“Maybe.”
“Do you want to go back to the armory?”
“If that’s where you’re going.”
A doorman hailed a passing taxi, and they both climbed in. Thorpe pulled two long cedar-wrapped cigars from his pocket. “Ramon Allones. Hand-rolled in old Habana. I get them from a Canadian businessman who does work for me.” He passed one to Abrams. Thorpe said, “Russian vodka and Cuban cigars. What would the internal security people say to that?”
Abrams examined the cigar. “I don’t know, but my Uncle Bernie would say shtick.”
“Stick?”
“Shtick. That’s Yiddish for affectation. Like that raincape you’re wearing. Or the gold Dunhill lighter.”
Thorpe looked annoyed. “No. That’s panache. Flair.”
“Shtick.”
“I don’t think I like Yiddish.” He lit his cigar, then offered Abrams a light.
Abrams shook his head. “I’ll save it for an occasion.” He slipped the cigar in his coat and said, “You never suggested we look in the club safe.”
“What? Oh… for the diary… Christ.” He leaned toward the driver.
Abrams reached out and pulled him back in his seat. “Don’t waste my time.”
Thorpe smiled. “At least play the game. We have to tell O’Brien we checked the safe.”
“You’re sloppy, Thorpe. No attention to detail. If you want to play the game, at least remember what you’re supposed to do and say.”
Thorpe nodded. “I insulted your intelligence. I apologize.” He flipped his ash on the floor.
Abrams said, “Was the diary worth it?”
“Worth what?” Thorpe thought a moment, then said, “Believe me when I tell you, this is a matter of extreme national security. Carbury was going to turn over a very sensitive piece of evidence to a bunch of amateurs, several of whom are high security risks, though we couldn’t make him understand that.”
“Is he dead?”
“No. Of course not. He’ll be fine.”
Abrams nodded. Dead.
Thorpe said, “Is this getting you dizzy, sport? Wish you’d stayed home?”
“No, it was a nice evening.”
Thorpe smiled. “The night is still young and fraught with adventure.”
Abrams lit a cigarette. “Is it?”
“Count on it.”
Abrams sat back. A man, he thought, might be known by the company he keeps, but a woman can’t always be judged by the lovers she takes.
21
Katherine Kimberly glanced anxiously toward the doors at the far end of the Colonel’s Reception Room.
Nicholas West came across the room with two brandy glasses. “Here. Relax.”
She sipped the brandy. The reception room, on the ground floor of the armory, looked out over Park Avenue. It was stuffy and noisy, filled with men, women, and tobacco smoke. An array of after-dinner cordials sat on a long sideboard. The furniture was French black walnut, the paneling oak, and the rug a pastel Oriental. A huge portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale hung over the marble fireplace. On the opposite wall hung a portrait of George VI, which seemed, Katherine noticed, to have drawn the Britishers to that side of the room.
One of them, Marc Pembroke, caught her eye and approached. She hadn’t seen him since the May Day party at Van Dorn’s estate. There’d been some trouble, she’d heard, over Pembroke and Tom Grenville’s wife, Joan. But that was probably more Joan’s fault than Pembroke’s.
Pembroke greeted Katherine and West. He asked, “Have you any news of Carbury?”
Katherine shook her head. She was not sure of Pembroke, but O’Brien had once indicated that it was all right to speak to him, within limits. Pembroke had access to the dead files, and he was tight with Arnold.
Pembroke also shook his head. “This is rather distressing.”
Pembroke, Katherine knew, had lived and worked in New York for a very long time. He had an office in the British Building in Rockefeller Center, a short walk from Katherine’s building. The sign on his door said BRITISH TECHNOLOGIES, but neither she nor anyone seemed to know for whom he worked. She remembered the shoulder holster she’d seen on the drive out to Van Dorn’s.
Pembroke asked, “Where’s Peter?”
Katherine replied, “He left, but he’ll be back shortly.”
“I’d like to speak to him later.”
“I’ll tell him.” Marc Pembroke and Peter had a business relationship. In some ways, she thought, Pembroke reminded her of Peter, but this did not inspire confidence or closeness. Marc Pembroke was the kind of man whom women noticed and men avoided. There was something incredibly hard about him, and she had not been at all surprised at the gun holster. She would have been surprised if he didn’t have one; she would have bet heavily that he’d used the gun.
Pembroke and West were speaking, and Katherine excused herself and walked over to Patrick O’Brien. He was standing by the rain-splashed window, looking out onto Park Avenue. She came up beside him. O’Brien said, “Regarding Tony Abrams, I think he’d be helpful. Did you speak to him?”
“Yes. He’s reluctant. A bit confused about who we are, but we need someone with his credentials. Someone with no personal bonds to any of us, who will evaluate the evidence objectively. Someone,” she added, “who could not possibly be on the other side.” She smiled suddenly. “I think he’d actually enjoy exposing one of us as a traitor.”
O’Brien glanced at her but said nothing.
Katherine recalled the day she had graduated from Harvard Law School, her father’s alma mater. Patrick O’Brien had unexpectedly shown up and offered her a position in her father’s old firm. She had accepted and moved to New York.
She had married a client, Paul Howell, and lived in his apartment on Sutton Place. Patrick O’Brien had been polite to him but did not like him. Eventually, Katherine discovered she did not like him either. He said he would fight a divorce. Patrick O’Brien spoke to him. Paul Howell became more obstinate. Subsequently, a series of misfortunes befell Howell, including an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock fraud. Then there was a computer malfunction in his brokerage house that wiped out a day’s worth of trading records. A short time later several of his best brokers left and took their accounts with them. There were other misfortunes, much like a series of divine plagues. One day Paul called her at the office and shouted, “They won’t renew the lease on my apartment! Make him stop this.”
“Who?” She thought he’d lost his mind.
“O’Brien! Who the hell do you think?”
She was stunned and said nothing.
He’d shouted again, “You can have your goddamned divorce!”
And within a few months she’d gotten it. Paul Howell had moved to Toronto, and she’d never heard from him again.
Katherine looked at O’Brien, who was sipping on a cup of coffee. “If Tony Abrams refuses to work with us, I don’t think we should hold it against him.”
O’Brien smiled in that fatherly way and patted her arm. “As long as you didn’t reveal too much of the Company business to him.”
“I didn’t.” She remembered, too, that day, nearly five years ago, when she’d walked into O’Brien’s office unannounced, her heart beating and her mouth dry, and spoken the words that had led her to this time and place: “Can I belong, or do you have to be an OSS veteran?”
O’Brien had replied without hesitation, “You can belong. We need young people.”
She had asked him, “Are you in charge?”
His features had remained impassive, inscrutable, very unlike his usually expressive face. “We are equals among equals.”