The Snake Flag Conspiracy Read online

  "Can I buy you a drink?" I asked him abruptly without any preamble.

  "I never turn down a drink. Who the hell is this?"

  "Nick Carter."

  "Oh, Christ! You again?"

  I hadn't seen him or talked to him in more than five years.

  "That's no way to talk to an old friend."

  "The last time I saw you, I let you talk me into doing you a favor that cost me three months in the hospital. I've no relish for the smell of antiseptics or having drainage tubes coming out of my body in strange places!"

  "It's nothing like that, John. I need information from your morgue." A newspaper's library files are called a morgue.

  "Get it yourself," he snapped.

  "I can't, John."

  The tone of my voice told him more than any words could have.

  "It's that serious?"

  "It is."

  "When do I get the drink?"

  "As soon as you get the information for me."

  "I'll meet you at Grogan's bar in Field's Corner," Reilly said. Field's Corner is the heart of Irish Boston. "And it'll take more than one drink to satisfy my thirst."

  "No problem. I'll buy the bottle."

  "Good enough. Now, what is it that you want to know?"

  I told him. There was a long pause. When he spoke again, I could hear the excitement in his voice.

  "You want me to look through our files on five men," he summarized, "and to let you know if anything there strikes me as being out of the ordinary?"

  "That's right."

  "Would you by any chance know anything more about these five men whose names you've given me? Aside from the fact that they are rich, live in this area, and any one of them can have me fired just by lifting the telephone?"

  "I would," I said. "Those five names were on a list that should have, but didn't, appear in today's paper."

  Reilly didn't bother to ask what list I was referring to. Or how I happened to know about a list pinned to a dead man's shirt that was never once mentioned in the most lurid news story of the year.

  "That could be one hell of a story for me to break," he said. "Do I get it?"

  "Yes, but you'll never be able to print it."

  I could almost see Reilly's smile spread out on his freckled face.

  "That's the best kind of story," he said. "It's a deal. I'll see you tonight in Grogan's bar."

  I hung up. If there was anyone who could dig something out of the files, it would be John Reilly. Reilly's one of the last of the old-time Boston newspapermen. He's been on the rewrite desk and on the police beat, on the City Hall beat and the State House beat and back to the police beat a dozen times. He's known every District Attorney and assistant DA in Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex and Essex counties over the past thirty years. He knows enough about the town and its suburbs and about a variety of its citizens, ranging from legislators to petty thieves, to trigger a hundred libel suits if it were ever published. But none of those suits would be won, because Reilly's info is solid truth. He's been threatened, shot at and beaten up more than once — until he learned from me to tuck away so much of this information — to be released in case of his death by violence — that one hell of a lot of influential people in the underworld have spread the word that John Reilly is to be protected at all costs!

  I went up the red-carpeted stairway. The second floor of Bonwit's is two stories high. A couple of superbly beautiful crystal chandeliers hang majestically down from the high ceiling to illuminate the displays. Sitting down on a sofa in the shoe department, I made myself comfortable. Then I pulled out the identification bracelet I'd taken from the "bellhop" I'd left unconscious in the stairwell of the Ritz Carlton. Engraved on the flat surface was a name: Henry Newton. I turned the bar of the bracelet over. On its back, engraved large enough for me to see it clearly without a magnifying glass, was the "snake flag" with its motto: "Don't Tread on Me!"

  I wondered if my other assailant, the second "bellhop," also carried similar identification. What the hell did it stand for?

  While my mind was occupied with these thoughts, someone came up quietly from behind, touched me on the shoulder and, as I took in the delicate fragrance of her Chanel perfume, said in her lovely, familiar, slightly husky voice, "Darling, I know I'm late, and I'm so sorry."

  She bent down and kissed me on the cheek. It was all very sweet, and she carried it off beautifully. That was her style. Yesterday she was a tourist, today she was a wealthy, beautiful young Bostonian late for an appointment with her boyfriend.

