The Matlock Paper

by Robert Ludlum

  “I’m not sure. It seems to me you’re not finished.”

  “I’d like to be. Right here. The summary’s accurate, and I think you should agree with the recommendation. Pull out, Jim.”

  “Finish first. What’s the other letter? The one I’m supposed to read verbatim?”

  “It’s only necessary if you reject the recommendation. Don’t reject it. I’m not instructed to lean that way, so that’s off the record.”

  “You know damned well I’m going to reject it, so why waste time?”

  “I don’t know that. I don’t want to believe that.”

  “There’s no way out.”

  “There are counter explanations I can activate in an hour. Get you off the hook, out of the picture.”

  “Not any longer.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That’s my pathetic story. So you’d better continue.”

  Greenberg searched Matlock’s eyes for an explanation, found none, and so picked up the second envelope and opened it.

  “In the unlikely and ill-advised event that you reject our recommendation to cease and desist, you must understand that you do so against the express wishes of the Justice Department. Although we will offer whatever protection we can—as we would any citizen—you act under your own responsibility. We cannot be held liable for any injuries or inconveniences of any nature.”

  “Is that what it says?”

  “No, that’s not what it says, but that’s what it means,” said Greenberg, unfolding the paper. “It’s much simpler and even more inclusive. Here.” The federal agent handed Matlock the letter.

  It was a statement signed by an assistant attorney general with a separate line on the left for Matlock’s signature.

  An investigative office of the Department of Justice accepted the offer of James B. Matlock to make inquiries of a minor nature with regard to certain illegal acts alleged to have occurred within the vicinity of Carlyle University. However, the Department of Justice now considers the situation to be a professional matter, and any further participation on the part of Professor Matlock is deemed unwarranted and against the policies of the Department. Therefore, the Department of Justice hereby informs James B. Matlock that it appreciates his previous cooperation but requests him to remove himself from any further involvement in the interest of safety and investigatory progress. It is the opinion of the Department that further actions on the part of Professor Matlock might tend to interfere with the aims of the Investigation in the Carlyle area. Mr. Matlock has received the original of this letter and so signifies by his signature below.

  “What the hell are you talking about? This says that I agree to pull out.”

  “You’d make a lousy lawyer. Don’t buy a bicycle on time before talking to me.”

  “What?”

  “Nowhere! Nowhere does your signing this little stinkpot say you agree to retire from the scene. Only that Justice requested you to.”

  “Then why in hell should I sign it?”

  “Excellent question. You may buy a bicycle.… You sign it if, as you say, you reject the recommendation to pull out.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Matlock slipped down from the edge of the sink and threw the paper across the counter next to Greenberg. “I may not know law but I know language. You’re talking in contradictions!”

  “Only on the surface.… Let me ask you a question. Say you continue playing undercover agent. Is it conceivable that you may want to ask for help? An emergency, perhaps?”

  “Of course. Inevitable.”

  “You get no help whatsoever without that letter going back signed.… Don’t look at me! I’ll be replaced in a matter of days. I’ve been in the area too long already.”

  “Kind of hypocritical, isn’t it? The only way I can count on any assistance—any protection—is to sign a statement that says I won’t need it.”

  “It’s enough to send me into private practice.… There’s a new term for this sort of thing these days. It’s called ‘hazardless progress.’ Use whatever—whoever—you can. But don’t take the blame if a game plan gets fucked up. Don’t be responsible.”

  “And I jump without a parachute if I don’t sign.”

  “I told you. Take some free advice—I’m a good lawyer. Quit. Forget it. But forget it.”

  “And I told you—I can’t.”

  Greenberg reached for his drink and spoke softly. “No matter what you do, it’s not going to bring your brother out of his grave.”

  “I know that.” Matlock was touched, but he answered firmly.

  “You might prevent other younger brothers but you probably won’t. In either case, someone else can be recruited from professional ranks. I hate like hell to admit it, but Kressel was right. And if we don’t get this conference—this convocation of peddlers in a couple of weeks—there’ll be others.”

  “I agree with everything you say.”

  “Then why hesitate? Pull out.”

  “Why?… I haven’t told you my pathetic little story, that’s why. Remember? You had priority, but I’ve still got my turn.”

  “So tell.”

  And Matlock told him. Everything he knew about Lucas Herron—legend, giant, the “grand old bird” of Carlyle. The terror-stricken skeleton who had run into his personal forest. The wail of the single word: “Nimrod.” Greenberg listened, and the longer Matlock talked, the sadder Jason Greenberg’s eyes became. When Matlock finished, the federal agent drank the last of his drink and morosely nodded his head in slow motion.

  “You spelled out everything for him, didn’t you? You couldn’t come to me, you had to go to him. Your campus saint with a bucket of blood in his hands.… Loring was right. We had to reach a conscience-stricken amateur.… Amateurs in front of us and amateurs behind us. At least I’ll say this for you. You got a conscience. That’s more than I can say for the rear flank.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Sign the stinkpot.” Greenberg picked up the Justice Department letter from the counter and handed it to Matlock. “You’re going to need help.”

