Baker tried Jane Carey's number once more. Still busy.
“Charley?”
“it's okay, she knows we're coming.”
“Is anything wrong, Charley?”
”i don 't think so. i think she 's asleep, she said daddy and then she was asleep with bad dreams.”
“Keep listening, Charley.”
Baker ordered two burgers and a large container of coffee and carried them back to his rented car. He would finish one here and eat the other as he drove.
Sonnenberg! Baker chewed on the name along with his sandwich. It's over, Doctor.
Damn you.
It's all been a game, hasn't it? Hare and hounds. You've been playing with my life and playing with Tina's. And now you, you and the rest of them, are playing with Tanner Burke's life as well. The one clean and decent thing to come into my life in two years and, thanks to your games, it probably doesn't have a chance. No way. No way in the world any feelings she might have will ever settle down into two people just liking each other. Being comfortable together. Loving each other. She'll never get the sight of Charley out of her mind. Or her fear of Abel. I don't even know what she feels for the poor slob who's left over. Sorry for him, maybe. Maybe a little mesmerized because he's so different from whatever she's used to. But if that's it, it's not going to last. It's going to end because I'm not going to be different a day longer than I have to. And when that day comes, I'm going to melt down into my own world and let Tanner go back to hers. And there won't be anything left except a couple of broken toys.
“baker?”
“Yeah, Charley.”
“sonnenberg didn't do that.”
“He didn 't do what, Charley ? ”
“it wasn‘t him who made Liz be in the game, it was me. i didn't mean to, but it was me. i told you i listened for tina. soon i could hear when anyone else listened for tina too. Liz listened when she walked in the park and i heard.”
“You’re saying that Liz…Tanner… can hear like you can hear?”
“no. not the same, it was just like thinking tina. thinking about how tina wrote letters and maybe Liz could visit, abel said don't tell you because you should only care if they wanted to hurt you. i hated that but i was scared, but then they said your name too and tortora's name, i told that to abel and abel said i was making it up so he would go help Liz instead of watching out for the men who were following you. but i got real scared and then he believed me. he was even happy, he smiled because now he could fix it so you'd need him always.”
“You're not afraid of Abel now, Charley?”
“now he says please.”
“Thank you, Charley.”
Baker put aside the hamburger wrapping and started the engine. He dropped the car into gear and eased toward the entrance ramp.
He was glad to know what Charley had told him, but he wasn't sure how much difference it made. The long and the short of it was that those two would never have been where they could hurt Tanner Burke if it hadn't been for Sonnenberg and his games. And Sonnenberg wanted Baker on the run and needing Abel just as much as Abel wanted it. He even tolerated Harrigan's snooping around because that was pressure too. Mostly he tolerated Harrigan because where there was Harrigan there was Biaggi, and as long as there was a bought-and-paid-for Biaggi, Sonnenberg would know when Peck was ready to make his move. Games. If Harrigan got too close, there were always Tortora's killers to slap him down. Just like they slapped down that loony judge and left him propped outside my house. Yes, Sonnenberg, you son of a bitch, you did that too, didn't you? You or Tortora, as if it mattered which. You were afraid I wouldn't run unless you could give me a reason that outweighed staying close to Tina.
” úh-huhl ”
Listen to Charley, Sonnenberg. There's your first mistake. It never occurred to you that Abel and Charley might have minds of their own. You never figured on Abel enjoying the game so much he'd make sure they never stopped chasing him. And it surely never crossed your mind that Charley might have some capacity for love. That's right, Doctor. He loves Tina . . .
Baker snapped upright. His head jerked toward the southbound lanes on his left. Tanner? A trailer truck roared up and slowly passed him, blocking his sight. Tanner's face, a worried face, had popped into his mind and then was just as suddenly gone. Had she passed on the highway?
“Charley? Did she?”
”i don't know. I was listening for tina.”
“Well listen now, Charley.”
Baker waited.
”i don't know, i can't unless she's close.”
“What about any of the others, Charley? The ones we got away from at the hotel.” Burleson had also popped into his head a short while earlier, when he was listening to the highway's noise.
