There were also a number of outbuildings. Stables, he supposed, and garages, plus storage sheds for groundskeeping equipment. In the far distance was another house, close to the beach, and perhaps a hundred yards from that was an illuminated landing pad with two helicopters on it.
And set back farther than any of the others was still another structure. There were no lights in that one, but he could see its pale shape in the faint moonlight. Probably the mausoleum, he thought, where the senator and the Colonel and various other members of the clan were entombed.
He looked at the mansion once more and wondered how he could hope to get inside it. Not only would there be guards, but every inch of the place would be covered by television cameras. And yet he couldn’t figure out a way in by staying where he was.
When he had a good fix on the layout of the estate, he tossed the line over the wall and reset the grappling hook, then eased himself down to the ground. Crouching low, he trotted across the long expanse toward the mansion, his gaze constantly sweeping the area.
A man stepped out the front door and into the recessed entry way.
Tolliver dropped facedown onto the frost-tipped grass. He could see that the guy was wearing a uniform and carrying a submachine gun.
The guard stayed in the entrance, apparently to keep out of the wind. A moment later, a match flared. He leaned against the wall, smoking his cigarette.
Getting to his feet, Tolliver again crouched low and ran toward the end of the mansion nearest him. When he reached it, he crept toward the rear of the building, hoping the man out front would be the only one on patrol. He turned the corner.
And ran head-on into another guard.
For a fraction of a second, both men gaped at each other. Then the guard grabbed for the submachine gun that was slung over his shoulder.
Tolliver was quicker. In one rapid motion, he reached behind him and snatched the Mauser from its holster, then shoved the muzzle into the guard’s left nostril.
“Don’t move,” Ben said. “And don’t make a sound.”
The man’s mouth was hanging open, his eyes fixed on the pistol that was halfway up his nose.
Ben held it there. “With two fingers,” he said, “take the strap off your shoulder and drop the gun on the ground.”
The guard did as instructed, never taking his eyes off the pistol. The submachine gun fell to the grass.
“Now your clothes.”
“What?”
“Your clothes. Take off your fucking clothes. And hurry.” He twisted the Mauser’s barrel. “But be careful. This might go off.”
The guard stripped, leaving his uniform and cap in a heap beside his weapon. When he was down to his skivvies, socks, and shoes, Ben stepped around behind him, pressing the pistol against the back of the guy’s neck.
Tolliver pointed to the wall. “We’re going there. Move.”
He steered the guard to the wall at an angle that kept them out of sight from the front of the mansion. When they reached it, Ben pushed the man along in front of him until they came to the place where the rope was dangling from the grappling hook.
He took off his belt and used it to bind the guard’s hands behind him. Then he put the pistol away and lashed the nylon rope to the belt, hauling on it until the man’s toes were barely touching the grass.
The guard gasped. “Christ, you’re gonna break my arms.”
“Don’t talk so much,” Ben said. He knelt and pulled off one of the man’s shoes, then his sock. Straightening up, he got out a handkerchief and stuffed it into the guard’s mouth, binding it in place by tying the sock around his jaw and knotting it behind his neck.
Lastly, Ben took off his blazer and draped it over the guy’s head.
Turning, he sprinted back the way he’d come, until he reached the place where the uniform and the submachine gun lay. He took off his pants and put on the uniform, buttoning the jacket up to his throat and tilting the cap low over his forehead. His pocketknife, keys, and the case containing his shield, he put into a back pocket.
Picking up the guard’s gun, he saw that it was an Uzi with a thirty-two-round magazine. He slung it over his shoulder and walked around the corner to the rear of the mansion.
Back here was a large lighted terrace and walks leading from it to formal gardens and the house on the beach. He crossed the terrace and gently tried the knob of one of the doors. It was unlocked.
He opened the door and cautiously pushed aside a heavy drapery.
This was a sitting room of some kind, and there was no one in it. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, then put the drapery back in place. For the next several seconds, he stood completely still, listening. No sound reached his ears; the great house seemed eerily quiet. He was aware of a TV camera mounted high in one corner.
Again moving with caution, he stepped out into the hallway. It was wide, with a vaulted ceiling and gold-framed portraits hanging from the walls. Most of the subjects were old-time politicians. Warren Harding was there, and Alfred E. Smith, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Walker, and others. Apparently, the Colonel had his kept his feet on both sides of the political fence.
Ben checked room after room, finding no one in any of them. He turned a corner and went down another hallway, opening more doors, with the same results.
At the end of the corridor, he peered into still another room, realizing that this one was a library.
Like everything else in the place, the room was constructed on a mammoth scale. Bookcases extended from the floor to the high ceiling, the upper shelves accessible via a balcony running around three of the walls. In the center of the fourth wall, at the far end of the room, was a stone fireplace big enough to roast an ox.
But it was the niches that were cut into the bookcases at ground level that caught his attention. There were more than a dozen of them, and in each one stood a statue of a Roman god. The figures were life-size, much larger than those he’d seen in Clay Cunningham’s office on Wall Street. They were made of bronze, blackened from age. Some of the effigies were male, some female.
