Текст книги "The Driver"

Автор книги: Mark Dawson

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

28

“I know you’ve got a temper,” Beau said to him as he reversed parked his Jeep into a space next to the bowling alley, “but you’ll want to keep it under wraps today, alright? Apart from the fact that I vouched for you, which means it’ll be me who gets his ass kicked if you start getting rambunctious, these aren’t the kind of dudes you want to be annoying if you catch my drift.” He paused. “You do catch my drift, John, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, Beau,” Milton said. “I’m not an idiot.”

“One other thing: let me do the talking to start with. Introduce you and such like. Then you can take the conversation whichever way you want. If you get off on the wrong foot with them you’ll get nowhere – you might as well just pound sand up your ass. This has to be done right.”

The car park was half full, mostly with cheap cars with a few dings and dents in the bodywork, nothing too showy, the kind of first cars that kids new to the business of driving would buy with the money they had managed to scrape together. Beau had parked next to the most expensive car in the lot. It was a Mercedes sedan, darkened windows and gleaming paintwork. There was a driver behind the wheel. Milton could only just make him out through the smoked glass but there he was; it looked like he was wearing a uniform, the cap of which he had taken off and rested against the dash. He had reclined the seat and he was leaning back, taking a nap.

Milton followed Beau inside.

He looked around. It was a scruffy dive, dirty around the edges and showing its age, staffed by kids in mismatched uniforms trying to make beer money. There were two exits. One was the door they had just come through, the other was at the end of a long dark restroom corridor all the way in back. An air conditioner over the door was on its last legs, running so hard that it was trembling and rattling, but it wasn't making much difference to the humidity in the air. Seven bowling lanes had been fitted into what might once have been a large warehouse. It was a generous space, the roof sloping down towards the end of the lanes with dusty skylights at the other end. There was a bar at the back with ESPN playing on muted TVs, then some upholstered benches, then a cluster of freestanding tables, and then the lanes. There were computerised scoring machines suspended from the roof. All sorts of bottled beers behind the bar. The place was loud: music from a glowing jukebox was pumped through large speakers but that was drowned out by the sound of balls dropped onto wood, falling into the gully, smashing into the pins. The machinery rattled as it replaced the pins and the balls rumbled as they rolled back to the players.

“What is this place?”

“What’s it look like?”

“Looks like a bowling alley.”

“There you go.”

“The family owns it?”

“Sure they do. They own lots of things: pizza parlours, nail bars, couple of hotels.”

“All useful if you’ve got money you need to wash.”

“Yours words, John,” he said with a big smile that said it was all the way true.

Milton checked the clientele: counting people, scanning faces, watching body language. Kids, mostly, but there were a few others that caught his eye. At a table in a darkened corner away from the bar were two guys talking earnestly, their hands disappearing beneath the table, touching, then coming back up again. A dealer and his buyer. There were two guys further back in the room, sat around a table with a couple of bottles of beer. Big guys, gorillas in sharp suits. The first was a tall, wide man with collar-length hair and a black T-shirt under a black suit. The second was a little smaller, with a face that twitched as he watched the action on the nearest lane. They were a pair. Milton pegged them as bodyguards. Operators. Made men, most likely. He’d seen plenty of guys like that all around the world. They’d be decent, dangerous up to a point, but easy enough to take care of if you knew how to do it. There would be a point beyond which they were not willing to go. Milton had their advantage when it came to that; he didn’t have a cut-off. The men were sitting apart from each other but their twin gazes were now trained on the table in a private VIP area that was raised up on a small platform accessed by a flight of three steps and fenced off from the rest of the room.

A further pair of men were sitting there.

“Is that them?”

Beau nodded. “Remember – I’ll do the introductions and, for God’s sake, show them a little respect. You’re not on home territory here and I don’t care how tough you think you are, they won’t give two shits about that. Wait here. I’ll go and speak to them.”

Milton sat down at the bar. One of the televisions was tuned to CNN. They had a reporter out at Headland Lookout, ghostly in the thick shroud of fog that alternated between absorbing and reflecting the lights for the camera. The man was explaining how the police had charted out a search area, breaking it down into eight four-foot sections of maps they kept in a mobile command centre. The item cut to footage of the search. The narrow road he had driven down four days ago was marked with bright orange arrows, pointing south to the two spots where remains had been found. Fluorescent orange flags were planted in the scrub and sand on each of the sites. Officers were weeding through the bramble, fanning outward from the flags.

Beau came back across. “Alright,” he said. “They’ll see you. Remember: play nice.”

“I always do.”

