“I’m trying to get in touch with my mother, would you happen to know where I can reach her?”
“Well, I’m sure she’s out here, have you called the house?”
“I’m at the house now, Mrs. McNulty. I came out when...”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry, darling, I’m sure she’s all right.”
“It’s just...”
“Helga! Will you please get that damn dog...? Excuse me, darling,” she said. “Helga! How many times do...?”
Her voice faded. There was more barking. More yelling. Elita waited a moment longer, and then hung up and began leafing through her mother’s directory again.
Except for the bag containing her head, all of the black plastic bags were bulky and awkward to handle. He loaded all five of them in the trunk of the car, and then went back into the house for his suitcase.
The suitcase was packed much as it had been yesterday, when he’d checked into the Plaza. In addition to some casual clothes he planned to wear tomorrow, there was the same blue suit and muted tie, a fresh white button-down shirt, clean underwear and socks, the same polished black shoes. The sealed plastic bottle of sarin was inside a shoe again, a fresh strip of transparent tape holding its nozzle in the OFF position. He got nervous each time he handled it. He was nervous now as he placed the suitcase on the floor behind the passenger seat. He went back into the house for a last-minute check, making sure all the lights were out and the faucets turned off, and then he locked the front door, and got into the car.
In the house next door, Elita didn’t hear the car starting because she was on the phone with a woman named Sally Hemmings who’d just told her she’d seen her mother at a cocktail party this past Monday night.
“Actually,” Elita said, “I spoke to her after that. On Tuesday. But I haven’t been able to reach her since, and I’m beginning...”
“Well, I’m not surprised,” Sally said.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s probably in San Diego.”
“San Diego? Why would she...?”
“That’s where the young man lives,” Sally said.
“What young man?”
“The one she was with Monday night.”
“Do you know his name?” Elita asked.
“Scott Hamilton.”
“And you say he lives in San Diego?”
“Owns a cable television station out there.”
“Then... what’s he doing in Westhampton?”
“I assumed he was visiting your mother.”
“Visiting my...”
“Staying with her. That’s the impression I got.”
“Well, no, he’s not here. Neither of them are here. I’m at the beach house, and it’s empty.”
“Like I said,” Sally said knowingly. “San Diego.”
The hotel Sonny had chosen was the Marriott Financial Center on West Street, just a short walking distance from Battery Park. He felt the room rate was exorbitant for this part of the city — two hundred and twenty-five dollars for a single — but the location was perfect, and there were five hundred and four rooms in the hotel, a number that virtually guaranteed anonymity.
He allowed a doorman to take his suitcase out of the backseat of the car...
“Anything in the trunk, sir?”
“Nothing.”
... and left the car with a valet who gave him a claim ticket for it. He checked in as Lucas Holding, Jr., showing a valid Visa card made out to that name. The bellhop carried his bag up to room 1804. He tipped him two dollars. The moment he left the room, he dialed Arthur’s direct line at SeaCoast. The phone here at the hotel wasn’t secure. He would have to go through the ritual.
“SeaCoast Limited,” Arthur said.
“Arthur Scopes, please,” he said.
“Who’s calling?”
“Scott Hamilton.”
“This is Martin, go ahead, Scott.”
“I’m here. Room 1804.”
“Fine. I have that item you wanted.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“And will you still be here at ten?”
“You can be sure,” he said, and hung up.
From his room on the eighteenth floor of the hotel, Sonny could see the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty.
He looked at his watch.
5:27.
Still time to do what had to be done.
He would go out for dinner at seven-thirty, eight o’clock, and then come back to the hotel for the car.
It was hard to believe that the two men from the Westhampton Beach Police Department were detectives. They looked as if they should be selling haberdashery in Oxnard, California. Then again, Elita’s concept of what detectives should look like had been derived entirely from motion pictures and television. These two didn’t seem like cops, but they seemed to be asking all the right questions, so she guessed they were okay.
One of them was named Gregors and the other was named Mellon.
They wanted to know what she and her mother had talked about on the phone this past Tuesday.
“Did she say where she might be going that night?” Gregors asked.
“Or the next day?” Mellon asked.
“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”
“And you say some of these people you spoke to on the phone saw her on Monday night, is that what you said?”
“Yes. With a man named Scott Hamilton.”
“Do you know anyone by that name?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Mother ever mention anyone by that name?”
“No.”
“Better call these people she spoke to,” Mellon said to Gregors.
“See if they can describe him for us,” Gregors said.
“Can you give us their names?” Mellon asked. “These people you talked to?”
“I’ll get my mother’s book,” Elita said.
She went over to the Hackett house the moment the detectives left.
Sonny’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
She rang the doorbell. No answer. And then knocked. No answer. She tried the doorknob. The door was locked. She went around to the kitchen door and tried that one, too. Locked. There were no lights on anywhere in the house.
She guessed he was gone again.
After the huge grey buildings of finance and justice closed their doors for the day; after all the work was done, and all the people were gone; after darkness fell, and the streets emptied, and the only sound was that of a patrolman’s footsteps, or the hiss of a passing automobile, or the click of a traffic light; then here in this lower part of the city, there were only eyeless buildings and long shadows and emptiness.
Sonny was looking for garbage dumpsters.
Whenever he spotted one, he checked the street ahead and behind and if there were no pedestrians and automobile traffic, he stopped the car alongside the hulking metal container, popped the trunk from the button on the door to the left of the driver’s seat, got out of the car at once, went around to the back, raised the trunk lid all the way, hoisted out one of the black plastic bags, and hurled it up into the dumpster.
Took maybe forty seconds.
By eleven o’clock that night, he had disposed of all five bags.
He wondered if he could still catch a late movie.
13
He was awake with the sun.
He felt alert and alive and anticipatory — but today was only the third, and tomorrow seemed an eon away. He ordered a hearty breakfast of orange juice, eggs over easy with country sausages, buttered biscuits and coffee. He switched from morning show to morning show, hoping to catch a glimpse of where the networks planned to film the President’s speech to the nation, but there was nothing. At a quarter to eight, he dressed casually and went downstairs.