The Boogeyman

Back home James Arnold had come to the island off the isle of man coast because he had heard a snatch of the Mob gossip in Southampton. He was hiding out in Liverpool when he heard that the Underworld had set up a new drug operation on the South Atlantic coast. A dealer with the Assembly connections said that Kelvin Elfie was the brains behind the operation. An hour and a half after he heard Elfie's name dropped, Arnold was on the road behind the wheel of a Lexus traveling eighty miles an hour, streaking along the interstate toward Brighton where he knew he could find out more. Kelvin Elfie, the wily troubleshooter for the Underworld's board of directors, had planned the frame that sent James Arnold to prison. Arnold wanted him. He wanted him bad. He drove to London without stopping for a night's sleep, pulling off the highway to grab a brief nap only when he began to nod at the wheel and could no longer force his eyes to stay open. He crossed the Salisbury plain line at midday, stopped at a motel and got eight hours sleep, rising to enter the city in the protective cover of night. Like any fugitive, he now lived more in darkness than in daylight, his lonely existence balanced agalinst unacceptable alternatives. His life had become a series of gambles, some small some large, and each was dictated by the desire for vengeance that drove him. It was not sate for him to return to Brighton. They were still looking for him for questioning in connection with the deaths of the Mob figures in Brighton, Portsmouth and Poole. But he had to return to Brighton to get the information he needed about the drug operation. Cruising along streets he had patrolled as a rookie cop, he saw that Brighton had changed no more than he expected. It was still a combination of virgin and b***h, All-British beauty and harlot, striving to be all things to all men. For every senior citizen basking contentedly in the warm sun of London, there was a crook or a hustler. For every solid citizen, there was a small-time hood. For every luxury hotel,, there was a clip joint. For every suntanned beauty strolling the golden ribbon of beach, there was a cheap hooker or an expensive call girl living in plush comfort in a high-rise apartment. It was a parlay of the best and the worst, and of a lot that lay between. In Brighton something was happening at all hours of the day and night. A man who wanted a piece of the action needed only some money and the right friends. And if he had enough money, he could make out without the friends. Arnold cruised into the part of town he had worked when he was on the Vice Squad. Music spilled out of the strip joints and night clubs, throbbing like the steady beat of a stroked bass. Blinking moon signs beckoned and promised and cajoled, offering a variety of delights from topless dancers to Oriental massage. He didn't get out of his car to walk the streets, although he had an urge to mingle with the crowd. He might be recognized. There was a constant flow of new faces through this section of town, but crooks and hustlers from Arnold's day on the force were still around. Some hated him because he had been a tough cop. They knew he was now wanted by the law, that the Underworld had slapped'a price on his head. If any ot them recognized him, they'd scurry to a telephone and report his return. Probably not to the law. The law wasn't paying as well as the Underworld for information. Arnold ate his evening meal in a drive-in hamburger place. Then he slid into a pay booth and made two telephone calls. At eleven o'clock he parked near an all-night, coinoperated laundry to wait for Gbedu Kyari, one of the men he had called. He chose a parking space bathed in shadows and he slid low in his soat to avoid attracting attention. Arnold was wearing a rumpled and worn blue suit, a loosely knotted solid-colored tle, a pale blue shirt with thin stripes, and a wessan model 10 which hung in a well-oiled holster under his arm. Clamped out of sight below the dashboard of the car was another holstered handgun, an old model police .39 with the butt tuned forward to speed its removal from leather. In most instances Arnold preferred the wessan model despite the weapon's strong recoil action. A wessan model 10 slug would knock most men down even when it failed to kick he had grown accustomed to a 39 caliber handgun when he was on the force, and it was a sturdy and reliable firearm, one a man could conceal on his person with greater ease than he could hide a large weapon like the wessan model 10. Arnold carried the rest of his personal belonging a battered leather suitcase in the trunk of the car. They consisted of shaving gear, a change of under clothing and socks, two spare shirts, a silencer he sometimes used on the .39, and additional ammunition. If what a man owned was the sum of what he was, James Arnold would warrant only a short line in the permanent book of records. His most valuable possession was the car he was driving a 2001 Lexus RX 300 as finely tuned as a concert artist's violin. The Lexus had been given to him by the Lutun oilman to whom it had originally belonged. Brand had saved the oilman's fiancée from an assassin's