He paid his bill and went out, carrying his umbrella and the empty school-book briefcase. The rain had moved on; the air was fresh and wet. He went up the street almost jauntily.
– 23 –
CUTTER CAME INTO the storeroom, ducking his head to clear the doorway; Ross looked up from the scribbled note in his hand—Better luck next time. M.K.—and tossed it disgustedly back into the empty carton; and Myerson shot a bitter look at Cutter. “Have you ever considered shining shoes as a trade, Joe? Maybe you ought to keep it in mind—maybe you’re equipped for it.”
Cutter said, “I grant you in the long parade of stupid mistakes we’ve made this one deserves a special float all to itself.”
Myerson pulled the cigarette from his mouth with a perceptible tremor of his plump fingers. “By God this is enough. I want the bastard dead, you hear me?” It was the first time he’d seen one of Kendig’s pranks firsthand and he was distressed.
“All right,” Cutter said. He was squinting as if the light was too strong. “It’s got to be done but let’s not rationalize it into one of God’s Commandments.”
Myerson stood unsteady, the muscles of his feet making constant corrections in his balance. Abruptly Cutter smiled at him. Ross thought it wasn’t because there was anything worth smiling about; it was just that Myerson was already discomfited and Cutter’s smile was designed to make him more so.
Kendig had pulled the storeroom apart with a vengeance—to make sure it didn’t escape anyone’s notice that he’d been there. The housekeeper had reported it to the desk at breakfast time and the manager had reported it to the Yard and Myerson had been in Merritt’s office at the time; Myerson had collected Ross and they’d left a message for Cutter and now here they were looking at the strewn soap cartons and the amiable little note from Kendig in the box where the manuscript must have been.
“Under our noses,” Myerson grouched. “Right here under our noses all the time.”
He was talking to Cutter but Cutter was listening with a lack of interest that he didn’t bother to conceal. He was pensive; Myerson walked around him in a circle, too agitated to stand still, but Cutter didn’t turn to keep facing him and Myerson had to come around again to see Cutter’s face. Myerson began to shout but Cutter cut across him: “Spare me the recriminations, all right?”
The skin on Myerson’s ruddy face tightened. “I suppose you’ve got a rabbit to pull out of the hat now, have you? Because if you don’t Joe, I have a very strong premonition that you’re likely to spend the rest of your career decoding signals from the Russian scientific base in Antarctica.” Myerson beamed wickedly but the quality of Cutter’s answering glance smothered the smile quickly from his face.
“There aren’t any rabbits,” Cutter said quietly. “There’s only a fabric of assumptions and suppositions and surmises. He left it here forty-eight hours and then he collected it. He could have left it here indefinitely but he collected it. That means something.”
“Does it? I’ll ask my Ouija board.”
“It means one of two things,” Cutter went on. “Either he wants to mail out another chapter or he’s planning to leave the country.”
“Give that man a cigar.”
“Am I still running this show?”
Myerson dropped his cigarette and ground it out under the sole of his shoe. “Hell Joe, of course you are.”
“Then I want more men. I want to double the cover on every airplane and boat that leaves this island. And I want to double up on Follett’s idea, covering the post offices.”
“Makes sense,” Myerson conceded. He turned a final distasteful glance on the jumbled array of overturned cartons, fished Kendig’s note out of the empty one and dropped it gingerly into ah envelope, glanced bleakly at Ross, scowled again at Cutter and went.
Ross said, “I have a feeling it’s the post office idea that’s going to do the trick. I don’t mean anything personal, Joe.”
“I misjudged Follett. It was a brilliant idea. Don’t apologize.”
The Yard technicians arrived. Cutter and Ross relinquished the basement to them and went upstairs through the lobby to the car. Ross got behind the wheel. “Where to?”
“Chartermain’s office.”
Ross put it in gear and vectored into the traffic. The sun was a pale disk in the haze. Last night he’d dropped by Cutter’s room to ask him something. Cutter had been reading the Bible. Ross had picked it up and glanced at the open pages. Deuteronomy. Something had leaped out at him. I have set before thee life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life.
