Light winked through the peephole in the door. Somebody was looking out. A lock clicked, the latch turned, the door swung open, Marge Cohen sprang at him hissing like a cat. “You sonofabitch!”
What fresh hell is this?
Her hands were hooked into claws; her nails — neither long nor enameled — were aimed at his eyes. Dave jerked back. She missed, but not by much. He held up a palm, “Now wait a minute …”
Marge crouched, ready to spring. “You rotten prick!” She leapt. Her nails came at his eyes again. Dave snatched her wrists, and held her rigid. This was the last thing he had expected.
“Bastard, bastard, bastard!” She writhed in his grip, and landed a hard kick on his shin. Dave knew he’d have a bruise.
Strong for such a little thing, isn’t she?
Marge screamed, “How dare you! How dare you fucking people!” Dave lifted her, pushed back, forced her into the apartment. She kicked him again.
He shoved the door closed with his hip. “Who do you fuckers think you are, just who the fuck do you think you are!” Twisting furiously, she tried to pull away from him. Dave tightened his grasp, drawing her close. She spat in his face.
“Marge? Hey, look, I don’t …” White fire, Indiana summer sheet lightning, scorching pain. Dave’s lungs emptied. He slumped to his knees, fighting for consciousness.
Marge had driven her knee into his groin.
Ransome and his thugs are one thing, pal, but 110 pounds’ worth of infuriated New York womanhood is another thing entirely.
Dave put a hand on the floor to steady himself, and tried to shake his vision clear. It didn’t work. He lifted his head, drawing deep shivering breaths. Marge came at him with a vase heavy enough to kill. As she brought it down, he fell left, sweeping her feet out from under her. She tumbled beside him, cursing. He rolled over on top of her, using his weight to hold her down. She screamed and swore and promised to kill him.
Shouldn’t have swiped her cash like that, pal.
“Mrfpf ahmm serrie …” Dave forced his mind away from the agony between his legs, concentrated on breathing, concentrated on having enough breath to sound coherent. “Marge, I’m sorry about taking your money. I thought it would make it look more authentic and …”
“Money?” she screamed. “Money! You sick bastard, I’d forgotten all about that, you and your goddamned sick perverted friends, I’ll tear your balls off you, you …”
It took him ten minutes to calm her down. By then she was weeping, wretched, trembling like a terrified bird.
* * *
Four men, big men, had been waiting at her door. One of them flashed a badge. Fifteen minutes earlier she had ditched the radio Dave had given her, leaving it in a litter bin outside the neighborhood D’Agostino’s. She thought she had nothing to worry about.
“Can we come in and talk to you, Miz Cohen? We want to follow up on the mugging today at your office.”
“Sure. How long will it take?”
“Not long. Here, let me carry that grocery bag for you.”
When she opened her apartment door, only three of them came in. The fourth stood in the hall outside. One of the three turned, fastened all her locks, and rested with his back against the door.
That door was the only way out. Marge backed away, putting a sofa between her slight body and the other two men. One of them carried a black leather satchel. He set it on the coffee table.
The second man, the one with the badge, spoke. “I’m Officer Canady. This is Doctor Pierce.”
“Doctor?”
“A gynecologist.”
“…?”
“We have reason to believe that the man who assaulted you this afternoon may have raped you while you were unconscious.”
“No. Don’t be silly. I’d know …”
“We are here to make a determination. The doctor will now examine you.”
The doctor pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
* * *
Marge’s face was clean, she’d washed her makeup off earlier. Her tears flowed clear, each transparent and bright. “Swabs,” she gasped. “Specimen bottles. A needle. The other two watching. Their faces didn’t move. The big one …” She shuddered and sobbed in Dave’s arms.
“Easy, Marge.” Dave couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s over. Just take a deep breath and …”
“He held me down. He had his hand over my mouth. He pulled off my things. The other one, the one who said he was a doctor, oh God, it was as bad as, it was worse than …” Her whole body shook, racked with sobs and humiliation.