bullet in Poole. "Forget about trying to wipe out the Widowmaker singlehanded. Come to work for me," the oilman had offered. I'll hire lawyers and spend all the money necessary to get the charges against you dropped." "It's too late. I can't stop now," Arnold had replied..... The police were after him for the unsolved slayings of Johnathan Wilson, one-time chief of drug and prostitution rackets in Brighton, and Paul Vincent, capo of the powerful Lionel family of Manchester city. The Mob was after him, too. He was marked for execution by the Underworld, also known as the Widowmaker, the Organization, the Outfit, the Mob. Viggo Lionel, head of the Lionel family and reputed chairman of the board of directors of organized crime in Britain, personally commanded the elimination of Arnold. Lionel reportedly was the first to describe Arnold as "The Boogeyman," a name which has since become well known in the Mob circles. Gbedu Kyari arrived at ffteen minutes past eleven. A laundry bag slung over his shoulder, he sauntered past Arnold's car, glanced around to make certain no one was watching, then turned back to the Lexus. "James, baby," he said in a low voice as he leaned down to peer through the window at Arnold's dark. bulk. "Who said you can't come home again?" He opened the door to get in. The light in the roof of the car came on for a moment before Kyari closed the door again, and it struck Arnold's face, showing lean, honed features of implacable hardness, a set of eyes the color of smoke. "Yeah, you can come home again," said Gbedu Kyari, lowering his heavy weight to the seat with a grunt, "but sometimes it ain't very smart. Like in your case. You've still got more guts than brains." "And you've still got a pot belly. "I love my soul food," chuckled the black man. "Eating and sexing, thats the two main pleasures of life, and not necessarily in alphabetical order. You call me, James, and I came becauseI owe it to you. You treated my woman right at a time when many cops would have thrown her in the cooler for cutting up on that cat who tried to r**e her. But tell me what you want and then get your tail off these streets before some Underworld hood puts bullet holes in it. "Are you still a fence, Gbedu?" "I perform an occasional service in that line. A man has to earn a living and there ain't that much money in running a poolhall in my part of town. I'm strictly independent, though. I don't like the Underworld any better than you do. Organized cme is what gives us decent criminals a bad name." "Then you've still got access to the grapevine. What do you know about a new Underworld drug operation set up by Kelvin Elfie?" The black man let out his breath in a loud sigh of resignation. "I was afraid that was what brought you back. You still got a bad case of hate burning you up inside, James? What good is it going to do you to knock off Elfie and that protessional killer who did the job you took the rap for? It won't give you back five years of your life or make the win taste any sweeter. It won't lift your brother and daddy out of the grave. Get your head on straight, James change your name and find a place where the Assembly can't reach you. Get yourself a good woman and screw yourself into old age. It's better than dying for a pound of flesh." "Elfie," Brand said. "We were going to talk about Elfie." "I'll tell you something I heard along the grapevine, I heard you went down to Poole and hit a big don who was as close as a set of freckles to Viggo Lionel. Before that, it was Vincent, Lionel's pet gun. Arousing Lionel is worse than shooting a President, man, He's the Underworld's numero uno, Now you come asking questions about Elfie. Maybe he did frame you, James, but he's also the right hand the number one man. When Lionel wants a dog kicked, he sends Elfie. When he wants a hole plugged, it's Elfie's finger does the plugging. You're looking for more trouble when you come asking quetions about him. More trouble, and you got too much already." "You're good at telling me things I already know, Gbedu. Now tell me something I don't know. Is it true the Syndicate runs the new drug operation from Brighton?" "No, man. It isn't a hundred percent Underworld operation. Its part private enterprise. The Organization just makes the payoff from here." Gbedu. sighed again. "I know I was talking to a stone wall, but a man feels obliged to try. My woman asked about you, James. She hopes you're well. It changed her whole outlook on life, having a white cop go to bat tor her." "Give her my love," said Brand. "Now, what about Elfie?" "He came here and set up the payoff system. Local Underworld people get up the payoff money and send it by the Transporter to the combine thats bringing the stuff into the country. Elfie isn't in town. He got the system working and left. You disappointed?" "Yeah," said Brand. "Cocaine is the big article these days, James. It's in big demand. The feds put a stopper in the supply line from Asia. You know that if you read the papers. The French connection has had it. The Organization had to start looking tor a new source of coke and horse. They found it. According to the grapevine, the stuff comes in from