“Nice.”
“Wright was questioned but never charged. There was nothing to point to him. That’s the story. But whoever did it knew a lot about Murdock.”
“You think that’s the way Wright operates?”
“I know it is.”
Lewis was silent for a moment. “Why are we going to the police station?”
“To find out how much Wright knows about me,” Graves said.
The spinning drum produced the transmitted image with almost painful slowness. It made a loud, distracting, clanking sound. Nevertheless, when the first sheet came off the drum Graves grabbed it up eagerly and read with intense concentration—ignoring the clanking, the room, the cops all around, Lewis, everything.
The first sheet was printed out in block letters, as Wright’s file had been:
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING: JOHN NORMAN GRAVES (STATE INT: DOM)
REASON FOR TEST: FIVE YEAR SURVEY
AUTHORIZATION FOR TEST: D/STATE 784-334-404
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS: QUERY SUITABILITY FOR DOMESTIC WORK
TEST SCORES AND RESULTS:
1. RORSCHACH INK BLOT
A. TEST SCORES: OF CHIEF INTEREST IS THE USE OF COLOR AS RESPONSE DETERMINANT. THIS IS CONFUSING. ON THE ONE HAND, SUBJECT USES COLOR AS A MAJOR FACTOR IN DETERMINING WHAT HE SEES IN THE FORM. THIS SUGGESTS EMOTIONAL VOLATILITY AND IMPULSIVENESS. ON THE OTHER HAND, HE IS RESPECTFUL OF THE FORMS OF THE COLOR, SUGGESTING CAUTION AND PERHAPS OVERCOMPLIANCE.
B. DYNAMIC CONTENT: THERE IS A HEAVY EMPHASIS ON THEMES OF MASCULINE AGGRESSION. WAR, ANIMALS FIGHTING, WEAPONS, AND BLOOD RECUR OFTEN. A SENSE OF COMPETITION AND STRUGGLE IS USUALLY PRESENT. THERE IS A REMARKABLE LACK OF GUILT EXPRESSED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THESE THEMES. SUBJECT IS APPARENTLY COMFORTABLE IN SITUATIONS OF TENSION AND COMPETITION.
C. PATTERNS OF THOUGHT ORGANIZATION: NO MAJOR INSIGHTS HERE EXCEPT A STRONG SENSE OF EXCITEMENT RELATING TO ALL COMPETITIVE THEMES AND SUBJECTS.
D. TEST BEHAVIOR: SUBJECT CLEARLY REGARDS THIS TESTING SITUATION AS ONE IN WHICH HE MUST PROVE HIMSELF. IN LINE WITH HIS COMPETITIVE IMPULSES, HE DEFINITELY PLAYS OFF THE TESTER IN A RATHER UNUSUAL MANNER. HE DOES NOT TRY TO PLEASE THE TESTER OR WIN HIS APPROVAL. NOR DOES HE EVIDENCE HESITANCY OR UNCERTAINTY ABOUT HIS CHOSEN ANSWERS. INSTEAD, HE UTILIZES THE TESTER AS A SOURCE OF INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEST ITSELF. HE ATTEMPTS TO MANIPULATE THE TESTER. ONE HAS THE SENSE THAT HE BRINGS ALL POSSIBLE RESOURCES TO ANY TEST SITUATION—AND HE REGARDS THE TESTER AS ONE AVAILABLE RESOURCE. THIS IS NOT STRICTLY FAIR, OF COURSE. BUT THERE IS A CERTAIN AMORAL QUALITY ABOUT THE SUBJECT IN COMPETITIVE SITUATIONS. ONE FEELS HE WILL DO ANYTHING TO WIN.
2. THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT)
COMPETITION, THE NEED FOR ACTION, THE EXCITEMENT OF STRESS, AND THE HORROR OF FAILURE IN COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY WERE FREQUENT THEMES. IN CERTAIN INSTANCES THERE WAS A SENSE OF IMMORTALITY ACHIEVED BY VIGOROUS COMPETITION: THE SUBJECT TALKED ABOUT ONE PICTURE AS SHOWING A MAN WHO HAD “CHEATED DEATH.” IT IS WORTH INDICATING THAT IN MOST AREAS THE SUBJECT HAS A STRONGLY DEVELOPED SENSE OF CONVENTIONAL MORALS, PERHAPS EVEN AN OVERRESTRICTED SENSE. HOWEVER,
“Where’s the next page?” Graves said impatiently. “Coming off now,” Lewis said, and pulled it from the machine. He handed it to Graves.
IN COMPETITIVE SITUATIONS THESE MORALITIES ARE ABANDONED, AND IF THERE IS A CONFLICT—SUCH AS TWO MEN COMPETING FOR THE FAVORS OF ONE WOMAN—THE SUBJECT WILL CHEERFULLY PROPOSE CHEATING IN ORDER TO WIN THE DAY.
