“It’s grand, isn’t it? It’s just what you’ve been saying for years.” I quoted a sentence from the article. “‘Homunculus grows to monstrous size, with all the force of a major explosion, by grace of a new talent suddenly shooting meteorlike across the otherwise turgid skies of the contemporary art world. Louise Patterson may view her models through a microscope, but the brush she wields is Gargantuan.’”
“Yes, it’s grand. But it is not what I’ve been saying for years.”
“Anyway, they recognize her talent. Don’t be so critical, just because they use different words than you would. At least they admit she’s a great painter, don’t they?”
“That they do.”
Something was away off key. The words were meant to be lightly skeptical, but the tone of his voice was simply flat.
“For heaven’s sake, George, don’t pretend you aren’t pleased. You must have seven or eight Pattersons, and now they’re all terribly valuable.”
“Priceless. I believe that’s the Newsways term for them.” He dropped his napkin and stood up. “I’ll have to run. I think I’ll drive in as usual, unless you need the car.”
“No, of course not. But wait, George. Here’s one thing more.” I found another paragraph in the same article, and read from it. “‘This week interest of the art world centered in the whereabouts of Patterson’s lost masterpiece, her famed Judas, admittedly the most highly prized canvas of all among the priceless works that have come from the studio of this artist. Depicting two huge hands exchanging a coin, a consummate study in flaming yellow, red, and tawny brown, this composition was widely known some years ago, then it quietly dropped from view.’ And so on.”
I looked up from the magazine. George said: “Neat but not gaudy. They make it sound like a rainbow at midnight.”
“That’s not what I’m driving at. Would you know anything about that picture?”
“Why should I?”
“Didn’t I see an unframed picture you brought home, about a week ago, something like that?”
“You sure did, Georgie-porgie. A copy of it.”
“Oh, well. What became of it?”
George winked at me, but there was nothing warm in back of it. There was nothing at all. Just something blank.
“Took it to the office, of course. Where do you think those plumbers got such an accurate description of the original?” He patted my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll have to step on it. I’ll call you this afternoon.”
When he’d gone, and I heard the car go down the driveway, I put down the magazine and slowly got up. I went out to Nellie in the kitchen, knowing how it feels to be old, really old.
Emory Mafferson
I’D NEVER known Stroud very well until recently, and for that matter I didn’t know him now. Consequently, I couldn’t guess how, or whether, he fitted the Janoth pattern. When he told me not to be the Crimeways type, that meant nothing. This was standard counsel on all of our publications, and for all I knew, Stroud was merely another of the many keen, self-centered, ambitious people in the organization who moved from office to office, from alliance to alliance, from one ethical or political fashion to another, never with any real interest in life except to get more money next year than this, and always more than his colleagues did.
Yet I had a feeling Stroud was not that simple. All I knew about him, in fact, was that he considered himself pretty smooth, seemed to value his own wit, and never bought anything we manufactured here.
Neither did I. Until now.
Leon Temple was in Stroud’s office when I came in late that Monday morning, asking Stroud to O.K. an order for some money he swore he had to have for this new, hysterical assignment nearly everyone except myself seemed to be working on. From what I gathered, Temple did nothing but loaf around the cocktail lounge of the Van Barth with a nice little wisp of a thing by the name of Janet Clark. Roaming around the office and trying to figure the best approach to Stroud, I felt like an outsider. They were having one long, happy party, while I spent my days in the ancient Homicide Bureau or the crumbling ruins of the District Attorney’s office.
When Stroud signed the order for cash and Leon Temple had gone, I went over and lifted myself to the window ledge in back of his desk. He swung his chair around and in the cross-light I saw what I had not noticed before, that the man’s face was lined and hard.
“Anything new, Emory?” he asked.
“Well. Yes. Largely routine stuff. But I wanted to talk about something else.”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know about the strange thing that happened a week ago last Saturday night?”
