by Gahan Wilson
‘You’re right, John. You’re very, very right,’ said Ashman and gave a little frown I’m sure his mother knew. ‘He won’t budge. No matter who asks him to. He seems to have no respect at all for official authority.’
I smiled at him, kind of toothy.
‘I’m a little that way myself, George,’ I said. ‘It’s one of the main reasons why the two of us, me and this other fellow you want to lend a hand, got along through all those years.’
I stood and picked up the coffee cups and started rinsing them off in the sink while I stared out the window, then I had to sigh because wouldn’t you know they had that damned, silly limo cruising down Maple Street like a duck out of water again.
‘On the other hand,’ I said, stacking the cups in the rack to drain, ‘you people really do need our help.’
— 2 —
THE BARTON TOWERS are where you stay if you’re convinced you’re really important and you’re staying at the Barton Hotel, which anybody who understands anything knows is only a sort of poor man’s adjunct to them. The higher your Suite is, and of course nobody staying at the Barton Towers can stay in anything less than a suite, the more important you are—deposed dictators wouldn’t be seen getting off the elevators until they’d passed the twentieth floor—and the best of all is saved for the very top floor which is, every square foot of it, the Presidential Suite.
But that is not by any means all that is architecturally standoffish about the suite. It is also so constructed and set up that all its working systems function entirely independently from the rest of the building, from having its very own air-conditioning system on down, and the rumor among people in the hotel security business is that if you tore down the whole fifty-nine other floors of the Barton Towers, those snooty top-floor digs would continue to float high above Manhattan.
The Presidential Suite is where Ashman and his friends had stashed Enoch Bone, and it was pathetic to see how proud the poor simps seemed to be of that when they told me about it in the limo. Of course we all left in the limo since I figured that, as Mr Bowen of Elmsville was thoroughly and permanently blown, the folks there might as well see their lovable neighbor depart in style.
‘Well, then, of course he’s grumpy,’ I said. ‘Don’t you know Bone considers that place a den of thieves and assassins? Some of the people he hates most in the world either live there and boast about it or would kill to roost there. I’d say you boys really did a swell job of getting off on the wrong foot.’
I closed the portfolio of stuff Ashman had given me to study and shook my head, not over the blunder he and his gang had made in housing Bone, though that was bad enough, but over the material I’d just been trying to digest.
Along with the photographs he’d already shown me there were plenty of others, including a lot of background shots of a big rally against violence on children’s tv which had involved large crowds of angry people toting banners and posters and marching up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, not to mention the sidewalks. The rally had interfered no end with the initial pursuit, but a careful checking-out indicated it was motivated entirely by a laudable desire to preserve the mental health of the nation’s young, and unrelated to the attack.
There were also pages of other photos and little maps of rooms and lots of other data resulting from the investigations of a small army of scientists brought in to study the rubble. None of these things much clarified who had done it, not to mention why, but they did a good enough job of showing how well the attack had been planned and executed, and the size and spookiness of the whole business was only just dawning on me as we pulled within sight of New York.
Nothing the terrorists left behind had so far led anywhere at all; not their shells or bullets or even two of their bodies: a thin, tiny, tough-looking Oriental and a burly, large, tough-looking Caucasian, neither of whose fingerprints, photos, or descriptions seemed to have been registered in anybody’s files. These two had died from biting little poison pellets someone had doubtless given them for emergencies just like the one they ran into when they’d been forced into a wrong turning in a White House corridor during an otherwise flawless and totally successful escape, which, by the way, was still so completely unexplained that Ashman told me it had reduced the investigators to actually tapping the walls in a hunt for secret panels.
The limo hadn’t quite rolled to a stop at the Barton Towers entrance before the car was wrapped in grim-looking men with wires leading to plugs in their ears and one hand each pushed into their pockets, and this bunch did an expert job of seeing to it that we were over the sidewalk and inside an oversized, art deco elevator as quickly as it could be done without their actually lifting us out bodily and tossing us from one of them to the other like a couple of footballs.
‘This next part is up to you,’ Ashman said, watching the little red dots on the indicator zip up the floors. ‘Until now I’ve always thought the stories about his stubbornness were unkind exaggerations, but my guess is you’re the only person in the world who can budge the old bastard.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘so I would suggest you leave me to it, and, by the way, stop calling him names. Let me go in alone and don’t bother us until I say to, as we definitely don’t need a chaperon. And I’m not guaranteeing a thing, understand that.’
We stepped out of the elevator into a hallway with two full-scale chandeliers and no end of fancy woodwork.
‘Fit for a king,’ I said, looking around at all the grandeur. ‘I’m sure he hated it. Where is he?’
Ashman led the way to one impressive door among many that differed from the rest only in that there was a marine standing by one side of it. He snapped smartly to attention at our approach, but then I wouldn’t have expected anything less of him.
‘At ease,’ said Ashman, and he did.
