He tightened the flag around his waist and began trotting, then something impelled him to turn back toward the fence. The jagged pickets were silhouetted against the evening sky, and atop the ones he’d just scaled, he could see the moonlit shape of a large man coming over the top. “Oh, no! You can’t do that! Back! Stop! Halt! Nyet! Nyet! Private property! America!” Stanley turned and began moving as fast as his leaden legs would carry him.
The terrain was fairly open here except for a few white birches and boxwoods. Elongated moon shadows lay over the fields of wild flowers and Stanley tried to stay in those shadows. The ground rose, gently at first, then more steeply, then it became almost a cliff. “What the hell…?” He started slipping in some sort of goo. Clay. White clay. The Long Island terrain was mostly flat and benign, but there were parts of the island on the North Shore that had been formed by the Ice Age glaciers’ terminal moraine, some fifteen thousand years ago, and this was one of those areas. And it was screwing him up. There were loose rocks, gravel, and this strange, slippery white clay, which, thought Stanley, was like dog turd. He realized very soon that he had picked the wrong spot to reach Van Dorn’s broad lawn.
He heard them again, but without the dogs. He guessed they had helped one another over the fence; at least five of them anyway. The biggest lard-ass stayed behind with the dogs. He wondered what was driving them on. He was running for his life. How much could they pay these guys?
They weren’t calling to him anymore, but he could hear them walking, not behind him but off to the west about forty yards. “Bastards.”
Stanley summoned up the last of his strength and began kicking toeholds in the resilient white clay, clawing at it with his fingertips. “I’ll sue them. I’ll tell Van Dorn… they’re trespassing on American property. Fucking nerve. .”
He heard footsteps pattering on the side of the cliff to his left. They had found a path and were moving rapidly up on it. “Oh…” Directly below, about fifteen feet down the cliff, he heard something, and looked back. In the moonlight he saw a Russian who had been placed there to stop him from escaping by sliding back down. The man was holding what looked like a gun, and he was smiling up at Stanley; a very ugly smile, Stanley thought.
Stanley hung on the side of the nearly vertical rise and felt tears forming in his eyes as he realized that, after all this crap, he wasn’t going to make it.
6
A few cars behind Karl Roth’s deli van, a gray chauffeur-driven limousine also edged through the traffic on Dosoris Lane.
Katherine Kimberly, sitting in the rear, regarded the young Englishman at the opposite end of the long seat. Marc Pembroke was undeniably good-looking, though in a slightly sinister way. He possessed all the charm and breeding of his class, but also its cynicism and affected indifference. She remarked, “It ought to open up a bit once we get past the Russian place.”
Pembroke replied politely, “It’s just as well Mr. O’Brien didn’t come with us. At his age the flu can lead to complications.”
“He has a cold.” Katherine thought she detected a tone suggesting that Patrick O’Brien, senior partner in the law firm in which she was a partner, had simply begged off. She studied Pembroke for a moment. He was dressed in a white flannel pinstripe suit, a straw slouch hat, white silk shirt, and red silk tie with matching pocket handkerchief. He wore black-and-white saddle shoes. He might, thought Katherine, have been on his way to one of the surrounding mansions to play a role in a 1920s movie. She didn’t think George Van Dorn would appreciate such foppishness. Yet, in some indefinable way, Pembroke still radiated a hard masculinity. She said, “Mr. O’Brien is usually in excellent health. Last May Day he parachuted from a helicopter and landed on George’s tennis court.” She smiled.
Pembroke stared at the blond-haired woman. She was extremely pretty. She wore a finely cut simple mauve dress that complemented her pale complexion. Her sandals were on the floor, and he noticed her feet were callused, and he remembered that she was an amateur marathon runner.
Pembroke glanced at her profile. She had what they called in the army a command presence. He had heard she was rather good in the courtroom, and he could easily believe it.
She looked up and their eyes met. She did not turn demurely away, as women are taught to do, but stared at him in the same way he was staring at her. Finally he said, “May I give you a drink?”
“Please.”
Pembroke looked at the attractive young couple in the facing jump seats. Joan Grenville was dressed in white slacks with a navy blue boat-neck top. Her husband, Tom, wore a blue business suit of the type favored by his law firm, O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose, for its employees. Pembroke, who was not an employee, wondered if Tom Grenville intended to make points with Van Dorn, a senior partner in the firm, and wear the depressing thing the entire weekend. Pembroke said, “May I give either of you a drink?”
Joan Grenville replied, “If you’re giving, I’m taking.”
Tom Grenville forced a smile and said to Pembroke, “My wife only understands Manhattan idiom.”
“Really?”
Grenville said, “I’ll make the drinks. Scotch all around?” He busied himself at the small bar.
Joan Grenville addressed Katherine in a petulant voice. “We should have gone in the helicopter with Peter.”
Katherine replied, “Even by helicopter, Peter will undoubtedly manage to arrive late.”
Marc Pembroke smiled at her. “That’s no way to speak of your betrothed.”
Katherine realized she had been a bit too candid, and that Pembroke was baiting her. She replied, “Actually I usually arrive too early, then accuse him of being late.”
“The Theory of Time’s Relativity,” said Pembroke, “was first discovered by watching men and women waiting for each other.”
No, thought Katherine, not baited, but led, and she wasn’t going to be led by this charmingly cunning man. She said, “Temperature, too, is relative. Men are usually too warm when a woman feels comfortable. Why don’t you take off your jacket?”
“I prefer to leave it on.”
And with good reason, she thought. She had spotted the pistol.
The limousine moved up a few feet. Grenville handed the drinks around. “We may be the only people in the country celebrating — what is it called? — Loyalty Day. It’s also International Law Day, or something.” He sucked on an ice cube. “Well, most of us at Van Dorn’s will be lawyers, and most of us are loyal, so I suppose it’s fitting.” He bit into his ice cube.
Joan winced. “Don’t do that. God, what a horrid weekend this is going to be. Why does Van Dorn make such a spectacle of himself?” She looked at Marc Pembroke.
Pembroke smiled. “I understand that Mr. Van Dorn never misses an opportunity to make his next-door neighbors uncomfortable.”
Joan Grenville finished her Scotch in a long swallow, then said to no one in particular, “Is he going to blare those speakers toward their estate again? God, what a headache I get.”
Tom Grenville laughed. “You can imagine the headache they get.”
Katherine said, “It’s all rather petty. George lowers himself by doing this.”
Joan Grenville nodded in agreement. “He’s going to do it again, isn’t he? Memorial Day, I mean. Then again on July Fourth. Oh, Tom, let’s be out of town. I can’t stand all this flag-waving, martial music, fireworks, and whatnot. It’s not fun, really.” She turned to Marc Pembroke again. “The English wouldn’t behave like this, would they? I mean, you’re civilized.”