“One,” he said.
The meeting with Russ had gone as expected; he was not only willing, but eager to help Bill. They agreed to rendezvous at the apartment at six thirty and, as Russ put it, rig the place for action. Bill hadn’t gone into great detail with Russ, only that he was being preyed on by a shakedown artist and that he needed Russ’ expert help to nail the bastard. They discussed the kind of equipment Russ would use and its deployment. Hiding the wire connecting the mike and recorder would pose a problem, he felt, unless he used a wireless mike, which was kind of temperamental and not as dependable as a direct hookup. Russ finally decided to bring a variety of systems and test them all before Hoover arrived.
Bill felt a growing excitement as he saw each step of his plans dropping neatly into place.
Before leaving Russ’ studio, he had called Janice, told her what they were up to, and suggested she arrange with Carole for Ivy to spend the night there.
“He called this afternoon, Bill.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“No,” Janice said. “I let Dominick take a message. He left a phone number.”
“Okay, let me have it.”
“Just a sec.” Janice was back almost immediately. “555–1771.”
Bill dialed the number and was surprised to hear a woman’s voice say, “Good evening, YMCA.”
“Good evening,” Bill said. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Elliot Hoover, please.”
“One moment, please.” A sharp click, followed by a buzzing sound and then by a subdued male voice: “Fourth-floor dormitory.”
“Elliot Hoover, please,” the woman said.
“One moment, please.”
Bill put his hand over the mouthpiece and quietly asked Russ, “Nine o’clock okay?”
“Nine thirty,” Russ whispered back.
Bill could hear the echoing sound of footsteps approaching. Then Hoover’s voice said, “This is Elliot Hoover.”
“Bill Templeton here.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Templeton.” The voice held a note of eagerness.
“I’d like to get together with you tonight, at my apartment, say nine thirty?”
“That will be fine. Thank you.”
Yes, Bill thought, jumping over a dirt-encrusted snow drift at the corner of Fifty-ninth and Central Park West, it will all work out fine.
“A girl named Abby called. She said that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette confirmed the information you wanted: that Sylvia Flora Hoover and her daughter, Audrey Rose, were killed in a car accident on the Harrisburg Turnpike a little after eight thirty on the morning of August 4, 1964.”
No kiss, no hello, no chance to take off his coat and boots; Janice assaulted him with the information the moment he pushed open the door.
“Okay,” Bill said quietly, edging his way around her into the apartment.
“Okay?” she shrilled back.
“Take it easy, baby. Let me take off my coat and make us a drink,” he said soothingly, although the rich winy odor on her breath informed him that she hadn’t waited to be asked. “We can talk about this thing reasonably.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned softly.
“Janice!” Bill’s voice sharpened. “I don’t know what you’re building here. But I want you to know that I do not believe in spooks, ghosts, haunts, auras, Karmas, or any of that crap. There’s got to be a simple, real-life explanation to all this.”
Janice took a quick step back.
“All right, give me one!”
“Okay, off the top of my head. The guy picks his mark, finds when their child was born—the exact minute of birth—then does research on what child died at that very same time. He’s got the whole country to pick his child from. And once he matches them up, he simply steps into the character of the dead child’s father and makes the hit. Reasonable?”
Janice stared back at him without saying a word. He could tell by the softening lines in her face that his explanation had scored with her. Not entirely, but enough to permit him to take her into his arms and kiss her lost and haunted eyes.
“And that’s off the top of my head.” Bill smiled. “Believe me, Janice, we’re gonna get to the bottom of this thing and shake ourselves loose from this creep. I promise.”
He kissed her lips and felt her mouth open and her body lose most of its tension. But for Ivy upstairs, zealously packing her overnight bag for her sleep-over date with the Fed-ericos, Bill might have made love to her then and there.
Russ showed up at six twenty-five with a mountain of sound gear. Mario and Ernie helped him lug it off the elevator and down the corridor to Bill’s apartment.
For the next hour, Bill’s voice intoning, “One, two, three, four, five, six … do you read me? Do you read me? Six, five, four, three, two, one … come in, Russ, do you read me?” filled the apartment and filtered through to Janice, in the kitchen, preparing sandwiches and dressing a large salad of mixed vegetables, lettuce, and tomatoes. Ivy had left on her overnight journey a few minutes before Russ had arrived, toting a much too heavy suitcase and her favorite TV dinner under her arm.
At eight fifteen, Russ, Bill, and Janice were seated around the living room, finishing the last of the sandwiches and beer and surveying their handiwork. The wireless mike hadn’t worked, compelling them to string a wire from the microphone, concealed among the autumn leaves and flowers in the vase next to the sofa, clear across the long living room, hidden under a series of carpets and up the staircase wall to their bedroom, where Russ had set up his Nagra recording equipment. It would be up to Bill to get Hoover to sit in precisely the right spot on the sofa in order to guarantee a usable signal. Janice felt the whole thing was too complicated to work. The men were not discouraged by her skepticism and continued to work with enthusiasm, perfecting the setup, until nine twenty-five, when the phone rang.
Bill lifted the receiver gingerly and said, “Yes?” Then, after a pause; “Okay, send him right up.”
Bill signaled Janice with a quick motion of his finger. She heard Russ’ footsteps ascending the stairs to their bedroom to man his post, and she quickly moved to her own prearranged position at the far end of the sofa adjacent to the one intended for Elliot Hoover. She would be the decoy, Bill reasoned, to lure Hoover to that part of the room.
A pronounced hush settled over the apartment, a conscious, collective stillness such as one experiences in a theater, just as the houselights dim and the curtain goes up.
8
The doorbell rang.
Janice heard Bill and Hoover mumble something incomprehensible to each other as they walked down the long, narrow hallway toward the living room and assumed it to be some form of salutation. There was a sense of madcap, Janice thought, in the act of two men, undoubted enemies, observing the gentle amenities prescribed by a rigid upbringing—like two opposing generals shaking hands before a slaughter.
Bill’s face was stern, set, ungiving, as he preceded Hoover through the carved doorway and into the living room and attempted to guide him toward the area of the sofa with a slight wave of his arm. But Hoover stopped on the threshold and remained standing, critically surveying the room, his doleful eyes filled with great awe as they slowly took in each detail of the walls and ceiling. The soft pink light of the sconces accented the clear, unlined pallor of his face, lending it a youthful, priestlike placidity.
Bill had turned quickly when he realized that Hoover’s attention was elsewhere and now stood impatiently waiting for their guest to make a move.
“It’s exactly as he described it,” Hoover said in a small, incredulous voice. “The fireplace … the white stuccoed walls … the ceiling paintings”—his eyes found the staircase—“and the staircase, with the carved head newel post.…” He walked to the staircase and placed his fingers on the Viking’s head in a delicate, tentative gesture, as if he were seeking tactile corroboration to confirm the fact that his eyes were not deceiving him. His gaze slowly drifted up the banister to the top of the staircase, and his eyes became pinpoints of curiosity.