Scruff

“Please! With the contributions you make, my partners would fire me. Hang up. It’ll ring in a couple of seconds.”

  “It’s nice to know big shots.”

  “It’s better to know money. Hang up, Croesus.”

  Trevayne pressed down on the telephone button while holding the instrument in his hand. He turned to Phyllis. “It’s Sam Vicarson. I didn’t tell him I was coming here. I was to call him later, after his meetings. He’s in Denver now. I didn’t think he’d be finished by now.” Andy spoke disjointedly, and his wife realized that he was troubled.

  The telephone rang; the sound was short, merely a signal.

  “Sam?”

  “Mr. Trevayne, I took a chance you might have driven over there; the airport said the Lear was going to Westchester.”

  “Is anything the matter? How did the meetings go with the GM and Lockheed subs?”

  “Short and to the point. They’ve got to come up with better cost sheets, or we threatened penalties. That’s not why I’m calling. It’s Bonner.”

  “What happened?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “Just blew. Never showed up for the meetings, checked out of the hotel in Boise this morning, and never met us at the airport. No word, no messages, nothing. We thought you ought to know.”

  Andy held the telephone firmly in his hand. He tried to think quickly; he realized that Vicarson expected instructions. “When did you last see him?”

  “This morning at breakfast. In Boise.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Fine. A little quiet, but okay. I think he was tired, or hung. He was going to join us at the airport. He never showed.”

  “Did I come up in the conversation?”

  “Sure; normal. Our concern for your wife, how well you were taking it; that sort of thing.”

  “That’s all?”

  “He did ask what flight you took out last night; figured you had to make rotten connections. Said he might have been able to get you a Defense jet, so it—”

  “How did you answer that, Sam?” interrupted Trevayne sharply.

  “No problem. We told him we didn’t know. We kind of laughed and said with your connections and … your money, you probably bought an airline. He took it fine.”

  Andy switched the telephone to his other hand and gestured Phyllis to light him a cigarette. He spoke quietly but with assurance to Vicarson.

  “Listen to me, Sam. This is what I want you to do. Send a telegram, a very routine telegram, to Bonner’s superior.… No. Wait a minute; we’re not sure who that is. Just to the senior personnel officer, Department of Defense. Say you assume Bonner was given a leave for some reason or other. Ask, in the event we do need any assistance, who we should reach in Washington. But make the whole thing sound like an afterthought, do you know what I mean?”

  “Sure. We just happened to notice he was missing. Probably wouldn’t have, except that he was to have dinner with us or something.”

  “Exactly. They’ll expect some reaction from us.”

  “If they know he’s not here.”

  Mario de Spadante sat at the kitchen table in shirtsleeves. His obese wife was in the process of removing dishes; his daughter, equally obese, dutifully placed a bottle of Strega in front of her father. Mario’s younger brother, in a J. Press suit and a wide regimental tie, sat opposite De Spadante, drinking coffee.

  Mario waved his wife and daughter out of the room. Alone with his brother, he poured the yellow liquid into a brandy glass and looked up.

  “Go on. Be clear, be accurate.”

  “There’s not much more to tell you. The questions seemed phony: Where was Mr. de Spadante?… We can only speak with Mr. de Spadante.… It seemed like someone just wanted to know where you were. Then, when I heard they came from Torrington Metals—that’s Gino’s brother’s place—we leaned. This guy Pace, Trevayne’s partner, was the one who wanted the information.”

  “And you told him I was in Miami.”

  “Even gave him the hotel, the one that always says you just checked out.”

  “Good. Now Trevayne’s back east?”

  “That’s the word. They took his wife to a hospital in Darien. Cancer tests.”

  “Better they should run a few on him. Trevayne’s a sick man; he doesn’t know how sick he is.”

  “What do you want me to do, Mario?”

