At the base of Sonnenberg's cellar stairs, a blond young man named Sarsfield pointed out the wooden cabinet. “It's there, sir,” he whispered to Duncan Peck. “The voice came from inside.”
Burleson stepped from behind Peck and motioned Biaggi forward to a position at the cabinet's edge. Peck did not move closer, nor did he bother to lower his voice.
“What do you think, Edward? Are we to believe we have Dr. Sonnenberg trapped in his lair?”
“He'd be pretty stupid,” Burleson said with a shrug, “but it's worth a look. I suggest you wait upstairs, sir.”
Peck tilted his head back and casually examined the ceiling, seeing nothing, but certain another audiovisual device was hidden there somewhere. “What's it to be, Marcus?” he asked. “Are we to rush blindly to the sound of that voice, our better judgment blunted by your taunts?”
There was no answer. He turned and began climbing the stairs. “Have your men fire through the cabinet, Edward,” he said over his shoulder, “and then enter if you feel it useful. Otherwise, let us withdraw from this house and put our alternate plan into action.”
“You're no fun, Duncan.” All but Peck tensed at the sound of Sonnenberg's voice, which came from inside the cabinet. “And as for your alternate plan, I trust one will come to mind before Edward here thinks to ask about it.”
Peck paused near the top step, his drawn and taut face beyond the view of the others. Dignity, Duncan, he reminded himself. Dignity. He had no doubt, of course, that Sonnenberg planned yet another humiliation. Perhaps a fatal one this time. His choice was to walk away beaten or to endure it in the hope of salvaging something from it. Sonnenberg was quite right. There was no alternate plan worth the name. He turned slowly and lowered himself to a sitting position on the riser with what he hoped was the right touch of insouciance. “And what, Marcus,” he asked wearily, “can I suppose I'd find behind that cabinet?A blank wall, perhaps? A witty message scrawled upon it?”
“Alas, Duncan.” Sonnenberg chuckled. “You know me too well. Indeed, some thoughts of graffiti did cross my mind. ‘Catch me before I clone more’ was a particular favorite until a new notion replaced it. Come ahead, Duncan. The door swings open from the right.”
Peck leaned forward, folding his arms across his knees, and languidly motioned Burleson forward with his fingertips. Burleson nodded and turned to Biaggi, who had chanced to be positioned at the end that swung open. Using hand signals, he ordered Biaggi to throw open the cabinet and enter low, indicating his own weapon as covering fire. Biaggi blanched and hesitated. Burleson showed teeth and signaled again with an impatient snap of his arm. Biaggi cursed to himself but could not refuse. He braced one palm against the cabinet's side and heaved it outward, then threw himself back against the protection of the wall. Peck scowled, noting Biaggi's imperfect response to Burleson's order, but put it aside as the glow from a small furnished room cast a corridor of light across the basement floor. He pushed himself erect and eased himself once more toward the lower stairs.
Peck could first see a thick Oriental carpet as he descended and then a bed. An old Morris chair and a floor lamp sat at the far end near an air conditioner. Now a row of cabinets came into view on the opposite side.
“On the wall, Duncan,” Sonnenberg's voice told him. “My witty message is on the wall.”
Burleson saw it first and gestured with his chin. A map of North America. Colored pins were well distributed across its surface. Peck's eyes went at once to the pins marked with black ribbon.
“Sonnenberg's people, sir?” Burleson asked.
“Hardly, Edward.” Peck stared for a long minute. As much as he'd prepared himself for whatever slap of the face Sonnenberg had arranged, the sight of the map almost sickened him. Each pin was one of his own. His people. All of them, including the now-useless man marked by the pin just north of Denver and a soon-to-be-useless operative in the vicinity of Kansas City.
“Well done, Marcus,” he said softly. “Very well done indeed.”
“Gracious of you, Duncan. My files are rather impressive too. Poke about in them if you like.”
“Marcus.” Peck ran his fingers over the top of the nearest cabinet as if inspecting it for dust. “Should not the prudent man assume that the contents are either useless or misleading or that they'll blow up in our faces?”
“The prudent man certainly should, Duncan. One or all of the above. In fact, they're packed with thermite charges.” A clicking sound came over the speaker. “Hear that, Duncan? It's a remote control device. The thermite charges are armed by the present setting of the air conditioner. They'll go off if the drawers are opened or if I set them off from here. Alarming, isn't it?”
