Hammerlocke Read online

  "Of course," I said and reached for my Bushmills, trying to keep my happy hands from trembling. Six weeks of first-cabin accommodation and enough extra cash to handle three more months of expenses. Praise the Lawd!

  Chapter 3

  I refused a refill on the Bushmills and we sat and worked out all the details. The boy and I would fly out on Saturday, two nights away. We'd fly Alitalia direct to Milan and on to Florence. There we had three weeks' worth of rooms at the Rega, a discreet family-style hotel on one of the Lungarnos. The old lady looked up at me sharply when she fed me this last word and I nodded like a good little bodyguard and said, "Of course, on the river."

  That pleased Elspeth Ridley. She could see I'd been to Florence so she talked about art for a while and I fed her some answers and she was certain I was the right guy for the job, which was a beauty.

  Three weeks in Florence, a week in Venice and another week grabbing the best of the rest of the Renaissance: Ravenna, Pisa, Siena, then down to Rome for the last seven days.

  Rome was disgustingly commercial, she told me. Herbert Junior would probably ignore the art and concentrate on its big-city pleasures once he got there. However, she believed it only fair to let him relax after five weeks of study.

  I respected her for that insight. I'd already figured he would have earned himself a little howling after five weeks of cultural force-feeding. Now she'd made it part of the plan.

  Then she raised the only snag she could see to the arrangement.

  "It's quite possible that Squeak won't like you," she said.

  "I'd be surprised if he did. But we'll get along okay," I promised. I wasn't bothered. I once baby-sat a defecting PLO gunman for a month, waiting for his buddies to turn up and deliver him to Paradise with their AK47s. I'd stayed awake for most of that time in order to send them on ahead of him. Compared with that episode, this was a snap. For six weeks of high living plus six big ones in the bank I'd entertain the little fart with card tricks if I had to.

  She nodded, and then gave in and mixed herself a second gin, feeding me another Bushmills first. She tasted hers and sighed. "I wonder if I would need this if I didn't have any family."

  "You can cross this particular grandson off your worry list for a while," I promised.

  She sipped and nodded. "I think so. But it seems to me that you should really spend a day or two getting the measure of the boy."

  "It would help. I don't even know what he looks like, so far."

  "Well I think we should remedy that, at once," she said, getting the old snap back into her voice. "Yes. We need a rehearsal. Why don't you and he take rooms at the Windsor Arms, tomorrow night?"

  "It's always a good idea to meet on neutral turf," I agreed. It was easy being agreeable now I'd got the job. Besides, I liked the idea. The Windsor Arms is small and old and expensive, home away from home for a procession of Hollywood stars when they're filming in Toronto, something which happens a lot. Lunch in their Courtyard cafe was an investment I made once a week, just to be visible among people with enough money to need bodyguarding. A freebie in residence was money in the bank.

  "Good. Then that's settled. I'll get the reservation made and you can stay there tomorrow and spend Saturday morning picking up any odds and ends Squeak needs for the trip."

  Not so good. I'd be trailing around with a shopping bag full of spare underwear. But what the hell, I'd have three good meals at the hotel before we left town.

  We went on for another half an hour, at the end of which she did tricks with her checkbook and I was folding half my pay into my wallet.

  She told me to pick the boy up at his house, at four p.m. the next day. He would be packed for the trip, she would take care of that part personally. And then she gave me the last instruction.

  "Go to the Bank of Commerce at Bloor and Bay tomorrow and ask for Mr. Hawkins. He'll give you the traveler's checks you need for the trip. I would appreciate some kind of reckoning when you return, nothing fancy, but an indication of where all the money will have gone," she said. Then she rolled her wheelchair back, quickly, as if she'd found that a sniper had her in his sights, tired, suddenly, as if she'd been hoarding her strength to protect the boy before folding.

  I stood up and gave her a formal little nod, the bow of the head an officer and gentleman gives the Queen. "Thank you for your confidence, Mrs. Ridley. I'll take good care of your grandson."

  She smiled. "I know," she said, in a tone that told me it would be my ass if I didn't. She wanted value for money.

