sitting on a cocktail table in the living room. He'd emptied every drawer, cabinet, and shelf, literally picked the place clean of every scrap of paper. He'd dumped it all on the sofa and was now going through it, systematically item by item.

He found government pamphlets having to do with United States armament policies. Transcripts of Congressional and Senate committee hearings. Verbatim testimony by generals and high officials of the Defense Department arguing the need for an unsurpassed arsenal. For and against, mostly for, such things as
SAMS
, missile launching subs, and chemical-bacteriological weapons.
As a retailiatory measure
was a phrase that appeared repeatedly. One general, apparently pushed to exasperation by his dove inquisitors, said: “No damned reason why we should get wiped out with our pants down.” The pamphlets were not secret. They were part of the public record and available from the Government Printing Office on request.

Hazard also found reproductions of the entire file Carl had assembled on war atrocities in Vietnam. Photographs, sworn statements, first-hand accounts by witnesses. There were copies of letters Carl had written to the State Department, bringing the atrocities to State's attention, calling for action, expressing indignation when nothing was done. Copies. Where, Hazard wondered, were the originals?

It would have taken an average person two days or longer to read everything Carl left behind. Hazard did it in under four hours, including the fine print of three $50,000 insurance policies. Each stipulated in legalese they wouldn't pay anything for suicide. Not fair, thought Hazard; death was death no matter how. But then he noticed the beneficiary named on all three policies was Catherine. She didn't need it, so forget it. He tossed the policies into the throw-away box.

Carl's attaché case. Hazard saved that for last. It was locked and rather than search around for the key he used a screwdriver to break open its clasps. Inside was Carl's passport, a soiled shirt, the latest issue of
Time,
an ounce bottle of Fragonard perfume gift-wrapped for Catherine, and a blue folder containing some Disarmament Committee memos—routine correspondence.

Nothing. Nothing in all of it.

Keven came from the other room, struggling with a large carton she'd packed. She was trying to pull it along to the entrance hall. Hazard picked it up and carried it there, stacked it on top of another carton near the door.

Keven asked was he hungry.

“No.”

“You must be.”

He hadn't eaten since breakfast and then not much. It was now after six.

“I'm going out,” he told her.

“To eat?”

“No.”

“Without me?”

He nodded and thought she'd protest but she didn't. She smiled. “Wait a minute,” she said. “No more than three, I promise.” She hurried to the kitchen.

Out of mindless habit he went to the phone. He hadn't bet on anything in nearly a week, hadn't settled his last loss. He called his bookie, put another nickel on the Mets, didn't know who they were playing. He almost made it a dime.

Keven returned with two tall glasses containing a thick, unhealthy-looking mixture, bilious colored.

“This will hold you.”

He took large gulps to get it down.

She was glad he didn't ask what it was, that she didn't have to tell him it was brewer's yeast, lecithin, fertilized egg yolks, over-ripe bananas, yogurt, fresh orange juice, a squeeze of lemon, and a dash of sea kelp. She knew his drinking it so fast would probably cause gas but she didn't say anything. At least it was going down and would do him a lot of good.

Hazard didn't complain about the taste or even bother to make a face. He told her, “See you later.”

“Take care,” she said brightly.

But her eyes, Hazard noticed, were intense, and he left with the feeling that she knew what he had in mind.

He drove to the 17th Precinct station house on East 51st Street. He parked right in front as though he were official. He went in and told the cop on desk duty that he wanted to see someone.

The someone he got to see was a detective sergeant named Binzer. Not a shirt-sleeve, loose-tie, hat-on-the-back-of-the-head stereotype by any means. Binzer had on a dark brown suit, wide, geometrical-figured tie, and an embroidered striped shirt. Everything he was wearing looked new, not in keeping with his face, which creased deep and lined especially around the mouth and eyes, old early from fifteen years of dealing with everything from self-cremating protesters at the United Nations to afternoon sidewalk homicide in Times Square.

What could he do for Hazard?

For a moment Hazard was tempted to tell Binzer what he felt about Carl's death—what he suspected and what he had to go on. However, he realized he'd only come off sounding like a dead man's hurt and angry brother. Besides, the police had it wrapped up and most likely would be inclined to keep it that way. So then and there Hazard decided he was on his own. He told Binzer, “I want to know who's the registered owner of a particular car.”

