"Why?" I asked. The word seemed to stick in my throat as wet cold rippled across my belly.
"Foster is the married name of Rafferty's widow." Lippitt was staring out at the traffic, but his voice hummed with guy-wire tension. "She married a construction contractor who used to do a lot of work for Rafferty. Both of them have been under our protection for the past five years, although they haven't known it. Yesterday they dropped out of sight. We don't know where they are, but I suspect their disappearance has something to do with your investigation." He paused, took a deep breath, straightened up, and stared down at me; I could hear the breath whistling angrily in his lungs. His voice was soft but distinctly threatening, like the deadly hiss of a snake. "If anything happens to the Fosters, I am going to hold you personally responsible."
At that point I might have told Lippitt what he wanted to know, but he wasn't listening. He abruptly walked around me and down off the concourse, pushed through a crowd of pedestrians waiting at the corner, and zigzagged across First Avenue without waiting for the light. I stared after him. I wanted to shout at him, tell him that I was already personally responsible. I was on a deadly roller coaster with no way to get off.
A cloud had slipped across the sun and I was cold.
I took a bus crosstown to the New York Times building, made a few inquiries, and was directed into an elevator that led up to the third floor, where I got out and walked down a carpeted corridor until I found a door with the name FRANK ALDEN.
Alden was a man in his late fifties who looked as if he'd spent most of his life auditioning for a part in The Front Page. He was actually wearing a wide-brimmed hat shoved on the back of his head. Naturally, a cigarette dangled from the edge of his mouth and there were ashes strewn down the front of his shirt. His collar was loose, and a thick clump of gray hair protruded between the open buttons. He had his feet up on a scarred desk and was scanning a racing sheet; he was straight out of Central Casting. The walls of the office were covered from floor to ceiling with blown-up, glossy black-and-white photographs. They were fresh, original.
I rapped on the open door. "Mr. Alden?"
He looked up and stared at me with eyes the same steely gray as his chest hair. Suddenly he put his feet on the floor and began to rapidly snap his fingers. "Mongo the Magnificent," he barked in clipped tones. "Retired circus headliner, used to be with Statler Brothers; now a criminology professor and private detective; real name"-he snapped his fingers some more-"Dick Frederickson."
"Try Bob," I said. "It sounds as if you're preparing my obituary."
"Nah. I did a photo essay on you once."
"You've got a good memory, Mr. Alden."
"Call me Frank. You get mixed up in some pretty strange cases."
I walked into the office, stopped in front of his desk. "I've got a strange case now, Frank. I was hoping you might be able to help me with it."
He pulled his battered hat down low on his forehead and peered at me from under the brim. He actually did: I could almost hear the purr of movie cameras. "You name it, Mongo." He made it sound conspiratorial.
I put the newspaper photograph with the question mark on the desk in front of Alden. "This picture has your photo credit on it. It was taken about five years ago. I want to know if you can remember the circumstances under which it was shot."
Again the popping fingers. Both hands. "Rafferty," he said at last. "Victor Rafferty, the hotshot architect. That's his house." He slapped his hands on the desk and corrected himself. "Was his house. He died a few days after that picture was taken."
"Right. What's going on there? Do you remember?"
"I remember, all right. But if I'd been able to find out what was going on, they wouldn't have used that question mark as a caption."
"How did you happen to be there?"
"I've got a police radio in the car. Somebody phoned in a complaint about disturbing the peace. It was early in the morning. Anyway, I was in the neighborhood and I decided to check it out." He tapped the photograph. "I saw what you see here. This one guy was on the ground, dead. Another guy looked pretty bad hurt, and the other guys were all standing around him."
"Could you hear them talking?"
"Couldn't get close enough. The guy in the overcoat was the one giving the orders. The police had set up a cordon across the street, and they wouldn't let anybody past it. I just got up on the hood of the car and watched through a telephoto lens. Oh, you could hear the woman, all right. She was standing in front of the house screaming her head off." He paused and snapped his fingers softly. "The guy in the overcoat was a real strange one. There it was the middle of summer, and this guy's bundled up like he's ready to go skiing. His pals didn't even seem to notice. I suppose they were used to it."
