In the upstairs bedroom, Smith found his special clothes folded on a chair just where he'd left them. His normal uniform was a three-piece gray suit, which he wore now. Smith changed out of the suit, hanging it carefully in the closet next to six other identical suits. He pulled on the powder-blue longsleeved jersey and green plaid pants. There were some fabric pills on the shirt. Smith plucked them off, depositing them in the trash.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slipped his feet back in his dress shoes. He was lacing them back up when his wife stuck her head around the corner.
"Are you all right, Harold?" Maude asked, concerned.
"Yes, I'm fine." Smith asked, "Why?"
"That noise you were just making with your mouth. I thought something was wrong."
Smith frowned. "Noise?" he asked. "I don't believe I was making any noise, dear."
He picked up a pair of white shoes from the floor under the chair, just where he'd left them the previous night. Carrying the shoes under one arm, he kissed his wife on the cheek once more and headed back out into the hallway.
As he stepped down the stairs, he was unaware that he had started making the same horrible noise once more.
Behind him, Maude Smith watched from the top of the stairs. As he headed briskly out the door, she saw her husband's lips purse, saw his ashen cheeks puff out.
Maude recognized the noise this time. Her Harold was actually whistling. She shook her head in astonishment
"Will wonders never cease?" she asked the walls with the old white paint that, although long yellowed from age, Harold refused to have repainted. The paint had been guaranteed to last thirty years, which would not be up for another two years. Even though the manufacturer had long gone out of business, Harold refused to pay to have the walls repainted until precisely thirty years had passed. Anything sooner than that would be an extravagance. Like whistling.
Maude heard the awful sound coming from outside. A dog two houses away was howling at the noise as her husband backed his station wagon out of the driveway.
Still shaking her head in amazement, but grateful to the Almighty just the same for her Harold's new outlook, Maude Smith climbed carefully back down the creaky old stairs.
SMITH COULD NOT THANK the Almighty for this morning away from work. Not that he didn't believe. A healthy fear of God had been inculcated in Harold Smith at an early age. But thanks to the requirements of his job as director of CURE, Smith had long before determined that he could not in good conscience involve the Deity in the matters of his adult life. Smith didn't bother God, and when the time of judgment came for him, Smith hoped the Almighty would understand the necessity of his many transgressions.
No, if any thanks were due at all, they went to Smith's assistant.
Mark Howard was a diligent young man who from the start had insisted that he relieve some of his employer's heavy burden. Thanks to Mark Howard, Harold Smith was able to take off two early afternoons every week to enjoy dinner with Maude. And thanks to his assistant, Smith was about to indulge in a guilty pleasure that he had given up long ago.
Smith's house bordered one of the most exclusive country clubs on the East Coast. As he drove along, he caught glimpses of well-tended greens between houses and trees.
Around the block and up through the gates, Smith drove through the main entrance to the Westchester Golf Club.
There were plenty of spaces in the parking lot. Smith chose one recently vacated near the clubhouse. He changed into his golf shoes beside his car and took his wheeled bag of clubs from the back seat of the station wagon where he had carefully placed them earlier that morning.
He was whistling again as he headed for the clubhouse.
Although Smith had been paying his yearly membership dues without fail for the past forty years, he had been to the club only a handful of times in the past three decades.
When CURE had first been established by a President now long dead, Smith had been a CIA analyst living in Virginia. He had dutifully accepted his post, moving his family to Rye.
Smith had taken over directorship of Folcroft Sanitarium, a private mental institution and convalescent home in town. Folcroft was the cover for CURE, the agency that didn't officially exist. As part of his own cover, Smith had early on involved himself in his community. Not too much. But in the early 1960s, to be completely removed from one's community affairs was to invite suspicion, he reasoned.
One of the first things Smith did after settling in at Folcroft was join the Westchester Golf Club.
Almost straight away he was invited to be part of a regular foursome. It seemed three other members who happened to play on the same day as Smith-a doctor, a lawyer and a judge-had recently lost their fourth. The new director of Folcroft Sanitarium was more than welcome to join them.
It was perfect for Smith's plan of fitting in. He was the perfectly ordinary director of Folcroft Sanitarium, playing a perfectly ordinary game with perfectly ordinary companions. Nothing suspicious, everything aboveboard.
For almost two years in the early 1960s Smith had played regularly with the same three men. But then, slowly, he began missing dates.
The demands of his work. There was always some crisis that needed attention, always a catastrophe that needed to be averted. For a time the men would call his secretary asking where Smith was. Once or twice Smith did manage to get away to join them. Mostly he refused. Then one day he suddenly realized that it was the 1970s and his old golf companions had stopped calling almost a decade before.
It no longer mattered. Maude was active enough in the community for them both. And, luckily, over the years Americans had become more isolated. Gone were the days when neighbors knew every face on the block and the involvement of business leaders in the community was practically a requirement. As the century wound to a close, it was possible for people to live next door to one another for years without ever exchanging hellos. And the director of a private sanitarium could spend his every waking hour locked away in his office without ever venturing out to attend a city council meeting or to play even a single round of golf.
But things had changed once again-finally, blessedly-and Harold Smith, in the twilight of his life, was once more able to step out into the sunshine of the Westchester Golf Club. And to feel good in the process.
Drawing his clubs behind him, Smith entered the clubhouse. He found a smiling, fortyish woman with short blond hair and a tag on her jersey identifying her as staff.
"Good morning," Smith said. "Could you tell me if Dr. Glass is playing today?"
"Doctor who?" the woman asked.
"Dr. Robert Glass. He plays here every Wednesday."
"I'm sorry, but there's no Dr. Glass here."
Smith raised a thin brow. "You seem quite certain. You didn't even check."
"Actually, I don't really have to," the woman said. "I know everyone who's playing today. In fact, I know everyone who is a member at the club and we don't have a Dr. Glass."
Smith had met this kind of stubbornness before. He had seen it in all walks of life, from government bureaucrats to restaurant hostesses. People loved to see themselves as important and powerful. Obviously this woman's job as gatekeeper to the elite of Westchester County had gone to her head. But she had met her match today, for Harold Smith was in a rare good mood. The kind of mood where he would enjoy bringing an arrogant woman with clipboard delusions of grandeur down a peg or two.
He smiled. An uncomfortable twist of his thin lips. "Young lady, do you know who I am?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, no. Are you a friend of a member?"
"I am a member," Smith said. "Dr. Harold W. Smith. You will find that I have been a member of this club for over forty years. And since it is obvious you do not know me, we can safely dispense with your claim that you know everyone who belongs. Therefore you will concede that it is possible you've made a mistake and that Dr. Glass is a member, as well. Possibly he is even here today. Please check." Smith's acid tone did not allow for refusal. The woman felt a red rash of embarrassment color her cheeks.