Killer, Come Hither

by Louis Begley

  As for what happened on that Sunday in January, among all the odd, incomprehensible aspects there was this: Harry had actually asked her to go out to dinner with him, and she told him she couldn’t because it was the evening that her book club met. So if it’s true that he died around seven, that was just when she and her group were discussing David Copperfield!

  I know it’s a stupid thing to think and to say, she continued, but I can’t help myself. If only I hadn’t had my book club, if I’d gone over to have a drink with him, if we’d gone out to dinner afterward—I think he had in mind the Greek restaurant in Water Mill—he might well be still alive!

  I comforted her as best I could and asked if she had observed anything unusual or peculiar before she went out or as she was going out.

  Nothing, she answered, really nothing.

  Then she shook her head and added: There was this. I came back early. It must have been a little after eight. The house was dark, which probably meant either that Harry was in the studio or that he had gone out and hadn’t left the porch light on. Then, as I was getting undressed, I saw lights go on through the house sort of systematically. Beginning in the entry, then the dining room, the kitchen, then the living room, then one after another the upstairs bedrooms. As though Harry had been going through the house looking for something. I might have called him to ask whether he was playing hide-and-seek or something dumb like that—we’d have these silly telephone conversations once in a while—but I was tired and didn’t want to bother him. Here, come to the window and look at your house. Now you see that I could observe all this because of the way the houses are angled. God, I wish I had called. For one reason or another he must have been in such despair!

  Awful, I said, awful. May I ask one more question? Can you think of anyone who had a real grudge against Harry, who would have wanted to do him harm?

  You mean stage a murder as a suicide?

  I nodded.

  She thought for a while, shook her head as though to clear it, and answered, Really nobody. Nobody. It’s the sort of thing that would have had to be done by a local. Is that what you think? None of our friends would seem rough or strong enough to pull that off.

  I agreed we could safely exclude Harry’s Sag Harbor friends—anyway the ones I had come across.

  That does leave the locals, she continued, and really there isn’t anyone. You know Harry could be sarcastic, and he certainly could let it be understood when he wasn’t pleased with the way things were done. By the way, that wonderful Kerry has told me that was also the way he was at the office. But he never left bills unpaid, he didn’t bad-mouth tradesmen, he was superloyal. If he liked a vegetable stand, wild horses couldn’t drag him to another. Oh Jack, it’s so sad, such a pity.

  —

  Superloyal Harry…“myinca” worked on the first try. The phone opened, and I immediately realized I had no clear idea of what I was looking for or how to look inside that phone. His address book, in the hope of finding a contact Kerry or I could identify as suspicious? Certainly his calendar. I wanted to verify Hobson’s account of when their conversations had taken place, as well as the trip to Houston. I’d no doubt that the calendar was meticulously kept and updated and would contain that information, but I didn’t want to risk messing it up. I’d have to learn about this gadget first. Tapping idly on icons that for other reasons aroused my curiosity I opened one called Utilities. Hidden behind it, I finally saw Contacts, which opened to reveal a list so vast and full of names of persons who were almost surely professional connections that I decided I would have to study it with Kerry’s help; a calculator, of all things; a compass; and voice memos. I tapped on that icon and brought up the image of what looked to me like an old-fashioned recording-studio microphone. A series of maneuvers, mostly tapping on it, produced nothing, and I began to worry about accidental deletions. Hadn’t I better leave the phone to Kerry, who had one and would know how to unlock its secrets? I was seeing her the next evening. Hadn’t I done enough and seen enough for one day? Because I couldn’t bear to be separated from it, I took the phone with me downstairs to the pantry, poured a whiskey nightcap that was way too big, and carrying it and the phone went to my bedroom—still the guest room across from Harry’s—lay down on the bed, and, unable to resist the lure of the mysterious gadget any more than I could keep my fingers out of a bowl of salted cashews, poked at it some more. Suddenly the phone came alive. It began to speak with Harry’s voice. I sprang up from the bed only to collapse in the wing chair. With growing horror, which the whiskey could do nothing to still, I listened to my uncle. The sound was very low, but if I strained I could make out every word—or so it seemed to me.