"Anything else you remember, Frank?"
The photographer shook his head. "We got hustled out of there right after I took the picture. A few reporters tried to follow up on it a few days later, but they couldn't get to first base. Mrs. Rafferty was under guard. Finally the orders came down from the boss to kill the investigation."
I pocketed the newspaper photo, thanked Frank Alden, and headed for the door.
"Hey, Mongol What's up? Where you going now?" I told him I didn't know what was up, and I hoped I was going to the bottom of things.
12
On my way to the bottom of things I took an elevator to the newspaper morgue in the basement.
There was no listing for a Marianne Morton in any of the borough directories. It was possible she had an unlisted number, but I considered it more likely that she'd remarried. If so, there was reason to assume that the marriage had made the society pages; Arthur Morton had been a big name, and he hadn't exactly left his widow penniless. I was hoping she'd decided to stay around New York City.
I started with a newspaper dated a month after Morton's death and worked my way toward the present. I finally found what I was looking for in an issue dated two years to the day after Morton had been murdered. Marianne Morton, the widow of Dr. Arthur Morton, had married an import- export magnate by the name of Khalil Vahanian. The accompanying photographs showed a respectable middle-aged couple. Vahanian was dark, apparently Middle Eastern; he looked embarrassed, like a man who didn't enjoy having his picture taken. Marianne Vahanian's picture was blurred, but I could see that she was smiling.
A Vahanian Import-Export Company was in the Manhattan directory, but there was no home phone listing for its president. I called the company and was told the president was away. They wouldn't tell me where he lived, or how I could get in touch with him. I got lucky when I took a flier and started combing through the directories of the outlying counties. There was a Khalil Vahanian in the town of Tuxedo Park, a small, exclusive, walled-in community of millionaires in Orange County. It had to be the same one.
From what I'd heard of Tuxedo Park, it was going to be difficult dropping in unannounced, but I was going to have to find a way. I couldn't think of a way of sliding into a phone conversation about the death of Marianne Vahanian's first husband gracefully, and I didn't want to turn her off before I'd had a chance to talk to her in person.
I rented a car and drove up the West Side Highway, across the George Washington Bridge, and up the Palisades Parkway. It felt good to be out of the city. The foliage on the trees along the Palisades was lush and green, and the strip of concrete beneath the wheels seemed like a suspended highway snaking through some primeval jungle. It was a pleasant, otherworldly effect, very relaxing. I almost forgot for a few minutes the ugly, bloody threads unraveling behind me.
A glance into the rearview mirror revealed that I was not alone. A green Cadillac was coming up fast. As I watched, its driver eased off the accelerator and the car settled down, about a hundred yards back, to a speed matching my own.
I took my gun out of its holster and put it on the seat beside me, then pulled off onto the shoulder. The Caddy sped right past. The two men in it seemed totally absorbed in an animated conversation, taking no notice of me
. They went by too fast for me to get a good look at them, but the man on the passenger's side had curly red hair and was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. I waited until they were out of sight, then drove back onto the highway.
I reached Tuxedo Park at three forty-five. A short drive along the high stone fence brought me to a locked gate, where I honked my horn. A tall, uniformed private guard emerged from a kiosk and peered aristocratically at me from the other side of the gate. He was tall and held his chin high, shoulders back, like a general personally guarding some military installation. He opened the gate but didn't move out of the way as I inched forward; he was a man who would defend the residents of Tuxedo Park with his life.
I braked and smiled up at him.
"Yes?" He said. The "sir" was pointedly missing. He had a slight lisp.
"I'm here to see Mrs. Vahanian."
"Is Mrs. Vahanian expecting you?"
