by Tom Savage
Interviewing Sarah was definitely not going to be easy.
19
The mark—Mark Stevenson, once Matthew Farmer—came out of the guest house and strode swiftly, purposefully down the lane to Decatur, where he hailed a cab. It was only by running into the street behind the departing taxi and flagging one down himself that he was able to follow. But he was grateful that they were on the move again.
He’d followed his quarry, first from New York and then from the former FBI man’s house in Georgetown last night. He’d boarded the train moments after Stevenson, concealing himself in a sleeper for the duration of the journey. Then he’d shadowed him from the station to the Mullins place, and he’d used the half hour after that to find his own lodgings nearby, assuming that Stevenson would be settling in and using the telephone to locate the woman. As it turned out, Stevenson took considerably longer than that inside. The tall man with the scar had waited outside the guest house until now, nearly four o’clock, when Stevenson had finally emerged.
He tailed the taxi to a Hertz rental agency not far away, and waited in the backseat of his own cab, safely across the street, while Stevenson was given a shiny, bright red Ford Taurus. Good: the car would be easy to follow.
His cab driver was delighted when he was offered the bonus to follow the red Taurus. The man actually seemed to enjoy the suggestion, finding something romantic in the idea of being a detective. But the man with the scar was far from intrigued, himself. He was fairly certain he knew where Stevenson was going. He just had to be sure.…
Yes. He smiled as the two cars headed north, in the general direction of Lake Pontchartrain. My, my, he thought. Stevenson certainly is resourceful, not to mention a fast worker.
He was beginning to get a sense of how the man’s mind worked, and he decided that Mark Stevenson was a worthy opponent. He’d known that the former Matthew Farmer—to say nothing of the former journalist—would be unable to resist a chance, however difficult, to solve this particular mystery. But he hadn’t expected the speed, the efficiency, the cool intelligence that defined Stevenson’s every move. This made the enterprise infinitely more provocative for both sides. There were several more phases to the game, and setting them up for this resourceful man would be a pleasure. Of course, it would be very interesting to observe how Stevenson would handle the little surprise that awaited him before he left New Orleans tomorrow.…
He continued to smile as the red Taurus turned off into the street that would lead Stevenson to the next stop in the game. Then he gave his driver new instructions. He noted the man’s confusion and disappointment as he turned the cab around and carried his mysterious fare back to the Hertz agency. The wild, possibly dangerous adventure the cab driver had apparently imagined was coming to an abrupt, unsatisfactory end. He paid the man his bonus and went inside to rent a car for himself. He had big plans for this evening, and he would need transportation to get him to the next destination. But there was something else he had to do first. He had to set up the first really big surprise for Mark Stevenson.
Patting the reassuring bulge of the sheathed, eight-inch stainless steel blade at his side, he drove to Gravier Street and turned in the direction of Robert Gammon’s law firm.
20
Mark had never been in such a place before, and he didn’t know what to expect. His work in journalism had never included it, as he had been limited mostly to literary subjects. He admitted to himself that he was as full of preconceived notions as everyone else, vague—and presumably false—images culled from films and novels. It won’t be anything like that, he assured himself as he parked in the appropriate lot and followed the discreet signs through the lush, well-tended gardens and lawns toward the big, attractive building near the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Well, probably not, he amended with a grim smile.
The sky was clear blue now at four-thirty in the afternoon, and the temperature was comfortably in the low sixties. He was aware, as he had been outside Ronald O’Hara’s house in Washington yesterday, of his good fortune: he’d been in New Orleans a grand total of four hours, and here he was, well on his way to completing the next play in the game. He wondered briefly at that, at the apparent ease with which he was succeeding at his assignments, but he thrust that line of thought from him and continued. He would analyze everything later, when it was over and he was back in New York with Tracy.
Tracy. He would have to call her, and soon. He made that mental note to himself as he went up the sidewalk to the imposing front entrance of the Pontchartrain Clinic.
