He stepped through the door of the Arcadia office and smiled at the woman behind the desk. The gray-haired woman with small glasses perched on the edge of her nose looked up and smiled. “Oh, hello, Mr. Williams.”
“Hi, Katherine. Is Mr. Rabinowitz in?”
“I’ll tell him you’re here.” She mumbled a few words into the telephone intercom. “What’s all that commotion outside?”
“The President’s motorcade and his screaming supporters.”
“A great man,” she added. “Old Scrooge wouldn’t let me go watch.”
“Hah!” was the expletive from the other office doorway. “I wouldn’t cross the street to see that cowboy.” Sol Rabinowitz stood in the open door of his office with a hand extended to Cory. He was a heavyset man with deep jowls and a massive bay window. “What was the noise? Sounded almost like shots.”
“Must have been backfires from all those motorcycles.”
“What brings you down here, Cory, besides coming to see our so-called leader?”
Cory shook the developer’s hand firmly. “Only out hustling for business for the bank. Dan Hawkins wants to put out a few million in new construction money—fast. We’re looking for a few projects with a good yield. So I’m pounding the pavement to talk to some of our good customers.”
Rabinowitz’s face beamed for a moment before it fell back to carefully prearranged cynical contortions. “What’s a good yield? One arm, a leg, and my left nut?”
Cory smiled and settled into a side chair. “Something like that, but we might let you keep the family jewels.” He nonchalantly crossed his legs and wondered if his ability to dissemble were successful. He continued talking to the developer. His mind was compartmentalized, able to perform almost automatically the business functions it had done so many times before, while the other side of him screamed that people with guns would shortly break down the door and shoot him before he had the opportunity to make any sort of explanation.
Twenty minutes later Cory and Sol were on the elevator, going down to the plaza for an early lunch. That portion of Cory’s mind that operated on reflex had carried on the conversation, and the developer, enchanted with the prospect of new mortgage money, hadn’t seemed to notice anything wrong.
Three uniformed police, two carrying shotguns and one with a clipboard, met them in the lobby as they stepped off the elevator.
“What’s going on?” Rabinowitz snapped.
“Identification, please.”
“I demand an explanation!”
The men carrying the shotguns seemed to relax for a second. “Someone took a shot at the President,” one said.
“Oh, my God!”
“Anyone hit?” Cory asked.
“One of our guys got one of them,” the second gun carrier said. “He was in a window across the way, and we nailed him. We had a tip that the other gun was in the Faber Building, but he was in here instead.”
“ID,” the cop with the clipboard snapped.
“Of course.” Rabinowitz handed a business card to the officer. “I’m president of the Arcadia Development Corporation, with offices on the twelfth floor. It’s on the building directory. Mr. Williams is an officer of the Nutmeg National Bank, and we’re involved in a business meeting and luncheon.”
The cop made notes and looked at Cory expectantly. “Sir?” His attitude had changed.
Cory flipped a business card from his breast pocket and gave it to the officer.
As the officer made another note on his clipboard, Cory felt his whole life was somehow emblazoned on that small engraved card that recently seemed to open so many doors.
They were waved through and out of the building.
Cory was halfway through a piece of rare London broil that he forced himself to eat, when he remembered what he had left behind in that small vacant office. The rifle, camera, attaché case, and tubular container all held his fingerprints.
CHAPTER 5
Lunch was interminable.
Cory’s awareness of the mass of fingerprints left in the vacant office crumbled his composure. His fingerprints were on file locally in Deerford because of his application for a pistol permit last year, and of course there were prints on file with the FBI from his military service.
An hour from now they would be swarming over his apartment and riffling through his desk at work.
“Are you all right?”
“What?” He looked up into Sol Rabinowitz’s concerned face. “Oh, sure. Just a little wool gathering.”
“About possible tenants for this deal …”
The developer’s rhapsodic plans for a proposed Connecticut shoreline shopping center escaped Cory. He could only hope that his face was frozen in a mask of interest.
