by Dan Simmons
“It’s no news that Israel has made contacts with these fundamentalist right-wingers,” said. Saul. “So this was what worked you and your friend Levi up? Maybe Mr. Harod is a believer.”
Aaron was agitated. He set the photos of Harod and Sutter back in the folder and smiled at the waitress as she came over to refill his coffee cup. The restaurant was almost empty now. When she moved away, Aaron said with some excitement, “Jimmy Wayne Sutter is the least of our worries here, Uncle Saul. Do you recognize this man?” He touched the photograph of a thin-faced man with dark hair and deep-set eyes.
“No.”
“Nieman Trask,” said Aaron. “Close adviser to Senator Kellog from Maine. Remember? Kellog almost got the nod for the vice-presidential slot on the party ticket last summer.”
“Really?” said Saul. “Which party?”
Aaron shook his head. “Uncle Saul, what do you do if you don’t pay any attention to things going on around you?”
Saul smiled. “Not much,” he said. “I teach three undergraduate courses each week. Still serve as faculty adviser even though I don’t have to. Have a full research schedule at the clinic. My second book is due at the publishers on January sixth . . .”
“All right . . .” said Aaron. “I still contribute at least twelve hours of direct counseling at the clinic each week. I traveled to four seminars in December, two of them in Europe, delivered papers at all four . . .”
“OK,” said Aaron. “Last week was unusual because I only hosted the one university panel,” said Saul. “Usually the Major’s Commission and the State Advisory Council take up at least two evenings. Now, Moddy, why is Mr. Trask so important? Because he is one of Senator Kellog’s advisers?”
“Not one,” said Aaron, “the adviser. The word is that Kellog doesn’t go to the bathroom without checking with Nieman Trask. Also, Trask was the big fund-raiser for the party during the last campaign. The saying is that wherever he goes, money flows.”
“Cute,” said Saul. “What about this gentleman?” He tapped the forehead of a man who bore a slight resemblance to the actor Charlton Heston.
“Joseph Phillip Kepler,” said Aaron. “Ex-number three man in Lyndon Johnson’s CIA, ex-State Department troubleshooter, and currently a media consultant and commentator on PBS.”
“Yes,” said Saul, “he did look familiar. He has a Sunday evening program?”
“Rapid Fire,” said Aaron. “Invites government bureaucrats on to embarrass them. This one”— Aaron tapped the photograph of a short bald man with a scowl—“is Charles C. Colben, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Interesting title,” said Saul. “It could mean nothing or everything.”
“It means a hell of a lot in this case,” said Aaron. “Colben is about the only one of the middle-level Watergate suspects that didn’t serve time. He was the White House contact in the FBI. Some say he was the brains behind Gordon Liddy’s antics. Instead of being indicted, he became even more important after all the other heads rolled.”
“What does all this mean, Moddy?”
“Just a minute, Uncle Saul, we’ve saved the best for last.” Aaron put away all the photographs except for that of a thin, exquisitely tailored man in his early or mid-sixties. The gray hair was distinguished, its styling impeccable. Even in the grainy black and white print, Saul could see the combination of tan and clothes and subliminal sense of command that only great wealth could bring.
“C. Arnold Barent,” said Aaron, paused for a second, and went on, “the ‘friend of presidents.’ Every First Family since Eisenhower’s has spent at least one vacation at one of Barent’s hideaways. Barent’s father was in steel and railroads . . . a mere millionaire . . . poverty-stricken compared to Barent Jr. and his billions. Fly over any section of Manhattan and pick a skyscraper, any skyscraper, and odds are better than even that one of the corporations on the top floor is owned by a parent company that is a subsidiary of a conglomerate that is managed by a consortium that is principally owned by C. Arnold Barent. Media, microchips, movie studios, oil, art, or baby food Barent has a part of it.”
“What does the ‘C’ stand for?” asked Saul. “No one has the foggiest idea,” said Aaron. “C. Arnold, Sr., never revealed it and the son isn’t talking. Anyway, the Secret Ser vice loves it when the president and his family visit. Barent’s homes are usually on islands . . . he owns islands all over the world, Uncle Saul . . . and the layout, security, helipad facilities, satellite links, and so forth are better than the White House’s.