  I gave the housemaid a wink as I left and walked out to my Volvo whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again."

  My own apartment is the top floor of a triplex up in Moore Park which is one contour higher and one social notch lower than Rosedale. Most of the residents are aging WASPs who bought the big old houses in the fifties, or yuppie duplex-dwellers with Save The Whales stickers on their Audis—the tofu and racquetball crowd.

  I would never have taken the apartment if I was still in the service. Access is by an indoor stairway or from a fire escape at the back of the house. There's no alternative way out and it's too easy to cover for a working spook to be comfortable in. But I've bought a couple of devices to help me if anything from my past life blows into town and right now I'm out of the anti-terror business so it suits me just fine.

  On the ground floor there's a pair of gay architects who quarrel all the time and above them Janet Frobisher who works in radio. She's bright and attractive and I'm tempted to borrow cups of sugar from her but the old adage about not doing anything on your own doorstep has kept us at arm's length so far.

  My place has its own locked door on the second level, with a flight of stairs from there to the top. I've earned myself enough personal black marks with the IRA and a number of other bad boys that I always do the trick with the hair on the door when I leave. There haven't been many terrorist attacks in Canada so far but those people have long arms and even longer memories, so it's prudent to maintain the old work ethic.

  The hair was gone. I reached back to the holster I wear at the back of my belt and pulled out my equalizer. It's a Walther PP Super, 9mm caliber and dependable as daylight. I cocked it, clearing my throat explosively to cover the sound, and opened the door.

  The stairs make a turn halfway up and there was nobody in sight so I eased up the inside of the stairwell, silently, and peeked around the corner, gun first, like a bird with a deadly beak. No worms. The top door was closed, nobody in the hallway. Maybe the hair had dried up and fallen off on its own. Maybe. But I've seen too many setups to take any chances. Keeping the gun up I climbed the rest of the stairs, humming noisily to myself, like a happy man with four or five drinks under his belt and nothing on his mind but his upcoming TV dinner.

  I stood to the side of the door jamb, unlocking the door at arm's length in case the guy inside blazed away blind. He didn't and I slammed the door open and rolled into the room as if I'd jumped off a speeding truck.

  He was behind the door, holding a baseball bat. I pointed the gun and snapped, "On the floor, face down."

  He got down slowly, while I looked over my shoulder, through the space above the countertop into the dining room. I couldn't see anybody but that didn't mean he was alone. It wasn't a time to take chances. I stepped over and kicked him in the collarbone, the right collarbone; he'd been holding the bat right-handed. He yowled and writhed but didn't try to straighten up. I shoved his bat out of reach with one foot and went into the dining room and beyond to the bedroom, gun ready.

  There was nobody else, not in the closet, or the bathroom, or even on the fire escape. I came back into the kitchen and sat on the stool. "Okay, sit up, slowly," I said.

  It was Sullivan.

  "Well. Took it personally, did you?" I asked him. "Or did the lovely and talented Herbert Ridley send you over here?"

  Sullivan sat and cradled his right elbow in his left hand. The collarbone was broken. I wished it had been Herbert Ridley's and not his, but them's the breaks.
He spoke, hoarsely. Pain has a way of cluttering up the voice mechanism. "Ridley sent me. He was madder'n a snake. He said he'd fire me if I didn't come over and pay you back for what you did."

  "So you've tried. Now what?" I took the magazine out of the Walther and worked the action to get the live shell out of the chamber. Then I reloaded the shell and shoved the magazine back into the butt. Sullivan watched me, his eyes narrow with pain. I set the gun down and opened my booze cupboard. I took out the rye and poured a solid belt.

  "You want water with this?" I asked and Sullivan's eyes opened up a crack.

  "That for me?"

  "Unless you're AA."

  "Straight's good. Thank you." He dug the fingers of his right hand into the fabric of his glen check shoulder and reached for the glass gratefully with his left.

  I watched him drink. He did his share of it, I judged. He bit it in half first, then set it down as confident as a married man with money in the bank. "This was nothing personal, eh," he said.

  "Then why the Louisville Slugger?"

