7 Steps to Midnight (20 page)

“Thank you,” he told the man and put the handset down on its base.

“Your limousine is here,” he muttered. Jesus Christ,
now what
? Had she sent it to have him taken to a safe place?

“Alexsandra?” he called out again.

No answer. If she was here, she wasn’t speaking to him.

Well, obviously she wasn’t here. He picked up the handset again.

“Front desk,” said the man.

“This is Mr.—” He broke off, then said, “This is room 634.
Suite
634.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you just call me to tell me that a limousine is here?”

“Yes, I did, sir.”

“Did Miss Claudius order it?”

“Who, sir?”

“Miss Alexsandra Claudius,” he said. “The woman living in this suite.”

The man’s silence was like a cold blade being pushed into his stomach.
Don’t say it
, he thought pleadingly.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t quite understand,” the man said.

Chris forced a calmness to his voice he didn’t feel.

“Listen,” he said, “I was brought here last night by a young woman named Alexsandra Claudius. The desk clerk knew her. She had a key to this suite. She said she’d been here for a few weeks. Are you telling me there’s no one by that name here?”

“I… only have your signature on the register, sir.”

Don’t crack
, Chris thought. “Who paid the bill?” he asked.

“You did, sir, with cash.”

“I see. Thank you.” Chris put down the handset and sat staring across the room.

Is this what going insane feels like?
he wondered. He seemed to recall thinking that before.

The wager
, he thought. There seemed no escaping it. The tissue of reality was tearing again.

He sat in silence, trying not to think. Thinking was getting him nowhere. Every time he came up with one answer, two more questions appeared.

He twitched as the telephone rang again. Turning his head, he looked at it. Now what?

He sighed defeatedly. Whoever was behind this, they were wearing him down. He picked up the handset. “Yes?” he asked.

“Will you be coming down for your limousine, sir?”

Chris’s voice was expressionless as he answered, “Sure. Why not?”

He hung up and stood. Walking into the bedroom, he checked the closets and bureaus.

All empty.

“What else?” he muttered.

He started back for the living room, then stopped midstride.
Now wait a minute
, he thought angrily.
No one’s going to tell me I was not in here last night with Alexsandra. Do they think I’m a
moron
? She was in the theater, she drove me in a high-speed chase, she drank some wine with me and—

The thought broke off as he moved into the living room, toward the kitchen.

The crackers, caviar, chopped eggs and onions were still on the table. The bottle of white wine.

And one glass.

He turned away and closed his eyes.
I will not believe this
, he told the unknown.
You cannot make me believe this. I know this woman exists.
For God’s sake, he still had the tactile memory of her kiss!

“All right, all right,” he muttered. What was the alternative to what he remembered?

He had come to this hotel on his own. Signed the register, paid in cash and had come up to this suite. Eaten alone in the kitchen, then had fallen asleep on the sofa because he had to rise this morning to be picked up by a limousine.

“Bullshit!” he shouted.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “The limo waits without.” His
voice assumed a burlesque comic’s nasal twang as he added, “Without what?” tipping the ash from an invisible cigar.

He washed off his face in the bathroom, combed his hair, then went into the living room, got his jacket and started for the foyer.
What about my overnight bag?
he thought.
My clothes, my passport, my medication, my pistol?
He sighed heavily.
God will provide
, he told himself.

He stopped at the foyer door, hesitated, then turned around.

It was hardly a surprise to see another painting on the wall.

Okay
, he thought, amazed at how calm he felt.
Someone’s playing pranks on me. Why? Who knows? Except to rattle me, of course.
Well, they weren’t going to rattle him.

He left the suite and started along the corridor, thinking about his dream. Where did that fit in to all this? Or did it fit in? Did anything fit in? Or was he running barefoot over a gigantic jigsaw puzzle in which none of the pieces fit together?

