“Of course I am.”
“What color was the patrol car, sir?”
“Color? I don’t know. Black and white, or blue and white. What difference does it make?”
“There’s no Officer Donnelly in Rockville, sir. Our vehicles are green with white stripes.”
“Then, it was green! The patrolman said his name was Donnelly. He drove me back to Washington.”
“Drove you into—Just one minute, sir.”
There was the click of a hold button. Chancellor stared out the window at the wind-blown flakes of snow and wondered whether he was losing his mind. Manero came back on the line.
“Sir, I’ve got the police blotter for the week of the tenth. There’s no record of any accident involving a Chevrolet and a Lincoln Continental.”
“It was a silver Mark Four! Donnelly told me it was picked up! A woman driver in dark glasses hit a mail track.”
“I repeat, sir. There’s no Officer Donnelly—?”
“Goddamn it, there is!” Peter could not help shouting. Perspiration broke out on his forehead; the pain in his temples increased. His memory raced back. “I remember! He said she was a drunk! With a record of violations, that was it. She was the wife of a Lincoln-Mercury dealer in—in Pikesville!”
“Just a minute!” The desk sergeant raised his voice. “Is this some kind of joke? My in-laws live in Pikesville. There’s no Lincoln dealer there. Who the hell could afford one? And there’s no police officer named Donnelly in this station. Now, get off the line. You’re interfering with official business!”
The phone went dead. Chancellor stood immobile, not believing the words he’d heard. They were trying to tell him he had lived a fantasy!
The car rental agency at Dulles Airport! He had telephoned from the Hay-Adams and spoken to the manager. The manager had assured him that everything would be taken care of: the agency would simply bill his account. He dialed.
“Yes, of course, I remember our conversation, Mr. Chancellor. I enjoyed your last book very—?”
“Did you get the car back?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Then someone had to take a tow truck out to Rockville. Did he see a police officer named Donnelly? Can you find out for me?”
“It won’t be necessary. The next morning the car was back in our parking depot. You said you thought there might be damage, but there wasn’t. I remember the dispatcher saying that it was about the cleanest automobile ever returned.”
Peter tried to control himself. “Did whoever brought back the car have to sign anything?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Who was it?”
“If you’ll hold on, I can find out.”
“I’ll hold.” Peter gripped the phone with all his strength; the muscles in his forearms ached. His mind went blank. Outside, the snowflakes fell.
“Mr. Chancellor?”
“Yes?”
“There was a mistake, I’m afraid. According to the depot, the signature on the invoice was yours. Obviously there was a misunderstanding. Because the car was leased to you, the man who returned it probably thought—?”
“There was no mistake,” interrupted Peter quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Thank you,” he said, hanging up the telephone.
It was suddenly clear. Everything. The terrible mask of a face. The silver Continental. A clean, repaired Chevrolet in a Washington parking depot. A spotless Mercedes in front of his New York apartment. A note on the door.
It was Longworth. It was all Longworth. The grotesque, powdered face, the long dark hair, the black glasses … and memories of a horrible night of death a year ago in a rainstorm, Longworth had done his research; he was trying to drive him mad. But why?
Chancellor walked back to the couch; he had to sit down and let the pain in his temples pass. His eyes fell on the newspaper, and he knew what he had to do.
Alison MacAndrew.
16
He found her name in the New York telephone directory he kept in Pennsylvania, but the number had been disconnected. Which was to say a new, unlisted number had been assigned.
He called the Welton Greene Agency; a secretary told him Miss MacAndrew would be away from the office for several days. No explanation was offered, none sought.
Still, he had the address. It was an apartment building on East Fifty-fourth Street. He knew the one; it was on the river. There was nothing else to do. He had to see this woman, talk with her.
He threw a few clothes into the Mercedes, put his manuscript into his briefcase, and drove into the city.
She opened the door, her large brown eyes conveying both intelligence and curiosity. Curiosity tinged, perhaps, with anger, in spite of the sadness in her face. She was tall and seemed to have her father’s reserve, but her features were her mother’s. Fragile, etched in definition, the bone structure elegant, even aloof. Her light brown hair was casually shaped. She wore beige slacks and a yellow blouse, open at the neck. There were dark circles under her eyes; the effects of grief were evident but not for display.
“Mr. Chancellor?” she asked directly, no hand extended.
“Yes,” he nodded. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“You were very persuasive on the lobby phone. Come in, please.”
He walked inside the small apartment. The living room was modern and functional, given to swift, sharp lines of glass and chrome. It was a designer’s room, icelike and cool, yet somehow made comfortable by the owner’s presence. Beyond her quality of directness Alison MacAndrew had a warmth about her she could not conceal. She gestured toward an armchair; he sat down. She sat on the couch opposite him.
“I’d offer you a drink, but I’m not sure I want you to stay that long.”
“I understand.”
“Still, I’m impressed. Even a bit awestruck, I guess.”
“Good heavens, why?”
“Through my father, I ‘discovered’ your books several years ago. You’ve got a fan, Mr. Chancellor.”
