Atropos

by William L. DeAndrea

  He was succeeding at both.

  Murphy put it out of his mind, just as he put out of his mind what Regina and Trotter were likely to get up to once she got back to the hotel.

  The Van Horns were staying at the Ambassador, where Babington had his headquarters. Hudson Group reporters had checked that little fact out for significance, but had found none—Senator Van Horn had actually booked in first. The local Babington organization had apparently moved their rally here from an Elks club outside the city limits when the primary shaped up to be a bigger deal that it had seemed the year before.

  Still, it was convenient. Murphy could talk to Van Horn people and Babington people all under the same roof.

  In situations like this, Murphy preferred to enter hotels through the service entrance. Altogether too many people made a habit of hanging around hotel lobbies, sometimes even as lookouts posted to warn of approaching journalists. When you used the service entrance, not only did you get to meet a lot of interesting people who worked for the hotel, you usually got to talk to one or two of the people you wanted to talk to before the whole building was aware a reporter was on the premises.

  You also, sometimes, got to see things you never expected to see. In this case, what Murphy saw was Senator Hank Van Horn and his son, dressed in work shirts and blue jeans (a phenomenon in itself) slipping into the service entrance just ahead of him, looking around them like two desperate farm boys determined to rob the place.

  Murphy wanted to know about this. As quietly and unobtrusively as he could, he followed them past the loading dock and through the kitchen.

  Murphy was enjoying himself. He’d risen high in his profession, but in the rising, he hadn’t forgotten how much he liked being the savvy street reporter, how much fun all this cloak-and-dagger stuff could be. He wondered for a split second if his hatred for Trotter wasn’t heightened by a twinge of jealousy at the realization that for Trotter, the cloak-and-dagger stuff never had to stop.

  The Van Horns walked down a gray-enameled hallway to the service elevator. Murphy had to decide whether to let them go or jump on with them and see how they reacted.

  In his current mood, it was no contest. The years rolled back, and he was Sean Murphy, street reporter, covering land swindles for the Hudson Group paper in Bemidji, Minnesota. He would dare all, find out all, tell all. He waited until the doors were about to close, then jumped on.

  “Senator!” he said happily. “Mark! I was hoping to run into you.”

  The Van Horns each put on a version of the irresistible Van Horn family smile and stuck out hands to shake. A startled animal falls back on instinct; all the Van Horn instincts, Murphy knew, were political.

  “Murphy,” the Senator said heartily. “I wouldn’t have thought a little thing like a primary would get you out of the office.”

  Murphy kept his face deadpan. The Senator had made a mistake already. A politician, caught off-guard, should never be the first one to mention any matter of substance.

  “You make it important by being here, Senator. I don’t suppose you’re willing to give me a little hint as to whom you’ll be endorsing.”

  Mark Van Horn chuckled. Murphy saw shrewdness in the young man’s eyes.

  “That’s why we’re here on the service elevator,” Mark said, mock-ruefully. To avoid questions like that.”

  “And the work clothes are just a disguise?”

  Mark Van Horn laughed; his father followed a split second later. “I suppose in a way they are,” the Senator said. “We eastern types never see enough of the farm belt.”

  “I’ve never seen it at all,” Mark said. “Except from an airplane. That’s bad.”

  “Especially for a young man with connections and political ambitions?” Sean said.

  Still smiling, the Senator held up a hand. “Let him finish law school before we get started on questions about political ambitions, shall we?”

  “Let’s just say it’s bad for someone who’s concerned for the whole country,” Mark offered.

  “Right,” Murphy said. “I think that answers any questions about political ambitions.”

  Everybody laughed. Just a rollicking group of pals, Murphy thought, that’s us. Well, nobody was going to accuse him of not keeping his end up. “And besides,” he said, “more than one politician has come to grief because he didn’t know a tractor from a combine.”

  “He had that explained to him this very day,” the Senator said.

  Murphy looked at the indicator lights on the wall of the elevator. There weren’t many floors left. Time to get serious.