  "Hello, Sabrina," I said, not bothering to turn my head as she sat down beside me. "How'd you find me?"

  "I was told you were here."

  "When did they first spot me?"

  "I don't know," she replied. "I wasn't told that."

  "Probably on the street," I surmised, thinking out loud. "If they could do that, then they must have had a lot of men around the hotel."

  "Probably." She was giving nothing away.

  "How big is the organization, Sabrina?"

  "I don't know."

  "Or won't tell?"

  "Does it matter?" she asked.

  "Not really. Well, what do you want?"

  "Personally, I'd love a repeat of last night, darling! However, I'm afraid that will have to wait. Right now I'm to escort you downtown. They'd like to talk to you."

  Before I could reply, she added, "You'll be perfectly safe. Nothing will happen to you."

  I've heard that before. I turned my head to scrutinize her face. Sabrina was dressed in an Ultrasuede outfit in different tones of blue. She wore a short blue skirt with buttons up one side, a blue safari-type jacket over a lighter blue turtleneck jersey, and a blue felt Aussie Digger hat with the brim turned up at one side perched rakishly on her head.

  "Like it?" she asked.

  "Terrific." I rose to my feet. There's no use trying to delay the inevitable.

  We took the elevator down to the first floor and headed for the main entrance. Sabrina caught my sideways glance and said, "If you're thinking of trying to get away, Nick, don't."

  "The exits are covered, right?"

  She nodded. "Every one of them."

  "With orders to shoot to kill?"

  "They're on the rooftops," she said, her eyes betraying her concern. "They have rifles with silencers, and they're all excellent marksmen."

  I took her by the arm as we walked down the red-carpeted outside stairs under the pale green canopy.

  "You've convinced me," I told her jauntily. I didn't know whether she was lying to me, but in view of the fact that they'd found me within half an hour of my leaving the hotel, I was certain that there were enough of them around to cover the few exits from Bonwit's. And, in view of the previous attacks on my life, if Sabrina said they were prepared to kill me, I had to believe her.

  Besides, wasn't this what I'd wanted all along? To meet the higher-ups?

  The taxi took us into the heart of the Boston financial district: Water Street, Congress Street, Battery-march, Chatham and High Streets. Some of the buildings are new and tall and modern. Others are almost as old as the city itself. It was to one of the new buildings on one of the old streets that Sabrina took me.

  We went up more than twenty stories and along a corridor to a door that bore no name. For that matter, none of the doors along that corridor were marked.

  Without bothering to knock, Sabrina opened the door. There was no receptionist on the other side. The door led directly into a handsome, mahogany-paneled office. Richly carpeted, discreetly draped, illuminated by shaded lamps, the office was the kind you see pictures of in slick financial magazines like Fortune and Forbes.

  The man behind the massive desk in the center of the room looked as if he belonged there. A rich, successful young executive type, he was dressed expensively in a conservatively-cut gray suit. He gestured at the chair next to his desk.

  "Sit down, please." He was coldly polite. He looked at Sabrina.

  "I assume you've told h
im that it will do him no good to be violent with me?" he asked her.

  "I don't have to," Sabrina answered. "I think he knows."

  "He hasn't acted that way up to now."

  "I do tend to get violent when someone's trying to do away with me," I said coolly.

  He turned to me for the first time. His face was smooth and emotionless. His eyes gazed blankly at me as if they were more used to looking at numbers, percentages, cost-efficiency ratios and returns on dollar investment figures. I had the feeling that he really didn't like to deal with human beings.

  "I have no intentions of trying to do away with you," he said.

  "Then you're safe."

  He turned to Sabrina. "I think you can leave." He dismissed her as if she were a parlor maid. Sabrina touched me on the shoulder as she walked toward the door.

  "Don't do anything rash," she said. "No matter what you think, the organization's too big for you. Believe me."