“no. it's the same with them.”
Baker was uneasy. Maybe someone had passed him but probably not, he decided. See? That was the other problem with being so damned special. Random thoughts popped into your head just like they popped into everyone else's head, except that you had to start stewing over what they might mean. Look at right now. You think the face of a person you care about and you start to get upset because the face in your head looks worried. Of course she's worried. Then you think another face who's looking to kill someone you care about and then lock you in a Washington basement someplace, and you wonder why it makes you nervous. You wonder why it makes you want to gun this car and head right for Spruce Street.
Stick with the plan, Baker. Tina will be fine. Harrigan's good at what he does and Tanner cares. Go to Sonnenberg's, Baker. Get to Sonnenberg and end this once and for all.
Baker cleared his mind as he approached carefully. From the exit ramp at Mamaroneck he drove slowly through the quiet town, turning right at the Mobil station where he used to sneak his calls to Tina. Tina? You are okay, aren't you? I'll call you soon. I'm going to wait and use one of Sonnenberg's magic telephones in case someone still has a wire on this one. Someone waiting for whoever is Sonnenberg's latest toy to have the same bright idea I had.
Now a left turn and another right onto a street whose giant elms formed an archway. He was close now and began listening. Nothing. Not Sonnenberg, not Mrs. Kreskie, nobody. Damn. Don't let them be out after all this.
Baker slowed to a crawl when he reached the mail box of Blair Palmer's house. He could see Sonnenberg's gate from there. It was open. Funny. Sonnenberg's gate was never open. Baker continued and stopped the car near the Dickerson home, fifty yards beyond Sonnenberg's property line. Damn again. He was sure now that the house was empty.
Well, he thought, he couldn't just stand here in the street waiting for the Dickersons to report a prowler. He wasn't crazy about waltzing through that open gate either. Too little cover.
“Charley?”
“nobody there, something's funny, but nobody's there”
“We'll go see, Charley.”
Leaving the car by the Dickersons’, he passed through the electric gate, leaving it ajar, and walked directly across a small island of lawn in the middle of the circular driveway. Mounting the stone steps of the front entrance, Baker paused under a large ivy-draped pediment, then tried the door. It was unlocked. There was no alarm. Baker stepped inside and cursed.
Immediately he saw that although the furnishings were largely in place, there were spaces that once held possessions especially valued by Sonnenberg. Crossing quickly to the study, Baker confirmed that the house had been selectively stripped. Sonnenberg's precious obsidian bird and lesser pieces of pre-Columbian art were gone. Yet the fading photo of his army outfit was there and the picture of the boy Sonnenberg identified as his grandson sat on the mantel. Two mounted fish that the doctor presumably prized still hung on the wall. Why, Doctor? Baker wondered. Why only bits and pieces?
The basement! Baker hurried into the kitchen and to the door leading to the cellar stairs. He tried the light switch without effect, then backed away and tried another. No power. A look inside the refrigerator told him that the current had no
t been off long. A few hours, perhaps. Baker found a flashlight in a kitchen drawer.
In the basement he saw that although most of Sonnenberg's tools remained, a few were gone from their assigned places. Baker swung his beam toward the white glass-doored cabinet that concealed the entrance to Sonnenberg's secret room. The uneven shadows cast by its corners told him that this door too was slightly ajar. Baker swung it open and followed his flashlight inside.
The room was cold. Too cold. Baker felt the chill draft that came from the air conditioner at the far end. Why was it on? And where did its power come from? He scanned the room, starting on his left, and now the beam illuminated Sonnenberg's map and its small pushpins. Underneath was a set of file cabinets. Baker began to walk past them, then stopped and swung the beam back onto the map. It troubled him that Sonnenberg would leave it behind. And something else bothered Baker. The pins, the display that Sonnenberg had once showed him so proudly, seemed all in the wrong places. And two had small crepe tags on them. One just north of Denver, the other in Kansas City. Baker had no idea what it might mean. He reached for a file drawer.
