The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  "I have some questions."

  She either didn't hear the question or chose not to hear it. She stepped close to a canvas, examining closely the texture of a Maine landscape dominated by pastel blues, greens, and yellows.

  "Look at those brush strokes," she said.

  "Detweiler studied Monet. You can tell. Sorry?"

  "Your father," he said. He was slightly jostled by a stout dark man with a cigar pushing to get past, accompanied by a hard-faced woman with silver-blond hair.

  Leslie's face twisted into a slight frown. She had forgotten about Sandler. Thomas had reminded her.

  "What about him?" she asked, sounding as if the subject were an intrusion here. He began to sense an evasion, an unwillingness to discuss the very topic that had initially brought her to him. Why had she brought him into an art gallery, he wondered. To divert his attention?

  "I'm trying to discover as much about him as possible," he said.

  Her eyes glimmered and she gave him a smile.

  "That's good. But you probably know more than I do already."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Why- as if it were self-evident' you knew one man who knew him very well. Your own father."

  Strange, he thought, how she constantly turned each question, putting him back on the defensive. He would have expected it from another attorney or an investigator of some sort. But not from a scholar and aspiring artist.

  "My father never talked to me about Arthur Sandler," Thomas answered, jostled again from behind by a large balding man jockeying for position near the painting. Thomas took Leslie's arm and led her to a less crowded section.

  "Never at all?" Her eyes were sharply probing.

  He considered it briefly and seriously.

  "No" he said, searching his memory.

  "Other clients from time to time. But never Arthur Sandler."

  "I see" she said thoughtfully, as if his words had been meaningful.

  They'began to examine other paintings, more absorbed in their discussion now than in what they viewed. He tried a different line of questioning. Every once in a while he would look at her, want to believe her, and see the tombstone in the London churchyard.

  "What about the British government?" he asked casually.

  "Labour," she said.

  "Unfortunately, I support the Liberals."

  "That's not what I mean, as I'm sure you know."

  "Sorry," she apologized.

  "I don't mean to be flippant. But what's the question?"

  "Your foster father," he said.

  "Or that man you said you knew in British Intelligence. What's his name?"

  "Peter Whiteside?"

  "Yes' he said. They were walking in the general direction of an elevator which led upstairs. They politely edged their way through the assemblage. Thomas was conscious of no one in particular other than the man with the cigar who'd bumped him once before.

  The man was now waving a checkbook at the gallery's manager and loudly trying to bargain on a price.

  "McAdam and Whiteside. What help would they be?"

  "None at all" she said.

  "They're both dead. Shah we go upstairs?"

  "Dead?"

  "Dead," she repeated.

  "It's a condition that sets in as soon as the heart stops."

  "You never told me Whiteside was dead She looked at him curiously.

  "You never asked)' she countered, frowning.

  "Why? Why is it important?"

  He shook his head.

  "Dead since when?" he demanded.

  They stood by the elevator and waited. All three of them were dead, Leslie. and the two others, depending on whom one asked.

  Funny thing was, they all looked healthy. He studied her carefully, just as he'd study a witness on the stand, trying to discern not just whether she was lying.

  "Dead how? And why?"

  "My God, you're persistent)' she said, irritated.

  "I thought we could relax and look at a few paintings."

  "You hired me. Remember?"

  "Sorry," she said. He saw that she twisted her hands nervously for just a moment. Then she seemed to catch herself. She held her handbag, covering her anxiety.

  "It's an unpleasant subject," she said.

  "They were the only two men I could trust. I'll explain."

  "Please" he said.

  The elevator arrived, returning from upstairs with six aboard. It was a small elevator, the sort one finds added into narrow older buildings.

  Two steel doors opened, sliding each way from the center, to disgorge the passengers. Thomas and Leslie waited for the six to step out, then boarded the elevator themselves. They were followed by two meaty businessmen who pushed past them within the small elevator and stood behind them. Leslie eyed them nervously. One man carried a brown woolen scarf in his thick hands. The other leaned across and pushed the button for the top floor.