Dave wrapped his arms around her, nestling her head against his chest. It seemed to comfort her. Besides, it was better that she didn’t see his face, white with rage and bearing the look of a man who was planning vengeance.
* * *
9:23 P.M.
Dave had been with her more than an hour. He’d found a bottle of brandy, cheap stuff, Christian Brothers. The liquor had calmed her down. Apart from the bruised circles beneath her green, emerald green, eyes, she was again the pertly attractive woman he’d met that afternoon.
They were no longer talking about the men who had violated her. She couldn’t talk about that. It might be months before she could. Now, they spoke of Dave, trying to find some sense in what had been happening to him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can make some guesses, but guesses are all they are.”
She was wearing some sort of powder blue smock. Dave wasn’t quite sure precisely what it was supposed to be — a nightie perhaps, or more likely a top to be worn loosely over slacks. But she wasn’t wearing slacks. And her legs were nice. Dave forced his eyes to focus on her face.
“What? Give me a for instance.” She held a Salem Ultra Light 100 between her fingers. Blue smoke curled up to the ceiling. Dave almost asked her for one. He really wanted a cigarette.
“Okay, first point. It’s the government, or something to do with the government.”
“That’s the looniest thing I’ve ever heard. Hey, I saw this movie on HBO last month. Secret chambers underneath the Pentagon, shadowy men in anonymous uniforms, spooky no-name organizations with ties to Odessa. Lousy movie. I canceled HBO.”
“But it has to be …”
“Don’t be silly. That stuff doesn’t happen — secret plots, fiendish conspiracies …”
“Conspiracies happen. If you don’t believe me, ask Julius Caesar.”
“Oh come on! That was two thousand years ago.”
“How about Iran-Contra or Whitewater or Watergate? Yeah, Watergate. Remember Gordon Liddy?”
Marge studied him. Her eyes were large and bright, her lips pursed. Dave liked the way her lips looked. He thought … He shook his head. He didn’t know what he thought.
Oh yes you do.
“Who? Watergate? Hey, how old do you think I am? That thing was over before I was in grade school.” She waved her hand. A streamer of smoke hung in the air.
“Liddy was one of the Watergate conspirators. He wrote a book after he got out of jail. In it he said that for a while he was sure he was going to be silenced. He said he was ready for it. And Liddy was a Fed. He was an insider. He knew how things worked.”
“Sounds like a nut case to me.”
Dave sighed. When he inhaled he tasted the smoke from her cigarette. “Other covert operations people were involved. Hell, even the courts and the judges called Watergate a conspiracy. Conspiracies are real.”
She shook her head.
“The other thing …” Dave swallowed. “… Aw hell, the guys who do these things, the Gordon Liddys and the Oliver Norths and all the rest, believe, really and truly believe, they’re on the side of the angels. Just like they believe that the guys who are against them are the enemies of truth, justice, and the American way. I’d bet money that if you asked Ransome, he’d tell you that he’s the good guy and that I’m the villain. And he’d be sincere. Hell, I know I was …” Dave dropped into silence.
Marge tilted
her head, eyes a little wider. But she was too smart to speak.
“Look, Marge, a long time ago, almost before you were born, I was one of them. They took me away from the Army … No, that’s a lie. They didn’t take me. The truth is, I volunteered. I thought it was the right thing. I thought a lot of things were right back then.” Dave closed his eyes. These were not good memories, and it hurt to bring them back. “Anyway, they sent me to a place in Virginia. I was there for months. Special training. Special weapons. Special intelligence. Special warfare. For a while we thought we were being trained to work with the ARVN, the army of South Vietnam …”
“Vietnam?” The expression on her face changed. He couldn’t read it.
“My war, Marge. I was in it.”
“Was it as bad …”
“Yeah. Worse, actually.” Dave decided the look she was giving him was genuine concern. He was grateful for that. She was too young to remember the war, and too young to be among the ranks of those who hated everyone and everything associated with it.