PSYCHOGENETICALLY IT IS CLEAR THE SUBJECT IS COMPETING WITH HIS FATHER IN A CLASSIC OEDIPAL SITUATION. STORIES ABOUT THE FATHER EMPHASIZE THE DEMANDING, UNCOMPROMISING, AND COMPETITIVE QUALITY OF THE FATHER-FIGURE AND THE DIFFICULTY OF WINNING APPROVAL. IT IS LIKELY THAT THE SUBJECT LIVES IN A WORLD PEOPLED BY HIS FATHER, AGAINST WHOM HE MUST CONSTANTLY STRIVE AND COMPETE.
FAILURE IS ABHORRENT TO THE SUBJECT. HE USUALLY DOES NOT ALLOW THAT IT MIGHT OCCUR. PSYCHICALLY HE EQUATES FAILURE WITH CASTRATION. THE FEAR OF FAILURE IS SO GREAT THAT THE SUBJECT MAY BE IMPULSIVE. QUICKNESS OF RESPONSE IS IMPORTANT TO HIM, AND A SOURCE OF PRIDE.
3. ABBREVIATED WAIS I.Q. TEST
RAPIDITY OF RESPONSE WAS A MAJOR FACTOR HERE IN PRODUCING AN INITIAL TEST SCORE OF 121. THE SUBJECT FELT COMPELLED TO FINISH EACH SECTION IN LESS THAN THE ALLOTTED TIME. TESTER’S IMPRESSION IS THAT THE SUBJECT HAS A TEST SCORE AT LEAST 10 POINTS HIGHER THAN THAT. THIS IS CONFIRMED BY PAST I.Q. TESTS, WHICH HAVE SCORED THE SUBJECT IN THE 130-140 RANGE. THE SUBJECT’S WILLINGNESS TO DAMAGE HIS OWN PERFORMANCE BY OVERLY FAST REACTION SHOULD BE NOTED.
4. CRONBERG DIAGNOSTIC PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE:
SUBJECT SCORES HIGHLY IN MANIC SCALES WITH SOME CONSISTENT EVIDENCE OF PARANOIA. THIS MAY WELL RELATE TO HIS COMPETITIVE DRIVES.
5. SUMMARY
“Is there another sheet?” Graves asked.
“It’s coming, it’s coming,” Lewis said. He smiled. “You’re really devouring this, aren’t you.”
“I think it’s important.”
“Don’t you know it all already? It’s about you.”
“No,” Graves said. “It’s what somebody else thinks of me. There’s a difference.”
Lewis shrugged. The third and final sheet came from the printer. Graves read it.
IN SUMMARY WE CAN SAY THAT JOHN GRAVES IS A HIGHLY INTELLIGENT, IMAGINATIVE, AND CONVENTIONALLY MORAL MAN WITH AN ASTOUNDINGLY STRONG COMPETITIVE DRIVE. HIS NEED TO COMPETE IS ALMOST HIS MOST OUTSTANDING TRAIT. IT SEEMS TO OVERWHELM EVERY OTHER ASPECT OF HIS PERSONALITY. IT IS HIGHLY DEVELOPED, AND RUTHLESS IN THE EXTREME. THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT HE IS A GOOD BETTOR, GAMBLER, POKER AND CHESS PLAYER—TO NAME HOBBIES HE PROFESSES TO LIKE.
IF THERE ARE ANY DEFECTS OR HIDDEN FLAWS IN HIS BEHAVIOR, THEY ARE HIS IMPULSIVENESS AND HIS DESIRE TO FINISH A TEST SITUATION RAPIDLY. HE FREQUENTLY PERFORMS BELOW HIS MAXIMUM LEVEL BECAUSE OF A DESIRE FOR SPEED. HE OFTEN FEELS THAT A PROBLEM IS SOLVED WHEN IT IS ONLY HALF FINISHED, OR TWO-THIRDS FINISHED. THIS SITUATION MUST BE GUARDED AGAINST BY HAVING A LESS BRILLIANT BUT MORE THOROUGH PERSON CHECKING HIS WORK AT INTERVALS.
Graves stared at the last page. “Is that all?”
Lewis nodded at the photoprinter, which had turned itself off, the roller no longer spinning. “Looks like it.”
“I’ll be damned,” Graves said. He folded the sheets carefully, put them in his pocket, and left the police station.
The radio crackled. “701, this is 702. We are following the limo east on Route Five.”
Graves picked up the microphone. “Who’s in the limo?”
“Only the subject, 701. And the chauffeur.”
“Nobody else?”
“No, 701.”
“When did they leave the apartment?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“All right, 702. Out.”
Graves looked at Lewis. “Where now?” Lewis asked.
“Route Five, east,” Graves said. “And step on it.”
