“Is it over?” Greco panted. He wondered how you could get so tired when the horse was supposed to be doing all the work.
“I think we’re out of harm’s way,” she answered. “Let’s just see where he takes us.”
The path wound through the trees. If being lost meant they were safe, then they were, at least for the moment, safe. If it didn’t, then they were just lost. Finally Celia did something that made Roger stop. Greco assumed she knew arcane horse language. Which was fine, but his mind was racing ahead. He wished to God he still had his gun.
“So how do we get down?” He thought the ground seemed incredibly far away.
“You could just slide off the back,” Celia said.
“Okay, but don’t watch. You’ve probably never noticed, but dignity is my middle name.” He let go of Celia and she heard a grunt. Roger looked back and shook his head.
Greco appeared, mud on the seat of his pants and the back of his Yankees jacket. “Okay, okay, get down.” He was wiping his wet, muddy hands on the front of his pants. Celia dismounted and Roger followed them as they set off through the muck and found a fallen tree to sit on. They looked down on a long sweep of meadow that fell away toward the house. The roof poked up through the top of the fog, which filled the space between.
The rain was falling harder, pattering angrily on the leaves. They were hidden by the tree line as well as by the fog and the gathering darkness. Slowly the bright yellow pairs of fog lights pierced the fog, crisscrossing the wide meadow.
Greco said: “Those must be four-wheel drive vehicles, Rovers or Broncos, something that can handle that long wet grass. They’re just gonna keep combing the fog, I suppose. They’ll have to get right on top of us to find us. Unless they get a break. Hell’s bells, it’s getting cold. You okay?”
“I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m scared. Otherwise, everything’s fine.”
“It’s ten past six.” Greco sneezed. Roger sneezed. “We’re all gonna die of double pneumonia. This is nuts.”
“I know this Mason,” Celia said. “He’s been following me. He followed me to Bradley’s last night when I went to meet Cunningham … he’s got to be Bassinetti’s eyes and ears on this thing, which means that he’s the Director’s man. But how could he have known of any reason to follow me? You don’t think the Director knows Zoe’s trying to kill him, do you?
But that wouldn’t make any sense, he’d just stop her—he wouldn’t wait for it to happen, surely—”
“Stop, stop,” Greco said. “It’s hopeless, we can’t figure it out anymore than we have. Too many people, too many angles—”
“But one more thing,” she insisted. “The other dead man in my apartment, the one in the boxes with Linda Thurston? Well, he was with Mason at Bradley’s! So … if your friend Louie was right and it was Psycho Branch versus the Mafia—that means Mason must be Psycho Branch too … and it means he was probably in my apartment killing people! Oh, Peter, it gets worse and worse.”
“Yeah, well, I recognized Mason too, and I think he knew me. I saw it in his eyes. Goes back to what Teddy called my fink days. Mason had been a homicide dick, but there was a story about him—he killed a guy, or a coupla guys, during an investigation, and there was another investigation of him.” Greco sneezed again and dug a handkerchief out and blew his nose. “He wound up on the Rubber Gun Patrol—”
“The what?” She wiped rain from her forehead and eyebrows.
“Cops take guys who get trigger happy, give ’em desk jobs, issue fake guns—years ago they were made of rubber—so they became the Rubber Gun Patrol. Sometimes they’re the Bow and Arrow Brigade. Funny thing, Mason was one of my bodyguards when I was testifying. Not for long, and I never talked to him but it was him, I’m sure—”
“So that makes three of them in Psycho Branch.” Celia couldn’t believe it: she was getting used to all this. “So that must mean—”
“Forget it. We don’t know what the hell it means.”
“So all we can do is warn the Director and try to stop whatever’s going to happen down there.” She nodded past the moving fog lights, toward the house.
“You’re sure you don’t want to just wait until it’s all over and then try to go home?”
“Funny man. We’ve got to get back to the house. And soon. Thank God for the fog… How do we do it?”
The fog lights were probing closer, turning, sweeping in golden, blurred arcs. Closer, closer, as if they somehow knew where the hiding place was. The sound of the motors carried toward them like whining beasts looking for dinner.
