Denver Strike Read online

  Dulles’s dark eyes narrowed in reappraisal. “Then how did you get rid of them?”

  Hawker finished his beer and held the pewter mug up as a signal to the waitress. The waitress wore a scarlet dance-hall dress and feathers in her hair. “Tom,” the vigilante said easily, “you’re a bright guy. The reason you happened to know about me was because I’ve built a reputation for solving problems that regular law-enforcement agencies can’t touch. I didn’t build that reputation because I’m a better cop than the average municipal cop. I built it because I go ahead and do what no other cop can legally do. It’s the only real advantage I have. Several years ago, I decided I’d had enough of the bureaucratic bullshit. I decided that this nation had a real need for someone trained in law enforcement who wasn’t afraid to cut corners, someone who wasn’t afraid to play judge, jury, and executioner. But when I made that decision, I also knew that anyone who knew the details of my missions could, in a legal sense, become an accomplice.” Hawker took the tankard of beer from the waitress, exchanging a dollar tip for her warm smile. “So now I’m going to ask you again. Do you really want to know what I did to scare those guys off, Tom?”

  Dulles nodded. “Like you said, I’ve been around, Hawk. I don’t mind taking a few chances myself. So tell me before I threaten to turn you in to the Post.”

  Hawker shrugged. “I killed them.”

  “What?”

  “I killed them—all of them except one, that is. Someone else killed that one, but I have no idea who.”

  Dulles gave a low whistle. “You actually greased the dinks who came after Lomela? How many?”

  “Six in all; five by my hand.”

  Dulles took a long drink of his Scotch. “You know, the guys down at the P.D. used to talk about you, in the gym or the steam room—you know, bullshit talk. They had heard rumors like you’d blown away fifteen or twenty street punks in L.A., or a dozen New York hoods, or an army of revolutionaries. Stuff like that. I never believed it because who in the hell could get away with stuff like that? They said your trick was to never ever waste anybody who didn’t deserve it. They said if we got a scramble call on some dude who has greased Denver’s three biggest heroin pushers, how fast are we really going to scramble? After we shake his hand and buy him a few beers, we might tell him to get his ass in gear before someone from the ACLU comes along and nails us all.” Dulles smiled a crooked, Gary Cooper kind of smile. “So now I find out the rumors weren’t all bullshit. I learn you really do pack the terrible swift sword.”

  Hawker chuckled. “I’ve heard those same rumors, and I can tell you right now that a lot of them are bullshit. They make me out to be stronger than a locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet.” He motioned to his stiff left arm. “But I almost got wasted two nights ago because I was dumb and didn’t keep track of some asshole with a knife in the dark. I’ve had my butt kicked more than once, and all too often I’d like to kick my own butt for being just plain stupid. But you don’t hear the stories about my screw-ups”—Hawker smiled wryly—“and I guess I’m glad. Any well-trained cop could do what I do if he had the weaponry and the financial backing and the go-for-broke attitude. That’s the real difference: the go-for-broke attitude. The killers and the rapists and the crooks don’t expect it. I mean, who in the hell can really chase them like they deserve to be chased? An honest cop can’t. The courts wouldn’t let him even if his work schedule allowed it. So when someone finally does, it shocks the hell out of them. They get real nervous. They make stupid mistakes. And with me, they don’t get a chance to be a repeat offender.”

  “So you really did waste six of Big Bill Nek’s gunmen,” Dulles said in a tone of amused wonderment. “Boy, is he going to be pissed.”

  “I eliminated five,” Hawker corrected. “I tied the sixth one to a rope and dropped him over a cliff—”

  “You what?”

  “I didn’t let him hit the ground. I just dropped him part of the way. I wanted information from him. I wanted him to know I meant business.”

  “That would certainly convince me you meant business.”

  “I was gone for about half an hour,” Hawker said, “and when I got back I found that somebody had cut the rope.”

  “Who in the hell could have done that? Do you think maybe he climbed back up, cut the rope, and split?”

