Second Horseman Out of Eden

by George C. Chesbro

  “Please wait a moment, sir,” the woman said nervously.

  There was a click, and a tinny-sounding version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” started playing. Mercifully, the music didn’t last longer than one chorus. There was a second soft click, and the woman’s voice—now sounding even more nervous—came back on. “Dr. Frederickson?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Just where are you, sir?”

  “Down in the lobby.”

  “Please wait there, Dr. Frederickson. Somebody will be coming right down to meet you. How will he recognize you?”

  “Tell him I’m the short guy. He can’t miss me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I hung up, stepped out of the phone booth and waited. Less than a minute later an eager, boyish-faced man who was probably in his early to mid-thirties emerged from a knot of homeward-bound workers, peered around, saw me, and broke into a wide grin that looked to me to have more than a trace of nervousness in it. He was all yuppie, with a finely tailored gray pin-striped suit, rep tie, highly polished black shoes, pale pink shirt. I’d have bet he was wearing suspenders. He had a bright face with a midwestern look about it; blue eyes; a full head of brown hair, which was cut short. His height was no more than five feet five or six. He hurried across the lobby to me, delicate hand extended.

  “Dr. Frederickson,” the man gushed in a voice that was at once pleasant and yet somehow unformed, like a boy’s. However, up close I could clearly see from the lines in his face that he was closer to forty-five than thirty-five, and he had a tic in his left cheek; his was one of those faces that don’t stand up well under close inspection. “It’s so good to meet you! It’s so embarrassing that our receptionist didn’t recognize your name, and so amusing for you to tell her you’re the short guy in the lobby. As you can see, I’m not so tall myself. My name is Peter Patton.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Patton,” I said, studying his curious face with its tic that wrinkled the flesh under his left eye every few seconds. Something about the man in the gray suit brought to mind Dorian Gray, and the blue eyes were dull, belying the bright prattle that flowed from his mouth. “I take it Mr. Blaisdel has agreed to meet with me?”

  The pasted-on smile that had never reached his eyes faded. “Oh dear. I thought the receptionist explained to you that Mr. Blaisdel never makes appointments to see anyone.”

  “And I thought I’d made clear to the receptionist that what I have to say to him is important enough for him to make an exception.”

  “That’s impossible. However, I understand that your business involves Nuvironment. I’m the executive director of Nuvironment, and I’m sure I’ll be able to address your concerns satisfactorily.”

  “I certainly hope so, Mr. Patton,” I said, and deliberately pulled back the cuff of my jacket to look at my watch. “There’s only one thing I want to know, and that’s—”

  “Please, Dr. Frederickson,” Patton said, reaching out and touching me lightly—but all too familiarly—on the shoulder, “this is no place to talk. Come up to my office where we can be more comfortable.”

  I didn’t care where he answered my one question as long as he answered it, and so I dutifully followed him as he ran interference against the crush of traffic coming through the lobby in the opposite direction. We went past the two banks of elevators, then down a corridor to a door at the end that looked as if it might be a utility closet. Patton removed an elegant silver key chain from his pocket, selected a key, opened the door. It led to a small vestibule with a single elevator that had no call button. My escort unlocked a small wooden cabinet on the wall to the right, pushed a button inside. The elevator door sighed open.

  “Why the private elevator?” I asked as I followed him in, watched him push a gray button—the only button—to the left of the door, which sighed shut.

  “We’re not a commercial enterprise in any sense of the word, Dr. Frederickson. We don’t sell anything. We’re strictly a research and development corporation.”

  “And, from what I hear, a whopping tax write-off.”

  He gave me a quick, furtive look. “You seem to know—or think you know—quite a lot about Nuvironment, Dr. Frederickson. We have absolutely no need to interface with the public; the private elevator is merely a convenience for our staff, as is the fact that we have our offices in Manhattan. Outsiders who do have occasion to talk with us are met in the lobby and brought up, as you are. It gives it all so much more of a personal touch, if you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant, and since he wasn’t likely to be keeping a hundred tons of dirt on the premises, I didn’t care. The door opened, and I followed him out into a gold-carpeted, walnut-lined reception area. He pushed open a door of heavy smoked glass, held it for me, then led me through the first door on the left. I found myself in a spacious corner office with a wrap-around arrangement of picture windows that looked out over Fifth Avenue toward Central Park. On one wall was a large painting that might have been the company logo—a brightly glowing, transparent sphere containing lakes, forests, and people suspended in the coldness of space.

  “Let me get right to the point,” I said, closing the door behind me and ignoring his gesture indicating that I should sit in one of the two thickly cushioned, leather chairs set up in front of his steel and glass desk. “I need to know where you dumped your hundred tons of Amazon rain forest soil.”

  Patton, who had moved behind his desk but remained standing, merely stared at me, the tic in his left cheek the only punctuation on a face that was otherwise virtually blank.