  Then she was gone. I settled back in the chair and took out one of my gold-tipped cigarettes. He pushed an ashtray closer to me. There wasn't a speck of dust on it. Pure Tiffany crystal.

  "Go ahead," I said, lighting my cigarette with an air of indifference. "What's this all about?"

  "You've been a nuisance to us," he said as if he were stating an obvious but objective fact, like announcing that it was now the daytime and the sun was shining.

  "I suppose I have been," I answered.

  "We don't like it."

  "I didn't think you would. Who's 'we'?"

  He ignored my question and went on as if it were a speech he'd rehearsed and had to get out without interruption.

  "You could be taken care of," he continued, "but we'd rather not go to all that trouble. It's worth it to us to let you live if you'll cooperate."

  I cocked my head and decided not to interrupt. I didn't think it would do any good anyhow.

  "In return for your cooperation," he said, "we are prepared to deposit a large sum into a bank account…"

  "Swiss?" I couldn't help throwing it in.

  "…in a Zurich bank in your name, or number, whichever you prefer. The amount is quite large, I assure you."

  "What kind of cooperation are you talking about?"

  "Leave," he said. "Just go away, anywhere, for the next two weeks."

  "After that, it won't matter," I said. "Right?"

  "Exactly."

  "How large an amount are we talking about?"

  "Name it." He was happy now that we were talking figures.

  "A million?"

  He nodded his head, not in the least perturbed by the size of my request. "In dollars," he said. "That's quite acceptable to us."

  I held up my hand. "Wait a minute. I didn't say I'd take it. I just pulled a sum out of the air."

  His face flushed a deep scarlet. "We are not joking, Mr. Carter! Please be serious!"

  "Alright, then," I said. "Let's try five million"…he started to nod, but I kept on — "and if you agree to that, I'll go up to ten million."

  His hands had clenched into fists, but he forced himself to keep his voice even.

  "Are you playing games?" he asked.

  I nodded. "That's right. With play money. Because if your plan comes off, that money won't be worth a dime in a couple of months! Ten million, twenty million — hell, make it thirty million! If you pay me off in American dollars, in three months' time none of it will be worth the paper it's printed on!"

  He leaned back in his big leather swivel chair, eyeing me with more respect than he'd shown since I came in.

  "Well," he said. "Well!"

  I got to my feet. "You've found out what you wanted to know," I told him. "Go tell your boss my answer is 'no'."

  Carefully he asked, "How do you know what I wanted to find out, Mr. Carter?"

  "Your bribe attempt was a ploy — a cover-up. Your people weren't really sure that the Russian told me everything." I leaned across the desk and spoke in a low, menacing voice. "You tell them that he told me everything! Got it? Everything he knew!"

  He said, "I'm afraid we shall have to use more extreme measures in your case, Mr. Carter."

  "You've already tried that," I told him coldly. "Now, you take this back to whoever sent you. Just tell him that I said, don't try to step on me!"

  He suddenly went pale.

  "What did you say?"

  "I'll put it another way. Don't tread on me!"

  It was as if I'd physically assaulted him. His face went tight with shock. All of a sudden his neat little world was collapsing around him in confusion. I could almost look into his mind and see its fanatical orderliness being replaced by chaos. That one phrase blew his universe apart.

  I walked over to the door. Then I turned and came back again. I'd almost done a very stupid thing. I realized that he must have some kind of prearranged signal to indicate whether I'd gone along with the bribe attempt. If so, they'd let me leave the building alive.

  If not, I wouldn't get halfway across the street without being gunned down, blown up or run over!

  He looked up at me fearfully as I came around the big mahogany desk, and he started to get up out of his chair. He sat down abruptly when I shoved Hugo's sharp little blade up against his throat.

  It's a strange thing about knives. They're the most terrifying of weapons. Somehow a gun doesn't carry so intense and immediate a threat. It's more impersonal, more abstract. We don't really react to a gun with the panic we feel about sharp steel. There isn't that gut-wrenching paralysis that makes a man feel naked and helpless.

