A Matter of Time

by Glen Cook

  “Ah, I see.” The clerk winked.

  Michael smiled, then asked the doorman to hail a cab. He tipped generously.

  It was Huang’s money.

  He studied the Hardy identity during a brief journey. And within a half hour was in a second cab, studying again, after having taken a small room as Thomas Hardy.

  That afternoon he obtained wigs, theatrical makeup, and new clothing. And surgeon’s gloves.

  They should have provided the latter with the rifle.

  Wigs were a must for the concert hall. His military-style haircut stood out like the sex of a male interloper in the girls’ locker room at showertime. He was lucky he was traveling German. The English expected Germans to look like soldiers on leave.

  Then he tried pushing his luck, and the calm, talent, and training of the man within him.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Hardy?” the rental officer asked.

  He had been frantically rehearsing his driving. And had forgotten that the British did everything bass-ackward.

  “This is my first trip to England. I forgot all about right-hand steering. On the Continent —”

  “I should have realized, sir. I’m sorry. We do have a little left-hand Simca automatic.”

  “Fine. Perfect. The Jag really wasn’t me anyway.” What had made him choose that beast? This was no time for doing a Walter Mitty-playing-James Bond number.

  “On the expense ledger, sir?” The attendant began processing the new papers.

  “Yes. You know how it is.”

  “I wish I did, sir. I wish I did. I didn’t ask before. Not polite, you know. But I wondered... you’re from Ottawa...?”

  “Yes?” Michael’s heart crept toward his throat. He didn’t even know where in Canada Ottawa was.

  “I wondered if you’d ever heard of a Mr. Charles Allen Underhill, sir. That’s me mum’s brother. He emigrated after the war.”

  “I’m sorry. No.”

  “Ah, I expected so. And him always writing Mum what a big name he is over there.”

  “That’s human nature.”

  “Aye, sir, that it is. Just sign and we’re ready to go.” Michael slid the Simca into traffic without giving himself away, then spent two hours puttering around like an old man, relearning his driving. He did so in mortal terror of an accident. If the police noticed him now...

  He survived. To rent another room and another car — a Volkswagen. He took them under the Spuk name. The room included garage privileges. He moved the Simca there, then drove the Volkswagen back to his original base.

  He was leaving tracks, he knew. But time was tight. Corners had to be cut. The important thing was to keep the trail just obscure enough to give him a reasonable chance of reaching Hamburg.

  The maid had been in during his absence. He panicked, rushed to the attache case. But it hadn’t been disturbed. He sighed.

  “Got to get ahold of myself,” he muttered., He began calling travel agents, scattering a dozen Bremer-haven reservations in three names, and air passages to Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich. And made a mental note to get a road map so he could study the approaches to Dover. As a last resort he would try for Calais. He threw himself on the bed.

  “Why don’t I just tool over to the U.S. Embassy?” he muttered to himself. “I could turn myself in. They’d take care of me.” He thought of his children, Michael and Tiffany, and one whose name he didn’t know, one unborn till after his capture. Little Mike ought to be ready for junior high... so many years. So soon gone.

  Then he thought of Ilse, and another son, and the debriefing the Americans would put him through. It would be easier just to go on.

  The desk clerk called. His tickets had arrived. He thanked the man and instructed him to obtain the same box for the final performance, then asked not to be disturbed before noon tomorrow.

  It was time to commence the evening’s adventure. He began by taking two aspirin.

  He took his attache case along, after emptying it of all but innocuous papers. He drove the VW to the garage where he had left the Simca, switched, went on to where he had registered as Hardy. There he changed clothing.

  Imitative of the era of George III, his outfit was an eye-grabber. He added makeup and a long-haired blond wig.

  Finding a parking space near the hall proved impossible. First point of adjustment. He would have to position the car during the afternoon, and arrive by cab for the critical performance.

  There was no trouble with the case. No one paid any attention. His clothing, the limp caused by the stone he had put in his shoe, the winestain birthmark painted on his cheek and throat, proved sufficient distractions.

  Inside, he reflected that he should have brought the weapon in now and have hidden it....

  But that would have aborted his two A.M. practice session on the bank of the Thames.

  That didn’t begin encouragingly. He used all five target and two killing rounds before he trusted his weapon. He selected the sternlight of a moored barge for his final check shot.

  It shattered. He departed to the muted, mystified curses of a river man.

  Two rounds remaining.

  He would need just one.

  He would use it right up front, while they were spotlighting the members of the band, while the audience was still mesmerized by the show. Three to four seconds exposure for each musician. Plenty of time. If he timed his shot, his target wouldn’t fall till after the spot had traveled on. There would be mild confusion at first. Twenty to thirty seconds would pass before anyone realized there was something badly wrong. He would be down to the side exit by then.

  The lights would come up. More confusion. Time to reach the Simca. Panic. Screams of “Murder!” and “Police!” He should have the Simca off the street before it began settling out. He would become Hardy, aging himself with makeup, and be on the road again, in the VW, before the police showed any real life.

