The Woman Who Knew Too Much

by Thomas Gifford

  “We’ll go in now,” Mason said. “Over there.”

  They went across the flat wet stones, under the slate roof of the porte cochere, and inside through a small side door. A hound was barking somewhere behind them. The horse barn had already disappeared in the fog, as if it had sunk.

  “Just straight ahead, all the way down the hall, then take a right.”

  Mason followed them the length of the chilly corridor. The damp had invaded the house, bringing the inevitable scent of mildew. They reached a vast baronial foyer full of carved paneling, tapestries hung from a two-story height, polished tile floors, and a chandelier that in a pinch would have lit Yankee Stadium.

  “Mr. Greco, I’ll have to relieve you of your gun. You understand, we can’t be too careful where the Director is concerned.” Mason still cradled the shotgun casually, but the twin barrels were pointed at Greco. “Please. Just put it on the table.”

  Greco took the Walther from his jacket pocket. When he placed it on the marble surface the sound was loud and final.

  “Fine. Now let’s go into the library.” Mason nodded toward a doorway where mammoth sliding doors stood partially open. “More comfortable in there,” he said. “Certainly warmer.”

  Celia’s first thought was that she’d walked into some masterpiece of the set designer’s art. The walls of the large room were lined with books, and several hunting prints on a grand scale. A huge fireplace was bordered with more elaborately carved wood, and the better part of two trees burned extravagantly within. The room was warm, almost stuffy, with the aroma of the flaming logs and a residue of smoke. The heat had scorched the dampness away. Tall French windows formed the outside wall, giving on to a wide stone balustrade decorated by man-size urns dripping with bright spring flowers, the colors softened by the fog encroaching from the billowing void beyond. Centered in enough leather furniture to stock the Harvard Club was the most beautiful pool table Celia had ever seen. The green felt looked like a putting green scattered with the polished balls.

  Mason slid the doors shut. “Make yourselves at home, please.” He gestured to a low table covered with countless bottles, glasses, an ice bucket. “If you’d like a drink …”

  “Look,” Greco said, “this is a very nice little routine but I don’t know you from Rasputin. All I know is that you’ve got my gun on a day when most of the people I run into are newly deceased—”

  “I told you, my name is Mason.” He smiled apologetically. “Not Rasputin, rest assured.”

  “Where is Bassinetti?”

  Celia heard the edge in Greco’s voice as she warmed her hands before the fire. Mason was certainly polite and concerned for their comfort, but he was clearly overtired and strangely remote. And he had that shotgun. He still seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. She thought she recognized his voice, but more than likely it was as medium and nondescript as everything else about him. Greco, on the other hand, was sounding like his mainspring was wound too tight.

  “The Director isn’t here yet. We’ll just wait for him.”

  “Sure, sure. Have a drink, admire the first editions, shoot some pool while you point a shotgun at us. Do you work for the Director?”

  “In a way,” Mason said.

  “Or do you work for the General?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Mason swung slowly back from the drinks table where he’d been checking the ice, and the shotgun swung with him.

  “You heard me. Now you’re trying to think of an answer. The General. Just who is the General anyway? I keep hearing about him. And there’s some book, a manuscript … maybe you could brief us. Hell, you work for the Director. In a way—”

  “I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong man.”

  “Don’t be afraid, Mason, old sock. You’re the man with the blunderbuss, after all. I’m the one who should be afraid, isn’t that right?”

  “Mr. Greco, there’s no advantage to be gained by being disagreeable.”

  “For all we know, the Director’s here now. He could be dead … sort of a pre-Dan Rather surprise. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like gibberish to me. I’ve told you, we’re waiting for the Director—”

  “Then you wouldn’t mind if we just looked around, toured the joint. Am I right?”

  “I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”

  “Aw, what the heck, relax! We’re all friends, trying to come to the aid of the Director. I’d love to see this house, y’know? Last time I saw a place like this, it cost me three quid to get in and some clown had lions playing on the lawn.” Greco smiled sharkishly and headed for the door. He yanked the handles and came face to face with a large but otherwise medium man on the other side. The man shook his head silently, a gun in his catcher’s mitt of a fist.

  “Mr. Arnold,” Mason said, “would like us to stay put for the moment.” Mason shrugged as if he deplored the situation but rules were rules and Mr. Arnold was to be obeyed.

  Mr. Arnold slid the doors back together.

  “Hey,” Greco said, his smile broadening beneath the eye patch, the scar on his cheek a little pinker than it had been, “that’s hospitality.”

  “Why don’t you just make this easy on yourself?”

  “I want to know what this is, old sport. Old gun toter.” Greco came back to the center of the room and leaned against the pool table.

  “Can I get you a drink, Miss Blandings?”

  Celia was staring into the fire when Mason spoke. Without looking at him she made the connection. Bradley’s, the crush around the bar, the man who’d gotten her another drink. The man who came to Bradley’s for the music.

  Mason.

  Mason must have been watching her then. Last night. But why? Was he the link to the Director? The Director had found out about her somehow … why not Mason?

  “No, that’s all right,” she said.

  “Well, help yourselves if you get thirsty.”

