The Wind Chill Factor
Page 40
There was a Salvation Army band at the top of the hill. We stopped to watch it for a moment, our reflections bigheaded in the immaculate flowering of the tuba. The man who played it had his eyes closed. He must have known his part by heart. His face was turning purple. Peterson tugged my sleeve.
“Let’s go up there.” He pointed to a bench at the top of the rise commanding a view of the Common and the city of Boston rising up on the other side. Sitting down, he took out a case and offered me a cigar. I took it and we puffed for a moment, watching the people and feeling the sunshine on our faces.
“Have you heard from our friends?” I asked.
“No, not since the Colonel and Mr. Dawson left.”
“How did it happen, Olaf? I’m curious. I don’t think it will bother me now, not anymore.”
“All right,” he said from behind a cloud of smoke. “Then let’s not talk about it again—”
“We may never see each other again,” I said.
“Well, be that as it may. Let’s get it out of the way once and for all. If we live long enough we’ll talk it over in our old age. I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll give it to you briefly.
“They took me to Washington and gave me pretty much the same story Arthur gave you. I oohed and aahed on cue and didn’t know if they were all nuts or if I was or if the world was. It turned out to be the world, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there at this point, is it? Well, when they were finished I told them that it was all right with me—I mean, what are you gonna say at a time like that? The whackos are running the world, that’s their problem—I’ve got my wife’s money and you don’t live forever, right? Okay. Fuck it, I told them, more or less. They clapped me on the back, said that they had faith in me—can you imagine that?” He shook his head. “They said Arthur had assured my welfare, sort of signed for me or some goddamn thing and I winked and said I understood. … God, telling this for the first time—it’s government by the Marx Brothers.” He stopped to reflect. “I don’t know, though. We’re reelecting an invisible President in a week, we’ve had a summer of Watergate and Eagleton and God only knows what else. The loonies are at it, Cooper. Well, anyway.” He turned back to the subject, forcing himself away from the fantasies of the front pages and back to our own world.
“When I left Washington I was picked up by one of Roeschler’s people. Now, you’ve got to remember, these people in Washington are not autonomous—in the end they answered to Arthur. And Roeschler was Arthur’s second-in-command. So, when Roeschler’s people took me for a ride I had to execute a little triple think. Roeschler had had us watched on the flight back after all and now he was pulling a little end run on the Washington office. He was circumventing Washington and his little men told me that I’d be meeting an old friend with a very serious mission—that I would cooperate with him or I would die without further discussion, and that you would die.” He looked me square on. “And they told me that if I needed any more inducement to behave appropriately I should be aware that Lee Cooper—that’s what they called her—would die, as well.
“I told them it was all right with me, anything they said was fine. The old friend, of course, was Steynes. Roeschler told Steynes the truth about Brenner and the movement, everything but his own involvement. Roeschler told him that unless Brenner were neutralized at once it would be too late. Steynes went for the bait and made the trip himself. I was the guide. There was just no choice. Steynes pulled the trigger on Brenner himself. He looked upon it as the culmination of his work.
“It was a setup, Cooper.
“Roeschler knocked off the one man above him in the hierarchy and no one can possibly pin it on him since everyone else in the movement who knew of Steynes’ existence is dead. And no one but Brenner knew Roeschler worked for Steynes on suitable occasions.” He beamed at me, as if he’d finally finished the impossible all-white jigsaw puzzle. “Its perfect!” He couldn’t help admiring the scheme.
“One loose end,” I said. “Steynes.”
“Steynes is dead.”
“Dead? Roeschler?”
“No, no, he was dying, had six months at the outside when we saw him on Cat Island. Worked out to just over four. Roeschler knew that, of course, and knew the temptation to cap his career would be so great that Steynes couldn’t resist doing it himself. So Roeschler is at the top of the heap now. The top. Pulling the strings.”
“Dawson? What about Dawson?”
Peterson laughed.
“He’s in Munich. Works for Roeschler. Is paid through Brendel’s old firm, handles English interests. Sound man, Dawson. A mercenary. But fiercely loyal.” He puffed and leaned back, glad that it was over.
“It’s all tied up then, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We’re safe. Everybody’s safe. It’s the world that’s in danger … and maybe the world can take care of itself. Who the hell knows?”
“Have you heard anything from Munich?”
“No. I don’t expect to. You shouldn’t expect to either. It’s all behind us now, Cooper.”
Together we walked back the way we’d come.
At the sidewalk in front of the Ritz Peterson looked at his watch and shrugged.
“Well, it’s time for me to go,” he said.
“Me, too,” I said.
“Well, then,” he said. A breeze swirled down the street and tugged at his wig. He put his hand up reflexively, smoothed it down. “Always think the damn thing’s going to blow away.” He laughed. “You were the first person who ever just spotted it, you bastard.”
He grabbed my arm.
“Look,” he said, “this is getting silly. Stay well, John. And try to forget it.” He was shaking my hand, squinting in the bright sunshine, backing away from me.
“Everybody dies,” I said.
I don’t know if he heard me.
“I’ll be in touch, Johnnie.” He waved and we both turned around and went our own ways.
I went back to my flat. I’d moved: I no longer lived where I’d been when I got the telegram from Cyril. Now I was high up in a tower overlooking the Charles River Basin and the Boston skyline with the Hancock Building where the windows keep getting blown out by the wind.
I sat at my desk looking out past the window and the balcony at the river turning into something shiny, gunmetal, as the sun sank. Car lights came on and I watched them trace their little paths so far below.
On my desk there was a delicate, colorful ceramic depiction of Flowerdieu’s Charge. I had the only one in the world and I used it to hold piles of manuscript paper down when I opened the sliding doors onto the balcony.
And when I sat at my desk and looked the length of the room I could see the huge painting my father had done so many years before. My mother was there, looking just past you as if something interesting was happening just beyond your shoulder.
But I didn’t have the picture there to remind me of my mother.
Sometimes, when I am in just the right mood, I can look into her eyes, which never seem to be quite paying attention, and if I look long enough I can see the great house on the outskirts of Munich. The wind is blowing there, sweeping across the empty driveway and worrying at the windows. There’s a light on inside and the night is quiet. There may be a shadow at the window. But then again … maybe there isn’t. It really doesn’t matter.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a
ctual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1975 by Thomas Gifford
cover design by Michel Vrana
978-1-4532-6607-6
This 2012 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY THOMAS GIFFORD
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM & WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
follow us:
@eMysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
@openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
SIGN UP NOW at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters