Scimitar

by Ed McBain

  Well, last week he’d telephoned the Canadian Consulate-General—who’d invited Mrs. Thatcher to attend the gala on Canada Day, the first of July—in an attempt to determine whether the tables would be rectangular or horseshoe-shaped, the better to collaborate on a seating arrangement that would offend neither Mrs. T. nor the Canadian Prime Minister. The young woman to whom he’d addressed this pressing problem was a dimwit with an accent that sounded American, but which—she assured him at once—was Canadian. He had only by the end of the week learned that the main table would, in fact, be horseshoe-shaped, and that among the visiting dignitaries would be the President of Mexico, here to honor Canada on this its special day, and incidentally to remind America that Mexico, too, shared a border, albeit to the south.

  It seemed to Geoffrey that an equitable seating arrangement would place Mrs. Thatcher between North and South, so to speak, but he’d been informed by the head of Admin Section that the rules of diplomatic form and procedure as they applied to receptions were to be strictly followed. He was later informed by Chancery that the Canada Day gala was to be considered an “official” reception in that the guests had been invited exclusively by reason of their position, and the dinner was being offered in honor of a head of state, in this instance two heads of state and one former head, which was what made the situation so partic—

  The telephone rang again.

  He glanced at the clock.

  Five minutes to ten in the morning.

  He lifted the receiver.

  “British Consulate, Turner here,” he said.

  “Detective Delaney, Twentieth Precinct,” the voice on the other end said.

  “Yes, sir, how may I help you?” Geoffrey said.

  “We’ve got a homicide victim,” Delaney said.

  “Oh, dear,” Geoffrey said.

  “Yeah, woman shot with a Colt .45, which I guess you know is a big mother. Looks like she caught four, maybe five slugs, it’s hard to tell ’cause the head was totalled.”

  “I see,” Geoffrey said.

  He abhorred many of the words the Yanks used. Totalled. To indicate utterly demolished. With a gun that was a big mother. To indicate exceptionally large. The words seemed particularly inappropriate in describing what had been done to a woman’s head during the commission of a violent crime.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Cleaning woman found her when she came in this morning, sprawled on the bed, blood all over everything, her brains on the wall.”

  Geoffrey winced.

  “This is on West End Avenue, just off Seventy-Third,” Delaney said.

  “Yes?” Geoffrey said.

  “Her name’s Gillian Holmes, like in Sherlock.”

  “Yes?”

  “She had a British passport in her handbag.”

  The Eagle had left Los Angeles last night at ten minutes past eleven Pacific Time. It was now ten minutes past 8:00 A.M. Mountain Time, and the train was scheduled to stop in Phoenix in twenty minutes. Sonny had been awake and dressed since dawn.

  The sleeper he’d booked was a deluxe bedroom with a sink, a vanity, and its own private toilet facilities and shower. Both the upper and the lower berths had been made up for sleeping when he’d boarded the train last night at Union Station. He’d slept in the extra-wide lower berth, which he’d been informed would become a sofa during the day. There was also an armchair in the room, and a wide picture window past which the Arizona countryside flashed in early Monday morning splendor. The windows on the corridor side of the compartment were curtained.

  He had rung for the porter as soon as he was dressed and had been told the dining car would not be opened until they left Phoenix. But he offered to bring Sonny a cup of coffee and some sweet rolls if he wanted those now. Sonny asked him to please change the bed back into a sofa before he brought the coffee and rolls. The porter flashed a wide grin and said he’d be happy to, sir.

  Sitting now with his coffee and warm rolls, Sonny faced the direction in which the train was speeding, and watched the magnificent landscape outside. By this time tomorrow morning, they’d be in San Antonio, Texas. On Wednesday morning, they’d be pulling into St. Louis, Missouri, and by mid-afternoon they’d be in Chicago. He’d connect there later that evening with the Lake Shore Limited to New York. If all went as scheduled, he would arrive there at 1:40 P.M. on Thursday, the twenty-fifth.

  How much are they asking?

  Twenty-five.

  Giving him the absolute deadline for arriving in New York. Twenty-five. The twenty-fifth of June. Knowing he could not possibly take an airplane because airport security devices had a nasty way of detecting weapons packed in one’s luggage.

  He sipped at his coffee.

  He had been told several months ago that one day soon his years and years of waiting would be over. He suspected what the assignment would be; one did not forgive easily in his part of the world, and it had been too long a time now. But even without knowing the complete details—the actual target, though he felt he had already guessed correctly, the date, the location, the number of people, if any, who in addition to himself would be involved—he could feel a rising sense of excitement. After all those years and years of training, all those years and years of waiting in a foreign land among people he despised, his patience would finally be rewarded by success. At last they would permit him to serve his country with honor and with pride. He awaited only his final instructions. The rest was already in his hands and in his head.

  He looked at his watch.

  Seven minutes past seven.

  In ten minutes, they’d be in Phoenix.

  And shortly after that, he would enjoy a hearty breakfast in the dining car.

  He felt very good about everything.

