by Ed McBain
“I’m sure,” she said.
“To the letter,” he repeated.
She was wondering if whoever answered the phone in Los Angeles would know where Sonny might be in New York.
The violinists played on interminably. She hoped they would not come to their table; there was nothing she found more embarrassing. Geoffrey was explaining how important his role had been in making certain the prime minister was properly seated. It all had something to do with Canada Day, a gala dinner and ball, prime ministers and presidents among the invited guests …
“Would you care to join me?” he asked.
“Sorry?” she said.
“That night. Would you care to come with me?”
“Well, I …”
“I’d be honored,” he said.
She looked at him. He was, in his stuffy British way, quite handsome. Very dark eyes, which he lowered now under her scrutiny. High cheekbones and good jaw, a faint cleft in it. Thick black hair combed casually to give him an exceptionally youthful appearance. She wondered suddenly how old he was. At their first meeting, he had asked her how old she was, and she had tried to make herself seem twenty. Her guess was that he couldn’t be much older than that himself—twenty-two or three, perhaps. A mere boy in comparison to Sonny.
He raised his eyes again, looked at her hopefully, almost entreatingly.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
If the dais was set where the cooperative Miss Lubenthal indicated it was normally set, and if Thatcher and Bush were sitting side by side at the table, as Sonny expected they would be, then he could eliminate both targets in the wink of an eye. His escape route was clear. Directly up the stairs to the left of the room, then around and down again to the Central Park South lobby. Out the door into the street and then down into the subway. New York’s subway system was a safe house in itself.
But if the President didn’t show …
Well, his orders were clear.
There’s a possibility you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, but only if your primary target is present at the dinner and ball. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait till the Fourth of July.
On his visit to Liberty Island last Saturday, he had learned that it would be closed on the Fourth until noon, at which time regular ferry service would resume. This meant that the President would be making his speech sometime that morning. The exact time had not yet been announced in the newspapers, but he knew that it would be. His tentative plan was to lay in the night before. He knew he could carry a gun onto the ferry and onto the island—no one had searched anyone yesterday, and he doubted that anyone would bother him on the third of July. The last boat left the island at six-thirty. He would not be on it.
But security on the Fourth would doubtless be exceptionally tight: the Secret Service for sure, with park rangers as backups, and possibly cops from the First Precinct as well. He had seen only one ranger wearing a gun last Saturday: a good-looking woman with a .357 Magnum on her hip. The others were carrying walkie-talkies in their holsters. He was positive they would all be armed on the Fourth. So whereas he’d be carrying a gun that day, he would not use it except in self-defense. As Arthur had pointed out, guns were not infallible, and this was a No-Fail operation.
Bush would undoubtedly be arriving by helicopter. Good photo op, the chopper with the presidential seal on its side, coming out of the sun to land on the wide brick circle with the American flag flapping on a tall flagpole at its center. Walk him to the statue itself, cameras following, the President tossing quips and waving his hand—Hello, folks, here’s the once and future President of the United States. Into the base of the monument, up the same stairs they’d taken on Saturday and out onto the star-shaped Fort Hood level. Sonny felt almost positive that this was where the speech would be delivered. More room here for maneuvering cameras, more opportunities for utilizing Liberty herself. The levels above were narrower, more restrictive to creative camera work.
The way Sonny looked at it, this entire appearance was one giant political photo op and the President’s men would be bending over backward to give the networks whatever assistance they needed. The Fort Hood level was the spot Sonny would have chosen if he were running CBS or ABC. The President standing against the high whitish stone wall behind him, the lady herself soaring above him into the sky. Place one of your cameras at the point of the star for your full shots of the statue, another midway toward the podium for your medium shots of the President with flags flying all around him no doubt, yet another camera for those sincere close shots. Yes, that’s where it would take place. Sonny would be ready for any other contingency, but he knew in his deepest heart that the President would die where Fort Hood once had stood.
He did not think there would be security on the level directly above the President, if only because the television pictures would then show men in blue suits lined up like vigilant tin soldiers, a bad image to project. Position your men instead at the stairs leading to the level above, out of view of the cameras. Keep your security on the Fort Hood level out of camera range as well, creating the impression of a fearless leader of the people, standing bold and unafraid before the worldwide symbol of freedom.
So unless he got to him first at the Canada Day celebration, what he planned to do …
The telephone rang.
Sonny picked up.
“Hello?” he said.
“Mr. Gomez?” Santorini asked.
He was standing in the lobby downstairs, using one of the house phones. His earlier call from the precinct had informed him that the guest in room 2312 was registered as Mr. Albert Gomez. Now he was here to find out just who Albert Gomez was, and why the number of his hotel room was scribbled on a scrap of paper in a dead lady’s garbage.
There was a silence on the line.
“Mr. Gomez?” he said again.
“Yes?” a voice said at last.
“This is Detective Allan Santorini, Homicide North?”
“Yes?”
“I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time.”
“Well … sure,” Sonny said. “Homicide, did you say?”
“Homicide North, yeah.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re investigating a case, I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“A murder case?”
