Freelance 16

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – NEW YORK

US Immigration barely glanced at Lindsay’s passport at JFK. He looked prosperous, he had sworn the oath, and he held a B2 visa. He explained that he was just stopping over for a couple of hours with Bailey, before flying on to Nassau, and was waved straight through. He had no luggage, for it had gone straight to Nassau, and US Customs took even less interest. He was plainly a most respectable citizen, even though he was an alien.

Bailey collected a large case in heavy green leather and paused as he reached the arrivals area, scanning the waiting crowd. Then he lifted a hand in greeting. ‘There she is. That’s Donna.’ He waved at a chubby dark woman in the waiting crowd, beaming happily. ‘She’s my secretary, she’s come to collect me. I hate arriving places all on my own.’

The woman smiled back at him, and her smiles encompassed Lindsay as well, and he feels a sudden twitch of interest. She was really very elegant for a secretary, with big doelike eyes and dark hair to her shoulders, dressed in a dark green silk shirt matching Bailey’s and a dark business suit. He hung back politely as Bailey enveloped her in a massive bullfrog hug, and realised that she was inspecting him over Bailey’s bulging green shoulder. He smiled, making eyes at her, and was certain that she flashed a response. He made a mental note to try and secure her phone number.

‘I have a limousine waiting, Mr. Bailey.’ Her voice was cool, most secretarial. But there was something in the way she moved as she led them across the airport concourse that suggested she might prove much more tempting out of office hours.

The car was big and black, with darkened windows, a real hearse of a motor, with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. Bailey’s secretary sat in the middle of the back seat, between Lindsay and the bullfrog man, and was all businesslike. But her backside twitched, just a little, next to Lindsay’s resting hand. He stroked gently, experimentally, and she twitched, companionably, and he stroked again. This was rather good. But she was also busy, with a pale green folder in her hand.

‘Mr. Gisiano and Mr. Valucetti have been calling all day, wanting to touch base with you the moment you land.’

Bailey grunted. He was catching up with his mail, flicking through the pale green folder at speed. ‘Okay.’ He paused to read a letter, then flicked on. ‘We can stop off at the office, pick up the King Cay file, fix to meet with them.’

‘We’re seeing them at seven, Mr. Bailey. I told them you were flying in, they said they’d wait for you.’ Bailey’s secretary spoke with the smooth, even professionalism of a woman bred to making appointments. She delved in an attache case to hand him a big beige folder, overflowing with papers. ‘Here’s the file. They sounded rather pressing.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Bailey mumbled at her absentmindedly. Then he looked up quickly and beamed at Lindsay. ‘Richard here is going to square all the problems.’

Lindsay essayed another couple of strokes, and felt flesh shifting under his fingers. He wondered how he could best convert promise into performance. He supposed he would now have to spend a night in New York, if he had to meet and brief Bailey’s friends, and it would be a real shame to sleep all alone.

The limousine purred on for a while, along streets blurred with lights and neon-lit shop fronts. Then it slowed, to stop in front of a brightly lit hotel. The chauffeur opened his door, and they piled out in sequence onto the pavement. Bailey’s secretary straightened her skirt with a kind of sinuous grace, and smiled at Lindsay, a secret little smile, just between the two of them. Bailey was brisk.

‘Okay.’ He spoke in a voice of command, his eyes questing between them. ‘I’ll go up and talk to them, Donna, you keep Richard company in the coffee lounge.’

‘Yes, Mr. Bailey.’ His secretary’s voice was lamb-like in its obedience. But Lindsay sensed vibrations in the humid New York evening air. She handed Bailey the document case, and he bustled off across the hotel lobby. Then she turned back to Lindsay, gesturing towards a coffeeshop just off the lobby.

‘We’d better have coffee, he could be gone for a while.’ Her eyelashes were long and dark, and they fluttered, just a little. ‘Maybe you could handle a bacio degli vergine, it’s something quite special for pastry.’