  She had seen him last night when they were boarding the train, but she pretended not to notice him this morning as he came into the dining car. He was possibly the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life. She had to admit that her knowledge was somewhat limited; she was only nineteen years old. But she was not altogether inexperienced, and to her discerning eye he seemed not only extraordinarily good-looking, but extremely self-assured as well.

  She could not tell what color his eyes were from where she sat midway up the car, either blue, or green, scanning the tables, meeting her own eyes briefly before moving on, and then flashing with sudden light as the train emerged from a tunnel and sunlight splashed into the car, causing him to squint. She even liked the way he squinted. Eyes scrunching up, and then the face relaxing again, a faint smile touching the mouth. Humor at his own expense, a grown man ambushed by sunlight. She wondered how old he was. She’d once dated a thirty-year-old. Thirty was too old, but she didn’t think he was that old, God he was handsome! She went on pretending not to notice him, busying herself with the menu again, and was genuinely surprised when he appeared at her table.

  “Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” he asked.

  She was too startled to speak.

  “Hello?” he said, and smiled again.

  “Hello, hi,” she said. “Sorry, I …”

  “I didn’t mean to …”

  “No, no, I was just …”

  “Is anyone sitting here?”

  “No. No, please sit down. Please.”

  “Thank you.”

  He pulled out the chair.

  Green. They were green. Or actually a greenish-grey. She guessed. She forced herself to take her eyes from his face. She busied herself with the menu again. He was watching her. She felt suddenly flustered. She wondered if she was blushing.

  “Anything good?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “On the menu.”

  “Oh. I … uh … haven’t decided yet. I mean … there are lots of good things, but I don’t know what I want yet. Would you like to look at it?”

  “I’ll get one from the waiter,” he said.

  “You can have this one if you like. Really.”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  �
��Really. I think I know what I’m having, anyway.”

  “I thought you didn’t know.”

  “I always have eggs,” she said, and shrugged.

  “And are you having eggs this morning?”

  Faint smile on his mouth. Was he laughing at her? Or did she delight him? Full, sensuous mouth …

  “Yes, I think I will be having the eggs this morning,” she said.

  “As usual,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled.

  “In which case, I’ll accept the menu,” he said.

  She handed him the menu.

  “Thank you,” he said. He was still smiling, studying her face. “I’m Sonny Hemkar,” he said.

  And realized his error at once.

  “How do you do?” she said.

  Damn it. Force of habit. Too late now. He held out his hand. Awkwardly, she reached across the table for it.

  “I’m Elita Randall,” she said.

  “That’s a very unusual name,” he said.

  “It means ‘special person,’” she said. “In Latin.”

  “Randall?”

  “No, Elita. The word ‘elite’ comes—oh, you’re putting me on, right?”

  “And are you a special person?” he asked.

  Still holding her hand. The waiter was watching them. Sonny holding her hand that way. Sonny. He couldn’t be thirty. Nobody named Sonny could be thirty. He had such a beautiful mouth. She suddenly felt like kissing him. Just as suddenly, she took her hand from his. Gently.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Am I what?”

  “A special person.”

  “Yep, that’s me. Gorgeous, intelligent …”

  “You forgot modest,” he said.

  “Right, modest, too,” she said.

  “You are,” he said. “Gorgeous.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “but I know I’m not. I wouldn’t have said it if I really thought I was.”

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “How old do you think I am?” she said.

  “Fourteen,” he answered.

  “Oh, sure.”

  Did he mean it?

  “Or fifteen, maybe,” he said.

  He wasn’t smiling. Maybe he meant it. Did she really look like a teeny-bopper? She was wearing faded jeans and a floppy sweater, maybe they did make her look younger than she actually was. But fourteen? Even fifteen?

  “Right,” she said, “I’m the youngest soph at UCLA.”

  But suppose he really thought she was fifteen?

  “Is that where you go to school?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Good school.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “I want to be a social worker.”

  “Hard work,” he said.

  “Yes, but it’s what I want to do.”

  “Good,” he said, but it sounded like a dismissal. Perhaps because he picked up the menu at the same time.

  “What do you do?” she asked.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said from behind the menu.

  Stuck with it now. Go with the truth. Or at least the partial truth.

  “Really?” she said. “Do you practice in L.A.?”

  “I’m in residence there.”

  True enough. But …

  “I’m going back East to see my mother. She isn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing serious,” he said, and lowered the menu. “I think I’ll have the eggs, too,” he said. “Is your home in New York?”

  “Yes. Well, my mother’s. I’ll be staying with her for the summer.” She paused and then said, “They’re divorced. My dad’s with the Army in Germany. He’s a colonel.”

  Sonny raised his brows appreciatively.

  “I hardly ever see him anymore,” Elita said, somewhat wistfully.

  “You must have done a lot of traveling around,” he said.

  “Oh, yes. Well, an Army brat, you know. By the way, I’m not really fifteen.”

  “You’re not?” he said, feigning surprise. “I thought you were. Your name’s Lolita, so I thought …”

  “No, it’s Elita. E-L-I-T … you’re putting me on again, right?”