  Thomas pushed the button for three. The door closed. Thomas looked at Leslie and she exchanged a glance with him, one that said they'd continue their discussion outside the elevator. Thomas gave a slight nod and the elevator passed the second floor.

  The elevator rattled as part of its standard operating procedure.

  Then it jerked to a hesitant halt at three. The steel doors jolted open quickly. Thomas allowed Leslie to step out first.

  Thomas stepped out of the elevator. Then at the same instant that he heard the doors start to close, the brown scarf suddenly looped downward over his head.

  It caught him around the throat and yanked him backward toward the elevator.

  He gagged and fell against the closed door of the elevator, his hands and fingers digging at his throat."

  The scarf, tight as a hangman's noose around his neck, was still being held from within the elevator, but was also being clutched within the steel doors. The elevator began to rise.

  He kicked and banged. Leslie whirled, gasping. The scarf was pulling him upward. In five more seconds his neck would be crushed. He flailed with his feet, but it was no use. He was being lifted off the ground. He could sense his death.

  From the corners of his bulging eyes he could see Leslie, frozen where she stood.

  She didn't scream. She didn't panic.

  What the hell's she doing? he thought. Standing! Watching! She drew me here for this!

  Suddenly she bolted toward him, tearing open her purse.

  He saw something flash in her hand, and he saw it was a blade.

  Her hand went to his throat and the knife dug -not into his flesh, but behind him. The blade practically knicked his ear, and he could hear it bite at the steel door.

  She slashed. Once. Twice. A third time and he was falling, awkwardly pinning an ankle beneath him.

  He gasped and coughed violently. She'd cut the scarf, slashing him free. His throat felt as if it had been run over by a truck. Her hand was on his back, making sure he could breathe. Tears were on his cheeks. His eyes, which had felt as if they were going to explode out of his head, were flooding.

  He could later remember his first thought. Not of fear, not of perverse exhilaration at having been nearly killed. It was fury.

  Those two men. He wanted to grab her knife and charge after them, using the stairs to corner them on the floor above.

  He tried to rise.

  "Easy, easy," she said, holding him. He still tried to stand. But his legs were rubbery and he couldn't get up. He continued to cough, almost retching with each convulsion of his windpipe. She clicked the knife closed with one hand and shoved it into a coat pocket with remarkable dexterity. No one else had seen it.

  No one, in fact, had seen anything.

  "Yes" she said, almost in a whisper.

  "You're all right Her voice was as soft as the hand on his shoulder.

  "Let them go. They failed.

  Don't go after them' He was still coughing. A horrified crowd was gathering, asking what had happened. A man in a dark suit, in charge of the floor, pushed his
way through and asked if he could help.

  Leslie explained.

  "His scarf caught in the elevator," she said.

  "It's all right now."

  There were gasps, mostly from women.

  "Careless" Thomas heard a man's voice mutter.

  "Ought to be more careful." Thomas tried to rise. His legs were still unsteady and disobedient. He continued to cough violently and uncontrollably. And the one voice which he continued to hear was Leslie's, close by his ear, in a protective English whisper, repeating soothingly,

  "It's all right now; take your time. Wait till you can breathe comfortably and for God's sake don't say anything."

  He was happy he could still breathe. Talking could wait.

  Chapter 17

  They were at a corner table in the rear of a small dimly lit pub on Madison Avenue, a quiet, genteel watering hole frequented by the well-heeled clientele of the East Side neighborhood.

  There was draft beer in mugs on their Table, accompanying half eaten steaks. Thomas's throat hurt when he swallowed, a nagging cough persisted, and he wondered whether or not he needed a doctor. Food was one thing he did need, he admitted, though the incident at the Anspacher Gallery was not the sort that triggered hearty appetites.

  He sipped the beer.

