Good King Sauerkraut

by Barbara Paul

  She paused, considering her answer. “I think it’s possible, of course. But not very probable, frankly. Still, there’s no point in taking chances. Warren will want to talk to you about security. But for the time being, please just stay in the apartment, Mr. Sarcowicz.”

  “Call me King. Please.”

  “I’ll be happy to, King. And you call me Rae.”

  That sounded friendly. “Rae, a police detective who came to the hospital hinted at the same thing Warren’s afraid of—a Sergeant Marian Larch?”

  “Sergeant Larch, yes. I’ve spoken to her.”

  “She intimated the only reason Mimi is alive is that she spent the night with her husband at the airport hotel. She seems to think my mugging wasn’t really a mugging, but an attempt at murder.” Sergeant Larch had not, in fact, been anywhere near that positive about it, but King rather liked being cast as the victim who escaped. “Oh—I just remembered something. The police officers who found me said the ‘muggers’ hid me behind some shrubbery because they thought they’d killed me. I don’t remember anything about that. I was unconscious at the time.”

  Rae was silent for a few moments. Then she said: “They thought they’d killed you? That changes things.” She shot him an anguished look. “Maybe Warren’s right after all.”

  King fingered the bandage on his face. That was the first time Rae Borchard had shown anything of what she was feeling. King felt a prick of guilt for the worry he was causing her—and Warren Osterman as well. But if everyone wanted to think he was the intended victim of some industrial conspiracy that had already disposed of Dennis and Gregory …

  “The police are still here.” Rae pulled up to the building from which King had fled in such panic the day before; she left the Mercedes in a no-parking area right behind a black-and-white prowl car. “I hope they don’t hold us up.”

  “I’m supposed to go straight to bed,” King said. “We can use that as an excuse.”

  Upstairs, King’s heart started pounding as they approached the apartment. How should he act? Uneasy, frightened, depressed? He thought he could probably manage all three without even breathing hard. Rae unlocked the door—to find Sergeant Marian Larch on the other side.

  “You have your own key, Ms Borchard?” the policewoman asked pointedly.

  “Unused keys are kept at the MechoTech offices,” Rae replied coolly. “I checked one out this afteroon. Sergeant Larch, Mr. Sarcowicz needs to collect his personal belongings. Then we’ll be out of your way.”

  “Will he be saying at the same apartment you’ve moved Mrs. Hargrove to?”

  I’m right here, King thought; ask me.

  “That’s right,” Rae answered. “So, if we may come in …?”

  Marian Larch moved aside to let them enter. “How are you feeling, Mr. Sarcowicz?”

  “Shaky, but okay, considering. I’m supposed to go to bed.”

  Three or four men were prowling about the apartment looking for … what? Sergeant Larch gestured to one of them to come over, a man of about her own age, somewhere in the indeterminate thirties. “Ivan, this is King Sarcowicz,” she said. “Mr. Sarcowicz, this is my partner, Sergeant Malecki.”

  Sergeant Malecki’s face lit up as he looked at King. “Say, didn’t you used to play for the Knicks?”

  King sighed. “No, that was someone else.”

  “The Celtics, then—yeah, it was the Celtics!”

  “It wasn’t anybody. I’ve never been a basketball player.”

  Malecki looked disappointed. “Too bad. Well, as long as you’re here, answer one question for me. What do you know about a one-footed pigeon?”

  Of all the questions he could have asked, that was the last King would have expected. He told the police about the lame bird and her mate that Gregory Dillard had fed bagel crumbs to on Wednesday. “Is that what he was doing when he died?” Look innocent.

  “Mimi Hargrove thinks so. What other reason could he have for leaning out the window?”

  “None that I can think of.”

  “Oh, by the way, there’s been a woman telephoning this apartment for you. Name of Gale Fredericks?”

  King nodded. “My assistant, in Pittsburgh. I’ll call her later.”