“The night of the murder?”
“Yes. But this is about Funded Individuals. I met Fred Steichel, M.E. of Jennett-Donohue, that night. Do you know him?”
“I’ve met him. But I don’t know what you are referring to.”
“Well, I know Fred pretty well. His wife and mine were classmates, and still see a lot of each other. We met at a dinner, and there was quite a party afterwards. Fred got drunk, and he began to tell me all about Funded Individuals. In fact, he knew as much about it as I did.”
Stroud showed no great concern. “No reason why he shouldn’t. It isn’t a profound secret. Anything like that gets around.”
“Sure, in a general way. But this was different. Fred’s all right when he’s sober, but he’s obnoxious when he’s drunk, and that night he was deliberately trying to make himself about as unpleasant as possible. It amused him to recite our computations, quote the conclusions we’d reached, and even repeat some of the angles we’d tried out for a while and then abandoned. The point is, he had the exact figures, the precise steps we’d taken, and he had, for instance, a lot of the phrases I’d personally used in my reports. Not just generally correct, but absolutely verbatim. In other words, there was a leak somewhere, and he’d seen the actual research, the reports, and the findings.”
“And then?”
“Well, I got pretty sore. It’s one thing that Jennett-Donohue hears rumors about what we’re doing, but it’s another thing if they have access to supposedly confidential records. I mean, what the hell? I just didn’t like the way Fred talked about Funded Individuals. As though it’s a dead pigeon. According to him, I was wasting my time. It was only a matter of weeks or days before the whole scheme would be shelved. So the more I thought it over, the less I liked it. He didn’t get that data just by accident, and his cockiness wasn’t based entirely on a few drinks.”
Stroud nodded.
“I see. And you thought it’s something we ought to know about.”
“I did, and I do. I don’t pretend to understand it, but it’s my baby, I invested a lot of work in it, and it’s something more than the run-of-the-mill mirages we put together around here. It fascinates me. There’s something about it almost real.” Stroud was at least listening with interest, if not agreement, and I pressed the argument. “It’s not just another inspirational arrow shot into the air. This is a cash-and-carry business. And the minute you know there can be a society in which every individual has an actual monetary value of one million dollars, and he’s returning dividends on himself, you also know that nobody is going to shoot, starve, or ruin that perfectly sound investment.”
Stroud gave me a faint, understanding, but wintry smile.
“I know,” he said. “All right, I’ll tell Hagen or Earl about this peculiar seepage of our confidential material.”
“But that’s the point, I already did. That was the strange thing about that Saturday night. I phoned you first, and I couldn’t reach you, then I phoned Hagen. He was in, and he agreed with me that it was damn important. He said he would take it up with Earl, and he wanted to see me the first thing Monday morning. Then I didn’t hear another word from him.”
Stroud leaned back in his chair, studying me, and plainly puzzled. “You called Hagen that night?”
“I had to let somebody know.”
“Of course. What time did you
call?”
“Almost immediately. I told Steichel I would, and the bastard just laughed.”
“Yes, but what time?”
“Well, about ten-thirty. Why?”
“And you talked only to Hagen? You didn’t talk to Earl, did you?”
“I didn’t talk to him, no. But he must have been there at the time I called. That’s where he was that night, you know.”
Stroud looked away from me, frowning.
“Yes, I know,” he said, in a very tired, distant voice. “But exactly what did Hagen say, do you recall?”
“Not exactly. He told me he would take it up with Earl. That’s a double-check on Earl’s whereabouts, isn’t it? And Hagen said he would see me Monday morning. But on Monday morning I didn’t hear from him, I haven’t heard from him since, and I began to wonder what happened. I thought maybe he’d relayed the whole matter to you.”
“No, I’m sorry, he didn’t. But I’ll follow it up, of course. I quite agree with you, it’s important. And with Hagen.” I saw again that wintry smile, this time subzero. “A human life valued at a million paper dollars would make something of a story, wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, Emory, your dreamchild will not be lost.”
