Scruff

  “You sit. You stay. We have problems bigger than your intentions.… Or mine, Mr. Bookkeeper.”

  “Why are you so sure?” asked Allen.

  “I’ll tell you. And maybe you’ll understand some of my agitation. Also my anger.… For weeks all we’ve heard is that everything’s just fine. No real problems; a number of items had to get straightened out, but they were taken care of. Then we get word that even the major questions are marked ‘satisfactory.’ Complete, finished, kaput … clear sailing. I even bought it myself.” De Spadante released the chair but held the men with his eyes darting back and forth between them without shifting his head. “Only except a couple of very curious fellows in New York decide to run a check. They’re a little nervous, because they’re paid to solve problems. When they don’t see any problems, they look for them; they figure it’s better than missing them because of an oversight.… They take five—just five—very, very important inquiries which have been returned. All five have been accepted as satisfactory—we’re told. They send supplementary information to Trevayne’s office. Nothing that couldn’t be explained but, by God, explanations were called for!… Do I have to tell you what happened?”

  Goddard, who’d been holding his handkerchief in his hand, brought it once again to his chin. His look betrayed his fear. He spoke three words quietly, tensely. “Reverse double entries.”

  “If that fancy language means the office files were dummies, you’re right on, Mr. Bookkeeper.”

  Allen leaned forward in his chair. “Is that what you mean, Goddard?”

  “In essence, yes. Only I jumped a step. It would depend on whether the status of the office files was returned to ‘pending.’ ”

  “They weren’t,” said Mario de Spadante.

  “Then there’s a second set of files.”

  “Very good. Even us tontos figured that one out.”

  “But where?” asked Allen, his composure losing some of its confidence.

  “What difference does it make? You’re not going to change what’s in them.”

  “It would be a great help to know, however,” added Goddard, no longer hostile; instead, very much afraid.

  “You should have thought about such things these last couple of months, instead of sitting with your thumb up your ass figuring you’re so smart. ‘Friendly meetings.’ ”

  “We had no cause …”

  “Oh, shut up! Your chin’s all wet.… A lot of people may have to hang. But there are a lot of other people we won’t let that happen to. We’ve still got certain emergency procedures. We did our work.” Suddenly, with great but silent intensity, Mario de Spadante clenched his fist and grimaced.

  “What is it?” The man named Allen stared at the Italian apprehensively.

  “That son-of-a-bitch Trevayne!” De Spadante whispered hoarsely. “The Honorable—so fucking honorable—Undersecretary! Mr. Clorox!… That bastard’s as dirty as any pig in the cesspool. I hadn’t figured on it.”

  Major Paul Bonner watched Trevayne from across the aisle. Bonner had the window seat on the right side of the 707; Trevayne, flanked by Alan Martin and Sam Vicarson, sat directly opposite. The three of them were engrossed in a document.

  Beavers, thought Bonner. Earnest, intense, chipping away at a thousand barks so the trees would fall and the streams would be dammed. Natural progression thwarted? Trevayne would call it something like ecological balance.

  Horseshit.

  It was far more important that the fields below be irrigated than a few earnest beavers survive. The beavers wanted to parch the land, to sacrifice the crops in the name of concerns only beavers cared about. There were other concerns, frightening ones that the smaller animals would never understand. Only the lions understood; they had to, because they were the leaders. The leaders stalked all areas of the forests and the jungles; they knew who the predators were. The beavers didn’t.

  Paul Bonner knew this jungle; had crawled on his bleeding stomach over the incredibly infested, ever-moving slime. He’d come face to face with the eyes, the commitment of pure hate. Had recognized the fact that he must kill the possessor of the hatred, put out the eyes. Or be killed.

  His enemy.

  Their enemy.

  What the hell did the beavers know?

  He saw that Trevayne and his two assistants began putting their papers back into their briefcases. They’d be in San Francisco soon; the “fasten-your-seat-belts” light was on, the no-smoking sign as well. Another five minutes.