  “How old are you really, Elita?”

  “Nineteen. How old are you really?”

  Please don’t say thirty, she thought.

  “Twenty-nine,” he said.

  She felt enormously relieved. Twenty-nine wasn’t quite thirty. But try to sell that to her mother. Mom? Hi, I just met this gorgeous guy on the train, I think I’m in love with him, he’s twenty-nine years old. Mom? Take your head out of the oven, Mom.

  “What’s funny?” he asked, and she realized she was smiling.

  “My mother,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  “Are you Mexican?” she asked.

  “Why? Is your mother Mexican?”

  “No, but are you?”

  “Do I look Mexican?”

  “Sort of.”

  “My complexion?”

  “I don’t know what. This … sort of exotic look you have.”

  “Oh my,” he said, “exotic,” and waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.

  “Are you?”

  “No, I’m part Indian and part British,” he said.

  She wondered if that was better. Hello, Mom? He isn’t Mexican, you can climb down off the windowsill. He’s British, Mom. Well, part Indian, I guess.

  “Indian Indian, right?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Which is really a whole lot better than Comanche or Chippewa, Mom. Wait’ll you see him, he looks like a young Dr. Zhivago, whatever that actor’s name was. Only better looking.

  “What part of India are you from?” she asked.

  Careful, he thought.

  “A little town called Jaisalmer,” he said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Close to the Pakistan border. Have you ever been to India?”

  “No. But my dad was stationed near there when I was twelve.”

  “Oh? Where?”

  “Burma,” she said.

  He signaled to the waiter. Everything he did, his every motion, seemed smooth and accomplished. He made something as simple as signaling to the waiter seem like a liquid hand gesture in a ballet. Careful, she told herself, this can get complicated.

  “Who’s Lolita?” she asked.

  “A little girl who fell in with a dirty old man,” he said.

  “Oh my,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And did she come to a sorry end?”

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter said, “are you ready to place your order?”

  “Elita?”

  “I’ll have the eggs, over medium, please, with bacon.”

  “Orange juice? Coffee?”

  “A small orange juice. Do you have decaf?”

  “Fresh brewed.”

  “I’ll have a cup, please.”

  “Sir?”

  “Same as the lady,” Sonny said. “All the way down the line.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the waiter said, and walked off grinning.

  “Tell me more about Lolita,” she said.

  The call from London came just as The Eagle was approaching Texas. The train had by then come through Arizona and almost all of New Mexico, and was on the outskirts of El Paso. On the train, it was still three-thirty in the afternoon, Mountain Time. In New York City, it was five-thirty on a hot summer evening.

  When the telephone rang, Geoffrey was just about to hit the four-number combination that would unlock the inner door to what the consulate personnel called “the airlock.” The security measure had been installed in 1984, several weeks after Libyan terrorists killed a policewoman in London. The airlock consisted of a pair of steel doors flanking an empty cubicle. One door led to the inner offices. The other door led to the waiting room. Each door had
a different combination lock on it. You opened one door, locked it behind you, and then opened the second door. The airlock had been designed to dissuade entry by anyone intending mischief. Geoffrey had already pressed the first number of the combination when Peggy Armstrong, one of the vice consuls in Passports and Visas, called in her high, shrill voice, “Geoff, for you! It’s the Mainland!”

  He wondered whether hitting the first number of the combination and then leaving it at that would cause alarms to go off and security people to descend upon him in hordes. Nothing on the alarm panel indicated what one should do in order to abort. He waited, fully expecting total disaster. Nothing happened.

  “Geoff!”

  Peggy’s voice again.

  “The Mainland!”

  Why she insisted on calling Britain “the Mainland” was totally beyond him. He sometimes suspected that Peggy had descended from another planet and was only now coming to grips with living on earth. She did somewhat resemble an alien being, what with frizzed red hair sticking out all over her head, and enormous brown eyes magnified by equally enormous goggles. A totally bug-eyed, flat-chested wonder, standing beside his desk now in tweeds better suited to the moors than to the Three H’s of a summer in New York, telephone receiver in her hand, thoroughly exasperated look on her homely face.

  “Thank you,” he said coolly, taking the phone and hoping his tone of voice conveyed the annoyance he’d felt at being yelled down like a fishmonger.

  “Turner speaking,” he said as Peggy marched off in a huff, presumably to her waiting spaceship.

  “Geoffrey, ho, it’s Miles Heatherton here.”

  Heatherton worked in the Consular Department of London’s Foreign Office, in a street near St. James’s Park called Petty France. Geoffrey had telephoned him earlier today, immediately after the Twentieth Precinct biked over the passport they’d found in the murdered woman’s handbag. He’d given Heatherton the number on the passport, the woman’s full name—Gillian Holmes, as in Sherlock—and the date and place of issue, in this instance June of last year in London. All routine. As required, the woman had listed in her passport the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of two persons to be notified in the event of an emergency. One was a brother named Reginald Holmes, who lived in London. The other was a friend named Jocelyn Bradshaw, who lived thirty-six miles west of London, in Henley-on-Thames.