‘I see you shift from civilian to military authority once your operation moves out of the common view,’ I said, and then I paused with my hand on the door’s knob, which I suspected might actually be gold plated. ‘Wait a minute. Has he eaten anything?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ashman. ‘He said the menu was appalling, that’s the word he used, and then he threw it at somebody. I think he’s had a couple of pots of coffee, but that’s all.’
‘That’s a day and a half without food; a major strike,’ I said. ‘He must be starving. They have a staffed kitchen on this floor; tell them to produce two hearty breakfasts. Now. Tell the chef not to try and fool around with fancy stuff, to keep it classic American simple. Blueberry corn muffins, if he thinks he’s up to it, Scotch scones if he doesn’t, beaten biscuits after that. But not made from a mix, whatever he does. And no frozen sausages. Have it hot and ready and waiting in as close to ten minutes as possible. Now be quiet.’
I turned the knob and went in and closed the door behind me, making as little noise doing it as I could. He heard me enter, of course, but he wasn’t going to dignify me by looking in my direction because he figured I was one of them. He was wearing one of those Ivy League professional outfits, tweedy, with suede leather patches on the elbows, but it was all fresh and pressed and the ascot was perfect; the passing of time had by no means turned him sloppy.
It was exciting to see him again after all these years, and I won’t pretend my heart didn’t bob right up into my throat, but my God how old he was! I couldn’t believe all those new wrinkles; he had to have the all-time record for wrinkles, and when I took in the knobbiness of his hands and the way his back bent over as he sat there looking out of the window it made my heart squeeze and I was within an ace of feeling sorry for him when he did turn—as I knew he would eventually have to do because curiosity always got the better of him—and I saw those gray eyes on me, still bright and sharp and dangerous if riled, and my little pity fit snickered at itself and popped like a bubble because, of course, he was tough and sharp as ever.
He stared hard at me for another moment while his brows, which had grown into two white tufts, swam close to each other and locked hairs ov
er a particularly deep vertical wrinkle over his nose. Then he blinked and stood, which was a relief because I was wondering if he still could, and, finally, he spoke.
‘Outrageous!’ he said, and his voice was unchanged, exactly as I’d remembered it, with not a knob or wrinkle in it.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘They brought you here? Dragged you from that silly Elmsville? Is there no end to their presumption?’
‘No,’ I said.
By this time we were shaking hands. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but Enoch Bone and I have only shaken hands four times, counting this time, during all the years we’ve known one another, and I have only seen him do it with two other people, once each, so it doesn’t come easy to him and we didn’t drag it out.
He stood back, looking up at me.
‘Of course they sent you here to badger me to pry into this grotesque situation,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘I told them I’d try, but that there would be no guarantee. They also blew Mr Bowen, and I liked being Mr Bowen.’
He nodded and wandered over to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows which afforded a fine view of a sea of glass-box buildings marching along both sides of Park Avenue.
‘I know you did,’ he said. ‘It was very American and touching of you to want to be Mr Bowen, and you have my sympathy on his passing.’ He turned and glared. ‘But don’t try to blackmail me with his loss.’
‘It would have been foolish not to make the attempt,’ I said.
‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Now you’ve done it, what’s next? An appeal to my patriotism? I am, after all, a naturalized citizen, so it’s an entirely valid ploy.’
‘I was thinking of bring up the intellectual challenge,’ I said.
‘Actually, I’m currently much involved with the medieval philosopher Dogen and his suppositions on the superiority of the pre-intellectual ground,’ he said, more than a little smugly. ‘Another time and you might have got me.’
‘Returned to basics, have you?’ I said. ‘Well, then, we’ll have to wait till you work your way back to Descartes. How about breakfast?’
His head didn’t move, but his eyes slid around to look at me.
‘That’s not fair and you know it,’ he growled.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ I said. ‘How about it? I’m not asking for any full-scale assault on the thing, just to bat some of the facts back and forth over pancakes. There are a lot of really discussable aspects to this fracas.’
He looked down at his toes which he could do, now, because he was no longer fat, which I have seen him be; nor was he thin as a rail, which I have seen him be before, a good while earlier on. Nowadays he appeared to have settled for a statistical average so far as corpulence was concerned; the insurance companies would have been proud of him. He sighed.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But this does not in any way represent a serious commitment.’
I walked over to the door and opened it. Ashman had been hovering and he came forward but I waved him back.
‘Not you,’ I said, ‘just breakfast.’
A cart with a crisp white linen rolled into the room, pushed by a guy with a thick moustache who was wearing one of the fanciest bellboy outfits I’d ever seen outside of the Cote d’Azur, and the covers on the silver tureens rattled cozily and failed entirely to muffle the cozy smells of bacon and biscuits and other good things, but I didn’t pay attention to any of that; I whacked the bellboy good and hard across the chest with my forearm they way they’d taught me to do it in the army, grabbed the handle of the cart with both hands as he staggered back, and pushed it head-on and fast as I could at the big windows.
I’d heard stories of suicidal executives having to spend long periods of time battering away at their office windows with briefcases before they could make a hole big enough in their thermal panes to jump through, but my prayers that the glass in these ones would be the old-timey, breakable variety paid off—they must have been the same early-thirties vintage as the rest of the décor—and the cart burst through them in a highly satisfactory spray of glistening shards and spun out into the air.
