‘Hmm? Me?’
‘Business, I suppose? Larry says you’re terribly important these days.’
‘Lord, no! I mean, I’m busy enough, but I had to get out today, Annie. I couldn’t take another minute.’
There was a short pause.
‘Congratulations, by the way.’
‘Sorry?’
‘On your engagement, I mean. I haven’t seen you since then.’
‘Oh, yes. Rosalind.’ Willard nodded.
‘She’s a lucky girl.’
‘Yes, isn’t she? I mean, she’s a super girl. I thought that’s what you said. Super.’
The conversation remained idiotic and halting as the cab clattered through traffic. It reached Annie’s apartment building, then stopped. Willard got out, paid off the cab, and saw Annie to her door. The two of them watched the cab grind away in a spray of puddle water.
‘You’re getting out here?’ she asked, in surprise. ‘Aren’t you…?’
Willard grinned brightly. ‘Thought I might ask an old friend for some coffee. If that’s all right.’
‘Of course, yes.’
Annie pushed through the front door to her apartment building and led the way up. Before long, Willard found himself, as had happened once before, sitting on Annie’s little sofa, drinking coffee, watching the rain fall outside. Since he was last there, there’d been one addition to Annie’s apartment. It was a movie poster, from When We Were Heroes. Willard’s magnificently resolute frown dominated the little room. Noticing the pinkness hiding up in Annie’s freckled cheeks, he didn’t mention the poster. Nor did she. They drank coffee, finished, then made more. He didn’t get up to go. He felt like he’d dropped out of his own life. Not for long, just for an hour or two. But crazily, and just for that hour, Willard felt something he should never have felt. Not there. Not with Annie. He felt this: he felt relaxed. He felt at home.
102
Pen had told everyone she was going to Europe. She’d packed bags, made arrangements, booked tickets, gone to New York – and never got on the boat. Admittedly, there was somebody on the boat, name of Penelope Hamilton, but it wasn’t her. Wrong height. Wrong build. Wrong everything. Roeder took the call from his man at the docks, then called Powell.
‘The Hamilton girl. She’s given us the slip. She hasn’t gone to Europe at all.’
‘You telling me this because you want a crack at Rockwell early? I said to wait.’
‘No. Not that. Least not until we got the girl. Once we got the girl, I want to take her, Rockwell, the mechanic, and anyone else I feel like, all at the same time.’
‘All of them together? This ain’t Chicago, you know.’
‘We’ll do it nice. Nothing that even looks like homicide.’
‘You asked young Thornton? He should have a say in this.’
‘He’s split on this. One way, he’s doing a good job. Another way, he looks up to Rockwell. Wants to save him. Best thing is if we take care of things without involving him. Thornton can be mad at me for a while. Then he’ll see we helped him out.’
‘Hmm… You’re still watching Rockwell, of course?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He up to anything he shouldn’t be?’
‘Not that we know. But as soon as he gets into his plane we can’t follow him.’
‘How you going to find the girl?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘And when you find her …? Shit, Roeder, first find her. It’ll probably turn out she’s busy necking with some rich lover-boy in a beach house someplace private. We’ll find her first, then figure out what to do. I’m sure we’ll sort something out.’
There was a tiny pause. Roeder’s pale lips opened into a smile.
‘Sure, we’ll sort something out.’
They hung up, but Roeder’s grin persisted. Powell hadn’t ordered him not to do what he wanted to do. He’d left his instructions deliberately vague. He did it that way, so he could come over all sympathetic when young Willie Thornton woke up to find his favourite airman had been swatted into oblivion. Roeder liked that. Typical Powell: always neat, but always businesslike.
All he needed now was to find the girl.
103
The ball rose high into the eye of the sun, then began to curve back down again.
The lob made for an easy smash and Senator Paulet stood underneath, waiting. The ball came down. The Senator smashed it. The ball, from no distance, slammed into the wire of the net, fizzed along it for a second, then dropped uselessly to the ground on the wrong side.
