I sat down again. What, I wanted to know, was the significance of airline seats? What, in particular, was significant about 14B? Why had 14B been missing from every set of seats? From Orchnev’s brief letter it was apparent that Fifeshire knew the answer.
I began to feel very cold as a chill started to run up and down inside me. Maybe those people who had gone to such lengths to kill me in the last few days had also tried to stop Fifeshire from being able to tell; maybe Battanga, who had been killed in the car, hadn’t been the target at all; maybe the Mwoaban Government were right and there was no such thing as the Mwoaban Liberation Army, and it was Fifeshire and not Battanga who had been the target.
I greatly envied Sherlock Holmes his Watson: the sheer comfort of having someone around with whom to talk things over, if only to get it off one’s chest and have a good night’s sleep, and be rested and have a clear mind for the morning. Holmes also had a clear brief before embarking on each case; I’d had virtually nothing.
I wondered if already I had gone too far; perhaps after Orchnev’s suicide I should have reported the facts back to Scatliffe and then awaited his instructions. But, to be fair to myself, I hadn’t had much of a chance. I knew now that the sensible thing to do would be to get off this plane in New York and get on the first one out to London. But I had a feeling I had latched onto something important, something that maybe, just maybe, no one except me knew, and I had to follow it through alone. My main problem was going to be to remain alive.
We touched down in La Guardia at half eleven, and I took a cab straight into Manhattan. I got out a couple of blocks from the Intercontinental building and made straight for the car park ramp. I didn’t want to go in the front entrance and have to sign the night book, so I settled in the shadows in the hope that someone would drive out soon. The offices operated around the clock, although on a thin shift at night.
I had to wait longer than I thought, and it was a full two hours before the electrically operated door ground up, and a weary computer technician drove out; I ducked under the door just as it started closing again, and walked through the almost deserted parking lot to the service stairway. I climbed fourteen flights, running into no one, and emerged into the dark corridor of the personnel floor. There was little likelihood of anyone being around on this floor at this hour — it was now after 2.00 — but I didn’t turn any lights on to be on the safe side.
I went into the file room, shut the door, and switched on the lamp that was built into my watch. I quickly found the file I was looking for. It had the name Charles Harrison neatly typed on a plastic strip on the top, and I started to read the story of his life, as told by the Personnel Officer of Intercontinental Plastics Corporation — not one of the world’s most sensational narrators.
Charlie Harrison was born in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, educated there at secondary school, graduated to Princeton and gained a first in computer science. He went to IBM, stayed there five years, did a further two years with Honeywell, and joined Intercontinental as head of the computer department six years ago. For someone of his background it seemed odd to me that he should have joined a company like Intercontinental; his leaning was obviously computers, and whilst the company had two massive computers, it only used them for its day-to-day business requirements; it didn’t build and develop computers — Harrison’s speciality — only their plastic cabinets.
I switched on the photocopier and waited while it warmed up. All was still quiet. I photocopied all Harrison’s records, switched the machine off, replaced the file, and left the building again via the car park, this time going out the fire escape door which opened from the inside.
I walked a safe distance from the building and hailed a cab to the Statler Hilton, a suitably anonymous giant of a hotel, where I figured they were unlikely to be bothered by someone checking in at 3.00 in the morning without any luggage, because people did that all the time. The American Express card is a great substitute for a trunk load of baggage.
13
I slept through until 8.30, when I was awoken by a bellhop, bringing me a beautifully cleaned full-length Lurex evening gown. I asked him to try and exchange it for an electric razor, which was something I felt more in need of. But he’d given me an idea.
After a hot bath, a long slow shave and a long slow breakfast, I began to feel a lot more human again.
My first visit was to the Birth and Death register offices in The Health Department on Worth Street. It took me less time than I had expected to find out what I wanted.
My second call was to an army surplus store, to buy some image intensifier field-glasses. My third call was to a medical supply outfit, to buy several pairs of surgical gloves. My fourth call was to Budget Rent-A-Car; I didn’t think that Avis would have been too pleased to see me again. I parked the car, a reasonably anonymous Ford, in a lot off 42nd Street, and walked around the Times Square area, until I found a suitable hairdressing salon.
I emerged an hour and a half later, a peroxide blonde, with a back-combed bouffon hairdo. Less than a block away, I acquired an outfit to match: Chocolate leather trousers, a beige blouson jumper, and a full-length wolf overcoat; all courtesy of the British taxpayer. The first pass was made at me not 15 feet from the shop.
I climbed back into the car with some difficulty, and practised my smile on the car park attendant; he replied with a stare that I interpreted to be a mixture of curiosity and pity. Still, I figured that if I was going to a gay paradise, sticking out like a sore thumb would probably be the best way to pass unnoticed. More important, I felt some sort of a disguise was necessary right now; I wouldn’t pass scrutiny from someone who knew me well, but it should put sufficient doubt in most people’s minds to give me the advantage of a few valuable seconds in a tight spot. I had a feeling there might be a reception committee waiting on Fire Island, and I wanted at least to go in with a sporting chance.
I drove out of Manhattan over the 59th Street Bridge, to the sound of tyres whining on the gridding, the traffic above on the overhead section thundering like an express train. After the bridge there was a massive concrete viaduct to the left, then a seemingly endless sprawl of gas stations, tyre depots, hamburger drive-ins, diners, punctuated by the eternal barrage of cigarette hoardings booming out the message that it’s virile to smoke low tar, and each brand vying with the others as to which will kill you the slowest. I passed the massive blue-and-grey Queens Centre, then a battery of brownstone high-rises, and then the scenery gradually began to change, with massive areas of green appearing, and the towering blocks and sprawl of buildings becoming less frequent.
Past Kennedy Airport the constructions suddenly dropped completely away and we were out in the open countryside of Long Island, with smart wooden crash-barriers and elegant stone bridges, with lush greenery and elegant white timbered houses tucked away behind the trees. I could smell the strong, exhilarating, reassuring cologne of fresh air, wet trees and money.
Most of the snowfall of the night before last had missed this area, although there were a few patches of white here and there. I had that great feeling of relief one has when one leaves any city behind, and the quiet calm of this scenery against the towering, sprawling claws of New York made that feeling all the stronger.