Hard Fall

by Ridley Pearson

  “So we’re covered?” he asked.

  “In principle, yes. The logistics of arranging the various bomb squads and security teams remains a nightmare. All the privates and one of the commercials are coming into National. The two other commercials are coming into Dulles. Sandhurst leaves the night of the meeting. Everyone else stays over.”

  “Bernard built two identical baro-bombs. The target must be a plane.”

  Levin nodded. “We’ve been over all this, Michigan. He’s not going to sabotage one of these planes. We’ve got him covered.”

  “Not one of them is a 959,” Daggett said, just to hear himself repeat what he had been thinking for days now. “Damn it, this has something to do with a 959.” Levin didn’t say anything. “Maybe his target isn’t this meeting. Maybe that’s nothing but another coincidence.” He raised his voice angrily. “How can we stop him if we don’t know what he’s got planned?” He caught Gloria staring at him.

  The muscles in Levin’s jaw flexed as he bit back any comment he might have had. Daggett felt relieved to be around someone who knew when to keep quiet.

  He lowered his voice. “Answer,” he said, answering his own question. “We stop him before he has a chance to do whatever it is he intends to do. And that leads me to our next point of discussion. I want to run an idea by you.” Levin suddenly looked even more tired. Daggett worried he was pushing him too hard. “Listen, even though Mumford assigned me—you and me—to keep these arriving executives safe, he didn’t pull me from the Bernard ticket—the detonators. Not exactly. That’s important, because it allowed me a lot of leeway I wouldn’t normally have. I need to run an idea by Pullman. But if he senses I’m pushing too hard, he may bump me off of what we’re still vaguely calling Bernard, which is actually Seattle and the AmAirXpress crash. Some interesting questions were raised last night concerning thee voice recorder. With this security stuff pretty much handled, I may be able to get Mumford to put me back on tracking down this guy.”

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”

  “I need you to field this for me, to present it as if it’s your idea.”

  Levin looked askance. “Exactly what are we talking about?”

  Daggett said tentatively, testing the water, “The lab was able to work up a blood group using the saliva from the butts I found at the reception.” He paused because Levin didn’t seem very impressed. “The group matches with the blood from the tooth recovered in Seattle.” Again, he looked for enthusiasm but saw none.

  Levin’s lips puckered. His considerable nose twitched. “That’s horseshit, Michigan, and you know it. Saliva? Come on! That’s nothing.”

  “It’s the brand of the cigarette that interests me, not the goddamned saliva,” Daggett said defensively. “It’s the combination of the two.”

  “You’re saying that Ward’s killer was at this reception?” He was humoring him.

  “I’m saying, yes, it’s at least a possibility. What we’re going to do,” Daggett continued, now set on a course he refused to alter, “is limit the brand’s availability to only a few stores. One or two. I’ve already done the groundwork. Only four stores in the entire city sell Sobranie Black Russians in the first place. They cost five bucks a pack. What we do is put one of our people behind the counter of each of these stores. Then we wait it out. We’re good at that. Right? Professionals at waiting around.” He was shouting. Bud Togue—Bulldog—who had the desk two desks up from Daggett’s, turned his head to complain, but seeing Daggett, apparently thought better of it. Daggett continued, “A customer comes in to buy Sobranie, our man dicks with the cash register—it’s fucked up, it won’t work. He says the only way to pay is by check or by credit card.”

  “And we get a way to trace the customer,” Levin interrupted.

  “You’re so smart.”

  “And we follow them as well? I mean, from the store?”

  “Depends how many people Pullman will cut us. Right? That’s the point. But if it’s a guy fitting the general description, or a woman like her,” he said, pointing to the grainy enlargement of the woman’s face he had taped to the gray burlap baffle, “then, if necessary, our man behind the counter contacts us and then follows on foot. Yes?”

  Levin thought about it for some time. “It’s a good idea, Michigan, as far as ideas go. I mean, it’s creative in a weird kind of way, using this guy’s habit against him. I like that.” He hesitated and concluded, “But you’ll never sell it to Pullman.”

  “That’s right,” Daggett agreed quickly. He offered Levin a nice, juicy, shit-eating grin. “You will.”

  17

  * * *

  It was called Elite Estates with a slogan beneath the title’s Olde English typeface that read: ATTRACTIVE PROPERTIES MANAGED WITH CARE AND PERSONAL ATTENTION. It was a Jeffersonian brick building with oversized true-divided-light windows that reached almost to the floor. Curtains blocked a view of the interior. A brass plaque mounted to the brick above an intercom call box identified the building as a historical site.

  He let himself in through the front door and took advantage of a missing receptionist.

  “Knock, knock,” Kort said.

  Carrie glanced up from her desk and smiled mechanically at him. This was replaced immediately by a glint of faint recognition. She was trying to place him.

  “The receptionist wasn’t at her desk,” he explained apologetically. “I saw your name on the door.” He tapped the name-plate with a trimmed and filed fingernail. He could practically hear her thinking. He didn’t want to make it easy for her; the idea was to challenge her. When she blushed, he knew she had finally remembered. “The party the other night,” he said.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged in a warmer, less professional expression. He savored the moment. She had a beautiful smile. Had she not recognized him, had she not recalled their brief encounter, it would have made things much more difficult for him. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember—”

  “Carl Anthony.”