below the border and is dellvered somewhere along the ooast. An independent outit brings it in and the Organization distributes it. Whoever the independents are, must have an efficient organization and they must have a hammerlock on the law in their neck of the woods. There seems to be no kinks in the delivery system at their end. There's nothing on the grapevine, either, about their identity or where they land the stuff when they bring it in." "Meaning they aren't the Mob figures." "They can't be, or more would be known about them on the streets." "Can you give me a name, Gbedu?" "Not the name you want. Some bigwig in the Underworld on the local level has responsibility for seeing that the cash gets put together from various sources of and is sent on its way on schedule. Knowing Elfie's style, I'd say he hand-picked the Transporter who delivers the, payoff. Somebody who can be trusted to haul a suitcase full of cash without losing it or getting greedy. He may be somebody picked out of the local ranks, or he may be an Underworld man Elfie brought in and stationed here for that specific purpose." "You know, Gbedu, you speak street language most of the time, but now and then you forget and lapse into proper English. It must be the four years you spent in teacher's college." Gbedu snorted. "Or all the books I read in the prison library when I was doing one to three for receiving stolen property. You asked for a name. You remember pimp called Hamp?" "Peter Thomas, Alias Pythagoras Samos. He liked to hook his girls on heroin, the better to keep them in line. Is he still around?" "Around and eating high on the hog. He's peddling a string of about eight chicks out of a super-pad that would make Gerald Doki go green. It's supposed to be really plush. Peter still uses the big H to control his chicks. He's always gotten his stuff from Underworld pushers, and he services some of the lower-rung studs in the local Organization. He may know something I don't about the Transporter. Of course, he wouldn't be eager to impart the information, but I don't remember that technicalities like that ever stood in your way." In the darkness of the car, the comers of Arnold's mouth twitched as though he might smile. He didn't. He asked, "Where is this flashy pad of Peter's? Peter and his harem live in a singles complex called Pickford estate. I wouldn't burst in unannounced if I were you. Competition among some of the local pimps has been getting cutthroat, and Peter hired himself a bodyguard, a big dude who goes by the name of Bright Green. Peter doesn't go to the john without Green." Straightening in the seat, Arnold reached for the ignition key. "Do Peter's girls work the same section of town they used to?" "The same street corners even, Look, you want me to ride along with you?" "You'd be a good man to have along, but you have to go on living in this town. You can't afford to be seen keeping my kind of company. Tend to your laundry, Gbedu." The big black man eased out of the car and flipped his laundry bag onto his shoulder. Nothing was left to be said between them and Gbedu Kyari knew better than to ask when he'd see Arnold again. He walked away without looking back. Arnold drove the streets until he spotted a girl who looked as if she bore Peter's brand. People who said one hooker looked no different than another didn't know what they were talking about. If a cop knew a pimp and the way he worked, the direction his preferences took, he could pick the pimp's girls out of a crowd of other prostitutes four times out of five. Peter Thomas, alias Pythagoras Samos, preferred his girls young-eighteen to twenty-five. He picked them up and worked them for about five years, then cast them out to quench their habits the best way they could. They usually wound up the cheapest pieces on the street, willing to do anything for a fix, or they became drug ward cases or DOA's wiped out by overdoses. Yeah, James Arnold remembered Peter. He remembered Peter too damned well. Arnold parked near the street coner where the girl was standing. He kept his motor running and the girl didn't have to be called over to the car. She wallked toward the Lexus with her hips swinging. She wore a low-cut dress slit up the thigh and a pair of boots with high heels. "Hey, daddy. You looking for something tall, tan and torrid?" "Get in the car." She was young, twenty-one at the outside, and she failed to recognize Arnold when she opened the car door and the light made its swift passage over is hard features, She was since Arnold's time and to her he was just another john, maybe a junketing salesman in town for the weekend. Sliding across the seat, she bathed him smell ef sweet cologne and laid her warm hand on his thigh. "Have you got a room, or do you want to go to a hotel where I know the clerk?" All the rules were still the same, thought Arnold. A pimp ike peter didn't let his girls entertain clients at his pad. That was a way to get busted. The girl had to make her own amangements, then take money home to Daddy. "What I want," he told the girl, "is to see Peter Thomas." "Sweetie, I don't know anybody by that name." "You know him. Even if you don't belong to him and I'll