by David Wiltse
Closing his eyes, Becker ran his fingers across the surface of the stationery, thinking to find some pattern of bumps, perhaps in the address, a primitive Braille that Becker could comprehend. The envelope was perfectly smooth except for the address and the stamp. He gently rubbed the address again and again. It was rougher than the surrounding paper, which indicated that it had been typed and not laser printed, but if there was any meaning in the roughness, Becker could not detect it.
Perhaps a blind man could, but Becker was not blind and did not have that kind-of touch and the correspondent must have known it.
The only true relief on the front surface of the envelope was at the stamp, where the glue had failed to adhere in one small spot, raising up the perforated edge enough for Becker's fingers to detect it. He studied the stamp itself under Jack's magnifying glass and found nothing unusual.
Feeling like an amateur detective, Becker turned on the flame under the teakettle. Hercule Poirot would not have done it like this, he thought.
Agatha Christie would have found a way for her prissy, abstemious sleuth to have solved it through sheer deduction. But I'm not as smart as old Hercule, he admitted, I usually have to get my hands dirty.
When the kettle whistled, Becker held the envelope over the spout and steamed the stamp until it curled. Underneath the stamp and slightly smudged by the steam was a series of dots, another number in binary code. This time the dots had not been made by a pin, so they could not be detected from the inside of the envelope. They were as small as pinpricks, however, and looked as if they could have been made using a pin as a stylus, but this time with ink. Or a substance substituted for ink.
It'was a reddish brown, the color of iodine, and Becker guessed that it was blood. Perhaps as a touch of melodrama, or perhaps a matter of convenience. It was almost impossible to find a bottle of ink lying around the houseor around the prison-these days, and blood, one's own blood, was always readily available, especially in small amounts and when the writing instrument was a pin. A jab or two in the finger would provide enough to write a number in dots, Becker thought.
The number this time was a longer one. Becker drew a series of boxes and labeled them underneath from right to left, advancing by an order of 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on until the boxes had crossed the page. He placed a dot in each box that corresponded to a mark on the envelope, then toted up his result with a pocket calculator. The number was 15113054.
Karen found him sitting in the den, staring into space.
There was a pizza box on the kitchen table, evidently to serve as dinner, but no plates, no napkins. Becker was certainly not fussy about the niceties of dining, but in the last months he had become increasingly conscientious about the small things and this sudden neglect served Karen as a warning that something was wrong. Not that she needed much warning. She had noted his increasing withdrawal since the arrival of the first letter, and his current fugue left no doubt about his mood.
"The latest letter?"
Becker did not look up at her.
"The final letter," he said.
She moved behind him and rubbed his neck and shoulders. He took the massage like so much stone and she quickly stopped.
"How do you know it's the final one?"
"He won't write again."
"Well, then, good. Now you can forget about it, whatever it is."
"He has summoned me," Becker said sarcastically.
Karen paused, hoping she would not have to pump every single answer from him.
"How do you mean, 'summoned you'?" she asked at last.
"He's told me where he is and who he is and he can't very well come to me."
He continued to stare at a spot on the wall; he had not looked at her since she entered the room.
"So I'll have to go to him."
"What is it, really?" she asked.
"I'm scared," he said.
"Then don't do it."
He chuckled humorlessly.
"If I didn't do things I was afraid of, I wouldn't get much done."
"You've got nothing left to prove, to yourself or to anyone else.
Certainly not to the Bureau."
"Maybe to myself, though… You know what it's like, Karen. You know how seductive it is."
Karen was silent. On a case with Becker she had — killed one person while allowing another to die of self-inflicted wounds. Both had deserved to die-they had killed many times-but it was not the morality of her choices that had bothered Karen. It was her reaction. She had felt, for the first and only time, the savage thrill of killing, the thrill that Becker feared would consume him. Horrified and exhilarated, she had confessed to him that she understood and shared his passion. But she had denied it ever since, keeping her strongest denial was to herself. She had transferred to Kidnapping to decrease her possible exposure to temptation and had been grateful for each promotion that took her higher up the ladder and farther from the dangers of the field.
"Not really," she said. "I know that it troubles you."
He looked at her searchingly for a second. He never pressed her on the subject. Becker knew what he knew but respected her desire to forget. He wished that he could do the same.
"Yes. It 'troubles' me."
"You're out of it, John. Stay out if that's what you want."
"I kept solving the puzzles of the letters, didn't I? I knew it was trouble from the first, but I kept solving them.
Maybe it's what I want to do."
"They're just letters-you didn't solicit them-they aren't forcing you to get involved."
"I know."
"If there's a problem, let the Bureau handle it."
"They are handling it," he said. "With me."
She stopped massaging his shoulders and slipped her chin to his head, her hands to his chest.
"Just don't do it. Stay out of it. It costs you far too much."
"I need to get into a prison to talk to an inmate," he said. "Can you arrange it for me?"
Karen hesitated. "You can visit without any help."
"I need to be alone with him. We can't do it through Plexiglas with cameras on us and a guard standing ten feet away."
"John..
"I don't want Hatcher involved in this. If he is, I won't go near it.
