Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“You need the file to open the package,” he said, “but the fucking file is in the package.”

He got the file free and delicately applied it to the exposed lead of the pencil. A small dust of lead particles began to accumulate in the cup’s concave bottom.

“I hope you’re not in a rush,” he said. “This may take some time.”

“I’m Available Jones today,” Bob said.

In five minutes or so, he’d accumulated a little heap of powdered lead in the cup surface.

“Okay, here’s where it gets dicey,” he said.

He ripped open the ream of paper, took out a sheet, and laid it on the desk.

Next, he opened the bag of gloves and, like a surgeon, pulled one onto each hand.

“Don’t tell me to bend over,” said Bob.

“Ha!” Nick laughed. He opened the briefcase, reached in, and removed one of the ancient handgun memo’s pages, holding it by the corners only and as gently as possible.

Holding it up to the light, he located the blot of ink where, eighty-three years ago, some administrator had applied waterproof ink to the capitalized letters signifying authorship, the imprimatur of office standard practices. He held it up to the light.

“Can’t see a thing,” he said. “I’d hoped the initials of the author would stand out.”

“They knew what they were doing,” said Bob.

“But the one thing they didn’t count on was the speed, power, and accuracy of Elaine P. Donovan, the best typist in Western Civilization. She typed so hard, and the paper was so thin, her keystrokes carried through to the other side of the paper. This was especially true of letter arrangements her fingers were familiar with.”

He laid the memo facedown, next to the white sheet. The paper was so thin and crackly, the offending blot showed through it.

“Okay, Dr. Watson, watch this.”

Taking the cup to the memo, tilting it a bit, he used his pocketknife blade to skim off some lead particulate onto the obverse side of the blot. Then, with the blade, he tidied the pile so that it was evenly applied over the blot.

“Here we go,” he said.

Taking the memo up again, he neatly flipped it and laid it across the white, pristine sheet of paper. Then with his knife blade’s dull edge he gently rubbed back and forth, applying enough pressure for his task, but not so much as to shred or damage the paper.

“See, they blotted out the top side. They didn’t realize her powerful typing inscribed the letters through the paper. So now I’ve coated it with a light dusting of lead and pressed it against a sheet of paper. It’s like Gutenberg’s Bible; the raised surface of the letters should leave an impression.”

And they did:

CFS/epd

Author: Charles F. Swagger / typist: Elaine P. Donovan.

“Welcome back to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent Swagger,” said Nick.

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Late August 1934

Helen and J.P. were stunned by the weight of Les’s grief. The news floored him, and he — uncharacteristically, without a tie, shoeless, sockless — just sat, face slack, eyes empty, locked in depression. He stared at nothing, and out of respect for his agony, they treated him like an infant, tiptoeing around him, speaking in whispers and mutters.

“Honey, you haven’t eaten all day. Do you want me to fix you a sandwich and a Coca-Cola?”

He didn’t respond. He just sat on the sofa with the newspaper in front of him.

GANGSTER VAN METER SLAIN, it said in a bold, eight-column headline, and underneath, in smaller type, COPS MACHINE-GUN DILLINGER PAL ON STREET.

There was a gaudy picture of Homer on the slab in the morgue, his head held alert by some sort of armature so that the wide-open eyes, the gauntness of his frame, the abrasions where he’d gone to earth, stood out starkly. He’d had better days. It was a grisly specimen of how unremarkable newspapers and citizens held death in the midst of both a crime and a heat wave, and a dead mobster on a slab, all his holes displayed against the alabaster of his skin in black-and-white photography, sold a lot of papers, as the national indoor sport had become keeping track while the law shot down the surviving Dillinger boys.

“It don’t look like the Division had a hand in this one,” said J.P. later in the afternoon to his silent best friend. “It sounds like the St. Paul boys decided they didn’t want him hanging around town, they didn’t want him bringing in the Division and having them looking too closely at things, so they just decided to deal with the situation themselves. I mean, they had to know he was there; they could have done this kind of thing anytime, they just happened to decide to do it yesterday.”

Les didn’t answer. He didn’t make eye contact. He sat still in his coma, oblivious. Finally, lethargically, he called into the bedroom, “Honey, can you bring me a Coca-Cola, please?” Then he turned to J.P.

“You got it exactly. Why now? Why all of a sudden? Where does it come from, this sudden need to kill Homer? Something’s not right here.”

“Les, the guy’s the object of a manhunt. He ain’t as smart as you. He goes back to St. Paul where everybody knows him, he’s easy to find.”

“He thinks he’s safe there. And he is safe, until something changes. What changed? That’s what I’m asking.”

“I don’t know,” said J.P.

“The deal is, they leave us alone if we don’t do jobs in St. Paul. That’s why St. Paul is safe. And far as I know, he was too daffy to work after he took that pill to the head. Remember, the night before they got Johnny he was supposed to go to that meet with us in Glenview and the guy never showed. That shows he was cuckoo in the clock tower. Not clear, not whole, not thinking.”

J.P. knew it wasn’t time to remind Les that he, Les, had been enraged with Homer for letting him down and that previously he’d even told a number of people he meant to kill Homer for his idiocy in not putting together the South Bend job well, for his endless spew of bad jokes, and for hanging around with that Mickey Conforti, who had entertained legions of admirers in her time, a liaison that Les felt profaned his own, richer love for Helen.

“Poor guy,” said Les, taking a Coca-Cola on ice from Helen, then suddenly going all dramatic on them. It just poured out of him.

“I did four jobs with Homer. He was a professional. He was a guy who knew what he was doing. But what I remember best is that long run down the street to the car in South Bend. Cops everywhere, all of them shooting at Les, plus Les’s got twenty-five pounds of bulletproof jacket on, twelve pounds of machino, and four or five twenty-round mags of .45s, plus one used-up drum, so Les’s not exactly Red Grange. He’s a slow boat to China, and all the cops have to do is take one second to aim and Les’s head is splattered all over Indiana. Meanwhile, Les’s pals are ducking into the car and they’re happy as hell to have the cops shooting at Les and not them. But who saves Les? It’s Homer. Homer doesn’t run for the car. Homer stands there, a man’s man, a soldier’s soldier, a hero’s hero, straight out in the open, and very carefully lays down .351s everywhere he sees a cop settling in for the finisher on Les. That’s Homer: he doesn’t give a damn about himself, he just gives everything up for a buddy, for a guy he don’t even like, for a guy that’s teased him about his girlfriend, for a guy that never laughs at his jokes and wants to wring his neck more often than not. Homer just stands there and saves all of Les’s bacon, and when Les, with more crap on him than a doughboy going over the top, makes it back to the car, he’s unhit and good for more action, only then — then and only then — does Homer himself head to the car to get the hell out of town.