He studied one that occupied a nearby niche. It was of a woman, holding a lance in one hand and a shield in the other, mounted on an ebony base. The inscription on the base said she was Juno Lucetia, the goddess of light.
Curious, he walked around the room, looking at the statues. Some of the names on the pedestals were familiar to him. Mars, for example, and Jupiter. But many of the others he’d never heard of. Such as Consus, the sower, and another female, called Pales, who, the legend said, was the protectress of flocks. That they’d survived down through the centuries, and in remarkably good condition, was amazing.
Again he thought of how different the Cunninghams’ lives were from those of ordinary people. Just one of these things would most likely be worth more money than he’d earned in his lifetime. Yet here was a whole collection of them, representing only a scrap of the family’s wealth.
He stepped to another niche and stared at a sculpture that was different from any of the others.
This god was male, with a deep, powerful chest and broad shoulders, crouched slightly in a wide stance. His left hand wore a cestus, the studded glove of a gladiator, and his right clutched a double-edged dagger. His muscles were tensed, as if he were poised to attack.
The face was different as well, neither heroic nor benign. Instead, the lips were drawn back to expose clenched teeth. Above a hooked nose, deep-set eyes glowered back at Tolliver with a hatred that made the bronze form seem startlingly alive.
The features reminded Ben of the faces he’d seen on career criminals, on psychopaths, killers who enjoyed their work.
He looked at the inscription on the ebony base. It read:
ORCUS
God of the underworld, god of death
Bearer of the damned to the inferno
It was like a punch in the gut.
Here he’d been trying to track down a name and had failed because he’d misspelled it. It wasn’t Orkis at
all, but Orcus.
And yet that was the way Silk had spelled it, too, when she wrote it on the pad in her kitchen. The phonetic spelling could mean she’d never seen the name, only heard it.
But no matter how anybody spelled it, Tolliver felt sure he’d found a direct link between her so-called suicide and the Cunninghams. The trouble was, he didn’t know any more than that. What did the name on a two-thousand-year-old statue have to do with Silk’s death?
He took one more look at the savage bronze features and then left the room to continue his prowl of the mansion.
79
The wind coming off the ocean had a sharp, salt-tanged bite. In the distance, Shelley could hear surf pounding on the beach. She avoided the walks, moving stealthily over the frost-encrusted lawns toward the sea.
Lights were showing in the beach cottage. As she advanced toward it, she saw that the architecture was similar to that of the mansion—Gothic, old, and ugly. It was two stories high, built of stone, with a hip roof and gables. A wide wooden veranda faced the sea.
Crouching low, she crept closer, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on inside. Peering into the windows on the ground floor, she could see figures moving about, but she wasn’t near enough to make out who they were. She inched forward.
And heard footsteps.
She stopped suddenly, her heart hammering in in her rib cage. Turning slowly, she saw that the sound was coming from the walk. A guard was stepping along, moving away from the cottage.
She watched him for a moment and then decided he was on routine patrol. She could make him out clearly in the glow of the lights from the cottage. He was a tall man in a gray uniform, carrying a walkie-talkie in one hand, an automatic weapon in the other. She waited until he was a considerable distance away, barely visible on the walk, and her pulse had returned to near normal. Then she resumed her approach.
Steps led up onto the veranda. She went up them slowly, wincing as the wood creaked, hoping the sound would be muffled by the roaring surf. Looking out toward the beach, she could make out the white crests of breakers crashing onto the sand.
She held her breath and, keeping her body lower than the windowsills, darted across the veranda and knelt beside the wall of the cottage. From inside, she could hear voices raised in an argument, but she couldn’t tell who was speaking. One voice might be that of Clay Cunningham, but she wasn’t sure.
The dispute grew louder. She raised her head, praying no one inside would be looking at the window at that moment.
No one was. Only one lamp was lighted, but she could see Clay shaking his fist and shouting at someone. “Goddamn it, we should’ve known what was going on. Should’ve realized it a long time ago.”
There were others present, but they were on the far side of the room and she couldn’t identify the shadowy figures. One of them said, “Let’s not argue about what we should have done. That doesn’t get us anywhere.”
Shelley strained to hear. The voice was soft and low-pitched and it was hard to tell whether it was male or female.
Another voice spoke up, this one unquestionably male: “The important thing is, it’s done. And the way I see it, the main issues are under control. Compared with them, these other problems are nothing.”
Clay turned in the direction the voice was coming from. “That’s the kind of thinking that caused the problems in the first place.”
“Go easy, will you?” the voice said. “It’ll all work out just the way we planned.”
“It damn well better,” Clay said. “And for God’s sake, get rid of that thing in the mausoleum!”
Shelley tensed. What thing?
“I told you,” the voice said, “it’ll be taken care of. For now, that’s the best place for it.”
One of the figures was coming toward the lamp. As he stepped into the pool of light, Shelley recognized Kurt Kramer. “Anybody want a drink?” he asked.