He had been expecting a hospital setting, so the reality surprised him. When he entered the doors, he found himself in a big, airy space that looked much more like an elegant hotel lobby than any hospital he’d ever seen. He stood just inside the entrance, taking in the lush carpets and draperies, the French doors that would open onto the gardens, and the gleaming oak and mahogany furniture. The lighting in the room was subdued, old chandeliers and shaded, tasseled standing floor lamps. Potted plants and several large bowls and vases of spring flowers were everywhere. Soft music—Beethoven’s Pastoral—emanated from hidden speakers. An archway beyond led to another large room, from which he heard laughter and the distinctive sounds of a billiard game.
There were five or six people here in the lobby who were probably patients, seated on plush couches and chairs. They were all Caucasian, and they varied in age from a thirtyish man reading a newspaper to two seventyish women conversing quietly while they sipped tea from delicate cups. All were well dressed in what Mark could only think of as street clothes: he’d half expected standard-issue hospital gowns, robes, and slippers. The only uniforms in the room were on the two people present who were obviously not patients, a big African-American man who sat in a corner, glancing casually around at everyone, and a pretty young white woman with improbably blond hair who was seated behind a big mahogany writing desk near the entrance, a jarringly modern computer terminal before her, speaking quietly into a telephone. The man wore blue-green hospital scrubs, and the young woman was clad in a white nurse’s uniform and cap.
Mark waited until the nurse had put down the phone before going over to stand before her desk. She looked up at him and smiled.
“Good afternoon,” she said in a musical New Orleans drawl. “Welcome to Pontchartrain. May I help you?”
“Uh, yes, I hope so,” Mark stammered, trying to return her smile. “My name is Mark Stevenson, and I’m supposed to—”
“Oh, yes.” The girl nodded, picked up the phone receiver, and pressed a button. “Mr. Gammon called us and explained. One moment.” Now she spoke into the receiver. “Millie, Mr. Stevenson is here to see Mrs. Gammon. Can you come get him and take him up? Great. Thanks.” She hung up, still smiling at Mark. “Nurse Call will be with you in a moment.” She turned her attention to the computer and began to type.
“Thank you,” Mark said. He stood there for a few moments, looking around again, until another pretty young woman in a nurse’s uniform and a white sweater, this one African-American, materialized at his elbow. She, too, was smiling.
“Mr. Stevenson? Come with me, please.”
This woman—Nurse Call, he presumed—led him through a side archway into a hallway of some sort, and over to a bank of elevators. They got in one, and the woman produced a key, which she inserted in a lock just below the four buttons clearly labeled for the basement through the third floor.
“Fourth floor,” she murmured, as if in explanation. As the car rose swiftly and silently up, Mark looked again at the control panel, just to be sure. No, there was no button for a fourth floor.
It was his first certain indication since his arrival here that he was in a mental institution. He leaned back against the wall of the elevator cab, bracing himself. Sarah Tennant, now Sarah Gammon, was not in the plush lobby, sipping tea or playing pool with the other patients. She was on the top floor, the one the elevator serviced only with a special key. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, Uh-oh.…
A soft giggle made him open his eyes. The nurse was watching him, laughing.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not—I mean, Mrs. Gammon is perfectly—well, you’ll see. The fourth floor is just medium security, that’s all.”
Mark smiled weakly. “So where’s maximum security?”
She laughed again. “Not here. We don’t have the facilities for that, I’m glad to say. State hospitals take care of that.”
It was with a profound sense of relief that Mark followed Nurse Call out of the elevator into a gleaming white foyer, on the other side of which was a stainless steel door. A small camera was mounted on the white wall beside the door, and the nurse looked into this, raised her hand, and waved. There was a soft electronic buzzing sound, and she pulled down the handle on the door and pushed it open. Mark followed her through the door, his earlier trepidation returning.