  And then what?

  His orders were less specific, vaguer than they had been before. Conversely, the atmosphere around Defense—that part of it dealing with Trevayne—was infinitely tauter. After his dinner with Andy and Phyllis, General Cooper had interrogated him as though he were a Charleysan guerilla with American dog tags around his neck. The Brigadier was damned near apoplectic. Why hadn’t Trevayne alerted Defense about this tour? What was the exact itinerary? Why so many stops, so many different conferences? Were they a smoke screen?

  Finally, Bonner had gotten angry. He didn’t know the answers, hadn’t sought them. If the General needed specific information, he should have briefed him on what it was. Bonner reminded Cooper that he had brought out over fifty separate reports from the Potomac Towers. Information stolen from Trevayne’s private files, actions that laid him wide open to civilian prosecution.

  He understood the reasons, accepted them as well as the risks, and relied on his superiors’ judgment. But, goddamn it, he wasn’t clairvoyant.

  The Brigadier’s reaction to his outburst stunned Bonner. Cooper had become hesitant, flustered; he started to stutter, and for Bonner it was inconceivable that such an old line man as Cooper would stutter. It was apparent that Brigadier General Cooper was dealing with totally new, unevaluated data.

  And he was afraid.

  Bonner had wondered what it was. What had produced the fear? The Major knew that he wasn’t the only one bringing information out of the Towers. There were two others he knew about. One was a dark-haired stenographer, the nominal head of Trevayne’s typing pool. He’d seen her photograph and résumé on Cooper’s desk with several expense vouchers clipped underneath. Standard procedure.

  The second was a blond man, late twenties, a Ph.D. from Cornell who, if he remembered correctly, Trevayne had hired as a favor to an old friend. Bonner had left late one night just as the blond man was going into the freight entrance. To the rear elevators invariably used by informers on scheduled runs. He’d looked up; Brigadier Cooper’s fifth-floor office lights were still on.

  Cooper had been too upset to be evasive or even subtle. So Bonner had been given his orders: Whatever Trevayne said, whatever either of the two aides traveling with him said—regardless of how inconsequential it might seem—commit it to memory and report by telephone direct on Cooper’s private line. Try to find out the substance of any conference with anyone connected with Genessee Industries. Use whatever moneys might be needed, promise whatever immunities requested, but uncover facts.

  Any facts.

  Was he to look for specific …

  Anything!

  Bonner grudgingly admitted to himself that he’d caught a touch of the Brigadier’s fever. He didn’t like being fired up by someone else’s anger—or panic—but he had been. Trevayne had no right meddling in Genessee. At least, not to the extent that caused Cooper’s extraordinary degree of concern. Genessee Industries was, in its own way, a necessary line of the nation’s defense. Certainly more important than any extraterritorial ally. Surely more reliable.

  The fighters—rocket jets—better than anything in their class in the air; fourteen different styles of helicopters—from the massive troop-, vehicle-, and weapons-carrying jet combinations to the fast, silent “snakes” that hedged men like himself into tiny jungle locations; armor developed in dozens of Genessee laboratories that housed a hundred different types of protective cover saving thousands of square feet of human flesh from high-caliber shells and the refraction of napalm
fire; even artillery—Genessee controlled scores of armaments plants, and thank God they did!—the finest, most destructive weaponry on earth.

  Strike force! Power!

  Goddamn it to goddamn hell! Couldn’t “they” understand?

  It wasn’t just the possession! It was the protection! Their protection!

  What the hell did the beavers know?

  What the hell did Trevayne know?

  19

  James Goddard walked out on his back lawn. The descending sun washed the Los Altos hills with misty hues of yellow and orange. As always, the view had a palliative effect on Goddard. It had been the primary reason he’d taken the gamble twelve years ago and bought the house in Los Altos. It had been far too expensive, but he’d reached that point at Genessee where either the future held such a home or there was no future at Genessee.