The White Grumman Gulf Stream jet landed gracefully and taxied to a stop near a small hangar. The side door went down and two men climbed off. Several workmen in coveralls boarded the plane. After a moment they began unloading two large cardboard boxes.
Standing near the end of the runway of the small private field in El Cajon, Graves squinted through binoculars. The heat made everything shimmer; San Diego was hot, but El Cajon, twelve miles inland, was much hotter. “Can you make it out?” Graves asked.
Beside him Lewis leaned against the roof of the sedan to steady his arms as he held the binoculars. He pulled his elbows up quickly. “Ouch,” he said. He held the binoculars freehand. “I don’t know what they are,” he said. “But I know what they look like. They look like mattress boxes.”
Graves lowered his glasses. “That’s what they look like to me. Where did this flight originate?”
“Salt Lake. A private airfield.”
“Mattresses from Utah? Did the plane make intermediate stops?”
Lewis shook his head. “I don’t know. But it certainly wouldn’t have to
stop: it’s got a cruising range of just under four thousand miles.”
While they watched, they heard the tinny sound of the car radio saying, “The President is due to arrive at any moment. The delegates are tense with anticipation. No one yet knows what he intends—”
Graves reached in and clicked it off.
Meanwhile, the workmen carried the two mattress-sized boxes into a green hangar.
“He rented that hangar last week,” Lewis said. “Moved a lot of equipment in.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“Nobody’s had a look yet.”
Graves bit his lip. That was an opportunity they’d missed. Several days ago somebody should have been in that hangar at midnight, taking pictures.
“Do you want to move in on him now?” Lewis asked.
Graves shook his head. “He’s got five or six workmen there. There’s two of us, and two in 702. None of us have guns.” He sighed. “Besides, what if they really are mattresses?”
“They can’t be.”
Graves didn’t think it possible either. But he wasn’t willing to take a chance. He found himself worrying about Wright’s new apartment in San Diego. Perhaps this was all a diversion, a feint to get him away from the apartment while something important was done there. He had no confidence in the men sitting across the street, observing and filming. Like every organization in the world, the State Department hired mundane men to carry out mundane jobs. Stationary surveillance was the most mundane. If the men weren’t dull when they started, they soon became that way.
“We’ll wait,” he said.
The mattresses were taken into the hangar, and the limousine was driven inside. The doors were closed.
“Time?”
“Twelve forty-one,” Lewis said.
A minute passed, and then something remarkable happened. The men came out of the hangar and walked over to the airplane. They stood alongside it, ostensibly checking it over but actually doing nothing at all; just waiting.
Wright was not among them.
“I don’t get it,” Graves said. “Where’s Wright?”
“He must still be inside.”
Their sedan was parked more than 200 yards from the hangar. But the wind was blowing in their direction, and they heard a faint mechanical sound. A kind of thumping or chugging.
Lewis opened the trunk and took out a directional microphone. It looked like a miniature radar antenna—a dish 2 feet in diameter, with a central barrel protruding. He put on earphones and tuned in the microphone.
“What are you getting?”
Lewis shifted the direction of the mike slightly. It was quite sensitive, but had to be aimed precisely.
“Wind.”
“Can you get that noi—”
“Here.”
He gave Graves the earphones. Graves listened. With the microphone aimed directly, the mechanical sound was clear. It consisted of a low hum with an intermittent pulsing thump.
“Sounds like a pump to me,” he said. He listened to the sound for several seconds more. “What do you make of it?”
“A pump,” Lewis said, glancing at his watch. “It’s been going five minutes now.”
Graves turned from the hangar to the airplane and the men who were clustered around it. They had broken up into small groups of two and three, talking quietly, occasionally glancing at the hangar. George, the chauffeur, was among them. Several of the workmen asked George questions. George kept shaking his head.
Graves set down his binoculars. Why would you clear everybody out of the hangar? He could think of only one reason: Wright didn’t want them to see what was going on. But as he thought about it, he saw a second reason: that Wright was engaged in something very dangerous and wanted the others a safe distance away.
Dangerous how? Radiation? Explosives? What?
“Ten minutes now,” Lewis said.
Graves scratched his head. He lit a cigarette and stared at the others by the airplane. It didn’t make sense, he thought. Whatever Wright intended, it didn’t make sense. If he didn’t want the workmen around, he could easily have timed it so that they would be out to lunch. Instead he’d aroused their curiosity. They’d talk about this episode for days, maybe weeks afterward.
Apparently Wright didn’t care about that. Why not? And then as he watched, the workmen began walking back to the hangar. He had seen no signal, but they all moved at once.
Lewis took off the earphones. “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “The pump’s stopped.”
Graves checked his watch. It was a few minutes before 1 p.m. He was beginning to feel tired. It had been a long day already, starting with the call from Phelps at 4 a.m. and the trip to Los Angeles.