Suspicion wormed in him. “Sometimes I get the feeling Kendig thinks if he just charges head-on hard enough at death it’ll get out of his way.”
Cutter said, “There’s a classic rat-psychology experiment where they send a hungry rat down a tunnel. There’s food at the far end of the tunnel. But to get to the food the rat has to walk across an electric grid. The shock current is increased as he gets closer to the food. They keep testing the rat, increasing the current. The rat has to decide for himself how hungry he is—whether the reward’s worth the pain.”
Ross pulled up in the jammed lane of traffic. He looked straight at Cutter. “Who are you talking about, Joe—you or Kendig?”
“When I was a little kid there was a fight on my street. A couple of kids a little older than me—maybe they were eight or nine. I don’t know what the fight was about. One of them hit the other one in the nose and the kid fell down flat on his back. He was a little dazed—I mean an eight-year-old can’t hit very hard. But the kid died. They told us later if we’d turned him over on his side he’d have been fine. But the blood ran back in his throat, he drew it into his lungs and strangled on it.”
“Christ.”
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. But sometimes you get the feeling it’s all been written down in the book long before you were born,” Cutter said. “I think I was talking about Kendig before. If there’s food in sight you can’t starve to death. He’ll cross the grid sooner or later, even though he knows the shock current’s too high to survive. But he’s got no choice. It’s an inevitable accident—like the kid dying because the rest of us were too ignorant to turn him over.”
Ross said, “You could duck it. You could tell Myerson to pull you off the job.”
“Wouldn’t help. I’m still the most likely one to catch him. If it’s not me it might be Yaskov and we don’t want to think about what Yaskov’s people would do to him before he died.”
“I’m sorry, Joe. But he brought it on himself, didn’t he?”
“Sure he did. Just like the rat in the tunnel.”
– 24 –
HE HAD PADS in his cheeks again; he dyed his hair jet black, trimmed and blackened the eyebrows, made himself up swarthy with a pencil mustache and a dark mole on the left cheek.
It was October eighteenth, Friday evening; the West London Terminal was crowded with week-enders on their way to and from the airports. His cursory study fixed at least five stakeouts holding up walls, reading newspapers on benches and standing in queues at the airline counters. He passed a pair of them close enough to hear their Russian dialogue; they were deciding whether the bald man at BOAC check-in was their quarry in disguise. They stood face to face so that between them they had a 360-degree field of view. Their eyes slid across Kendig and moved right on as if he weren’t there. Disguise was only minimally a matter of makeup; attitude was at least half of it and Kendig moved at a hunched shuffle like a mongrel dog who’d begun life by making friendly overtures and been kicked hard and spent the rest of his lifetime being reprimanded for violations he didn’t comprehend. His expression in repose was a cowardly half-smile and he was ready at all times to burst into apologies. He stopped as if uncertain of his bearings and snatched off his hat and clutched it in both hands, looking around anxiously—a man who’d come here to meet his nephew and didn’t see the lad anywhere.
Ready to cringe at the slightest hint of reproof he sized up the stakeouts.
He wouldn’t get a crack at anyone nearly as ideal as Dwight Liddell had been but whoever he picked had to be in the right physical ball park. They’d be checking the passport descriptions closely these days. He’d already drawn blanks at Waterloo and Euston Stations; both of them were crawling with hunters but none had been suitable. One trouble was that most of them were far too young.
Outside, night had come right down. He’d spent forty minutes in the reserved car park a block away until a stewardess had driven her own car into the lot, locked it up and walked to the terminal. He’d come in five minutes behind her. Now he saw her come out of the ladies’ loo dropping a crumpled lipstick-smeared tissue into the open maw of her handbag. She carried a smart shoulder bag as well, not an airline job but a chic leather affair; but the handbag was not shoulder-strapped and that was why he’d picked her.