  To do tomorrow, he was saying, first, call Edgar and have him check the furnace, I think it’s knocking; second, make a lunch date with Jason; third, get tickets for Rigoletto and invite…

  There was a pause of less than a minute, and he was heard again; now his voice was shrill, unnatural.

  What is this, who is it? he was crying out.

  What is this, who is it? mocked another voice, that of a foreigner who expressed himself in English marked by persistent faults of grammar such as mishandling tenses and dropping the definite and indefinite articles. But the accent didn’t make him difficult to understand. As I listened, I realized that I was familiar with patterns of speech that were not dissimilar: those of a doorman, an elevator man, and a porter at Harry’s New York building, each one of them from some part of what had once been Yugoslavia, a Kosovar, a Montenegrin, a Bosniak…Or was this accent more like that of the Syrian cleaner on Lexington Avenue, who regularly broke the buttons of my suits? Meanwhile the Voice continued inexorably.

  Nice place, old man, too bad you got to lose. Let’s go, on feet.

  The Voice went from mocking to brutal.

  Please say who you are and what you want, replied Harry. By the way, you can put that knife away. I’m not going to jump you.

  I need knife, said the Voice. I’m butcher.

  Please answer my question, Harry persisted. What is it you want?

  Nothing. Everything. I don’t rob. I kill. I kill you.

  I had to admire Harry. Perfectly steady, he replied, Why kill me? If you want money, let’s talk about it. Who sent you? If someone’s paying you to attack me, I can probably pay more if you leave in peace. Come on, let’s talk like grown-up sensible men.

  You’re piece of dead meat, replied the Voice. Stop bullshit. I don’t kill you, my boss kill me. On feet! I need ladder.

  There was a short silence and Harry screamed. A sharp, hideous scream of the sort I’d heard in Iraq when some CIA goons were interrogating a Sunni bastard the Iraqi police had turned over.

  You like? the voice continued. Want more?

  There was another scream, and then a muffled reply. All right, said Harry, the ladders are in the garage.

  We go, dead meat!

  I wondered suddenly why the autopsy report—at least according to Kerry—had not mentioned signs of violence or a struggle. The guy had clearly hurt Harry badly. Then I remembered that there were skills. Technique. Skills that let you inflict unbearable pain by hitting just so, in just the right place, without breaking anything, organs, bone, or skin.

  Sound of steps, the door opening, Harry saying, Now, now, Plato, you’re a good kitty, you can go out and play.

  But the Voice resumed: Cat stay.

  For God’s sake, let the cat go out in the yard.

  You stupid, dead meat?

  Harry screamed again, an even-shriller scream.

  Cat stays.

  The door slammed. There followed a silence I timed: eleven minutes. Suddenly, I understood. For some reason, most probably by accident, the recording function of the phone had been turned on before the device slipped into the space between the cushions and the back of the sofa. Harry didn’t have it with him while he and the Voice went to the garage to get the ladder. Perhaps he’d forgotten it was turned on. Perhaps he didn’t know.

&nb
sp; The door opened and slammed shut again, the Voice menaced, Cat stays, and I heard a noise I decided was the ladder being dragged along the floor.

  Set up here, commanded the voice. See rope? Maybe I don’t butcher. Maybe you hang. Climb ladder, dead meat, and tie end on beam. Good knot so you not fall.

  Fuck you, Harry answered, you scumbag. Who’s your boss? If you’re going to kill me I deserve to know.

  A scream followed.

  You want know name of boss, dead meat? Try to think! Who’d want you dead? Think hard!

  There’s no one.

  No one? You sure? You think hard? Up the ladder, dead meat!

  Fuck you, you son of a bitch! You hang yourself! I’m not going up that ladder. Come at me with your fucking knife, come on and try me.

  There was no scream that followed. Just steps and Plato’s muffled screech. He was a silent cat, never meowing to get your attention. A screech if you wanted to brush him at a time he judged inappropriate or a real howl if you stepped on him or once or twice in my experience when he was sick with an infection and vomited violently. In a moment, I knew the reason: the Voice had picked up Plato, and Plato was protesting.

  You like cat? the Voice inquired. Nice cat, huh? You fuck cat, you pervert? You want to see what I do to him if you not behave? You want me show on cat what I can do with you later?

  Leave the cat alone, leave the cat alone!

  Harry was shouting but also pleading.