  It really hadn’t been much of a gamble. Twelve years ago he’d just begun his rapid ascendancy with one of the inner circles of Genessee Industries. The nature of his work ensured his survival, his eventual proprietorship of a corner office.

  Finally, the penthouse. President, San Francisco Division.

  But at times the pressure became too much.

  Now was such a time.

  The conference with Trevayne that afternoon had been nerve-racking. Nerve-racking because its objectives, at first, were totally unclear. A little of this, a little of that. A great deal of nodding-in-agreement, a fair amount of quizzical looks followed by further nods or just blank stares. Notes taken at seemingly inappropriate moments; innocuous questions asked by Trevayne’s innocuous assistants. One Jewish; that was obvious. The other too young; that was insulting.

  The whole meeting had been disjointed, without any discipline of agenda. As the immediate spokesman for Genessee, Goddard had tried to impose a sense of order, tried to elicit a schedule of inquiry. He’d been gently rebuffed by Trevayne; the subcommittee chairman unconvincingly played the role of a patriarchal uncle—everything would be covered sufficiently. The morning was only to establish general areas of responsibility.

  General areas of responsibility.

  The phrase had hit James Goddard’s brain like a bolt of electricity.

  But he had simply nodded as his three adversaries had nodded and smiled. A ritual dance of deceit, he’d decided.

  When the meeting ended, around three-thirty or so, he’d returned to his office from the conference room and immediately pleaded a splitting headache to his secretary. He had to get out, drive around, think over every aspect of what had been said during the past two and a half hours. For in spite of the nebulous approach, a great deal had been said. The problem was that it hadn’t been said in figures. He understood figures. He could recite by rote P-and-L statements from scores of divisions going back years. He could take a handful of isolated numbers and prepare projections that, given a variance of four percent, would prove out. He astonished so-called economists—academic theorists, usually Jewish—with the swiftness and accuracy of his market analyses and employment stats.

  Even the Senator, California’s Armbruster, had called upon him for advice last year.

  He had refused any payment; after all, Armbruster was his political choice, and Genessee wasn’t going to get hurt. However, he had accepted a token gift through a friend of the Senator. A ten-year company pass on Trans Pacific Airways.

  His wife liked Hawaii, although he constantly had to reassure her that cat meat wasn’t part of the cooking.

  He’d left the office and driven damn near fifty miles. Along the ocean drive, over into Ravenswood, then across to Fair Oaks.

  What had Trevayne been after?

  Whenever Goddard had attempted to explain a specific overrun or underestimated cost—and weren’t those explanations the essence of the subcommittee’s function?—he’d been discouraged from elaborating on them. Instead, there was only a general discussion of the items; their validity, their functionability, their operational capacities, the engineering, the designs, the men who conceived the plans, those responsible for putting them into execution.

  Abstractions and median-level personnel.

  What in heaven’s name could be the purpose of such a conference?

  But as he approached the upward slope of the road leading to his isolated, view-calming house on his miniature mountain, James Goddard—cost-accountant-cum-division-president of Genessee Industries—saw with frightening clarity the purpose of Trevayne’s conference.

  Names.

  Only names.

  It explained the hastily written notes at seemingly inappropriate times, the innocuous questions from innocuous aides.

  Names.

  That was what they were after.

  His own staff kept repeatedly going back into the papers. This engineering head, that design consultant; this labor negotiator, that stats analyst. Always buried under and sandwiched between unimportant judgments.

  They weren’t figures! They weren’t numbers!

  Only people.

  Persons anonymous!

  But that’s what Trevayne was after.

  And Mario de Spadante had said a lot of people might have to hang.

  People.

  Persons anonymous.

  Was he one of them?

  James Goddard watched a bird—a sparrow hawk—dip suddenly downward and just as swiftly come up from behind the trees and catch the wind, soaring to the sky, no quarry in his beak.

  “Jimmy!… Jimmeee!”