  The executive tried to talk with vocal cords that were in a state of revolt. Muffled, incoherent sounds came out of his mouth, more like moans than words. I pulled him close to me.

  "What's the signal?" I growled.

  He knew what I meant. He tried to shake his head. I pressed harder with Hugo. The point stung him into speech.

  "The window… window… shade…" he gasped.

  "What about it?"

  "If… if you'd gone along…"

  "Out with it!"

  "I'm to leave it alone. Otherwise … I pull the blinds… Venetians… closed."

  I let him feel Hugo's edge cut a thin gash along his jawline. It was no worse than what he'd do if he cut himself shaving, but it must have seemed to him as if I'd just slit his throat.

  "For God's sake!" he burst out. "I swear… swear I'm telling… telling the truth!"

  Perhaps he was. There was only one way to find out, and that was to walk out of the building with the shades untouched. Which meant I couldn't leave him behind to get at them.

  "Let's go," I said, prodding him.

  "Go?" He was in a state of paralyzing fear.

  "I'm not going to kill you," I told him. "Not unless you force me to. On the other hand, I can't leave you here."

  I took the knife away from his throat. He nodded his head. "Yes. Yes, I see what you mean. Of course."

  "Am I going to have trouble with you?"

  He shook his head. "No." He took out his handkerchief, touching it to his throat. It came away spotted with a few drops of blood. I saw his eyes grow wide.

  We walked out of the room and down the corridor. Together we rode down in the elevator, together we walked through the lobby of the building. It was after five o'clock. The lobby was deserted. Together we went out the front door and we walked, almost arm in arm, across the street into the lobby of the building on the far side.

  They wouldn't be able to get to me here, I knew. For the time being I was safe. I stopped and swung him about.

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  His eyes queried me. He didn't know what I would do to him next.

  "John Norfolk," he answered. There was still a tremor of fear.

  "What do you do, John? Aside from trying to bribe people?"

  "I'm an investment banker," he informed me stiffly, but his lips trembled as he spoke. He didn't know that all I felt toward him was scorn — and a little pity. He just wasn't tough enough to do the
job they'd sent him to do.

  "Goodnight, John," I said. For a moment he didn't believe that I was letting him go. Then, hastily, almost as if he were doing his best to keep from breaking into a run, he left the building.

  Boston is a strange town. It's so damn old and the streets are so narrow in the oldest section that a number of buildings have been erected over what were once lanes. Legally, they have to leave access open to the public, so the lanes have become ground floor central corridors, leading from one end of the building to the other. By law, the exits and entrances of these buildings must be kept open twenty-four hours a day, every day in the year, so the doors are never locked.

  Because of the slope of the land, in some of these buildings, you'll actually go up or down half a flight of stairs, make a turn or two, and then continue along the public access corridor. Legally, it is still a city street.

  Such a lane ran through this building. I went in the opposite direction from John Norfolk and presently found myself coming out a revolving door into an alley. I made my way through the alley to Washington Street.

  I was more careful now than I'd ever been. I knew that in minutes they'd be on my trail. I also knew that they had a considerably larger organization than either Hawk or I had originally estimated. How large remained to be seen, but I sure wasn't going to make the mistake of underestimating them again.

  At Washington and Summer Streets, I ducked into the subway station, went down and dropped my quarter into the slot of the turnstile.

  Boston's Green Line trains are not trains — they're trolleycars. Two and sometimes three of them travel coupled together. I went up from the lower level to the main level and took the first trolley that came along.

  Unconsciously I was heading back to my hotel, planning to get off at Arlington Street station. And I did, then realized that I'd made a mistake. A very big mistake.

  The trolley had slammed shut its doors and was gone down the tunnel when I looked around the platform and saw them. Not just the two who'd been following me and who got off the trolley when I did, but two others who must have been staked out there from the time they threw their net around the hotel earlier that afternoon.

  And there I was, right in the middle of an ambush.