“What time was that?”
“Around four-thirty, if I remember the mobile’s logs.”
“Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“Annie wasn’t there. Every Wednesday she leaves at four o’clock in the afternoon and Kendrick knows it. It’s her crazy aerobics class!”
“He obviously forgot.”
“Not likely. Come with me, sir.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Out to my car.”
“We have work to do here, Lieutenant, and I have several calls to make—from my car. Alone.”
“You’re not doing a damn thing until I speak to Congressman Kendrick’s secretary.” Sixty-five seconds later with Payton standing by the open door, the voice of Patrick O’Reilly’s wife came over the cellular phone’s speaker.
“Congressman Kendrick’s—”
“Annie,” interrupted her husband. “After you left the office Wednesday afternoon, who was there?”
“Only Phil Tobias. It’s slow these days; the girls left earlier.”
“Phil who?”
“Tobias. He’s Evan’s chief aide and washer of the bottles.”
“He never said anything to you, yesterday or today? About seeing Kendrick, I mean.”
“He hasn’t been here, Paddy. He didn’t show up today or yesterday. I left half a dozen messages on his answering machine but I haven’t heard from him, the high-hog PR brat that he is.”
“I’ll talk to you later, tiger. Stay where you are. Understood?” O’Reilly replaced the phone and turned in the seat, looking up at the man from the Central Intelligence Agency. “You heard, sir. I think that an apology from yours truly is in order. You have it, Mr. Payton.”
“I neither seek it nor want it, Lieutenant. We’ve botched up so damned much in Langley that if someone thinks that his wife may be caught in one of our bungles, I can’t fault him for telling us off.”
“I’m afraid that was it.… Who goes after Tobias? You or me?”
“I can’t deputize you, O’Reilly. There’s no provision for it in the law and, frankly, there are specific provisions against it, but I can ask for your help, and I desperately need it. I can cover for tonight on the basis of genuine national security; you’re off the hook for not reporting. But where this Tobias is concerned I can only plead.”
“For what?” asked the detective, getting out of the car and quietly closing the door.
“To keep me informed.”
“You don’t have to plead for that—”
“Before any official report is released,” added Payton.
“That you’ve got to plead for,” said Paddy, studying the director. “To begin with, I couldn’t guarantee it. If he’s spotted in Switzerland or floats up in the Potomac, I wouldn’t necessarily know about it.”
“We’re obviously thinking along the same lines. However, you have what’s referred to as clout, Lieutenant. Forgive me, but I’ve had to learn about everyone around Evan Kendrick. The District of Columbia Police Department virtually bribed you to come to Washington twelve years ago from Boston—”
“Grade pay, nothing shady.”
“Grade pay nearly equivalent to chief of detectives, a position you turned down four years ago because you didn’t want the desk.”
“Holy Jesus—”
“I’ve had to be thorough.… And since your wife works for the Congressman, I believe a man in your position could insist on being informed if and when anything relevant to Phillip Tobias comes down, as he also works, or worked, in Kendrick’s office.”
“I suppose I could, that’s my girl. But it leads me to a question or two.”
“Go right ahead. Any questions you have may help me.”
“Why is Evan in the Bahamas?”
“I sent them there.”
“Them? The Egyptian woman?… Old Weingrass told my wife.”
“She works for us; she was part of Oman. There’s a man in Nassau who fronted a company that Kendrick was briefly associated with years ago. He’s not terribly reputable and neither was the firm, but we felt he was worth checking out.”
“For what purpose?”
The director of Special Projects looked over the roof of the car at Evan Kendrick’s house, at the now dimly lit windows and what they held beyond the glass. “All that will come later, O’Reilly. I won’t hold anything back, I promise you. But from what you’ve described to me I have work to do. I have to reach the shroud squad and that can only be done at my car.”
“The shroud squad? What the hell is that?”
“A group of men neither of us would care to be a part of. They pick up corpses they can never testify about, forensically examine evidence they’ve been sworn not to reveal. They’re necessary and I respect every one of them, but I wouldn’t be one of them.”
Suddenly, the staccato, grating ring of the detective’s cellular telephone erupted. It had been tripped to Emergency, the sound echoing throughout the still, cold night, bouncing off the brick wall, each echo receding into the woods beyond. O’Reilly yanked open the door and grabbed the phone, pulling it to his ear. “Yes?”
“Oh, Jesus, Paddy!” screamed Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly, her voice amplified over the speaker. “They found him! They found Phil! He was down under the boilers in the basement. Good Christ, Paddy! They say his throat was cut! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he’s dead, Paddy!”
“When you say ‘they,’ exactly who do you mean, tiger?”
“Harry and Sam from night maintenance—they just reached me, scared out of their skins, and told me to call the police!”
“You just did, Annie. Tell them to stay where they are. They’re not to touch anything or say anything until I get there! Understood?”
“Not say anything …?”
“It’s a quarantine, I’ll explain later. Now call C-Security and have five men armed with shotguns posted outside the office. Say your husband’s a police officer and he made the request because of personal threats against him. Understood?”
“Yes, Paddy,” replied Mrs. O’Reilly, in tears. “Oh, holy Jesus, he’s dead!”