Milton approached. One was older, wrinkled around the eyes and nose. He had a full head of hair, pure black, the colour obviously out of a packet. There was a beauty spot on his right cheek and his right eyelid seemed to be a little lazy, hooding the eye more than the other. He was wearing a shirt with a couple of buttons undone, no tie, a jacket slung over the back of the chair. The second man was younger. He had a pronounced nose with flared nostrils, heavy eyebrows and beady eyes that never stayed still.

Beau sat down on one of the two empty seats.

Milton sat down, too.

“This is Mr. Smith,” Beau said.

“How are you doing?” the older man said, nodding solemnly at him. “My name is Tommy Luciano.”

He extended his hand across the table. Milton took it. His skin was soft, almost feminine, and his grip was loose. He could have crushed it.

“And my friend here is Carlo Lucchese.”

Lucchese did not show the same hospitality. He glowered at him across the table and Milton recognised him; he was the one who had been on the intercom to him, one of the four who had come to kill him.

He didn’t let that phase him. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Beau said it was important. That wouldn’t normally have been enough to interrupt my afternoon but he told us that you were very helpful with a small problem we had in Juárez.”

“That’s good of him to say.”

“And so that’s why we’re sitting here. Normally, with what you’ve done, you’d be dead.”

Lucchese looked on venomously.

“Perhaps,” Milton said.

“You had an argument with one of my men.”

“I’m afraid I did.”

“Want to tell me why?”

“I have some questions that I need to have answered. I asked him, and they seemed to make him uncomfortable. He threatened me with a gun. Not very civil. I wasn’t prepared to stand for that.”

“Self-defense on your part, then?”

“If you like.”

Beau put a hand down on the table and intervened: “John’s sorry, though – right, John?”

Milton didn’t respond. He just kept his eye on the older man.

“He don’t look sorry,” Lucchese said.

“Carlo…”

“This douche broke Salvatore’s face. Three ribs. Messed up his knee real good. And we’re talking to him? I don’t know, Tommy, I don’t, but what the goddamn fuck?”

“Take it easy,” the old man said, and Milton knew from the way that he said it that he was about to be judged. The next five minutes would determine what came after: he was either going to get the information he wanted or he was going to get shot. “These questions – you wanna tell me what are they?”

He didn’t take his eyes away from the older man. “There was a party in Pine Shore three months ago. September. I drove a girl up there.”

“You drove her?”

“I’m a taxi driver.”

Luciano laughed. “This gets better and better.”

Milton held his eye. “Something happened at the party and she freaked out. She ran and she’s never been seen since.”

“Pine Shore?”

“That’s right. Near where the two dead girls turned up.”

“I know it. And you think this girl is dead?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“And what’s any of it got to do with us?”

“Fallen Angelz. She was on the books.”

He looked at him with an amused turn to his mouth. “Fallen Angelz? That supposed to mean anything to me?”

Milton didn’t take his eyes away. “You really want to waste my time like that?”

Beau stiffened to Milton’s right but he said nothing. The younger man flexed a little. Milton stared hard at Luciano, unblinkingly hard. The old man held his glare steadily, unfazed, and then smiled. “You have a set of balls on you, my friend.”

“Aw, come on, Tommy – you can’t be serious. You said—”

“Go and do something else, Carlo. I don’t need you around for this.”

“Tommy—”

“It wasn’t a suggestion. Go on – fuck off.”

Lucchese left the table but he didn’t go far. He stopped at the bar and ordered a beer.

Milton didn’t relax, not even a little. He was very aware of the two bodyguards at the table across the room.

“Alright,” Luciano said. “So suppose I said I do know about this business. What do you want?”

“A name – who booked the girls that night.”

“Come on, Mr. Smith, you know I can’t give you that. That business only works if it’s anonymous. We got some serious players on the books. Well known people who would shit bricks if they knew I was letting people know they took advantage of the services we offer. They need to trust our discretion. I start spilling their names, there are plenty of other places who’ll take their money.”

“You need to think bigger than that, Mr. Luciano. Telling me who booked her that night is the best chance you’ve got of keeping the business.”

“That so? How you figure that?”

“One of your drivers told me that the girl was sent by the agency. You could say he’s had a crisis of conscience about it. He knows he ought to be telling the police. So far, that hasn’t been strong enough to trump the fact that he’s terrified that talking is going to bring him into the frame. That’s his worst case scenario.”

“No, Mr. Smith. His worst case scenario is that I find out who he is.”

“But you won’t find out, not from me.”

“So what’s his worry?”