  Rae Borchard waited in the living room while King went to his bedroom to pack. When he had all his clothes in his suitcase, he realized he’d left his shaver in the bathroom. In the bathroom. He hesitated, but then chided himself for being foolish. It was just a bathroom.

  Once in the bathroom, however, he couldn’t bring himself to look at the tub. When he’d found his shaver, he glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. He needed a shave, but that was the least of his problems; he looked as if he’d gone fifteen rounds with Godzilla and lost every one. The bandage on his cheek failed to conceal an ugly purplish-blue bruise that covered the entire left side of his face. The area around his eye was swollen as well as discolored; King wouldn’t make the cover of Hunk this month. Gingerly he touched his tongue against his upper left cuspid and one of the bicuspids and felt both teeth move.

  Back in his bedroom he tossed the shaver into the suitcase and took one last look around. The specifications and summaries and other papers Rae Borchard had distributed—he’d need them. He zipped up his suitcase and carried it into the office. King’s face and head were beginning to hurt again; he’d been handed a vial of pain pills at the hospital, but he wasn’t to take any more until six o’clock. He glanced at his wrist, remembering too late he no longer had a watch.

  As quickly as he could, he gathered up his papers and was on the verge of leaving when he remembered the sketches of the gun platform he’d put into the computer. He turned on the machine he’d used and called up the file containing his preliminary designs. Oh, shit. King felt a big letdown when he looked at the results of that first eager burst of creative activity. There was nothing there he could use; the designs were more reflective of boyish enthusiasm than of any insight into a highly specialized design problem. He’d done this before, started out with a wild flurry of half-formulated ideas that later had to be scrapped. You’d think I’d know better by now, he thought. With three keystrokes he erased the contents of the file.

  He was trying to figure out how to juggle all his papers and carry a suitcase at the same time when Sergeant Marian Larch walked into the room. “Mr. Sarcowicz, one question before you go. Had you been using the computers yesterday morning right before you left the apartment?”

  “No. Why?”

  “When we got here, all three machines were turned on. Nothing showing on the screens, but they were on.”

  “Strange.” Then it hit him: in his stupor after realizing he’d killed Dennis as well as Gregory, he’d wandered in here and powered up all three machines for no reason other than to be doing something. But he couldn’t tell Sergeant Larch that. “Maybe Gregory was using them.”

  “All three of them? Is that usual?”

  “No, it’s not,” King admitted.

  “What’s in those computers?”

  “Just various software programs. That middle one has a CAD program—”

  “Excuse me—a what?”

  “A computer-aided design program. I used it Wednesday night to work out some preliminary sketches I’d made.”

  “Sketches of what?” Marian Larch asked. “This gun platform you’re all working on?”

  “That’s right.” King’s mind was working furiously; was this something he could use? “I’m glad you reminded me, Sergeant. I almost went away and left them here.” He dumped his armload of papers on the table and powered up the same computer he’d just turned off a minute ago. “That’s odd,” he said when the file showed up empty.

  “What’s odd?” Sergeant Larch asked.

  “Wait a minute.” King went through a ritual of searching for the nonexistent sketches. “I don’t understand. I’m sure I saved those designs.”

  “You’re telling me they’re missing?”

  “Well, there’s the file I stored them in.
And you can see it’s empty.”

  “Somebody stole them? Can that be done?”

  “Easily. All you have to do is copy the file to a floppy and then erase the original.”

  “Could you have erased the designs by accident?”

  King pretended to think. “No, the way this program’s set up—if I had erased anything accidentally, the whole file would be gone. But the file is here. Only the contents are gone.”

  Sergeant Larch nodded, thinking. “Yet the thief left all these papers here.” She gestured toward the table where King had dumped them. “They were right there when we got here. Isn’t any of that stuff classified?”

  “I don’t think so. Rae Borchard could tell you.” King decided a little protest was in order. “Sergeant, these were only preliminary sketches that were stolen. They wouldn’t be of any help to anybody.”

