Two Women

by Brian Freemantle

  Alice carried her coffee from the kitchen to her office to get the telephone number of the FBI’s Manhattan field office on Broadway’s Federal Plaza from the telephone directory and used a street map to trace a zig-zag route back and forth across the city. She was unsure whether it would be quicker – better to keep her on schedule – to use the subway rather than risk buses on gridlocked streets, and decided she had an easy choice of alternatives if above ground proved more difficult than below. It might, actually, make sense to dodge up and down. They knew she’d hacked from Manhattan. Were looking for her here. They knew her name was Alice. So did the over-friendly manager of the cybercafe, who might have got her number from the call-back service even if he hadn’t used it yet. But who would volunteer it soon enough – scream it over and over again – under whatever torture he was subjected to. She couldn’t wait until the protection programme to disappear. She had to do it now. That realization prompted another, which she at once recognized was going to tighten up her schedule because she’d decided she had to be back in Princes Street by eleven thirty that morning, but it was a precaution she most definitely had to take. She was pleased it had occurred to her now, in time, and not as an afterthought when it might have been too late. She checked her balance and calculated that even leaving sufficient for her regular payments to be met she had slightly over $17,000 if she withdrew from her savings as well as her checking account. Her branch was downtown, which would increase the dangerous, unnecessary temptation. Once more she put it to one side.

  Alice sat for a long time upon her remade bed, knowing she had to make herself invisible as, according to John, the quiet-talking Stanley Burcher made himself invisible. She chose scuffed gym shoes, jeans, a white T-shirt and a kagoul with an all-encompassing hood. She posed in front of the closet mirror – raising and lowering the hood several times – to satisfy herself that with it raised she became a wallpaper person. She finished the effect with dark glasses and was even more satisfied. She decided the necessary satchel completed the impression of an indeterminately aged student.

  It was only when she was actually inside the elevator, reaching out for the button, that she corrected herself, switching from ground to basement level, to use the janitor’s stairs and the delivery entrance to emerge not directly on to Princes Street but into the side alley which connected with the service lane to Greene Street. She walked with the hood up, head bowed, dark glasses in place but unhurriedly because she’d read somewhere that in observation surveillance a hurrying person attracts more attention than one walking normally.

  Alice had known she would do it, from the moment the idea first came to her. Like the proverbial moth to the proverbial flame she flitted through the downtown side streets until she reached that of the Space for Space cafe, only hesitating at the actual moment of emerging on to it. Then she did. Her immediate relief – absurd because she would have known from the publicity if it had been attacked – was that the cybercafe was still there and, from what she could see through the window, was as busy as ever. She couldn’t pick out the persistent Bill. Or anything – a parked vehicle, loitering people – to indicate the place was being watched. At once Alice, proud of believing that she totally knew herself and impatient with pretension, accepted that she was posturing. How could or would she know if the place was being watched! She had no special ability: no training. She moved past, forcing the normal pace instead of hurrying, which she was desperate to do, hunched inside the hooded concealment. It had been ridiculous, coming here! The very opposite of what she’d determined, not an hour earlier in Princes Street, that she had never to do. She turned at the first available intersection and took a circuitous route to get her back towards her bank.

  She chose a desk assistant to make the withdrawal, relieved she’d anticipated the request for additional proof of identity and brought her passport. Which from now on, she decided, she needed permanently to carry.

  ‘That’s a lot of money, Ms Belling,’ said the man, as he counted it out.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you think a bearer cheque would be safer?’

  ‘It has to be cash.’

  ‘You be careful now.’

  ‘I intended to be,’ said Alice, a remark for her own benefit more than for the man.

  The need occurred to her as she stacked the last of the money into her satchel. ‘And I need coin.’

  ‘Ma’am?’ frowned the desk assistant.

  ‘Nickels and quarters. Five dollars worth.’

  ‘Five dollars worth is a lot of coin.’