“If he goes to the cops? That he gets charged with procuring prostitution.”

“So he’s not saying anything.”

“Not yet. But you know the way that guilt is. It has a way of eating at you. I’m betting that he’s feeling worse and worse about what happened every single day, and the longer the police dig away without getting anywhere, the harder it’s going to be for him to fight off going to them and telling them everything he knows. And if she turns up dead? I reckon he calls them right away. The first thing that’s going to happen after that is that Salvatore gets a visit about the murders. The second thing is that he gets arrested and charged. The police need to be seen to be doing something. They’ll go after the low-hanging fruit, and three dead prostitutes linked – rightly or wrongly – to an illegal agency like Fallen Angelz would be a perfect place to start. And, without wanting to cast aspersions, Salvatore didn’t strike me as the kind of fellow with the character to stand up to the prospect of doing time when there’s a plea bargain on the table. I don’t need to go on, do I?”

“You sure Salvatore flips? Just like that?”

“Are you sure he won’t?”

“You saying you can help me?”

“I’ve got a few days head start on the police. Maybe that’s enough time for me to find out what happened. Maybe my girl isn’t linked to the other two. Maybe something else has happened to her. And, maybe, if I can find some answers, the driver decides he doesn’t have to say anything.”

“And if this girl is dead?”

“Provided it had nothing to do with you, maybe I can find a way that leaves you out. That agency’s got to be valuable to you, right? It’s got to be worth giving me the chance to sort things out. What have you got to lose?”

Luciano looked at him shrewdly. “I could speak to the driver myself. Find out what he knows.”

“You don’t know who he is.”

“You do. You could tell me.”

He smiled thinly, suggestively.

“Forget it,” Milton said, smiling back. “I’m not frightened of you.”

“What did you do before you drove taxis, Mr. Smith?”

“I was a cook,” he said.

“A cook?”

“He was working in a restaurant when I met him,” Beau said.

“You think he’s a cook, Beau?”

“No.”

Luciano sucked his teeth.

Milton clenched his fists beneath the table.

“Alright – let’s say, just for the sake of discussion, that I give you what you want. Why are you so interested? What does it have to do with you?”

“The police have me down as a suspect and it’s not in my interest for my name to come out. The sooner I can clear this up, the better.”

“Publicity is bad for you?”

“Very bad.”

Luciano shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “You’re a very interesting man, Mr. Smith. That’s all I need for now. I’ll speak to Beau. You can wait outside.”

Milton made his way down from the raised area and across the wide room. As he passed the bar he saw Carlo with another man. The newcomer held himself at an odd angle, his left arm clutched to his side as if he was in pain, and he had a huge, florid bruise on his cheek. There were purples and blues and greys in the bruise and the centre was pure black and perfectly rounded, as if it had been caused by a forceful impact with something spherical. The nose was obscured by a splint. Salvatore glared at Milton as he crossed in front of him, his eyes dripping with hate. Milton nodded once, a gesture he knew he probably shouldn’t have made but one that he just couldn’t resist. The injured man lost it, aggrieved at the beating that he had taken, aggrieved at seeing Milton walk out of the bowling alley with impunity, not a scratch on him, and he came in at an awkward charge, moving painfully and with difficulty, his right fist raised. Milton feinted one way and moved another. The Italian stumbled past, Milton tapped his ankles and Salvatore tripped and fell. He grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet again but by then Milton had backed off and turned around and was ready for the second go-around. Salvatore came at him again, his fist raised, lumbering like a wounded elephant. Milton ducked to one side and threw a crisp punch that landed square on his nose, crunching the bones again. Salvatore’s legs went and he ate carpet. He stayed down this time, huffing hard.

Milton raised his hands helplessly and looked over at the VIP area, wondering whether things were going to get heated. Beau looked anxious but neither Tommy Luciano or Carlo Lucchese did anything. Milton turned to look at Luciano, then to Lucchese, then to Salvatore, then he pushed out of the door and went outside to wait for Beau in the cold, bright afternoon sun.