Likewise too young for you.
He emptied his brandy glass, and poured himself another two fingers. There had been plenty of haters in the old days. Going to war had been bad. In some ways coming back was worse.
“Dave?” She was leaning forward. He could see her breasts shift beneath her smock. She wasn’t wearing a bra and …
Put it out of your mind, buddy.
“Sorry. Old memories.” Dave smiled faintly. “Anyway, I was saying that they trained us for all sorts of dirty work — hundreds of us. Camp P had been in business for ten or twenty years when I was there. It probably still is. Thousands of people have gone through it, a whole army of secret warriors. And now they’re out there somewhere. Maybe they don’t work for the government. Maybe they don’t even work for the outfits who work for the outfits who work for the government. But if you know the right people, you can find them, and they’ll do any job they’re paid to do.”
She frowned. “No way. The government doesn’t kill taxpayers. The deficit is too big. Besides, I can’t believe anyone would give an explicit order …”
Dave spat, “They don’t give orders. They just drop hints. Remember Becket? The king says, ‘Who will free me of this turbulent priest?’ and next thing you’ve got a dead bishop on the floor.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t believing him. “Okay. Suppose it’s possible. What’s your evidence?”
“There isn’t any. Not real evidence. It’s all circumstantial — the way they talk, the high-tech gear they carry, how easy it is for them to order telephones tapped, the fact that Ransome read my Army personnel jacket, the fact that everyone on his side seems to have a Beltway address. And the other thing is Harry Halliwell. My friend Harry, who tried to brain me with a coffee pitcher. He’s a big kahuna, a real political rain-maker. If he’s on Ransome’s team, it has to mean that important people are involved.”
“I still don’t buy it … unless … Do you think it could be something to do with Vietnam?”
“Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know. Something happened there. I was in the middle of it. But I wasn’t the only one involved. If they wanted to silence us, they’d have to come after all of us. Besides, they covered it up — another conspiracy, by the way, a conspiracy of silence. And anyway, it was too long ago. There’s nothing left, there’s nobody that cares. Nobody ever really did.”
“Can you … will you tell me? I mean, maybe you’ve forgotten something.”
Dave’s voice dropped. He almost growled. “Forgotten? Not very goddamned likely. I haven’t forgotten a thing. I wish I could.”
“But …”
“No, Marge. You don’t want to know, and I don’t want to tell you. Just take my word for it. It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s been going on today. It can’t.”
“If you say so. But then why do these people, why would anyone want to kill you?”
Dave threw his arms up at the ceiling. “That’s the sixty-four dollar question. My guess is that I’ve seen or heard something I shouldn’t have. Damned if I know what. But whatever it is, the idea of my knowing it scares the living daylights out of some very powerful people.”
“Scares?” She took a deep drag on the cigarette. Dave sighed.
“Exactly. Scared that I’ll go public. Scared that once I figure out what it is that I know, I’ll blow the whistle. I did that once — blew the whistle. They never forget you if you do that. They never forgive you either.”
“Is that what you’re saying? That they’re afraid you’ll expose … expose whatever it is they’re doing? That they want to kill you because you’re a whistleblower?”
“Maybe, only they’d use stronger words than whistleblower.’ But, yes, it’s possible. In the Army — in the old days — we used the phrase ‘plausible deniability.’ That meant that the senior officers could deny they knew what we were doing. It meant that whatever shenanigans we pulled off, we had to make sure our bosses had the option of saying, ‘Hey, this was a rogue operation. Totally unauthorized. Contrary to orders. Don’t blame us. We didn’t know a thing about it.’ ”
“ ‘Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it …’ ”
“Something like that. I’ll tell you one other thing. Whatever it is, it’s something that no one is supposed to know about. Something that no one can afford to have disclosed. The kind of something that makes angry congressmen hold public hearings and reporters from The Washington Post bay at the moon.”
“Iran-Contra.”
“For example.”