  "How's it feel?" she asked, apparently sympathetic.

  "The throat?"

  She nodded, concern on her face.

  "Awful," he said, his voice catching and irritating as he spoke.

  "But at least it works. Air goes in and out. What more can I ask?"

  "You were on the verge of asking many things," she reminded him.

  "So I was."

  She worked on her steak with a fork and knife, holding the utensils European style, and eating with what he took to be a great deal of calm-unlike himself, he noted. He was still shaken.

  "It's rather shattering," he pondered aloud.

  "Someone trying to kill you " "It is 'she said.

  He studied her.

  "Of course," he said.

  "You'd know, wouldn't you?"

  She nodded.

  He glanced at the razor-thin scar across her neck, barely visible in the dim pub. He was conscious of the soft pop voice of Judy Collins from the jukebox.

  "All in all, my throat got off better than yours " He paused.

  "Who were they?"

  "I don't know," she said definitively. Her voice was brisk and authoritative. Not the voice of the aspiring artist, but rather that of the woman who carried a knife in her purse.

  "You must have an ideal" he said.

  "None at all. You're closer to the answer than I am."

  "Me?" He coughed.

  "Why do you keep coming back to me?"

  "Because that's where it begins," she insisted.

  "It's not just my father. It's Arthur Sandler's connection to William Ward Daniels."

  "Lawyer and client" he answered.

  She was shaking her head before he was finished.

  "More than that" she insisted, eyes flashing.

  "Much more."

  "How can you be so certain?"

  "Very easily. My aunt dies, bringing the family to an apparent end.

  Her death means a will, a search for heirs. That means that the family's dirty laundry will have to be public. Old files opened, examined. What files burn? Yours. Your father's, more specifically."

  She motioned at the air with both hands, palms open.

  "Something was in those files. More than a will. Maybe the key to where my father is. Or who he is. Or maybe there's some indication that I exist " "But it's twenty years after the fact" he said, perplexed.

  "Who'd care now?"

  "My father," she offered quickly.

  "How do you even know he's alive?"

  "Maybe this proves it'" she said.

  "You know as well as I do that the scarf around your neck was no accident. Maybe you know something," she pressed adamantly.

  "Maybe something crucial which might not seem so important to you, but which-" He was shaking his head, every bit as insistent as she.

  "Nothing" he said.

  "I know absolutely nothing about the Sandlers. Only what you tell me.

  And what's public record."

  She fell silent, looking down at her plate in thought.

  "Whom did you go see?" she asked.

  "When you were away?"

  He weighed the question and knew it was one he didn't yet want to answer.

  "No one important" he said.

  "Zenger again?"

  "No one important" he said. Only people who insisted she was an imposter. No way he was delving into that yet. Someone in a well tailored female form existed. He knew because she'd just saved his life. When she'd come through in a moment like that, how much else could he hold against her?

  "All right, don't tell me" she said sourly and with evident disappointment.

  "But someone you've seen has betrayed you. Someone thinks you know too much already."

  "Me?" he posed.

  "Why not you?"

  "They wanted to kill you first," she said. And she smiled with gloriously sweet sarcasm, letting her point rest.

  "True," he admitted.

  A waitress cleared the table and brought coffee. He was silent as he tried to put events in order and find the pattern. He glanced at her and felt helpless. There was no pattern.

  Damn her, he thought, she was perfectly calm. She was asking better questions than he, and for that matter was running a damned fine interrogation. Maybe she should have gone to law school in his place, he thought. He'd learn how to paint.

  He sipped the coffee. Its warmth soothed his throat slightly. He broke the silence, seeking to change the drift of the conversation at the same time.

  "You know quite a bit aboutart" he said.

  "Very little, actually."

  "What about forgeries?"

  Her coffee cup hesitated between the saucer and her mouth, then returned to the saucer untouched by her lips.

  "Forgeries?" she asked, as if seeking a further elaboration of the word.

