“Can you get me up?”
“No.”
“Perhaps when no one is there. Do you have a key?”
“No.”
“Can you try to get me in there?”
There was a long pause, long enough to indicate to Abrams that her loyalty to Thorpe was not one hundred percent. She said, “I’ll think about that.”
They walked through the reception area and out onto the sun-splashed library steps where people sat, read, and played radios.
Abrams said, “How important were those missing files?”
“Apparently very important or they wouldn’t have murdered Arnold Brin.”
Abrams lit a cigarette and stared down into Fifth Avenue. “That’s a logical conclusion. But I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“They may know less than we do. They have a secret — Talbot’s identity. We are trying to discover that secret. They can’t know exactly how close we are to their secret. Therefore they’ve got to cover every angle.”
“Yes… you did say Talbot or his friends would kill again.”
“And again, and again. Half the mob murders in New York are committed to shut someone up who didn’t know anything to begin with. For some organizations it’s easier to blast away at all possible sources of danger, rather than approach the problem rationally. I, for instance, know very little, yet someone tried to remove me from the equation.”
“You said you were flattered.”
“That was glib. Motive is important. Find the motive and you’ll find a suspect.”
“What’s the motive? Are you a possible source of danger to them?”
“I keep thinking it was more personal than political.”
“Personal?”
Abrams nodded. “Just about my only contact with your friends was last night. Maybe I stepped on someone’s toes at the dance.”
“That’s very unlikely.”
“Only in theory. In practice, people who kill, kill for the most unlikely and petty of reasons. When you cross the path of a killer, and you do or say something wrong, he considers you dead meat. You breathe and walk only because he needs a little time to plan your death. He feels incredibly alive knowing he has this power of life and death.”
“Were we at the same function last night?”
“As you know, some killers are outwardly charming, wear dinner jackets, and make jokes. But inwardly they are brooding individuals who are very sensitive to imagined insults or perceived threats to their existence. Then they turn psychotic, vengeful, and murderous. This is often manifested by an outward show of cordiality toward the marked victim. Did I meet anyone like that last night?”
She didn’t answer.
Abrams threw down his cigarette. “You know, if I could think of someone like that — even if I wasn’t certain — I might follow their rules and protect myself in the most direct manner, by eliminating that threat. I mean, why take a chance?”
“I think I’d better leave you to your errands.”
“Yes, well, be careful.”
She started down the steps, hesitated, then turned. Abrams saw that her face was quite pale. She said, “Look… one thing we don’t do in this firm is to make unilateral decisions. Before you… take any direct action… please consult me.”
He nodded.
Katherine turned and walked up Fifth Avenue.
Abrams sat on the steps beside an old drunk with a bottle of wine. The drunk asked, “Got four bits?”
Abrams put two quarters in the man’s hand.
“Thanks, bub.” Then with the easy social grace of derelicts he said, “Name’s John. What’s yours?”
“Odysseus, a.k.a. Ulysses.”
“Some name. Got a cigarette?”
Abrams gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. “You know, John, the human mind is capable of some incredible things. Even your mind, John. Otherwise you wouldn’t have survived so long on the streets.”
The old drunk nodded. “How about a dollar?”
“Arnold Brin, I’m told, had a fine mind. I suppose he came here a lot. Like you. He, though, was not a survivor like you. He saw death approaching, but he overcame that basic instinct for survival, and instead of trying to make a break, he had the presence of mind to leave a message that might enable others to survive.”
The drunk stood, swayed, and sat again. Several radios were playing loudly, each tuned to a different station. A group of students sat under the south lion and read. Abrams leaned toward the drunk. “The Odyssey, John. The story of Odysseus. Boiled down to one line, it’s the tale of a warrior who, after the war is won, and after many years of wandering, returns home from the dead. Now what was Arnold trying to tell us, John?”
The drunk stood again, and took a tentative step. “Beats me.”
“You’re not trying, John.”
“Beats me.” The drunk navigated the steps to the sidewalk.
Abrams stood. Coming up the steps was a homicide detective whom he recognized. With him was a man who was not a cop, but might be FBI. Well, Abrams thought, the clue itself was obvious to the trained police eye, but the meaning of the clue would not be obvious to an outsider. Abrams turned away and let the two men pass, then stepped down to the sidewalk and headed south.
Arnold, he reflected, was writing to the initiated. He was writing in shorthand to people who shared common experiences and thought processes. Or who had learned enough to make all the mental leaps and inferences necessary to draw a conclusion. Abrams, too, had come to a conclusion, had deduced a possible and logical meaning to the message; though as logical as it might be, it was so unlikely, he could not bring himself to believe the answer he had arrived at.
29
The old twin-engine Beechcraft leveled off at 15,000 feet. The pilot, Sonny Bellman, checked his airspeed indicator: 160 knots. He spoke into the PA microphone. “Pine Barrens dead ahead. About ten minutes to jump site.”
Patrick O’Brien nodded to himself. They were about thirty miles west of Toms River, New Jersey. Ten more minutes would bring them over the most desolate area of the barrens.
O’Brien looked out the fuselage window. The night was clear but not moonless. In fact, the half-moon was quite bright, he saw, lighting up the starry sky and casting a bluish luminescence across the flatlands below. This was not a night for tactical jumps, but a good night for sport. He sat cross-legged and leaned back against the fuselage.
These Sunday-evening jumps were for him a sort of religious experience, a memorial to the dead, and a cleansing ritual. He’d land in the pristine Pine Barrens, make a small fire, and spend the night thinking, talking to himself, remembering and forgetting. Before dawn he would radio his position to an old friend, a retired farmer, and the man would come out in a motor home and meet him at a designated spot on the closest road.
O’Brien would shower in the vehicle and change into a suit, having already shaved and eaten breakfast in the woods. Usually he would share a cup of coffee with the old man. By the time they reached the Holland Tunnel, O’Brien would be ready to do battle, an ironic reversal of the wartime sequence of events.
O’Brien knew in his body, mind, and heart that there would be no more jumps after this summer, and so he savored these dwindling Sunday nights the way an old man savors most everything he knows is coming to an end.
O’Brien was brought out of his reverie as he heard and felt the decrease in the engine’s power. He sensed they were approaching the 120-knot jump speed.
His eyes surveyed the dark empty cabin, lit only by the red glow of the no-jump lamp. In the eerie redness he fancied he saw the fuselage walls lined with men and women, hooked to static lines, like nooses, and swathed in black shrouds. Their waxy white faces all turned slowly toward him and he saw their eyes glowing red. O’Brien shut his eyes and shook his head. After some time, he glanced up at the bulkhead that separated the cabin from the cockpit, then looked at his watch. Bellman should be giving him the green light soon.