“Fuck it,” he muttered. He could only resist so long. He had to go along with this mystery, impenetrable though it was and might always prove to be…

“No!” he snapped.
Just give me time
, he thought. He’d figure it out. He always figured out problems. “
Think or die
,” Veering had told him in his dream. All right, goddamn it, he
would
. But not right now. In time, in time. Right now he’d better drift with the current. Later on, he’d swim to shore.

The only thing he really needed at the moment was his medication.

***

Crossing the lobby, he glanced at the desk clerk to see if there was any furtive avoidance of eye contact.

The man was busy signing up a guest.

He’d thought, on the lift-ride down, of storming to the desk and ranting about Alexsandra, the night clerk, the door key, etc. He’d given up the idea before reaching the lobby. A scheme this carefully fabricated wouldn’t likely fall before a few shouted accusations.

As he left the hotel and saw the black limousine parked by the curb, he had a perverse inclination to ignore it and walk down the street. What would the driver do? Follow him? Call his boss for instructions?

He stopped on the bottom step of the hotel and looked around, taking in a deep breath of the cold air. Make him wait, he thought, really foul him up by going back into the hotel for breakfast.

No. He had to go along with this. He’d never find out what was going on if he tried to solve it all by himself.

The driver was wearing a uniform, standing by the back door, waiting.
Still life with limo
, Chris thought.
I don’t move, he doesn’t move.

Sighing, he went down the last step and headed for the car. The driver opened the door for him. “Good morning, sir,” he said.

Yeah, yeah
, Chris thought.
Now you’ll tell me you’re my Uncle Charlie.

Bending over, he stepped into the large back area of the limousine and sat down on the leather seat, wincing at its coldness.
The least you could do is warm the goddamn seat
, he thought.
I’m not accustomed to such shoddy treatment.

He grinned to himself as the driver, having closed the door, circled the limo and slipped behind the steering wheel.
Home, James
, Chris had an urge to tell him.

Then he saw the basket on the floor and picked it up, setting it down beside him on the seat. He raised its cover.

God
, he thought.

A thermos jug, no doubt filled with hot coffee. A cup and plate and silver knife. A package of small croissants (still warm), two pats of wrapped butter and a tiny jar of strawberry jam. A most accommodating nightmare, he thought.

He looked up as the engine started and the driver pulled away from the curb. Should he inquire where they were going? No, the hell with it. “Surprise me,” he mumbled. The driver wouldn’t have told him anyway.

As he breakfasted on warm croissants spread with butter and strawberry jam, washed down with hot coffee, he noticed the
small suitcase on the floor. A bomb? he thought. Feed him breakfast, then blow him to bits? One less mathematician to worry about.

He looked at the suitcase as he ate and drank. Assuming that it wasn’t a replacement of the things he’d had in the overnight bag, what could it be? He didn’t think it was a bomb. Basy’s head perhaps? Too gross. A computer? Pads and pencils? A disassembled rifle for assassination? A dwarf who’d leap out at him, wrestle him from the car and drag him down a manhole where they’d descend together to the fairy kingdom?

“Yeah, that must be it,” he said. It made the most sense.

Groaning softly, he continued to eat, thinking about Alexsandra’s ring. There were two possibilities. Her friend had found not only the painting but the ring from the painting in the Rome antique store. Which, odds-wise, came out somewhere in the neighborhood of several million to one.

It was the same ring though; he felt sure of that. Or had Alexsandra inherited it? Was that her great-great (God knew how far back it might get) grandmother? What were the odds of her friend finding a painting like that? About several million to one, again.

Which meant, of course, that in some bizarre way, Alexsandra
was
that woman.

“Come
on
,” he muttered irritably. This was
thinking
? He almost wished he had some paper and pencils so he could immerse his thoroughly muddled brain in something simple like a large distortion equation. This kind of thinking wasn’t getting him anywhere.

He finished eating, put the cup, plate, knife, paper and jar back into the basket and set it on the floor.
That was good
, he thought.