His eyes had drifted away from Marge’s face. As if they had a will of their own, they were …
You’re looking at her legs again, pal You really shouldn’t do that.
“Then the reason they’re after you and the reason they’re scared is that you can destroy their cover, their ability to disavow all knowledge of … knowledge of … whatever it is.”
Dave took another sip of brandy. He was feeling warmer now, and a little loose. He set the glass down. Getting tipsy would not be a good thing. “You know what’s weird? What’s weird is that they were going to make me a part of it. I mean if that letter was real, not a forgery I mean, then the FBI was doing a check on me because someone wanted to reactivate my old security clearance.”
“But if they were doing that, why are they trying to kill you now?” She shifted her posture, tucking one leg beneath another. Dave caught a glimpse of pale pink panties.
Speaking personally, it is probably a good thing your balls are black and blue.
“That’s the other sixty-four dollar question. Maybe they found something in their background check that made them think I’m a bad risk. Maybe by the time they found it, someone had said something to me that I wasn’t supposed to hear. I don’t know. All I can say is that it had to have happened within the past few days. Maybe within the past twenty-four hours. Bernie was exhausted. He hadn’t gotten any sleep. Ransome and Carlucci hadn’t shaved. They’d been up all night. And everything they’ve done to catch me has been on the fly — a seat of the pants operation. They’re making it up as they go. There isn’t any plan. That’s the only reason I’m still alive. Ransome is no rookie. If he’d had the time to lay out a nice detailed plan of operations, I would have been bagged and tagged before breakfast.”
She gave him a sympathetic look, and pointed a finger at his empty glass. “Would you like another drink?”
Dave thought, Yes! You have one too!
“No.”
“So what have you done the past few days? What have you seen? Who have you talked to?”
“Marge, I’ve racked my brains. There is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I spent the weekend out on Long Island with Scotty and Olivia Thatcher. Sunday night I picked Helen up at the airport. She’d …”
“Helen?”
“My wife.”
“Your wife.” Her voice was as neutral as the look she gave him. She tucked both legs away out of sight.
You took off yo
ur wedding ring, pal. Remember? The lady’s been operating under a misconception.
“Ahh … she’d been out in California for an old college friend’s wedding. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I went to the office. Business as usual. Meetings, conferences, papers to review, decisions to make, calls to return. All routine except that I had to go back out to Long Island on Wednesday for a meeting, and on Monday night I had to play host to some visitors from Japan.”
“Excuse me for a minute.” Marge stood up and slipped out of the living room. She left her cigarette burning in an ashtray. Dave looked at it hungrily. He reached for it, felt guilty, stopped himself, reached again, and felt guiltier still.
Let’s try to resist temptation, pal. By which I mean all temptations the flesh is heir to.
The smoke hung in the air. Dave salivated and suffered until Marge came back.
She was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and was holding a long-haired tabby cat in her arms. Earlier Marge had sat curled on the sofa next to him. Now she perched in an easy chair, discreetly separated from Dave by a cheap glass-topped coffee table.
“Nice cat,” Dave said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “What’s her name?”
“It’s a he. His name is Tito. He comes from Colorado.”
“Tito?”
“My older sister married into this enormous extended family. I was out at their ranch this summer. The family patriarch fought with the Yugoslav partisans during World War II. He gave me the cat and named him for me.” She put the animal down on the floor.
Dave stretched out a hand to stroke it. The cat hissed, snapped its fangs, and took a wobbly step out of his reach.
“Careful — I just had the vet fix him,” Marge said. “He’s still in a bad mood from the operation.”
“Oh. Sure. That explains …”
Yup, that explains it, doesn’t it?
Ice formed in Dave’s veins.
There it is. Right in front of your nose. That has to be it, pal. It couldn’t be anything else.
No, it wasn’t possible.
“Are you all right?” Marge’s voice was concerned.
Dave looked doubtfully at the brandy glass in his hand. He tossed the dregs down his throat, stood, and quite carefully dropped the glass so that it shattered on the floor.
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