  “I’m not interested in any laws that may have been broken, Patton,” I continued. “My concern is strictly private, and it has to do with the physical and psychological welfare of a child who I have good reason to believe is being sexually molested. I’m sure you’d share my concern if you knew the details, but I don’t want to take any more of your time than I have to. I give you my word that I’m not interested in doing anything that will jeopardize the reputation or interests of Nuvironment. All I want to do is find the kid and make sure she’s going to be all right. If I can find the dirt you people brought into this country, then I’ll find the kid. Tell me where to look, and I’m long gone.”

  “Please sit down, Dr. Frederickson,” Peter Patton said quietly.

  “No thanks. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “I told you what I wanted.”

  Peter Patton, moving very deliberately in a manner that reminded me of a marionette, slowly eased himself down into his leather swivel chair, folded his hands on the glass desk top, then looked up at me. “I don’t know what to say, Dr. Frederickson,” he said at last, his voice still very soft. “You’re obviously very upset, and I can understand why. I’m also upset at the thought of a child being sexually abused. However, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No? Ever heard of a man named William Kenecky?”

  “Of course. He’s a televangelist—a rather strident one, I’m told—who’s been indicted on charges of tax evasion.”

  “Are you people hiding him?”

  He stiffened in his chair, frowned. “Good heavens, no. What on earth would make you think such a thing?”

  Things weren’t going well. I’d been plain enough in explaining what I wanted to know, and why, and had gone out of my way to reassure Patton that my interest had nothing to do with any criminal investigation. Then I’d tried to turn up the pressure by pointing out that Nuvironment could be accused of harboring a fugitive from justice. Zip. One of two things was true: either Patton and Nuvironment really weren’t involved at all in the importation of the rain forest soil, a possibility I gave absolutely no credence to, or Patton was going to stonewall me totally, regardless of what was being done to Vicky Brown, rather than risk jeopardizing whatever else besides dirt the company was trying to keep secret. Suddenly I felt foolish standing there in front of the man with the
tic in his cheek. It was enough to give me newfound respect for Garth’s nose.

  “Are you denying that your company arranged for the importation of special soil from the Amazon basin?”

  “Of course I’m denying it. It isn’t true.”

  I said nothing.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Now I sat down—if only to indicate to Patton that I fully intended to take as much time with him as necessary. If I couldn’t get him to tell me the truth, I intended to make it very clear to him that I knew he was lying—and that I’d keep digging and digging, burrowing just as deep as I had to.

  “Nuvironment very much wanted a load of that soil not too long ago, right?”

  Patton’s delicate hands clenched and unclenched almost imperceptibly, but his gaze remained steady, and his voice even. “You’ve come into possession of some very sensitive information. I don’t know how you got it; there are such things as company secrets that are perfectly legitimate, you know.”

  “Do you deny that you tried in the past to get the soil?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, we tried twice. After we were first discouraged by the Customs Service, we appealed; we were given an even more negative reaction the second time, if that’s possible. That was the end of the matter.”

  “Why was it the end of the matter? From what I understand, you need the stuff.”

  “The ‘stuff,’ as you call it, is very high in microbial count and activity, and would indeed have proved useful in our experiments. But the Customs Service disapproved our request, and that was that. This is a very important company, Dr. Frederickson, and if you’d checked you’d have discovered that we have an impeccable reputation. It just so happens that there are sterilization and injection methods—legal ones—we can employ to approximate those soil conditions, so we didn’t—don’t—need the actual soil.”

  “But I assume it would be expensive and time-consuming to produce a hundred tons of artificial rain forest soil.”

  Patton shrugged his frail shoulders. “‘Artificial’ isn’t quite the right word for it—but yes, what you say is true. However, at this stage we are not particularly concerned with time or expense.”

  “That’s hard to believe, Mr. Patton.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s true. The construction of even a prototype biosphere is years—maybe decades—away, and there are still many other avenues of research besides soil types to explore. We don’t really need that soil—not now—as much as you seem to think we do.”

  If Mr. Peter Patton, with his Dorian Gray face and the tic in his left cheek, was a bald-faced liar, he was a very good one; there was nothing but sweet reasonableness and sincerity in his oddly unripe voice. I suppressed a sigh. “What other people or companies are into this biosphere business?”

  “Oh, thousands of concerns do related research—every earth science is involved, after all. But nobody that I know of would actually try to build a biosphere on a scale suitable for long-term human habitation; it would take the resources of a government—or Blaisdel Industries—to do it. Since the expenditures involved are considerable, the government is quite willing to let us proceed on our own. Blaisdel Industries gets grants and tax write-offs in return, certainly, but this whole operation is much more a labor of love on Mr. Blaisdel’s part than you can imagine. It’s his testament to his belief in the future of the human race. The day will come, he believes, when Nuvironment biospheres will provide the means for the human species to colonize the other planets of our solar system. In the meantime, discoveries are constantly being made; certain patenting procedures which must be observed are the reason we’re so ‘secretive,’ if that’s what you think we are. Licensing those patented processes is the only payoff we have, for now.”