  Mark Van Horn wouldn’t let him. “How did you come to take the service elevator, Murphy?”

  “Oh, I saw you duck into the building. It was obvious you were trying to avoid journalists, so I figured this was a good chance to get you alone.”

  His pals laughed at that one, too. Murphy went on. “Seriously, Senator, I’d like to get you alone again, for a real interview for Worldwatch. Regina Hudson would probably want to sit in.”

  “I’m giving no interviews until after the primary.”

  Murphy frowned. “Too late for us. How about right after you make your endorsement?”

  “If I make one.”

  “Of course. If you make one.”

  “I think that will be all right. Mark, remind me to tell Ainley.”

  The Senator’s son said he would, the elevator stopped, the doors opened, the men got out. Murphy told them he’d gotten what he wanted, and would be heading back down.

  As soon as the door closed, Murphy knelt. He ran his fingers along the floor of the elevator and looked at them. Chaff. Bits of stem. Wheat dust. You don’t break into journalism in rural Minnesota without learning a lot about wheat. The Van Horns had been more than touring the Great Plains today, they’d been rolling in it. Murphy had been able to smell it on them, see it on their clothes, in their hair.

  They looked—well, they looked as if they’d had a wrestling match in a recently emptied silo.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN THEY RETURNED TO the hotel, Trotter sent Regina upstairs with the bellboy. He stayed behind to use a pay phone in the lobby. He dialed the Agency’s 800 number, said a code word (“incipient,” as in, “Please hurry, I’m in a pay phone and rain is incipient”). They put him through to Rines.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m at the Trent Hotel, Room 636. What do I do now?”

  “Anything you want, as long as you stay in touch.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Rines made a noise in his throat. He really was a prude. “No word from Albright, yet. He booked a room at the same hotel you’re at—computer flagged the Agency credit card—but he hasn’t called in. Pickett’s there, too.”

  “That was why he was following the man, right?”

  “He may still be following him. As far as we can tell, Pickett’s out, too. Maybe Albright is on to something.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “Right. I’ll get you two together as soon as he checks in.”

  “Right,” Trotter said. As he replaced the phone, he was thinking, just give me an hour or two before you check in, Joe.

  Because Trotter had discovered something almost unbelievable about himself. He was absolutely in love with the idea of having a child with Regina Hudson. Not just having one, raising one. Loving one. The idea had turned on a light somewhere inside him that got brighter and brighter as time went on.

  It illuminated things he’d never seen before. It used to be that his life consisted of the job, with its roller-coaster mix of terror and exhilaration, pride and disgust—or of emptiness. Now there was something—at least the possibility of something (they’d been at this for several months now, without success)—that could supply a better reason than “habit” when he looked for reasons to go on.

  The whole project had done wonders for Bash, too. She used to feel the weight of the Hudson Group and of her mother’s past like sacks of concrete strapped to her shoulders.
Now her attitude was “Screw it—I’m young, I’m rich, and I’m doing the best I can.”

  She was doing it as often as she could, too. When Trotter got into the room, Regina had already drawn the shades, turned on the air conditioner, and climbed in bed.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  “Business, business, business,” Trotter said. He started taking off his clothes.

  The air in the room was cool on his skin, cool enough to be an added incentive for him to join the warm woman under the covers. Bright sunlight sneaked in around the edges of the shades and made stripes across the bed. One slash seemed designed to highlight for Trotter some of his favorite places to kiss—the place where her breast began to swell, her throat, her chin and mouth. As if he needed the help.

  He slid in under the covers. “You made it cold in here,” he said.

  “We’ll warm it up,” she told him, then kissed him.

  Bash was right. They had it warmed up in no time. Soon, she was wet and open for him, and he joined with her. Once again they told each other “I love you.” And once again Trotter felt the wonder and delight of realizing he really meant it.

  Regina said, “Oh,” then she said it twice more, then covered Trotter’s face with hot, wet kisses. He thought of how happy he was, he thought—but then he was beyond thought, just feeling it surging, exploding, subsiding.