“Have a care, Jared.” Sonnenberg's voice made him jump. Baker spun first toward the air conditioner, then toward the darkened basement. The voice had seemed to come from both places.
“The speaker, Jared.” Sonnenberg's voice directed him. “It's near the center light fixture.” During that sentence, the voice from the air conditioner switched off, leaving only the outside voice. A fluorescent light blinked on in the basement. Baker lowered his flashlight and squinted past the fixture. His eye found a dark circle, which he knew must be an amplifier.
“Where are you?” he asked.
”A civil greeting would have been nice, Jared. I'm hardly your enemy.”
Baker was in no mood for conventional niceties. “We have to talk, Doctor,” he said.
“We certainly do, Jared. By the way, please step from that room. There's a nasty surprise waiting there for some visitors I expect shortly. The same bunch who pestered you at the Plaza. Lovely place, by the way. Should be inviolate. Duncan Peck has no concept of sanctuary.”
Baker knew that he must be on camera. But he saw nothing unless it was out of sight behind the light fixture. He looked down at his feet and rubbed the toe of one shoe across the indoor-outdoor carpet on the basement floor.
“Yes, Jared,” Sonnenberg told him. “Pressure plates. There are other cameras facing the exterior of the house and one in the main hall. Also an abundance of hidden microphones and speakers. I saw you coming, and I hope to see you leaving within a very few minutes. You're no longer safe here, Jared. We'll have a long chat later.”
“We'll talk now, Doctor. I want to see you.”
“About your retirement plans, no doubt.” Sonnenberg's voice had a tone of sadness to it, but the words irritated Baker. He'd wondered often whether he ever had a single thought or plan that was private. And that would include his plan regarding Tina. Sonnenberg would know, of course, that he was taking her. Perhaps even that Tanner and Harrigan were going there. He began to feel uneasy.
“I'm going away, Doctor, and I'm taking my daughter.” Baker kept his voice even. “I'd like to do that with your help and blessing. But either way, I have to do it.”
“We'll discuss it, Jared. My blessing, certainly, goes without saying because I am genuinely your friend. I'll ask only that you do not totally renounce that friendship. What sort of help, by the way? I assume you've prepared some safe harbor in the course of your travels and are adequately funded by the blackjack tables of Las Vegas.”
”I want to be the way I was,” Baker snapped. “Come on, Doctor. Where the hell are you? Do I have to start kicking down doors?”
“We'll talk, Jared.” Sonnenberg ignored the last. “We'll talk at length. I fully understand that your gifts are not an unmixed blessing. You are not, I assure you, the only one of my people who's had some difficulty adjusting.”
“I'm not one of your people,” he barked. “I'm Jared Baker. And this not-unmixed blessing you talk about includes Abel wanting to tear apart every young punk he sees who even gives me a snotty look. It's happened more than the twice you know about, and last night he finally killed someone. I think you know damn well who and I think you know why.”
“Jared.” Sonnenberg cut him off. “We truly do not have time to discuss this properly. But I'll tell you this. You appear to have decided that I am some Orwellian manipulator who influences your every thought and deed. I'm nothing of the sort. What I am is a human behaviorist and you are a human. Much of your behavior is entirely predictable. Abel's even more so. He's as simple as a reptile, which in his essence he is. As for putting him back where you think he belongs, even if it were possible, what on earth good do you think it would do? He'd still be there, you know. The difference would be that you'd no longer know as clearly where he leaves off and you begin. For heaven's sake, Jared, would you really want to sacrifice the clarity of a distinct Abel, Baker, and Charley in favor of a muddled and frightened Jared Baker? Use them, Jared. Understand them. Discipline them if you must, but do not reject them.”
“It won't work,” Baker answered stubbornly. He stepped back into the hidden room and sat down on the single Morris chair so Sonnenberg could see he had no intention of leaving. “All this time Charley has been picking and choosing what he wants to tell me. Maybe he's started to come around, but Abel hasn't. Abel's hardly been under control at all until I convinced him that I'd let us both die before I'd let him control me again. That goes for you too, Doctor.”
“There, you see?” Sonnenberg replied. “You are learning to control him.”