  Hawker shook his head. “He split, all right. I could see him lying on the rocks below. Somebody came by and decided he needed the Isaac Newton cure for insomnia. I have no idea who. But whoever did it was bleeding. There was blood on the rope. He must have cut himself. I’m not worried about that now, though. Now I need to find Nek’s mountain hideaway. Where is he keeping Jimmy Estes and Chuck Phillips hostage?”

  “Well, you know the official line is that Estes and Phillips were up in the mountains and just disappeared. We have absolutely no proof that they were kidnapped. The P.D. doesn’t even have anyone working on the case; in fact, there is no case. But if I were looking for Estes and Phillips, I’d get old Robert Carthay to try to lead me back to that abandoned mine. I know it was dark when he escaped, and I know he was half-crazy, but that man knows the Colorado Rockies better than anyone I’ve ever met, and I think the route is stuck somewhere in his subconscious. Hell, I’d bet on it.”

  Hawker thought for a moment, shaking his head slowly. “But Nek probably had Estes and Phillips moved to a different location after Carthay escaped,” he said. “I think Carthay is better off hidden in the mountains. No, we have to think of some other way to find out.”

  “We could get topographical maps, pick out the most likely areas, then get a chopper to fly us around,” said Dulles.

  “It may come to that. But I have something I’d like to try first. You said Nek has a big place here in Denver, didn’t you?”

  “He’s the richest man in town, and he has the biggest estate. It’s just outside Englewood.”

  Hawker finished his beer. “Why don’t we drive there right now and ask Nek where he’s keeping them?”

  Dulles laughed, but his laughter slowly faded when he noticed the look in the vigilante’s gray eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Hawker dropped a ten-dollar bill onto the table. “Don’t worry. This will be a friendly visit.”

  seven

  Bill Nek didn’t live on an estate. He lived in a fortress that was built on a park grounds that ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff that towered over the Denver skyline.

  Because Tom Dulles drove, it was Dulles who talked to the armed guard at the black wrought-iron gate.

  Leaning into the window, the guard asked, “Do you have an appointment to see Mr. Nek?”

  “I don’t think he’s expecting us,” Dulles said, looking at Hawker for confirmation.

  “Then could you kindly state your business,” said the guard with an imperious air.

  Hawker leaned toward the window. “Get on the phone and tell Nek we’re here to talk about the sale of the Chicquita Silver Mine.” The sharpness of Hawker’s tone set the guard back a step.

  “Silver mine, sir,” he said. “Yes, sir. I’ll be right back, sir.”

  The guard stepped through the pedestrian gate and disappeared into a small stone house. A few minutes later, he reappeared. “Mr. Nek will send a car for you,” the guard said.

  “What do you think we’re sitting in?” Dulles laughed. “We’d rather drive ourselves.”

  The guard could not be swayed. “If you wish to see Mr. Nek, you will take the car they send for you. There can be no exceptions. Please park on the asphalt space to the right, then step through the gate, please. The car will be here in a few minutes.”

  The car was a black Cadillac limo with tinted windows, television antenna, armor plating, and a carriage as long as a bus. Before Hawker and Dulles could get in, three big men in business suits jumped out and approached them.

  “Christ,” Dulles whispered to Hawker, “they look like the CIA.”

  “I hope not,” Hawker said wryly. “Th
e CIA has spent the last two years trying to kill me.”

  Dulles looked at him blankly. “You could have told me that before I let you get into my car.”

  “You’re the one who said he didn’t mind taking a few chances.”

  Dulles grimaced. “Shit, I’m traveling with a marked man.”

  “We’d like to ask you gentlemen a few questions before you see Mr. Nek,” the biggest of the three men said with a trace of a European accent. Like the others, he wore dark aviator sunglasses, and he had very short hair. These three were of a different breed from the drug-damaged killers Hawker had faced in the mountains. These guys were cool, calculating professionals. The spokesman was German, judging by his accent. He operated with German thoroughness. Each of them had a look of icy detachment that suggested they would kill with the same dedication to efficiency they probably gave to their physical training and to their dress styles.