The detective spun around in the seat. The CIA director was running to his car.
28
It was four-seventeen in the afternoon, Colorado time, and Emmanuel Weingrass’s patience had run out. It had been close to eleven o’clock in the morning when he personally discovered that the phone was not working, subsequently learning that two of the nurses had known it several hours earlier when they tried to place calls. One of the girls had driven into Mesa Verde to use the grocery store phone and report the disruption of service to the telephone company; she returned with the assurance that the problem would be repaired as soon as possible. “Possible” had now dragged out over five hours, and that was unacceptable to Manny. A renowned congressman—to say nothing of the national hero that he was—demanded far better treatment; it was an affront Weingrass had no intention of tolerating. And although he said nothing to his coven of witches, he had bad thoughts—disturbing thoughts.
“Hear this, you prognosticators for the Thane of Cawdor!” he shouted at the top of his lungs on the glass-enclosed veranda at the two nurses playing gin rummy.
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Manny?” asked the third from a chair by the arch in the living room, lowering her newspaper.
“Macbeth, you illiterate. I’m laying down the law!”
“The law’s the only thing you could handle in that department, Methuselah.… Gin!”
“So little you know about the Bible, Miss Erudite.… I will not remain beyond reach of the outside world any longer. One of you will either drive me into town, where I can call the president of this meshugenah telephone company or I will urinate all over the kitchen.”
“You’ll be in a straitjacket first,” said one of the girls playing cards.
“Wait a minute,” countered her partner. “He can call the Congressman and he could put on some pressure. I really have to reach Fra
nk. He’s flying out tomorrow—I told you—and I haven’t been able to make a reservation at the motel in Cortez.”
“I’m for it,” said the nurse in the living room. “He can call from Abe Hawkins’s grocery store.”
“Knowing you dears, sex will out,” said Manny. “But we call from the phone in Gee-Gee’s office. I don’t trust anyone named Abraham. He probably sold weapons to the Ayatollah and forgot to make a profit.… I’ll just get a sweater and my jacket.”
“I’ll drive,” offered the nurse in the living room, dropping the newspaper beside the chair and rising. “Put on your overcoat, Manny. It’s cold and there’s a strong wind from the mountains.”
Weingrass muttered a minor epithet as he passed the woman and headed for his bedroom in the south wing of the first floor. Once out of sight in the stone hallway, he hastened his pace; he had more to retrieve than a sweater. Inside his large room, redesigned by him to include sliding glass doors across the south wall opening onto a flagstone terrace, he walked rapidly to the highboy, grabbing and dragging a chair from his desk to the tall dresser. Cautiously, holding on to the knobs, he climbed on the chair, reached over the curlicued top of the imposing piece of furniture and removed a shoe box. He lowered himself back to the floor, carried the box to the bed and opened it, revealing a .38 caliber automatic and three clips of shells.
The concealment was necessary. Evan had given orders that his shotgun case be locked and all ammunition removed, and that no handguns be permitted in the house. The reason had been too painful for either man to bring up: Kendrick believed with more logic than less that if his old friend thought the cancer had returned, he would take his own life. But for Emmanuel Weingrass, after the life he had led, to be without a weapon was anathema to him. Gee-Gee Gonzalez had remedied the situation, and Manny had only once smashed open the shotgun case and that was when the media had descended on them pissing all over the grounds.
He slapped in one clip, put the other two in his pockets, and carried the chair back to the desk. He went to his closet, took a long, heavy-knit sweater from the shelf and slipped it on; it covered the protrusions effectively. He then did something he had not done since the redesigned room had been built, not even when the reporters and the television crews had assaulted them. He inspected the locks on the sliding doors, crossed to a red switch hidden behind the drapes, and turned on the alarm. He walked out of the bedroom, closing the door, and joined the nurse in the front hall; she was holding his overcoat for him.
“That’s a handsome sweater, Manny.”
“I got it on sale in a Monte Carlo après-ski shop.”
“Do you always have to have a flip answer?”
“No kidding, it’s true.”
“Here, put on your coat.”
“I look like a Hasid in that thing.”
“A what?”
“Heidi in the edelweiss.”
“Oh, no, I think it’s very masculine—”
“Oy, let’s get out of here.” Weingrass started for the door, then stopped. “Girls!” he shouted, his voice carrying to the veranda.
“Yes, Manny?”
“What?”
“Please listen to me, ladies, I’m serious. I’d feel much more comfortable, what with the phone being out, if you would please turn on the main alarm. Humor me, my lovelies. I’m a foolish old man to you, I realize that, but I really would feel better if you did this for me.”
“How sweet of him—”
“Of course we will, Manny.”
That humble crap always works, thought Weingrass, continuing toward the door. “Come on, hurry up,” he said to the nurse behind him who was struggling with her parka. “I want to get to Gee-Gee’s before that phone company closes up for the month.”
The winds from the mountains were strong; the trek from the massive front door to Kendrick’s Saab Turbo halfway down the circular drive was made by leaning into the gusts. Manny shielded his face with his left hand, his head turned to the right, when suddenly the wind and his discomfort became irrelevant. At first he thought that the swirling leaves and erratic pockets of dust were distorting his still-viable eyesight—and then he knew it was not so. There was movement, human movement, beyond the tall hedges that fronted the road. A figure had rushed to the right, lurching to the ground behind a particularly thick area of the foliage.… Then another! This one following the first and going farther.
