“Lie about what?”
“You never heard about any bank accounts in Switzerland? In Zurich?”
Leila withdrew her hand and the Ostermans stood motionless. Finally, Bernie spoke quietly. “Yes, I’ve heard of bank accounts in Zurich. We’ve got a couple.”
Leila looked at her husband.
“Where did you get the money?”
“We make a great deal of money,” answered Bernie cautiously. “You know that. If it would ease whatever’s troubling you, why don’t you call our accountant. You’ve met Ed Marcum. There’s no one better … or cleaner … in California.”
Tanner was confused The simplicity of Osterman’s reply puzzled him; it was so natural. “The Cardones, the Tremaynes. They’ve got Zurich accounts, too?”
“I guess they have. So do fifty percent of the people I know on the coast.”
“Where did they get the money?”
“Why don’t you ask them?” Osterman kept his voice quiet.
“You know!”
“You’re being foolish,” said Leila. “Both Dick and Joe are very successful men. Joe probably more than any of us.”
“But why Zurich? What’s in Zurich?”
“A degree of freedom,” answered Bernie softly.
“That’s it! That’s what you were selling last night! ‘What do you want most?,’ you said. Those were your words!”
“There’s a great deal of money to be made in Zurich, I won’t deny that.”
“With Omega! That’s how you make it, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Bernie, now apprehensive himself.
“Dick and Joe! They’re with Omega! So are you! The ‘Chasm of Leather!’ Information for Zurich! Money for information!”
Leila grabbed her husband’s hand. “The phone calls, Bernie! The messages.”
“Leila, please.… Listen, Johnny. I swear to you I don’t know what you’re talking about. Last night I offered to help you and I meant it. There are investments being made; I was offering you money for investments. That’s all.”
“Not for information? Not for Omega?”
Leila clutched her husband’s hand; Bernie responded by looking at her, silently commanding her to calm herself. He turned back to Tanner. “I can’t imagine any information you might have that I could want. I don’t know any Omega. I don’t know what it is.”
“Joe knows! Dick knows! They both came to Ali and me! They threatened us.”
“Then I’m no part of them. We’re no part.”
“Oh, God, Bernie, something happened.… ” Leila couldn’t help herself. Bernie reached over and took her in his arms.
“Whatever it is, it hasn’t anything to do with us.… Perhaps you’d better tell us what it’s all about. Maybe we can help.”
Tanner watched them, holding each other gently. He wanted to believe them. He wanted friends; he desperately needed allies. And Fassett had said it; not all were Omega. “You really don’t know, do you? You don’t know what Omega is. Or what ‘Chasm of Leather’ means.”
“No,” said Leila simply.
Tanner believed them. He had to believe them, for it meant he wasn’t alone any more. And so he told them.
Everything.
When he had finished the two writers stood staring at him, saying nothing. It had begun to drizzle lightly but none of them felt the rain. Finally, Bernie spoke.
“And you thought I was talking about … we had something to do with this?” Bernie narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “My God! It’s insane!”
“No it’s not. It’s real. I’ve seen it.”
“You say Ali doesn’t know?” asked Leila.
“I was told not to tell her, that’s what they told me!”
“Who? Someone you can’t even reach on the phone? A man Washington doesn’t acknowledge? Someone who pumped you full of lies about us?”
“A man was killed! My family could have been killed last Wednesday! The Cardones and the Tremaynes were gassed last night!”
Osterman looked at his wife and then back at Tanner.
“If they really were gassed,” he said softly.
“You’ve got to tell Alice.” Leila was emphatic. “You can’t keep it from her any longer.”
“I know. I will.”
“And then we’ve got to get out of here,” said Osterman.
“Where to?”
“Washington. There are one or two Senators, a couple of Congressmen. They’re friends of ours.”
“Bernie’s right. We’ve got friends in Washington.”
The drizzle was beginning to turn into hard rain. “Let’s go inside,” said Leila, touching Tanner’s shoulder gently.
“Wait! We can’t talk in there. We can’t say anything inside the house. It’s wired.”
Bernie and Leila Osterman reacted as though they’d been slapped. “Everywhere?” asked Bernie.
“I’m not sure.… I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“Then we don’t talk inside the house; or if we do we put on a radio loud and whisper.”
Tanner looked at his friends. Thank God! Thank God! It was the beginning of his journey back to sanity.
24
In less than an hour the July storm was upon them. The radio reports projected gale force winds; medium-craft warnings were up from Hatteras to Rhode Island, and the Village of Saddle Valley was neither so isolated nor inviolate as to escape the inundation.
Ali awoke with the first thunder and John told her—whispered to her—through the sound of the loud radios, that they were to be prepared to leave with Bernie and Leila. He held her close to him and begged her not to ask questions, to trust him.
The children were brought into the living room; a television set moved in front of the fireplace. Ali packed two suitcases and placed them beside the garage entrance. Leila boiled eggs and wrapped celery and carrot sticks.
Bernie had said they might not stop driving for an hour or two.
Tanner watched the preparations and his mind went back a quarter of a century.
Evacuation!