  Would they seal all exits from the country? It seemed unlikely. They would have no reason to believe it a political killing. A grudge killer would just go home. Anyway, they wouldn’t want to antagonize thousands of travelers when Britain needed every tourist mark and dollar. He didn’t think that they would develop a reliable description before the unavoidable traces he had left had begun to surface. He would have a damned good chance of being over the Czech border, or at least into Austria, by then.

  And the exposed trail would end at Hamburg.

  Only bad luck could stop him. Or his own weakness.

  He began to feel optimistic in spite of the haste of the mission.

  But would he squeeze the trigger when the moment came?

  He slept. And dreamed a nightmare in which his pursuers had run him into farm country resembling that surrounding the city where he had been raised. He lay exhausted, behind a treeline, near the top of a low ridge. They were coming toward him across a newly harvested cornfield, spread out in a broad skirmish line. They wore dress-blue police uniforms. Some were close enough to make easy targets. But when he laid the crosshairs on the nearest, he found himself looking into the face of his father.

  He woke in a sweat, shaking. And immediately began practicing assembling his weapon.

  He kept at it till he could do it without thinking, while concentrating on something else. Then he packed, went over the room till he was sure he had left no fingerprints, and checked out. He drove to the Spuk hideout, repeated his erasures. Then he took the Simca and parked it within a block of the concert hall.

  A cab delivered him to his third address, where he changed into the Georgian costume, worked on the rifle, and scrubbed fingerprints again.

  What a stir those would cause if found and identified.

  And how unhappy the director would be.

  Michael waited till he could enter the hall with a surge of young people. Again no one challenged the attache case.

  Only the starscope, a baggy American leisure suit, a wig, and his makeup lay within. Not one person in a thousand would have recognized the scop
e. The rifle barrel was down his left side, beneath his shirt. Its breach he held clamped in his armpit. The silencer he had tucked inside his waistband at the small of his back. The rifle stock he had cut off at the handgrip. The rest wouldn’t be necessary for this shot. What remained he had thrust down the tight pants over the “bad” leg. The long coat concealed the bulges.

  He wouldn’t have fooled anyone watching for weapons smugglers. But gunrunners don’t do business at rock concerts.

  And people don’t see anything they don’t expect to see.

  He hurried to a balcony level rest room, locked himself into a stall, quickly changed clothing and makeup. The rifle parts went into his bag. Everything else went into a waste can, beneath used paper towels, while the rest room was momentarily empty. He emerged looking a shopworn forty-five and faggoty, a man people would move away from without knowing why.

  Trial chords reverberated through the auditorium.

  The worst would be over in minutes.

  “Snake, Snake, why the hell did you have to be so damned stubborn?” he muttered.

  And thought, Mr. Director, how long do you expect to last if I survive this?

  He moved to his box. As the house lights dimmed he assembled his weapon. He was cool, calm, without fear or thought. Training had taken over.

  XXVII

  On the Y Axis;

  1975

  Norm would have slept through a good chunk of Saturday if Lieutenant Railsback had let him. But the man was on the phone by eleven. By noon Cash was on his way to the station, his car loaded.

  Tran and Matthew chattered in back. Beside him, Beth was being Miss Efficiency.

  “I called your friend last night. Frank Segasture. He said he’d meet us at the airport.”

  The “us” slipped past Norm. “What? What did you tell him? He’s one of those people who think that if you cross the New York City limit you fall off the edge of the world.”

  “I just told him what happened. He’s really a pretty nice guy.”

  He saw the huntress’s gleam in her eye. “But very married, babe.”

  “They all are.”

  He glanced at her sharply, then leaned, whispered, “What happened to Teri last night?”

  “I took her home after John’s wife showed up.”

  A ball of snakes began wriggling in his belly. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Your wife was cool. Just introduced her as a family friend who hadn’t been around for years. I guess John didn’t tell his wife about his premarital adventures. She didn’t react to the name.”

  “Good for Annie. We’ve got troubles enough already.”

  For a moment he listened in on Tran and Matthew. Matthew was making pronouncements on Vietnamese issues with all the authority of a self-taught expert who had been in grade school and high school during the U.S. involvement. He just didn’t know. Though some of his assertions came right off the wall, Tran didn’t seem offended.

  “I think your wife is on your side now,” Beth observed. “I saw her packing your things this morning. And she said she’d just gotten back from the bank when I woke up.”

  “Good. Must have been the explosion that changed her mind. She’d already rung him in on me by then.” He jerked a thumb at Matthew. He knew damned well that Annie had asked Matthew to come home to talk him out of going to Rochester.

  “It’s not hard to understand.”

  “I know. It’s because she cares, because she’s scared. But she makes me feel trapped sometimes.”

  The station was anything but normal for a Saturday morning. There were people everywhere, including some brass from downtown.

  The Homicide office was besieged. Reporters recognized Norm as one of the principal investigators, began plaguing him for a statement. They filled the hallway.

  Tom Kurland had come upstairs to stand guard on the office door. “Should have accepted Andy’s confession,” Cash told him.

  “Should have.” Kurland grinned, opened the door.

  “What the hell?” Cash grumbled after he had shepherded his group inside and helped Tom close the door again.

  “We made the network news,” said Smith, passing.