"Of course. My name is Dr. Frederickson." I was hoping the title would get me through the gate. It didn't; the guard went into his kiosk and picked up a phone.
He emerged a few moments later. He looked confused, and I took that as a good sign. "No one answers," he said uncertainly.
"She's probably out in the garden," I said, deciding to take a chance. I watched him carefully as I said, "You know how much time Mrs. Vahanian spends on her roses."
The guard looked up at the sky as if waiting for divine guidance. Finally he cleared his throat and said, "Mrs. Vahanian usually tells me when she's expecting somebody."
"So? Today she forgot. Look, I'm not going to take it kindly if I have to go all the way back to New York without seeing Mrs. Vahanian, and Mrs. Vahanian isn't going to take it kindly if I don't take it kindly." I paused for effect, then whispered conspiratorially, "You know how these rich folks are."
He knew how rich folks were. He made a half-bow and stepped out of my way. "No offense, sir."
"Don't worry about it."
"I'm paid to worry, sir. Please don't forget to honk at the S-turn."
I drove up a narrow, twisting lane, honked at the turn, then emerged into the community proper. I drove around for a while until I found Wood Lane. There were only three homes on the street, and the largest one belonged to the Vahanians. I parked at the curb and walked across a vast sea of manicured lawn toward a white, colonial-style home with an air of decadent tackiness that had probably cost extra.
There was no answer when I rang the bell, so I walked around to the back, politely calling Mrs. Vahanian's name. I found her at the rear of the house standing under a rose bower next to a metal garden table. The pitcher on the table contained a clear liquid that looked a bit thicker than water. The glass in her hand was half empty, which could account for the fact that she hadn't heard the phone, or me. She was sipping at her drink, staring at her roses.
I came closer. "Mrs. Vahanian?"
She wheeled, almost spilling her drink. She was a handsome woman, with hair a shimmering silver that hadn't come out of a bottle. Her eyes were green, momentarily bright with shock, which gradually faded. She stared at me for a long time, then suddenly laughed. It was a hearty, infectious sound. "Who the hell are you?" she boomed.
I held out my hand. "My name's Frederickson," I said, grinning and making a half-bow. "I tried the front door, but couldn't get an answer."
"How did you get in here?"
"Dwarf charm. I'm a private investigator. I'd appreciate it very much if you'd answer some questions."
Her eyes filled with the kind of fear wealthy people have for strangers and private detectives, and especially strange private detectives. "About what?" Her voice was breathy and the laughter was gone from it.
"Your first husband."
She shook her head quickly. She looked as if she were getting ready to have me thrown off the property. "I don't understand. What is it that you want?"
"There's no trouble, Mrs. Vahanian." I put my hand on the back of one of the garden chairs and spoke quickly.
"I've been hired to look into the death of a man by the name of Victor Rafferty. He was one of Dr. Morton's patients."
"Victor? Victor's been dead for five years. He died soon after …" Her voice trailed off, and she quickly poured herself another drink. Her eyes had gone out of focus, as though she were staring at something that had leaped out at her from the past.
"I came across the facts of Dr. Morton's death while I was investigating Rafferty. I was thinking that the one death just might have had something to do with the other."
"I've always thought so," she said distantly. Her eyes suddenly snapped back into focus on me. "I've always felt that the police did not do an adequate job in trying to apprehend Arthur's killer."
"There's at least one policeman who's very anxious to solve the case, but he needs more information. If you want, I'll relay anything you tell me to him."
"Why isn't he here himself?"
"This is out of his jurisdiction. He's a New York City policeman."
She turned her face away for a moment. "Would you like a martini?" she asked quietly. "It's the maid's day off, and that's the only thing I know how to make."
"All right, Mrs. Vahanian. Thank you."
She disappeared into the house and returned a few minutes later with a glass. She walked very slowly, as if carrying an invisible burden I'd brought to her. I filled the glass, then set it down on the table.
"What do you want to know?" she whispered.