“Well, yeah, that’s what we do. Investigate murder cases.”
“What’s a … murder case got to do with me?”
“Well, nothing, actually,” Santorini said. “There’re just some routine questions I’d like to ask you.”
Routine questions, Sonny thought.
“Whose murder are you investigating?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you when I see you,” Santorini said. “If you’d like to meet me in the lobby bar, I promise I won’t take more than ten minutes of your time.”
There was a long pause on the line.
“Mr. Gomez?” he said.
“Why don’t you just come up here?” Sonny suggested.
9
There was no answer at the number Geoffrey had given her for Sonny’s apartment. She let the phone ring twenty times, and then dialed the number again in case she’d made a mistake the first time, and let it ring another twenty times before hanging up. The second number he’d given her was for the hospital where Sonny worked. She dialed that next, slowly and carefully. It was a quarter to two in New York, ten forty-five in Los Angeles.
She told the woman who answered the phone that she wanted to talk to someone in Personnel, please. The nurse, or whoever the twit was, asked Elita what this was in reference to—she hated when underlings in doctors’ offices or hospitals did that. She said, “It’s a private matter, thank you.” Like a vaginal itch, she thought, as if it’s any of your goddamn business.
“Personnel,” a woman’s voice said.
“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” she said. “I’m calling from New York City.”
“Yes?”
�
�I’m trying to get an address here for Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, I wonder …”
“I’m sorry, we don’t give out personal information on staff.”
“This is regarding his mother,” Elita said. “She’s very ill.”
Which was sort of what Sonny had told her on the train.
“It’s important that I get in touch with him,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but …”
“Before she dies,” Elita said.
There was a long sigh on the line.
“How do you spell the last name, please?” the woman asked.
“Hemkar. H-E-M-K-A-R.”
“Just a moment, I’ll connect you with the page operator.”
“No, I don’t want to page him,” Elita said. “He isn’t in Los …”
The line went dead.
She’s cut me off! Elita thought. The stupid …
“Page Operator,” another female voice said.
“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” Elita said, “I’m calling from New York City.”
“Yes, Miss, whom did you wish paged?”
“I’m trying to get some information on Dr. Hemkar,” she said. “I don’t want him paged, he isn’t …”
The line went dead.
Elita visualized a page going out all over the hospital, speakers blaring, “Dr. Hemkar, please call the operator, Dr. Hemkar, please pick up,” or whatever the hell it was they announced in hospitals.
“Hello?” a voice said.
A male this time. Somewhat preppy sounding.
“Hello,” she said, “this is Elita Randall, I’m calling from New York. I’m trying to locate Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, but the page oper …”
“You and everybody else,” the man said.
“What?” she said.
“Who’d you say this was?” he asked.
“Elita Randall. Who’s this?”
“Dr. Welles,” he said. “Benjamin J. Welles. Did you say New York?”
“Yes, I’m calling from New York. I’ve lost track of Sonny …”
“Is he in New York?”
“Yes. Well, yes.”
“You don’t know how happy this makes me. We’ve been worried stiff out here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he disappears from sight without a word, we thought he’d been kidnapped or something. That’s why I answered the page. I thought it might be someone who …”
“Well, no. Actually I’m trying to locate him, too. Would you know his mother’s phone number here in New York?”
“I thought she lived in Paris.”
“No, he came here to see her. New York. She’s here in New York.”
“That’s funny, his father works in Paris, I’m pretty sure that’s where they live.”
“No, she was sick, and he …”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”
“Well, Sonny Hemkar,” she said, “how many Sonny Hemkars can there be? I mean, that isn’t exactly a common …”
“From Los Angeles, right?”
“That’s where he … excuse me, but how well do you know him?”
“We’re very close friends.”
“And he … never mentioned he was going to see his mother in New York?”
“Never mentioned he was going to New York at all. I’ve got to tell you, his job is at risk out here. If you see him, tell him BJ said he’d better …”
“When did you see him last?”
“I had brunch with him a week ago Sunday. Called him a little after eleven that night, got no answer.”
Because he was already on the train by then, Elita thought.
“And you don’t know where he is now?” she asked.
“No, I don’t. I wish I did.”
So do I, she thought.
“If you see him, tell him he’d better have a damn good story for Hokie.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Hokinson. He’ll know.”
“I’ll tell him.”
If I find him, she thought, and hung up.
He lowered the windows on the rental car the moment he realized he was getting close to the ocean. Salt air wafted in over the marsh grass. He took a deep breath and turned the car onto a narrow, packed sand road that was undoubtedly impassable in any kind of heavy rain. Today, though, the sky was a magnificent robin’s egg blue, wisps of clouds brushed across it by a mild and languid breeze. He heard now the hollow rasping sound of surf rolling in against the shore. And smiled.
The house loomed suddenly ahead.
He looked at his watch.
Three twenty-seven.
It had taken him an hour and forty minutes to drive here from the city.