  “Find out exactly where he is. In Darien. Or whether he’s in Greenwich and drives back and forth. Or in a motel or some friend’s house—Darien’s crawling with his type.… When you find him, let me know. Don’t bother me before you do. I stopped off in Vegas; I’m drained, Augie, all the way down.”

  Augie de Spadante rose from the table. “I’ll go there myself. I’ll call you.… Suppose I find him this afternoon? Tonight?”

  “Then you call; isn’t that what I said?”

  “But you’re beat.”

  “I’ll revive quickly.… There’s been too goddamn much cockkissing; too much alternative bullshit. It’s time for Trevayne to get shook. I’m looking forward to that. It’ll help make up for nine years ago.… Arrogant prick! Velvet pig!”

  Mario de Spadante spat on his own kitchen table.

  28

  The hospital dinner was not an ordinary hospital dinner, even by Darien standards. John Sprague had sent an ambulance—albeit no siren—to the best restaurant in the area; it had returned with trays of steak and lobster and two bottles of Châteauneuf du Pape. Dr. Sprague also reminded his boyhood friend that the New Year’s fund drive would be coming up soon. He looked forward to Andrew’s communication.

  Phyllis tried to get her husband to talk of other things than his all-consuming subcommittee, but it was impossible. The news of Paul Bonner’s disappearance both confused and angered him.

  “Couldn’t he simply have decided to take a couple of days off? You said he doesn’t do much; perhaps he just got fed up, bored. I can easily imagine Paul feeling that way.”

  “Not after my heartbreaking story the other morning. He was ready to commandeer the entire Army Medical Corps, do whatever I wanted him to do. Those two conferences—to recall his words—were the least he could do.”

  “Darling.” Phyllis put the wineglass on the table-cart and curled her feet under her in the chair. She was suddenly concerned by Andrew’s words. “I like Paul. Oh, I know his opinions are extreme, and you two argue a lot, but I know why I like him.… I’ve never heard him angry. He always seems so kind, so willing to laugh and have a good time. He’s been very nice to us, when you think about it.”

  “What’s your point? I agree with you.”

  “Yet there must be a great deal of anger in him. To do what he’s done, be what he is.”

  “I’ll vouch for it. What else?”

  “You didn’t tell me before that you had given him such a … heartbreaking story. You said you’d just told him I was going in for tests.”

  “I didn’t elaborate, because I’m not very proud of myself.”

  “I’m not either.… Which brings me back to Paul. If you say he accepted your story about me and now he’s disappeared without a word to anyone, I think he’s learned the truth and is trying to find you.”

  “That’s one hell of a leap!”

  “Not really. I think Paul trusts you—trusted you. He disagreed with you, but he trusted you. If there’s as much anger in him as we both believe, he won’t settle for second-hand explanations. Or postponed ones, either.”

  Trevayne understood his wife’s logic. It went to the essence of a man like Paul Bonner. A man who looked at people, giving them classifications—labels—only when he believed those descriptions fit and were not simply popular. Such a man confronted those who mocked his judgment; he wouldn’t wait for third parties to do it for him. Yet Phyllis’ assumption was based on Paul’s learning the truth—the truth about her. That was impossible. Only three people knew. Sam Vicarson, Alan Martin, and Mike Ryan. Impossible.

  “It couldn’t be,
” said Andy. “There’s absolutely no way he could know.”

  “You’re an awful liar, Trevayne.” Phyllis smiled.

  “I’m getting better. He believed me.”

  They settled back in their chairs, and Andy turned on the television set for the seven-o’clock news.

  “Maybe we’ll find out he left Boise and started a little war somewhere. He’d call it a diversionary tactic,” said Trevayne.

  “How are you going to get to Green tomorrow? How do you even know he’s in the city?”