Young Sarsfield stepped between Peck and the row of cabinets without hesitation, shielding Peck with his body. Burleson's hand closed over his shoulder, guiding him firmly toward the safety of the door. Biaggi too moved toward the cellar, but Burleson blocked him with a stiffened arm.
“My goodness, Duncan,” Sonnenberg marveled, “where do you keep finding these people? These two at least seem absolutely convinced that their devotion to your well-being will be matched by your vaguest interest in theirs. It's so much easier to understand a sleazy wretch like Mr. Biaggi here.”
There was more than fear on Biaggi's face. He had the look of a man waking from a nightmare only to find it had been real. It was the voice. Beneath its flippant rhythm and an accent that swung between faintly Brahmin and faintly European, beneath even its insults, Biaggi began catching the modulations of still another voice he'd heard. A voice that answered when he called a special number. A voice that caused money, large sums of it, to appear each month in a brokerage account he held under a Waspish name. A voice he'd first heard over the public phone of the Mobil station three blocks away. The phone that would begin ringing the moment he took up his post to watch and wait for Jared Baker. It was the same voice. The same and not the same.
“But not to worry, Duncan.” Sonnenberg's voice was soothing. ”I intend no harm to any of you. You'll begin feeding on yourselves soon enough.”
Peck stopped in the doorway, resisting Burleson. “Then do I assume, Marcus,” he asked, “that there's a point to this business about the thermite?”
When Sonnenberg answered, the easy, genial manner was gone. ”I should have thought it was clear, old friend. I'm demonstrating that I can kill you if I choose, and I'll prove it if Mr. Burleson causes you to take another step. In letting you live, I am demonstrating my utter contempt for you as a man and as an adversary. You are also witnessing my capacity to teach you a lasting lesson.”
Sonnenberg left him standing for a long moment as the message sank in.
“Go ahead, Duncan Peck,” he urged. “Open any cabinet you wish. Choose any pin you see on that map and pull the file that matches it. I have another set, of course, so you needn't worry about being tidy. Better yet, open the drawer marked A through F and pull the file on Mr. Biaggi here. Fascinating reading. But in fairness, naturally, you should allow him to riffle through yours.”
Biaggi's knuckles went white against the grip of his weapon.
“Decisions, decisions, Mr. Biaggi. Do you bluff or do you shoot? Do you mow these three down and then set off the thermite to cover your tracks? But what if there isn't any thermite, Mr. Biaggi? What if there isn't even any file?”
Biaggi's eyes were wide. They darted around the room as if looking for an exit other than the one blocked by Ed Burleson and Peck.
“I'd bluff if I were you,” Sonnenberg's voice offered. “Perhaps Duncan won't even open the drawer. Then, except for that stricken look on your face, you'd be able to deny knowing what batty old Sonnenberg is talking about.”
Burleson shifted his position slightly. His Uzi's sights were now lined up on Michael Biaggi's chest. “Put your piece on safety, mister,” he ordered.
“The feeding begins, Duncan. Big fish eats little fish. That will settle Mr. Biaggi's hash, but then there's the matter of your own file. Big Burleson
fish and tiny blond fish here would have to be eaten too lest they nibble you to death. Next in line would be young Douglas Peterson, who even now is bounding across my kitchen floor. Welcome, Mr. Peterson. The more the merrier. In fact, bring all the rest. We'll have a community read followed by a feeding frenzy.”
Peterson thundered down the basement stairs, then stopped abruptly, startled by his first sight of the revealed room and the frozen tableau inside. Peck raised a hand, warning him back.
“Sir?”
“It's all right, Douglas,” Sonnenberg said, welcoming him. “No one here but us fishies.”
Peterson blinked away his confusion. “Sir, I have to speak to you.”
“Can it wait, Douglas? We have a situation here.”
“No sir. I don't think so, sir.”
“Can it be written down, Douglas?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then do so, Douglas. Hand me a note and then return upstairs.”
“Spoil sport,” Sonnenberg muttered.
Peterson pulled out his notebook and scrawled a message, then left a space and scribbled another. His face shone with pleased excitement as he tore off the leaf and handed it to Peck.
“Duncan,” Sonnenberg said, ”I don't suppose you'd share the good news with me, considering the thermite and all.”
