The Great Pretender: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  Orson sighed. “I suppose my mind is just more open to such things than yours is. I still believe in… let’s call them possibilities. God, the Devil, even ancient Gods, potentially, if the case is made even a little. You see, old man, Christianity is built on the bones and symbols of now-dead religions that once meant every bit as much to their believers as all we hold dear means to us Christians. The so-called prophets were no different than we are as artists—quietly borrowing inspiration here and there like magpies.”

  Hector held his tongue about all that. He just said, “The Germans can have the goddamn lance for all I care. The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, too. They can take ’em all to some salt mine in Germany. Just symbols. Totems, at best. Seems to me that faith is the point, regardless what name you give your God. I’m not going to let Virginia, Christopher and Cassie die for some damned myth, for some mere metaphor.”

  “A mere metaphor,” Orson repeated. “That from the mouth of a career author, a present-day myth-maker. Pardon me if I confess grave disappointment in you for that.”

  Hector counted ten. He took a deep breath. He resisted saying, “The disappointment is all mine, young man. You young, self-centered fool.”

  Instead, Hector said, “This is going to be straight trade, no tricks and no arguments. I’d spare you the view and the lung-troubling air up there, but they insisted on us both being there, in the flesh, for the swap.”

  Orson said, “It’s my family whose lives are in the balance, along with your girlfriend’s life of course. So absolutely, I must be there. I must parlay with them.”

  CHAPTER 22

  CIRCLE OF DEATH

  Two strangers rode up in the elevator with Hector and Orson, getting on at the ground floor with the author and actor and staying on all the way up to the eightieth floor. There, they all transferred to another elevator in order to reach the eighty-sixth floor and its observation deck, tension mounting in the attenuated silence.

  Significantly, although he was convinced the two men were shadowing he and Orson, Hector also got the sense the pair of strangers was not otherwise allied. On the contrary, they struck him as antagonists, if they were anything at all to one another.

  As they stepped out into the fierce crosswinds of the observation deck, Hector and Orson saw a number of people were taking the view, arms resting on the slightly higher-than-waist-level wall. Many began to move from those walls when they saw Lassiter and Welles.

  Factions defined themselves—five strapping Germans lined up to their left. Six more, with Cassie and the Welles family in tow, gathered to their right.

  Behind the actor and the writer a voice, American, called out above the crosswinds: “Mr. Welles, Mr. Lassiter. We’re the U.S. government, and we’re here to help.” A pause, then a “You’ll no doubt be relieved to know that.”

  Suppressing a groan, Hector half-turned. He saw ten men at their flank.

  A few milling tourists gawked and looked nervous. The civilians were obviously, painfully trying to figure if it was better to vacate the observation deck or simply act as if nothing odd was going on.

  The two men who’d rode up on the elevators with them chose their respective sides—one lining up with the group that held the hostages, the other with the contingent of self-declared government agents massing behind them.

  Hector called above the wind to Cassie, “You three are safe and sound? No hanky-panky?”

  Cassie was wearing what appeared to be some too-large, borrowed coat. She yelled back, “We’re okay. They’ve behaved.” She nodded at their German captors. “So far…”

  “These government types,” Hector continued, “friends of yours?”

  “Maybe,” Cassie said. “Just not at all sure. I know none on sight, anyway.”

  One of those men who might or might not be allied with Cassie said in a strong Boston accent, “You give the medallion to us, Mr. Lassiter. These Germans here, both bunches of them, can surely do the math. We out-number them, two-to-one. Got more guys at their backs, as you now see. We have much more firepower, too.”

  The nameless U.S. agent continued to prattle on, but Hector lost the thread, frowning as Virginia and Cassie’s hats suddenly took flight.

  Some Germans’ and G-Mens’ fedoras were similarly torn from their heads by the strangely shifting wind.

  The women’s hair—the little girl’s, too—began to whip in an entirely new direction. It was as though the wind’s direction had changed on a dime.