“Once a year— usually in June— Barent’s Heritage West Foundation runs its ‘summer camp’— a week-long bash for some of the biggest little boys in the Western Hemi sphere. The thing is by invitation only and to be invited you have to be at least cabinet level and up-and-coming . . . or over the hill and a legend in your own time. The rumors that’ve come out the past few years tell of German ex-chancellors dancing around the campfires singing bawdy songs with old American secretaries of state and an ex-president or two. It’s supposed to be a place where the leaders can let everything hang out . . . is that the American phrase, Uncle Saul?”
“Yes,” said Saul. He watched as Aaron put the last photograph away. “So tell me what it means, Aaron. Why did Tony Harod from Hollywood go to a clandestine meeting with these five people whom I should—God knows— have known, and didn’t?”
Aaron put the dossiers in his briefcase and folded his hands. The corners of his mouth pulled tight. “You tell me, Uncle Saul. An ex-Nazi producer, you think he is your ex-Nazi, is killed in an airline crash that probably was the result of a bomb. You send a rich college boy playing detective to Hollywood to look into the producer’s history and your friend is abducted . . . almost certainly killed . . . as are his two amateur colleagues. A week later your Nazi-producer’s associate . . . a man who, by all accounts, combines all the charm of a charlatan and a child molester . . . flies to Washington and meets with the strangest assortment of insiders and shady powerbrokers since Yassir Arafat’s first Executive Council meeting. What’s going on, Uncle Saul?”
Saul took his glasses off and cleaned the lenses. He did not speak for a full minute. Aaron waited. “Moddy,” Saul said at last, “I do not know what is going on. I was interested only in the Oberst . . . in the man I believe to have been William D. Borden. I have never heard of any of these people before today. I had no idea who Borden was until I saw his photograph in the Sunday New York Times and felt sure that he was Oberst Wilhelm von Borchert, Waffen SS . . .” Saul stopped, put his glasses on, and touched his forehead with shaking fingers. He knew that he must look to his nephew like a shaken, confused old man. At that moment it was not an act.
“Uncle Saul, you can tell me what is wrong,” Aaron said in Hebrew. “Let me help.”
Saul nodded. He felt tears come to his eyes and he looked away quickly. “If it could possibly have any importance to Israel,” pressed Aaron, “be any threat . . . we need to work together, Uncle Saul.”
Saul sat straight up. Be any threat. He suddenly could see his father carrying little Josef in that line of pale, naked men and boys at Chelmno, feel the sting of the slap and humiliation on his own cheek again, and knew precisely . . . as his father had known precisely . . . that saving family sometimes had to be the first priority, the only priority. He took Aaron’s hand in both of his. “Moddy . . . you must trust me in this. I think many things are happening here that have nothing to do with one another. The man I thought was the Oberst I had known in the camps probably was not. Francis Harrington was brilliant but unstable . . . he dropped out of every responsibility the way he dropped out of Princeton three years ago. I gave him an embarrassingly large advance on expenses so that he could look into William Borden’s background. I am sure that Francis’s mother . . . or secretary . . . or girlfriend will get a postcard from him, postmarked Bora Bora or somesuch place, any day now . . .”
“Uncle Saul . . .”
�
�Please, Moddy, listen. Francis’s friends . . . they died in an accident. You’ve never known anyone who died in an accident? Your cousin Chaim, maybe, driving his Jeep down from the Golan to see a girl little better than a nafkeh . . .”
“Uncle Saul . . .”
“Listen, Moddy. You’re playing James Bond again the way you used to play Superman. You remember? The summer I visited . . . you were nine . . . too old to be leaping from the terrace with a towel around your neck. The whole summer you couldn’t play with your favorite uncle because of the cast on your left leg.”
Aaron blushed and looked down at his hands. “Your pictures are interesting, Moddy. But what do they suggest? A conspiracy against Jerusalem? A cell of Arafat’s Fatah ready to ship bombs to the border? Moddy, you saw rich, powerful people meeting with a pornographer in a rich, powerful city. Do you think that was a secret meeting? You said yourself, C. Arnold Barent owns islands and homes where even the president is safer than in his own home. This was just not a public meeting. Who knows what dirty little movie deals these people put money into or what dirty little movies your Born-Again Reverend Wayne Jim bankrolls.”