As soon as lunch was over he would make contact with Norm Lewis. The best approach would be for Norm to lay out the story to a reputable attorney. The lawyer could phone the police and set the wheels in motion.
When lunch was finally over he cut the coffee conversation as short as possible and mumbled an excuse about getting back to the office. They left the restaurant together and turned in opposite directions.
Cory wondered how long it would take to make the fingerprint identification. It would be best not to risk retrieving his car in the underground garage. He would walk directly to Norm’s office.
The brokerage firm was moderately crowded when Cory entered. A cluster of lunch-hour investors hovered at the rear of the room, watching the movement of stock prices on the screen against the far wall. There were a dozen desks in the center floor, with half of the younger brokers on the phone, while others talked conspiratorially to men and women seated at their desks.
Lewis had an office at the side of the “bullpen,” with a glass front that allowed him to look over the main room toward the screen on the wall. He was on the telephone when Cory entered unannounced, and his eyes flicked up and then back to notes on his desk. He made a final remark into the receiver and jammed the phone back in its cradle. He arched his eyebrow toward Cory, standing in the doorway; his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Are you out of your mind? We can’t be seen together.”
“You know what they think I was doing?”
The voice still a whisper. “It’s all hit the fan. They even gave a report on the big-board tape. Spiked the market down two points.”
“I thought we’d call a lawyer friend of mine, Jerry Granville, and both go …”
“You killed a man.”
“I had to.”
“We’re in a mess, Cory, but I can’t talk now. Using an attorney as an intermediary is not a bad idea, but my law firm has more clout than Jerry. It’s going to take a couple of hours to set up. You go back to your apartment and come over to my house at …” he glanced at his watch, “five. I’ll have it worked out by then.”
“I can’t go to my apartment.”
“Why not?”
“My prints are all over that room.”
“Oh, Christ! Then go to a movie. Shack up with someone. Just stay off the streets until five.”
“Listen, Lewis, I want this matter straightened out now.”
“It’s got to be done my way. Understand?”
Their eyes met. Cory shrugged. “You don’t give me any alternative. Your place. After five.” He turned to leave.
“Did you get the photograph?”
“Sure. They’ve probably already been enlarged and passed out to every cop in the city.”
When Cory entered the Clock and Chime, Fred, the bartender, smiled. “Looks like you lost your cherry, Mr. W.”
Cory took an involuntary step backward. “What do you mean?”
“You came in. Your team won last night. I took out what you owed me from Monday, but you’re still ahead.”
The bills, surreptitiously slid across the bar, were palmed into Cory’s pocket. A laugh started deep within him and choked out in guttural coughs. “That’s funny,” he finally manage to blurt.
“You feelin’ OK?”
&nb
sp; “Fine. Maybe my luck is turning. Give me a vodka martini.”
“You were due.” The bartender mixed a martini in a shaker in the exact mount needed to brim the cocktail glass. “You heard about the President?”
“Just vaguely. Not all the details.”
“Lots of action downtown, about eleven. Seems there were two guys up in some building with rifles, that tried to waste the President. The Secret Service shot one, but the other guy got away.”
“The Secret Service?”
“Blew the bastard out the window.” Fred turned away to take care of another customer.
The clear liquor shimmered in the glass before Cory. He didn’t want the drink. His nerve was slipping … he had to keep things under control until tonight, when he and Norm put the pieces back together.
Why had he fired? Why had he responded so automatically? The rawest army recruit quickly learned never to volunteer, and yet he had reflexively shot a man he thought was going to assassinate the President.
He sensed someone at his side and turned to see Ginny Shelton, the C and C’s waitress, rest her drink tray on the bar. She brushed a wisp of sandy blond hair from her forehead.
“Two daiquiris and a pink lady, Fred.”
The bartender mumbled obscenities under his breath that damned women drinkers and split checks.