  This was Nek’s first team, his personal guard. Hawker knew there would be no bullshitting these guys. Germans, unlike the buffoons on Hogan’s Heroes, did not fool easily or kindly.

  “Would you two gentlemen mind standing against the automobile?” the biggest man asked. He had pure white hair and hands the size of bowling balls. His questions weren’t questions, they were orders.

  “Are you going to shoot us or search us?” Hawker asked easily.

  None of the three men smiled. “If you wish to speak with Mr. Nek, you must first be searched,” the big German said.

  “I’ll bet he has a hell of a time getting his phones fixed,” the vigilante said as he assumed the spread-eagle position against the limo.

  The men used hand-held metal detectors, going over both Hawker and Dulles thoroughly. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask me for my weapons?” Hawker quipped as the Beretta was removed from the holster strapped to his right ankle and the Randall survival knife was taken from the scabbard on his left ankle.

  “Dis man has a badge,” one of the men said in a very heavy accent as he looked at Dulles’s billfold.

  “All cops have badges,” said Dulles. “It’s kind of like belonging to a club.”

  Once again, no smiles.

  “Are you here on police business?”

  “No. We’re here to talk about a silver mine,” Hawker replied.

  “Then why do you come armed?”

  “Because a friend told us we’d disappoint the hell out of Nek’s security team if we didn’t.” Hawker smiled. “See how much fun you’re having?”

  The big German scowled as he went to the car, spoke on the phone, then returned. “Mr. Nek has agreed to see you. You will sit in the back between my two associates. Your weapons will be returned to you upon the completion of your interview.”

  The ride was like a funeral procession. Hawker had to fight the childish urge to giggle. From the way Dulles refused to look at him, he was sure the Denver cop felt the same way. The two-lane asphalt drive twisted through an estate of rolling hills, aspen stands, rushing streams, and neat, golf-green lawns. The house was four stories high, ivy on white stone, with a weird cubical symmetry, as if it had been designed by an architect from the late 1950s. There was an eight-car garage and a walkway along the top of the house, like a bastion mount. Off to the left, through the silver aspens, Hawker saw a wind sock, and he knew there was a runway nearby.

  “Follow me,” said the German. He led them up broad stone stairs, through double doors, into the most garishly decorated place Hawker had ever seen. The carpet was glowing burgundy, the walls some kind of furry crepe, and the furniture was a mixture of modern glass and stainless steel, early American, and Archie Bunker Salvation Army. It was part whorehouse, part model home, part middle-class suburbia.

  “Christ,” Dulles whispered, “it looks like a tornado hit a couple of mobile home parks and a fag bar before dumping everything here.”

  “Mr. Nek is in the library,” intoned the German.

  Another set of double doors opened, and Hawker got his first look at Nek. The old man stood facing him, wearing a blazing red smoking jacket and holding a tawdry paperback in his hand. He had a craggy hawk face with bushy white eyebrows, tiny, fierce blue eyes, and skin as pale as parchment. His mouth was turned perpetually down at the corners, as if something nearby smelled foul. He was still a big man, but he had clearly once been bigger. His shoulders were slumped with age, and his big hands were gnarled. There was a withered, bitter look to the man as if he were drying up rather than growing old. Not that he looked incapacitated; he didn’t. Nek still had the manner of someone who was still very much in control, a glowering attitude that the vigilante had seen in the eyes of convicted killers. He stood by a window that allowed no light to enter. Like all the others, it was sealed by heavy green drapes. Were it not for the fire and the overhead light, the room would have been in utter darkness. Nek studied Hawker, looked at Dulles, then motioned roughly to chairs by the roaring fire. He said with an edge, “If you two messenger boys have something to say, sit down and make it quick. I’m a busy man.”

  Hawker took a chair while Dulles remained standing. “Doesn’t a good host usually offer his guests something to drink?” Hawker asked easily.

  The man glared at the vigilante. “Listen to me, you little punk. I let you in here because you said you had something to say about the Chicquita Mine. If you do, you’d better spit it out. If not, I can have the two of you carried out in a bag if I like.” He had taken a step closer and was shaking his finger at the vigilante. “And one more thing, punk. When you talk to me, you call me sir. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re a Denver cop or not. I own more cops than you own socks.”