The phone rang at two-thirty. It was a suppressed, hysterical Tremayne who—falsely, thought Tanner—recounted the events of the Lassiter depot and made it clear that he and Ginny were too shaken to come over for dinner. The Saturday evening dinner of an Osterman weekend.
“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!” Alice Tanner spoke to her husband in the pantry. There was a transistor radio at full volume and she tried to turn it down. He held her hand, preventing her, and pulled her to him.
“Trust me. Please trust me,” he whispered. “I’ll explain in the car.”
“In the car?” Ali’s eyes widened in fright as she brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God! What you’re saying is … you can’t talk.”
“Trust me.” Tanner walked into the kitchen and spoke, gestured really, to Bernie. “Let’s load.” They went for the suitcases.
When Tanner and Osterman returned from the garage, Leila was at the kitchen window looking out on the back yard. “It’s becoming a regular gale out there.”
The phone rang, and Tanner answered it.
Cardone was an angry man. He swore and swore again that he’d rip apart and rip apart once more the son of a bitch who’d gassed them. He was also confused, completely bewildered. His watch was worth eight hundred dollars and it wasn’t taken. He’d had a couple of hundred in his wallet and it was left intact.
“The police said Dick had some papers stolen. Something about Zurich, Switzerland.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Cardone and then silence. When Joe spoke he could hardly be heard. “That’s got nothing to do with me!” And then he rapidly told Tanner without much conviction that a call from Philadelphia had warned him that his father might be extremely ill. He and Betty would stay around home. Perhaps they’d see them all on Sunday. Tanner hung up the phone.
“Hey!” Leila was watching something out on the lawn. “Look
at those umbrellas. They’re practically blowing away.”
Tanner looked out the window above the sink. The two large table umbrellas were bending under the force of the wind. The cloth of each was straining against the thin metal ribs. Soon they’d rip or invert themselves. Tanner knew it would appear strange if he didn’t take care of them. It wouldn’t be normal.
“I’ll go get them down. Take two minutes.”
“Want some help?”
“No sense both of us getting wet.”
“Your raincoat’s in the hall closet.”
The wind was strong, the rain came down in torrents. He shielded his face with his hands and fought his way to the farthest table. He reached up under the flapping cloth and felt his fingers on the metal hasp. He started to push it in.
There was a shattering sound on the top of the wrought iron table. Pieces of metal flew up, searing his arm. Another report. Fragments of cement at his feet bounced off the base of the table. And then another shot, now on his other side.
Tanner flung himself under the metal table, crouching to the far side, away from the direction of the bullets.
Shots came in rapid succession, all around him, kicking up particles of metal and stone.
He started to crawl backwards onto the grass but the small eruptions of wet dirt paralyzed him. He grabbed for a chair and held it, clutched it in front of him as though it were the last threads of a disintegrating rope and he were high above a chasm. He froze in panic, awaiting his death.
“Let go! Goddamn it! Let go!”
Osterman was pulling at him, slapping him in the face and wrenching his arms from the chair. They scrambled back toward the house; bullets thumped into the wooden shingles.
“Stay away! Stay away from the door!” Bernie screamed. But he wasn’t in time, or his wife would not heed the command. Leila opened the door and Bernie Osterman threw Tanner inside, jumping on top of him as he did so. Leila crouched below the window and slammed the door shut.
The firing stopped.
Ali rushed to her husband and turned him over, cradling his head, wincing at the blood on his bare arms.
“Are you hit?” yelled Bernie.
“No … no, Tin all right.”
“You’re not all right! Oh, God! Look at his arms!” Ali tried to wipe the blood away with her hand.
“Leila! Find some alcohol! Iodine! Ali, you got iodine?”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks, Alice could not answer the question. Leila grabbed her shoulders and spoke harshly.
“Stop it, Ali! Stop it! Where are some bandages, some antiseptic? Johnny needs help!”
“Some spray stuff … in the pantry. Cotton, too.” She would not let go of her husband. Leila crept towards the pantry.
Bernie examined Tanner’s arms. “This isn’t bad. Just a bunch of scratches. I don’t think anything’s embedded …”
John looked up at Bernie, despising himself. “You saved my life.… I don’t know what to say.”
“Kiss me on my next birthday.… Good girl, Leila. Give me that stuff.” Osterman took a medicine can and held the spray steady on Tanner’s arms. “Ali, phone the police! Stay away from the window but get hold of that fat butcher you call a police captain!”
Alice reluctantly let her husband go and crawled past the kitchen sink. She reached up the side of the wall and removed the receiver.
“It’s dead.”
Leila gasped. Bernie leapt towards Ali, grabbing the phone from her hand.
“She’s right.”
John Tanner turned himself over and pressed his arms against the kitchen tile. He was all right. He could move.
“Let’s find out where we stand,” he said slowly.
“What do you mean?” asked Bernie.
“You girls stay down on the floor.… Bernie, the light switch is next to the telephone. Reach up and turn it on when I count to three.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just do as I say.”
Tanner crept to the kitchen door, by the bar, and stood up out of sight of the window. The rain, the wind, the intermittent rumble of thunder were the only sounds.
“Ready? I’m going to start counting.”