lay odds that you do--you know who Peter is, Let's drive around to the Pickford estate and pay him a visit. All I want from you is a ticket inside his door." Quickly the girl removed her hand from Arnold's thigh. "Hey, you a cop, whitey?" "I'm a man who wants to see Peter." "Then look him up in the phone book, mister. I'm no sightseetng guide." She slid away from Arnold and reached for the handle of the door. Arnold stopped her, a big hand clamping down on her shoulder and fastening tight "Hey, you re hurting me. She squirmed, slapping at his hand and failing to dislodge it. "Listen, man, there's no way Im going to take you to Peter. He leans heavy on girls who make mistakes like that." "He'll be glad to see me. We go way back, me and Peter. "The hell you do." She turned like a cat and reached for the door again. Arnold hooked an arm around her neck and drew her against him. Her skirt climbed her thighs as she kicked, trying to break away, sinking her fingernails into Arnold's brawny arm. With the cunning that was a part of her instinct of survival, she realized she couldn't break free and she changed her tactics. She stopped struggling. Her fingertips stroked Arnold's arm. "You're strong, you know that?" Her voice was wheedling again. "You wouldn't want me to get hurt bad, would you? I don't dig getting whipped with a hot coathanger." "She didn't know it, but she stirred Arnold's memory, brought back the past. He remembered girls he'd seen in the morgue with the marks of coathangers striping their thighs and backs like the scars from a bullwhip. Try to talk them into leaving a man like Peter, however, and they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't listen until it was too late. Arnold caught hold of her wrist and pulled her hand toward him and placed it on the heavy bulge underneath his coat She knew a gun when she felt it. She drew a sharp breath. "You changed my mind, sweetie. I get the message. You drive to the Pickford and I'll knock on the door for you." She tugged down her skirt and sat near Arnold without touching him, glancing sideways at his face as they drove under a streetlight. I dont know you, you're no cop, what's the story? Is Peter in trouble with the Organization?" The big man with the smoke-gray eyes didn't answer her and she shivered. "Yeah," she said. "It's none of my business, right?" The sign outside the Pickford estate was illuminated by dark blue bulbs. On the grounds, a loud poolside party was under way. Some of the girls were swimming topless. Arnold and the hooker walked past the celebrant to the first apartment and climbed stairs to the second floor where a balcony ran the length of a carpeted corridor above the courtyard and pool. "After I knock and get you into the pad," the girl said in a low voice, "can I get my tail out of here?" "Yeah." "A man's going to answer. He's going to want to know what I'm doing back here when I'm supposed to be out hustling" You tell Bright Green you've got to see Peter. The girl glanced at Arnold's face again. "You know it all, don't you, mister? Are you going to kill Peter?" Without answering, Arnold pulled the wessan model 10 and put his back to the wall near the door where the girl had paused. With his empty hand he motioned for her to knock. "She banged on the door. "Hey, its Peyton. I've got to see Peter. A band, of yellow light fell across the shadowy second-fioor balcomy as the door parted. "Peter's busy," said a man's voice "What are you doing back here, mama? You're supposed to be peddling nookie." "I ran into trouble, Green. I've got to see Peter i swear it's important." The fear and nervousness in her voiee made Peyton convinetng. Arnold heard the chain on the door rattle as the man inside, unhooked it. Peyton didn't barge into the apartment. The last thng she wanted was to go inside. Something was going to happen there that she was afraid to get involved in. She stood rooted in her tracks as Bright Green stepped out to cast a cautious look around. The barrel of a hard-swung wessan model 10 caught Green above the right eye. His breath whooshed. He fell back against the door. His weight forced the door inward and Green pitched onto his side on a blue carpet, gasping in pain. The hooker didn't linger to see what happened next. She ran. As Arnold's shoulders filled the doorway, he could hear the high heels of her boots clicking on the stairway to the courtyard. Bright Green had a head like concrete. Arnold had struck him hard enough to stun a steer, but the hoodlum was still conscious. He grunted loudly and his hand flicked up to the revolver he wore in a shoulder rig over his white silk shirt. "Pull it" said Arnold in a soft and even voice, and your friends will be going to a funeral." The man on the floor had a complexion the color of a faded canvas. His great bush of curly red hair resembled a fright wig. "Mister, you're buying yourself some--" He cut the sentence off. He had been going to say "some trouble until his gaze caught Arnold's face and the cold gray eyes looking down at him Green spread his hands wide, signifying surrender He lay motionless and silent as Arnold leaned over him and płucked the revolver from the