Peck tried to read without expression. But the first item caused his lips to part involuntarily. By the time he reached the second item, a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I'm afraid the second part is confidential, Marcus. But I'm more than delighted to share the first. Your man is dead.”
There was a moment of silence. No one moved.
“Pray, what man, Duncan?” Sonnenberg asked.
“This one, you insufferable old lunatic.” Peck reached the map in two steps and tore away the ribbon that hung near the city of Denver. “The one as black as this piece of crepe. Ben Coffey, Marcus or Ivor or whoever the hell you think you are. Ben Coffey is dead.”
“How am I to believe that, Duncan?” Sonnenberg's voice was low and hoarse. Biaggi swallowed hard. Now he was sure he knew that sound.
“Dead, damn you.” Duncan Peck's face was wild. A near-hysterical glee swept aside any thought of guns or fish or thermite. “He died of arrogance. He died of a very hard bullet from a very soft gun. Can I assume that has meaning to you, Marcus?”
“Duncan . ..”
“If you hurry, Marcus, you might salvage something yet of your creation. If you rush out to Greeley quickly enough and can scrape enough brain tissue from the door of Boley's lunchroom and then scurry back to the street corners of Harlem, perhaps you can find another—”
“Goodbye, Duncan.”
Ed Burleson heard the click. He dropped his weapon and flung Duncan Peck toward the doorway in a single motion. Biaggi's reflexes were just as fast. Slapping Sarsfield aside, he dove at the door and was airborne as the second click sounded. The room exploded into light. It seared the hair on the back of his head and came down like a lash across the back of his legs as he landed heavily on the body of Duncan Peck.
“Jesus!” Harrigan jumped at the funneled blast of heat that slapped him back against the wall of the well. He gasped, choking on the smoke that followed it. Half-blinded, he punched Baker's arm. “Let's go.” He pointed upward.
Baker reached for the wooden grid above his head and heaved against the weight of the potted plants it supported.
“baker.”
“Shut up, Abel.”
Baker boosted Harrigan to the surface and scrambled up behind him, rolling to the grass out of reach of the toxic fumes. Harrigan, gun in hand and wiping tears from his eyes, crouched behind the well, his weapon trained first upon the sliding doors of Sonnenberg's living room. He saw men on their hands and knees below a rolling black curl. One crawled to the door and began smashing at it with a chair. He'd be busy awhile. Harrigan punched Baker again and pointed to the door cut on the stockade fence. Half-crawling, Baker reached it, but stopped at the sound of feet running on grass and the clacking of wood against wood.
“baker.”
“No time, Abel.”
The running man came into view, a golfer, his clubs dancing wildly in the bag on his shoulder. Attracted by the fire, Baker thought. He pushed past him and moved onto the fairway. The golfer spun around, startled, then slipped the golf bag from his shoulder and groped inside as if selecting a club. A wooden clubhead exploded at his touch, and the golfer slammed backward into a towering rhododendron. Its branches seized his arms and hung him there half-standing. Baker stared at a spreading stain on the golfer's chest until Harrigan seized him and threw him into the sparse cover of a boxwood.
“What just happened?” Baker blinked.
”I was about to shoot him. Someone else did.”
“For what?” Baker flared. “For running to see what's burning?”
Harrigan grunted in disgust. “I'm beginning to appreciate the beastie more by the minute. Where the hell is he, by the way?”
”I can handle this, Harrigan.”
“In a pig's ass.”
Another running golfer rounded the fence at the far end of Sonnenberg's property line, a short shotgun incongruous against his Izods. His eyes met Harrigan's and seemed to widen in recognition. Then they winced, and the golfer pitched forward soundlessly onto the turf.
“We got covering fire.” Harrigan scanned the treeline on the far side of the fairway but could see nothing. He pointed to an elevated green near the clubhouse parking lot and shoved Baker in that direction. “Low and fast.” He rose into a runner's stance. “Let's get us one of those cars.”
“Roger?” In a grove of pin oaks partly hidden behind the thirteenth green, Melanie Laver placed a hand on the thigh of the man sitting on the golf cart next to her. “Roger,” she repeated, “you're all right, aren't you?”
“Sure,” he answered. Hershey broke apart his rifle with the turn of a screw and slipped the two halves under the windbreaker on his lap. His eyes, Melanie saw, were fixed upon Sonnenberg's house, but they were dulled as if their focus was inward. Her hand stayed on his leg.