  ‘I’m on a tight schedule,’ urged Alice.

  The man was back in minutes from the counter. ‘You sure about a cheque?’

  ‘Positive. And thank you.’

  ‘You be careful now.’

  ‘You already said.’

  Alice crossed towards the river and then cut uptown, consciously passing three telephone pods, knowing she was delaying the moment of commitment from which she would not be able to withdraw. The satchel, which she wore strapped across her chest, was heavy and the coin made a pendulum in her purse, banging against her leg as she walked. The next telephone, she promised herself: she’d make the call from the very next telephone. Not put it off any longer. She saw the pod on the corner of 31st and Eighth, by the post office. And walked on by. She was being ridiculous, she told herself. And getting tired, with the city still to criss-cross. And it was already ten twenty. She was behind schedule: not a lot but behind. She’d definitely begin at the Port Authority bus terminal.

  Alice found a closed booth and wedged herself in, relieved to squeeze out of the satchel, and counted some coin on to the ledge. She hesitated, breathing deeply to calm herself, but didn’t manage to, not in any way she could feel. She was hot and had the sensation of hearing her own heart beating: it sounded fast. Abruptly she pumped a quarter into the box, almost dropping it on her first attempt with sweat-greased fingers.

  ‘This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

  It was a woman, black, Alice guessed from the tone. ‘I want to speak to the agent-in-charge, please.’

  ‘Can I ask who’s calling?’

  ‘No. I want the agent-in-charge.’ Her voice was close to catching, at the end. Hearing the thump of her own heart was disorientating.

  ‘I’m not sure if he’s available right now. Can I ask what the subject matter is?’

  Alice breathed in deeply again. ‘Organized crime. Murder. Money laundering.’

  ‘Can I ask you to hold on for a moment?’ said the woman, still flat-voiced. Before Alice could respond the line went dead.

  A minute, Alice decided, able to see the station clock. That’s all she’d give them. She didn’t know how long it took to put a trace on a call but as computer canny as Alice was she guessed it wouldn’t be long – only minutes – with sophisticated electronics. And the FBI would surely have the latest sophisticated electronics. Thirty seconds had to have passed. Alice waited for the large hand to drop, easing down to pick up the satchel.

  ‘Ma’am?’ came a man’s voice.

  ‘Am I talking to the agent-in-charge?’

  ‘Can I ask who you are?’

  ‘I want the agent-in-charge. Someone in authority.’ Two minutes had to have gone by now.

  ‘My name’s Gene. Do you want to tell me yours?’

  ‘We’ll use Martha. Be ready for that name when I call back,’ demanded Alice and put the receiver down.

  Alice boarded the first cross-town bus she came to, easing herself close to the door, not bothering to look for a seat. West Street seemed surprisingly empty, which was good. She eased the satchel between herself and the side of the bus, making it impossible to pick, checking her watch as she did so. Ten thirty. If she was going to keep to her eleven thirty downtown return to Princes Street, to be in more than good time for John’s call, she reckoned she had time for two more calls – three at the most – to Federal Plaza. She got off at the New York Public Library, stopped at the first s
treet phone she came upon, with no hesitation this time.

  ‘Hello, Martha,’ greeted the voice of Gene. ‘What is it you’ve got to tell us?’

  ‘You aware of the funeral of George W. Northcote?’ Alice stood with her satchel protectively entwined between her feet, her wrist tilted to time herself, glad that unlike the station clock her sportsman’s watch had a calibrated sweeping second hand.

  ‘Hard not to be.’

  ‘Unknown by anyone else in the firm, he laundered huge amounts of money – billions for organized crime over decades. He was murdered up in Litchfield – it was disguised as an accident – when he wanted out.’

  ‘You got a Family name?’

  Two minutes, calculated Alice. ‘Northcote had a personal assistant. Janice Snow. She was killed – again disguised as an accident – out at Park Slope in Brooklyn. They thought she had what they want.’

