Relic of Time (29 page)

The night before the planned transfer, Admirari was still hanging around.

“Where you staying?” Traeger asked, although he already knew Admirari had a room in the El Toro Motel.

“Why don't we go there and have a drink, Traeger? Wine's great, but . . .”

“I'm turning in early.”

“I was worried about that. So I brought this.”

He opened his briefcase and brought a bottle of scotch into view. “What do you say?”

“Maybe one. I don't want to think of you driving down that road half smashed to your hotel.”

Traeger took him away from the others, to a little-used patio.

“All we need is a couple of glasses and water.”

“No ice?”

“When did people start diluting good liquor with ice?”

“I think you're going to tell me.”

“If I knew I would.”

Admirari filled one of the glasses half full and handed it to Traeger. He handed it back. “I just want a sip.”

“Then I wish it were single malt.”

But he obliged. The glass he now handed Traeger was maybe a quarter full. Admirari put a splash of water in his glass, then raised it in a toast.

“To the ladies.”

“I thought we were alone,” Traeger said before sipping.

Admirari let out a sigh and put his legs out before him. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Just once.”

He was damned if he was going to talk to Admirari about his wife. Sometimes at night he was still awakened by her call. In the dark it was possible to believe that she was still with him, in the next bed.

“How about yourself?”

“Traeger, I'm practically a newlywed.”

“I wondered where you and Catherine went yesterday.”

“What do you mean?” Admirari nearly spilled his drink.

“I don't tell a joke very well.”

“Jeez. We went to town to have a margarita.”

“At the El Toro?”

“Some bar.” Admirari fell silent. He became morose. “God, I've led a footloose life.”

“I don't want to hear about your adventures.”

“What adventures?” He looked alarmed.

“Who did you say you married?”

“I didn't. Her professional name is Lulu van Ackeren.”

“Is she an actress?”

“A journalist. I've been in love with her for years.” There were tears in his eyes.

“Why don't you give her a call?”

“Not yet.”

Did he mean the time difference?

He had another sip before calling it a night. He couldn't have gotten Admirari out of there any sooner anyway. On the way to his car, Admirari seemed to be trying to convince himself that he was sober as a judge. He might have been walking on a rope. Traeger waited until the car went down the drive.

Before turning in, he looked out at the basilica. George and Clare were in town, where the U-Haul was being kept until they needed it, which—he looked at his watch—would be six and a half hours from now. He went to bed.

There is a kind of sleep that isn't sleep, the only kind he could expect before a dangerous assignment. Was the transfer dangerous? If it went off as planned, it wouldn't be. He slept and dreamt that he was awake, on the alert.

At three o'clock, Traeger awoke before his alarm went off, depressed the button, and rolled off the bed. He was already dressed, having slept in his clothes. He left the hacienda, walked out toward the basilica, then cut across a field to Jason Phelps's property to pick up the container with the copy of the portrait. As arranged by Don Ibanez. Before he came out from the trees he saw, despite the hour, the old man silhouetted against the house. There was someone with him. Traeger stopped, holding his flashlight with which he was to give the signal against his leg. He thought it might be Catherine. No, it was a man. He retraced his steps, loping across Don Ibanez's lawn and up the road. Five minutes later, he came stealthily along the side of the house and stopped. He could hear voices. One was Phelps's. He half expected the other to be Neal Admirari's. No. The other man was Miguel Arroyo!

Traeger came out of the dark and cleared his throat. Arroyo jumped in fright but Jason Phelps turned slowly.

“What's he doing here?” Traeger asked.

Phelps was surprised by Traeger's tone. “He spent the night.”

“It's still night.”

Arroyo, seeing who had materialized out of the dark, stepped forward. “I came to help.”

“Help what?”

Arroyo glanced at Jason Phelps, who chuckled. “I could have carried it over myself.”

He meant the white taped container lying on the tiled patio floor. It was identical to the one that Traeger and George Worth had readied for the original and which now lay in the basilica awaiting the execution of the plan.

Traeger was trying to decide what to do. He did not know how Arroyo had learned of the transfer, and he didn't care to know. His instinct was to call the whole thing off. If there was this kind of glitch at the beginning of the carefully worked out plan it would affect the whole chain of events. He was going to have to do something about Arroyo. But not here, not now, not with Jason Phelps looking on.

Traeger went to the container, stooped and picked it up, and started toward the spot from which he had first seen that Phelps had company.

“Let me help,” Arroyo said, catching up with him.

Traeger shoved one end of the package at him and kept going. When they were out of earshot of Jason Phelps, Arroyo whispered, “Lowry told me.”

Traeger nodded. But Lowry knew nothing of the plan to get the original back to Mexico City. He couldn't have known that it was here in Napa Valley. Then came the only possible explanation. George Worth. Had he talked to Lowry? Had Lowry then talked to Arroyo? From Worth to Lowry to Arroyo. It sounded like a double play.

When they came onto Don Ibanez's lawn the U-Haul was backing toward the basilica. Don Ibanez stood in the open doors of the church. He and Jason Phelps did look alike; Admirari was right.

George Worth was as surprised to see Miguel Arroyo as Traeger had been. Arroyo let go of his end of the package and went to speak to George.

“Miguel Arroyo?” Don Ibanez had stepped out of the basilica doorway so Traeger could enter with the package containing the copy. At the front of the basilica, there was an illumined vacancy behind the altar. Traeger laid the package over the last two rows of pews.