He was one of those magnetic bastards I have always admired and liked, and of course envied and hated, and I found myself, stupidly, believing him. I knew it couldn’t be true, but I actually believed he was genuinely interested in protecting Funded Individuals, and would find a way, somehow, to give it a full hearing and then, in the end, contrive for it a big, actual trial. I smiled, digging some notes out of my pocket, and said: “Well, that’s all I wanted to talk about. Now, here’s the latest dope the cops have on the Delos murder. I already told you they know she was out of town from late Friday until the following Saturday afternoon.” Stroud gave a half nod, and concentrated his attention. I went on: “Yesterday they found out where she was. She was in Albany, with a man. There was a book of matches found in her apartment, from a night club in Albany that doesn’t circulate its matches from coast to coast, only there on the spot, and in the course of a routine check-up with Albany hotels, they found that’s where she actually was. Got it?”
He nodded, briefly, waiting and remote and again hard. I said: “The cops know all about this job you’re doing here, by the way, and they’re convinced the man you are looking for and the man who was with Delos last Friday and Saturday in Albany is one and the same person. Does that help or hinder you any?”
He said: “Go on.”
“That’s about all. They are sending a man up there this afternoon or tomorrow morning, with a lot of photographs which he will check with the night club, the hotel, and elsewhere. I told you they had the Delos woman’s address book. Well, this morning they let me look at it. They’ve been rounding up pictures of every man mentioned on this extensive list of hers, and most likely the guy that was with her in Albany is one of them. Do you follow me?”
“I follow you.”
“They know from the general description of this man, as they got it over the phone from the personnel of the hotel and the club up there, that he most definitely was not Janoth. At the hotel, they were registered as Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Phelps-Guyon, a phoney if there ever was one. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Your name was in the woman’s address book, by the way.”
“Yes,” he said. “I knew Pauline Delos.”
“Well, that’s all.”
Stroud seemed to be considering the information I had given him.
“That’s fine, Emory,” he said, and flashed me a quick, heatless smile. “By the way, is the department looking for a photograph of me?”
“No. They’ve already got one. Something you once turned in for a license or a passport. The man they are sending upstate has quite a collection. He has fifty or sixty photographs.”
“I see.”
“I can go along to Albany with this fellow, if you like,” I said. “If he doesn’t accomplish anything else, I imagine he’ll be able to identify the man you’ve been hunting for, yourself.”
“I’m sure he will,” he said. “But don’t bother. I think that can be done better right here.”
George Stroud IX
THE TWO LINES of investigation, the organization’s and the official one, drew steadily together like invisible pincers. I could feel them closing.
I told myself it was just a tool, a vast machine, and the machine was blind. But I had not fully realized its crushing weight and power. That was insane. The machine cannot be challenged. It both creates and blots out, doing each with glacial impersonality. It measures people in the same way that it measures money, and the growth of trees, the life-span of mosquitoes and morals, the advance of time. And when the hour strikes, on the big clock, that is indeed the hour, the day, the correct time. When it says a man is right, he is right, and when it finds him wrong, he is through, with no appeal. It is as deaf as it is blind.
Of course, I had asked for this.
I returned to the office from a lunch I could not remember having tasted. It had been intended as an interlude to plan for new eventualities and new avenues of escape.
The Janoth Building, covering half of a block, looked into space with five hundred sightless eyes as I turned again, of my own free will, and delivered myself once more to its stone intestines. The interior of this giant God was spick-and-span, restfully lighted, filled with the continuous echo of many feet. A visitor would have thought it nice.
Waiting for me, on my desk, I found the list of nonrenewed licenses for out-of-town taverns, for six years ago. I knew this was the one that would have my own name. That would have to be taken care of later. Right now, I could do nothing but stuff it into the bottom drawer of my desk.
I went into Roy’s room and asked him: “Starved?”