  “Maybe the thief didn’t know that. Let’s go talk to Rae Borchard.” She picked up King’s suitcase and left him to gather up his papers still one more time. He followed her into the living room, where she was telling her partner and Rae Borchard that King’s designs had been stolen out of the computer. Sergeant Larch pointed out that a whole mess of interesting-looking papers had been left behind and asked if they contained classified material.

  “No, there’s nothing especially confidential about those papers,” Rae answered when asked. “Mostly they’re details of the earlier design teams’ failures—”

  “Wait a minute,” Sergeant Ivan Malecki interrupted. “What earlier design teams?”

  Rae explained how the Defense Department had been trying for years to develop a reliable high-tech weapons platform. “The platform specifications are classified, of course. But they are known to the four other firms who’d earlier tried and failed.”

  Sergeant Malecki wanted to make sure he had that clear. “You’re saying that those papers are old news to everybody who had a go at it before you?”

  “Yes.”

  Malecki glanced at his partner. “That narrows it down.”

  She nodded and said to Rae Borchard, “Can you give us a list of the earlier designers?”

  “Certainly. You think it was one of them who’s behind this?”

  Marian Larch gave a noncommittal shrug. “It’s the only lead we’ve got.”

  Slowly Rae Borchard turned and looked at King, her expression one of concern.

  The two sergeants noticed. “Yeah, he’s still in danger,” Malecki said, “if we got this figured right. Mr. Sarcowicz, that new apartment building you’re going to is like a fortress. We checked it out, and we couldn’t give you better protection ourselves. Just stay inside until we get a chance to nail whoever killed your partner and Mr. Dillard. Y’unnerstand?”

  “I understand,” King croaked, his forehead wet with sweat.

  “We’ll be along to talk to you later,” Sergeant Larch added. “Right now you’d better get back to bed. You’re not looking any too steady.”

  “Yes, I would like to lie down,” King said in his most plaintive tone.

  Immediately Rae Borchard was on her feet. “Then we’ll go right now. Here, let me take the papers.”

  King handed her his papers and picked up the suitcase. He mumbled something by way of farewell and followed Rae out, relieved to escape the official presence of the two police sergeants.

  In Rae’s car once again, he started complaining. “I can’t stay in the apartment all the time! I have work to do.”

  “We’ll bring the work to you. Do as the police say, King. Stay inside.”

  “But I have to go out. I need to buy another watch, and I want to get a briefcase.”

  “I’ll have my secretary pick them up. What kind of watch do you want?”

  “Just time and date, nothing fancy.” He started to reach into his pocket and then remembered. “Oh. My credit cards were stolen.”

  Rae waved a hand. “We’ll take care of it. MechoTech got you into this mess, it’s the least we can do. Have you reported the theft to your credit card companies?”

  “Not yet. The record of the account numbers is in Pittsburgh. I’ll ask Gale Fredericks to see to it.”

  “The woman who called—your assistant?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Anything else we can do for you here?”

  King thought a moment. “Could you recommend a dentist?”

  Rae looked a question at him.

  King touched his upper lip. “A couple of teeth were knocked loose.”

  Rae pressed her lips together and concentrated on the traffic. “I’ll have an appointment set up for tomorrow.”

  King thanked her and leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt at ease for the first time since he’d left the hospital. Things were going unbelievably well. What a stroke of luck he’d erased that file from the computer! That had been just the thing to convince the police that a MechoTech competitor was indeed on a murderous mission to win back the Defense contract. Sergeants Larch and Malecki would soon be off on their wild goose chase and out of his hair; his chances were looking better and better.

  King still had a little trouble believing he was going to get away with it; things didn’t usually fall into place that neatly for him. But if he just kept quiet and didn’t try to elaborate on his story, the police shouldn’t have any reason to suspect he’d had anything to do with Dennis’s and Gregory’s deaths. They were looking for a murderer now, and King was not a murderer. Lethally clumsy, but not a murderer.

  Murder required an intent to kill, a desire to inflict harm. He had never wanted that; at no time in his life had he wanted that. The only person King ever had considered killing was himself.