‘Fuck it.’ The Senator, a photogenic forty-six, hoofed the ball up with his racket, then banged it against the mesh fence surrounding the tennis court. ‘Lousy balls aren’t running for me today.’
The Senator threw his racket down and grabbed a pullover from the seat. Jim Carpenter muttered silently to himself. Paulet finished the match when he was winning it. He always bailed when he wasn’t.
‘Let’s get a drink,’ said Paulet, making it a statement not a question.
The two men walked over to a group of white metal tables under sun umbrellas. On each table, there was a card indicating the drinks available: ice-cream sodas, regular sodas, sparkling waters, juices, teas, coffee. One of the tennis club waiters, seeing the two men take their seats, went silently away and returned a minute later with two martini glasses and a jug clinking with ice. The waiter, saying nothing, poured the drinks and moved away.
Paulet, one of the two senators from Wisconsin, had been elected with the strong endorsement of the Anti-Saloon League. The ASL, the country’s leading anti-alcohol group, knew that Paulet was a confirmed drinker but it didn’t care. Paulet had promised to vote the way the ASL wanted and that was enough. In the United States Senate, the votes of hypocrites counted equally with the votes of non-hypocrites.
The two men chatted for a while: about tennis, about the weather, about the latest adventures of Paulet’s wild daughter. Jim Carpenter was the Commissioner of the IRS, in effect the chief tax collector in the United States. Senator Paulet, as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was, in a way, Carpenter’s boss. They finished their first martini and moved on to a second. Paulet finished his second and poured another.
‘So, Jim, how are you and your crook-busters doing?’
‘Crook-busters? Our Intelligence Unit?’
Paulet nodded.
Carpenter shrugged. ‘OK. We nail a few tax avoiders every month. We just sent down a California realtor. He gave us a return showing a few thousand bucks of income. It turned out he had nearer half a million.’
‘Quit handing out the crap,’ said Paulet, softly. ‘I meant the bootleggers. You had some kind of idea you could nail bootleggers for tax evasion.’
‘Yeah. We’re working on it.’
‘Right. And that was my question. How you doing?’
‘OK. We’re still digging for evidence. We’re looking to build a case that’ll hold.’
‘Shit, I’d never have thought of that. You’re a goddamn genius.’
Paulet’s eyelids tended to sink with liquor. What with the martinis, or the sun, or his anger, his eyes looked hooded, half-drunk, half-malevolent. His jibe caused a little pool of silence to form in its aftermath.
‘What do you want to know?’ Carpenter asked.
‘Who are you investigating?’
‘I’m sorry, Senator, I’m not able to say.’ That was a truthful answer, thought Carpenter ruefully. McBride still wasn’t being candid with him, even though Carpenter, under pressure from Paulet, had been on at McBride to open up.
‘Don’t screw around with me. We’re having a committee meeting in a few days. Management of the IRS is on the agenda. Management and salary issues.’
‘Oh?’ Carpenter was nervous.
‘The committee’s divided. It’s arguing things out. Don’t know which way it’ll jump.’
‘And the issue exactly…?’
‘Well, the first bunch of people says, we oughta pay ou
r top guys more. A lot more. Hire the best, then retain them. The secret of success.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The second bunch agrees with the first.’
Paulet stopped. Carpenter knew he was being prompted to ask the obvious question. Knowing he was about to walk into a sucker punch, he went ahead and did it anyway.
‘Two groups of people, you said. What’s the difference?’
‘Half the committee is happy with existing management. The other half isn’t.’
‘Right.’ Carpenter knew he was being jerked around by Paulet, but he couldn’t help being jerked. ‘I don’t suppose… I mean, there isn’t anything, is there…?’
In a sudden burst of energy, Paulet swivelled around in his seat, yanking the table with him.
‘I’m a straight-shooter. You want me to tell you straight?’
Carpenter nodded dumbly.
‘OK. Here it is. I think you’re OK. Sometimes you’re a dumb bastard, but the way I figure it, most likely anyone else we hire will be a dumb bastard too. But we need successes. We’re spending voters’ money here. We need something to boast about. Your shitty little California realtor isn’t it. You keep telling me you’ve got some big project going, but you feed me chicken-shit. I don’t live on chicken-shit, Carpenter. I won’t accept it.’