He lit another cigarette and watched the hangar. And then things began to happen very fast. The limousine drove out and off toward the entrance to the airfield. And a second vehicle emerged from the hangar.
A moving van. It followed the limousine.
Graves got onto the intercom. “702, this is 701. You got them?”
“Got them, 701.”
“Stay with them. If they split up, follow the limousine; forget the van.”
“Right, 701. Are you with us?”
“No,” Graves said. “We’re staying here.” He clicked off the microphone and said to Lewis, “I want to look inside that hangar.”
El Cajon: 1 p.m. PDT
Hour 4
IT TOOK THEM THREE MINUTES to get to the hangar, and by that time it was deserted except for an elderly man who was cleaning up with a long broom. There were one or two workmen out by the jet, but they paid no attention as Graves and Lewis went into the hangar.
The old man waved and leaned on his broom. “You looking for Mr. Johnson?”
“Yes,” Graves said.
“Just missed him,” the old man said. “Left a couple minutes ago.”
“Damn,” Graves said. “You know where he went?”
“No idea,” the old man said. “He’s a strange one. I guess rich people get that way.” He pointed to a corner of the room. “I mean, look at that,” he said. There were several boxes stacked in the corner. “Now what am I supposed to do with that? Oh, bring in plenty of it, says Mr. Johnson. And then he doesn’t touch it.”
Graves looked at the boxes. “What’s in them?”
“Detergent,” the old man said. “Gallon jugs of detergent. He wanted ten of them. Don’t ask me why—he didn’t touch them.”
“When did he ask for them?” Graves said. He walked over and opened one of the cardboard boxes. Inside was a jug marked KEN-ALL 7588 INDUSTRIAL GRADE DETERGENT.
“Last week. Wanted to be sure he had them.”
“What’s this stuff normally used for?”
The old man shrugged and continued sweeping. “This is an airfield,” he said. “We use a lot of it to get grease off parts. That stuff will cut anything. Axle grease, cuts it right off.”
Graves nodded.
Across the hangar Lewis was bent over. “Have a look at this,” he said. He pointed to a small plastic bag on the concrete floor.
“Dozens of those around,” the old man said. “All over the floor when I came in.”
Graves picked up the bag, sniffed it, touched the inside surface. There was some kind of milky, oily stuff inside.
“He’s been getting this place ready for a week,” the old man said. “Bring in equipment, take out equipment, new stuff, old stuff. Damnedest thing you ever saw. For instance, he has this washing machine—”
“Washing machine?”
“Sure. It’s still here.” He pointed to the corner. “You’re probably too young to remember those things.”
Graves walked over to it. It was an old-fashioned hand-operated tub washing machine with two rollers mounted above for a wringer. The rollers were operated with a crank. Beyond the rollers was a long, flat tray of highly polished metal.
Graves looked at the manufacturer’s label: WESTINGHOUSE. The year was 1931.
“Now what,�
�� asked the old man, “does Mr. Johnson want with an old washing machine? Huh?”
Graves began to feel nervous. For the first time all day, he felt that Wright was too far ahead of him, that the clues were too subtle, that the game was beyond him. A washing machine?
Lewis touched the roller assembly. “I guess you could squeeze out a thin strip of anything on that machine,” he said, “assuming it had the right consistency. A putty kind of consistency.”
Plastic bags on the floor, boxes of industrial detergent in the corner—ordered but unused—and a washing machine. Then he remembered.
“Where’s the pump?”
“I don’t know,” Lewis said. “But it doesn’t matter. Look over here.” He pointed to some equipment near the washing machine. A canvas tarp was draped over it; he pulled it away.
“Spray gun and four cans of paint.” He bent over. “Black, yellow, white, red.”
“He was using the pump to spray paint?”
“That’d be my guess,” Lewis said.
Graves looked around the room. “What’d he spray it onto?”
“Whatever it was, he took it with him. Wait a minute.” Lewis was again bent over; “Have a look at this.”
He moved another tarp to reveal a full rubber diving wet suit, a full face mask that covered eyes, nose, and mouth, and a small air tank—one of the three that Graves had seen Wright purchase earlier in the day.
There were also several black rubber loops of different sizes.
“Just one suit?”
“Looks like it,” Lewis said. He moved the suit with his foot, spreading it flat on the floor. “Wright’s size?”
“Roughly. But these black loops …”
“I count six,” Lewis said. “Four little ones, one big one, and one medium.”
“What the hell did he use them for?”
The old man came over and stood by them, staring down at the rubber suit. “You ask me,” he said, “he’s just a crazy man. Rich people get that way.” He sighed. “Ten gallons of detergent. Now what am I going to do with that?”
Graves was tense in the car going back to San Diego. Lewis asked him what he was thinking about and he said, “My psychological tests.”
Binary: A Novel Page 8