  “How on earth did you find me?”

  “I asked around.” It was a lie. The night of the party, he and Monique had followed her home. This morning they had followed her to work.

  He studied her. She was a lovely woman in an unusual way. None of the stunning, sexually shocking quality of a Monique. A much more controlled, conservative look. She wore a blue-and-white-striped man-tailored blouse, accentuated by a thin gold chain around her smooth neck. She had used some blush to help define a face seemingly without cheekbones. Lipstick widened her mouth. She had inquisitive bold eyes that forewarned of her intelligence and a posture that made the most of high breasts and sturdy bones. An athlete. A competitor.

  The office interior enhanced her femininity—chintz and pastels, Boston ferns and a woven basket of forced tulips of lavender and peach. The room smelled of scented soap, clean and inviting. Or perhaps it was her. The smell relaxed him, like a long, hot bath. Sunlight flooded through the windows behind her, and he thought if he ever built a house, he would want a room like this in which to have his morning coffee while reading the newspapers. And a woman like this would belong in the room with him, humming to herself, flipping the pages of a magazine and giggling privately as she read, distracting and alluring.

  “Well,” she said, looking perplexed and a bit embarrassed, “please have a seat. Come in. How can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for a place,” he explained. “‘Why give your business to a stranger?’ I asked myself. I decided to combine business with pleasure.”

  “How kind of you.” She delivered this well, but he sensed a reluctance in her. “A rental? A lease?”

  “I enjoyed last night,” he said, taking a seat now, but not taking his eyes off of her. “I don’t get out very often.”

  “I forget your business. I’m sorry. It’s not that … It’s just that it was a … a spirited evening for me.” She smiled, embarrassed. “My memory is a little fuzzy.”

  “Food service,” he replied. “Those aw
ful snacks you get on the airplane. Our company is trying to make them more palatable and steal away some of the business.”

  “Oh, yes, now I remember. You’re a spy.”

  That had a way of sobering him. “Exactly.”

  “You’re over here consulting a Washington-based company, wasn’t that it?”

  “What a memory! Yes. They’re consulting us, actually. Just so.”

  “And you’re from?”

  “Europe,” he answered vaguely. “That’s my 1992 response to that question.”

  She seemed to find him amusing. “These are exciting times in Europe.”

  “They certainly are,” he agreed, aware of the irony of his reply.

  “So, how may I help you?”

  She meant real estate, of course. He knew this, but his mind wandered. This room was far too comfortable to think business. He relaxed, his tension drained away. There were several ways she could help him, it occurred to him. The key to Daggett’s front door held the top position on his list and now several other possibilities came to mind. She sat patiently waiting for his response.

  “A lease. I need a house for six months to a year. Longer perhaps, if things work out.” He had decided on this amount of time because he wanted to make sure she saw him as a potentially valuable client. “Somewhere out here in the Virginia suburbs. Not too far from National, but far enough to be quiet and out of the flight patterns.” She reached for a loose-leaf notebook as he continued, “And I should warn you that I’m terribly particular. To the point of being finicky, I’m afraid. I have very specific tastes, beginning with the landscaping. I’m something of a green thumb—at least I fancy myself one—and though we’re at the end of the season, I would like a place where there’s plenty to do in the gardens. Tending the lawn has never been one of my favorites, but I’m mad about gardens. Flowers, vegetables, shrubs, it doesn’t matter just so long as I can get my hands into the soil and make a mess of myself.” He was stretching out the time, still unsure how he would attempt to get into her purse and at those keys. He needed that date of the meeting from inside Daggett’s briefcase as soon as possible. There was much to be done. The focus of his attention remained Mosner and EisherWorks—avenging the destruction of his former life.

  She laughed in a low contralto. He found the sound soothing, and wished she would do it again. “We have that in common,” she said. “A love of gardens. I think I know exactly what you’re looking for. But that won’t make my job any easier, I’m afraid.” She began to turn pages. “That will require some serious hunting.” She glanced up from the notebook. “We pride ourselves on satisfied customers.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do. I have nothing but time,” he said. “No hurry whatsoever.” Lies, lies, and more lies. It had become so much a way of life for him, he didn’t hear them any longer.

  There was that laugh again. He wished he had a tape recorder. She said, “Don’t worry. It shouldn’t take that long.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” he assured her. “Not in the least.”

  She drove a red Ford Taurus with a plush interior and all the extras. It reminded him of Roger Ward. This must have been the car Daggett had borrowed the other night. That reminded him how close he was to enemy territory, how risky this approach. It didn’t feel risky. It felt delightful. He glanced over at her. She wore the man-tailored blouse tucked into a khaki skirt. White tights. Leather walking shoes with thick gum rubber soles. He had a fetish about women in cars, he realized. Except for Monique, he had not ridden with a woman in years, and so only discovered this odd lust now, as he longed to reach over and run his hand up her leg, up her thigh and under her skirt. Or perhaps unbutton her blouse and tease her breasts as she drove. Was it her helplessness? Her defenselessness? He considered his fantasy rather tawdry. But he carried it one step further, allowing himself to imagine tying her up in bed, naked and willing, tying her wrists with yarn, or something easily broken, or tying her with bows so that they both knew she could free herself whenever she wished, but tying her down and taking his time with her, exploring, teasing, satisfying. Make her swell, rich with a woman’s scent.

