Carrion Comfort (75 page)

I could not leave Philadelphia without bringing home a souvenir.

The convoy of trucks, two sedans, and the rented van with my bed and medical apparatus made the drive down in three days. Howard had gone ahead in the family Volvo, which Justin called the “Blue Oval,” to make final arrangements, air the house out, and prepare the way for my home-coming.

We arrived long after dark. Culley carried me upstairs, with Dr. Hartman attending and Nurse Oldsmith walking alongside with the intravenous bottle.

My bedroom glowed in the lamplight, the comforter was turned down, the sheets were clean and fresh, the dark wood of the bed, bureau, and wardrobe smelled of lemon polish, and my hairbrushes lay in a perfect row on my dressing table.

We all wept. Tears coursed down Culley’s cheeks as he set me tenderly, almost reverently in the long bed. The smell of palmetto fronds and mimosa came through the slightly opened window.

Equipment was brought in and set up. It was odd to see the green glow of an oscilloscope in my familiar bedroom. For a minute everyone was there— Dr. Hartman and his new wife, Nurse Oldsmith, performing their final medical tasks, Howard and Nancy with little Justin between them as if they were posing for a family photograph, young Nurse Sewell smiling at me from near the window, and near the door, Culley standing there filling the doorway, looking no less massive for his white orderly’s uniform, and just visible in the hallway, Marvin dressed in formal tails and tie, white gloves on his well-scrubbed hands.

There was a small problem that Howard had encountered with Mrs. Hodges; she was willing to rent the house next door, but she did not want to sell. That was unacceptable to me.

But I would deal with that in the morning. For the time being I was home— home—and surrounded by my loving family. For the first time in weeks I would really sleep. There were bound to be small problems— Mrs. Hodges was one— but I would deal with those tomorrow. Tomorrow was another day.

P
lay it again, Richard,” said C. Arnold Barent.

The cabin of the customized Boeing 747 grew dark and once again the images danced on the large video screen: The president turned toward a shouted question, raised his left hand to wave, and grimaced. There were shouts, confusion. A Secret Ser vice agent leaped forward and seemed to be lifted onto his toes by an invisible wire. The shots sounded small and insubstantial. An Uzi submachine gun appeared in another agent’s hand as if by magic. Several men scuffled a young man to the ground. The camera shifted, and swung to a fallen man with blood on his bald head. A policeman lay facedown. The agent with the Uzi crouched and snapped orders like a traffic cop while others struggled with the suspect. The president had been pushed forward into his limousine by a surge of agents and now the long black car accelerated away from the curb, leaving confusion and crowd noise behind.

“All right, freeze it there, Richard,” said Barent. The image of the receding limousine stayed on the screen while the cabin lights came back up. “Gentlemen?” said Barent.

Tony Harod blinked and looked around. C. Arnold Barent sat on the edge of his large curved desk. Telephone and computer extensions gleamed behind him. It was dark outside the cabin windows and the noise of the jet engines was muffled by the teak finish of the cabin’s interior. Joseph Kepler sat across the circle from Barent. Kepler’s gray suit looked freshly pressed, his black shoes gleamed. Harod looked at the craggy-handsome face and decided that Kepler looked a lot like Charlton Heston and that they were both assholes. Slumped in a chair near Barent, the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter folded his hands across his ample stomach. His long, white hair gleamed in the glow of the overhead recessed lights. The only other person in the room was Barent’s new assistant, Richard Haines. Maria Chen and the others sat waiting in the forward cabin.

“It looks to me.” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter, his pulpit-trained voice rolling and rising, “that someone tried to kill our beloved president.”

Barent’s mouth twitched. “That much is obvious. But why would Willi Borden take that risk? And was Reagan the target, or was I?”

“I didn’t see you in the clip,” said Harod.

Barent glanced toward the producer. “I was fifteen feet behind the president, Tony. I had just come out the side door of the Hilton when we heard the shots. Richard and my other security people quickly moved me back into the building.”

“I still can’t believe that Willi Borden had anything to do with this,” said Kepler. “We know more now than we did last week. The Hinckley kid had a long record of mental problems. He kept a journal. The whole thing hinged on an obsession he’s had with Jodie Foster, for Christ’s sake. It just doesn’t fit the profile at all. The old man could have used one of Reagan’s own Secret Ser vice agents or a Washington cop like the one who got shot. Also, the kraut’s an old Wehrmacht officer, right? He would have known enough to use something more solid than a .22 caliber popgun!”

“Loaded with explosive bullets,” Barent reminded him. “It’s only an accident that they did not explode.”

“It’s only an accident that the one bullet ricocheted off the car door and got Reagan,” said Kepler. “If Willi had been involved, he could have waited until you and the president were comfortably seated and then had the agent with the Uzi or the Mac-10 or what ever it was hose you down with no risk of failure.”