Binzer didn't change noticeably. He was too experienced for that. He merely pushed back from his desk a way. He calmly lighted an extra long without taking his eyes off Hazard. Hazard didn't look like some nut off the street but Binzer knew most nuts don't look like nuts. “Who are you?” he asked.

Instead of saying, Hazard showed him. It was the first time Hazard had ever used his
DIA
identification card. He'd never thought he would.

Binzer examined it and handed it back. “Never met one of you guys before.”

“We're around,” said Hazard, trying to act the part.

“What are you into?” Binzer asked.

“Probably nothing, just a lead.”

“Okay, what's the license number?”

Hazard remembered easily. The episode, brief as it had been and not of particular importance at the time, came back to him now. Not just a vague, general impression but total recall of every detail. The two men who'd come out of the apartment building with Carl. The two others who'd waited in the limousine. Their faces, features. He'd seen the car and the men only for a few moments, which was enough. He told Binzer: “A dark blue seventy-two Cadillac Fleetwood limousine, New York license plate number 973–
DPL
.”

“A
DPL
plate?”

“Yeah.”

Binzer said that meant the car was registered to a foreign embassy or UN mission. They were the only ones who got
DPL
plates.
DPL
for diplomat. “It lets them get away with murder,” Binzer said.

“Really?”

“Sure. The bastards can park anywhere. They can be stoned and doing a hundred up Madison and give us the finger. They've got immunity. Anyway, if you're after a
DPL
, that's easy. What was the number?”

“Nine seven three.”

Binzer didn't have to call the motor-vehicles section to get the information. The United Nations was in the 17th Precinct, so it was convenient to have a list of all
DPL
registrations. In a small bound book that Binzer took from the lower drawer of his desk, he quickly found 973–
DPL
and told Hazard: “Registered to the Consul General of Lebanon, 9 East 76th.”

“Thanks.”

“Nothing.”

“Do me one more favor.”

“What?”

“I never asked.”

“You couldn't have,” said Binzer, “you were never here.”

The Lebanese consulate was in a private, four-story building half way down on the north side between Fifth and Madison. A nice, expensive neighborhood. Hazard circled the block a few times looking for the dark blue limo. Lots of limos but not that one. Finally he pulled into a hydrant zone on the corner of 76th. To wait and see. From there he had a good view of the building, could even make out the small national emblem of Lebanon over the entrance way; red-and-white diagonally striped shield with a green fir tree centered.

Hazard stayed in the car. An hour passed. It seemed longer than that to him with nothing to do but just sit there and watch and think about how he was going to handle it if he got the chance.

He had doubts.

Possibly he was way off on an emotional tangent, just grasping in anger. Possibly those four men were coincidental, innocent. No matter, he had to find out. One thing he felt for sure, whether suicide or murder, somehow, directly or as an indirect consequence, Carl had been killed by the fucking government.

At half past seven the dark blue Cadillac limo bearing license plate 973–
DPL
turned into the street. It pulled up in the
DPL
zone in front of the consulate. The driver got out. It wasn't anyone Hazard had seen before. The man entered the building.

Ten minutes later two older men and a woman came out. They were dressed for the evening. At that same moment, as though on cue, a driver came up the exterior steps from the floor below street level. A different driver. It was Saad. Hazard, of course, didn't know that name but he recognized the driver as one of the men he'd seen with Carl, the last time he'd seen Carl alive. Saad hurried to open the limo's rear door for his passengers. Then he got in front behind the wheel and drove away.

Hazard followed. It wasn't easy because what Binzer had said about abusing the privilege of diplomatic immunity was certainly being demonstrated by the way Saad cut in and out of traffic, no regard for lights that had just turned red, leaping getaways. Hazard almost lost the limo twice but managed to keep sight of it all the way to Lincoln Center, where it pulled in to the special-access road and discharged its passengers. They were going to the ballet. But not Saad. He steered the limo out to Columbus Avenue and headed downtown.

Hazard went after him, tried to keep up, but Saad really put his foot to the limo, as though the busy avenue were the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Packard just didn't have enough horses, and those it did have were too old. Hazard felt as though he were on the wrong end of a rubber band as he helplessly watched the limo stretch its lead. Somewhere in the West Thirties Hazard lost it completely. He cursed and took out some of his anger on the Packard's gear shift. He circled around and went uptown, back to Lincoln Center. His stomach was bothering him. It felt bloated and he had sharp gas pains. Tension, he assumed.