“Jimmy Wayne,” said Aaron. “What ever,” said Saul. “Do you really think we should bother your superiors at the embassy and get real agents involved and perhaps even let all this come to the attention of David, sick as he is, for some meshuggener meeting to discuss some dirty movie or something?”
Aaron’s thin face was beet red. For a second Saul thought the young man was going to cry. “All right, Uncle Saul, you won’t tell me anything?”
Saul touched his nephew’s hand again. “I swear to you on your mother’s grave, Moddy, I’ve told you everything that makes sense to me. I’ll be in Washington another day or two. Perhaps I could come over and see you and Deborah again and we could talk. Across the river, isn’t it?”
“Alexandria,” said Aaron. “Yes. What about to night?”
“I have a meeting,” said Saul. “But tomorrow . . . I would love a home-cooked meal.” Saul looked over his shoulder at the three Israelis who now made up the rest of the restaurant’s clientele. “What do we tell them?”
Aaron adjusted his own glasses. “Only Levi knows why we’re here. We were all going out to lunch anyway . . .” Aaron looked fiercely into Saul’s eyes. “Do you know what you’re doing, Uncle Saul?”
“Yes,” said Saul, “I do. And right now I want to do as little as possible, relax a bit over the rest of the vacation, and prepare for January’s classes. Moddy, you wouldn’t have one of them”— Saul cocked his head—“follow me or anything, would you? It might be embarrassing to a certain . . . ah, female colleague I hope to have dinner with to night.”
Aaron grinned. “We couldn’t spare the manpower anyway,” he said.
“Only Levi there has any field status. Harry and Barbara work with me in ciphers.” Both men stood. “Tomorrow, Uncle Saul? Shall I come in to pick you up?”
“No, I have a rental car,” said Saul. “About six?”
“Earlier if you can,” said Aaron. “You’ll have time to play with the twins before dinner.”
“Four-thirty then,” said Saul. “And we will talk?”
“I promise,” said Saul.
The two men walked up the stairs to the area under the dome, hugged, and went their separate ways. Saul stood just inside the gift shop until he saw Harry, Barbara, and the swarthy man named Levi depart together. Then he went slowly upstairs to the Impressionist section.
The girl in the straw hat was still waiting, looking up and out with the slightly startled, slightly puzzled, slightly hurt expression that moved something within Saul. He stood there a long time, thinking about family and about vengeance and about fear. He found himself wondering about his own morality— if not about his sanity— at involving two goyim in what could never be their struggle.
He decided that he would go back to the hotel, take a very long and very hot shower, and read a bit of the Mortimer Adler book. Then, when the rates went down, he would call Charleston, talk to both Natalie and the sheriff if possible. He would tell them that his meeting had gone well; that he knew now that the producer who had died on the flight from Charleston had not been the German colonel who haunted his nightmares. He would admit that he had been under stress recently and let them draw their own conclusions about his analysis of Nina Drayton and the events in Charleston.
Saul was still in front of the painting of the girl in the straw hat and was lost deep in thought when the low voice behind him said, “It’s a very pretty picture, is it not? It seems so sad that the girl who posed for it must be dead and rotted away by now.”
Saul spun around. Francis Harrington stood there, eyes gleaming strangely, freckled face as pale as a death mask. The slack lips jerked upward as if pulled by hooks and strings until a rictal grimace showed a wide expanse of teeth in a terrible simulation of a smile. The arms and hands moved upward as if to embrace or engulf Saul.
“Guten Tag, mein alte Freund,” said the thing that had been Francis Harrington. “Wie geht’s, mein kleiner Bauer? . . . My favorite little pawn?”
SIXTEEN
Charleston
Thursday, Dec. 25, 1980
The lobby of the hospital held a three-foot silver Christmas tree set in the center of the waiting area. Five empty but brightly wrapped presents were scattered around its base and children had made paper ornaments to hang from the branches. Sunlight painted white and yellow rectangles on the tile floor.