“I hope for my publisher’s sake there are two or three others. But that’s not important. It’s not why I’m here.”
“My father was one,” said Alison. “He had your three books; he told me you were very good. He read Counterstrike! twice. He said it was frightening and quite possibly true.”
Peter was startled. The general hadn’t conveyed any such feeling. No admiration beyond vague—very vague-recognition. “I didn’t know that. He didn’t say anything.”
“He wasn’t given to flattery.”
“We talked about other things. Things much more important to him.”
“So you said on the phone. A man gave you his name and implied my father was forced out of the Army. Why? How? I think it’s ridiculous. Not that there weren’t any number who wanted him out, but they couldn’t force him.”
“What about your mother?”
“What about her?”
“She was ill.”
“She was ill,” agreed the girl.
“The Army wanted your father to send her away. He wouldn’t do it.”
“That was his choice. It’s a moot point whether she would have received more professional care if he had. God knows he chose the most difficult way for him. He loved her, that was the important thing.”
Chancellor watched her closely. The hard patina, the clipped, precise words were only part of the surface. Beneath, he felt there was a vulnerability she was doing her utmost to hide. He could not help himself; he had to probe. “You sound as if you didn’t. Love her, that is.”
Anger flashed briefly in her eyes. “My mother became … ill when I was six years old. I never really knew her. I never knew the woman my father married, the one he remembered so vividly. Does that explain anything to you?”
Peter was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m a damned fool. Of course it does.”
“Not a damned fool. A writer. I lived with a writer for nearly three years. You play with people; you can’t h
elp it.”
“I don’t mean to,” he protested.
“I said you couldn’t help it.”
“Would I know your friend?”
“You might. He writes for television; he lives in California now.” She offered no name. Instead, she reached for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the table next to her. “Why do you think my father was forced out of the Army?”
Chancellor was confused. “I just told you. Your mother.”
She replaced the lighter on the table, her eyes locked with his. “What?”
“The Army wanted him to send her away, To an institution. He refused.”
“And you think that’s why?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then, you’re wrong. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, I disliked many things about the Army, but its attitude toward my mother wasn’t one of them. For over twenty years the men around my father were very sympathetic, those above him and below. They helped him whenever they could. You look astonished.”
Peter was. The general had spelled it out. Now you know what the damaging information is … doctors said she had to be sent away … I wouldn’t do that. Those were his words! “I guess I am.” He leaned forward. “Then, why did your father resign? Do you know?”
She inhaled on her cigarette. Her eyes strayed, seeing things Peter could not see. “He said he was finished, that he didn’t care anymore. When he told me that, I realized a part of him had given up. I think I knew the rest of him would go soon. Not the way it happened, of course, but somehow. And even that. Shot in a holdup—I’ve thought about it. It fits so well. A last protest. At the end, proving something to himself.”
“What do you mean?”
Alison brought her eyes back to him. “To put it in its simplest terms, my father lost his will to fight At that moment, when he said the words to me, he was the saddest man I ever saw.”
At first Peter did not reply. He was disturbed. “Are those the words he used? That he ‘didn’t care anymore’?”
“Essentially, yes. He was sick of it all. Pentagon infighting is very cruel. There’s never any letup. Get the hardware, always more hardware. My father used to say it was understandable. The men who run the Army now were once young officers in a war that really mattered, where hardware had won it. If we had lost that war. there would have been nothing.”
“When you say a war that ‘really mattered,’ do you mean—?”
“I mean, Mr. Chancellor,” interrupted the girl, “that for five years my father opposed our policy in Southeast Asia. He fought it every chance he could get. It was a very lonely position. I think the word is pariah.”
“Good lord.…” Peter’s mind spun back involuntarily to the Hoover novel. To the prologue. The general he had invented was the pariah Alison MacAndrew had just described.
“My father wasn’t political; his judgment had nothing to do with politics. It was purely military. He knew the war couldn’t be won in any conventional way, and to use the unconventional was unthinkable. We couldn’t win it because there was no real commitment among those we supported. There were more lies coming out of Saigon than in all the court martials in military history—that’s what he said. He considered the whole thing an enormous waste of life.”
Chancellor sat back on the couch. He had to clear his head. He was hearing words he had written. Fiction. “I knew the general was opposed to certain aspects. I never thought he dwelt on the corruption, the lies.”
“It was almost all he dwelt on. And he was vehement about it. He was in the process of cataloguing hundreds of contradictory reports, logistical misrepresentations, body counts. He once told me that if the body counts were only fifty percent accurate, we would have won the war in ’68.”
“What did you say?” asked Peter incredulously. These were his words.
“What’s the matter?” asked Alison.
“Nothing. Go ahead.”
“There’s nothing more to tell. He was barred from attending conferences he knew he should be a part of, ignored in staff meetings. The more he fought, the more they disregarded him. Finally he saw it was all futile.”
“What about the reports he was cataloguing? The misrepresentations? The lies out of Saigon?”
