by Warren Adler
“Still your girl,” she said.
“Maybe when we both stop trying to make it . . .” he began, his voice trailing off as he kissed her deeply. Make what? she wanted to ask, but held back, disinclined to start down that path again, questioning the priorities of their lives.
“Every once in a while, we’ll run away,” she breathed into his ear.
“To where?”
They made love, but the sense of loss weakened the pleasure; it was less sensual, more cerebral. It was a sharing neither of them could articulate. And in the end it boiled down to an airport farewell.
“I’ll call you when I get back on Tuesday,” he said. He kissed her lightly and picked up his bags.
“I’ll be waiting.”
When he left, she packed quickly. She did not want to stay in his house alone anymore.
10
IN the downpour, the old gingerbread State Department Building still retained a gloomy dignity; despite its name, EOB, Executive Office Building, old Washington hands still referred to it as Old State. To the east, the White House seemed like a varnished wedding cake preserved intact long after the nuptial party had left the ceremony.
The image amused him as he walked, head down against the rain gusting into his face. Government, with all its paraphernalia, its restrictions, its inhibitions, was not natural to the human condition. As Tad he might have thought otherwise. But as Czolgosz, he had to flog himself to accept that perception. Czolgosz believed that. It strengthened his motivation and goaded him to make his own historical contribution.
Remington’s hand slid into the right pocket of his raincoat. His fingers touched the cold barrel of the 32-caliber Ivor Johnson revolver, then moved deftly over the hard-rubber grip and the outline of the owl’s head stamped on either side. Another instrument of the grand design.
He had found it, miraculously, among his father’s effects, one of the many revolvers he always kept fully loaded at home. Once he had thought it a weird eccentricity. In those days he did not fully comprehend his father’s paranoia. But his father was acquisitive and greedy, his substance and energy fully devoted to the pursuit of more and more wealth. Once, too, Tad had resented being the beneficiary of such largesse, finally to appreciate it only when his mother put it at the service of her grand cause. Himself.
He lingered near the guard house that stood sentry at the parking lane between the White House and the Old State building. He wanted to take a short cut through the alley, which came out on the ellipse, cutting the distance to the Pan American Union Building where he was headed. The guard studied him for a moment then turned away, waving a car through the corridor.
I am Leon Czolgosz, he whispered; he pronounced it “Cholgosh,” in correct Polish, for the guard’s benefit. It was like a child’s dare, but the man was too far away to hear it. Moving past the spiked iron fence, he turned on Seventeenth Street and headed south. The west side of the Old State shielded him and he walked erectly, ignoring the rain, still fingering the gun. With his other hand he groped for the handkerchief in the left side pocket of his raincoat, rehearsing again what he had to do.
He had done it at home four times that morning, standing stark naked before his mirrors, observing himself while doing it: wrapping the handkerchief around the gun in his hand and then pulling the trigger of the empty gun. It had excited him and, as before, he had had an erection.
Last night had erased all doubts. The candidate had come, had touched him, indented his flesh with the mark of himself. On one of the mirrors, Tad had written in soap, JOHN DOE, the name Czolgosz had used when he checked into that Buffalo hotel nearly eighty years ago. He had decided not to go to Buffalo—surely the fates would allow him some leeway. He had learned enough authentic details to win approval from the great cosmic judge who was testing him for his obedience to courage and truth.
The ellipse was empty and silent. Few people were in the streets and the weather had foreshortened the perpetual line around the Washington Monument. The rain laid a glistening sheen on the grass and the manicured trees. He walked on the landscaped side of the street, which afforded him a clearer view of the Pan American Union Building, with its green rotunda and Spanish architectural style.
He glanced at his watch, then quickened his pace. It was nearly four. Ten minutes to go. The fact that it was a Saturday had caused him a fretful anxiety. Suppose the building were locked? It was another test that had to be passed. But as the day wore on, his anxiety had faded. Nothing could stop what he had to do. Not now.
As he moved closer to the Pan American Union Building, the tall ornate metal entrance doors opened and shut. A man came out, walking slowly. The building was obviously open for business. Why had he ever doubted that?
When he reached a point on the street directly across from the building, he looked at his watch again. Another six minutes. At ten after four, they had, all those years ago, put down the ropes and let in the crowd. Withdrawing his handkerchief, he wrapped it around the right hand that held the revolver, then replaced it in the pocket of his raincoat. With his free hand, he smoothed down the moustache he had pasted on his face and pulled the rainhat brim over his eyes.
He had rehearsed it so many times. The raincoat was reversible. Afterward, he would remove his hat, walk calmly out the front door, turn the corner, and slip into Constitution Hall a block away. There, he would wait in the men’s room until the rally was over. It was the site this afternoon, he remembered, of a religious convention. Another gift from providence. Odd, how little planning was needed, how perfectly things were programmed to fall into line. All he had to do was imagine them.
How laughable it was, all that newspaper and television attention given the shooting at the National Gallery of Art. A bonus for him—did they really think he could be stopped? And how laughable was that obtuse police captain proclaiming his department’s expertise. “We’ll find the perpetrator,” he had said, cocky and arrogant, his dark face threatening. How could they possibly understand that Damato was merely a surrogate, irrelevant to the grand pattern?