“When are we going to make it, Ginny?” Cory automatically said the expected.
“When does hell freeze over, Mr. Williams?”
Cory laughed and watched as she piled the cocktails on her small tray and bustled off. With a little care she could be attractive, he thought. Give Ginny Shelton a decent hairdo, a designer dress with accessories, and she would be transformed. She had a good figure, but her hair was constantly astray, and her face seemed perpetually puckered in consternation, as if she didn’t quite understand life.
He knew she had jumped out of a bad marriage a few years ago, and although she joked with the customers in the lounge, she kept her personal life private, an indication of good taste, he thought.
She returned to the bar to pass money and a drink check to Fred. “I’m working half today,” she said. “Helen comes in at three. See you tomorrow.”
“Take it easy, Gin” The bartender gave an offhanded wave as she hung her apron on a small peg by the rear of the bar and left the lounge.
Cory had the feeling that they had assigned hundreds of cops and government agents to the shooting. Once they checked out his office and a few of his friends, they would be invading his known haunts. The surrender had to be on his terms to keep the momentum of his innocence alive.
He slapped a five-dollar bill on the counter and pushed off the stool.
“Just a quickie today, Mr. Williams?”
“Only came to collect my winnings, Fred. See you.” He hurried out the door into the bright sunlight and looked in both directions. He saw her half a block away, at the corner, waiting for the light to change, and he ran to catch up with her. “Care for company, Ginny?”
She gave him an oblique and surprised look. “Didn’t expect that from you, Mr. Williams. To answer your questions before they’re asked: my apartment rent is paid, my mother is not sick, and I’ve got money for groceries, thank you.” The traffic signal flickered to “walk” and she scurried across the street.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “First, I’m going to the supermarket, and then home to clean up the joint.”
“I’m just tagging along.”
She halted in front of a Foodmart chain store and turned toward him in anger. “Listen, Cory. You’ve always been a decent guy and never tried anything but a little kidding. You may be attractive but you are a customer, and the two don’t mix. Besides, I’m in no mood for a matinee with some horny businessman.” She stepped through the automatic doors, grabbed a grocery cart, and pushed it rapidly down the vegetable aisle.
Cory followed after her and grabbed a bottle of blue-cheese dressing from a high shelf. “This stuff is pretty good. Ever try it?” He plunked it in her cart.
“You weren’t listening, Mr. Williams. You know, they got a massage parlor down on Blackman Street that’s got all sorts of girls.”
They walked in tandem down the grocery aisles. A very domestic scene, Cory thought wryly. “You’re reading me wrong, Gin.”
“Go home,” she said tiredly. “Or go back to Fred and lay your bets on horses, dogs, baseball, or whatever you’re betting on today.” She stopped at the meat counter to examine a tray of pork chops with complete concentration.
“That’s my problem. I can’t go home. I can’t go back to the office or to the Clock and Chime.”
She slowly turned, her head cocked in interest. “How come?”
“I’m into a very mean man a little too deep. Until I make contact with a friend of mine late this afternoon and get some money, I have to disappear.”
“The leg breakers?”
“That’s what they tell me.” He tried to smile. “I’m too young to have busted knee caps.”
“And you just want to come over to my place to have a beer and kill time?”
“That’s the size of it.”
She thought for a long moment. “All right, come on. Boy, I’m a sucker for a sad story, but you never did strike me as the weird type.”
Cory carried grocery bags and she the beer as they walked three short blocks to her apartment. She lived on the second floor of a modest garden-apartment-style building. Once inside, she closed the door, put the bags on a counter in the small pullman kitchen, and kicked off her shoes. “Be with you in a minute. Get us a beer.”
Cory flipped off the tops of two cans of Black Label and sat on a hard divan along one wall. There was a nostalgic quality to the room, an aura out of sync with the woman he knew as Ginny from the Clock and Chime. Along the far wall were European travel posters, a cheap stereo sat in a corner with a few dozen albums of folk music, and a bookcase made of boards over cement blocks contained dozens of paperback novels. He wondered what Ginny Shelton dreamed about.