  “I don’t. Not yet.… But I’ll reach him. I’ll drive over to Barnegat in an hour or so; Vicarson expects my call at ten. He’ll have everything he can get on Green, and between us we’ll figure something out.… You know, Phyl, I’ve discovered a very interesting fact of life during the past week.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “No, it’s true.” Andy lifted the glass of wine to his lips. His look was bemused. “All this nonsense about so-called undercover work—intelligence gathering, whatever name you want to give it. It’s really very simple; I mean, it’s childish. It’s like a game.” He drank the wine and put the glass back on the table-cart. He looked over at his wife—his so goddamned lovely, understanding wife—and added sadly, “If only the people playing it were children.”

  Mario de Spadante was in bed watching the seven-o’clock news. He’d called his wife into his bedroom twice. The first time to bring him an ice-cold Coca-Cola, the second to wheel the portable color set several feet to the left so the reflection of the gold crucifix above his pillow wouldn’t interfere with the picture.

  Then he told her he was going to sleep soon. She shrugged; she and Mario had had separate bedrooms for years. Separate worlds, really. They barely spoke except at weddings and funerals and when their infant grandchildren were over. But she had a big, beautiful house now. And a big garden and a big kitchen; even a big car and someone to drive her.

  She would go back down to the big kitchen and cook something and watch her own television. Maybe call a friend on the fancy French telephone on the marble counter.

  There was nothing of consequence within the first three minutes of the news program, and Mario knew the rest would be twenty-five minutes of “fill” interspersed with commercials. He reached for the remote control and turned the set off. He was tired, but not for the reasons he gave his brother. He had stopped off in Las Vegas, but his whoring had been confined to one quick ball, and even then he had to tell the girl to leave immediately; there were too many phone calls coming in. He hadn’t gone near the tables, because one of the phone calls had been from the White House contact, Webster. He had to leave Vegas Wednesday, midnight flight.

  For Washington.

  Even the cool Webster was beginning to lose his grip. Mario realized that everybody was sitting around making plans. Contingency this, contingency that.

  Crap!

  There was a time for talk and a time to carve flesh. He was finished bugging the electrical system at Barnegat.

  Trevayne was for cutting. Now.

  A quiet report from another wound-down subcommittee, quietly, respectfully received by those requesting it—buried and forgotten.

  That’s the way it was going to be.

  The telephone rang, and De Spadante was annoyed. Then his annoyance left him; he saw that the lighted button was his private line, not the house phone. Everyone understood that his private line was used only for important business.

  “Yes?”

  “Mario? Augie.” It was his brother. “He’s here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the hospital.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. There’s a rented car in the parking lot with a Westchester Airport sticker. We checked. It was taken out at three-thirty this afternoon. In his own name, too.”

  “Where are you calling from?”

  De Spadante’s brother told him. “I’ve got Joey watching the lot.”

  “Stay where you are. Tell Joey to follow him if he leaves; don’t lose him! Give Joey the number there. I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”

  “Listen, Mario. There’re two guys at the hospital. One’s outside the front entrance, the other’s inside somewhere. He comes out every now and then—”

  “I know. I know who they are. They’ll be out of there in a half-hour. Tell Joey to stay out of sight.”

  De Spadante held his finger down on the telephone button, then released it. He dialed Robert Webster’s private number at the White House. Webster was about to leave for home and was upset that De Spadante had used that number.

  “I told you, Mario—”

  “I’m doing the telling now. Unless you want a couple of unexplained sacks in your files!”

  And with unsubtle, barely coded phrases, De Spadante gave his orders. He didn’t care how Bobby Webster did it, but he wanted the 1600 Patrol removed immediately.

  Mario replaced the telephone and got out of bed. He dressed quickly and after combing his sparse hair opened the top drawer of his bureau. He removed two items.

  One was a .38-caliber magazine-clip pistol. The other, an ominous-looking object of black metal with four rings attached to one another above a flat base of ridged iron.

  With a clenched fist it would break off a man’s jaw from the neck joints. With an open hand it would rip a man’s flesh to the bone.

  The F-40 jet was given a priority clearance from its holding pattern and landed on runway five at Andrews Air Force Base. At the end of the strip the aircraft made its turn and stopped. The Major climbed out, waved to the pilot, and walked rapidly to a waiting jeep.