  “What do you think?” she asked. They had been driving for ten or fifteen minutes through a wooded part of the Virginia suburbs and were now parked in front of a quaint yellow-and-white cottage, its brick chimney thick with ivy, a tarnished copper weather vane mounted to the peak of the roof, shifting slightly with the fluctuating wind. Surrounded by a low wrought-iron fence, with an intricate gate, it reminded him of southern France. Perfect. He felt like walking inside and never coming out. But he needed more time. “I don’t mind taking a look,” he said, anxious to see the inside, “but right off the mark I would say there’s not enough yard to it, not enough lot. Do you see that? It’s charming, of course, but hardly the sort of place … I’m not sure. Let’s have a look. I would hate to be too hasty.”

  She led the way. He thought that in such a small house there should have been fewer rooms and more emphasis on windows. With an eye on her purse and still no way to get to her keys, he listed its shortcomings and requested they try another.

  By the third house, she had relaxed and he had her talking. It was a stucco Tudor with black shutters and leaded windows, large for a bachelor, but with outstanding landscaping including a rock garden and a lovely vine-covered gazebo out back. They were standing in the bedroom, he looking out the window, she wandering the room reciting the house’s various features.

  Inexplicably, Kort choked up. This home wasn’t so different from the one he had lived in as a married man. A feeling of loss surged through him. Without the greed of EisherWorks Chemicals he would have been living in a house like this with a healthy child and a loving wife—it seemed blatantly unfair. He recalled the day Inspector Michael Sharpe had knocked on his door and changed his life.

  A home. What would it be like to lock the doors of this house, trapping Caroline inside, and spend the remainder of his life making love to her and tilling the gardens? The thought intoxicated him. Caroline crossed the room and arranged a bouquet of silk flowers. She was speaking, but he didn’t hear. She was his adversary’s woman. Did that add to his thrill? The palpable quiet of the room absorbed him. He could hear her breathing from across the room. The bed lay like an island between them, inviting his thoughts. Was it so unthinkable? Was this not, after all, the best way to get that key? If he simply took the key, she might mention the loss to Daggett, who would change the lock. But to find a way to legitimately borrow the key?

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “It’s lovely,” he said, referring to her work with the flowers. “Much better than it was. You understand color very well.”

  “I mean the house.”

  “Oh. It’s very nice, isn’t it? But awfully big for a single man. Why don’t we look at the grounds?”

  They strolled the small backyard, she glancing over at him now and then, especially when he stooped to pick a weed or remove dead heads from the flowering plants.

  “These beds are being tended to once every other week,” he observed. “They would look better if serviced once a week. The flowering plants have obviously taken a beating in this heat,” for it was hot again today, and growing more so by the hour, “but everything here needs more water and more attention in general.”

  “They need you,” she said in her best soft-sell voice.

  “I’m taking too much of your time,” he said, the concern in his voice genuine. He didn’t want to do anything but tour these homes with her, walk in gardens and fantasize about making love with her.

  “No, you’re not. You mustn’t think that, Mr. Anthony—”

  “Carl.”

  “It’s my job to put you in the home you want. I wasn’t kidding about satisfied customers.”

  They had come to the gazebo and rock garden. It was lovely, by far the prettiest, most well-conceived piece of landscaping on the small grounds. They stood close to each other, neither speaking. In a tender vo
ice Kort said, “I miss the peace of the garden.”

  Caroline studied him as his eyes stayed on the flower bed. “You were married, weren’t you? You said you’re single now, but you were married.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “Children?”

  “One,” he said.

  “Where are they now?”

  He stooped, clawed at the earth, collected some dirt in his hand and then released it. He looked up at her and shook his head. He felt his eyes stinging, and it embarrassed him. He was long past crying for them. A heavy silence fell between them, but they maintained their eye contact. “I had no right to ask,” she said.

  “Of course you did,” he replied, absorbed by the beauty of the garden, not wanting her to see any more of his sorrow. “But I don’t have any pets,” he said, intentionally harshly.

  “I wasn’t asking as a property manager,” she corrected. “I was asking as a fellow human being.”

  Music to his ears. He played the scene for all he could. “Let’s try someplace else. I like this very much, but the house is a little big. Still, it’s the nicest of the three.”

  “Yes. It is big for one person. Shall we go?”

  He pointed over to the gazebo and a bench in the shade, produced his pack of Camels nonfilters and offered her one. Monique had promised him a pack of Sobranies; he could hardly wait. Caroline declined, but she had a pack of her own filtered cigarettes, and a moment later he lighted the cigarettes and they smoked. “It’s a terrible habit,” he said, later breaking their silence.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “But I love it.”