The Assassin Part 74

"The sonsofb.i.t.c.hes, f.u.c.king c.o.c.ksuckers, had no right to do that to my mother!"

"Let's talk about your mother," Sal said. "She gave the suitcase to Detective Martinez. They have photographs. They have witnesses, a detective, a sergeant, a staff inspector a staff inspector. The chain of evidence, with your mother, is intact. The suitcase contained about twenty pounds of cocaine. Nine Ks. They just got the lab report. It's good stuff. If they decide to prosecute, she's going down. Simple possession is all it takes for a conviction."

"She didn't know anything about it," Lanza said. "They tricked her. Can they do that?"

"The little Mexican said, quote, Can I have the suitcase Vito brought? end quote, and she gave it to him. No illegal search and seizure, if that's what you're asking."

"Sonsofb.i.t.c.hes!"

"They will not prosecute your mother if you cooperate."

"f.u.c.k 'em!"

"You want your mother to ride downtown to Central Detention? You got the money to make her bail? You got ten thousand dollars to pay a bondsman? And that's what the bail will be for that much cocaine. Or do you want her to spend the next six months waiting for her trial in the House of Detention?"

"Why the f.u.c.k should I trust them after what they did to my mother?"

"You're not trusting them. You're trusting me. I'm I'm the a.s.sistant DA. You cooperate, and I'll have your mother out of here in ten minutes. I'll even see she gets home safe." the a.s.sistant DA. You cooperate, and I'll have your mother out of here in ten minutes. I'll even see she gets home safe."

"Okay, okay," Vito said. He tried to put his right hand to his eyes to stem the tears that were starting, but it was held fast by handcuffs. He put his left hand to his eyes.

Sal handed Vito a handkerchief.

"Take a minute," Sal said. "Then we'll get a steno in here."

At 8:45 A.M. Marion Claude Wheatley finished his breakfast of poached eggs on toast and milk, left a fifty-cent tip under his plate in the dining room of the Divine Lorraine Hotel, and rode the elevator up to his room.

He unlocked the closet, and took AWOL bag #4 of the three remaining AWOL bags-another one with Souvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. Souvenir of Asbury Park, N.J. airbrushed on its sides-from the closet and locked the closet door again. airbrushed on its sides-from the closet and locked the closet door again.

He was pleased that he had had the foresight to prepare all of the AWOL bags at once. Now all he had to do was take them from the closet as he began the delivery process.

He looked around the room, and, although he really didn't think it would do any good, walked to the Bible on the desk and read Haggai 2:17 again, seeking insight.

"I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord," made no more sense now than it ever had.

Marion picked up AWOL bag #4 and left his room, carefully locking the door after him, and went down in the elevator to the lobby.

He left his key with the colored lady behind the desk. He had learned that her name was Sister Fort.i.tude, and he used it now.

"It looks, praise the Lord, as if we're going to have another fine day, doesn't it, Sister Fort.i.tude?"

"Yes, it does," Sister Fort.i.tude said.

She doesn't seem very friendly, Marion thought. Marion thought. I wonder if that is because I'm not colored? Or am I just imagining it? I wonder if that is because I'm not colored? Or am I just imagining it?

Marion walked out onto North Broad Street and crossed it, and walked up half a block to the little fast-food place he'd found where he could get a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry to begin the day, and went in.

Sister Fort.i.tude walked from behind the desk and went and stood by the door beside the revolving door and watched as Marion took a seat at the counter and ordered his coffee.

I knew there was something about that man, she thought. she thought.

She watched until Marion had finished a second cup of coffee and left the restaurant and walked, north, out of sight.

Then she went to the elevator and went up to Marion's room and unlocked the door and went inside. She knew what the room should contain, in terms of hotel property, and a quick look showed nothing missing.

But Sister Fort.i.tude, who had read several magazine articles about how professional hotel thieves operated, knew that did not mean that he hadn't stolen whatever he was stealing from another room.

There was nothing in the closet that the white man could steal but wire hangers, but Sister Fort.i.tude decided to check it anyway. When she found that it was locked, her suspicions grew. She went into the adjacent room, took the key from that closet door, and carried it back to Marion's room. It didn't work.

Sister Fort.i.tude had to get, and try, four different closet keys from four different rooms before one operated the lock in the white man's room.

Two minutes later, Sister Fort.i.tude ran out onto North Broad Street, looking for a policeman.

You never could find one when you needed one, she thought. she thought.

And then she saw one, in the coffee shop where the white man had gone to get the coffee he couldn't get in the Divine Lorraine Hotel Restaurant.

She walked quickly across Broad Street.

"I want you to come with me," Sister Fort.i.tude said to the policeman. "I got something to show you."

At ten minutes past nine A.M., Sergeant Jerry O'Dowd and Detective Matt Payne were driving up North Broad Street in O'Dowd's unmarked car. They had finally been released at Internal Affairs, and although Matt thought he was about to fall asleep on his feet, he knew he had to go back to Northwest Detectives and get his Bug before all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer would be asked.

There was considerable police activity at the intersection of Broad and Ridge; Broad Street was blocked off, and a white cap was directing traffic in a detour.

When they finally got to the white cap, Jerry rolled the window down in idle curiosity to ask him what was going on.

And then he saw, at the same moment Matt Payne saw, the large blue and white Ordnance Disposal van, with the Explosive Containment trailer hitched to the rear of it.