  7

  King had actually dozed off, and awoke only when the car stopped. “We’re here,” Rae Borchard said.

  A doorman appeared by the car; he took King’s suitcase and led them inside what looked like a fortified urban castle. Through a narrow entranceway watched by a stationary TV camera they moved into a foyer half as large as the entire first apartment King had been staying in. The floors were marble. A few chairs and a loveseat were placed against the walls, which boasted a selection of original paintings. Fresh flowers were on the three or four small tables. Obviously this was the place where Dennis Cox had thought they’d be staying.

  Dominating the foyer was a semicircular counter, also of marble, that discreetly hid the banks of monitors that were the heart of the building’s security system. Two men were on duty; Rae Borchard didn’t so much introduce King as she did identify him for them. One of the men took two Polaroid shots of him.

  “I don’t look like this all the time,” King told them, self-consciously fingering his bandage.

  The doorman had summoned an elevator for them. He put King’s suitcase in the car, murmured something inaudible, and disappeared. The elevator was an ornate affair that had a padded bench to sit on and a painting on one wall to look at. Everything about this building was ornate and luxurious; it went without saying that there’d be no unmanageably heavy windows or itty-bitty TV sets here. God damn Warren Osterman! King thought in a rush of fury. If he’d put us here in the first place, Dennis and Gregory would still be alive!

  Rae Borchard must have read his mind. “This apartment has only three bedrooms,” she said. “Warren thought it’d be better if you were all staying at the same place.”

  The anger went out of King as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t Warren Osterman’s fault Dennis and Gregory were dead.

  The elevator stopped at the twenty-second floor. “It’s 2206,” Rae said and led the way.

  Mimi Hargrove met them at the door. She took one look at King’s battered face and burst into tears. “Oh, King!” she cried—and threw both arms around him.

  King was so surprised that he dropped his suitcase, barely missing Rae’s foot. He put his arms around Mimi and reassured her that he was all right. It wasn’t an entirely comfortable clinch, since the top of her head barely reached his chest; they soon broke
away. “I look worse than I feel,” King said, not entirely truthfully.

  “Come inside—shut the door,” Mimi answered with an uncharacteristic display of nervousness.

  “You’re both safe here,” Rae said as she and King went in. “You don’t have to worry as long as you both stay inside. I’ll just put these in the office.” She was referring to the armload of King’s papers that she carried.

  Alone with Mimi, King was aware all over again that she too had lost a partner. “I’m sorry, Mimi. I know you were close to Gregory. How long were you together?”

  “Over five years,” she sniffed. “He was a friend before he was ever a partner. It was Gregory’s idea to start SmartSoft, you know. He brought me in.”

  King floundered for something comforting to say, and ended up saying the worst thing possible: “Well, you still have three more partners.”

  “For god’s sake, Sauerkraut!” Mimi flared. “We’re not talking about replacing a wrecked car, we’re talking about a human being! What a callous thing to say!”

  King thought that over, as calmly as he was able. “You’re right, Mimi. It came out callous, but I didn’t mean it that way. I was just trying to make you feel better. I’m so doped up on medication that I’m not thinking straight. Please forgive me.”

  Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, of course—I should have known. I’m not thinking straight either, and I’m not doped up on anything. I’m sorry I snapped at you, King.”

  Mimi’s apology lifted King’s spirits a little. He’d talked himself out of an awkward spot; that didn’t happen often. “It doesn’t matter,” he said magnanimously.

  “We’ve got to relate to each other now,” Mimi said earnestly. “We’re the only ones left.”

  Relate what to each other? King wondered. Ghost stories? Dirty limericks? He was saved from having to answer by Rae Borchard’s return. “I’ll show you your room,” she said.

  He picked up his suitcase and followed, looking over this new apartment that would be home for the next couple of weeks. The place was almost belligerently modern, full of reflecting surfaces and sharp angles. It was all silvers and blacks and grays and whites; the only bright color was provided by the people in it. King liked it.