Thomas Perry - Sleeping Dogs

Lorenz hesitated, then began. “You have to understand that this is the biggest disaster for our department in the last hundred years.”

Hamp answered, “I understand. We can …” he sensed that he was in danger again. “I can assure you that I haven’t any intention of letting what you tell me go into wide dissemination, and I’m not interested in the details of what went wrong. I’m interested in the murderer.” The tension seemed to go out of the big dog. She kept her eyes on him for another moment, then looked at her master without lifting her head.

“He hot-wired a car from North American Watch and drove it to the front of the house so the occupants would see it and open the door to him. After that we don’t know the exact order of events—no witnesses, no prints—but here’s what I think. He got them to believe there was some danger, and Mantino and Sobell picked up guns from the gun cabinet in the living room. When Sobell headed for the back of the house with a thirty-ought-six, he shot him in the back of the head. Sobell had to be the first, because it’s pretty hard to do that to a man carrying a loaded weapon if he knows you’re coming. Then he shot Mantino five times in the chest and the front of the head before Mantino could get a shot off.”

“What next?”

“He kept his head, created confusion and got out. He behaved like a real soldier.”

Hamp held Martha in the corner of his eye as he spoke. “I’m interested in this man.” Martha cocked an ear, but there was no agitation. It was just like trying to beat a lie detector, he realized, and pushed on. “Is there anything in this to indicate where he came from, or where he’ll go next?”

“Nothing,” said Lorenz. “In the early fall there are about a thousand hotel rooms available, and about forty percent are rented. We’re pretty close to having all of them accounted for. We’re working on the planes and trains and buses. I’d say he drove in, did his job, then drove out without attracting any attention. He’s got nothing to worry about from anybody around here.”

“Who was Sobell?”

“Male Caucasian, six-one, one-eighty-five, good build, broken nose, lots of his prints on the guns in the cabinet. He was licensed as a private detective, but I can’t find any indication he worked at it much. I think he was a bodyguard.” Lorenz and his dog watched Hamp closely.

Hamp leaned forward. “Do you have any idea why Mantino hired a bodyguard instead of a member of his own organization? Was he afraid of something?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. It got him, though, didn’t it?”

Hamp thought about it. If Mantino was afraid of a paid assassin who used to work for the Mafia, it made a lot of sense. The one who gains the most is the one standing closest when the body falls. But he couldn’t allow Lorenz to start asking him questions. Even if he managed to compose answers, the dog would smell his tension and premeditation and turn on him. “What was missing from the house?”

Lorenz gave Hamp a wry look. “Nothing. Kind of odd, isn’t it? The theory is that he didn’t have time, or made more noise than he’d expected to.”

Hamp recognized that Lorenz was better than he looked—not as an investigator, because anybody could see it wasn’t a botched robbery, but as a cop. He had been pondering the murder, stewing about it for two days, and using the time to look, listen and evaluate. He had found the discrepancies between the official story he was paid to help concoct to keep publicity down and what his common sense told him was true. Now he was working on his own theory. If he was working on it alone, then all he could do was get in the way. But if he was good, there was some small chance that it might lead him, not to the predator who had made a brief and relatively harmless stop in this little community, but to Mantino’s associates. This good man could have no more idea than his dog did what it would mean to bring himself to the attention of those people right now. Hamp eyed the dog and determined to discourage him.

“He wasn’t trying to rob him,” said Hamp. “Washington is sure of that much.” Elizabeth was, at least. The dog sensed Hamp’s discomfort and turned its head to face him. In a moment, he knew, it would slowly align its body with its head, aimed toward him. “It was a hit.”

Lorenz nodded. “Okay. So what?”

“So his death doesn’t fit the standard motivation of an ordinary murder. I don’t know why he was killed, and we might not know for years, but it wasn’t a local matter. Do you understand?”

Lorenz reserved judgment. “Tell me.”

“I’m asking you not to go out and pursue any leads on your own. If something comes up, turn it over to the FBI.” Hamp was tempted to try to frighten him, but he could tell this was not a man who allowed himself to be frightened; to threaten him would just ensure that he would never drop the case.

Lorenz sighed in frustration, and the dog looked confused. Was her master angry at this stranger? She decided not to take any chances. Hamp watched as her big, muscular body sidestepped into line with the head, so that she was hunched on the couch, ready to spring at him if her master triggered the impulse. “Fair enough,” said Lorenz.

“Do I have your word?” asked Hamp. The dog smelled the tension and her master’s uncertainty. She hunched lower and her upper lip twitched, as though she could already imagine the taste.

“Yes,” Lorenz said finally.

Hamp smiled. “Good,” he said, and he meant it. He felt the tension begin to go out of him. “I appreciate it.” He stood up and took a step toward the door, then stopped and patted Martha’s shoulder hard. He could feel the muscle and bone under the fur, like a man’s upper arm. A tongue like a wet slice of ham slipped out between the lower teeth, and the thick tail whipped back and forth.

As Hamp walked to the door, Lorenz shook his hand. “Now, that’s something,” he said. “She doesn’t like people much, but she sure likes you.”

* * *

Hamp sat on the bed and looked above him at the big, crude wooden lintel beam over the door that led to the bathroom. There were lots of Spanish touches in La Fonda, little colored designs hand-painted in unlikely places on the white walls, and even the walls themselves, a foot and a half thick on the outside. It was the sort of building that conveyed a sense of security.

Hamp had seen curiosity take some strange forms in his time, and if a man like Peter Mantino was dead, it was conceivable that some of the people who felt close to him were in town. If they were, none of them would be above bugging the room of a Justice Department field man just to see if his leads were any better than theirs. He decided that all he could do was to turn on the television set to mask some of what he was going to say.

When Elizabeth Waring answered, her voice was almost a whisper. “Hello,” said Hamp. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Jack?”

“That’s right. I just finished up with the local police here. They don’t have much to go on, but the best guess is a lone man who probably didn’t have anything in mind except to kill Mantino, The second best guess is what’s going in the papers.”

“What’s that?”

“A robber impersonated a security guard to gain entry, found the victims armed and had to kill them to get out.”

“Do you think it’s the same man?”

“I don’t know that two crimes are enough to establish a reliable pattern.”

She sighed deeply enough so he could hear it. “Jack, yesterday I used up a favor in Personnel to look into who you are. I know you probably don’t expect much from me, but please don’t let that keep you from telling me what you think—not what you know , because nobody really knows anything yet. Because I found out I can expect a lot from you, and I’m going to need it.”