Joe Gores - Menaced Assassin

“I don’t understand.”

“No answer on his phone, just the machine. Never seen going to or coming from work. Not going home at night. Car in the driveway…” He paused for his secret angry smile again. He’d shake the fucker up good. “Until today.”

“What happened today?” Gounaris was again tense, alert.

“I sat near Stagnaro and Flanagan in the caf at the Hall this morning. Late yesterday, Stagnaro drove Dalton to the airport. He was flying to fucking East Africa-”

“ East Africa? ”

“For two fucking years. To study monkeys or something.”

Yeah, a goddamned bombshell. Gounaris was over there feeding in quarters like a fucking degenerate, and he didn’t say anything for over a minute. A full fucking minute.

Lenington finally said, “So what do you want me to do now, Mr. Gounaris? Try to find out where in East Africa he-”

“No. Don’t do anything else.”

“Nothing? I thought-”

“Don’t think, either.” After a moment, Gounaris said in an abstractedly impatient way, “Go on, get out of here. Go beat up a pimp or something.”

Kosta stayed behind for almost ten minutes, feeding in the rest of his roll of quarters, watching the filmed action through the eyepiece. He was better hung than the guy the girl with the pimples on her butt was blowing.

Any killing he’d have to do himself. Not just because of Martin Prince. Why the fuck hadn’t Lenington told him about Stagnaro ten days ago? He wasn’t sure what the Organized Crime Task Force did, but it had been in on the investigation since the very night of Moll’s death! Lenington was one stupid son of a bitch. Or else he was jerking Kosta’s chain…

Okay, okay, calm down. Africa wasn’t the moon. Send a man in after Dalton? Hell, he probably wouldn’t even be able to find the bastard out there in the jungle. What about lining up one of those game poachers on Channel 9, chop him down, bury him? Nothing was impossible, but the logistics were appalling.

On the other hand, with Dalton somewhere even the Mafia couldn’t reach him, any threat he had posed was also gone for two years. And maybe Moll hadn’t told him a damned thing. Or maybe she had, and her getting wasted had scared him so bad he’d chickened off to Africa. Yellow bastard. Well, Kosta could wait two years. What was that thing he’d heard? Revenge was a dish best eaten cold? Yeah. Dalton had killed Moll, sure as if he’d held the gun to her face himself.

Meanwhile, Kosta would order all surveillance off him and let Uncle Gid pass the news on to Martin Prince. And even if Stagnaro could get subpoenas, with the file Moll had seen gone from their mainframe he wouldn’t find anything.

Moll. He realized he had an erection from thinking of her while watching the action on the tiny screen. He missed her, but it was time to think of his own future. Time to hang on to this power that was his own. Yes! It was good to be thinking independently again, like when he was a kid in Constantinople. He felt powerful, even invincible.

And his new British secretary, Miss Pym, with the horsy upper-class face and manner, already was letting her breast brush his shoulder when she leaned over him from behind to hand him some papers. Time to score again.

Dante hadn’t expected to score so soon, but Danny Banner, the black inspector who liked to say things like, “Don’t be dissin’ my ’do, Lou,” and was half of his task force and was on Gounaris, knew Lenington by sight.

“Gounaris in at ten-eleven a.m.,” said Danny. “Lenington in at ten-fifteen. I didn’t want to go in to see if they ended up together, but Lenington was out at ten twenty-seven, Gounaris at ten thirty-six.”

“Lenington have any legitimate reason to be in one of Vince’s places?” Dante had always avoided Vice and had a remarkably sketchy knowledge of its modus operandi, although he knew or suspected enough about Lenington to turn his stomach.

“Oh sure, check but the action, make a presence-you know. But it could also mean…”

“Yes,” said Dante in crisp comprehension. “And Gounaris had no reason to be there whatsoever. I think you can drop the Gounaris surveillance for now, Danny, but drop a word to I.A. about Lenington at the same time. It won’t do any good, I just want them to make a run on him to keep the bad guys confused.”

If there were any bad guys, of course. He might be looking under the beds in Atlas Entertainment for Mafia bogeymen who weren’t there. As Tim was fond of pointing out, Popgun Ucelli might just have gone fishing.

• • •

Diana Pym had a long face but lovely chestnut hair and very blue eyes and a touch of hauteur that Dante had a hunch Kosta Gounaris would soon take out of her. She served Dante an excellent cup of tea and was quite cosy this morning as they waited for Gounaris to show up. Dante made no attempt at all to pump her about Atlas Entertainment affairs. Tim Flanagan liked gossip, innuendo, coffee shop speculations, but Dante thrived on the half-heard word, the oblique, surprised glance, the shift of the eye, the dryness of the lips, the break in the voice.

It was after 10:00 a.m. when Kosta Gounaris finally arrived. Four thousand dollars on his back, three times that on his wrist. Tall, whipcord, distinguished, a slight glint of silver here and there in otherwise coal-black hair. Thin black mustache. Disturbing eyes because they were full of life, intelligence, and wit instead of being the dead BBs that Dante had come to expect from connected men.

“Good morning, Miss Pym.”

Good, deep, masculine voice, a little of Zachary Scott in his Mask of Dimitrios role, maybe a pinch of Gregory Peck’s bluff, deep-voiced, sly elegance in Roman Holiday. Rosa often sat up watching American Movie Classics while waiting for Dante to get home on late nights, and they usually stayed through to the end of whatever film was on before going to bed.

“There’s a Mr. Stagnaro waiting to see you, sir.”

The head turned, those intensely alive eyes met Dante’s.

“That’s Lieutenant Dante Stagnaro of the Organized Crime Task Force, isn’t it?” said Gounaris. He waggled beckoning fingers over his shoulder as he headed toward his inner office. “I can give you… Miss Pym?”

She swept Dante with suddenly frosty eyes. “Mr. Taylor at ten-thirty.”

“So. Twenty-one minutes.”

Everything designed to put him at a disadvantage. Knowing his name, rank, affiliation; zinging him for not so identifying himself to Miss Pym; giving him a precise twenty-one minutes as if he were a job applicant. Elegant. Impressive. A worthy opponent. Gounaris wouldn’t rattle easily; this first crossing of swords would be rapier work, thrust and parry, no slash and hack of sabers. A feint or two and Dante would be gone.

Twenty-one minutes would be more than enough. He only had one fact that would surprise, maybe shake Gounaris, and he wasn’t yet sure how to play that one to maximum advantage. If at all.

The office was at the top of the building, windows on three sides. Directly behind the antique desk that Gounaris claimed while waving Dante to a chair was a wonderful view of Yerba Buena, Treasure Island, distant Oakland. The day was clear, the air sparkled with sunlight, the cars on the Bay Bridge span clever moving toys in a master artist’s diorama.

“You’ve got an incredible view, Mr. Gounaris.”

“It is wonderful, isn’t it? That’s why I decided to work out of San Francisco rather than L.A. Being Greek, I need my mountains and water. Or at least hills.”

“I’ll get right to the point. The death of Mrs. Dalton.”

“Ah yes. Moll. Tragic.” Gounaris stood, turned to the window as if studying the tragic dimensions of her demise.