Alison looked away. “They were the last things we talked about,” she said quietly. “I’m afraid it wasn’t my finest hour. I was angry. I called him names I now deeply regret. I didn’t realize how beaten he was.”
“What about the reports?”
Alteon raised her head and looked at him. “I think they became a symbol for him. They represented months, maybe years, of further agony, turning against men he’d served with. He wasn’t up to it anymore. He couldn’t face it. He quit.”
Peter again leaned forward. Consciously, he spoke with a hard edge in his voice. “That doesn’t sound like the professional I spoke with.”
“I know it doesn’t. That’s why I yelled at him. You see, I could argue with him. We were more than father and daughter. We were friends. Equals in a way. I had to grow up fast; he didn’t have anyone else to talk to.”
The moment was filled with anguish. Chancellor let it pass. “A few minutes ago you said I was wrong. Now it’s my turn. The last thing your father wanted to do was resign. And he didn’t go to Hawaii for a vacation. He went there to find the man who forced him out of the Army?”
“What?”
“Something happened to your father years ago. Something he didn’t want anyone to know about. This man found out and threatened him. I liked your father very much. I liked what he stood for, and I feel guilty as hell. That’s as honestly as I can put it. And I want to tell you about it.”
Alison MacAndrew sat motionless, her large eyes level with his. “Would you care for that drink now?” she asked.
He told her the story, everything he could remember. From the blond-haired stranger on the beach at Malibu to the astonishing phone call that morning to the Rockville police. He omitted only the killing at Fort Tryon; if there was a connection, he did not want to burden her with it.
In the telling he felt cheap; the commercial novelist in search of a grand conspiracy. He fully expected her to be outraged, to damn him for being the means to her father’s death. In a very real sense he wanted her condemnation, so deep was his own guilt.
Instead, she seemed to understand the depth of his feelings. Remarkably, she tried to lessen his guilt, telling him that if what he told her was true, he was no villain; he was a victim. But regardless of what he believed, she would not accept the theory that there was an incident in her father’s past so damaging that threats of exposure could force him to resign.
“It doesn’t make sense. If anything like that existed, it would have been used against him years ago.”
“In the newspaper, you said he was driven out.”
“Yes, but not that way. By wearing him down, ignoring his decisions. That was the method. I saw it.”
Chancellor remembered his prologue; he was almost afraid to ask the question. “What about his report on the corruption in Saigon?”
“What about it?”
“Isn’t it possible they tried to stop him?”
“I’m sure they did. But it wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that. His field reports were always very critical. He loved the Army; he wanted it to be the best it could be. He would never have made it public, if that’s what you’re driving at.”
“It was.”
“Never. He wouldn’t do that.”
Peter did not understand, nor did he press for an explanation. But he had to ask the obvious. “Why did he go to Hawaii?”
She looked at him. “I know what you think. I can’t refute you, but I know what he told me. He said he wanted to get away, go on a long trip. There was nothing to prevent him. Mother was gone.”
It was no answer; the question remained suspended. And so they talked. For hours, it seemed. Finally, she said it. The next afternoon her father’s body was arriving in New York, f
lown in on a commercial jetliner from Hawaii. An army escort would meet the plane at Kennedy Airport, the coffin be transferred to a military aircraft and taken to Virginia. The funeral was the day after in Arlington. She was not sure she could face the ordeal.
“Isn’t anyone going to be with you?”
“No.”
“Will you let me?”
“There’s no reason—?”
“I think there is,” said Peter firmly.
They stood together on the enormous field of concrete that was the cargo area. Two Army officers remained at attention several yards to their left. The wind was strong, swirling odd pieces of paper and leaves from faraway trees into the air in circles. The huge DC-10 taxied to a stop. Shortly, the large panel underneath the giant fuselage slid back; an electric freight dolly approached and was centered beneath. Seconds later the coffin was lowered.
And Alison’s face was suddenly ashen, her body rigid. The trembling began at her lips, then reached her hands; her brown eyes stared, unblinking; tears started to roll down her cheeks. Peter put his arm around her shoulders.
She held back as long as she could—far longer, in far greater pain, than made sense. Chancellor could feel the spasms that shot through her arms; he held her tighter. Finally she could take no more. She turned and fell against him, her head buried in his coat, the sobs muffled, the agony complete.
“I’m sorry.… I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I promised myself I wouldn’t.”
He held her close and spoke softly. “Hey, come on. It’s allowed.”
17
Peter had made up his mind, but she changed it for him. He was going to abandon the book; he had been manipulated, and the price of that manipulation was symbolized for him by the dead MacAndrew. He had implied as much to Alison the night before.
“Say you’re right,” she had said to him. “I don’t think you are, but say it’s true. Isn’t that all the more reason to go on?”
It was.
He sat across the aisle from her on the air force plane. She wanted to be alone; he sensed that and understood. Below them, in the cargo area of the aircraft, was the body of her father. She had a great deal to think about, and he could not help her. Alison was a private person; he understood that, too.