“He was at Jason Phelps's.”

“Then he knows. . . .”

“I think I have the explanation.”

Miguel and George came around the truck. Arroyo seemed eager to justify his presence and helped George open the truck's doors. Traeger decided that the transfer would go on as planned. But Don Ibanez had one more request.

He led Traeger halfway to the altar, before which Carlos knelt, his arms extended. Don Ibanez got to his knees and indicated that Traeger should kneel beside him. The old man's prayer was short. “Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, bless and protect this man and his mission.” He bowed his head for a moment, made an elaborate sign of the cross, and began to rise. Traeger helped him to his feet.

Carlos helped carry the precious foam package to the truck and they slid it in. The package Traeger had brought from Jason Phelps had been taken behind the altar, the copy it held to be installed later.

The truck doors were shut; Traeger shook hands with Don Ibanez. Frater Leone, looking as if he had never gone to bed, came out of the basilica, wide-eyed. Don Ibanez said something to him and the priest raised his hand in blessing. Arroyo blessed himself, then brought his thumb to his mouth and kissed it.

“I want to come along.”

“No way.” Traeger pushed him aside and climbed behind the wheel. George Worth got into the passenger seat. Traeger made a change of plans. Simplify, simplify.

“George, I'll go alone. There's no need for you to come.”

“But we . . .”

“Are you armed?”

“Of course not.”

“That's what I mean. Hop out, George.”

It was Arroyo who all but pulled George out of the cab, slamming the door shut. If he couldn't go, George couldn't go, was that it?

Traeger put the truck in gear and moved over the lawn toward the driveway, visible enough in the first intimations of a new day. When he went past the hacienda, Clare was standing there, in a robe, looking beautiful.

Traeger had hesitated about renting a U-Haul. A pickup with a cap top would have done, or a traditional station wagon whose seats could be flattened. But the gaudy and obvious was often the best disguise. When precious works of art are moved from museum to museum, there is always a decoy van calling attention to itself to mislead potential thieves. Well, the U-Haul was both decoy and the real thing. There was a governor on the motor, top speed fifty-five, which was okay on the mountain roads but when he got to the interstate the limited speed was annoying. He should have disengaged the governor. He shook his head. A U-Haul was one of the most familiar things on the road, but a U-Haul going seventy or seventy-five would call attention to itself.

He had to be right about the way Miguel Arroyo had heard of the transfer. How else could he have known? But all the way to the airport he picked flaws in the explanation. George Worth lived in another world, but he couldn't be that stupid. Traeger might wonder about the man's preference for a soup kitchen even if it meant estrangement from Clare Ibanez, but there were men like that. Idealists. Dangerous.

It was even more difficult to think of Lowry passing on the information to Arroyo. Or was it? He remembered Lowry urging him to go see Arroyo just before Washington had summoned him back and decommissioned him. The much publicized assassination attempt looked more and more like a staged diversion.

He was in early morning traffic now, by definition madder than that at any other time of day. Cars whizzed by him and even in the slow lane he got the horn, flashes of lights, and then an irate motorist swung out and around him, no doubting cursing the U-Haul as he shot by. It took Traeger's mind off the problem of Arroyo.

They would be mounting the copy now above and behind the altar in Don Ibanez's little basilica. That was probably already done, the doors of the basilica closed. He imagined Clare being joined by the young men and her father. Frater Leone would be keeping his vow. He meant to spend the time until the transfer was complete in prayer and fasting. Traeger took comfort in that. He had no idea how God processed petitions, but he would bet that the prayers of Frater Leone would get through without a hitch.

Signs indicating that the airport was coming up began to appear. Uselessly he pressed down on the accelerator, but the U-Haul was giving him all the speed the governor allowed. Twenty miles, then ten, and finally he was turning in and taking the road to the area where private planes were accommodated. The windows in the tower angled down from top to bottom. A light glowed atop it. Traeger drove across the tarmac to where Ignatius Hannan's plane had already taxied from its berth. He turned his lights off and on as he approached. A door opened and Jack Smiley hopped out.

If everything went as smoothly as getting the package into the plane, the prospect before him looked good. He and Smiley tipped the package, eased it in, and put it on its side in the aisle of the cabin.

“Are we cleared for takeoff?” he asked Smiley.

A thumbs-up. Smiley had on the right sort of sunglasses; his cap was crushed in the appropriate way. He pulled the cabin door shut and started forward, where Brenda Steltz was checking things out.

“Who won?” he asked Smiley.

He hung his glasses on his ear. “I struck out.”

Glasses back in place, he went forward and got into his seat. Well, well.

Traeger felt the tension drain from him as the plane taxied to the end of the runway. He could hear Smiley on the radio. So the pilot hadn't been lucky last night; let him be lucky now. But it was Frater Leone's prayers that Traeger was counting on.

At the end of the runway, there was a pause of a minute or two and then Smiley gave it the throttle; the plane gathered speed. From the window beside him Traeger saw parked planes and the hulks of buildings flash by, the light on the top of the tower went on and off, and then the plane began to lift. Traeger settled back. Is there any sensation more exhilarating than being in a plane as it first lifts off and then points itself heavenward, rising, rising? This is going to work out, Traeger thought. This is going to work out just fine, as planned, perfectly. For a few minutes at least his doubts and wariness left him.