I didn’t pause to stare after it, I spun around at once, but I was still just a half-foot too late to grab the bright red, gold-braided jacket of the bellboy and stop him from diving out of the window just in time to disappear into the big ball of fire and light which was now flashing out from where the tumbling service cart had been.
‘Down!’ I shouted, and as I was in the process of diving for the floor I threw a quick glance to the side and was pleased to see Bone had already managed to do the same in spite of his years, so we were both huddled on the carpet when the explosion blew in what was left of those windows, but not with anything like the force it might have done if the cart hadn’t tumbled something like three stories below us before doing its thing.
There was the usual pause that takes place after an event of that kind, even in the presence of professionals, and then Ashman and the marines came barreling in, altogether willing to help but too late to do much more than mop up after the event.
— 3 —
THE SECOND BREAKFAST worked out a little better, particularly after Bone found out the chef on duty was a Scot, as he had firm convictions about that race’s superior abilities relative to preparing the sort of morning fodder he enjoys. He felt so good about it, as a matter of fact, that he even let Ashman join us.
‘Of course,’ said Bone to me, buttering his second scone, ‘you are bursting to tell me how you knew that bellboy was a villain, Weston. You deserve to be, and I freely admit that I am more than mildly curious. But first, allow me to announce officially to you, Mr Ashman—Weston will have understood already—that this attempt on my life has moved your little problem from the area of an abstract puzzle to that of a personal challenge, and therefore, so far as I am concerned, you may consider me fully committed to its satisfactory conclusion, which is to say the death or prolonged internment of those responsible.’
Ashman opened his mouth to speak, but since I figured it was highly possible, if not even likely, he’d blurt out something that might give Bone an excuse to change his mind back again, I cut him off by a wave of the hand and picked the portfolio up from where I had it leaning on the chair.
‘This gave me the clue, as we say in the detective business,’ I said, spreading the portfolio open on the table. ‘This picture here, to be exact, one of the shots of the demonstration that was being held on Pennsylvania Avenue. Specifically, this face in the picture.’
They leaned forwards to see where I’d poked my index finger.
‘By God,’ said Ashman, ‘it’s that guy with the moustache!’
‘Excellent, Weston,’ said Bone, and there was a grim tone to his voice because, of course, he’d just seen what I’d spotted when I’d studied this stuff in the limo. Apparently Ashman had never managed to bully him into giving the portfolio a good looking over.
‘But how were you so damn sure he was up to something?’ Ashman asked. ‘I mean that was one hell of a bold move you made, to say the least.’
‘Because of who he is with in the photograph, Mr Ashman,’ said Bone. ‘You see? He is supporting the arm of a thin, stooped man.’
‘That old guy? But his back’s turned, Bone. He could be a whole lot of people.’
‘It is a back unique in my experience,’ said Bone. ‘Once seen, never forgotten. Its head, particularly. Its angle, even more particularly. Observe how it is tilted to one side but still upright on its long, scrawny neck. Doesn’t that put you irresistibly, Mr Ashman, in mind of a swaying snake?’
Ashman stared at the photo while Bone and I locked eyes.
‘I thought he was dead,’ I said. ‘I thought we’d finally killed him.’
‘So did I,’ said Bone. ‘And burnt him to a crisp to boot. But we thought he was dead twice before, didn’t we, Weston? First because of my little struggle with him over the Falls, and then because of our arrangement to have him sho
t with a large number of bullets while he felt snug and safe in his lair. It is more than a little depressing to realize that the fire started by our altercation in the museum failed to do the job. The loss of the Van Goghs makes it especially exasperating.’
‘Say, just who is this guy?’ asked Ashman.
Bone looked at me and I shrugged.
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Maybe this time someone will listen.’
‘Very well, then,’ said Bone, turning to Ashman, ‘in our last encounter with him he was known as Dr Michael Madden Hackett. He has a fierce ego, you see, and is partial to academic titles. He was, for instance, no less than a full professor during our premier engagement, and that is how I have always thought of him since and think of him now. As the Professor.’
Ashman frowned, stared hard at the photograph, then looked up and shook his head.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t seem to pull him out. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of a Dr Hackett.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ said Bone, ‘as those in authority were almost never aware of him in any of his incarnations. He was—I am sorry to stay still is—expert in remaining well hidden at the center of his webs.’ He waved at the portfolio. ‘This sort of business certainly has his mark on it, though it’s exceptionally good, even for him. Also, there are aspects to this business which, though my understanding of it is as yet superficial, seem alien to his methods.’
‘You think there may be someone else in it with him?’ asked Ashman. ‘I mean someone up to his level, someone he respected enough to let them affect his planning?’
Bone stared very seriously at Ashman.
‘You surprise me, sir,’ he said. ‘I believe I have seriously underestimated you and I apologize, here and now. You have a mordant imagination and that is an appallingly plausible supposition. Yes, there may indeed be others in it.’