“What’s he going to do?” Ali started up, but Osterman grabbed her and held her to the floor.
“You’ve been here before, Bernie,” John said. “Infantry Manual. Heading: Night Patrols. Nothing to worry about. The odds are a thousand to one on my side.”
“Not in any book I know.”
“Shut up!… One, two, three!”
Osterman flipped the switch and the overhead kitchen light went on. Tanner leapt towards the pantry.
It came. The signal. The sign that the enemy was there.
The shot was heard, the glass shattered, and the bullet smashed into the wall, sending pieces of plaster flying. Osterman turned off the light.
On the floor, John Tanner closed his eyes and spoke quietly. “So, that’s where we stand. The microphones were a lie.… Everything; a lie.”
“No! Stay back! Get back!” screamed Leila before any of them knew what she meant. She lunged, followed by Alice, across the kitchen toward the doorway.
Tanner’s children had not heard the shots outside; the sounds of the rain, the thunder, and the television set had covered them. But they’d heard the shot fired into the kitchen. Both women fell on them now, pulling them to the floor, shielding them with their bodies.
“Ali, get them into the dining room! Stay on the floor!” commanded Tanner. “Bernie, you don’t have a gun, do you?”
“Sorry, never owned one.”
“Me either. Isn’t it funny? I’ve always disapproved of anyone buying a gun. So Goddamned primitive.”
“What are we going to do?” Leila was trying to remain calm.
“We’re going to get out of here,” answered Tanner. “The shots are from the woods. Whoever is firing doesn’t know whether we have weapons or not. He’s not going to shoot from the front … at least I don’t think so. Cars pass on Orchard pretty frequently.… We’ll pile into the wagon and get the hell out.”
“I’ll open the door,” said Osterman.
“You’ve been hero enough for one afternoon. It’s my turn.… If we time it right, there’s no problem. The door goes up fast.”
They crept into the garage.
The children lay in the back section of the wagon between the suitcases, cramped but protected. Leila and Ali crouched on the floor behind the front seat. Osterman was at the wheel and Tanner stood by the garage door, prepared to pull it up.
“Go ahead. Start it!” He would wait until the engine was full throttle then open the door and jump into the wagon, There were no obstructions. The station wagon would clear the small Triumph and swing around easily for the spurt forward down the driveway.
“Go ahead, Bernie! For Christ’s sake, start it!”
Instead, Osterman opened his door and got out. He looked at Tanner.
“It’s dead.”
Tanner turned the ignition key on the Triumph. The motor did not respond. Osterman opened the hood of the wagon and beckoned John over. The two men looked at the motor, Tanner holding a match.
Every wire had been cut.
“Does that door open from the outside?” asked Bernie.
“Yes. Unless it’s locked.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t we have heard it open?”
“Probably not with this rain.”
“Then it’s possible someone’s in here.”
The two men looked over at the small bathroom door. It was closed. The only hiding place in the garage. “Let’s get them out of here,” whispered Tanner.
Ali, Leila, and the two children went back into the house. Bernie and John looked around the walls of the garage for any objects which might serve as weapons. Tanner took a rusty axe; Osterman, a garden fork. Both men approached the closed door.
Tanner signaled Bernie to pull it ope
n. Tanner rushed in, thrusting the blade of the axe in front of him.
It was empty. But on the wall, splotched in black spray paint, was the Greek letter ω.
25
Tanner ordered them all into the basement. Ali and Leila took the children down the stairs, trying feebly to make a game of it. Tanner stopped Osterman at the staircase door.
“Let’s put up a few obstacles, okay?”
“You think it’s going to come to that?”
“I just don’t want to take chances.”
The two men crept below the sight-lines of the windows and pushed three heavy armchairs, one on top of another, the third on its side, against the front door. Then they crawled to each window, standing out of sight, to make sure the locks were secure.
Tanner, in the kitchen, took a flashlight and put it in his pocket. Together they moved the vinyl table against the outside door: Tanner shoved the aluminum chairs to Osterman, who packed them under the table, one chair rim braced under the doorknob.
“This is no good,” Bernie said. “You’re sealing us up. We should be figuring out how to get away!”
“Have you figured that out?”
In the dim light Osterman could see only the outline of Tanner’s body. Yet he could sense the desperation in his voice.
“No. No, I haven’t. But we’ve got to try!”
“I know. In the meantime we should take every precaution.… We don’t know what’s out there. How many or where they are.”
“Let’s finish it, then.”
The two men crawled to the far end of the kitchen, beyond the pantry to the garage entrance. The outside garage door had been locked, but for additional security they propped the last kitchen chair under the knob and crept back into the hallway. They picked up their primitive weapons—the axe and the garden fork—and went down into the basement.
The sound of the heavy rain could be heard pounding on the small, rectangular windows, level with the ground outside the cellar. Intermittent flashes of lightning lit up the cinderblock walls.
Tanner spoke. “It’s dry in here. We’re safe. Whoever’s out there is soaked to the skin, he can’t stay there all night … It’s Saturday. You know how the police cars patrol the roads on weekends. They’ll see there are no lights on and come investigate.”