In minutes she sat in the beanbag chair across the room and curled her feet. She had changed into a peasant blouse and shorts that displayed excellent legs.
“Why do you get involved in that junk, Cory?”
“What junk?”
“The gambling. I’ve watched you in the lounge for two years, and you mostly lose.”
“That’s my nature.” He tried to smile, but any fey quality left within him had departed earlier, when he held the rifle in his hands.
“You want something to eat?”
“No, thank you. I’ve had lunch.”
They finished their beers in silence. Occasionally, she looked over the rim of her beer can, appraising, measuring. “You aren’t very funny this afternoon.”
“I have problems.”
“Don’t we all.” She stood and extended her hand toward him. “What the hell. Some things are inevitable.” Her fingers laced into his. “Come on.” She led him to the bedroom. “You’re the first from the Clock and Chime. You know that?”
“Yes, Ginny. I know that.”
He waited until after seven to call Norm Lewis. He padded into the living room and sat in the straight chair by the phone. The bedroom door was open, and he could see her sprawled across the bed, the sheet pushed down to her waist, her back turned away in an attractive S curve of thigh and buttocks. He silently shut the bedroom door before he dialed Norm.
The phone was answered on the first ring. “Norm?”
“Is that you, Cory? Where in hell have you been?”
“Atlantic City, New Jersey.”
“Don’t fool around. All hell has broken loose.”
“Like what?”
“The Feds, the locals, the whole damn country is looking for you. It’s on the TV, and the paper put out an extra … ‘Local boy takes shot at President,’ all that sort of thing.”
“Did they find the camera? Was there anythin
g in the news about the camera?”
“What camera?”
“Don’t play games, Norm.”
“Let’s not talk on the phone. Get over here fast.”
The warning bells rang … A quality to the man’s voice created a programmed falseness to the conversation. “Anyone with you, Norm?”
“Anyone who? Ruth’s here. I’ll keep her out of the way.”
“Anyone else?”
“No, but I’ll have my lawyers here once I know you’re; on the way. You’re going to need all the help you can get. I’ve got the money for you.”
“The camera. Tell me about the camera, now, over the phone.”
“I’m mixing a batch of martinis. They’ll be chilled by the time you get here.” The phone clicked dead.
“Something wrong?” She stood in the doorway, wrapped in a large terry-cloth towel.
“I don’t know,” he replied softly. He dialed for a taxi, and when asked for his address, gave one two blocks from Ginny’s apartment. When he hung up he looked across the room to see her silently watching him. “I have to see my friend about getting the money.”
She nodded noncommittally. “Sure.” She stood in a posture of half resignation, half hope. “If you were to come back later, we could have some steak and eggs.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I’d like that. Let me see how long it takes to get things straightened out.” It was certainly going to take longer than an hour or two, he thought to himself as he lied to her. “I’ll call you from my friend’s place.”
“Sure.”
She didn’t believe it, and neither did he.
He had the cab leave him over four blocks from the Lewis house, in front of what appeared to be an unoccupied dwelling. He stood in the walkway, pretending to fumble for house keys as the cab turned the corner and disappeared from view. Twilight had turned to dusk, and tree-shaded sidewalks had mottled patterns of light splattered across their surface.
He had spent a third of his childhood in this neighborhood as the Williams family shuttled from the townhouse in Georgetown to the old colonial in West Deerford, which was sold after his mother’s death, and finally to the summer cottage at the shore. As a boy he had run these streets and nearby woods with Norm Lewis. He began to walk toward the Lewis home. It was a long, rambling house of stucco, with a Spanish motif throughout. A high wall to one side enclosed a swimming pool, cabanas and patio. There was a two-story solarium off the patio that had once been filled with freestanding tropical trees and exotic hanging plants. High double doors led from the solarium into the main wing of the house.
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