  Greco took a cue from the walnut rack. “Shoot some pool, Slats?”

  She shook her head. He caught her eye, then glanced into the fire. He turned back to the table and made a bank shot, then began prowling about the table, with Mason staring at him as he banged in ball after ball. There was something hypnotic about the perfect clicking and the sound of Greco moving quickly, efficiently around the table. He ran the table, racked up the balls, broke them and began again.

  “Six ball side pocket … four ball corner pocket … nine ball cross corner … three ball side …” It was like listening to a metronome.

  Mason couldn’t take his eyes off the display of shot making.

  Celia moved slowly toward the fire. The brass-handled tools sat in their stand. She didn’t want to make a sound, didn’t want to break the spell. Click, click, click. Rack ’em up again.

  Slowly, carefully, she grasped the handle of the poker and slid it from its notch. She held it at her side, afraid to take her eyes from the flames. Nothing to break the spell Greco was weaving at the loom of the pool table. He was good. Better than good. He hadn’t missed a shot, had held the rhythm in his hands and never let it get away from him. The fire crackled, spit sparks up the flue.

  She was uncomfortably close now, felt the heat burning at her through the jeans. Across the room fog, like ghosts, scurried inside the windows.

  Then she leaned forward with the poker, as if she were closing in on a uniquely bothersome fly, and hooked the poker into the loose bark of the immense top log. She applied enough pressure to gauge what she had to do.

  With a quick, decisive gesture, she yanked back with the poker.

  The fiery log and the one beneath it came at her like an avalanche of flame, showering sparks and flying bits of burning bark. The logs tumbled out across the Oriental rug, burning it through in an instant.

  She screamed and leaped backward, as if she were an innocent bystander. Smoke swirled around her.

  “Good Christ!” That was Greco yelling.

  Mason said nothing, was around
the pool table in a flash, heading for the conflagration.

  Celia cried: “I was just standing here and it … came at me!”

  Mason grabbed the poker from her hand and began pushing at the heavy log. The carpet was burning, the smell of the smouldering material acrid and foul.

  The log was a twenty pounder and tough to move. Mason’s hand slipped and he fell forward on hands and knees, his palm slamming down on a glowing red coal.

  He didn’t cry out. He pulled his hand back, staring at the raw, sizzling palm. He tried to pick up the poker with his other hand. The shotgun lay at his side.

  Greco arrived at his side. “Here, let me help…”

  Mason was trying to get the logs back onto the tiles of the hearth.

  Greco broke a pool cue across the back of his neck.

  Mason pitched forward, his face at the edge of the burning carpet. The smoke was suddenly thick. Mason moaned. Greco leaned forward. Celia saw the flash of color, his fist closed around the seven ball, and the first smashing down at Mason’s cheekbone. Mason flattened out on top of the shotgun.

  Greco grabbed Celia’s hand and pulled her away.

  There were sounds coming from the sliding doors, where Arnold, having heard the commotion, was fumbling with the catch.

  Greco pulled her almost off her feet, heading for the long bank of windows. He found a handle, yanked it down, pushed the door open. The cold wet air rushed in as they stepped outside.

  The sliding doors behind them slammed open. “For chrissake!” Then Arnold began coughing in the smoke.

  Greco held her hand tightly in his own. They were across the wet stone of the balustrade, found the steps leading down to the lawn; deep grass, soaking wet, Greco tugging her along.

  And then, like Jonah in the whale, they were swallowed by the fog.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  SMOKE WAS POURING, FUNNELING out of the French doors, swirling like a tiny tornado into the fog. Celia stopped, wiped rain from her eyes, smelling the smoke, which added yet another rich smell to the wetness and the grass. A city person, it had been a long time since she smelled the natural world, and it gave her a high, sent her heart pumping while she stood gasping from the run, a stitch in her side. Greco leaned over, hands on knees, fresh air being gulped into his lungs.

  “Way to go,” he said, nodding back toward the house. “We got telepathy, Slats. Great trick with the fire …”

  “But what about now?”

  “Got any good ideas?”

  “Yup,” she said, “I do.”

  The angry beeping of a tardy smoke alarm floated toward them.

  “Mason and Arnold …” he panted. “They’re waiting for the Director. Looks like everybody in the world wants to kill him …”

  “I’m not so sure. I can’t figure out Mason at all—he’s working for Mason, I think. I wonder if any of them knows what’s going on… They’re going to come after us, you know that …”

  As she spoke they saw the figure of Arnold lurch out onto the balustrade, batting away smoke that seemed to cling to him. He looked out into the fog. She’d have thought he was bound to see them, but he stood still, trying to will the mists to part. Mason, a smaller blur, joined him. He had the shotgun again.

  “First,” Celia said, “we can try to get to the car. Have you still got the keys?”

  Greco nodded, patted his pocket.

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s move it.”

  Staying far enough away, wrapped in fog, they began circling the house, careful not to let it slip away, using it as the center point of their compass. It was dark now, though somewhere up above them, above the fog and the rain and the clouds, the sun had to be shining. The yellow lights of the house hung like distant flares, diffused on each drop of water. The grass was long and slippery underfoot, treacherous if they moved too quickly. She was beginning to wonder if they’d somehow gotten turned around, when suddenly they reached the gravel of the driveway, felt its reassuring crunch. Holding hands to keep from losing one another, they moved toward the house along the gravel.