“I do,” Clay said. He turned back and seemed to glance toward the window. Shelley ducked, her pulse again racing.
From inside the room, she heard someone else say, “That’s better. Let’s all settle down a little, okay? Have a drink and relax.”
“Pour me a Scotch,” Kramer said. “I want to step outside for a minute, get some fresh air.”
Shelley felt a surge of panic. If she moved, they might hear or see her. If she didn’t, Kramer would spot her the minute he came out the door. Moving as quickly as she dared, she scuttled back across the veranda and rolled off the edge, dropping into a bank of shrubs at the foundation of the cottage.
She heard the door open, heard footsteps on the wooden floor of the veranda, coming toward her hiding place. They seemed to stop directly above where she was lying. Peering up, she found herself staring at Kurt Kramer.
He was looking out toward the ocean—wearing a heavy sweater, hands jammed into his pants pockets. If he so much as glanced down, he couldn’t miss seeing her.
Please, she thought. Make him keep on looking at the damn beach. Don’t let him look down.
He stood there for what seemed like forever, although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. She didn’t dare move a muscle or so much as blink. Kramer scratched his jaw and folded his arms, continuing to look toward the ocean. Then at last, he turned and went back inside.
Shelley let out her breath. She could hear voices once more, but from where she was now, she couldn’t make out a word of what was being said. She pulled herself up onto her knees, needles from the shrubs scratching her face. Then she got to her feet and, again bending low, ran as fast as she could away from the cottage.
Get rid of that thing in the mausoleum? What did that mean? And did she have the guts to find out?
When she was far enough away, she straightened up and raced across the grass, again staying clear of the walks.
The mausoleum was on the far side of the estate. She’d spotted it on her way out here. As she ran toward it, she could see the outlines of the structure, the white marble showing faintly in the reflected light from the helicopter pad.
80
The clatter of pots and pans told Tolliver he was near the kitchen. He rounded a corner, and saw that it was off to his left. People were moving around inside, apparently cleaning up.
There was a stairway on his right. He was about to go up it when he heard the heavy thump of footsteps on the treads. Ducking back against the wall, he watched as another guard came down the stairs.
Like all the others he’d seen, this guy was tall and burly. His uniform jacket was unbuttoned and he wasn’t wearing a cap. Nor was he carrying a weapon. The guard went across the hall and into the kitchen, where he began talking to one of the maids.
Apparently, the stairs led up to the guards’ quarters. If they did, Montrock’s room would be up there, as well. Tolliver was sure the security chief was one man who knew the secrets of this ancient pile of stone, and the people who owned it.
And whatever Montrock knew, it was time to force him to reveal it. Stepping quickly to the stairs, Ben went up them as quietly as he could.
On the floor above was a hallway with doors on either side and one at the end, facing him. If he was right about what was up here, the door at the end would be to Montrock’s room.
There was one other problem. A TV camera was mounted high on the wall, its fish-eye staring down into the hallway.
Ben knew there were dozens of rooms in the mansion. Which meant that, just as in the senator’s house in Manhattan and in the foundation building, the monitors wouldn’t show the interiors of all of them at once but would skip around at random. Or would show whatever somebody scanning told them to show. The odds, therefore, were in his favor.
He walked steadily down the corridor and when he came to the place where the camera was, he took off his cap. Reaching up, he dropped it over the camera. The move had taken no more than two seconds. If the monitor was to show one dead camera, no one would get upset about it, he reasoned, at least not for a while.
&
nbsp; Stepping to the door, he listened for several seconds. No sound came from inside. He tried the door and found it locked. The lock was the snap type; he got out his pocketknife and slipped the blade into the crack, forcing back the tongue and opening the door. He stepped inside, feeling for the light switch and flipping it on.
There was no one in the room.
He glanced about, taking in the furnishings. The room was large, with a bed and a dresser and a sitting area with a sofa and several comfortable chairs, an upright gun cabinet, a writing desk, and a TV plus a closet and a bathroom.
Tolliver had guessed right; on the desk was a bill from Exxon, addressed to Evan Montrock. He took the gun off his shoulder and laid it on a chair.
Going to the closet, he checked the contents. There was nothing in it but clothing and several pairs of shoes. He was about to back out when he glanced up at the shelf. There were two hats up there—one felt, the other a fur-trimmed cap.
And a slim black attaché case.
He pushed the hats aside and pulled down the case. It was made of fine-grain leather and was secured with a combination lock. Next to the handle were initials stamped in gold: JS.
He carried the case over to the desk and laid it on the surface. He pried open the lock with his knife and swung back the lid. The case contained a single brown manila envelope. Opening it, he took out a thick packet of photographs.
They were color prints, of good quality and in sharp focus. Most were four by six inches, but some were eight-by-tens. Each featured a man and a young woman in a sex act, some conventional, some bizarre. In many of them, the man was inflicting punishment on his partner, striking her with his fist or lashing her with a whip.
But the pictures weren’t what Ben had thought they’d be. For one thing, the women were all different. They were young and very good-looking.
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