SEE FILE # 00334 Key: REMO WILLIAMS
Smith sipped his spring water, wondering what possible cross-reference would contain Remo's name.
When he saw what it was, his spring water went down the wrong pipe and it was a full minute before the coughing spasm subsided enough for him to read the wireservice story.
It was datelined Newark, New Jersey, four days earlier. The report read:
Police are still investigating the fatal shooting of an unidentified women whose body was found last night in Wildwood Cemetery.
The woman, whom authorities estimate was in her mid-fifties, was found sprawled over a grave. An autopsy showed she had been shot at close range by a .22-caliber pistol. Three bullets were recovered from her body.
Authorities are puzzled by the absence of identification, although the woman appeared to be well-dressed and the autopsy showed that she had been in good health prior to her death. A floral display was found beside the body and police suspect that the woman was placing flowers at a grave when her killer attacked. A preliminary investigation showed that the nearest grave belonged to Remo Williams, a former Newark police officer who was executed for the murder of a minor drug pusher more than ten years ago.
Efforts to trace the woman's identity through friends or relatives of the deceased Remo Williams have proved unavailing. According to police sources, Williams had no family.
Police speculate that robbery may have been a motive in the woman's killing.
Smith shut down the computer. It was impossible. First there was the killer in Detroit who was using Remo's name. And now, after all these years, someone had visited Remo's gravesite. In all the years since the casket had been laid in that grave, no one had ever stopped to pay respects to the memory of the dead policeman. Smith knew this because a cemetery worker, who thought he was working for a sociological-research center, filed a monthly written report listing the patterns of visitation to selected graves in Wildwood Cemetery. There was no such sociological-research center and the report went directly to CURE. And every month it noted that no one had visited Remo Williams' grave. And now this.
Who could the woman have been? An old girlfriend, carrying a torch after all those years? Not likely, Smith thought. She was too old. Old enough to be Remo's mother, in fact.
"Remo's mother," Smith whispered hoarsely in the silence of his shabby office. "Oh, my God. It's all unraveling. "
* * *
The black car pulled into the deserted construction site like something propelled by air. Only the soft crush of its tires in the bulldozer-gouged earth warned of its approach. It was early evening and the construction crew had gone home for the day. A crane stood off to one side of the framework building, like a mutant monster insect.
The black car with its tinted windows circled the crane before drawing grille to grille with the car already parked there. The dark-eyed gunman with the scar down his right jawline was leaning against the parked car. He flicked a cigarette away.
"Williams." The testy voice emerged from the black car, disguised by the sealed windows. Williams walked up to the vehicle. Because of today's demonstration by Lavallette, he now recognized it as a Dynacar. So his employer had not been boasting when he said he had stolen one of the Dynacar models.
"What do you want?" the gunman asked.
"What did you think you were doing today?" the voice from inside the Dynacar demanded.
"Trying to fulfill my contract," the gunman said. "I don't like it. You could have ruined everything."
"What ruins everything," the gunman said, "is when you don't level with me and tell me what I'm up against."
"What do you mean?"
"Today, I would have had Revell except that old Chinaman got him out of the way. It was the same Chinaman who showed up at Mangan's apartment last night. Who the hell is he?"
"I don't know," answered the voice from inside the Dynacar. There was a pause, and then the voice again: "What I do know is that I didn't tell you to hit anybody today and you've got to do it my way, on my schedule. Anything else is unprofessional."
"I don't like being called unprofessional," the gunman said softly.
"These are the rules. You take them one at a time. Don't hurry. No head shots."
"Just tell me who you want done first," the gunman said.
"Try getting Millis," the voice from inside the car said. "Revell is probably spooked by now and we've already put the fear of God into Lavallette. I think Millis."
"Okay," the gunman with the scar said as the Dynacar abruptly slid into reverse, turned, and drove from the construction site.
The gunman had not realized that the car was still running. No matter what the press thought about the Dynacar, it was one spooky machine.
He got behind the wheel of his own vehicle and while he waited, lit a cigarette. It tasted stale. He had kicked the habit years ago, but this job was getting to him. Everything had been getting to him, ever since Maria had died. Half the time, it was painful to think of her and the other half of the time, he could not get her face out of his mind. Once she had been so beautiful and so loving.
Something else was also bothering him. His early hunch had been that his employer was a business rival of Lavallette's and now he was sure of it. There was only one reason why he would have been upset about the shooting spree at the Dynacar demonstration. He was one of the executives attending it.
The man had told him to go take out Hubert Millis of American Automobiles. The gunman thought that could mean only one thing: he was a contract killer for James Revell and today he had almost killed the man who hired him.
No wonder the man in the Dynacar had been upset. Served him right though for not leveling with the gunman from the start.
Who was that damned old Chinaman anyway? Who was he working for?
And the gunman had gotten the feeling today that there was somebody else with the old man. But he hadn't seen his face.
It didn't matter. If either of them showed, or got in his way again, he was taking them down and he didn't care if it took head shots to do it.
Chapter 13
The sun was slowly setting over the Great Lakes region and there was a cooling breeze off Lake Erie. The leaves were thinking of turning color. Children, only a few weeks back to school, had fallen out of the habit of play. Rush hour was over; life was settling down and in their homes, people were eating dinner or preparing to feed their minds with a diet of prime-time pap. The peace of the fall season had settled over every part of the town of Inkster, just outside Detroit.
Except for the American Automobile plant, which looked like a combat-ready military base.
Brand-new American Vistas, Stormers, and Spindrift Coupes ringed the electrified fence surrounding the headquarters of one of the Big Three automakers, like wagons pulled into a circle. One ring of cars was outside the twenty-foot-high fence, and another inside.
Six separate roadblocks, only thirty yards apart, controlled the single access road leading to the main gate and American Auto security guards, attired in green uniforms and toting semiautomatic weapons, prowled the grounds.
It was an impressive sight as Hubert Millis stared down from his office atop the American Auto corporate building, smack in the center of the headquarters complex. He filled with pride, watching the American Auto vehicles arrayed to protect him.
The head of the company's security said proudly, "Nothing will get through that, Mr. Millis." He was a young man in a neat brown suit who possessed a genius for security-systems analysis. He would have been prime FBI material, but American Autos paid him more than he could ever hope to earn working in Washington.
Millis nodded absently and turned his attention to the television set in the room. The station had concluded its 120-second summary of international news, national news, sports, and weather and was now starting its twenty-eight minutes of coverage of the auto industry. Millis, a sturdy man with a nervous habit of wringing his hands, turned up the sound as he saw the picture on the screen of Lyle Lavallette.