  Patricia Ballantyne preceded Matlock to the small side table at the far end of the Cheshire Cat. The drive out had been strained. The girl had hammered away—quietly, acidly—at Matlock’s cooperating with the government, in particular and specifically the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She claimed not to be reacting to a programmed liberal response; there was simply too much overwhelming evidence that such organizations had brought the country ten steps from its own particular police state.

  She knew firsthand. She’d witnessed the anguished aftermath of one FBI exercise and knew it wasn’t isolated.

  Matlock held her chair as she sat down, touching her shoulders as she did so. Touching, reaffirming, lessening the imagined hurt. The table was small, next to a window, several feet from a terrace that soon—in late May—would be in use for outside dining. He sat across from her and took her hand.

  “I’m not going to apologize for what I’m doing. I think it has to be done. I’m not a hero and I’m not a fink. I’m not asked to be heroic, and the information they want ultimately will help a lot of people. People who need help—desperately.”

  “Will those people get help? Or will they simply be prosecuted? Instead of hospitals and clinics … will they find themselves in jail?”

  “They’re not interested in sick kids. They want the ones who make them sick. So do I.”

  “But in the process, the kids get hurt.” A statement.

  “Some may be. As few as possible.”

  “That’s contemptible.” The girl took her hand away from Matlock’s. “It’s so condescending. Who makes those decisions? You?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like a one-track tape.”

  “I’ve been there. It’s not pleasant.”

  “This is entirely different. I’ve met just two men; one … left. The other’s Greenberg. They’re not your nightmares from the fifties. Take my word for that.”

  “I’d li
ke to.”

  The manager of the Cheshire Cat approached the table. “There’s a telephone call for you, Mr. Matlock.”

  Matlock felt a twinge of pain in his stomach. It was the nerves of fear. Only one person knew where he was—Jason Greenberg.

  “Thanks, Harry.”

  “You can take it by the reservations desk. The phone’s off the hook.”

  Matlock got out of his chair and looked briefly at Pat. In the months and months of their going out together, from restaurants to parties to dinners, he had never received a telephone call, had never been interrupted that way. He saw that realization in her eyes. He walked rapidly away from the table to the reservations desk.

  “Hello?”

  “Jim?” It was Greenberg, of course.

  “Jason?”

  “Sorry to bother you. I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to.”

  “What is it, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Lucas Herron’s dead. He committed suicide about an hour ago.”

  The pain in Matlock’s stomach suddenly returned. It wasn’t a twinge this time, but instead a sharp blow that left him unable to breathe. All he could see in front of his eyes was the picture of the staggering, panicked old man running across the manicured lawn and disappearing into the dense foliage bordering his property. And then the wailing sound of a sob and the name of Nimrod whispered in hatred.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m all right.” For reasons he could not fathom, Matlock’s memory focused on a small, black-framed photograph. It was an enlarged snapshot of a dark-haired, middle-aged infantry officer with a weapon in one hand, a map in the other, the face lean and strong, looking up toward the high ground.

  A quarter of a century ago.

  “You’d better get back to your apartment.…” Greenberg was issuing an order, but he had the sense to be gentle about it.

  “Who found him?”

  “My man. No one else knows yet.”

  “Your man?”

  “After our talk, I put Herron under surveillance. You get to spot the signs. He broke in and found him.”

  “How?”

  “Cut his wrists in the shower.”

  “Oh, Christ! What have I done?”

  “Cut that out! Get back here. We’ve got people to reach.… Come on, Jim.”

  “What can I tell Pat?” Matlock tried to find his mind but it kept wandering back to a helpless, frightened old man.

  “As little as possible. But hurry.”

  Matlock replaced the receiver and took several deep breaths. He searched his pockets for cigarettes and remembered that he’d left them at the table.

  The table. Pat. He had to go back to the table and think of something to say.

  The truth. Goddamn it, the truth.

  He made his way around two antique pillars toward the far end of the room and the small side table by the window. In spite of his panic, he felt a degree of relief and knew it was because he had decided to be honest with Pat. God knew he had to have someone other than Greenberg and Kressel to talk to.

  Kressel! He was supposed to have gone to Kressel’s house at seven. He’d forgotten all about it!

  But in an instant Sam Kressel went out of his thoughts. He saw the small side table by the window and there was no one there.

  Pat was gone.

  13

  “No one saw her leave?” Greenberg followed a frustrated Matlock into the living room from the foyer. Sam Kressel’s voice could be heard from the bedroom, shouting excitedly into a telephone. Matlock took notice of it, his attention split in too many areas.

  “That’s Sam in there, isn’t it?” he asked. “Does he know about Herron?”

  “Yes. I called him after I talked to you.… What about the waitresses? Did you ask them?”

  “Of course, I did. None of them were sure. It was busy. One said she thought she might have gone to the ladies’ room. Another hinted, s’help me, hinted, that she might have been the girl who left with a couple from another table.”

  “Wouldn’t they have had to pass you on the way out? Wouldn’t you have seen her?”