“It's right what you did, Roger,” she told him gently. “You know they were ready to shoot Jared.”
”I know.”
“But it bothers you.”
“Yes.”
“You killed a lot of men when you were Captain Berner. Was that so different?”
”I can kill like he killed. But I can't forget like he could forget.”
Melanie leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You're a much nicer man than he was, Roger.”
Roger Hershey nodded. “I'm a nice man who kills people. There's something so wrong about this, Melanie.”
She took his hand. “It'll be over soon.”
Duncan Peck, singed and shaken, clung unsteadily to Sonnenberg's front gate as Ed Burleson dabbed a handkerchief against a cut on his forehead. He heard sirens, police sirens, close by and the klaxon of a fire truck not far behind them.
“Burn,” he muttered.
“Sir?”
“Let the house burn, Edward. Keep them away.”
Burleson frowned. ”I can probably keep the local police out, sir, but I'm afraid even your credentials won't stop the firemen. They'll drive their hook-and-ladder right over this gate. My suggestion is that we don't interfere with the firemen but otherwise quarantine the property.”
Peck considered Burleson's suggestion and nodded. “The quarantine will include the press, of course?”
“Yes sir.”
“What are our losses, Edward?”
“Two men shot, sir, presumably by whoever was hiding in the well. The cover's been thrown off, and there's a tunnel leading from the basement room. And Sarsfield died in the blast.”
“The bodies?”
“In our van, sir. Except Sarsfield. The thermite probably won't leave anything of him at all.”
”A pity.” Peck sighed. ”A brave young man.”
“Y
es sir. May I ask what you intend about Biaggi, sir?”
“He did save my life.”
“Respectfully, sir, it's more likely that you got in his way.”
“Hmmm.” Peck acknowledged the possibility. In fact, he had no doubt of it. Nevertheless, a person of Biaggi's . . . flexibility . . . could occasionally be more useful than, say, an Edward Burleson, whose loyalty was beyond doubt but who would be just as loyal to a more senior government official should one choose to question him in the future. And one certainly would, particularly if the gunman in the well turned out to be the unendurably tiresome Connor Harrigan. Who else? Certainly not Sonnenberg, who'd have trouble climbing out of an automobile, let alone a two-foot tunnel and a six-foot well. And probably not Baker, at least where the shooting is concerned. Baker strangles, pummels and impales but he doesn't shoot. That's neither here nor there, however. The subject at hand is Michael Biaggi.
”I choose to take the charitable view, Edward,” he answered finally. “Even if it's misplaced, our losses are such that Biaggi's value even as cannon fodder should not be minimized.”
“Yes sir.”
“The other business, Edward.” Peck dropped his voice. “The subject of Peterson's most welcome note. Our people in New York are certain they have their man?”
“Yes sir. Our people report that he's uncooperative, but I've authorized questioning with prejudice.”
“You're a very good man, Edward.”
The smoke from the house stayed low. It rolled over the stockade fence like curls of dirty cotton and settled just above the close-cut grass. A growing ring of bystanders, neighbors and golfers, gathered at the edge of the property. A shame, Melanie thought. So many lovely things inside. “Will he be coming soon?” she asked. “Sonnenberg? Yes,” Roger answered. “Soon now.” “Which house? It's that big gray one, isn't it?” “The Dickerson house, yes. They're away. They're opening their Palm Beach house this week.”
Palm Beach. She smiled. Palm Beach would be nice. In some ways nicer even than St. Croix, except that the people wouldn't be as much fun or as happy. In Palm Beach she could be a youngish socialite divorcee and learn to snort lines from silver trays with one pinkie in the air. And douche with Dom Perignon. Well, maybe not. Maybe Seattle would be better after all. A clean city. Clean and cold. At least too cold for a legitimate year-round tan. And running the bookstore Sonnenberg bought for her would be exciting in a gentle kind of way. She'd miss writing her column for the St. Croix newspaper, but she could always write a bookstore newsletter. Every month. And someday a nice, quiet, good-looking man would come in to find a book and he'd like her, and he'd start finding excuses to drop in more often. That was another nice thing about bookstores. Lots of reasons to drop in and stay awhile. Her name was going to be Molly. Molly Barrett. Hey! How about Wimpole Street for the name of the bookstore? Molly, the Barrett of Wimpole Street. What a gas!“Roger?”
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