  Two minutes, thirty seconds. ‘What do they want, Martha?’

  ‘The proof that Northcote kept back, believing it was his leverage to bargain a way out.’

  ‘Let’s take this nice and slow,’ said the man.

  ‘We’re taking it too slow,’ said Alice. ‘Wait for my next call. Get on to Litchfield – the sheriff’s named Al Hibbert – and on to Brooklyn.’

  ‘Martha …!’ but already Alice had replaced the telephone and started to walk with her satchel restrapped across her chest.

  Second Avenue wasn’t as congested as cross-town and Alice rode the bus past 34th Street, automatically looking towards the East River and the bee-like rise and descent of helicopters that since Northcote’s killing had been so much of John Carver’s life. Where would John be now? Doing what now, in his naive and misconceived belief that he could win where – and what – George had lost. Was that it! she asked herself, incredulous at the thought. Surely John – whom she’d long ago uncritically judged to be in awe of his father-in-law – didn’t imagine what he was attempting today was a who-could-survive contest between a dead man, who horrifically hadn’t, and himself, believing that he could? Surely not, she thought again, the rhetoric that of anxiously needed reassurance rather than a positive answer, which she couldn’t anyway have provided. And for what? To prove what, apart from his own stupidity? If they were ever together again, properly – miraculously – together after he and Jane had been taken out of danger – would there be any way she could explain to him that he didn’t have – hadn’t needed – to prove himself? Would there be any benefit – any reconciliation – in trying? Of course not. By then it would be too late.

  She got off at 14th Street, checking her watch once more as she did so. Ten fifty. In good time. Ahead of schedule now. The handset had been ripped from the wall of the first pod she came to approaching Union Square Park. There was one that worked at the Sixth Avenue junction.

  Gene answered the call on the first ring. He said: ‘I think you’re jerking us around, Martha.’

  ‘If you believed that, you wouldn’t have taken this call yourself. I’m not one of your crazies and you know it.’

  ‘I want you to come in.’

  ‘I want to come in. But not yet: I can’t, not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I want to give it all to you. The proof. Their negotiator. Everything.’

  ‘You’ve got that!’

  ‘I’ll have a meeting place. The meeting place where it’s being handed over to their negotiator, who doesn’t know everything’s been duplicated.’ She’d keep the name of Stanley Burcher back. John was most probably right, about it being phoney. If the Bureau checked and couldn’t find the name it would be a further reason to dismiss her as a crank.

  ‘Handed over by whom?’

  ‘Someone who’s totally innocent. Who thinks he can handle it all by himself.’

  ‘He can’t!’

  ‘That’s why I’m talking to you.’ Three minutes, Alice saw. Too long.

  ‘What’s your involvement, Martha?’

  ‘Complicated. You’ll have to wait for that, too.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Today. That’s why I’m doing this. You’ve got to be ready.’

  ‘You know the penalty for wasting Bureau time?’

  ‘You spoken to Litchfield? And Brooklyn?’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘Be ready, when I call. There might not be a lot of time. The name’s not Martha, by the way.’ It was, in fact, her mother’s name.

  ‘I never thought it was. Mine’s Gene, though. Gene Hanlan.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘We’ll wait. Just make sure it’s worth our while.’

  The tension, although not the fear, went from Alice as she rode downtown, her money satchel secure on her lap beneath her cupped hands, glad that she hadn’t needed to use the subway after all. She was by no assessment claustrophobic but she always had the vaguely uneasy impression of being too enclosed when she travelled underground. She was pleased, too, to be ahead of schedule. She hoped everything else worked out so well.