  “Maybe somebody’s trying to steal a march on you, Patton; maybe some other corporation is just as interested in biospheres as you are, is farther along, and you don’t even know about it.”

  “Then perhaps you should investigate that possibility, Dr. Frederickson,” Patton replied evenly. “Frankly, I doubt it’s possible.”

  “So do I, for a number of reasons,” I said, watching his face carefully. “One of those reasons is a man by the name of Dr. Craig Valley. You know him?”

  “You needn’t try to trap me, Dr. Frederickson,” Patton said irritably as he put a hand to his left cheek; it was the first time I had seen him take notice of his tic. “Of course I know him—and I assume he’s the man who’s been serving as your source of information. As you must know, Dr. Valley once worked for us as a consultant. We stopped using him at about the same time he was discharged by the New York Botanical Garden, and for the same reasons. He was showing signs of serious mental instability and proving increasingly unreliable.”

  “Rain forest soil was definitely imported into this country, and Craig Valley was definitely involved in smuggling it in.”

  “If you say so,” Patton replied tersely. “I wouldn’t know. If he did do such a thing, he certainly didn’t do it on our behalf.”

  “Maybe some of your people here are doing things behind your back.”

  Patton snorted. “Impossible, Dr. Frederickson. I most certainly do not have a ‘laid-back’ management style, I assure you. Nothing here happens without my knowledge.”

  I waited a few seconds before saying quietly: “Then why don’t you tell me where the soil is stored, Patton? I don’t care if you’ve got a ton of heroin hidden under it, along with William Kenecky and a hundred other fugitives, crazy or otherwise; all I want to do is find the kid.”

  He waited a few seconds before answering me, and when he spoke his voice was even softer than mine. “I can’t help you, Dr. Frederickson.”

  “What about William Kenecky, Patton?” I asked, leaning back in the leather chair as I continued to study his face.

  “What about him?”

  “Would you describe him as a religious zealot?”

  “I suppose so,” Patton said, taking his hand away from his twitching cheek long enough to glance at his watch. “What’s your point?”

  “What about Craig Valley? Was he a religious zealot?”

  “I really don’t know much about Dr. Valley’s personal life.”

  “Well, let me assure you that he was a religious zealot—a really loony one, right out of the same fruitcake mold as William Kenecky. One of the traits shared by people like that is that they think they can do just about anything they want, including buggering little girls, because they enjoy special favor with God; that’s their excuse for everything. I’ve seen it again and again. Now, I hear you talking, and you sound very sincere, but I can’t help but wonder if you’re a good liar because you’re one of that gang. What about it, Patton? Are you a religious zealot who thinks God wants you to protect a child molester?”

  “That’s a most offensive question, Frederickson!” the executive director of Nuvironment snapped as he rose from his chair, drew himself up to his full five feet five inches, and tugged at the bottom of his tie. “Now, I think I’ve given you more than a generous amount of my time, and I’d thank you to—!”

  “A little more than an hour ago Craig Valley, your man at the Botanical Garden, killed himself, Patton. He did it by punching holes in his carotid arteries using double-edged razor blades which he held in his bare hands. He made a phone call before he died; as a matter of fact, he didn’t even bother to hang up before he offed himself. The last person he talked to works here at Nuvironment. Isn’t that a son-of-a-bitch?”

  That sat Peter Patton back down. He looked like a man who had been punched in the stomach; his blue eyes were wide with shock as he stared at me in disbelief; his mouth hung open, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. Oddly enough, his tic had stopped. I casually crossed my legs and stared back at him, raising my eyebrows slightly.

  He finally managed to say, “Dr. Valley is … dead?”

  I lowered my eyebrows to a squint, just to let him know I remained more than a bit skeptical about anything and
everything he had to say, regardless of the histrionics that went with the words. “You didn’t know?”

  He tugged at his tie again, then loosened it and undid the top button of his shirt, took a deep breath. “How would I know?”

  “The police didn’t call you?”

  Patton shook his head, and it occurred to me that he could be telling the truth about that, at least. Lieutenant Malachy Seamus McCloskey was evidently still talking to his superiors, and maybe a few other people, making sure that his about-to-retire ass was well armored before he started mucking about and asking questions in a company, and a favored one at that, owned by Henry Blaisdel.

  “Was it you he called, Patton?” I continued. “Were you the person he was talking to when he slit his throat?”

  “How could you know?” Patton asked the wall behind me. His face had gone very pale. He abruptly shifted his gaze to my face. “I mean, how could you know who he called if he committed suicide while he was making the call?”

  “The wonders of modern technology, Patton,” I said evenly. “He called here.”

  Peter Patton wiped a thin film of perspiration from his forehead with a linen handkerchief. He carefully refolded the handkerchief and put it back in his jacket pocket, put his hands back on the glass desk top, palms down, and sighed heavily. “As a matter of fact, I was the one he called,” he said softly, licking his lips. “My lord, you say he killed himself afterward?”