“A comforting thought,” Barent said dryly. “Jimmy, what do you think?” Sutter mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief and shrugged. “Joseph has a point, Brother C. The boy is a certified loonie-tunes. It seems like an absurd amount of effort to create that much of a background story and then miss.”

“He didn’t miss,” Barent said softly. “The president was shot in the left lung.”

“I mean miss
you
,” said Sutter with a wide smile. “After all, what’s our producer friend got against poor old Ronnie? They’re both products of Hollywood.”

Harod wondered if Barent would ask his opinion. It was, after all, his first appearance as a member of the Island Club Steering Committee.

“Tony?” said Barent. “I don’t know,” said Harod. “I just don’t know.”

Barent nodded at Richard Haines. “Perhaps this will help us in our deliberations,” said Barent. The lights went down and the screen showed leader and jerky, grainy eight-millimeter film that had been transferred to videotape. There were random crowd scenes. Several police cars and a cavalcade of limousines and Secret Ser vice vehicles swept by. Harod realized that he was watching the arrival of the president at the Washington Hilton.

“We found and confiscated as much private still and home movie film as we could,” said Barent.

“Who is ‘we’?” asked Kepler.

Barent raised one eyebrow. “Even though Charles’s untimely death was a great loss, Joseph, we still have some contacts within certain agencies. Here, this is the part.”

The film had been showing mostly the empty street and backs of heads.

Harod guessed that it had been taken from thirty or forty yards from the shooting, on the wrong side of the street, by a blind person with ce re bral palsy. There was almost no attempt to steady the camera. There was no sound. When the shootings took place they were obvious only by increased commotion in the small crowd; the photographer had not been aiming at the president at the time.

“Here!” said Barent.

The film stopped with a single freeze-frame on the large video screen. The angle was bizarre, but an old man’s face was visible between the shoulders of two other spectators. The man, who appeared to be in his early seventies, had white hair emerging from under a plaid sportscar cap and was intently watching the scene across the street. His eyes were small and cold.

“Is that him?” asked Sutter. “Can you be sure?”

“It doesn’t look like the photographs of him I’ve seen,” said Kepler. “Tony?” said Barent.

Harod felt beads of perspiration break out on his upper lip and forehead. The frozen image was grainy, distorted by the poor lens, odd angle, and cheap film. There was an octagon of light glare on the lower right third of the frame. Harod realized that he could say that the picture was too fuzzy, that he did not really know. He could stay the fuck
out
of it. “Yeah,” said Harod, “that’s Willi all right.”

Barent nodded and Haines killed the video image, brought the lights back up, and departed. For several seconds there was only the reassuring drone of the jet engines. “Just a coincidence, perhaps, Joseph?” said C. Arnold Barent. He walked around and sat behind his low, curved desk. “No,” said Kepler, “but it still doesn’t make any sense. What’s he trying to prove?”

“That he’s still out there, maybe,” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “That he’s waiting. That he can get to us, any of us, whenever he wants to.” Sutter lowered his chin so that his jowls and chins furrowed and he smiled at Barent over his bifocals. “I presume that you will not be making anymore personal appearances for a while, Brother C.,” he said.

Barent steepled his fingers. “This will be our last meeting before the Island Club summer camp in June. I will be out of the country . . . on business . . . until then. I urge all of you to take appropriate precautions.”

“Precautions from what?” demanded Kepler. “What does he
want
? We’ve offered him membership in the Club through every channel we can think of. We even sent that Jew psychiatrist out with a message and we’re sure he was in touch with Luhar before the explosion killed them both . . .”

“The identification was incomplete,” said Barent. “Dr. Laski’s dental records were missing from his dentist’s office in New York.”

“Yeah,” said Kepler, “but so what? The message almost certainly got through. What does Willi
want
?”

“Tony?” said Barent. All three men were staring at Harod. “How the hell should I know what he wants?”

“Tony, Tony,” said Barent, “you were the gentleman’s colleague for years. You ate with him, spoke with him, joked with him . . . what does he
want
?”

“The game.”

“What?” said Sutter. “What game?” asked Kepler, leaning forward. “He wants to play the game on the Island after summer camp?”

Harod shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he said. “He knows about your island games, but
this
is the game he likes. It’s like the old days— in Germany, I guess— when he and the two old broads were young. It’s like chess. Willi’s fucking crazy about chess. He told me once he dreams about it. He thinks we’re all in a fucking chess game.”

“Chess,” muttered Barent and tapped his fingertips together. “Yeah,” said Harod. “Trask made a bad move, sent a couple of pawns too deep into Willi’s territory. Bam. Trask gets removed from the board. Same with Colben. Nothing personal just . . . chess.”