  “They’re not gonna try to get out the driveway.”

  It was a voice so close she felt she could reach out and touch it, and she heard feet on the gravel, stopping.

  “You’re right. If they try to run their car through the gates it’ll be like going through a shredder.”

  Celia felt her heart come to a full stop.

  The voices of Mason and Arnold were right on top of them. Footsteps edged closer to where she stood. She felt Greco drawing her away, deeper into the fog.

  “The fog does funny things to sound.” Greco was whispering at her ear. “Bounces it around. They can’t see us. We can’t see them.”

  “But they’re right, Peter,” she breathed. “The car won’t do us any good. I forgot about the fence—”

  “Yeah, me too. Any other ideas?”

  “Sure. Plan B,” she whispered.

  The footsteps on the gravel faded away, back toward the house.

  Celia pushed off into the murk, Greco holding on tight. All she could do was try to judge distances, knowing that she’d seen a huge old oak beside the driveway, just before the greenhouse and the garage. Find the oak and you’d find the greenhouse and know where you were. You’d be halfway to the destination she had in mind.

  But somehow the oak never did reveal itself. She didn’t see the greenhouse until she ran into it, reached out and touched the chilly, water-streaked panes of glass. She felt her way along the side of the building and reached the end, where she turned left and kicked a bucket and hoe across a cement sidewalk. The sound was deafening, and she instinctively drew back, bumping into Greco, who grunted and swore.

  “What the hell was that?”

  The voices echoed from farther away this time, from the courtyard, trapped by the fog and the walls of the house, barn, garage, and greenhouse, all bouncing sound back and forth. “Where did it come from?” That was Arnold.

  “I can’t tell. Where are you?”

  “Over here. By the cars …”

  “I think”—that was Mason—“they’re by the greenhouse now. Blandings? Greco? We’re not going to hurt you …”

  Celia pulled Greco forward, moving along behind a low shed and stacks of pots, tools, flower tubs, discarded lawn furniture. The greenhouse, now twenty feet away, was gone, but she had it locked in memory and was sure they were moving parallel to it. They were behind the garage when they heard clanking from inside, then an engine coughing into life, a motor revving.

  They were past the garage and Celia was jogging through the fog, looking for what she knew must lie ahead. There it was, the second ramp to the horse barn, leading not into the courtyard but out the other end, into the fields beyond. The motor was racing in the garage, then it dropped back into gear and some kind of vehicle rattled out into the courtyard.

  Suddenly, glimpsed between the corners of the barn and the garage, a powerful yellow fog light swept across the courtyard, probing, casting a kind of chartreuse glow into the fog.

  “Up the ramp,” Celia said, pulling Greco behind her.

  “What the hell for?” He stood panting at the top of the ramp, straw clinging to his wet shoes, to the knee of his pants where he’d fallen down.

  “Look, we’ve got to get as far away from these bozos as possible, somewhere safe. Right? We’ve got to be able to strike—”

  “Strike? Jeez, Slats, commando talk—”

  “Strike at seven when the Director settles down to watch Dan Rather. That’s a little over an hour. We’ve got to assume the original plan is still in effect—Cunningham to kill him, on schedule—”

  “But what about Mason and Arnold?”

  “We don’t know about them, they’re not on the scorecard. First we’ve got to get away, and then we’ve got to be able to get back, so what does logic tell us?”

  “Oh, no, I know what you’re thinking.”

  “The noble horse. Now let’s take a look.”

&n
bsp; The voices came from the courtyard again. “Point that thing at the greenhouse, damnit!” Then the sound of the shotgun clattering on the paving stones, a sharp cry right behind it.

  “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “What the hell does it sound like? I fell down. Shit! Damn slippery stones …”

  “I can’t ride a horse!” Greco insisted, panicking.

  “You can ride a horse to save your life,” she said, moving ahead into the barn. “It’s amazing what people can do when they have to. Now be very quiet and easy, don’t spook these big guys.”

  Fog had infiltrated the barn. Horses blew and snuffled at them as they passed between the stalls, their great rubbery nostrils and lips reverberating. Birds cooed and twittered in the dark upper reaches. Hooves stomped and rattled against the wooden slats of the stalls, thumped on the straw.

  “What about a saddle?”

  “I rode bareback in the movie—”

  “But I wasn’t in the goddamn movie!”

  “Shhh.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s the only way they can’t get us. We’re unarmed, all we can do is get away, hide.”

  She found a big chestnut that was watching them amiably over the gate to his stall. She leaned across and began talking to him, trying to do what she’d remembered the wranglers on the movie doing. She stroked the long nose, whispering the news that he was a very nice horse, wasn’t he? For better or worse she climbed over the gate and threw a leg over the huge back, settled down on him, stroking the powerful column of neck. “Nice horsey, we’re going for a ride …”

  “Listen, why don’t you just go ahead? I’ll make the best of it here—”

  “Get on, you oaf. This is a nice horsey, aren’t you, Roger?”