“Considerably, considerably.”
“The St. Bernards have arrived.” He slowly stood up, rolled down the sleeves of his shirt. “Sorry if I kept you waiting. Any developments?”
“Not that I know of, but Hagen wants to see you. Maybe I’d better postpone lunch until you’ve talked with him.”
“All right. But I don’t think I’ll keep you waiting.”
I went upstairs. These conferences had daily become longer, more frequent, and more bitter. It was cold comfort to have a clear understanding of the abyss that Hagen and Janoth, particularly Janoth, saw before them.
For the hundredth time I asked myself why Earl had done this thing. What could possibly have happened on that night, in that apartment? God, what a price to pay. But it had happened. And I recognized that I wasn’t really thinking of Janoth, at all, but of myself.
When I stepped into Hagen’s office he handed me a note, an envelope, and a photograph.
“This just came in,” he said. “We’re giving the picture a half-page cut in Newsways, with a follow-up story.”
The note and the envelope were on the stationery of a Fifty-seventh Street gallery. The photograph, a good, clear 4X6, displayed one wall of a Louise Patterson exhibition, with five of her canvases clearly reproduced. The note, from the dealer, simply declared the photograph had been taken at a show nine years ago, and was, as far as known, the only authentic facsimile of the picture mentioned by Newsways as lost.
There could be no mistaking the two hands of my Judas. It was right in the middle. The dealer duly pointed out, however, that its original proper title was simply: Study in Fundamentals.
The canvas at the extreme right, though I recognized none of the others, was the Study in Fury that hung on my wall downstairs.
“This seems to answer the description,” I said.
“Beyond any doubt. When we run that, quoting the dealer, I’m certain we’ll uncover the actual picture.” Maybe. It was still concealed behind another canvas on Marble Road. But I knew that if Georgette saw the follow-up, and she would, my story of finding a copy of it would not hold. For the photograph would be reproduced as th
e only known authentic facsimile. “But I hope to God we have the whole thing cleaned up long before then.” I tensed as he looked at the photograph again, certain he would recognize the Fury. But he didn’t. He laid it down, regarded me with a stare made out of acid. “George, what in hell’s wrong? This has drifted along more than a week.”
“It took us three weeks to find Isleman,” I said.
“We’re not looking for a man missing several months. We’re looking for somebody that vanished a week ago, leaving a trail a mile wide. Something’s the matter. What is it?” But, without waiting for an answer, he discarded the question, and began to check off our current leads. “How about those lapsed licenses?”
I said they were still coming in, and I was cross-checking them as fast as they were received. Methodically, then, we went over all the ground we had covered before. By now it was hash. I’d done a good job making it so.
Before leaving I asked about Earl, and learned he was out of the hospital, after two days. And that was all I learned.
I returned to my office about an hour after I had come upstairs. When I walked in I found Roy, Leon Temple, and Phil Best. It was apparent, the second I stepped into the room, there had been a break.
“We’ve got him,” said Leon.
His small and usually colorless face was all lit up. I knew I would never breathe again.
“Where is he?”
“Right here. He came into this building just a little while ago.”
“Who is he?”
“We don’t know yet. But we’ve got him.” I waited, watching him, and he explained: “I slipped some cash to the staff of the Van Barth, let them know there’d be some more, and they’ve all been looking around this district in their free hours. One of the porters picked him up and followed him here.”
I nodded, feeling as though I’d been kicked in the stomach.
“Nice work,” I said. “Where is this porter now?”
“Downstairs. When he phoned me, I told him to watch the elevators and follow the guy if he came out. He hasn’t. Now Phil’s bringing over the antique dealer, Eddy is bringing a waitress from Gil’s, and then we’ll have all six banks of elevators completely covered. I’ve told the special cops what to do when our man tries to leave. They’ll grab him and make him identify himself from his first birthday up to now.”
The Big Clock Page 12