  He nodded, his turn to be calm.

  "Art forgeries?" she asked. He nodded again.

  "I know they exist" she said.

  "Usually a counterfeit is made of a painting that actually exists. Then a transfer is made, gulling people into believing that the bogus one is the original She frowned.

  "Why?" Her voice was suspicious.

  "Think that could be done with people?" he asked, leaning back slightly. Damn it, he had to cough slightly.

  "Counterfeit people?" she asked.

  He nodded as they considered it.

  "An imposter for the original? Is that the question?" She was pensive and his impression was that she was not acting. But he couldn't be certain.

  "I suppose it could be done," she said.

  "Why?"

  "Just a theory."

  "I'd love to hear it'" she said, leaning forward with obvious interest.

  He shook his head.

  "I told you, I discuss facts, not theories.

  Sorry. When I have facts I'll be glad to-' "I save your life and this is my thanks?" she inquired, gently chiding and not really challenging him. If he didn't want to tell her now, she seemed to be saying, he didn't have to.

  So he changed the subject.

  "That reminds me" he said, 'that wasn't an emery board you cut me down with. Do you always carry it?"

  "A girl needs protection "It's against the law, you know."

  "Law?" She looked at him disbelievingly and laughed. 'n take my chances," she said with a certain bitterness. He didn't ask how she'd become so proficient with it. Instead he had the sense of having said something silly.

  Again he changed the subject.

  "Let's go way back before the elevator," he said.

  "You were about to tell me about George McAdam and Peter Whiteside'

  There was an uneasy silence for a moment. She pursed her li
ps, as if wondering how much to say, then folded her hands on the table before her, pushing the plate away. She looked him in the eye as if to speak from the soul.

  "Yes, of course" she said absently.

  "You should know. I should have told you anyway." It was as if an eloquent debate were taking place within her, conflicting urges to tell the truth against an impulse not to reveal too much. Clearly she was struggling with it. She looked up at him and saw him studying her. She perhaps realized that she appeared evasive. So she blurted out the truth.

  "George McAdam was a 'sandhog.'"?.

  "A what.

  She looked perplexed, as if to wonder,

  "You mean you don't even know that? Are you lying to me, or are you just plain ignorant?" But she said nothing other than,

  "Let's go for a walk. I'll tell you About it."

  They were on Lexington-as usual she was choosing the direction. They carefully watched around them, nervously paying attention to each car that passed and anyone walking too closely behind them. She chose to walk uptown on an avenue that went downtown, so that they could see traffic approaching. No mistake. She knew the tricks. More than he did, he was reminded, and it was a good thing she did. She'd saved his life once already But then again, it was his sudden involvement with her that had almost cost him his life in the first place.

  Or so it appeared.

  "Sandhogs," he said.

  "A nickname' She walked beside him, close but not holding his arm. Her coat was pulled tightly around her and her hands were thrust protectively into her coat pockets. She watched ahead and didn't look at him as she spoke.

  "Keep going" he said.

  "It was the nickname given to agents within a certain branch of the S. I. S ' ISIS.?"

  She glanced at him quickly, then looked way again.

  "Never heard of it?" she asked. He wasn't sure if there was suspicion in her voice.

  "Never.Sorry. Secret Intelligence Service," she said.

  "British, of course."

  "Continue."

  They walked northward.

  "In this branch were the agents who had a certain sort of expertise' she said.

  "You already know my foster father was in the Middle East when he was shot. What comes out of sand?"

  It took him only a moment.

  "Oil."

  "Oh," she confirmed.

  "I pieced it all together over the years, just as I pieced together who I was. The sandhogs were the British agents in oil intelligence. Long ago the British government realized that it was burning more oil than was healthy. Great Britain is an island, dependent on its imports. As long ago as the fifties any intelligent observer could have told you that England could be brought to its knees if its petroleum imports were cut off. There's never been any secret."