shoulder rig Green was a pro. He knew when to check. He didn't even look surprised when Arnold swung one of the guns and struck him alongside the neck. The catch of Green's rasping breath was the only sound he made as he lost consciousness. Arnold thrust Green's gun into his belt, got his hands under the bodyguard's arms and pulled him away from the door. Quietly he pushed the door shut, then went to find the pimp. Voices led Arnold to the bedroom. A man was laughing and a girl was asking him if he liked it. The man said he did, that she was a fast learner. Arnold put his hand against the door, pushed it inward. Three people were in the round bed with the satin sheets. Two of the people were very busy. The third was enjoying watching what the other two were busy doing, Peter saw Arnold first. He was the only person facing the door. Recognizing the big man, he reared up off a pillow, batting one of the girls aside as he moved. "Son-of-a-b***h. Where's Green?" "He's sitting this one out," said Arnold. The dark girl peter had hit with his arm squirmed toward the head of the bed with one arm crossed over her breasts. She saw the weapon in Arnold's right hand and her dark eyes widened in teror. "Peter?" said the other girl as though she thought a word from him would make everything right. She was on all fours on the bed, naked. When Peter failed to speak, when he didn't even glance in her direction, she tumed her eyes slowly toward the door. Blonde hair dangled over her young, pouting face. Pawing back her pale yellow hair, she studied the man whose appearance had upset Hamp. When she saw the gun in Arnold's hand, she whined like a frightened puppy, "is he a policeman?" "Shut up, you silly b***h. He ain't no cop," said peter. "What is it about, big man? What are you doing back in Brighton?" "I'm paying calls on all my old friends." Arnold crossed the room, his steps quick and soundless on the ankle-deep thickness of the white alpaca rug. Gbedu Kyari had been right. Peter was eating high on the hog these days. Set in the ceiling above thee round bed was an ornate mirror. The cover shoved down to the foot of the bed was mink. "You ain't as smart as you used to be," the pimp told Arnold, "or you wouldn't be back in this town.. Blood was trickling down from the lip of the girl Peter had struck. Brown skin fashed as she hit the floor in her bare feet and ran for the bathroom. She slammed the door and Brand heard the lock click. "She must be afraid Im going to shoot somebody, Peter." "Thats your speciality, ain't it?" Peter showed a set of even teeth, most white, two gold. "You're no friend of mine. Never was, never will be. How come I get the honor of your presence?" Arnold caught the blonde by the wrist and pulled her toward him. Her face was pale with fright and she didn't protest. Arnold glanced at her arms and found no needle marks, Hle raised her arms and looked under them, pushed her back on the bed and examined her feet. "She must be a new recruit, Peter. You haven't sunk a needle in her yet." "What you talking about, man? Whats this needle crap?" Arnold wound his fingers in the blonde's hair, "What do you use, miss? Your boyfriend here fix you up with a little coke when you're real nice to him?" Her eyes answered although her voice didn't. Arnold's fingers tightened in her hair. "He hasn't even put you on the streets yet, has he? But he will. Two weeks from now you'll be selling it tor him on street corners. Two months from now youll be on the needle. Nice future you've got waiting tor you." "Lay off her," Peter snarled. Without looking at him, Arnold hit the pimp in the face with the wessan model 10. His back hand blow caught Peter across the bridge of the nose and slammed him against the pillows. "Get off the bed and go into the other room and sit there until I tell you to move," Arnold said to the blonde. "Don't open your mouth. You understand?" She nodded and crept away from him, backed toward the door, then scurried out of the bedroom. Arnold kicked the door shut and turned and caught Peter leaning from the bed, reaching for a pair of trousers draped across a chair. "Whatever you're reaching for better have chocolate handles, Peter, because you're going to have to eat it." Peter drew back hastily. The wessan model 10 had cut a blood gash along the bridge of his nose and a lump was already rising on it, but he showed his teeth defiantly. He wasn't going to lose his cool. No s**t-kicking ex cop was going to scare him. "Privacy's nice and all that, but you didn't have to send the girl out of the room. We've got nothing to talk about that she couldn't hear. You got the wrong scam on me. I don't handle any users these days." His eyes shifted to follow Arnold as the big man moved toward the bed. He laughed nervously. "Besides you've got it in for the Syndicate, right? I'm not hooked up with them." "You get your horse from the Underworld sources. Your coke," Arnold yanked down the satin sheet Peter had pulled up to his waist. "And you operate like you always did" "What ls this, a short-arm inspection?" Peter was naked except for a palr of sllk socks. "They turn you into a fumy bunny when you were in the big house?"