  Then Hector saw them—three autogiros, each fitted with a mounted machine gun.

  “They are ours,” the German called out proudly. “Our Valkyries!”

  Hector leaned in close to Orson’s ear. “Looks like we’re back to my plan, kid.”

  “Your plan,” Orson repeated. He did that with an almost curled lip. Hector felt a little more of his affection for his young friend crumble.

  Hector called out to the crowd, “Easy there, boys! I came to barter for the ladies’ lives and I mean to do just that.” He smiled at Cassie. “Sorry, darling,” he called out above the roar of the wind, over the whip of the autogiros’ blades. “Uncle Sam doesn’t win this one. But from where I stand, it’s a sucker’s game, anyhow. Just fables and folly, fellas. Winner take nothing.”

  Hector steadied himself with a hand on Orson’s shoulder. Balanced on one leg, he tore the bag holding the medallion loose from where he’d secured it below his knee.

  Holding the authentic medallion in his right hand, Hector called out, “You send the ladies to me, and I’ll roll the medallion to you.”

  The FBI agents said, “Mr. Lassiter, we will shoot you in the back if you try to do this.”

  “Roll it slowly,” one of the German’s said. “Gently. Nothing to damage it, or its directions.”

  Orson took Hector by the arm. Guns pointed from every direction shifted from Hector to Orson’s heart and head. Swallowing, gathering his courage, Orson said to Hector, “Please. It’s my family’s life in the balance. Give me the medal. I’ll make the exchange. With my connections to Roosevelt, even Hoover’s thugs surely won’t shoot me. Let it be on my soul if it should all bring the heavens down when the German’s have the spear. Anyway, my girls need to see me do this. They at least need to see me try and do this. You must know what they must think of me right now.”

  “Don’t talk crazy,” Hector said, pushing away Orson’s hand.

  It was the closest Hector had ever seen Orson come to begging. “Please, old man, my wife, my baby girl—I need to do this. They need to see me do this, just as I said. Surely you of all people must see how that’s so, old man.” A hurt smile. “After all, you’re my friend. My only true friend.”

  Hector hesitated. He said at last, “Then we’ll do this together. Shoulder-to-shoulder, we walk toward those Germans.”

  Orson leaned in close, whispered, “Old man, it won’t come as news I’ve been less than the perfect husband. Far less the father that I meant to be. Less the father than I should have been to poor Chris. Doing this, making this trade, especially when they later know the enormity of the stakes? Hector, it could go some real distance to repairing past transgressions.”

  Biting his lip, assessing Orson standing there with puppy dog eyes and gloved hand extended in expectation, Hector tried to weigh Orson’s words and demeanor against that of an accomplished—even a megalomaniac—actor.

  In the end, Hector just couldn’t bring himself to think so little of his young, precocious and sometimes selfish friend.

  Hector said, “I can truly trust you to do the right thing here?”

  “Of that I promise,” Orson said. “You can truly trust me to do just that very thing—that thing I think right.”

  With lingering hesitation, Hector passed the metal disc into Orson’s hands.

  “Thank you most sincerely, old man,” Orson said. “You are my one and truest friend.” The autumn light caught the diamond in Orson’s dark eye. “I won’t disappoint you, I swear.” His blacked-gl
oved hand closed over the medallion.

  Turning, holding the glittering piece of metal up for all to see, Orson yelled above the wind, above the continuing roar of the three aircraft engines, “Do you all know the tale of Solomon?”

  Already regretting entrusting the medallion to the actor, Hector said, “Just make the goddamn trade and be done with it, kid. This isn’t theater-in-the-round.”

  “Of course it is,” Orson said. “It’s exactly that. All the world’s a stage, yes? And upon it we just strut and fret, am I not right?” Orson pressed on, louder, “Solomon, faced with two women, each claiming to be the mother of the same child, suggested the babe be cut in half so both of the women could claim a piece. When one demurred, when she rebelled at Solomon’s unthinkable suggestion, he declared that woman the victor. Solomon figured she was clearly the true mother because of her intended sacrifice and so awarded her custody of the unharmed child. And then there is the tale of Alexander and the Gordian knot…”

  All the while, as he spoke, Orson slowly turned around, speaking to all factions. “This is all a way of saying that, faced with making an impossible choice, the wise man simply cuts to the chase—takes the obvious, but unthinkable course of action. As a magician, I surely know something about sawing things in half.”