“You okay, Manny?” shouted the nurse as they approached the car.
“This stuff is kindergarten compared with the passes in the Maritime Alps!” yelled back Weingrass. “Get in. Hurry up.”
“Oh, I’d love to see the Alps someday!”
“So would I,” mumbled Weingrass, climbing into the Saab, his right hand unobtrusively slipping under the overcoat and the sweater to reach his automatic. He pulled it out and lowered it between the seat and the door as the nurse inserted the key and started the engine. “When you get to the road, turn left,” he said.
“No, Manny, you’re wrong. The quickest way to Mesa Verde is to the right.”
“I know that, lovely thing, but I still want you to turn left.”
“Manny, if you’re trying to pull something at your age I’m going to be furious!”
“Just turn left, drive around the curve, and stop.”
“Mister Weingrass, if you think for an instant—”
“I’m getting out,” broke in the old architect quietly. “I don’t want to alarm you, and I’ll explain everything later, but right now you’re going to do exactly as I tell you.… Please. Drive.” The astonished nurse did not understand Manny’s soft-spoken words but she understood the look in his eyes. There were no theatrics, no bombast; he was simply giving her an order. “Thank you,” he continued, as she drove out between the wall of tall hedges and swung left. “I want you to take the Mancos road back into Verde—”
“That’ll add at least ten minutes—”
“I know, but it’s what I want you to do. Go directly to Gee-Gee’s as fast as you can and tell him to call the police—”
“Manny!” cried the nurse, interrupting as she tightly gripped the wheel.
“I’m sure it’s nothing at all,” said Weingrass quickly, reassuringly. “Probably just someone whose car broke down or a hiker who’s lost. Nevertheless, it’s better to check these things out, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think, but I’m certainly not letting you out of this car!”
“Yes, you will,” disagreed Manny, casually raising the automatic as if studying the trigger housing, no threat at all in his action.
“Good God!” yelled the nurse.
“I’m perfectly safe, my dear, because I’m a cautious man to the point of cowardice.… Stop here, please.” The near-panicked woman did as she was told, her frightened eyes shifting rapidly back and forth between the weapon and the old man’s face. “Thank you,” said Weingrass, opening the door, the sound of the wind sudden, powerful. “I’ll probably find our harmless visitor inside having coffee with the girls,” he added, stepping out and closing the door by pressing it shut. Wheels spinning, the Saab raced away. No matter, thought Manny, the gusts of wind covered the sound.
As it also covered whatever sounds he made heading back toward the house, unavoidable sounds, as he stayed out of sight on the border of the road, his feet cracking the fallen branches at the edge of the woods. He was as grateful for the racing dark clouds above in the sky as he was for the dark overcoat; both kept his being seen to a minimum. Five minutes later and several yards deeper into the woods, he stood by a thick tree at midpoint opposite the wall of hedges. He again shielded his face from the wind and, squinting, peered across the road.
They were there! And they were not lost. His disturbing thoughts had been valid. And rather than being lost the intruders were waiting—for something or someone. Both men wore leather jackets and were crouched in front of the hedges talking rapidly to each other, the man on the right constantly, impatiently glancing
at his wristwatch. Weingrass did not have to be told what that meant; they were waiting for someone or more than someone. Awkwardly, feeling his age physically but not in his imagination, Manny lowered himself to the ground and began prowling around on his hands and knees, not sure what he was looking for but knowing he had to find it, whatever it was.
It was a thick, heavy limb newly blown down by the wind, sap still oozing from the shards where it had been snapped from a larger source in the trunk. It was about forty inches long; it was swingable. Slowly, more awkwardly and painfully, the old man rose to his feet and made his way back to the tree where he had been standing, diagonally across the road from the two intruders no more than fifty feet away.
It was a gamble, but then so was what was left of his life, and the odds were infinitely better than they were at roulette or chemin de fer. The results, too, would be known more quickly, and the gambler in Emmanuel Weingrass was willing to place a decent bet that one of the intruders would stay where he was out of basic common sense. The aged architect moved back in the woods, selecting his position as carefully as if he were refining a final blueprint for the most important client of his life. He was; the client was himself. Make total use of the natural surroundings had been axiomatic with him all his professional life; he did not veer from that rule now.
There were two poplars, both wide and about seven feet apart forming an abstract forest gate. He concealed himself behind the trunk on the right, gripped the heavy limb and raised it until it leaned against the bark above his head. The wind careened through the trees, and through the multiple sounds of the forest he opened his mouth and roared a short singsong chant, one-third human, two-thirds animal. He craned his neck and watched.
Between the trunks and the lower foliage, he could see the startled figures across the road. Both men spun around in their crouching positions, the man on the right gripping his companion’s shoulder, apparently—hopefully, prayed Manny—issuing orders. He had. The man on the left got to his feet, pulled a gun from inside his jacket, and started for the forest across the road to Mesa Verde.