She smiled, the same little secret smile, just between the two of them, and Lindsay licked his lips hopefully. He would kiss all the virgins he could, and spend all night in kissing, if he could just stay awake.

The coffeeshop was busy, filled with large, bulky men and women in casual clothing, many with the slightly awed looked of visitors to a big city. The coffee was good, and the pastries better; the bacio degli vergine was a kind of little tartlet in sweet puff pastry flavoured with a liqueur and topped with a small star of mascarpone, and more than pleasing.

Lindsay made small talk with Donna, and she radiated charm, and he could sense that they had begun moving towards something good. Perhaps Bailey would decide to go home early.

Suddenly she stopped speaking in mid-sentence. A swarthy man in a dark suit, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, had stopped by their table, and was looking down at Lindsay, ignoring her completely.

‘Mr. Lindsay, sir?’

Lindsay nodded cautiously.

The man’s expression was neutral, but there was something hard and stern about his presence. ‘Mr. Bailey asked if you’d be kind enough to come through and talk, sir.’

Lindsay nodded again, and got to his feet, smiling down at Donna.

‘I’ll be back.’

She smiled back at him, and he sensed an invitation. But he was already mentally shifting from seduction into reporting mode. Maybe he could talk this one through at speed, and be out again in time to squire Donna somewhere cosy. Maybe a candlelit dinner, with a bit of smooching on a nightclub floor, and a better deal than the Moskau. He had only catnapped since leaving the Interglobal. But he was a freelance, and freelances counted as superhuman.

The man in the dark suit stopped at a door marked ‘Office’ at the back of the lobby, and knocked. The door opened into a small windowless room with a desk, and a couple of filing cabinets. A second man in dark glasses and dark suit sat behind the desk. He got to his feet.

‘Mr. Lindsay?’

Lindsay nodded. Now he knew Bailey’s friends were mafiosi. He felt a small surge of excitement again, but also a twinge of anxiety. He was a freelance journalist, but he was carrying a gun, and it might not be understood.

The man stood in front of him, lifting both his hands, and it was plain that he intended patting Lindsay down.

Lindsay sighed. There were times when it was better to volunteer than be constrained. He smiled a little awkwardly – journalists are not known to carry arms. ‘Let me take it off.’ He unclipped the holster and slid it out from his jacket.

The man took the gun from the holster to inspect it with a professional air. ‘Nice rod.’

‘I was given it in Germany.’

‘Nice present.’

The man slid the gun back into its holster, and knocked on the door behind him. ‘I got Mr. Lindsay out here.’ He held up the holster. ‘He brought this.’

‘Bring him in.’ The speaker was unseen.

The man in dark glasses steped back, out of Lindsay’s way, and he found himself standing in a large room, facing a big desk. A fat man, another Bailey, lolled behind the desk in a big leather chair, smoking a fat cigar. Heavy mahogany bookcases dominated the corners of the room, and several oil paintings of racehorses hung on the walls. It was the office of a man of position. Another man, tall and saturnine, dark suited but rather more elegant than the man sent to fetch Lindsay, stood a few steps to his right. A couple of men in dark glasses and dark suits stood with their backs to the wall facing the desk. Bailey sat in the centre of the room. He did not turn round to greet Lindsay, and it was a bad sign. A tiny shiver ran down Lindsay’s spine.

The man behind the desk held out his hand and took Lindsay’s holster. He took the gun to examine it with interest, and then stared at Lindsay.

‘Hey, Jack here said you was a journalist.’ His voice was heavy and guttural, the voice of a man accustomed to power. He handed the gun to his elegant companion. ‘Look at this. Cute, huh?’

The elegant man weighed it in his hand, and then sighted with it, and the gun was pointing straight at Lindsay. He smiled thinly, and placed the gun on the desk. ‘How come you carry that?’

The man behind the desk seemed to be inspecting the tip of his cigar, but Lindsay knew that he was being watched very closely. He scrabbled for an explanation, something that would sound convincing. He can hardly talk about Delahaye and Hannover airport.