“Only while I'm willing to die, Doctor. And only while he believes it. I might not be so willing tomorrow.”
He heard Sonnenberg take a breath that sounded impatient.
“You're being foolish, Jared.” The voice was almost scolding. “Abel never controlled you. Abel simply survived when his survival was threatened. He may be cunning, he may be aggressive, he may have all the other predacious qualities, but he's no more capable of scheming or deceit than a lizard. Nor would he be capable of wanton killing unless he needed to eat what he killed. Abel does no more or less than what is necessary for his survival and he...Oh dear.” Sonnenberg's voice became faint, as if he'd backed away from the microphone. Baker could hear the sound of switches being thrown. “Oh dear,” the voice repeated, still distant, “here comes Connor Harrigan.”
Harrigan was well inside the main gate when Sonnenberg noticed him. He stood partially hidden behind a small yew, considering how best to cross the open expanse of real estate to Sonnenberg's front door, which stood open. He stepped away from the shrub, revealing a pistol held close against his thigh. Baker was inside. Of that he was reasonably sure. The Hertz car he parked behind was almost certainly Baker's. Who else might be inside was another question entirely. And who indeed might be watching through the little scanner that his trained eye saw mounted on a drainpipe under a spray of ivy. As for the open door, he knew an invitation when he saw one. He also knew that this was not a house that could be furtively entered unless Sonnenberg wanted it entered. With a small sigh, Harrigan mounted the stone steps and followed his revolver through the doorway.
Inside he waited, with more a sense of anticipation than of danger. The house, if the main hall and living room were any sign, had an abandoned look. It was furnished well enough, rather like a model home is furnished, without the detail that spoke of habitation. He saw wall spaces where frames had recently hung, shelves with holes that lacked the symmetry of spaces that had been planned. All the contents of this house, Harrigan was sure, all the things that had been left behind, would provide no useful clue to Marcus Sonnenberg.
Harrigan felt the flash of anger that was now familiar. Baker was near, all right. Well, what now, Jared Baker? Do I walk through the rooms shouting your name? Or do I stand here like a dummy until you and Sonnenberg decide to show yourselves? Instead, if you don't mind, I thi
nk I'll take a little tour. Upstairs, for a start. Let's see if one of Sonnenberg's beasties comes leaping at me from an attic room like they do in horror movies.
Sonnenberg's bedroom was the first he entered. Harrigan flipped a light switch without effect. A burned-out bulb? He tried a table lamp. No power. Then what do we suppose made that scanner move?
The bedroom in its way was like the rooms below. The closets were full, the furniture all or mostly there, yet the room was curiously lifeless. Harrigan stepped to a curtained window and looked down on a tangle of ancient rhododendrons and to the golf course beyond the stockade fence. He could see several golfers in groups of twos and threes, not moving much. Harrigan noted the lack of activity but did not dwell on it. His attention fell instead upon several dim impressions in the carpet at his feet. Three of them formed a triangle. A three-legged table? A tripod? What for, Dr. Sonnenberg? What game did you play here?
The next room had the look of a guest room. No, a servant's room. Two starched maid's outfits hung in the closet. And two nurse's uniforms of the same size. The right half of the closet was empty. On the floor, a shoe rack built for six pairs of shoes held only three, all on the left side. On the right side, his eye picked up something small and white lying flush against the wall. A collar stay. Harrigan never realized women wore them.
There were five more rooms on the second floor as well as a stairway leading to the attic. The attic could wait, he decided. Perhaps forever. There was probably no way to enter it except head first, and to hell with that.
Of the remaining rooms, three were guest rooms, only one of which gave much feeling of use. He scanned the contents of a small bookcase near the bed. Books on sailing were among them. And a textbook on multiple personality. Baker's old room, he thought, turning back into the hallway. The last two rooms were a surprise. One was clearly a sickroom, the other a treatment room and pathology laboratory worthy of a small-town clinic. ”A bloody hospital,” Harrigan whispered. He looked for instruments that would offer a clue to the kind of surgery that had been performed there. The instruments had been taken.
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