  There were more people in the office than at the height of the last Christmas party. Beth’s desk had become a command center. Cash felt an urge to throw people out. But everybody appeared to have more right to be there than did either of his guests.

  “That Norm out there?” Railsback called. “Tell him to come in.”

  The captain was there with Hank, but had nothing to say. He greeted Cash with a curt nod.

  “Norm, we’re getting it from downtown. Both barrels. They want some answers, and some arrests, yesterday. Must be an election coming up, the way City Hall is bitching and moaning.”

  “So? We knew it was coming. We’ve lived through it before.” But he didn’t feel confident. There was too good a chance that he would lose his job. The best he hoped for was a demotion to patrolman.

  “Captain? “Hank said.

  The man nodded, left. He closed the door behind him.

  “Norm, I did some plain and fancy talking this morning. The division has permission to reimburse you for your travel, meals, and lodging. So get receipts. We’ll pay off when we get next quarter’s LEA funds.”

  “Huh?”

  “For your trip to New York.”

  Once again Hank had taken him by surprise.

  In a soft, cold voice, Railsback told him, “There wouldn’t be many questions asked if it looked like self-defense.”

  Cash shook his head slowly. “No.”

  “I don’t mean...”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  They glared at one another for twenty seconds before Hank’s gaze drifted to the window.

  “Okay. But I’m telling you up front. You’d better come home dragging some coyote skins to hang on the gate.”

  “I will. That’s a promise.” Or I won’t come home at all. Not on my hind legs.

  He had a touch of that Ardennes feeling.

  After another twenty seconds, during which he fidgeted with rubber bands and paper clips, Hank muttered, “Good enough. Pick up your loose ends. Give Tucholski anything he can use. He’ll be in charge here. Then go hope and rest up. You should get there fresh.”

  “If they haven’t hauled ass out of there while we’ve been farting around,” Cash replied sourly.

  “Why should they? You said she didn’t know we knew about the brother.”

  Cash shrugged. “Murphy’s Law. It’s been going strong up till now. Why should my luck change?”

  Railsback dipped into his desk for a colorful handful of pills. He took them dry, closing his eyes and grimacing as they went down.

  “Try to get back by Wednesday. That’s when we’re planning the funeral.” Hank took a deep breath, sighed.

  Norm stared at the man’s hands. They shook almost too much to manipulate the paper clips. “And be careful. You’re taking Tran? Good. Listen to him. He’s a pro.”

  “I will. I’m no hero. You know that.”

  “Okay. Get moving.”

  Cash started toward the door.

  “Wait. Norm? Good luck.” Railsback half rose to extend a hand.

  Surprised, Cash shook. Hank’s palm was moist and cold. “Thanks.”

  He left Hank staring out the window.

  It was suppertime before he got home. There was so much to do, so many people to talk to. Time fled as if some light-fingered thief were stealing his life-hours while he was preoccupied.

  Malone. He was the worst chrono-bandit. Every time Cash turned around, there the agent was, pushing him for that New York address. The man wanted the stalk for himself. Apparently there were points to be tallied with Langley.

  This was the downhill side. The big slide to the brink of the pit. Time seem to flow at an ever-increasing pace.... He couldn’t relax, couldn’t rest. He kept remembering the shot-gunned cat. This was no good. He was working himself into a
nother state of nerves....

  Carrie, Nancy, and their offspring didn’t help. They made his home scene seem like there was a Sicilian wake taking place amid the goings on at Little Big Horn. He finally fled to his bedroom, to lie staring at the ceiling, reviewing the insignificance and disappointment of his life.

  It hadn’t been much. Wouldn’t become much. He hadn’t contributed anything. History wouldn’t have noticed at all if he had never been born. The highs and lows, the goods and evils, those hadn’t touched but a handful of lives.

  Not much of a bright side, thinking that, if you hadn’t saved the world, at least you hadn’t helped destroy it.

  The next thing he knew, Annie was shaking his shoulder.

  “What time is it?”

  “Two.” She eased down beside him.

  “I have to leave pretty soon.”

  “I know.”

  He rolled toward her, pulling her close.

  There was a gentle sorrow to their loving, an expression of unspoken fears. For Norm there was a thirty-year-old déjà vu. There had been another such night early in 1944, before he had marched off to war.

  They hadn’t been married then. Had not been lovers till that final night....

  Alpha and Omega?

  Annie refused to go to the airport, just as she had refused to go to the railway station back then.

  Le Quyen watched her husband depart with the same sad eyes.

  Matthew did the driving. It was a cool, silent morning. They had the freeway almost to themselves. There was a heavy dew, and the air smelled of rain.

  Cash didn’t notice Beth till after they had boarded the plane. She couldn’t hide there. There weren’t a dozen passengers to get lost among.

  “Beth!” he exploded. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Going to Rochester.”

  For half a minute he was too confused to say anything. Then, “Girl, you just march yourself right back home.”

  She sat down, buckled her seat belt.

  “Come on, Beth. This isn’t any job for you.”

  She ignored him.

  He started to summon a stewardess, to have her put off the plane. Then he realized that people were staring, realized how foolish he would look and sound. He plopped down, angrily fastened his own belt.