Greco said: “Okay, here’s the plan. First, I’m not getting back up on that horse again, that’s a given. Second, you can ride, so I’d say you make a diversion for me, make some noise on that horse, then get back into the foggy woods. But, Slats, listen to me—don’t let ’em catch you, okay? Everybody’s playing for keeps—”
“While I’m risking my life, what are you going to be doing? Assuming I’m willing and foolhardy, that is.”
“I’m going to make a run for the house.” Greco blew his nose again.
“Doing what when you get there?”
“Get some aspirin. My head’s killing me.”
It was dark and damp and cold and cramped in the trunk of the Rolls-Royce. It didn’t do any good to recall that his immediate predecessor in the trunk had been dead as a skunk. Charlie Cunningham was sick to his stomach from the bumping and swerving and skidding and stopping and starting, and for good measure, from the effects of all the aspirin he’d taken for his ear. Now the aspirin had worn off, and as the pain took hold of him again, he began wondering if he should have had a tetanus shot. Goddamn bird …
The luminous paint on the wristwatch face had lost its power at least ten years ago, so he didn’t know what time it was. The trunk lid was wired shut, and in addition to being stiff and sick and in pain and not knowing what time it was, Charlie Cunningham had to take a leak. He felt around for the wire, found it with numbed fingers, and began to unwind it. It took forever. He cut his finger, of course, and sucked it, tasting blood. Finally he felt the wire come loose and he pushed the lid up six inches or so and peered out into the darkness and the fog. For a moment he thought he’d gone blind, then realized that there just wasn’t anything to see.
He felt around for the gun Zoe had given him. It felt cold and clammy and heavy. He stuffed it into the pocket of his windbreaker, pushed the lid all the way open, and struggled into a kneeling position, listening to bones crack. Most of the bones not already broken from earlier misfortunes now broke. Gingerly he got one leg out of the trunk, felt around with his toe for the ground, then crawled out and managed to stand upright, much like a man. His knees were weak. He stood wobbling. Getting his bearings. Good God, he had to find a bathroom!
However, it could have been worse.
For the first time since he’d realized he had sold the wrong book at the Strand, he felt he knew what was going on.
He didn’t like it. But at least he had a clear picture of the situation. No dead dogs, no dead men scattered from his living room to Zoe’s terrace, no guys with eye patches, no big fierce birds. He tried not to think about why there had been a body in his favorite chair.
He sighed. Now it was all clear, for a change.
They were alone in the Jersey countryside. Just the three of them. Himself, the Director, and darling Zoe. The eternal triangle, as it were. After all the confusion, the end was so simple!
He wondered if just maybe he should pee right there in the courtyard. Maybe against the house. Or Zoe’s Rolls. He was sick of the damn Rolls.
No. You just didn’t pee in somebody’s courtyard. He’d find a bathroom in the house. Zoe was up in the west wing. The Director was in the study. He had time. He yawned nervously. There was a dim light under the porte cochere. He walked into the penumbra of light and checked his watch. Just past six-thirty. Plenty of time.
He headed for the side door, remembering all the instructions Zoe had given him about
the layout of the house.
There was supposed to be a bathroom off that first long hallway. There might even be some aspirin. His head was killing him.
Chapter Twenty-six
MASON REALIZED HE WAS wasting his time out in the middle of nowhere when he lost sight even of Arnold in the other Rover. There was nothing but fog. No horse, no Miss Standings, no Peter Greco, and now no Arnold. He was beginning to see himself as Field Marshal Rommel in the middle of the North African desert, disappearing in a sandstorm, looking for the key to Rebecca.
Then the fog lights of Arnold’s Rover came out of nowhere, swept past him up ahead. Mason wheeled off to the right, angling up across Arnold’s path, making yet another X through the fog. Not having a walkie-talkie connection with Arnold was bad. He slowed, leaned forward, vainly trying to see where he was going. It was idiotic. They’d never find anybody, and the fog was getting thicker. He was soaked to the skin. The rain felt like blood running down the burned side of his face.
