The Sixth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  I’ll say this for him: he didn’t break, or gulp, or give any indication that what I was saying was getting to him. He just got harder and harder, turned to stone, those black eyes glittering. Maybe he got a little paler. Maybe the hands spread out on the table trembled a little.

  But he made no reply, no threat. Just stood, pulled on gloves and hat with precise movements, staring at me all the time.

  “Goodby, Mr. Todd,” he said tonelessly.

  And that was enough to set my nerve ends flapping. “Goodby.” Not So-long, or See you around, or Ciao, baby. Just “Goodby.” Final.

  I was glad I hadn’t mentioned anything about Al Coburn. That was the only thing I was glad about. It didn’t help. I had talked too much, and knew it. I tried to persuade myself that I had told Goodfellow all that stuff deliberately, to let everyone know what I knew, to stir them up, spook them into making some foolish move.

  But I couldn’t quite convince myself that I had just engineered an extremely clever ploy. All I had done was blab. I got up, signed my check, and strolled into the bar whistling. Like a frightened kid walking through a graveyard on his way home.

  The restaurant may have been dying, but that bar was doing jim-dandy business for an early Saturday morning. Most of the stools were taken; three of the booths were occupied. The customers looked like farmers killing time while their wives shopped, had their hair done, or whatever wives did in Coburn on a Saturday morning. I finally caught Jimmy’s eye, ordered a stein of beer, took it over to a small table away from the babble at the bar.

  I had started the day in a hell-for-leather mood, but my little confabulation with Constable Goodfellow had brought that to a screeching halt. A new Samuel Todd record: one hour from manic to depressive. I sipped my beer and reflected that Coburn and the Coburnites had that effect: they doused the jollies, and nudged you mournfully into the Slough of Despond. I think I’ve already reported that I heard no laughter on the streets. Maybe, I thought, the Board of Selectmen had passed an anti-giggling ordinance. “Warning! Levity is punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both.”

  I watched one of the customers climb down from his bar stool, waddle over to the door of the Men’s Room, and try to get in. But the room was occupied; the door was locked. The guy rattled the knob angrily a few times, then went growling back to the bar. A very ordinary incident. Happens all the time. The only reason I mention it is that seeing the customer rattle the knob on the locked door inspired, by some loony chain of thought, a magnificent idea: I would break into Crittenden Hall and the Crittenden Research Laboratory late at night and look around.

  My first reaction to that brainstorm was a firm conviction that I was over the edge, around the bend, and down the tube. First of all, if I got caught, it would mean my job, even if I was able to weasel out of a stay in the slammer. Second, how could I get over that high fence, avoid the armed guards, and gain entrance to the locked buildings? Finally, what could I possibly hope to find that I hadn’t been shown on my tour of the premises?

  Still, it was an enticing prospect, just the thing to keep me awake and functioning until it was time to drive out for my meet with Mary Thorndecker.

  The more I chewed on it, the more reasonable the project seemed to me. I could get over the fence with the aid of a short ladder. There were only three guards I knew of: the rover with shotgun and attack dog, the guy on the gate, and the bentnose inside the nursing home. A sneaky type like me shouldn’t find it too difficult to duck all three.

  The stickler was how to get inside the locked buildings without smashing windows or breaking down doors. That business of opening a lock with a plastic credit card—beloved by every private eye on TV—works only when there’s no dead bolt. And, I had noted on my visit, the doors at Crittenden had them. I’m no good at picking a lock, even if I owned a set of picks, which I don’t. Also, I don’t wear hairpins. That left only one impossible solution: keys.

  But even assuming I got inside undetected, what did I expect to find? The answer to that was easy: if I knew what I’d find, a break-in wouldn’t be necessary. This would be what the sawbones call an exploratory operation. It really was the only way, I acknowledged. Waiting for one of the cast of characters to reveal all was getting me nowhere.

  I bought myself another beer, and went into the campaign a little deeper. Dr. Kenneth Draper had mentioned that his eager, young research assistants sometimes worked right through till dawn. But surely there wouldn’t be many in the labs on Saturday or Sunday night. Even whiz-kids like to relax on weekends, or so Betty Hanrahan had said. As for the nursing home, it would probably be quiet at, say, two in the morning, with a skeleton night staff drinking coffee in offices and labs when they weren’t making their rounds.

  See how easy it is to talk yourself into a course of action you know in your heart of hearts is dangerous, sappy, and unlikely to succeed? Talk about Father Bellamy being a grifter! His talents were nothing compared to the skills we all have in conning ourselves. Self-delusion is still the biggest scam of all.

  I know it now, I knew it on that Saturday morning in Coburn. I told myself to forget the whole cockamamie scheme.

  But all I could think about was how I could get the keys to those locked Crittenden doors.

  “Hey, Todd,” Al Coburn said in his cracked voice, kicking gently at my ankle. “You dreaming or something?”

  “Or something,” I said. “Pull up a chair, Mr. Coburn.”

  He was carrying his own beer, and when I pushed a chair toward him, he flopped down heavily. His hands were trembling. He wrapped them around his beer glass and held on for dear life.

  “Mister Coburn,” he said, musing. “You got manners on you for a young whipper.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m also trustworthy, loyal, friendly, brave, clean, and reverent. Boy Scout oath.”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking around absently. “Well, you remember what we were talking about before?”

  “The letter from Ernie Scoggins?”

  “What happened was this: I got in touch with the, uh, party concerned, and maybe it was all like a misunderstanding.”

