He doubled back to the entrance, stopping at the table covered with tented white cards on the one-in-fifty shot that his read Eight.
Thirty-four.
The card gave him an idea, though.
A few minutes later, he returned from his room and headed for the nearest of the barn’s five fully stocked bars. On receipt of a club soda, he weaved his way through the crowd and toward table eight, drawing inordinately long looks from strangers. His stitches had been removed, but the week and a half that had passed since his admission to the hospital was clearly not enough time to preclude guests from wondering what the hell a skinhead was doing here. It would have been smart, he thought, to buy a wig. And to get his tux taken in; it fit like a poncho. Then again, these things might work to his advantage right now.
Adding a stagger to his step, he jerked the chair next to Mallery’s away from the table, the legs scraping varnish off the floor, drowning out Harken’s attempt at a humorous impression of some sheikh.
Thornton said, “General Harken, I’m not sure that you’d remember me. I’m—” Casting out his right hand, he toppled Mallery’s flute as well as Harken’s, sending champagne streaming toward the ex-spy. Despite Harken’s uncommon quickness in retreat, his lap was soaked. Thornton amended his introduction to, “I’m on the lookout for a rock to crawl under.”
Beneath the table, Harken clenched a fist, which would have been lost on Thornton, as it appeared to be on Mallery. In keeping with his act, however, Thornton sat slumped forward in his seat and could see under the table.
Harken rose. “Actually, you’ve done me a favor, Thornton. I’m glad for an excuse to get out of this monkey suit.” He turned to Mallery. “Beryl, will you be okay for a minute while I run to the house?”
“As long as you put something else on before you come back,” she said.
With a laugh, Harken hurried to the exit, leaving her alone with Thornton.
She turned to him with the air of a child who had received a surprise gift. “You’re Russ Thornton, aren’t you?”
“Afraid so.”
“I admire your work.”
Good, he thought. When people didn’t like it, they said, I know your work.
After she introduced herself, he said, “I thought I recognized you.” He uprighted her flute. “Let me get you another drink.”
“No need to bother. They’re coming around.” She turned, a simple string of pearls emphasizing a slender and graceful neck, and pointed to one of the servers. “Also you’re probably best off remaining seated.”
“Sorry. I took a header recently that landed me in the operating room. I’m starting to think there was a chart mix-up and they took out my cerebellum.”
She nodded knowingly. “Skiing accident?”
“I wish it were something sexy like that. Truth is, I fell on a sidewalk. Luckily, what saved me, if you listen to phrenologists, is that I’m combative.”
“So that sidewalk won’t be messing with anybody else?” Her pleasant demeanor ebbed almost imperceptibly. Almost.
“I’m going to hazard a guess that you don’t listen to phrenologists,” he said.
“I’ve never had the occasion to, as far as I know.”
“What do you know about phrenology?”
“Isn’t it the theory that the shape of the skull is indicative of personality?” she asked. She’d paused, he noted, as though carefully choosing the word theory.
“That’s almost it,” he said. “In 1796, the German physician Franz Joseph Gall first put forth the notion that the shape and size of twenty-seven different areas of the cranium serve as indicators of character as well as mental abilities. Phrenology was relegated to pseudoscience not long afterward — in the mainstream. Tragically, if you ask me. I’ll bet I can use phrenology to tell three things about your character.”
She glanced at the server balancing a tray of canapés a table away. “You know, Russ, I’m absolutely famished.”
“How about this? All the canapés you can eat, on me, if I’m wrong.” Squaring his chair to face her, he raised his left hand. “May I?”
“Please.” She smiled, amused. Or just a natural politician.
Veiling his discomfort with the sober air of a clinician, he waded his right forefinger into her soft hair, past her left ear, onto an area of scalp that seemed to conform to a smooth and rounded temporal bone, which told of confidence, according to one nineteenth-century phrenologist. Other practitioners maintained that the same space told of insecurity.
“Very interesting,” he said, trying to buy time as he probed further, pressing harder and delving deeper into her scalp, in search of an unnatural rise on the temporal bone. He felt only a smooth surface. Nothing else. Damn.
She laughed as though she were being tickled, really to mask her agitation in all likelihood. “Okay, Doc, okay.” She held up a palm.
Her left palm. She was left-handed, he remembered. Maybe they placed the device on the side opposite the subject’s dominant hand, making it that much further out of reach?
“One more cranial module, and the analysis will be complete,” he said, extending his left hand, his index finger dipping into the hair behind her right ear and feeling for the temporal bone. He’d barely made contact with it when she pulled away. But the motion caused his fingertip to skip over a bump. A mogul, as her skull went. And rounded. Almost certainly the flank of an embedded capsule.
He sat back, dumbfounded. He managed to get out, “Beautiful, intelligent, and uncomfortable with phrenological examinations.”
“You’re one for three.” Looking over his shoulder, she beamed. “More champagne!” Sliding to the edge of her seat, she aimed for the server dispensing flutes five tables away.
“Please allow me.” Thornton said. Leaping to his feet and starting toward the server, he dropped onto Mallery’s silver service plate a folded piece of paper resembling a seating-assignment card. On the face of it, he’d written in penciclass="underline"
PLEASE READ ASAP:
Inside, he’d added:
Our chat about phrenology (malarkey, btw) and every conversation you’ve had for months has been overheard. How Langlind knew about ‘the Dutchman.’ Meet me @2100 by pool for countermeasure. Fallback 2200. First, drop this note into my club soda; the paper will dissolve.
17
A dip in Nolend’s pool, which was on the scale of a resort hotel’s, would have meant hypothermia tonight. Still fifteen guests milled about the deck. Some sought refuge from the clamor in the barn, others a place to smoke without drawing murderous looks. Although the temperature had dropped into the thirties, the deck’s forest of electric heat trees made Thornton’s tuxedo jacket a layer too many. He took it off, folded it over the back of a chaise lounge, sank into the canvas-covered cushions, and gazed out at the moonlight bobbing on the Atlantic. He was glad for a chance to relax after the long drive up. But relaxation wasn’t in the cards: Mallery appeared to be a no-show.
Possibly she’d been held up and would come at ten o’clock, the fallback time. Although Thornton had glanced back and seen her reach for his card, he wondered if he’d done such a good job replicating the folded table assignments that she didn’t realize it contained a message. Or maybe he’d overplayed Head Injury Guy and she’d just been brushing the card aside in her haste to get the hell away from the table before he returned.