Without warning he saw the horse.
It was a flash of the huge eyes, the flicker of a mane, on its back a figure crouched low, then a glimpse of hindquarters, a jerk of the tail … then, in a flash, the horse was gone, like a ghost, like the Headless Horseman dashing through the night.
Mason yelled, “Arnold! Arnold, over here! I got ’em!” The hell with Bassinetti’s order of silence. The hell with all of it. The horse was dead ahead, he knew it. “God damn you, Arnold!”
It was pointless to try to make himself heard.
He couldn’t even hear his own cries. The engine was roaring. The blood was pounding in his temples. Arnold’s lights cut across in front of him again. Christ! He must be right in line with the horse!
He gunned the accelerator, making a hole like a bullet in the fog, felt the Rover skid then leap ahead into the void.
Mason felt the adrenaline kicking in, rushing, blotting out the frustration, smashing through his icy Psycho Branch control.
He was slipping all the way over into a pure, murderous rage. He felt himself grinning, and it hurt, but he couldn’t stop. The plain, medium face had become a predatory fangs-bared mask.
Nothing had gone right for days. His bandaged hand felt like a well-done hamburger straight from the grill. The side of his face had turned into one large blister about to burst. Bassinetti probably would dock him the forty thousand. And if the General ever got wind of his treachery, he’d garrote him and deep six his remains in a shark tank.
But now, by God, he was going to put paid to that son of a bitch on the horse! Yes, sir, his luck was turning.
He was right about very little, the way things were turning out. But he was right about his luck. The next thing he knew, something unbelievably horrible was happening.
Looking around, Mason realized he was airborne. Somehow he’d lost the Land Rover entirely.
As he flew through the fog he tried to remember what had just happened. It came back to him in quick images, as if illuminated by explosions of gunfire.
It involved a tree stump.
A very wide tree stump about three feet high. It seemed to have darted out in front of him like a particularly ugly, sturdy dwarf. Out of nowhere. Directly in front of him. Mocking him.
The Rover had slammed head on into the stump with a thud that had racketed along the frame, cracked the windscreens, and ripped the steering wheel from his grasp. His spinal column had snapped him back and forth and he’d bitten his tongue. Badly.
The four wheels had kept driving, digging into the slippery grass. The Rover stood abruptly on its front end, catapulting Mason into the darkness, making him a sort of human missile without a guidance system.
He came to earth, his dream of flight in tatters, crunching, hearing lots of things cracking and buckling inside his drenched skin.
The breath was pounded out of him by the sledgehammer impact.
Collarbone? Arm? Neck? Did it really matter?
He shook his head. Groggy. Finally the worst had happened.
He lay on his back gagging, trying to draw a breath. He fought to focus his eyes and ignore the starbursts of pain going off in his head like a third-rate Fourth of July. He looked around, trying to lift himself up on one elbow. He tried to see back into the fog from which he’d come.
Something funny was going on.
First he heard the roar of a Rover engine, then the fog lights came flooding out of the gloom.
“Arnold,” he croaked. He gathered his lung power together, screamed: “Arnold … look out! It’s me! I’m here on the ground … Arnold!”
Then the Rover appeared like some demon-possessed piece of junk from a Stephen King novel and bore down on him.
It was gaining speed.
He wasn’t sure he could drag himself out of the way. Arnold had gone crazy! “Arnold!” he screamed, his voice cracking and fading. “You asshole!” But all that emerged was a whisper.
First a horse.
Now a Land Rover.
He tried to move, tried to roll away…
Greco skirted the tree line at a jog, once falling over a root and sprawling among wet oak leaves. He depended on the tree line to lead him in an arc back to the horse barn. Occasionally he saw a fleeting glow from the direction of the house, giving him a geographical center on his right. He heard snatches of engine noise from the Rovers, but it came and went erratically. The rain ran down his face, slithered down his back, soaked his shoes. He was very tired of not being able to see anything, but he knew he needed the cover.