  Silence. Some sort of shuffling, and Plato’s screech the like of which I’d never heard. And over it Harry yelling, Stop, stop, oh my God you’ve cut his whiskers, I hope you rot in hell.

  The Voice, implacable: Dead meat, you want a cat’s paw? I cut it for you.

  Then Harry: For Christ’s sake, stop and let go of my cat. I’m going up your goddamn ladder.

  Not so quick, dead meat. Sit. At desk. Take paper, envelope, and write. You write to your nephew, the big-shot marine. You tell him it’s time to go.

  Plato screamed desperately.

  The Voice: You write, dead meat, or I cut cat’s tail off.

  The Voice again: That’s better.

  After a silence, the Voice said, Read letter.

  I thought I was beyond horror or shame, but suddenly I heard Harry reading aloud haltingly, brokenly, the text of the letter Mary had given me at the American Hotel.

  All right, dead meat. Put letter in envelope and start climbing.

  I heard what I guessed was Harry’s heavy breathing mixed with sobs.

  The Voice said: You still fucking around. Put noose on.

  There was silence, then Harry screaming, You’re killing the cat, over a horrible scream from Plato, and then the sound of what must have been the ladder falling to the ground followed by a thud. That was surely Harry’s fall, checked by the rope.

  After that nothing except the Voice muttering words I couldn’t understand, interspersed with “shit” and “cunt,” and the slamming of the door. That meant, I surmised, that the Voice had left the studio and began the peregrination through the house that Sasha had observed.

  —

  It wasn’t yet eleven. Unless I called Kerry at home right away she might start worrying. About what, I couldn’t tell, nor could I be sure that she would in fact worry. Perhaps, like me, she wasn’t the anxious type. In any case, if I waited much longer it would be too late to call. I took the phone and the glass with me, returned to the pantry, and poured myself another drink. What could or should I tell her? As she’d said, she was vulnerable, and that was the reality no matter how many one-hundred-percent-sincere speeches I made about being at her side and so forth. Of course, I could leave her money in case something happened to me, and of course I could tide her and her parents over if, like Harry, she was pushed out of the firm. But I didn’t think that was all she worried about. The firm was also a big part of her identity, her raison d’être. She’d been made a partner such a short time ago! Was that to be put at risk? Then there was the question of her safety. Was it farfetched to think that the psychopaths responsible for killing Harry might go after his closest collaborator? I didn’t think so, and, in that case, wasn’t it necessary to make Kerry aware of what was going on? Get her to take precautions, whatever they might be? Besides, I badly needed her legal advice. To what use could the recording on Harry’s phone be put? What should be the next step? The Suffolk County police seemed to be blundering fools. Could we go to the FBI?

  I dialed Kerry’s home number. She picked up at once, and although her voice was light and happy I thought I could tell she’d been waiting for the telephone to ring. There’s an awful lot to tell you about, I said after we’d told each other how much we needed to be together. Wait till tomorrow. Shall I come to get you at eight?

  Come at seven, if you can, she answered. We’ve made great progress at the office. I’ll be ready, ready to listen and for you know what.

  The other person whose advice, and perhaps help, I needed was Scott Prentice. The SOP was to call his cell-phone number. There was no need to worry about the lateness of the hour, even considering how early people go to bed in D.C. When he didn’t want to be disturbed, he turned his phone off. I suspected that there was another phone with another number that was never turned off, the phone on which his colleagues and superiors could reach him at any moment.

  He too answered at once.

  I’ve been in Sag Harbor all day, I said, and I’m knee-deep in shit. It’s hard to give you an account over the phone, and for one important part we really need to be in the same place. How does next weekend look for a visit to Sag?

  Subject to some Pakis I’m interested in, it’s good. If the shit is deep though, do you want to wait until then? I’ll come for the weekend, but why don’t you hop on the shuttle on Monday or Tuesday afternoon? We’ll have dinner and talk.

  Tuesday, I said. And the weekend too. It’s a deal.