  Regina snuggled up next to him. “You think that one did it?”

  “Maybe. Let’s get married soon. Like next week.”

  “Even if it didn’t,” Regina went on, “I’m having just the best time trying—What did you say?”

  “I said, let’s get married next week. Right after the stupid primary.”

  “I thought you were saying we’d do it after this job of yours was done.”

  “I’ve come to realize that there’ll always be another job. You can’t wait for things to be perfect before you do anything; you’ve got to do them when you’re ready to, and to hell with everything else.”

  “And you’re ready now?”

  “Mmm hmm. How about you?”

  “I’m ready. I’ve been ready. And I never wanted a big wedding, anyway.”

  They laughed together, for no special reason, then told each other “I love you” in various ways until they drifted off to sleep.

  The telephone woke them. Regina gave a little scream, the way she always did when awakened suddenly, then grabbed the phone. She said hello, listened for a second, then extended the receiver to Trotter. “For you,” she said. “Rines.”

  Trotter groaned. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Seven o’clock,” Regina said.

  “Eight o’clock,” said the voice on the phone. “Seven, where you are.”

  “What’s up?” Trotter asked. “You want me to move to another phone and call you back?”

  “Don’t bother, the line is secure.”

  Trotter wanted to ask if he was sure, but he had faith in the Agency’s communications department. “Besides,” he said aloud, “all the people who were good enough to tap us are dead, now.”

  “Am I supposed to understand what you’re talking about?” Rines demanded.

  “I don’t see how you could. I don’t.”

  “No word from Albright.”

  “That’s bad. Maybe we ought to get some people looking for him.”

  “Did that two hours ago,” Rines said. “I didn’t bother telling you because you’re not supposed to have any contact with them anyway. I made up a client and sent some of my best young private ops. Happened to have them in Chicago, just winding up a legitimate, money-paying case, so I sent them on to where you are.”

  “Yeah.” Trotter was rubbing the back of his head. “Let me know if they find anything.”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Already? I’m impressed. What did they turn up?”

  “Albright’s rental car. Out in the middle of a wheat field or something. Wide open, trunk up.”

  “Accident?”

  “Not so my people could tell. Battery was dead from the dome light’s being on because the door wasn’t latched right. Donut tire on the right front, flat in the trunk. And, Trotter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “My people say the tire was deliberately spiked.”

  “So Joe found something interesting on the road and wanted an excuse to stop and watch it.”

  “That’s the way I read it.”

  “And somebody objected.”

  “No signs of a scuffle. Maybe he ran off.”

  “You believe that?”

  Rines’s voice was tight. “No more than you do. The question is, what did they do to him?”

  “The question is,” Trotter said, “if they took Joe away, whatever shape he was in, why did they leave a car directly traceable to him right out on the open highway?”

  “It was open highway, all right. Took my people less than three hours to get onto it. Crop duster spotted it, radioed it in; my boys picked it up on the police radio and got there first. They might as well have tied a red helium balloon to the thing.”

  “Stupid,” Trotter said. “This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t seem like Borzov or any of his myrmidons. Just talking about him, I use words like ‘myrmidons.’ I mean the KGB makes mistakes, but this is amateur night. Just like the killings of the electronics guys.”

  “You keep coming back to that,” Rines said, impatiently.

  “Yeah, I do, don’t I? I wish to hell I knew why. Listen, Rines, I’m going to hit the bricks and try to see what’s going on around here.”

  “Check in. Frequently.”

  Trotter promised he would, and hung up.

  He turned to Regina. “How much of that did you understand?”

  “Enough,” she said. “Joe Albright’s in trouble, isn’t he?” She looked worried. She had gotten to know Albright well over the past year, and she liked him.

  “The probability is high. Where’s the best place to find Murphy right now?”

  “You have to ask? At the paper, Hudson Group’s headquarters for the primary.”

  “Get dressed. That’s where we’re going.”

  “Don’t I get to eat? I’m starving.”