You have the authority to arrange it."
"John-I can't."
"Does Hatcher have a marker on me?" A marker was a directive that Deputy Director Hatcher was to be informed of any Bureau action involving a subject agent.
"You know this is touchy," Karen said.
"Restricted information, right? Okay, I understand. But it wouldn't be restricted if he didn't have a marker on me, would it? You could answer the question then."
"No comment."
"So I am marked, which means I can't do anything without Hatcher being involved, at least as a silent observer, and since I won't do anything if Hatcher is involved, it means I can't do anything. Great. So I'm off the hook. I'm doing nothing."
He stood and took her in his arms. "I got sausage and mushrooms on the pizza. Okay?"
In Washington, the center of American democracy, a city that thrives on secret meetings and private agendas, a clandestine meeting was held between Congressman Quincy Beggs and FBI Associate Director Thurston Hatcher in the Congressional Office Building. There was no pressing need for the meeting to be a secret save for the natural predilections of both men. Both knew there was a time to go public, a time to share the results of their public-spirited efforts with the public itself, and there was a much longer time to keep quiet about their activities lest the public actually come to expect something from them.
There was no point in sharing things with the populace, both men would argue, until there was actually something to share.
Beggs was a short man, going to fat, which spread un attractively across his neck, crowding his collar and bunching up under his chin. It gave him the look of a man who was unused to shirt and tie, a workingman forced into the suit by the demands of hi
s office. In truth, the Congressman was a lawyer by training, a politician by inclination and ambition, and wore a look of perpetual discomfort only because his neck size continued to expand no matter what size collar he wore. If his spreading girth made him appear to be a man of the people, however, Beggs was astute enough to avoid dieting. His very appearance became a prop in his political act, and he was above all else an actor. In fact, Beggs was never more comfortable than when acting a part in front of large groups of people-unless it was now, when he was acting a part in front of an audience of one.
Associate Director Hatcher was a perfect audience.
Having entered the Bureau during the sartorially impious reign of J.
Edgar Hoover, Hatcher never felt fully dressed without a suit and tie and a crease in his pants leg. He would have appeared as out-of-costume in leisure wear as Richard Nixon. The resemblance, many of those under him would say, did not end there. Hatcher's dissembling of sincerity was particularly awkward, an equal in duplicity, his critics said, to the former President's assertions of honesty. One had to be seriously predisposed to the man or have a vested interest in his success-to believe him. It was part of his skill as a director, and manipulator however, that Hatcher was able to predispose those in all who went against him. He offered them what they wanted and presented it with all the deference of a born sycophant.
"It seems possible, Congressman Beggs," Hatcher was saying, tugging at the crease in his blue serge, "just possible, that I may have a lead in finding the man you are after. Pardon me, I misspoke when I said 'I." I meant we, of course. There are many good men and women involved in all of the work of the Bureau."
"Certainly. Excellent people," Beggs agreed.
"I consider myself just part of the organization."
"You're too modest, Mr. Hatcher. There is no need in this office. Your contributions to the Bureau are well known."
"Well, thank you. I confess that I do have a special interest in this case-because, of course, I am deeply aware of how it affects you personally, Congressman."
"When might you expect some results in this line of investigation, Mr.
Hatcher? Not that I mean to influence your management of the case."
"Of course not… If I supervise the matter directly myself-which of course I intend to do-I should think we might expect some substantial results by summer."
"Early summer or late summer?" Beggs asked. His biennial election was in November.
"That's impossible to predict," said Hatcher. "But naturally I will expedite matters as much as possible. In a case this old, there are always difficulties-but then the satisfaction of a solution is that much greater." 'Indeed it would be. I
think I can safely say that the people of my constituency would be very impressed. As would I, Mr. Hatcher. As would I."
Hatcher smiled demurely and tended to his pants.
It was a perfect Washington deal. No whisper was made of promotion for Hatcher, no mention of Beggs' need for a shot in the arm in the coming election. None was necessary, all was understood. Neither man had any personal feeling for the other at all, but they had just become staunch allies.
Hatcher left the Congressional Office Building feeling very pleased with himself. For him, it was a no-lose situation. If he delivered, then Beggs was in his pocket and deeply in his debt. If Hatcher failed to deliver, it was very likely that Beggs would not be reelected and would no longer be of any consequence to Hatcher anyway. He would then have to curry favor with the new member of the Oversight Committee who replaced Beggs, of course, but with the resources of the investigative arm of the Bureau at his disposal, that was never very difficult.
The only problem that remained was Becker. Becker was always a problem, it was in the man's nature, but it was also equally in his nature to be a solution. Hatcher merely needed to tighten a few screws.
"What you mean you burned him? Like at the stake?"
The questioner was the Deacon of the Apostolics. He sat with his choir in the front row of seats in the tent prior to the Reverend Tommy R.
Walker's Miraculous Faith and Healing Revival in a fallow soybean field just outside of Pikeville, Kentucky. Aural sat perched on the stage in front of the choir, her feet dangling over the stage like a schoolgirl on a wall.
"No, he wasn't a witch," she said. "He was just an ordinary son of a bitch."