He parked the car, got out, stretched, and looked up at the house. The smile was still on his face. There was nothing quite like this in Southern California, where he had spent the past six years of his life. The beach houses out there—even those that were unabashed reproductions of Cape Cod cottages—had none of the authentic look that this one so effortlessly achieved. Here, the outside walls were covered with sun-bleached shingles the color of seagulls. The roof was shingled with cedar shakes streaked brown and black, eroded by time and weather, twisted and gnarled. Sand-drifted pieces of flagstone led to a front door painted a blue faded paler than the sky.
Everywhere around the house, tufted sea oats and plumed pampas grass leaned in the mild ocean breeze, gently rustling. Something spidery and green sent long tendrils across the sand, trailing off in every direction. Sonny climbed a dozen or more rickety wooden steps to the top of the high dune and looked out over a beach more magnificent than any he’d seen in California. The Atlantic Ocean stretched endlessly before him, the roiling water a bluish-grey reflecting sunlight in tiny sparkling glints, waves rushing in against the sand, tumbling and receding again, whispering. He took a deep breath, all at peace with himself and the world. This was exactly what he wanted.
All he’d said to Arthur was, “I need that safe house.”
Walking back to the car, he unlocked the trunk and took from it the single large bag he had carried from Los Angeles. Fishing in his pocket for the key Arthur had messengered to the hotel, he walked up the sand-strewn flagstone path to the pale blue door at the front of the house. There was an absolutely appropriate tarnished brass knocker and doorknob. He inserted the key into the keyway, twisted it, and gently shoved the door inward.
Sunlight splashed through the French doors at the far end of the room, beyond which he could see a spacious deck overlooking the beach and the ocean. There was an immediate aroma that brought back to him memories of every summer seaside house he’d ever known, a combination of mustiness and damp, mildew and salt air. The room itself was furnished casually, almost sloppily, with slip-covered sofas and easy chairs that looked as if they’d come from a thrift shop on La Cienega. A rolltop desk stood against one of the unpainted cedar walls. There was a standing floor lamp with its shade hanging crooked, and a footstool with an upholstered needlepoint top. Rows and rows of books on rickety plank shelves hung on the cedar wall opposite the desk, where a partially opened door revealed a simple kitchen with more windows facing the sea. It was altogether charming, exactly what a beach house—not to mention a safe house—should be.
He carried his suitcase up a steep, narrow staircase to the floor above, where a door at the top of the landing opened onto one of the bedrooms, again facing the sea and streaming late afternoon sunlight. A canopied bed with a paisley-patterned quilt on it was just to the left of the entrance door. The sliding glass door opposite the entrance door opened onto a deck narrower than the one below. He slid open the door and went to stand outside.
The sea moved restlessly below.
There was a house close by on the left, architecturally similar to this one, but with a weathered wooden fence on all sides save the one facing the ocean. Some fifty yards to the right, there was yet another house, storied and gabled with a wide deck running along its oceanfront side.
On the northern side of the house, the side facing Sonny, there was a hidden second-story deck some twelve feet square, catching only scant sunlight now, a wooden fence guaranteeing complete privacy—except for a narrow sunwashed section of deck against the wall of the house, visible from where Sonny stood.
A woman was lying in that narrow space now.
Lying on her back in the space near the wall, soaking up the last slanting rays of the sun on the one section of deck vulnerable to observation from above.
The woman was naked.
Long blond hair fanning onto the striped inflated mat beneath her. Echoing blond hair tufting brazenly at the joining of her legs. Black sunglasses covering her eyes. Firm breasts flattening gently in repose, lolling toward her arms where they rested one off, one on the mat, the palms of her hands turned upward as if in supplication. Brown sandals rested on the deck beside the striped mat. An open book with a red jacket was lying face downward alongside her; Sonny could not read the title from this distance.
Unaware of his presence, she lay all golden in the sunshine. Time seemed to stop. He was vaguely aware of the ocean nudging the shore, the sound of a record player up the beach, music floating, muted laughter drifting. Silently, he stood watching her.
And suddenly she sat up, and rose, almost in one motion, stretching her arms over her head, shaking out her hair, bending like a dancer to retrieve her sandals and her book, closing the book, the sandals dangling from one hand, totally oblivious to him until … she must have sensed something. An unseen observer. A presence. She glanced upward all at once, and saw him where he stood transfixed on the upper deck.
She stood tall and motionless, the book in one hand, the sandals in the other, her head tilted toward the deck above, black sunglasses reflecting sunlight and sky and shielding her eyes from him. She stood that way for several breathless moments, looking up at him in seeming defiance, still and silent in the sunshine. And then, in brief dismissal, she turned her back to him, tight tanned buttocks swiveling as she walked to a sliding glass door at the side of the house, and opened it, and entered the house without a backward glance.
The truck from Advance Laundry Service was covered with scrawled graffiti. The company was located in the South Bronx and the trucks were parked overnight in an area enclosed by a cyclone fence, hardly a deterrent to determined graffiti writers. The white side and rear panels of the truck were simply too tempting to ignore. So it rode through town looking like an inner-city wall, hardly an image to project, especially when Advance listed among its customers some of the better hotels in New York.