“And the old woman,” said Barent, “was she a willing queen or just another of Willi’s many pawns?”

“How the fuck should I know?” snapped Harod. He stood up and paced, his boots making no noise in the thick carpeting. “Knowing Willi,” he said, “he wouldn’t trust anybody as an ally in this sort of thing. Maybe he was afraid of her. One thing’s for sure, he led us to her because he knew we’d underestimate her.”

“We did that,” said Barent. “The woman had an extraordinary Ability.”

“Had?” asked Sutter. “We have no proof that she is alive,” said Joseph Kepler. “What about the watch on her house in Charleston?” asked the reverend. “Did someone pick that up from Nieman and Charles’s group?”

“My people are there,” said Kepler. “Nothing to report.”

“How about the airlines and such?” pressed Sutter. “Colben was sure she was trying to leave the country before something spooked her in Atlanta.”

“The issue is not Melanie Fuller,” interrupted Barent. “As Tony has so correctly pointed out, she was a diversion, a false track. If she is alive we can ignore her and otherwise it is irrelevant what her role was. The question now before us is how do we respond to this most recent . . . gambit . . . by our German friend?”

“I suggest we ignore it,” said Kepler. “The incident on Monday was just the old man’s way of showing us that he still has teeth. We’ve all agreed that if he’d meant to get to Mr. Barent, he could have done so. Let the old fart have his fun. When he’s done, we’ll talk to him. If he understands the rules, he can have the fifth seat in the Club. If not . . . I mean,
goddamn
, gentlemen, between the three of us . . . excuse me, Tony, the
four
of us . . . we have hundreds of paid security people at our disposal. How many does Willi have, Tony?”

“Two when he left L.A.,” said Harod. “Jensen Luhar and Tom Reynolds. They weren’t paid, though, they were his personal pets.”

“See?” said Kepler. “We wait until he gets tired of playing this one-sided game and then we negotiate. If he doesn’t negotiate, we send Haines and some of your people out, or some of my plumbers.”

“No!” roared Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “We have turned the other cheek too many times. ‘The Lord avengeth and is full of wrath . . . Who can stand before His indignation? And who can abide by the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by Him . . . He will pursue His enemies into darkness!’ Nahum 1:2”

Joseph Kepler stifled a yawn. “Who’s talking about the Lord, Jimmy? We’re talking about how to deal with a senile Nazi with a chess hangup.”

Sutter’s face grew red and he leveled a blunt finger at Kepler. The large ruby in his ring caught the light. “Do not mock me,” he warned in a bass growl. “The Lord has spoken to me and through me and He will not be denied.” Sutter looked around. “ ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him,’ ” he rumbled. “James 1:5.”

“And what does God say on this issue?” Barent asked quietly. “This man may well be the Antichrist,” said Sutter, his voice drowning out the faint hum of the jet engines. “God says we must find him and root him out. We must smite him hip and thigh. We must find him and find his minions . . . ‘the same shall drink the wine of the wrath of God; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments ascendeth up for ever and ever.’ ”

Barent smiled slightly. “Jimmy, I presume from what you say that you are not in favor of negotiating with Willi and offering him a membership in the Club?”

The Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter took a long sip of his bourbon and branch water. “No,” he said so quietly that Harod had to lean forward to hear him, “I think we should kill him.”

Barent nodded and swiveled his large leather chair. “Tie vote,” he said. “Tony, your thoughts?”

“I pass,” said Harod, “but I think deciding is one thing, actually tracking Willi down and dealing with him will be another. Look at the mess we made with Melanie Fuller.”

“Charles made that mistake and Charles paid for it,” Barent said. He looked at the other two men. “Well, since Tony abstains on this matter, it looks as if I have the honor of casting the deciding vote.”

Kepler opened his mouth as if to speak and then thought better of it. Sutter drank his bourbon in silence.

“What ever our friend Willi was up to in Washington,” said Barent, “I did not appreciate it. However, we will interpret it as an act of pique and let it go for now. Perhaps Tony’s insight on Willi’s obsession with chess is the best guide we have in this matter. We have two months before summer camp on Dolmann Island and our . . . ah . . . ensuing activities there. We must keep our priorities clear. If Willi abstains from further harassment, we will consider negotiation at a later date. If he continues to be troublesome . . . so much as a single incident . . . we will use every resource, public and private, to find him and destroy him in a method not . . . ah . . . inconsistent with Jimmy’s advice from Revelation. It was Revelation, was it not, Brother J?”

“Just so, Brother C.”

“Fine,” said Barent. “I think I will go forward and get some sleep. I have a meeting in London tomorrow. All of you will find your sleeping compartments made up and ready for you. Where would you like to be dropped off?”