Mainly he was worried about Celia.
Slats.
She was so damn game! He’d never met a woman like her, he was sure of that. Here she was, on totally alien ground, and she was adapting like a marine. He’d had to adapt all his life, particularly in his undercover days. That was all adaptation. But then, he was an ego case, as he’d tried to make her see. Maybe there really was a similarity in her being an actress. And, too, she had this Linda Thurston to fall back on. Maybe she could adapt because she was playing a role, for that matter a role she’d created. He guessed the truth was he couldn’t quite figure her out.
Maybe she wasn’t figurable.
But he hoped she was all right. He’d hated parting with her, hated entrusting her to the night and the rain and the fog and the horse, but when it came to busting in on the Director about to get murdered, it seemed like he’d had more practice. Whatever, the whole thing was a half-assed improvisation, and the only damn reason he was doing it was for her. Because she had guts, and was the cough-syrup fairy in a tight spot. That’s what he’d been thinking as she’d looked down at him from the horse and then yanked the mane, turned, ridden off toward the fog lamps of the Rovers and disappeared. There goes the cough-syrup fairy.
He stifled a wet, raspy sneeze and gave a sigh of relief. He’d reached the horse barn, knowing first by the smell, then by seeing the soaked walls and the ramp. He rested against the side of the barn, then went inside, padding its length between the stalls, glad to be out of the rain for a moment. From the top of the courtyard ramp he saw the faint outlines of the house, heard nothing but the drumming rain on the stones and the heavier dripping from the eaves.
Crossing to the wall of the house that formed one side of the courtyard, he pressed himself under the protection of the eaves and made his way toward the door they’d entered with Mason. He saw a long, sleek Lincoln Mark, which hadn’t been there before, then came to the white Rolls Corniche. The Director’s Lincoln, Zoe’s Rolls, which had carried Charlie … probably in the trunk. The players must all be on the board.
The Rolls had a helluva dent in the top of one fender, and he couldn’t quite imagine how somebody dinged you from above, but that was Zoe’s problem. The least of her problems, he supposed.
The trunk lid was wide open. Rain was blowing into it and collecting on the floor. It was all right on the money, just as it had been outlined in the murder letter, which he seemed to remember from the Pleistocene Age. Yesterday morn
ing he’d met Celia over coffee at Homer’s, and everything had been crazy ever since… Well, back to business. He could see the sheet of paper in his mind. Rolls. Trunk. Prowler … who was in fact Charlie Cunningham, the poor dumb bastard, minus half an ear, bouncing along in the trunk of the Rolls just so he could do the woman’s murder for her. The patsy. The Jerry Lewis of murderers. About to do a very big pratfall.
So where had Charlie gone when he dragged himself out of the trunk?
Greco went along the wall, thought for a moment, went back to the Rolls and slowly closed the trunk lid, hearing it lock with a solid thud.
Now, according to plan, Zoe was writing in the west wing. The Director was settling down with a scotch to get the world in a nutshell from Dan Rather.
But where was Charlie? Maybe he’d hastened the schedule, maybe he’d already shot the Director and was thinking about getting back into the trunk.
He looked at his watch. Six forty-five.
He found the side door, slowly turned the knob, pushed it open.
It was dark in the corridor, with only the one light at the far end. He gently closed the door and stood listening.
He heard water running somewhere. He grinned at the sound. It sounded like someone having a piss.
Quite unexpectedly he sneezed. A loud, violent sneeze that damn near blew his ears off.
Chapter Twenty-seven
BASSINETTI UNHOOKED HIMSELF FROM the little device into which he’d stuck his fingertip. It computed his blood pressure and reported it in a tiny red digital readout. His blood pressure was perfect. His heart was also perfect, as another little gadget told him. He was in perfect health. He just couldn’t walk. And losing a hundred pounds wouldn’t do him any harm. Still, even with the weight and the sedentary fate, he had the constitution of the proverbial ox. Tonight was, he supposed, a kind of test. He intended to come through with all his pennants stiff in a fair wind.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much Page 17