  “I’ve got to talk to Murphy first. Then you can eat.” Trotter already had his shorts on, he was reaching for his pants. Regina sighed and got out of bed.

  “It was so nice for a while.”

  Trotter looked at her while she stretched. She was as lithe and unselfconscious as a seal.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to Murphy.”

  That was a lie. He did not have to talk to Murphy. He had yet, in fact, to decide what he was going to say to Murphy when he caught up with him. What Trotter had to do was to get Regina into the middle of a group of people, especially a group of alert, active, and suspicious people. Like newspaper reporters, for instance. He wanted a lot of eyes open when Regina was around, because he might have to leave to take care of something (you never knew in this business), and someone had already taken Joe Albright, a trained agent.

  After that, anything might happen.

  Chapter Five

  AT FIRST, JOE ALBRIGHT thought the buzzing was in his head. The pain was certainly in his head, now a dull throb, now bright bolts of lightning that threatened to hard-boil his eyeballs from the inside.

  Joe coughed. He felt as if he wanted to blow his nose, but he didn’t think his skull retained enough structural integrity to stand the strain. Every time he took a deep breath, his lungs filled with some kind of airborne crud that made him want to cough some more. He contented himself with shallow breaths.

  The buzzing was loud, and consistent. It seemed to be the one thing about his current situation that didn’t strengthen or fade each time he moved or thought. The noise was a combination of a whoosh, a whine, and a hum, and the part of Joe’s brain that was conscious enough to be aware of it was convinced that, given time, the noise alone would be enough to give him one
hell of a headache.

  Joe groaned and came a notch closer to full consciousness. “Positively no smoking,” he mumbled. Why the hell did I say that?

  Senator Van Horn’s kid had cold-cocked him with the tire iron. That was the last thing he remembered for sure. The Senator and Mark coming out of the silo farm, their pickup truck tiny in the middle of the armada of trucks hauling grain away. Can we help you fix that tire? Sure. Wham!

  After that it got a little hazy. No. First it got wiped out completely. Then it got a little hazy. He remembered (in a dreamy sort of way) being lowered from the cab of the pickup and being half-carried, half frog-marched somewhere. That must have been when he’d seen those emphatic, red-and-white NO SMOKING warnings. “Danger of explosion or fire,” Joe said.

  Suddenly, he was wide awake. “Sure!” he said triumphantly, and sat up.

  Big mistake. Sitting up hurt his head. Shouting had caused him to take in too much of the dirty air, which made him cough and hurt his head all the more. Joe spent the next five minutes rolling around on the hard floor, holding his head together with his hands, alternately coughing and whining and saying “shit” over and over again.

  Finally, the pain diminished. It didn’t vanish. It didn’t come close to vanishing. It didn’t even get back down to where it had been before. But it stopped filling Joe’s whole mind with agony; it left him enough brain cells to sustain a coherent train of thought.

  Okay, Joe told himself, okay. Take it easy. Don’t move around.

  A voice inside him sneered. As if you had a choice. Man, your head been whupped and fucked up good. You better see a doctor.

  Joe told the voice to shut up. Unless there was a doctor’s office inside this silo, it was going to be a while before he saw one, and that’s all there was to it.

  That’s where he was, of course. Inside one of those recently emptied silos. The droning he heard was the exhaust system, venting the inevitable particles of chaff and wheat dust that the unloading of one of these things leaves behind. That explained the NO SMOKING signs, too. Fine flammable particles suspended in air in a confined space made a powerful explosive. Every year, a couple of these things went up around the country, sometimes one of the little round deals you saw next to a quaint red barn, less often one of the huge, empty skyscraper-like things that were visible for miles in the middle of the prairie. Joe was sure of all this, but he wondered how he knew it. He decided he’d seen it on “Mr. Wizard” when he was a kid. Sure. Mr. Wizard blew up a tin can with cake flour, and talked about the silo problem. He wasn’t sure how big this one was—about medium, he guessed. About the size of a three-story tenement.