‘I did a job for somebody in Germany. They thought I might run into danger.’ Lindsay listened to himself speaking, and knew that his explanation was lame.

‘You took it on the plane?’

He nodded.

‘No searches?’

Lindsay scrabbled again, and now he began to sweat, just a little. ‘A friend took me through.’

The fat man behind the desk stopped studying his cigar and sat upright, with his elbows on the desk surface, chewing it meditatively for a moment. Then he seemed to reach a decision.

‘To me you look like some kind of cop.’

The room was silent, very silent. None of the men watching Lindsay moved so much as a muscle, and Bailey seemed frozen in his seat.

Lindsay raised his hand to his inside jacket pocket. He moved carefully, almost in slow motion, because he knew that it was a time for the most extreme caution. ‘I’ve got my press card.’ He took the laminated card out of his pocket, to hold it up, like a protective icon. But the fat man did not seem interested.

‘I seen cops with those.’

Now Lindsay felt sweat running freely down his spine. He realised that he had walked into a trap, and it was a trap without exit, and knew that the fat man behind the desk had begun to play with him, like a cat playing with a mouse, prior to pouncing on him, and biting him to death.

‘Jack says he brought you here to help solve a problem.’ The fat man spoke slowly, thoughtfully. Bailey began to nod emphatically, and then thought better of it, and was rigid in his chair again. The fat man stared at Lindsay. He had small eyes, little rat eyes, but they were very sharp. ‘You tell me.’

Lindsay hurriedly summarised everything Bailey had told him, and outlined his own King Cay exposure plans. But he knew that his words sounded totally unconvincing in this silent room, and he felt Death close on him, with a scythe poised for reaping.

The fat man listened without interrupting, but it was plain that he was in no way persuaded. He waited for Lindsay to stumble to an end, and then lifted his hand.

‘You sound like a good journalist, Mr. Lindsay.’ He paused, and for a moment Lindsay’s spirits rose again. ‘But I’m gonna havta tell you. You was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar for a moment, as though coming to a decision. ‘You made it sound good. But I got too much at stake right now.’ He turned his head to stare at Bailey, and his eyes were like ice. ‘Jack here tried to play me for a sucker…’ He raised his hand as Bailey began to speak. ‘No, Jack, you had your say.’

Bailey was silent again, and now he was very pale, a greeny-white colour.

‘Jack thought he could team Valucetti up with Collier and Altenburg, and take a slice outa the middle. Instead of which Collier and Altenburg played him for a patsy, and Valucetti hadta pay the fucking addizione.’ Now the fat man’s voice was harsh. ‘He made me look like a dumb shit, and I get people laugh at me, they think I’m a fucking comedian.’ The fat’s man voice was rising, and he was holding Lindsay’s gun. ‘We only got one road for that where I come from, and the path goes straight into the harbour.’

For a moment he was silent. Then he took a deep breath, and looked at Lindsay again. ‘You, he played for another patsy. There ain’t no way this famiglia wants press, no way. We got our own ways of solving problems. Press? Maybe we coulda told you go take a walk. But press with hardware? You don’t add up. So, Mr. Lindsay, I’m truly sorry, but you go with Jack.’

The room was silent. Lindsay had a feeling that he had stumbled onto the set of a crummy B movie, where all the bad men carried violin cases, and the heroine found salvation at the last desperate moment as her lover smashed down the doorway of the room where the villains had trapped her. He had stopped sweating now, and his mind was racing. He might be standing in an execution chamber, but it was unlikely, for then these thugs would have two corpses on their hands in the middle of a busy hotel. He and Bailey would probably be manhandled out, on their own two legs, and then taken somewhere quiet, and final. He fought to get a tight hold on himself. His best route now was to be silent, and watch, and wait, and break for cover if he scented the slightest chance. He had outwitted Wotan, and ambushed George. Maybe third time lucky as well.

‘Okay.’ The fat man looked at his elegant companion. ‘Claudio, take them out the back, then take them for a ride.’