  Paul Bonner ordered the driver to take him immediately to Operations. The driver pressed the accelerator without greeting or comment. The Major looked like a tight-ass; you didn’t try to be friendly with that type.

  Bonner walked rapidly into Operations and requested a private office for ten or fifteen minutes. The Operations duty officer, a lieutenant colonel who only minutes ago had called Defense to find out “What kind of frigging priority this clown Bonner had,” offered the Major his own office. The Lieutenant Colonel had been told what kind of priority was due Major Bonner. By an aide to Brigadier General Lester Cooper.

  Paul thanked the Lieutenant Colonel as the latter closed his office door, leaving Bonner alone. The Major instantly reached for the telephone and dialed Cooper’s private number. He looked at his watch. It read two-forty, which meant that it was twenty to six, eastern time. He cupped the telephone under his chin and began to set the correct time on his watch, but before he was able to do so, Cooper answered.

  The General was furious; the Pentagon’s Young Turk had no right making decisions that transported him three-quarters across the country without prior consultation, without permission, really.

  “Major, I think we deserve an explanation,” said the General tersely, knowing Bonner would expect the reprimand.

  “I’m not sure there’s time, General—”

  “I’m sure there is! We’ve covered your request from Billings to Andrews. Now, I think you’d better explain.… Has it occurred to you that even I might have to explain?”

  “No, it hadn’t,” lied Bonner. “I don’t want to argue, General; I’m trying to help, help all of us. I think I can, if I’m able to reach Trevayne.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “He’s being fed information by a psychopath.”

  “What? Who?”

  “One of Goddard’s men. The same one who dealt with us.”

  “Oh, Christ!”

  “Which means whatever we’ve learned could be all fouled-up crap.… He’s a sick one, General. He’s not after money; I should have spotted that when he negotiated so low. If what he gave us was on target, he could have asked three times the amount and we wouldn’t have blinked.”

  “What he gave you, Major. Not us.” What Cooper implied put Paul Bonner on notice. The first of its kind he’d ever received.

  “All right, General. W
hat he gave me.… And whatever he gave me I passed on to you, and you acted on it. I don’t move in those circles.”

  Lester Cooper controlled his anger. The Young Turk was actually threatening him. There’d been too many threats; the General was wearying of them. He wasn’t capable of dealing with these constant assaults of subtlety. “There’s no cause for insubordination, Major. I’m merely defining lines of intelligence. We’re in this together.”

  “In what, General?”

  “You know perfectly well! The erosion of military influence; the accelerated lessening of defense necessities. We’re paid to uphold this country’s state of preparedness, not watch it disintegrate!”

  “I read you, General.” And Bonner did. Except he suddenly had grave doubts about his superior’s ability to cope with the situation. Cooper was spewing out Pentagon clichés as though they were biblical revelations. He was not thoroughly in control of himself, and the circumstances called for absolute stability. And at this moment of doubt, Bonner made a decision he knew was not his to make. He would withhold the detailed specifics of why he came to Washington from Cooper. At least for the time being, until he spoke to Trevayne.

  “… since you condescend to agree with me, Major, I’ll expect you in my office by nineteen hundred. That’s an hour and fifteen minutes.” Cooper had been talking, but Paul was barely aware of it. In some unconscious way he had dismissed his superior officer.

  “General, if that’s an order, I’ll obey, of course. But I submit, sir, that every minute I spend not trying to reach Trevayne could have serious consequences.… He’ll listen to me.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Bonner knew he’d win. “What will you tell him?”

  “The truth—as I see it. He’s been talking to the wrong person. A maladjusted psychopath. Perhaps more than one; it’s happened before. And if this source is symptomatic of his other contacts—and it probably is, they all know each other—he should be told that he’s getting biased data.”

  “Where is he now?” Bonner could sense the slight relief in the General’s voice.

  “All I know is that he’s in Washington. I think I can find him.”