Again he looked at his watch, feeling the adrenalin surge, the tingle at the base of his spine, the suffusion of blood in the center of his body.
He tightened his finger on the trigger and walked across the street. There would be no hesitation, but this time he had to look into the man’s eyes; he had to see him. The connection had to be complete. At the exact moment, he was sure, a man would appear, a big man. The choice would be made for him.
He mounted the steps. The rain had quickened. Rivulets cascaded down the brim of his hat, and with his free hand he wiped away the moisture from his eyes.
Opening the door, he saw the guard eye him perfunctorily, then turn away. It didn’t matter. He knew he was immune. In front of him was a large atrium with a fountain in the center. On either side were huge symmetrical winding marble staircases. The interior was surprisingly light and he could hear, faintly, the staccato of the rain on the rotunda.
The place was deserted and the guard turned back to his newspaper. He sat at a wooden table near the staircase to the right.
Then there was a clicking sound, a man with leather soles moving swiftly as he descended the stairs on the left. Remington felt his heart pound in a thrill of discovery. The man was big, dark haired, middle-aged. He moved swiftly down the stairs, his hand on the brass banister. Remington walked forward and waited at the landing. He probed the eyes of the oncoming man. There was the faintest tremor of recognition. Perhaps, he wondered fleetingly, he knew this man, but he could not remember.
The man offered a tentative greeting, a neutral smile, and Remington pressed forward, lifting his handkerchiefed hand as though to return the greeting. He felt an intense joy as the man came toward him, still smiling. A mysterious power radiated from his core through the muscles of his right hand, then down to his fingers.
“Buenos dias,” the man said.
His response was the pressure of a finger. He felt the jerk as the bullet le
ft the chamber, aimed directly at the man’s chest. Calmly, he pointed the barrel leftward to the man’s abdomen and fired again, and suddenly felt the handkerchief catch on fire.
It was still burning as he opened the doors and ran down the outside stairs, not looking back. Turning the corner, he ran into an alley, smothered the flames with his coat, reversed it, removed his hat, then moved calmly through the street until he reached Constitution Hall.
People milled in the lobby. He found the men’s room, ducked into an empty booth and sat fully dressed on the toilet seat. His hand was badly singed, the skin blackened and painful.
“Something burning,” someone said. He looked through the crack in the booth. Two men searched the towel bin for signs of fire, then, discovering none, left the men’s room. He left the booth, washed his hands, and felt the pain as the water hit the burned flesh. Lifting his eyes, he saw himself in the mirror. The moustache was awry. He tore it off and flushed it down the toilet along with the remnants of the singed handkerchief.
In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens. A man came in and stood in front of a urinal. The sirens grew louder.
“Trouble,” the man mumbled. “Satan’s work.”
“God’s,” Remington said hoarsely. The man stared at him with raised eyebrows, then returned to his business.
Men crowded into the lavatory after the religious rally ended. They were somber, colorless, like figures carved from the same bar of soap. He left unobtrusively. People jammed the lobby, escaping from the driving rain. He could see policemen in slickers searching the crowd. Had they a clear description of him? It hardly mattered. The signs were clear; he was divinely protected, the only bona fide messenger of God in the crowd.
For all his sense of invulnerability, the police observation urged caution. He looked around at the faces in the crowd. Next to him, an older woman stared glumly into the rain.
“Summer rain,” she said. “It was nice when we came in.”
“God’s will,” he said.
The lady wore a straw hat with faded flowers and a black print dress. She looked at him through sad pinched gray eyes set in chicken skin sacks.
“My car is two blocks away.”
He saw his escape clearly now. The policemen in their slickers studied the departing crowd. Occasionally they would stop someone, males about his height and build, and ask questions.
There was a moment when the rain eased and the crowd in the lobby surged outward. He took off his raincoat and put it over his head.
“Duck under,” he said to the woman. She stooped under him and they edged forward into the rain. With the lady in tow, he walked through the police gauntlet. They crossed the street without incident. Yet another sign, he thought.
“That was very kind of you,” the woman said. He continued to hold the raincoat over her as she opened the door of her car.
“Can I give you a lift?”
He nodded his thanks and slid in beside her. Surely an invisible hand emerged at every turn to guide him.
“I live in Arlington,” the woman said, jockeying the ’75 Chevy out of the parking space. The car moved past the new State Department Building, made a left on Twenty-Third and headed for the Memorial Bridge.
“This is fine,” he said as the car reached the Lincoln Memorial circle. He had not intended to leave the car at that moment. The memorial was not in the most convenient spot. He thanked the lady and got out.
The rain had become relentless again and the great Grecian shrine to the martyred President glistened in the milky light. A few tourists carrying umbrellas trudged up the long staircases to the majestic sculpted figure deep in reflection.
Rain cascaded over his bare head, down his neck, wetting his back. As if drawn by a magnet, he ascended toward the giant seated figure.
