The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (80 page)

Elena backed out. She closed the curtain. Behind
her, a tapping on the glass partition. Molly was there,
her expression anxious.

Elena listened as Molly told her the events of the
past fifteen minutes. The two who did this have been
taken. One of Bannerman's people has been hurt. Flesh
wounds and powder burns under his armpit, a knife
wound low in his chest. The injured man is himself a doctor. He insists that his injuries are not immediately life
threatening. It is his own wish that he not compro
mise the rest of them by seeking treatment here at this hospital. Does Elena know of a reliable doctor?

“Yes,” she answered, “but in Zurich. Can he last so
long?”

“He expected Zurich. He says he will make it. He's
now in a warehouse just up the hill. We broke in to give
him shelter. It's a lot to ask, but can you go there with
me now in your car?”

“My cousins will help. Two moments. I'll tell Mr.
Lesko I'm leaving.”

She stepped through the curtain surrounding the bed. “I must go. One of their men needs help.”

“Yeah. Go ahead,” he said hoarsely. He still did not
turn.

She brushed against him, reaching to touch Susan, to
remove a strand of hair from her face.

“Look,” he snapped. “I asked
you. Leave us alone.”

Elena stepped back from the bed. She paused, hug
ging herself as if she did not know what to do with her
hands, benumbed by the unexpected brutality of his
dismissal. There seemed nothing to say to it.

“Good-bye, Lesko.”

She turned
and walked away.

The three cars, by turns, headed north from Davos. Billy drove one BMW. Bannerman rode in the front,
Carla in the rear seat with her feet upon the back of a bound and gagged Lurene Carmody. The corpse of
Harold Carmody rode in the trunk. Bannerman di
rected Billy to his Klosters apartment.

Elena, with Molly, swung by the Davos railroad sta
tion in her Mercedes and signaled her two cousins to
follow in the second BMW. They found Gary Russo where, profoundly humiliated, he'd insisted upon being
left. He was pale, still badly shaken, but not yet in shock.
His right arm and left hand were clamped over com
presses that Molly and Paul had hastily fashioned out of
articles of clothing. Elena's cousins helped him into the
Mercedes which, Elena in the rear seat and her cousin
Josef driving, departed at once for Zurich. The other
cousin, who, with a bow to Molly, introduced himself as
Willem Brugg and offered to see her safely to Klosters in
the BMW. As Willem bowed, his topcoat fell open and
she could see an Uzi slung outside his suit.

Arriving at the garage beneath his building, Banner
man left the car while the others waited. He checked
the garage for any other presence, then took the eleva
tor to his apartment two floors up. He unlocked his door,
then rapped sharply on the elevator's metal wall and sent it back down to the garage level. Billy pulled
Lurene from the car and was about to lift her onto his shoulder when Lurene mumbled urgently to Carla, communicating with her eyes that it would be more
decorous if she walked and that if she hadn't screamed
thus far she was not about to start now. Carla nodded to
Billy to let her stand but to leave the gag in place.

Quickly, they walked her into Paul's apartment and
sat her in the middle of his living room floor. Paul had
drawn the drapes. Carla walked into the bedroom,
where she gathered all pillows and blankets while Biííy
moved all the upholstered furniture as close to Lurene
as possible.

She understood what they were doing. Soundproof
ing. For an interrogation that could last the day and the
night. Now came Carla with the bathroom shower cur
tain which, Lurene cooperating, she spread on the floor
beneath her. Lurene mumbled again, this time shaking
her head irritably. Her eyes, aimed at Carla, said all this
is dumb. Take off the gag.

The buzzer sounded. Molly was let in. With barely a
glance at Lurene, she began making coffee and setting out mugs while reporting on the status of Gary Russo.
Lurene rolled her eyes, then crossed them, all the while
nodding furiously at Carla.

“You mind?” Carla said to Paul.

He shook his head. She bent over Lurene and unfas
tened the gag.

Lurene sat silently for a long moment, breathing
deeply, waiting for the moisture to return to her mouth.

“Don't suppose you have any bourbon around here,”
she said to Carla, finally.

Carla looked at Paul, who gestured toward the three
bottles of wine that had sat on the counter since he
came back from his marketing and found Susan gone.
Carla
chose a Chablis and uncorked it. She poured a
glass and held it to Lurene's lips. Lurene nodded grate
fully.

“How long's it been, Carla?” she asked.

“About ten years.”

“I heard you retired. Settled down somewhere.”

Carla glanced again at Paul but said nothing.

Lurene scanned the other faces. “Old Billy McHugh, I'd know anywhere. And I heard you call the one Harold
stuck Doc. That'd be Doc Russo. Who's the pretty
lady?”

“That's Molly Farrell.'`

“Heard of you, too,” she nodded respectfully, rue
fully. “Professional courtesy's reached a sorry state
when the likes of us start killin' each other off.” Then to
Carla, “Did you have to bust up my face, by the way?
You had me cold once I turned that corner not lookin'.”

“You might have been armed,” Carla shrugged. “I
wasn't.”

That, Lurene thought, was like sayin' Dracula was
unarmed, but the point wasn't worth
arguin.’
Harold
was dead. She'd be with him soon enough. The only
question now was how easy or how hard they were
going to make it. Be grateful old Doc Russo got put out
of action. The way they tell it, he could make a
dead man
talk once he started stickin' and carvin'. The hard part
might be convincing these folks that she and Harold
knew as little as they did.

“Paul,” she said, not looking at him, “are you who I
think you are?”

He didn't answer.

“You're Mama's Boy, aren't you?”

Still nothing.

“Is there a way in the world I can convince you that
Harold and me never once made that connection until I
saw Carla and Billy here?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Sure as heck would,” she raised her eyebrows. “For
one thing we would never have let you see us. For
another, even if we took this job, which I'm not real sure
we would have, we would have charged triple our going
rate and we wouldn't have fooled with drugs. Harold
and me don't like 'em anyhow.”

“Who hired you?”

“I truly want to answer that, Paul. Me and Harold
got an awful careless briefin' so I'm not feelin' real loyal to the son of a bitch who left out all those details. I got a suggestion.”

Paul waited.

“Let me go home after this and I'll let out his air
myself. My word on it.”

“Carla?”

“She'd keep her word. But no.”

“Billy?”

“That's games. Don't play games.”

“Molly?”

“Let's end this, Paul.”

“I agree.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out
the plastic glove containing the suppository. He tossed
it to Carla.

Lurene made a face. She knew what it meant. He
was making her an offer. There sure were worse ways to
die although she was gettin' damned tired of symbol
ism. Still, given the choice, she'd take easy.

“The man I'd have got for you,” she said, “is Oscar
Ortirez. He's a general down in La Paz. I swear they got
more generals than bathtubs.”

“He's connected with Elena?”

“Was. They go ‘way back.”

“And after Susan, you were to kill Lesko and Elena,
in that order?”

“Yep. For half a million.” Would have earned it, too.
If they hadn't had to go back for a second shot at Susan.
And they wouldn't have had to do that if Harold hadn't
jammed the zipper on Susan's pants tryin' to get at her
with that plug of cocaine. Poor Harold. Got a touch of arthritis, and he's just not used to workin' this kind of
climate. Fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be.

“How am I involved?”