He had his awed attention on a big-breasted tourist in an outrageous skintight outfit; he wasn’t looking where he was going and that was why he banged into the stewardess. Her open handbag fell tumbling, spewing its contents.
Kendig gushed profusely with Italian-accented apologies; he dropped in anguished sorrow to his knees to help her pick up wallet and hairpins and tissues and lipstick and a dozen other possessions. He flooded her with obsequious self-laceration and the girl impatiently checked to make sure he hadn’t pilfered money out of her wallet; she stuffed everything irritably into the handbag, brushed off his axious flow of apologies with a quick, “It’s quite all right, there’s no harm done,” and strode away clicking, hips undulating because she knew people were watching.
Kendig shuffled away, dropping the car keys into his pocket. She wouldn’t miss them right away. If she did she wouldn’t worry about it until she returned to London.
He moved around the place like a park pigeon, still searching for his nephew. One of the stakeouts was tipped on one shoulder against the wall, bored, sipping a Coke out of a paper cup. Kendig logged the man point by point: five-eleven, 170 pounds, dark hair, rectangular face.
He wasn’t going to do much better than this one.
The American gave him a brief uninterested glance. Kendig spoke softly through an agonized smile.
“You’ll save a lot of lives if you stand still and listen. I’ve put a bomb in this building. Don’t show your surprise. Take a sip of your Coke.”
The American’s eyes went bright like an animal at night pinioned by headlight beams. “You’re Kendig.” He drank; and held Kendig’s stare over the rim of the cup.
“The bomb goes off if I don’t disarm it. And I don’t disarm it unless you obey my instructions to the letter.”
“You bloodless bastard.”
Kendig shrugged nervously, sorry the man hadn’t seen his nephew. “The timer’s set close. You could blow the whistle on me but you’d never have time to screw the information out of me before it blows. You wouldn’t even have time to evacuate the building. You understand me?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No.” Kendig dipped his head obeisantly but held his glance. “I’m not bluffing, friend. I’ve got too much to lose—you know that as well as I do.”
The man deflated slowly. “What do you want?”
“What’s your name?”
“… Oakley.”
“All right Oakley. I’m going to walk out to the street. I want you right behind me all the way. Don’t flash any signals to anybody at all. Just stay with me. Have you got it?”
Reluctant and bleak: “I’ve got it.”
“Come on then.”
He went ahead of Oakley because he didn’t want anybody to suspect he had a gun in his pocket covering Oakley. Oakley was just one of those friendly Americans and he’d agreed to help the Italian look for his nephew—that was the way it would look and Oakley’s expression could be taken for the impatient disgust of a kindhearted fellow who’d let himself get roped into a boring act of mercy.
In plain sight of at least five men whose express purpose was to cut him down, Kendig shuffled across the terminal and went through the door, stopping politely to hold it open for Oakley. “Now we go this way.”
“Where the hell are we going?”
“Just around the corner. Take it easy.”
“Take it easy? Kendig I’d like you to know something. This isn’t official, this is purely personal. In my book extortion by bomb threat is the lowest and vilest crime there is. Any man who uses innocent people for hostages is a filthy monster who deserves—”
“Shut up, Oakley.”
The car park was deserted and there wasn’t much light. Kendig took the crumpled coat hanger from his pocket and stretched the wire out; it was an implement he’d learned long ago was amazingly useful.
“What’s this?”
“I’m going to tie your hands behind you. Don’t make a fuss.”
He saw it when Oakley thought about making a fight of it but it was only a passing wistfulness; it had been decided back there in the terminal when Oakley hadn’t raised the alarm. Kendig made the wire fast and unlocked the stewardess’s Volkswagen. “Get in.”
“What the hell is this? What about the bomb for God’s sake?”
“There’s plenty of time for everything, Oakley, Let me worry about it, all right? Try not to strain your mind, that’s a good boy.” He slammed the door on Oakley and went around to the driver’s seat; and reached across Oakley to push down the door-lock button. With his hands bound behind him Oakley wasn’t going to be able to get the door open to jump out.