"Anything and everything you can remember about the relationship between Victor Rafferty and your first husband. Were they friends before the car accident?"
"Oh, yes. They were both very famous men in their own right. Arthur was a neurosurgeon, so it was only natural that he take Victor as his patient after the accident. Arthur told me that it was one of the worst skull fractures he'd ever seen in which the victim had lived. Part of the skull was literally pulverized, and the brain area beneath was damaged."
She paused and emptied her glass, started to pour a refill, thought better of it. She set the pitcher down and moved away from the table. "Arthur was sure Victor would die. He never said so, but I'm almost positive that he wanted to let Victor die on the operating table. He just… couldn't do that. Every second Victor lived after that horrible accident was considered a miracle. Anyway, Arthur did a series of operations. He stopped the hemorrhaging, then replaced the missing skull section with a steel plate." She plucked nervously at her print skirt. "After that, Arthur was afraid that Victor would live."
"Why?"
"Brain damage is irreversible, and it's dysfunctional: it destroys the capacities of the brain. Arthur was certain that Victor, if he did survive, would be nothing more than a vegetable, kept alive only by machines. Arthur didn't want that for Victor."
"But it obviously didn't work out that way."
"It certainly didn't. For a while it seemed that half the doctors in the world were asking for permission to come and observe Victor Rafferty. Victor was still very weak, of course, and Arthur put him on an exercise program to build up his body. There didn't seem to be anything at all the matter with his brain. That was the amazing thing. Arthur couldn't get over that. For all intents and purposes, Victor seemed to be on the way to complete recovery. Then… something happened."
"What was that, Mrs. Vahanian?"
"I don't really know. Arthur became very close-mouthed about it. It started with a telephone call he received one night from Victor."
"Did he tell you what Rafferty said?" I asked.
"No. Arthur did mention something about hallucinations, but he didn't seem to take it too seriously. At first."
"But he did later?"
"Yes," she said tightly. "Victor telephoned one afternoon about a week after the first call. Arthur wasn't here, so I took the call. Victor sounded very upset, but coherent. He said he had to talk to Arthur. When Arthur came home he called Victor back, and I believe they made an appointment to meet that evening. Also-and I'm not sure this is related-Arthur called on
e of his colleagues, Dr. Mary Llewellyn. She's a clinical psychologist with offices in the same professional building. I remember because Arthur asked me to help him find his professional directory. Dr. Llewellyn had an unlisted phone number, and he had to reach her at home. I believe he called her just before he left the house to meet Victor."
"Did he say why he wanted to talk to her?"
"No."
"But you think he wanted this Dr. Llewellyn to meet with him and Rafferty?"
"I really don't know." She walked back to the table, poured another drink, and sipped at it. "As I said, I'm not certain the one thing had anything to do with the other. I just mentioned it because I do remember it happening. Anyway, Arthur was very upset when he got home."
"How upset?"
She smiled wryly. "It was always hard to tell with Arthur. He was a stoic type who didn't like to let his feelings show. I suppose that's why he and Victor got on so well; both could seem like pretty cold fish."
"I've heard that about Rafferty."
She glanced up sharply. "If that's all you've heard about Victor, then you don't have the whole story."
"Victor Rafferty is a hard man to get a fix on, Mrs. Vahanian. I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me more."
She dabbed at her eyes, then laughed wanly. "The man loved cheap hamburgers. He could afford to eat filet mignon three times a day, but he ate fast-food hamburgers. Isn't that strange?"
"Some people might think so, Mrs. Vahanian. I'm more interested in other things."
It was a long time before she spoke again. "It's true that Victor could be cold and aloof. He was also terribly absent- minded about things that didn't involve his work. He was the kind of man who didn't really need other people in a personal way; because he didn't need them, he didn't really have time for them. But that doesn't mean he didn't care about them. What most people don't realize is that Victor had a real social consciousness. He did a great deal of volunteer work for the U.N."
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