Carpenter swallowed. ‘It’s a big project, honestly. My investigator’s a good man. He thinks we’ve got a good chance of blowing one of the country’s biggest rackets into pieces. That’s straight, too, Senator.’
‘Where? The racket is based where?’
‘It’s a national thing. It’s got reach all over.’
‘And if you didn’t give me the bullshit answer…?’
‘Our source is based in Chicago. We’ve been getting great results.’
‘Chicago? You’re sure?’
Carpenter nodded. He was angry with McBride and McBride’s obsessive secrecy. Shit, the man had put him in a position where he couldn’t even pass sensible information to a United States senator.
‘Chicago. Right. Goddamn gangsters.’
Paulet had looked surprised, but the look passed. ‘And what are you waiting for?’
Carpenter swallowed. His feelings about McBride were moving from anger into fury. Maybe he should take over the investigation himself. He’d do that, except he knew how good an investigator McBride could be.
‘OK, Senator, I’ll tell you what I know. But remember I’ve been very tough on confidentiality all the way through this. I don’t even ask my investigations team to tell me stuff I don’t literally have to know.’
‘That’s no way to manage things. That’s just being yellow.’
‘Yes, yes, well, I’ve been thinking of getting more involved, for sure. Now things are coming to a head.’ Carpenter was speaking too fast and his mouth was running dry. The only liquid on the table was in the martini jug. Carpenter drank more to ease the gluiness in his mouth, then immediately regretted it as the alcohol, its effect doubled by sunshine and stress, took instant hold.
‘And the answer to my question?’
‘We’ve got the local operation pretty much busted. Now we just have to link it to the centre, the headquarters.’
‘How d’you plan to do that?’
‘Money. This outfit is pretty slick in most ways, but they can’t hide the money going to and fro. We’re picking up the bank transfers. That’ll give us enough evidence to put before a judge. We’ll get search warrants. Then we’ll go in, all buns glazing – I mean, bums lazing. Blazing. Guns blazing.’
‘And the headquarters is based in?’
Carpenter swallowed. He didn’t know. He took a guess. ‘Chicago.’
‘Chicago?’
‘Right.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure. Sure I’m sure. Ha! That sounds dumb, doesn’t it? Sure-I’m-sure, sure-I’m-sure.’
Paulet stood up. He picked up his pull-over and his tennis bag. The waiter approached with the check, but Paulet showed no interest in paying his share.
‘You’re a dumb bastard, Jim. Just remember. I need information. Facts not bullshit. And I need it soon. You got that?’
‘Sure. Sorry, Tom. It’s the sun. Yeah, I’ve got that. Facts. Not bullshit. Of course.’
‘It’s your future we’ll be discussing, remember. Me, I don’t really give a shit.’
Paulet looked down at his tennis companion, shook his head, and walked away.
104
Tin Can Field and another windy night beneath the stars.
Down the beach, a woman walks alone, quickly, carrying a slim leather briefcase held against her belly. As she approaches the field, another shape suddenly becomes visible. It’s a man’s figure, purposeful and decisive. The two people see each other, begin to run, then quickly find themselves in each other’s arms.
‘My love!’
The two lovers said the same thing, in the same way, at the same time. They caught each other’s eyes in the feeble light and smiled.
Back at camp, Abe’s fondness for domestic simplicity was still highly in evidence. There was the same threadbare canvas tent, the same pair of folding chairs, the same paraffin lamp, the same Primus stove. All the same, Abe had upgraded in a couple of respects. An air-filled mattress now supplemented the two sheepskin sleeping rolls and a white enamel water jug stood just inside the flap of the tent, with a dozen yellow roses standing bolt upright in the lamplight.
‘Gee whizz!’ said Pen. ‘No need to go crazy.’
Abe smiled. In many years of sleeping wherever his plane happened to be, he had never once thought of buying himself an inflatable mattress. But he was beginning to see his past life through the eyes of a woman. Though it was hard for him to admit, he knew much of his old way of life was incompatible with his new life with Pen.
‘I got lobster too.’
‘You cooked lobster?’
Now Pen was really surprised.
‘No, no, I got some from a place up the road. If I’d have cooked it, I don’t think you’d have wanted to eat it. I got some of that sauce they use a lot in France…’
‘Mayonnaise?’
‘That’s the one. And – uh –’ Abe was about to list the rest of the meal, when he realised that a loaf of bread, some hard-boiled eggs, a hunk of cheese and a bag of tomatoes probably wouldn’t strike Pen as a great feast. ‘There’s some other stuff,’ he added lamely, ‘a bottle of wine and mangoes for pudding.’
‘I love mangoes.’ After the first giddiness of love had begun to calm down, Pen had started to understand how Abe was disconcerted by his own feelings. She’d seen him reassessing the assumptions on which he’d built his life. She’d even realised that her own background – a woman who could afford her very own Curtiss racing plane without even troubling to think where the money would come from – made the process of adjustment harder. She pulled him close, kissed him, and ran her hands over the fine prickles of his scalp. ‘And I love you.’
He knew what she was saying and why she was saying it. He kissed her. His fingers dropped to her waist, to the join of her skirt and blouse. But his fingers stopped there, hesitating, asking a question. She put her own hands to his waist and slid a finger around inside his waistband.
‘It’s been hot, hasn’t it? You want to swim?’
‘Sure.’
Abe didn’t usually think of swimming as a pleasurable activity, but he did now. They went down to the shore, stripped naked and swam out into the whispering surf. Pen was the better swimmer and her lithe body slipped through the water like a creamy-skinned mermaid. Abe had to swim hard to keep up. They swam for a while, then came back to shore, headed back to the tent and made love.
Abe had turned out to be a terrific lover. There was nothing show-off in his technique. As a matter of fact, he hardly had any technique, no fancy positions, no athletic heaving around and grunting. But he was simple and to the point. Gentle. And exquisitely sensitive to Pen’s tiniest sensation. She realised – an
d amazingly enough she felt flattered by the realisation, not insulted – that for Abe, making love was a little like flying an aircraft. He listened with his fingertips and the muscles of his belly. He reacted to a change even before his brain had consciously registered that there was a change. Pen let herself float off, feeling herself like a glider on the wind, teased and nudged and coaxed into an ever higher heaven of sensation.
They made love long and slow, then lay together, salty from the sea and sweaty from the exertion. But at their feet, there was a briefcase full of papers. Though they wanted to forget where they were, why they were there, and everything else except the other’s body naked against theirs, they couldn’t do it.
They got up.
Abe pumped the paraffin lamp to maximum brightness. Pen took papers and her tin of putty from the case. He quit fiddling with the lamp and looked at her. She passed him the tin. He opened it and held the putty carefully to the light, checking the impressions Pen had taken.
‘It’s OK, is it?’ asked Pen anxiously. ‘I didn’t press too deep?’
‘Nope. It looks fine.’
‘I ran out of room. I had to use the edge as well.’ Pen explained about the fourth key, about the indentations down the edge of the putty strip, about her worry that she’d made a mess of things.
‘It’s fine. Arnie can make casts of these tomorrow. He can send the keys on to you in the mail. No one has your name, after all, or address.’
She smiled with relief. ‘Phew,’ she commented, softly. In her hands, she had a bundle of papers, held in a slim roll. Abe looked at them questioningly.
She held them up. ‘Money transfers. Only the last couple of weeks. I know McBride wants records going back months or years, but in the meantime I thought it might help to see these first.’
Abe nodded. ‘Of course.’ He reached out excitedly, then saw her face. It wasn’t happy. It was worried.
‘That’s what we wanted, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘Yes… Maybe…’
She passed the papers over. Abe held them under the arc of the paraffin lamp, where the light was strongest. Pen had copied them exactly as she’d found them, without altering either layout or punctuation.
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