He picked up the suitcase, undid the clasp and opened it.

At least something was consistent here. He looked at the contents, nodding. Clothes, again of the finest quality. A toilet case. No gun.

And medication. “Ah,” he said. A
most
accommodating nightmare.

As he took his tab and pill (a small bar across from him provided
water to wash them down with), it occurred to him that, actually, except for Veering and what seemed to be his effects, the situation was not impossible to decipher. His work was important to the space defense program; he accepted that now. Some conspiracy was trying to damage his work in that program and he was being protected from it.

It was the mixture of that understandable conspiracy with Veering’s wager that disturbed him. It was impossible to see how there could possibly be a connection between them. If only Nelson hadn’t mentioned Veering, indicating that there
was
a connection.

He realized suddenly that he had made a bad assumption back at the hotel. Opening closets and bureau drawers in the bedroom, he had assumed that all of Alexsandra’s clothes had been removed. It was just as logical to assume that they had never been there in the first place.

Simple enough, then, to remove evidence of her having been in the suite. Take down the painting, wash the wine glass.
Voilà.
No Alexsandra.

He looked around abruptly. He hadn’t noticed before where they were headed. Now it was evident.

Out of the city.

Chris grimaced.
So much for my visit to Merry Olde London
, he thought. He shook his head.
Guess I won’t be having lunch with Mr. Modi
, he thought. He tried to find amusement in that but had some difficulty doing so, considering that he had no idea where he was being taken.

Suddenly, the limousine began to pick up speed, accelerating rapidly. Chris started to ask the driver why, then realized that he could not communicate with the man; a glass partition was separating them. He looked around for a speaker he could use.

There wasn’t any.

“Well, for Christ’s sake—” He began to lean forward to rap on the window when he saw the driver glancing quickly at the rearview mirror.

Twisting around, Chris looked out through the back window.

They were being followed by a black sedan.

There was no question that the sedan was following, because the faster the limousine went, the more the sedan picked up speed.

He was being chased again.

At first he couldn’t think, he felt so dumbfounded.
Who’s after me
now
?
The same people as last night?

The limousine skidded slightly as it made a curve at high speed. Chris fell to his left, then pushed himself up quickly. He looked at the driver and felt a sudden chill as he saw the man speaking into a hand microphone. He couldn’t see the driver’s face or hear his voice but his impression was that the man’s demeanor was one of total urgency. He saw the man toss aside the microphone and grab the steering wheel with both hands again. The limousine surged forward, raking around a curve with a squeal of tires.

Chris grabbed on to a strap and held himself tightly, sucked in a rasping breath of air. He looked across his shoulder and saw the black sedan still following, a little farther back now but coming
on fast.
Dear God
, he thought.
What if they catch us? What will they do to me?

He cried out, stunned, as something cracked against the back window, grazing it.
Jesus God, they’re
shooting
at us!
he thought in horror. He could see that the window was bulletproof but flung himself to the left as another loud crack hit the glass.
God
, he thought,
you could read about something like this a thousand times and never be prepared for the terrifying impact of it actually happening.

He clung to the seat with clawing hands, his face a mask of dread.
It’s real
, he thought. It was all his brain could summon.
Jesus God, it’s
real
.

Even holding on, he was unprepared for the sharp right turn the driver made and, losing his grip, tumbled sideways. Rolling, he collided with the door, gasping in pain, then scrambled to his knees. What was happening
now
?

He gasped again as the limousine skidded to a halt. Rising in frightened shock, he looked at the driver, then across his right shoulder as the limousine backed up suddenly, pulling behind a high hedge. Chris was flung back as the driver braked hard. He bumped his side against the seat, crying out in startled alarm.

Twisting around, he saw the driver looking toward his left. Chris shuddered as the man abruptly raised what looked like a .45 automatic, as though preparing to fire. “
Jesus
,” Chris muttered. He was back in the nightmare again.