29

Milton had gone to a meeting that evening. It wasn’t his usual and Eva wasn’t there. He had gone out for dinner afterwards with a couple of the guys and by the time he returned to his flat it was midnight. He was reasonably confident that there would be no more issues with the Lucianos – at least for the moment – but he couldn’t completely rule out that Lucchese might ignore his boss and come at him again and so he had driven around the block twice before going inside. He saw nothing to make him anxious, and there was nothing in the blindingly bright lobby to suggest that his visitors had returned or that they intended to. He climbed to the third floor. He knew exactly where the light switch was and it was with a single blur of motion that he opened the door, flicked it on and stood in the threshold with the door open wide, scanning the room with practised eyes. Everything looked as if it was in order. He stepped forward and locked himself inside, bending down to examine one of his own black hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it before going out, placed carefully across the drawer of the coffee table. He had left a faint trace of talcum powder on the handle of the bedroom door and that, too, had not been disturbed. These were, he knew, extravagant measures to confirm his safety but ten years in a business as dangerous as his had hardwired him with caution. Paying heed to that creed, and to his instincts, was the reason he was still alive. The precise application of a routine like this had saved his life on several occasions. The Mafia was a blunt instrument compared to the secret services of the countries that he had infiltrated – a cudgel as to a scalpel – but that was no reason to treat them with any less respect. A cudgel was still deadly.

He propped a chair beneath the door handle, locked the window that faced the fire escape and slept with his fingers wrapped around the butt of the Smith & Wesson 9mm that he kept under the pillow.

HE ROSE EARLY the next morning. There was a lot to do. First, though, he dressed in his running gear, pulled his battered running shoes onto his feet and went downstairs. It was a crisp, bright December day, the sun’s cold rays piercing the mist that rose off the Bay. Milton ran south on Mason Street, turned onto Montgomery Street and ran until he reached The Embarcadero, the piers, the bridge to Oakland and, beyond it, the greenish-blue of the ocean. He ran north, following the road as it curved to the west, listening to the rhythmic cadence of his feet and clearing his mind. This had always been his preferred way to think. It was his meditation before he found the sanctuary of the rooms, a peaceful retreat where he had the time and the luxury to let his thoughts develop at their own speed, without even being conscious of them.

He ran onto Jefferson, turned left inside Aquatic Park and then followed Hyde to Broadway and then, finally, Mason Street and home.

He passed through the lobby and took the stairs at a jog.

There were two men waiting outside the door to his room.

He recognised them both.

“Detective Cotton. Detective Webster.”

“Mr. Smith.”

“How can I help you?”

“We’re going to need to talk to you.”

“Again? Really?”

“A few more questions.”

“I answered them before. Is there anything else?”

“I’m afraid there is. We found another body this morning.”

PART THREE

The Suspect

#3

MILEY VAN DYKEN

Miley Van Dyken had been having second thoughts about how she had chosen to live her life. She’d told friends about them, how she was thinking about getting out. She knew that turning tricks could be a dangerous business but it seemed to her that there had been more stories of psychos preying on working girls recently. There had been all those poor girls down on the beach in New Jersey, for one, and the police still had no idea who was responsible for their deaths. There were plenty of benefits that came from doing what she did – they money, obviously, but the freedom of working to your own schedule was another that other girls often overlooked – but it had been getting to the stage that her doubts and fears were starting to get so bad that she couldn’t ignore them. She had nightmares and premonitions about running into a murderous john and she had suffered with a really bad one the night before. She had recorded it on her Facebook page, telling her friends in vague terms (since not many of them knew what she did) that she was having serial killer dreams that were more and more vivid each time they came around.

The john had hired a room in The Tuscan on North Point Street in North Beach, five minutes from Pier 39. Miley usually preferred to sort the room herself, charging a little extra as expenses so that she still cleared her two hundred per hour, but the guy had apologised that he couldn’t very easily leave the hotel and, when he had sensed her reluctance, had offered to pay a further fifty bucks on top to “make up for her inconvenience.” He sounded nice enough kind, speaking with a lilting southern accent that put her in mind of that guy Kevin Spacey played in the Netflix thing, and even though she had initially turned him down and hung up she stewed on it for fifteen minutes and changed her mind. She didn’t have another job booked, he had been polite on the phone and, most importantly, she needed the money. Craigslist had started charging $5 per advert and that had made it difficult to stay at the top of the list. Miley had used a JavaScript program that kept posting and reposting her ad so it was always on the first page but the new charges meant that that wasn’t an option any more. The cost of advertising was higher and the competition was tougher. She worried about all of that as she rode the bus. The driver smiled at her as she disembarked outside the hotel.

He was the last person to see her alive.

It was a small hotel that catered to travelling business people. It was a two-storey building surrounded by a parking lot. It didn’t appear to be very busy; the lot was almost empty, save for a couple of rentals and a beaten-up Cadillac Eldorado. She went around the car on the way to the lobby when the driver’s side door opened and a man got out. He was tall and skinny, dressed in a white t-shirt, jeans and a pair of cowboy boots. He said her name. She recognised his voice.