  His wife’s voice—full-throated yet somehow nasal—always had the same effect on him, whether it was shouting from a window or talking over the dinner table.

  Irritation.

  “Yes?”

  “Really, Jim, if you’re going to commune, for God’s sake put the telephone outside. I’m busy on my line.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Someone named de Spad … de Spadetti, or something; I don’t know! Some wop. He’s on ‘hold.’ ”

  James Goddard took a last look at his precious view and started for the house.

  At least one thing was clear. Mario de Spadante would be given the very best efforts a “bookkeeper” could provide. He would tell him digit by digit the areas of inquiry Trevayne had asked for; no one could fault a “bookkeeper” for that.

  But Mario de Spadante would not be privy to the “bookkeeper’s” conclusions.

  This “bookkeeper” was not for hanging.

  Paul Bonner walked through the door of the cellar café. It was like a hundred other San Francisco basements-with-licenses. The amplified, ear-shattering sound from the tiny bandstand was an assault on his sensibilities—all of them—and the sight of the freaked-out, bare-breasted dancers no inducement.

  The place was a mess.

  He wondered what the effect might have been if he’d worn his uniform. As it was, he felt singularly out of place in a sport coat and denims. He quickly undid his paisley tie and stuffed it into his pocket.

  The place was crazy with weed; more hash than “grass,” at that.

  He went to the far end of the bar, took out a pack of cigarettes—French, Gauloise—and held them in his left hand. He ordered a bourbon—shouted his request, actually—and was surprised to find that the drink was an excellent sour mash.

  He stood as best he could in one spot, jostled continually by the bearded drinkers and half-naked waitresses, a number of whom took second glances at his clean-shaven face and close-cropped hair.

  Then he knew he saw him. Standing about eight feet away in tie-dyed Levi’s and sandals, his shirt a variation of winter underwear. But there was something wrong with the hair, Bonner thought. It was shoulder-length and full, but there was something—a neatness, a sheen; that was it. The man’s hair was a wig. A very good wig, but by the nature of its in-place effect, inconsistent with the rest of his appearance.

  Bonner unobtrusively raised the pack of Gauloise and lifted his glass in greeting.

  The man approached, and when he stood next to Paul he
leaned over and spoke through the noise close to Bonner’s ear.

  “Nice place, isn’t it?”

  “It’s … overwhelming. You look like you fit in, though. Are you sure you’re the right guy? No intermediaries; I made that clear.”

  “These are my civilian clothes, Major.”

  “Very appropriate. Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “Oh, no, man! We stay. We talk here.”

  “It’s impossible. Why?”

  “Because I know what these vibes do to a pickup.”

  “No tapes; no pickups. Come on, be reasonable. There’s no call for that sort of thing. Christ, I’d be frying myself.”

  The unkempt mod with the neat hair looked closely at Bonner. “You’ve got a point, man. I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’ve really got a point!… The bread, please.”

  Bonner replaced the Gauloises in his shirt pocket and then withdrew his wallet. He took out three one-hundred-dollar bills and handed them to the man. “Here.”

  “Oh, come on, Major! Why don’t you write me a check?”

  “What?”

  “Get the bartender to change them.”

  “He won’t do that.”

  “Try.”

  Bonner turned toward the bar and was surprised to see the bartender standing close by, watching the two of them. He smiled at the Major and held out his hand. Sixty seconds later Bonner was holding another assortment of bills—fives, tens, twenties. Three hundred dollars’ worth. He gave them to the contact.

  “Okay. Let’s split, man. We’ll walk the streets, just like cowboys. But we’ll walk where I say, got it?”

  “Understood.”

  Out on O’Leary Lane the two men headed south, slowly weaving their way among what was left of the Haight-Ashbury tribes. The sidewalk stalls and curbside vendors noisily proclaimed the tribes’ acceptance of a laissez-faire economy. A lot of profit was being made on O’Leary Lane.