Towering above him was the Great Emancipator, the Captain, the Commander-in-Chief, the man who saved the Union. He looked up at the somber bearded white figure, high in his lofty chair, eyes brooding under the massive brow. He searched the man’s face and felt that Lincoln was watching him as well. Again the cosmic connection surged through him, touching every nerve, every sensor in his being. The hand of the martyred President seemed to reach out, touching him.
He did not know how long he stood there. When he recovered his sense of place, it had turned dark, the rain had stopped. The memorial was deserted. Lincoln, too, had cast his eye elsewhere.
He moved toward the bridge, past the massive brass horses shining in the reflected lamplight. Cars drove swiftly past him as he walked at a steady pace over the footpath. Occasionally, he glanced over the stone railing at the murky Potomac beneath him. He darted through the traffic on the Virginia side and cut across the grass island to the Arlington Cemetery station of the Metro.
In the deserted station he waited patiently for a train. He felt thrill after thrill of pleasure, signs of validation. He alone had been chosen to execute the grand plan. As he stepped into the train he felt radiant, gloriously alive.
11
THE body of the dead man, Jorge Perfidio, flesh peeled away like a banana skin, innards exposed, lay in the glare of the bright fluorescent lights on the medical examiner’s autopsy table. With so many spectators crowded around the action, it looked like a demonstration for a cooking class, a lesson in butchery. Out of a corner of her eye, Fiona observed the eggplant, his face glistening with perspiration, scowling at the corpse as Dr. Benton’s fingers maneuvered an instrument into the carcass of the dead man, his apron stained with bile and blood.
Directly in front of her were two men from the FBI, an official from the Executive Protection Agency and another neatly dressed intense man, whose officious look marked him unmistakably as Central Intelligence Agency. There were others—Roy Howard, the chief himself, God Almighty in their special police universe, an unsmiling middle-aged black man. Beside him stood two nervous men from the Argentine embassy. In the background she caught a glimpse of Teddy’s gray, gloomy face. Jorge Perfidio was the Argentine representative to the Organization of American States.
Fiona was deliberately hanging back, not wishing to appear conspicuous. Teddy had called her, wakening her from a sound sleep. She had come off duty at midnight and found it impossible to sleep until ten, keeping busy by cleaning her apartment, dusty from her summer’s absence. Their paths had not crossed since their separation.
“It reminded me of the Damato case, Fi. I got scene.” He sounded agitated, talking police shorthand. He explained that a man had been shot in the lobby of the Pan American Union Building, and sketched in the details. To both of them, the Damato case had been traumatic, changing the course of their police careers. It was a natural impulse on Teddy’s part to seek vindication in some way. There was no doubt why he had called.
“He was DOA,” Teddy said. “There was a guard witness. This one had fantasies. Said that the killer’s right hand spit fire.”
“Like an avenging angel.” The comment reminded her of her father and his vivid religious imagery.
“We got a height and sex fix. A man in a raincoat. Medium height. He was bundled up. Wore a hat.” Teddy paused as if reading from a notebook. “Apparently the Argentinian was walking down the stairs. Then bang bang.”
“And the gun?”
“If it’s the same one, the shit will hit the fan. The eggplant will have a hemorrhage. Why the hell did it happen to me?”
“Hell, you could close it. Be a hero.”
“No way. There’s not one fucking real clue. But I know they’re connected. I know it.”
“Take it easy.”
“I just thought you’d like to know. Maybe you can help.”
“Maybe.” But she doubted it.
“Look at it from my point of view. I tell you, Fi, it’s going to be like last time.”
Had they missed something? It had nagged at her, a lingering itch that would not go away.
She knew what he meant. Destiny had struck the poor bastard a rotten blow. It was okay to abus
e a woman, to ridicule her ability, but fate had set him up to be a scapegoat. A white male!
“The body is over at the medical examiner’s now. I’m going. Everybody’s going.”
“So am I,” she said, jumping out of bed.
But when she started to dress, she realized her tactical stupidity. It wasn’t her case, it wasn’t her business. She was about to give them something else to resent about her.
Dictating into a small microphone headset, Dr. Benton described the wounds, traced the path of the bullets, one of which had punctured the heart. The other had struck the left side of the abdomen and passed through both the outer and inner walls of the stomach.
As he paused in his dictation, Fiona noted that his eyes had squinted, had become reflective, as if his mind had paused to contemplate something he couldn’t pin down. She didn’t have time to wonder about it. The ping of an extracted bullet on a metal tray alerted everyone in the room.
“A thirty-two,” one of the FBI men said.
“Sure?” the eggplant asked. The FBI man nodded. The eggplant’s sense relief was tangible and he lit a cigarette. He looked over to Fiona and smiled, obviously relieved by the lack of connection to the previous killing. Her own feelings were ambivalent. Had she actually wished for the connection?
“This one looks political,” the eggplant said, clearing his throat.
“Well, it’s finally come,” the chief agreed.
The Argentinians looked at each other as if they possessed some secret knowledge.
“Everything is political,” one of them said.
“So far, we’ve pretty well managed to avoid this terrorist shit. Hate to see it happen here,” the eggplant said.
He was going to great pains to sell the idea. Lucky bastard. She could understand the ploy. No need to stir up dying embers. Suddenly Dr. Benton popped another bullet into the metal tray.