The elegant man nodded, and two of the men in dark glasses moved to close in on Bailey. The bullfrog man was now shaking, as though in an ague, saliva dribbling down his chin. Lindsay stood waiting. He would go where he had to go, and he would go as a man. But he would run, if he got a chance to run, and he would run like hell.

A man in dark glasses led the way along a corridor towards a door. Two more men pushed Bailey, who was now weeping. Lindsay followed, with two more men in dark glasses behind him, and the elegant man bringing up the rear. The door opened, and he stepped out into the night air. A van had backed up to the door.

Suddenly the night air exploded into light. Lindsay blinked. He seemed to be facing a wall of arc lights. A massive loudspeaker voice bore down on him.

‘Freeze: all of you. This is the police.’

Men armed with submachineguns seemed to be everywhere, all in dark blue uniforms and helmets and flak jackets. One sent Lindsay flying to one side as he pushed into the corridor. Lindsay crashed into a wall and stood motionless, unsure whether this was salvation, or a dream. Nobody moved amongst the dark-suited men, and then the fat man came out, still holding his cigar. He turned towards Bailey, and gathered phlegm in his mouth to spit, but one of the men in dark blue pushed him away.

He spits nonetheless, his phlegm landing on the ground, and his face was set in stone as he stared at Bailey. ‘You, Jack, are dead.’ His voice was a voice of judgement.

The bullfrog man turned away from him, and he was still shaking. But the fat man ignored Lindsay.

The men in dark blue lined the men in dark suits up to search them. Lindsay stood on his own, feeling wholly lost. A stocky man in regular police peaked cap and uniform inspected him curiously. ‘Who are you?’

Lindsay could not find words to speak. Suddenly he realised that everything that had happened to him in this place really had been nothing more than a bad dream. He had stood at the gates of hell, and faced a demon, and a whole gang of demons, all in dark glasses and dark suits, and he had returned.

‘They taking you for a ride too?’

Lindsay nodded without speaking.

The man in uniform pulled out a notebook. ‘You wanna testify?’

Lindsay came back to the real world with a bump, and smiled wanly. He had a feeling that his nerves had been stretched to breakingpoint and beyond, and yet somehow he still felt the same man as before. Much had happened, but nothing had changed, and now he just wanted out. ‘I’m English.’ He spoke as though in a dream. ‘I’m a journalist. I just got caught up in this.’

The policeman eyed him quickly. He was a shrewd man, and could tell when a man was speaking truth, and when he was shading. But he believed in erring on the side of caution. ‘You got ID?’

He turned Lindsay’s press card and passport in his fingers, and then took a deep breath. ‘Mr. Lindsay, I will tell you. I got respect for you.’

Lindsay was silent. He had no words to reply. It was too early. He was still trying to come to terms with what had happened. Later, when he was back in his own skin and his own mind, he might be able to speak. But right now he could only look back, on what had been, and on what might have been, and try to rebuild himself.

‘Those guys.’ The policeman gestured towards the men in dark suits, now all in handcuffs and being led towards a waiting police van. ‘These guys would have blown you away, no question.’

Lindsay nodded silently. For the moment it was all he could do.

Some time later he was in the back of a New York Police Department car on his way to JFK. He had cut a deal with Captain Tug O’Hara, the stocky policeman, after describing his questioning by Maurizio Valucetti, the fat man with the cigar, in some detail. He would return to give evidence against him, if it was deemed necessary. But O’Hara believed that Valucetti would go down on Bailey’s word, not to mention a whole raft of documentation that Bailey had provided in return for being offered round-the-clock witness protection. Lindsay had not mentioned Delahaye’s gun.

He had also been hurried out of the hotel, past a gaggle of waiting reporters, into a waiting patrol car. It was a pity, in a way, because he had given up on a star story. But there were times when safety counted for more than lesser concerns, and Lindsay was just grateful that he still had his head on his shoulders. It was in the right place, and it was where he wanted it to stay.

Freelance 18