  Orson held up the medallion again, letting it catch the autumn light for all to see. Then, with a flourish, he turned his hand, letting the medallion rest on his outstretched left palm. He passed his other gloved hand over the disc, then raised both hands to show them suddenly empty.

  Yells. Freshly leveled and cocked guns from all sides, all of them now trained on the young actor. Virginia screamed, “Orson, please! My God, no!”

  Hector took a step toward Orson, then stopped as roughly half of the guns turned his way again. The American faction’s leader screamed, “Goddamn it! We will not hesitate to shoot either of you. Give the medallion to me.”

  Empty hands held high, Orson smiled and said, “Please, don’t overreact. Forgive an actor a moment of bad judgment. Forgive a magician the temptation to lighten tensions with a little harmless sleight of hand. A moment’s amusement.” He reached into his pocket, then extended his right hand, the medallion safely cradled there. “There, you see,” Orson called out. “This bauble, this thing you all desire. Behold, look hard upon your false idol.” His voice turned poisonous. “Do that, and despair.”

  Spinning, coat tails whipping darkly around him, Orson whirled faster, gathering force. He chucked the disc high into the air, hurled it right on over the edge of the world’s tallest building.

  Gasps.

  Men—German and American—cursed in their respective languages and surged to the waist-high walls, trying to catch sight of the falling disc and its path to the earth.

  Hector waited for some pedestrians’ screams from far below or the angry blast of horns as the heavy piece of metal struck down some innocent civilian or crashed through the windshield of a car or cab.

  From this height, with its weight, the medallion was more than a lethal object.

  Hector also waited for the burn of a bullet, for the terrible vision of Cassie, Christopher or Virginia’s head torn open by a cascade of retaliatory cartridges.

  There was nothing but the sound of the wind and the autogiros’ chopping blades.

  Virginia Welles’ eyes accused her husband. The actor seemed truly taken aback by that. Why that should be so Hector couldn’t fathom. Hell, he wanted to chuck Orson off the Empire State right after the cursed medallion.

  Cassie broke the silence—she had the presence of mind and foresight to strategically move the ball. She yelled out, “What are you all waiting for? You can’t shoot the most famous man in the world right now. You can’t shoot anyone and get away clean from up here. The medallion is now down there somewhere! If you’re not going to go down and search for it, I certainly am.”

  A moment’s hesitation, then a scramble to the elevators.

  Hector, Orson, and the three women were left alone on the observation deck with a smattering of horrified tourists. Those last quickly began to flee behind the German and American agents of various stripes and allegiances.

  Hector continued to study Orson.

  The author shook his head and at last said to the actor, “You crazy, selfish reckless bastard.”

  ***

  Halloween was just one hour from arriving—the veritable witching hour looming large.

  The four of them sat in Orson’s den; it was testy in all directions.

  The actor said, “You really must forgive me, old man. You really must, you know, Hector. I’m sure that Virginia has done so by now. I mean now that she knows the true stakes.”

  Virginia was ice: “I don’t care about stakes. I care about Christopher. You put her at risk. You put both of us as risk with your little silly magic trick up there.”

  Orson swallowed hard. He managed a smile. “Anyway, the good news is bronze isn’t durable at all. Falling from that height, the impact no doubt did terrible damage to the thing. The impact at least terribly distorted the medal, assuming any of them ever even find whatever is left. Most likely, the fall rendered it useless as a map.”

  “Off the point,” Virginia said.

  Hector’s thoughts were elsewhere. He said, “And the fake medallion, do you still have it?”