As well it should return, he decided. Beyond the cold door was a cold, impersonal white room, the sort seen in any big-city hospital. A large, circular desk, a nurses’ station, stood in the center, occupied by two women in nurses’ whites and a man in a navy blue security uniform. There were computer terminals and several small television monitors arranged in front of them. Beyond the station was a barred gateway, and through the bars could be seen a long white hallway with many doors. Mark noticed three things immediately: the eerie silence of the place, the distinct smell of floral disinfectant, and the fact that the security guard who lounged beside the women, reading a magazine, was armed with a nightstick, a phaser or “stun gun,” and a pistol. The hotel-like atmosphere of the downstairs rooms was nowhere in evidence here.
Nurse Call smiled at the people behind the desk and led Mark past them to the barred door. There was a low buzzing sound as one of the nurses released the electronic lock. The two of them passed through the door, which she closed firmly behind them. The click of the lock echoed in the silent place.
“She’s in the dayroom,” Nurse Call said as she led him down the corridor.
Mark followed. He thought he now understood the reason she wore a sweater over her uniform: the temperature on the fourth floor seemed to be twenty degrees colder than elsewhere in the clinic. He shivered as she stopped at a steel door on their left. Another humming sound, this one more muted, informed him that all the locks on this side of the gate were also operated by the people at the console in the reception area behind them. The nurse opened the door and led him inside.
They were now in a large room with pale blue walls and curtains, intermittently streaked with sunlight through a bank of windows along one wall. The overhead lights were not on, and there were deep shadows between the patches of sun. There was thick blue wall-to-wall carpeting, several overstuffed couches and chairs, and an odd-looking coffee table. The table seemed to be upholstered, the edges and legs actually padded with pale blue Naugahyde. He stood behind the nurse, staring at the table, thinking, No sharp edges. His gaze then traveled over to the row of tall windows, and he noted the tight wire mesh embedded within panes of presumably unbreakable glass. Other than the furniture, the room was bare of adornment: no flowers, no knicknacks, no anything. The low hum of air-conditioning was the only sound, and the artificial floral Lysol odor was stronger here than elsewhere. Mark took in every sinister detail of the room—the calming blueness, the protective padding, the dark spaces between bright bars of sunlight, the cloying scent—before he focused on its only other occupant.
She was sitting on one of the couches, clad in a cream-colored silk bathrobe or dressing gown over a pink flannel nightgown and soft pink slippers. Though she was seated, Mark could tell that she was a tall woman, about his age, with long, lustrous dark hair that hung rather limply around her shoulders. Large, dark eyes stared out at him from a pale face—a pretty, well-formed face bearing an expression he could only interpret as great sadness. She wore no evident makeup, but she didn’t need it. She sat erect, knees together, her pale hands resting in her lap. A well-bred, upper-middle-class woman, the wife of a successful New Orleans attorney, the sort of darkly beautiful lady his sister, Mary Farmer, might have become if she hadn’t been …
He stood there, awkward, gauche, uncertain, wondering why he was thinking of his sister. He and Sarah Gammon regarded each other for a long, silent moment. Then Nurse Call stepped forward, breaking the odd spell in the room.
“Mrs. Gammon, this is Mark Stevenson, the writer your husband told you to expect. I’ve ordered tea for you, and I’ll be in the corner over there.” She waved toward a nearby chair. “Let me know if you want anything else, or if you don’t wish to continue the interview.” With a fleeting, apologetic smile for Mark, the nurse went over to the corner and sat down.
Mark forced a smile to his lips and leaned across the coffee table, extending his hand. The woman regarded him silently for a moment, then frowned slightly and extended her own hand for a brief handshake. That was when Mark noticed the bandage. It circled her wrist, and it appeared to be fresh, as if it had just been changed. A surreptitious glance at the other hand confirmed his suspicion: there was an identical fresh bandage on her left wrist. He managed to continue smiling as he sank into the overstuffed chair across the table from her.
“Thank you for allowing me to see you, Mrs. Gammon,” he said.
The woman returned her hands to her lap, concealing the wrapped wrists in the voluminous sleeves of the robe in what appeared to be an unconscious effort. Then she leaned slightly forward and spoke in a low, surprisingly clear voice.