He switched on the sidelights and had a look at the gauge. There was half a tank; it was enough. He didn’t turn the key yet. “You look like a man who’s got kids in college.”
“In the Air Force Academy. What’s it to you?”
“Both of them dedicated to making a world where people like you and me won’t be necessary.”
“Yes, by God. For Christ’s sake, Kendig, the bomb—”
“You raised your kids upright, I imagine. Men to whom truth and honor are important?”
“What the hell are you—”
“Some people think keeping your word depends on who you gave it to. Some others think your word of honor is your word of honor regardless. Which are you, Oakley?”
“You belong in a Goddamned rubber room, you know that?”
“I could put a gag in your mouth. But then I’d have to hide you down in the back seat so nobody’d see it. It wouldn’t be comfortable for you. Or you could give me your word of honor not to yell to anybody.”
“Where are you taking me, Kendig?”
“Do I have your oath?”
“All right. I won’t try to attract anybody’s attention. My word on it.” Oakley said it reluctantly but without hesitation. Kendig decided to buy it.
He ran a piece of wire from Oakley’s left ankle to the metal frame under the passenger seat. Then he started the car. “There isn’t any bomb. It was a bluff.”
Oakley stared at him momentarily and then nodded his head. “Okay. No, no indignation. I’d rather be fooled that way than go on worrying about innocent people getting blown sky-high. It was a neat trick—you handled it beautifully, I really believed it.”
The engine kicked over with its characteristic washing-machine sound. He drove out of the lot and turned into the Cromwell Road.
“You’re a ballsy bastard,” Oakley said. “What happens now?”
“Settle back. It’s a bit of a ride.”
“You haven’t got a chance you know. I suppose I’m obliged to say something like that.”
“All right. You’ve said it.”
“What did you steal that they’re so anxious to get back?”
Kendig didn’t answer. Oakley had decided to play it friendly; he was trying to make himself look like the truistic rape victim—if it’s inevitable you may as well lie back and enjoy it—but in fact he was trying to draw Kendig out and Kendig didn’t want to be drawn. He wanted to keep Oakley occupied, all the same; it would keep Oakley’s mind off other
things. “You’re a little long in the tooth to be pulling routine stakeout shifts, aren’t you?”
“Fortunes of war,” Oakley said without rancor. “I stuck my neck out on a couple of predictions and the wind shifted on me. But it’s not that much of a punishment right now—they’ve pulled a hell of a lot of stringers off good jobs to look for you. You’re about the hottest item since the Lindbergh baby.”
“You one of Follett’s people?”
“No comment, I guess.”
“Tell me about your family then.”
Like many of them the color photo in Oakley’s passport had been taken with flat lighting that washed out the planes of the features. The exposure had been a little too small and the result was a burned print with dazzling reflections off cheeks and forehead. Kendig laid out his makeup kit, stripped off the mustache and pulled out the cheek pads and went to work with theatrical putty on his jaw line and nose and the shape of his eyes. He took his time. When he compared himself with Oakley in the pocket mirror there wasn’t much resemblance but he looked enough like the poor photograph to fool anybody who didn’t know the real Oakley.
Oakley lay on the bed on his left side, hands wired behind him, ankles wired together, a length of wire fixed between wrists and ankles to prevent him from kicking; two more lengths of wire trussed him to the bed frame, passing around the edges of the mattress. He could bounce up and down a little but not enough to make much noise. Nobody would get those wires off him without a pair of pliers; Kendig had used one to twist the wire ends tight and he left the pliers on the writing desk across the room. He said, “I’m not hanging out the do-not-disturb sign. The chambermaid will be in sometime in the morning. I’m going to have to stuff a gag in your mouth. A word of advice—don’t strain on the wire and don’t panic for breath. You could choke to death on your own vomit, you could get a hell of a painful cramp in your legs and arms. Just lie easy and try to sleep—it’ll be the best way to get through the night.”
Hopscotch Page 19