  “Not necessarily. We were in the back. There are two or three doors which lead to a terrace. In summer, especially when it’s crowded, they put tables on the terrace.”

  “You drove out in your car?”

  “Naturally.”

  “And you didn’t see her outside, walking on the road, on the grounds?”

  “No.”

  “Did you recognize any of the other people there?”

  “I didn’t really look. I was … preoccupied.” Matlock lit a cigarette. His hand shook as he held the match.

  “If you want my opinion, I think she spotted someone she knew and asked for a lift home. A girl like that doesn’t go anywhere she doesn’t want to go without a fight.”

  “I know. That’s occurred to me.”

  “Have a fight?”

  “You might say it was diminishing but not over. The phone call probably set her off again. Old English teachers rarely get calls while out at restaurants.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I told you, she’s uptight. She keeps thinking about her father. I’ll try her apartment when Sam gets off the phone.”

  “He’s a funny man. I tell him about Herron naturally he goes off the deep end. He says he’s got to talk privately with Sealfont so he goes into the bedroom and shouts so loud they can hear him in Poughkeepsie.”

  Matlock’s thoughts shifted quickly to Herron. “His death—his suicide—is going to be the biggest shock this campus has had in twenty years. Men like Lucas simply don’t die. They certainly don’t die like this.… Does Sam know I saw him?”

  “He does. I couldn’t withhold that. I told him pretty much what you told me-shorter version, of course. He refuses to believe it. The implications, I mean.”

  “I don’t blame him. They’re not easy to believe. What do we do now?”

  “We wait. I’ve made a report. Two lab men from the Hartford Bureau are out there now. The local police have been called in.”

  At the mention of the police, Matlock suddenly remembered the patrolman out of uniform in the squash court corridor, who had walked rapidly away at the moment of recognition. He’d told Greenberg and Greenberg had never given him an explanation—if there was one. He asked again.

  “What about the cop in the gym?”

  “The story’s reasonable. At least so far. The Carlyle police are assigned three mornings a week for limited use of the facilities. Town-gown relations. Coincidence.”

  “You’re settling for that?”

  “I said, ‘so far.’ We’re running a check on the man. Nothing’s turned up but an excellent record.”

  “He’s a bigot, a nasty bastard.”

  “This may surprise you, but that’s no crime. It’s guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.”

  Sam Kressel walked through the bedroom door quickly, emphatically. Matlock saw that he was as close to pure fear as he’d ever seen a man. There was an uncomfortable similarity between Sam’s face and the bloodless expression of Lucas Herron before the old man had raced into the woods.

  “I heard you come in,” Kressel said. “What are we going to do? What in hell are we going to do?… Adrian doesn’t believe that absurd story any more than I do! Lucas Herron! It’s insane!”

  “Maybe. But it’s true.”

  “Because you say so? How can you be sure? You’re no professional in these matters. As I understand it, Lucas admitted he was helping a student through a drug problem.”

  “He … they aren’t students.”

  “I see.” Kressel stopped briefly and looked back and forth between Matlock and Greenberg. “Under the circumstances, I demand to know the identities.”

  “You’ll get them,” said Greenberg quietly. “Go on. I want to hear why Matlock’s so wrong, the story so absurd.”

  “Because Lucas Herron isn’t … wasn’t the only member of the facul
ty concerned with these problems. There are dozens of us giving aid, helping wherever we can!”

  “I don’t follow you.” Greenberg stared at Kressel. “So you help. You don’t go and kill yourself when a fellow member of the faculty finds out about it.”

  Sam Kressel removed his glasses and looked momentarily reflective, sad. “There’s something else neither of you know about. I’ve been aware of it for some time but not so knowledgeably as Sealfont … Lucas Herron was a very sick man. One kidney was removed last summer. The other was also cancerous and he knew it. The pain must have been unbearable for him. He hadn’t long.”

  Greenberg watched closely as Kressel returned his glasses to his face. Matlock bent down and crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table. Finally, Greenberg spoke.

  “Are you suggesting that there’s no relationship between Herron’s suicide and Matlock’s seeing him this afternoon?”

  “I’m not suggesting any such thing. I’m sure there’s a relationship … But you didn’t know Lucas. His whole life for nearly half a century, except for the war years, was Carlyle University. It’s been his total, complete existence. He loved this place more than any man could love a woman, more than any parent a child. I’m sure Jim’s told you. If he thought for a moment that his world here was going to be defaced, torn apart—that would be a greater pain than the physical torture his body gave him. What better time to take his own life?”

  “Goddamn you!” roared Matlock. “You’re saying I killed him!”

  “Perhaps I am,” Kressel said quietly. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. I’m sure Adrian didn’t either.”

  “But that’s what you’re saying! You’re saying I went off half-cocked and killed him as much as if I’d slashed his wrists!… Well, you weren’t there. I was!”

  Kressel spoke gently. “I didn’t say you went off half-cocked. I said you were an amateur. A very well-intentioned amateur. I think Greenberg knows what I mean.”