“My husband seems to think this is a bad idea, but Dr. Graham disagreed with him, so he gave in. I understand you’re writing a book about—about what happened to my family.” She glanced over at the nurse in the corner, then back at him.
“Yes,” he said, realizing that he was leaning forward, too. Now that he was here, facing her, he had no idea how to conduct the interview. “I—I thought maybe you could—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. “That is not why I agreed to see you. You’re here because I want you to tell me something, Mr. Stevenson. I want you to tell me about the man with the scar.”
Mark blinked. Sarah Gammon was still leaning forward, and now she was staring intently at his face, a steely cold glint in her dark eyes. He leaned back in his chair, away from her, and his breath left his body in a long, slow exhalation. So, he thought, her husband told her what I told him. He hadn’t expected that of Robert Gammon.
“Perhaps I should explain that,” Sarah said, a faint note of humor in her voice.
“Yes,” Mark breathed. He continued to lean back in the chair, watching her.
She was about to speak again when the door behind him opened and another nurse came in with the tea.
21
It was one of those plush, dark, discreet, aggressively tasteful Upper East Side places that Tracy usually sought to avoid. Yet here she was in a sleek padded chair before a sleek marble-topped cocktail table near the translucent smoked glass picture window, sipping from an enormous chilled goblet of white wine, waiting.
This elegant Art Deco bar was in the lobby of one of New York’s best hotels, and it was nearly empty now, just after four-thirty on a Monday afternoon. It would soon be full, she imagined, when five o’clock came and went and everyone stopped in on their way home from the office or out to dinner. The air would soon be humming with quiet conversation and redolent of expensive perfumes. No smoking, she noted, except at the bar itself. That streamlined structure ran the length of the wall on the other side of the room, eerily lit from behind, attended by an unsmiling, red-jacketed young man who silently mixed drinks for the lone businessman before him and the two beautifully dressed, impeccably coiffed middle-aged women at a table in the farthest corner. The two women were surrounded by shopping bags, and their muffled chatter was the only noise in the room. The big piano near them would be put to use soon, she supposed, after cocktail hour had officially begun, but now it was unattended. She gazed arou
nd, thinking of the shadowy hotel bar in the film The Shining: these people could be waxwork figures, or revenants of the long dead.
As if to emphasize the bizarre comparison, an unsmiling, well-dressed young couple, a pretty blond girl and a handsome blond man, came silently into the room and took the other table by the window, next to her. The barman, who seemed to have expected them, moved quietly over to them and placed two goblets of red wine on their table. Then he went back behind the bar, and the new mannequins sipped their drinks, their voices never rising above whispers.
She had been uncertain what to wear for this, and she had agonized over the selection. After much deliberation she’d chosen Chanel’s cure-all, a little black dress with black pumps and a single strand of pearls, and her blond hair hung loose about her shoulders. Her makeup had been carefully applied in an attempt to create the illusion that she wore none at all. She knew that her appearance this afternoon would be scrutinized, judged.
She was not looking forward to this meeting. Her mother had been persistent, following up her original suggestion over dinner yesterday with two late evening phone calls repeating it. Tracy had made the awkward, embarrassing call this morning, as much to please her mother as to set her own mind at ease. If, indeed, that was what was going to happen. She had no idea what to expect now, which was why she was dreading it.
Well, she was here now, and she was dressed for it. She was as ready as she ever would be. And here the woman came now, as sleek and shiny and elegant as this room in which she had so suddenly, inevitably appeared. She scanned the dim place from the doorway for a moment, until her gaze fell on Tracy. She nodded, apparently to herself, produced a bright smile, and moved forward through the room as a model glides down a Parisian runway. She was certainly beautiful enough to be a professional model, if a little old for it. Tracy noted with a brief flash of humor that the woman was also in the preferred uniform, a little black dress under her open leather coat, with gold chains rather than pearls. But the woman had had no choice of apparel: Tracy had called her at her office this morning, and she had presumably come directly here from there. She’d worn these clothes to work.