  Orson shook his head. “I guess you didn’t notice the unfortunate tailoring of my coat tonight. Rather, its lack. I know I didn’t until it was too late.” An embarrassed smile. “You see, in our haste to make the rendezvous, it seems I apparently grabbed the wrong overcoat. It fit me like a tent, the sleeves nearly reaching my fingernails, as you apparently didn’t notice. So far as I can tell, that copy you had made of the medallion is now in the hands of some confused newsman or equally befuddled Mercury player who has my coat.” A long pause, then a shrug. “It really has been quite the confusing muddle, hasn’t it?”

  Cassie rose, extended a hand to Hector. She said coldly, “Either way, seems it’s over now. The disc, such as it might be, is still in the wind, so to speak. All interested parties saw it pitched off a skyscraper and you and your friend are now off the hook.” She hesitated, then said, “You and I? Much to discuss.” She smiled at Hector. “You should treat me to dinner somewhere. Say goodbye to your friend and let’s do that right now, yes?”

  Hector wanted to be away from Orson too. He took her hand and said, “You pick the place, Cass.”

  CHAPTER 23

  HEARTS OF AGE

  They were once more sitting at a table near the front of Café Society, Billie Holiday singing a too-resonant version of “My First Impression of You.”

  Cassie raised her glass, said, “In the end I’m convinced I was right from the start. Your young friend’s a world-class jerk. I truly hate him right now.”

  “Not feelin’ so warmly disposed toward him either about now, if you haven’t gathered,” Hector said. He nursed a Jack and Coke. He had no appetite for booze presently. That was a rarity these years.

  Cassie was having a second red wine. “He got me fired, you know. That stunt up there cost me my job.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hector said. “But I guess now that nobody has the disc—Christ only knows where the thing landed—they all stand down.”

  If so, it was not the worst news for Hector and Orson.

  For his part, Hector figured the disc was probably resting on some parapet or ledge of the Empire State Building. At least once or twice, a would-be suicide had been thwarted in their fatal dives to the pavement—swept back and deposited upon some lower ledge of the building by the monstrous upward drafts of wind roaring up the sides of the skyscraper from the streets of Manhattan. Those colossal updrafts had rendered the building’s distinctive dirigible mooring mast an engineering impracticality.

  Hector continued to finger his drink, watching Billie slink across the stage as the band played on. “So what’s next for you, darling?”

  “I suppose, it’s back to N
ew Orleans,” Cassie said. “Back to that little voodoo shop in the French Quarter. I have enough money to try and make a go of it again, for a time.”

  She took his hand, the one she had said told the story of his future. She turned his hand over to expose its palm and traced its lines with a long fingernail. “It’s a wicked city, in a sense,” Cassie said. “One that would tolerate the likes of us together, in ways that most other cities in this country won’t.” A cautious smile. “You game to try that, darling?”

  Cassie looked around them at other couples. Some of those were clearly mixed, and some of those daring couples even held hands. A smaller percentage of interracial couples were actually presuming to exchange kisses in public.

  She said, “C’mon, just answer. Think you might make it to the Big Easy, Tex?”

  Hector certainly couldn’t see visits running the other way—not since he’d begun to detect this growing white supremacy movement based on his new island home in Puget Sound.

  He still had that little bungalow or shotgun shack in Key West, of course—Brinke’s purchase, initially.

  He could move back there, he supposed, another rare place in the States where their relationship would be better tolerated if Cassie might fail to “pass” from time to time—something that might actually be harder for her to do after a few months of deep bronzing under the Gulf rays. But that prospect, too, held complications from Hector’s perspective.

  Too vivid memories of Brinke crowded that island for one, as well as memories of the other woman who’d recently claimed a part of his heart down there on Bone Key, the vexing Rachel Harper.

  Key West was just a too-small dab of sand in that way, far too crowded with painful remembrances, old and new.

  And then there was Hemingway.

  The prospect of Hector and Ernest presently not speaking yet living on that same postage stamp of an island? That would surely be a misery all its own.