Sheriff Bobby Joe Gentry nodded at the receptionist as he crossed the lobby and headed for the elevators. “Mornin’ and Merry Christmas, Miz Howells,” he called. Gentry punched the elevator button and stood waiting with a large white paper sack in his arms.
“Merry Christmas, Sheriff!” called the seventy-year-old volunteer. “Oh, Sheriff, could I bother you for a second?”
“No bother, ma’am.” Gentry ignored the opening elevator doors and walked over to the woman’s desk. She wore a pastel-green smock that clashed with the darker green of plastic pine boughs on the Formica counter in front of her. Two Silhouette romance novels lay read and discarded near her rolodex. “How can I help you, Miz Howell?” asked Gentry.
The old woman leaned forward and lowered her bifocals so that they hung by their beaded chain. “It’s about that colored woman on four they brought in last night,” she began in an excited whisper that fell just short of sounding conspiratorial.
“Yes’m?”
“Nurse Oleander says that you were sitting up there all night . . . sort of like a guard . . . and that you had a deputy there outside the room this morning when you had to leave . . .”
“That’s Lester,” said Gentry. He shifted the weight of the sack against his shirt. “Lester and I are the only one’s in the sheriff’s office that aren’t married ’n’ all. We tend to hold down the holiday duty.”
“Well, yes,” said Mrs. Howell, thrown off the track a bit, “but we were wondering, Nurse Oleander and I, it being Christmas Eve and morning and everything, well . . . what was this colored girl charged with? I mean, I know it may be official business and everything, but it is true that this girl is a suspect in the Mansard House murders and had to be brought in by force?”
Gentry smiled and leaned forward. “Miz Howell, can you keep a secret?”
The receptionist set her thick glasses back in place, pursed her lips, sat very erect, and nodded. “Certainly, Sheriff,” she said. “What ever you tell me won’t go any further than this desk.”
Gentry nodded and leaned over farther to whisper close to her ear. “Ms. Preston is my fiancée. She doesn’t like the idea much so I’ve been keeping her locked up down in my cellar. She tried to up and get away last night while we was out wassailing so I had to whup her one. Lester’s up there holdin’ a gun on her now ’til I get back.”
Gentry looked back once to wink before entering the elevator. Ms. Howell’s posture was as perfect as before, but her glasses had slipped down to the tip of
her nose and her mouth hung slightly open.
Natalie looked up as Gentry entered the double room she had all to herself.
“Good mornin’ and Merry Christmas!” he called. He pulled her wheeled tray over and plunked the white sack onto it. “Ho, ho, ho.”
“Merry Christmas,” said Natalie. Her voice was strained and husky. She winced and raised her left hand to her throat.
“Seen the bruises there yet?” asked Gentry, leaning forward to inspect them again himself.
“Yes,” whispered Natalie. “Whoever did that had fingers like Van Cliburn,” said Gentry. “How’s your head?”
Natalie touched the large ban dage on the left side of her head. “What happened?” she asked huskily. “I mean, I remember being choked but not hitting my head . . .”
Gentry began removing white Styrofoam food cartons from the sack. “Doctor been in yet?”
“Not since I’ve been awake.”
“Doc thinks you banged it against the door frame of the car when you were strugglin’ with the fella,” said Gentry. He took the lid off of large Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee and plastic glasses of orange juice. “Just a bruise that bled a little. It was the chokin’ that knocked you out.”
Natalie touched her throat and winced at the memory. “Now I know what it’s like to be strangled,” she whispered with a weak smile.
Gentry shook his head. “Nope. He knocked you out with a choke hold, but it was by shuttin’ blood off to the brain, not by shutting air off. Knew what he was doing. Bit more and there’d’ve been brain damage at the very least. You want an English muffin with your scrambled eggs?”
Natalie stared at the huge breakfast set out before her: coffee, toasted muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice, and fruit. “Where on earth did you get all this?” she asked incredulously. “They already brought a breakfast I couldn’t eat . . . a rubber poached egg and weak tea. What restaurant is open on Christmas morning?”
Gentry took his hat off, held it over his heart, and looked hurt. “Restaurant? Restaurant? Why, ma’am, this is a Christian God-fearin’ city.