“Something… not biological or chemical warfare… something more lethal… I can’t imagine what.”
“Neither can I.”
They continued up Fifth Avenue toward Rockefeller Center. He said, “What happens to Talbot if you find him?”
“What do you think?”
“And if Talbot turns out to be Patrick O’Brien, for instance?”
She answered without hesitation, “It wouldn’t matter if it turned out to be my best friend. He dies. She dies. They die.”
Abrams looked at her. He said, “Back in the thirties, E. M. Forster wrote, ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.’”
“Idiotic.”
“But interesting. The whole concept of treason is interesting. Read the Declaration of Independence. It was the most treasonous document of its time. King George had every legal right to hang all fifty-six traitors who signed that document.”
She stopped walking at the entrance to the Rockefeller Center promenade. “All right. What’s the point? That we have no legal right to dispose of Talbot?”
“That’s your problem. A moral problem. My point is a practical one. Talbot does not have corruption in his heart, or guilt in his eyes, as James Allerton suggested. He does not lose his soul when the full moon is upon him, or grow hair, or stink of blood. He wears a halo and smells of roses.”
“But you said you could see guilt in a man’s eyes—”
“But my observation was to make a contrary point. Criminals look guilty. Talbot is not a criminal, he is a patriot. Ask him.”
“I see… ”
“My parents… yes, they were traitors… but they were people who fed the poor when they were able, took in indigent friends and relatives, laughed, made love, and made potato pancakes. Talbot is a blue-blooded version of that. He could very well be O’Brien, Allerton, George Van Dorn, or a dozen others I met last night. His progeny could be… anyone.”
She nodded. “Okay… thanks for bringing some cold, hard objectivity into this.”
“That’s what I was hired for.” He turned into the promenade and walked toward the RCA Building. She walked beside him. Abrams said, “I don’t trust you either.”
She forced a smile. “Do you mean professionally or personally?”
“Both.”
“How about Nick?”
“Academic background. Shaky from a security point of view. Never trust an egghead. Also, he’s stayed too long on a job he doesn’t seem to like. Very suspicious.”
“The Grenvilles? Claudia?”
“Joan Grenville’s energies are directed toward betraying Tom Grenville. Tom Grenville gives the outward impression that his idea of oral sex is talking to E. F. Hutton. But underneath, there’s a quite different sexual persona, and this may be indicative of other types of impersonation. As for Claudia, never trust a foreigner.”
They walked around the skating rink. Katherine stopped in front of the RCA Building. “Do you think I had something to do with that man last night?”
“The thought occurred to me.”
“But I’ve been pushing for you to join us.”
“True. But if I were under suspicion, I too would push for an outside man. Diverts suspicion. But I’d be certain he met his end if he seemed too sharp.”
“You’re not that sharp.” She smiled.
Abrams held the door open for her and they entered the lobby of the RCA Building.
Abrams said, “But for the sake of argument, if someone did try to murder me, then that would prove I was real sharp, wouldn’t it?”
She suppressed a laugh. “Maybe. By the way, murder, as you know, is a legal word connoting wrongdoing. If someone tried to kill you, they may be, as you suggested, just patriots doing their duty to the people.”
He smiled tightly and thought, Bitch.
28
The main concourse level of the RCA Building was pristine Art Deco, thought Abrams, another prewar time warp but strangely modern after half a century, like a set in a Flash Gordon movie.
The lower concourse had a coffee shop where Abrams sometimes sat and watched the skaters in the sunken rink through a plate glass window. The upper mezzanine held shops, as did the main concourse. Abrams had once noticed a shop that specialized in military artifacts and Americana: pictures, statues, plaques, and such. There were bronze busts of General Donovan for sale, whose principal customers he thought, must be young attorneys at Donovan Leisure, O’Brien, Kimberly, or one of the dozen or so other firms with OSS connections. Presumably these upward-bound lawyers placed the bust in a small office shrine tucked between file cabinets. Abrams smiled at the thought of a lunch-hour group of young lawyers genuflecting in front of the bust.
Katherine said, “Is that a smile I see? Did you just remember something unpleasant? Perhaps a close friend is sick?”
Abrams looked at her and let his smile widen. “God knows why, but I like you.”
“Makes my day.” She walked to the elevator and stopped at a small desk. She wrote their names and destination in the weekend book. They rode up and got off on the forty-fourth floor, which was wholly occupied by O’Brien’s firm. A private guard in the corridor nodded to her in recognition and indicated yet another sign-in book on a rostrum. Abrams said, “I’m glad I didn’t stop in to use the bathroom.”
Katherine seemed not to hear as she studied the book. A few attorneys had come in, she noted, and Arnold had signed in at 8:00 A.M.
She and Abrams walked down the long, turning corridor and stopped in front of the steel door marked DEAD FILES. She knocked.
Abrams said, “Will Arnold let me in?”
She smiled. “I’ll use my charm.” She knocked again. From behind the door they heard the shrill whistle of a teakettle, a furiously boiling teakettle that should be taken off the burner.
Abrams reached out and turned the knob. The door opened with its familiar unoiled creak. Abrams peered inside.
Katherine brushed quickly past him and stepped into the room. Abrams pulled her back and drew his revolver. Neither spoke. The copper kettle sat on a glowing red electric ring, steam shooting from its spout.
Katherine’s eyes adjusted to the uneven illumination and focused on the body lying in a pool of lamplight beside the camp table. Abram’s eyes darted around the dimly lit stacks of file cabinets. They both listened, but there was no sound except the whistling kettle.
Abrams kept his revolver by his side and approached the body.
Arnold Brin, dressed in shirt sleeves and gray slacks, lay on his stomach, his head to one side and his cheek resting on a disarrayed tie. The tie, noticed Abrams, was a blue hue that closely matched the color of Arnold’s face. Arnold Brin’s tongue protruded from his open mouth and touched the tie. The eye that Abrams could see was wide open. Abrams knelt beside the body and touched the cheek. “Warm. About an hour, or less.”
Katherine felt her legs shaking and slumped into a chair, then, realizing it was Arnold’s, quickly stood and leaned back against a file cabinet. “Oh…” her voice was barely audible. “… Oh, my God…”
Abrams looked back at the camp desk. Tea things were strewn around, and a bakery bag of tea biscuits lay on the floor beside the desk. Abrams got down on all fours, his eyes inches from the dead man’s face. He reached behind, took the desk lamp and set it on the floor. He examined the open eye, then forced open Arnold’s stiffening jaws, peered inside, sniffed, then stood, replacing the lamp.
Katherine still stood against the cabinet, her eyes shut, and Abrams could see moisture around her lids. He surveyed the table again, examining the kettle, the porcelain pot, and loose tea. He picked up one of the biscuits and smelled it. “It was probably suffocation, but I don’t think it was brought on by poison.”