  Alice was back in SoHo by eleven twenty and, uncomfortably remembering the perils of not eating, bought a tuna on rye and a pickle at a deli near the Guggenheim and still managed to get into her apartment, again through the delivery entrance, precisely on schedule. She made coffee to drink with the sandwich, realizing as she did so that she’d have to give the alerting call to Federal Plaza from her own telephone, risking identification. But that wouldn’t matter, she further realized. By then, with the Bureau in place and able to make their seizures, she’d want to be taken in. It was only the thought of telephoning that prompted Alice, belatedly, to look at her answering machine, upon which one call was registered. Panicked, imagining that Burcher had made the arrangements early, Alice jabbed at the reply button. There was audible breathing, vague, discordant music, but no words before the blank of disconnection. Alice felt sick again.

  John Carver was more confident than he had expected to be and was grateful: relieved. The feeling was largely predicated upon the early morning meeting with Paul Newton, after the Manhattan physician’s examination of Jane.

  Newton’s prognosis was that Jane’s symptoms were entirely predictable in someone who had been as close to her father as Jane and did not indicate any more deeply rooted mental problem needing psychiatric help. He’d prescribed something called chlorpromazine, which he described as much stronger than the tranquillizers given to her by Dr Jamieson, and in Carver’s presence briefed the nurses, whose attendance Jane was no longer resisting, upon the possible side effects, including disorientation and verbal communication difficulties.

  ‘The idea,’ Newton had told Carver, ‘is to block the recent, most painful memories.’

  ‘You sure she doesn’t need a psychiatrist?’ demanded Carver.

  ‘It’s your choice, of course,’ said the doctor. ‘I intend to monitor her every day. If, on any one of those days, I – or any of the nurses – see any change, then naturally we’ll react to it. At the moment all Jane is suffering from is extreme but postponed grief. She’s run herself dry, mentally as well as physically, trying to do all that she has since her father’s death.’

  ‘How long?’ asked Carver.

  ‘I’ll judge it on a day-to-day basis,’ said the doctor. ‘Maybe as little as a week.’

  ‘Anything else I need to do? To know?’

  ‘Avoid Litchfield, going there or talking about it: certainly any discussion about the sale of the estate. That’s where the awfulness happened: it’s that awfulness she’s got to adjust to in her mind and therefore, this early, she doesn’t need any reminders.’

  Carver’s mood was also buoyed by listening to the tape, which he’d played and replayed in his locked office as soon as he’d arrived in Wall Street. The tape was the last thing he duplicated after copying everything he’d retrieved from Litchfield, West 66th Street and from Alice. There was no way Burcher or those the lawyer represented could do anything but agree the separation. And keep that agreement to the letter. Ca
rver telephoned the securities manager that he was on his way and easily walked the two blocks to Citibank, still arriving by nine forty-five. Determined to avoid any oversight Carver used the entire table in the private safe-deposit room, laying everything out in two individual piles. The third collection was of all the personal and legal documents and photographs concerning Northcote and Anna Simpson and Carver was slowed by it, wondering if Northcote had been as happy with Anna as he was with Alice: wondering, too, if Northcote had rationalized his relationship with her and his wife as he’d rationalized his with Jane and Alice. Intriguing but unanswerable speculation, he acknowledged yet again. And therefore pointless. Just as it was pointless keeping it all. He wouldn’t, Carver decided.

  He’d get today over, removing each and every threat. Ensure that Jane fully recovered, even if she needed a psychiatrist, which, despite Dr Newton’s assurances, Carver still suspected she might. And then destroy this personal hoard in front of him, as Northcote should have destroyed it when it was no longer relevant.

  He replaced the uncopied material and photographs in the security box first, before moving the briefcase alongside it. He loaded them one by one, original in the briefcase, copy back into the box. Again, the last item in each was the tape.

  Carver went perfunctorily through the duplicate key re-locking and signing out procedure, thinking now about Alice. He wouldn’t call her until everything was over. She’d compounded their problems by her computer trawling – and ignored him when he’d told her to stop – and he was suspicious of her demands the previous night to know precisely when and where he was meeting Burcher. More than suspicious. So, if she didn’t know, she couldn’t interfere, maybe to put everything at risk.