  He shrugged, and winced as his right shoulder protested. He swore once then said, "Well I knew you were good. I figured maybe if I cold-cocked you I'd have a chance."

  "Who let you in?" That was the big question. I'd put deadbolt locks on both doors when I took the place. He hadn't slipped them with his Visa card.

  "Ridley arranged it. He has a contact at City Hall. Shit, he's got contacts everywhere, he's a wheel. Anyway, he found out who the landlord was and I told him I was a fire inspector."

  "And you didn't have to show him any ID?"

  Sullivan sniffed, then picked up his drink and took half of what was left. "Ridley arranged that, as well. I mean, this guy has juice."

  I considered this. The clout didn't worry me, but the use of false ID meant a couple of phone calls, and that probably meant that Ridley's secretary had known about the setup. I wondered whether she had been pleased with the idea. That would be a pity. She'd seemed promising, if you like high-gloss finishes.

  "So now I call the police and turn you in and we all go home."

  He set down his drink. "You wouldn't do that, would you?" He was ashen. Fear again, I thought. Financial fear, the stick that drives civilians harder than physical fear drives a soldier. "Look, I've got kids. One's just started college. He's gonna be a chef, have a real future. He can't make it with me in jail."

  I stood up in disgust. Not at Sullivan. He was caught in the same bind as the rest of the world. What made me mad was the thought that Ridley could ask for a guy to be hammered, then go home to his palace and drink too much Chivas and stay clean, even if the roof fell in.

  "So what's going to happen when you have to tell Ridley you missed out?"

  Sullivan tried another shrug, one-sided this time and less painful. "Maybe I can talk him out of firing me. I mean, you're good."

  "I've got a better idea," I said. "Finish that drink and let's go."

  He obliged without arguing and we went downstairs. I sent him ahead while I put my warning back in place, this time a shred of paper below the bottom hinge of the outside door. Then I joined him and walked out to my car.

  He had to wait for me to open the door for him. His arm was hurting and wouldn't support its own weight anymore. I sat him in and we started off. I guessed he figured we were buddies now, a good jolt of rye will make brothers out of the most unlikely men. He sat back, letting his right hand lie in his lap like a dead cat.

  "Where does Ridley live?"

  "Up on the Bridle Path."

  "That figures," I said. "What's he got, some transplanted English mansion with thoroughbreds in the back yard?"

  "It's pretty fancy," Sullivan admitted.

  It was. The Bridle Path is Toronto's biggest non-sectarian golden ghetto. It doesn't matter whether you're a Ridley or a Rosencrantz, or a Rajhput Singh, any old hobbledehoy with a million dollars or up for a house can rub elbows with the rich out here.

  Ridley's place was typical. White picket fences with a discreet little TV camera at the gateway, a couple of acres of billiard table lawn and flowers like you see in jigsaw puzzles of English country gardens.

  The house itself was a three-story pile with an honest-to-god portico big enough for a fleet of Cadillacs. I pulled in and instructed Sullivan. "Stick your right hand in your pocket. It'll hurt but not too badly. Go to the door and ask to see Ridley. I'll be behind you."

  He tried one last plea. "He'll fire me."

  "Not if you do as you're told. Hop to it."

  He got out, painfully stuffing his limp right hand into his pants pocket, and walked up to the door. I waited until a houseboy came to the door then slipped out of the car and walked up behind Sullivan. He was cool. A little pain does clarify your thinking considerably. "This is my associate, Mr. Williams," he said and the houseboy gave me a snooty stare and told us to wait.

  There was a big hall stand, capable of hiding a bull moose. I stood behind it as Ridley came down the hall to greet us.

  "You shouldn't have come here," he said to Sullivan. "But anyway, how did it go?"

  "Lousy," I said and stepped out. His face fell open and I stuck out my hand towards him as if I was going to shake his hand, only I didn't. I grabbed him by the testicles. "Wait in the car," I told Sullivan.

  Ridley was gasping and his knees were giving out as I cranked up the pressure slightly. "Remember me?" I asked him.

  He managed to hiss out one word. "Sure."

  "What you did was illegal," I told him, speaking heartily, the army officer chewing out the hungover squaddie for being drunk the night before. "You could go to jail."