  —

  After I hung up, I found myself analyzing my feelings. I didn’t think I was afraid of the Voice, and had someone asked me I would have said that in any event it was irrelevant whether I was or wasn’t. A profound truth you learn after the first few firefights you’re in is that it doesn’t matter whether you’re afraid provided you don’t show fear and don’t let it disable you. Indeed, fear turns out to be a highly useful stimulant that sharpens your senses and makes you better able to take care of yourself and your men. So it was no surprise to me that before turning in I checked all the windows, making sure they were properly latched, and locked and dead bolted the front door of the house and the door leading into the garden. Then I set the burglar alarm, including the motion detector. I looked forward to meeting the Voice, but I didn’t want to be surprised. For good measure, I carried to my room the baseball bat that Harry kept next to the front door. Now was the time for sleep, but, although I was tired, sleep seemed beyond my reach. For some reason there was a Marine Corps first aid kit in the guest-room closet. I supposed I’d put it there at the time of my first visit to the Sag Harbor house after I got out of Walter Reed and forgot to take it back to the city. Some of the stuff it held had been given to me at Walter Reed and was a low-grade pusher’s wet dream: OxyContin, Percocet, Xanax, Tuinal, Ambien, and similar shit, tucked in with wound-packing and combat tourniquets. I needed an antianxiety pill like a hole in my head, but I did want to sleep and perchance not to dream. An Ambien went down the hatch.

  The hateful stuff did its job. I woke up at seven the next morning feeling focused and mean. There were eggs, yogurt, English muffins, and orange juice that claimed to be fresh in the refrigerator, courtesy of Mary. Feeling starved, I made myself breakfast, skipping the coffee because I didn’t know how to make the espresso machine work, and put on a clean sweat suit, a Harvard varsity tennis sweater, and a windbreaker, all of which I found in Harry’s closet. Somehow I had remembered to bring my own running shoes and socks. Once dressed, I got the Audi out of the garage and headed for the Sagaponack beach. No cars were parked at the entrance, whic
h was normal on a cold and cloudy Sunday morning. That was all right with me. I didn’t want company, especially the usual dog owners. The tide was out, the sand was hard and smooth, I couldn’t imagine better conditions for a run. Out of force of habit, I headed east. Halfway to Peter’s Pond, however, that kind of unexplained perception that tells us, for instance, at a cocktail party that someone is staring at us made me aware I wasn’t alone. Turning my head, I saw, heading in the same direction as I, a very big man—probably no taller than I but thicker and burlier—dressed in a silvery Lycra suit completed by a sort of mesh ski mask of the same color that hid his face. He was running very fast, and I didn’t think he had reached his top speed. To test him, I increased mine. Instantly he followed suit. I wasn’t sure how long I could sustain that rate and wondered whether it mattered, and what would happen if I turned around to face him. If his intentions were hostile, if he wasn’t just fooling around, I thought I could teach him a thing or two about dirty fighting, however strong he was. I was spared the need to put the matter to the test by the appearance of a truck barreling toward us. Bonackers going home from crabbing in Georgica Pond, I said to myself and, dropping to one knee, waved it down energetically. It stopped, covering me with a shower of sand. I was having chest pains, I explained, and climbed into the cab. We drove off, leaving Bozo to his own devices. He had been running around us in circles and by way of farewell gave me the finger.

  I showered and shaved quickly when I got home, dressed for the trip back to the city, and scooted over to the American Hotel for a quick brunch. Afterward I wrote a thank-you note to Sasha, threw my bag into the Audi, and, Harry’s iPhone secure in my coat pocket, headed for the city. Harry had Sirius in the car pretuned to a station playing 1940s tunes. That was exactly what the doctor ordered. I’m like the B-19, loaded with Benzedrine…. I wanted to get my hands on the Voice’s gizzard, perhaps his balls. Another part of my brain told me that the encounter with Bozo-on-the-Beach, which probably meant nothing beyond providing an insight into my unsteady nerves, was a useful reminder of the need to be watchful. My thoughts turned back to Kerry. It seemed to me even more likely that the psychopath who sent the Voice to kill Harry, because he believed that Harry had betrayed him or was going to betray him, would now go after Harry’s most trusted lieutenant. Barbara Diamond being dead, Kerry was the principal repository of Harry’s secrets. Barbara Diamond! Suddenly, I was really afraid and was glad I was alone in the car because I wasn’t sure I could have concealed my fear. Was it possible that Barbara Diamond had been pushed under the subway train because someone thought she knew too much?