Rae tittered and Aural gave her a mildly baleful look.
Once again Rae had revealed something Aural told her in presumed confidence. It wasn't the worst habit in the world since nothing Aural had confided was anything she was particularly trying to keep secret, but it did suggest a certain surprising defect in Rae's character. Aural would never have taken her for a blabbermouth. But then maybe she'd never had as interesting a friend as Aural to blab about before.
"You can't burn every son of a bitch," muttered a female member of the choir. There was a note of regret to her voice.
"Ain't no bonfire big enough," chimed in another female. The men seemed discomfited.
"How did he happen to allow you to do this?" the Deacon asked Aural directly.
"I wouldn't say he actually allowed me to do it, Deacon. He was registering his protests, you might say."
Hebron James, the basso profundo of the group, a sur pnsingly small man considering the depth of his voice, looked at'Aural in horror.
"You burned him alive?" he rumbled. "With the poor man pleading for mercy?"."Just 'cause he shucked his boot at you?" the Deacon joined in. "Girl, that ain't Christian."
"Not just 'cause of the boot," Aural said defensively.
"The boot was the last straw, so to say."
One of the women murmured sympathetically.
"Comes a time when you had enough," Aural said.
"Comes a time when you had too damned much."
"Amen," offered the woman, a particularly heavy soprano who had taken Aural's side from the beginning.
"Damn, I don't care what he done," Hebron continued.
"To burn a man alive…"
"You know he deserved it," said the soprano, offering a meaningful glance at the bass. "You know he had it coming to him."
"No man's got that coming to him," Hebron insisted.
"I don't care what he done."
"I know you don't care," the soprano said. "That's pretty clear."
"Man's got his troubles, too," Hebron said, directing himself to his shoes. "Ain't just the women's got problems. Man's got his reasons for what he does."
"Now that's surely true," offered the Deacon. "These things ain't never one-sided. What did you do to provoke him, honey?"
The other women caught their breath in outrage, but Aural only laughed.
"Everything I could," she said.
"About the only way to get the damned fool's attention was something painful upside the head. I had to ring his skull like a bell every now and then just to let him know I was still around."
Rae spoke with the conviction of a woman who had just recently seen a talk show on the subject. "That was an abusive relationship," she declared.
"Ain't they all," said Aural. "Ain't they all."
The crowd waiting outside the tent after the show had grown to almost a quarter of the one that had been inside earlier. Everyone seemed to want to talk personally to the performers, like fans at a rock concert. Many of them were for the Reverend Tommy, of course, eager to touch the hands that had healed so many, but more of them, and an ever increasing number, were for Aural. They clustered around her so thickly she could scarcely move, thrusting things for her to sign, speaking her name, some in whispers, some in chants as if invoking it. The men crowded in for a nearer look, hardly believing that the beauty they had perceived from a distance could withstand closer scrutiny, then lingered, amazed. The women came to see if that sweetness, that aura of holiness and divine selfassurance, could survive removal from the stage, the lighting of the tent, the spirituality of the show. If the girl was truly inclined to sainthood, they wanted t
o be next to her, and if she was a sham, then all of them, men and women, hoped to be relieved of the unexpected hopes she had given rise to.
Aural disappointed none of them, smiling indefatigably, murmuring words of encouragement and humble thanks.
She signed their autographs, suffered their questions, allowed them to touch her velvet robe and, occasionally, stroke her long hair. She took credit for none of the miracles of the evening, directing them all to the Reverend Tommy, who stood amid his own coterie only a few yards away, straining to hear what was being said by Aural and her admirers while still nodding sympathetically to the sufferers clustered around him. It had not escaped his notice that her following grew and grew.
Some of the faces had become recognizable, coming to show after show even though Tommy was careful about holding performances in towns at least fifty miles apart from each other.
They had begun to follow her like groupies, and Tommy's awareness of the potential for gain in the situation was offset by his increasing envy.
I He was going to have to do something about it, that much was for sure.
It was rapidly becoming the Aural McKesson Show, featuring the Reverend Tommy R. Walker, instead of the other way around and if he wasn't careful, Aural might wake up to the fact that it could just as easily be the Aural McKesson Show, featuring herself as saint and singer, and to hell with the Reverend Tommy altogether. The girl had shown no aptitude for curing folks as yet,_ and as far as he knew she hadn't even tried, but she certainly understood the technique, and Tommy was not so far gone in self-esteem not to know that she could do it just as well as he could if she put her mind to it.
Probably a lot better because, damn it, she had that look of sanctity about her when she was up on that stage, wearing that robe he gave her, that no amount of thumping and sweating by Tommy would ever overcome. If her followers could ever see her the way she really was, a foulmouthed, ungrateful, irreverent, greedy, sacrilegious little tease of a tramp-the way Tommy knew her to bebut then the trick was always to keep your public life and your private life separate, and Aural had seemed to understand that from the start.
He was going to have to deal with things pretty soon, because to hear Rae tell it Aural could walk away with the Apostolic just by crooking her finger. And with Rae, too, he suspected, even though she would never admit it.