  Hawker looked at Dulles with a bored expression on his face. “Is he trying to put me in my place? Or is he just practicing his vocabulary?”

  Dulles picked up on the tone of Hawker’s voice. “I think he’s just trying to get his heart beating,” Dulles said. “It looks like the poor old fart has been dead for the last two or three hours.”

  The vigilante looked at the man known as the Silver King, the most ruthless man in Colorado. “For one thing, Nek, I’m not a cop. My name is Hawker. James Hawker. Maybe you’ve heard of me. If you haven’t, then I know you’ll remember that a couple of days ago you sent a half-dozen of your goons into the mountains to kidnap Lomela Carthay and her two children. But your goons haven’t come back yet, have they? And do you know what? They never will come back, Nek. They’ll never come back because I killed them.”

  The color had slowly drained from Nek’s face. But he did a good job of hiding the shock he clearly felt. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Hawker. If you’ve come up here to try to snow me, it won’t work. Better men than you have tried it, and I’ve buried each and every one of them—figuratively, of course.” His eyes glittered as if to say he wasn’t speaking at all figuratively. “Now, if you really have murdered some men, then, as a respected citizen of Denver, I think it’s only fair to warn you that it’s my duty to notify the authorities.”

  The vigilante shrugged. “There’s a phone on the desk. Go ahead and call them. I’ll wait right here.”

  Nek put down the book he had been reading and walked toward the phone. Hawker said, “When the cops get here, maybe you can explain to them why you kidnapped your old partners Jimmy Estes and Chuck Phillips, and why Robert Carthay was half-crazy after he managed to escape from your goons.”

  Nek hesitated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Oh, no? Then how about this: maybe I’ll have the cops ask why you have the bandage on your hand.”

  The man touched his hand reflexively, as if to cover the bandage. “I was working in the garden and cut myself,” Nek said testily.

  “Bullshit,” snapped Hawker. “You killed one of your own men two days ago up in the mountains. He was hanging over a cliff and you cut the rope because you heard him agree to tell me about you and your operation.”

  It jarred the old man. His face paled,
and he sat down in a chair by the fire, no longer interested in calling the police. It jarred him, but it didn’t beat him, and he sure as hell wasn’t intimidated. “That’s the wildest tale I’ve ever heard, Hawker. I suppose you plan on lying to the cops. Maybe tell them you saw me cut the rope, huh?”

  “I could tell them that. Or I could tell them I saw your boots there drying by the fire, and that I noticed that the lacings are covered with the same kind of beggar lice that got on my boots while I was in that valley. Or I could tell them that the killer was left-handed and he gashed his right hand with the knife while he was cutting the rope.” Hawker nodded. “That’s how you got that bandage on your hand, isn’t it?”

  Nek had recovered his poise. “Just an unfortunate gardening accident,” he smiled. “I have a dozen people who saw me cut my hand on a machete.”

  Hawker shrugged. “Then I guess I would have to tell the police that I saw you cut the rope. Makes no difference to me. I don’t mind lying. We have that in common, don’t we, Nek? Neither of us minds lying.”

  The old man’s face had turned so red it was nearly purple. His voice quivered as he spoke, “Listen to me, you nasty young motherfucker. Twenty years ago, I’d have kicked your little pink ass for talking to me like that—”

  “You were a coward twenty years ago, too, Nek,” Hawker interrupted. “What were you then? Fifty? Maybe a little younger? People who are cowards stay cowards. You didn’t have the guts to face up to your three partners after you stole their silver claim. Hell, you don’t even have the nerve to face up to them now. So spare me that shit about what you would have done twenty years ago.”

  “You think the Denver D.A. would take your word over mine, you son of a bitch? A man who openly admits to killing five of my—” Nek caught himself. “Who admits to killing five men. But what the hell am I sitting here talking to you about it for? I don’t know a goddamn thing about what you’re talking about. All I know is you came here supposedly to talk about the Chicquita Silver Mine. Is that just bullshit, too—”