  His knees failed but before he could fall I shoved him back against the wall. Between it and my grip on his handle he was able to stay on his feet, buckled but vertical.

  "I just want you to know that your mother has retained my services to look after your son on his trip. I'll be calling for him tomorrow at four. After that he and I are going off together, knowing that you approve wholeheartedly. Understood?" A trembly nod. What Johnson said about hearts and minds following is true. I breezed on.

  "Good. Now I have learned that you're threatening that meathead Sullivan with firing because he wasn't better than me, twice now. Is that right?"

  This time he tried to shake his head but the lie was written in his eyes. I ignored him. "He was out of his class, Ridley. So you're going to give him a bonus for trying. I think a five percent raise should do it. Effective now. You got that?"

  The nod was unqualified this time. He would have given Sullivan the house to get my hand off his equipment.

  I smiled at him. "Good. And just to make sure that you keep your promise and don't try to play rough again, let me give you one more warning." His eyes were round but he said nothing. In fact you could give him marks for not squealing. "Unless Sullivan gets his raise and our feud is ended, right here and now. . ." I paused for effect and his tiny tormented mind scurried round and round its cage wondering what I would say next. I smiled again and went on. "I'm going to inform your mother."

  Talk about hitting below the belt.

  I let go of him and he stood up as I got out my handkerchief and wiped my hand, just for effect, to humiliate him further.

  "It's all over. I'm sorry," he croaked. It cost him to say it but he was a whipped puppy. He meant it.

  "Good. Now why don't you go out to my car and tell Mr. Sullivan about his raise?" I suggested.

  He heaved himself away from the wall and walked painfully out to the door and into the beauty of the summer evening. I followed him, enjoying the scent of his roses and the soft sobbing of a mourning dove in the lindens along his drive. I stood until Sullivan got out of the car and shook hands, very painfully, using his left hand to support his right. Then Ridley turned away, not looking at me. "Goodnight Mr. Ridley. I'll be by for your son tomorrow afternoon," I said.

  He raised his head. "I'll make sure he's ready, Mr. Locke."

  Sullivan looked at me with awe. "He's giv
ing me a raise," he said. "What the hell did you say to him?"

  "Nothing much. I guess you had to be there," I said.

  I dropped Sullivan at the hospital and this time I called my answering service before heading home. There was one call, a Miss Pemberton. Her message was a warning, that I should expect callers that evening. It had come in at six-thirty. There was a phone number.

  I rang it and asked, "Miss Pemberton, do you by any chance work for Herbert Ridley?"

  Her voice was bright, kittenish, maybe she took off her stiffness with her office makeup. "I do. Is this Mr. Locke?"

  "Right. Thank you for your advice, I've attended to the matter. It's a little late but I was about to go for dinner, have you eaten?"

  "I was just going to start cooking. Would you care to come over here and share a pork chop?"

  "Draw me a map and I'm on my way."

  Chapter 4

  I was home by daylight and started getting ready for the trip. I packed one suit and a couple of pairs of lightweight pants plus a cotton windbreaker to cover my gun. Unless you're a cowboy or a cop you can't go around in public with your gun hanging out.

  I debated whether to take it at all. My real assignment was to stop young Ridley from making a fool of himself in Italy. That might need nothing more than a quick grasp of his collar if he started leaning towards trouble. But on the other hand, his father was one of the richest of Canada's nouveau riche. If somebody put a snatch on the kid I could need some heat. I might as well go the distance and take the gun. That brought me to the second problem, how to get aboard Alitalia's squeaky-clean jumbo jet with 27 ounces of sudden death on my person.

  I solved that one the way Ridley had solved his problem the day before, with clout. The head of security at Pearson International Airport in Toronto is an ex-RCMP anti-terrorist officer. I'd met him on a conference when I was in the army. A quick call to his office and he promised to smooth things out with Alitalia; they'd have a person on hand to get us past the metal detector without making all the bells ring. Without advertising the fact, the airlines are glad to have a trained armed man on board major flights. It's cheap insurance. As a bonus they would clear me for our Florence connection as well. Good news.