Without exchanging a word, they both got out of the car and ran toward the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

"You can't just leave your car here!" the white cap called after them.

There was a uniformed lieutenant standing with a large black woman at the desk.

"What's going on here?" O'Dowd asked as he pinned his badge to his jacket.

"And who the h.e.l.l are you, Sergeant?"

"Watch your mouth, we don't tolerate that sort of talk in here," Sister Fort.i.tude said.

"I'm Sergeant O'Dowd, sir, of Special Operations. We're working on the bomb threat."

Matt took the artists' drawings of Marion Claude Wheatley from his pocket and gave them to Sister Fort.i.tude.

"Ma'am, do you recognize these?"

Sister Fort.i.tude studied both pictures carefully, and then held one out.

"This one, I do. I never saw the other one."

"This is the man who . . . what, rented a room?" Matt asked.

"Said he was about the Lord's work. Satan's work is more like it."

"Where is the bomb?" O'Dowd asked.

"Six-eighteen," Sister Fort.i.tude said.

The elevators were not running. The hotel's electric service had been shut off to make sure no stray electric current would trigger the bomb's detonators.

Matt and O'Dowd were panting when they reached the sixth floor. O'Dowd pulled open the fire door on the landing, and they entered the dark corridor, now lit only by police portable floodlights and what natural light there was.

Halfway down the corridor Matt saw two Bomb Squad men in their distinctive, almost black coveralls. He remembered hearing at the Academy that they were made of special material that did not generate static electricity.

O'Dowd shook hands with one of the Bomb Squad men.

"Hey, Bill. What have we got?"

"Enough C-4, wrapped with chain, to do a lot of damage."

"Bill Raybold, Matt Payne," O'Dowd said.

"Yeah, I know who you are," Raybold said, shaking Matt's hand.

He knows me by reputation. Is that reputation that of the brave and heroic police officer who won the shootout in the alley, or that of the poor sonofab.i.t.c.h who's got a junkie for a girlfriend?

"The lady at the desk downstairs says the guy who rented 618 is the guy we're looking for," Matt said. "I showed her the police artist 's drawing."

"This guy knows what he's doing with explosives," Raybold replied. "The explosive is Composition C-4. It's military, and as safe as it gets. Your man may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He's got them all ready to go except for the detonators. It would take him no more than ten seconds to hook them up."

"Detonators?" O'Dowd asked.

"Not close to here. Jimmy Samuels was in here with his dog, and the only time the dog got happy was when he sniffed the closet. After we get the hotel cleared, we'll take a really good look."

"Bill," O'Dowd said. "If our guy sees the dog and pony show outside, he'll disappear again."

Raybold considered that for a moment.

"Yeah," he said, after a moment. "I don't see why we couldn't leave this stuff here for a while. It's safe. But that don't mean the district captain would go along. And it's his call."

"Sergeant, I don't know who you think you are," the district captain said, "But n.o.body tells me to throw the book away. We got a crime scene here, and we're going to work it."

"Captain," Detective Payne said, "sir, I've got Chief Coughlin on the line. He'd like to talk to you."

At fifteen minutes to eleven A.M., Marion Claude Wheatley got off the bus and walked across Ridge Avenue and into the lobby of the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

He smiled at Sister Fort.i.tude but she didn't smile back, just nodded.

I wonder if I have done, or said, something that has offended her?

Marion got on the elevator and rode to his floor. He had bought a newspaper in 30th Street Station, and he planned to read it as he tried to move his bowels. He was suffering from constipation, and had decided it was a combination of his usual bowel movement schedule being disrupted and the food in the Divine Lorraine Hotel Restaurant. He had decided he would take the next several meals elsewhere to see if that would clear his elimination tract.

There was a man sitting in the upholstered chair in the room. He smiled.

"h.e.l.lo, Marion," he said. "We've been waiting for you."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"The Lord sent us, Marion. I'm Brother Jerome, and that is Brother Matthew," the man said.

Marion turned and saw another man, a younger one, almost a boy, nicely dressed, standing behind him, just inside the door.

"The Lord sent you?"

"Yes, He did," Brother Jerome said.

"Why?"

"You misunderstood the Lord's message, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "You have the Lord's method out of sequence."

"I don't understand," Marion said.

O'Dowd picked up the Bible from the desk and read aloud: " 'I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to me.' "

"Haggai 2:17," Marion said.

"Precisely," Brother Jerome said, adding kindly, "First mildew, Marion. Then hail, and only finally finally blasting." blasting."

"Oh," Marion said. "Oh! Now I understand." Now I understand."

"Marion, could I see your newspaper, please?" the younger man asked.

"Certainly," Marion said and gave it to him. Then he turned back to Brother Jerome. "I knew the Lord wanted to tell me something," he said.

Brother Matthew patted the newspaper as if he expected to find something in it. Brother Jerome gave him a dirty look. Brother Matthew shook his head, no, and shrugged.

"Well, the Lord understands, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "You were trying, and the Lord knows that."

"Marion, where's the transmitter?" Brother Matthew asked.

Brother Jerome closed his eyes.

"It's in the 30th Street Station," Marion said. "Why do you want to know?"

"The Lord wants us to take over from here, Marion," Brother Jerome said. "He knows how hard you've been working. Where's the transmitter in 30th Street Station?"

"In a locker," Marion said, and reached in his watch pocket and took out several keys. "I really can't tell you which of these keys . . ."