  I looked at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. His vacant stare was over my head, around the walls, across the ceiling.

  “You’re a lousy liar,” I said.

  “No, no,” he said seriously. “I just gabbed more than I should. That Ernie Scoggins—a crazy feller. I told you that. He blew it all up. Know what I mean? So I’m having a meeting late this afternoon, and we’ll straighten the whole thing out. Everything’s going to be fine. Yes. Fine.”

  I felt sick. I leaned across the table to him, tried to hold his gaze in mine. But he just wouldn’t lock eyes.

  “Your notes at the bank?” I said. “They got to you?”

  I was doing it: using the word “they.” Who? The CIA, the FBI, the KGB, the Gold Star Mothers, the Association for the Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena? Who?

  “Oh no,” he said, very solemn now. “No no no. This has nothing to do with my notes. Just a friendly discussion. To come to an agreement for our mutual benefit.”

  That wasn’t Al Coburn talking. “An agreement for our mutual benefit.” I knew he was quoting someone. It smelled of con.

  “Mr. Coburn,” I said slowly and carefully, “let’s see if I’ve got this right. You’re going to meet someone late this afternoon and talk about whatever is in that letter Ernie Scoggins left you? Is that it?”

  “Well … yeah,” he said, looking down into his beer. “It’ll all get straightened out. You’ll see.”

  “Want me to come along?” I asked him. “Maybe it would be better if you had—you know, like a witness. I won’t say a word. I won’t do anything. I’ll just be there.”

  He bristled.

  “Listen, sonny,” he said, “I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure you can,” I said hastily. “But what’s wrong with having a third party present?”

  “It’s confidential,” he said. “That was the agr
eement. Just him and me.”

  I grabbed that.

  “Him?” I said. “So you’re meeting just one man?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t. I guessed it. Am I wrong?”

  “I’m tired,” he said fretfully.

  I looked at him, and I knew he was telling the truth: he was tired. The head was bowed, shoulders slumped, all of him collapsed. Tired or defeated.

  “I don’t want no trouble,” he mumbled.

  What was I to do—hassle a weary old man? The years had rubbed away at him. As they do at all of us. Will slackens. Resolve fuzzes. Worst of all, physical energy leaks out. We just don’t have the verve to cope. A good bowel movement becomes life’s highest pleasure, and we see a tanned teenager in a bikini and think bitterly, “Little do you know!”

  I wanted to take his stringy craw in my fists and choke the truth from him. Who was the guy he was going to meet? What was in Scoggins’s letter? What were they going to agree about? But what the hell could I do—stomp it out of him?

  I’m pretty good at self-control. I mean I don’t rant and rave. The stomach may be bubbling, but the voice is low, level, contained.

  “Look, Mr. Coburn,” I said, “this meeting of yours—I hope it comes out just the way you want it. That everything is solved to your satisfaction. But just in case—in case, you understand—things don’t turn out to be nice-nice, don’t you think you should have an insurance policy? An ace in the hole?”

  Then, finally, he looked at me. Those washed-out eyes focused on my stare, and I knew I had him hooked.

  “Like what?” he said.

  I shrugged. “A copy of Scoggins’s letter. Left some place only you and I know about. Doesn’t that make sense? Gives you a bargaining point, doesn’t it? With the guy you’re meeting? A copy of the letter, or the original, left in someone else’s hands. In case …”

  True to the Coburn tradition, I didn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t have to. He understood, and it shook him. I started from the table to buy him another beer, but he wagged his head and waved me back. All he wanted to do was think, ponder, figure, reckon. He may have been an old man, but he wasn’t an old dummy.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “All right. I’ll go along with that. It’ll be in the glove compartment of my pickup. In case. But I won’t need to use it; you’ll see. I’ll call you right after the meeting. You’ll be here?”

  “What time are you talking about?”

  “Five, six this evening. Around there.”

  “Sure,” I said, “I’ll be here. If not, you can always leave a message. Just tell me everything’s okay.”

  He nodded, nodded, like one of those Hong Kong dolls, the spineless head bobbing up and down.

  “That’s a good way,” he said. “I’ll call you to tell you everything’s okay. Hey, maybe we can eat together tonight. Listen, Todd, I made a good stew last night. You come out and eat with me. I’ll tell you about stew: you cook it, and then you let it cool, and you eat it the next day, after it’s got twenty-four hours of soaking. Tastes better that way.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I’ll wait for your call. Then I’ll come out, and we’ll have the stew. What’s in it?”

  “This and that,” he said.

  I began to have second thoughts. Not about the stew, but about the arrangements we had made. Too many things could go wrong. Murphy’s Law.

  “Well, look,” I said, “I expect to be in and out all day, so maybe you’ll call and I won’t be here, and those nut-boys at the desk will forget to deliver your message. So why don’t you give me your phone number now, and tell me how to locate your place?”

  He wasn’t exactly happy about that, but I finally got his phone number and directions on how to find his home. He said he lived in a farmhouse not too far from the foot of Crittenden Hill, and if I looked for a clumsy clapboard house set on cinder blocks, that was it. I’d know it by a steel flagpole set in cement in the front yard. He flew Old Glory day and night, no matter what the weather. When the flag got shagged to ribbons, he bought a new one.

  “If I get six months out of a flag,” Al Coburn said, “I figure I’m lucky. But I don’t care. I’m patriotic, and I don’t give a damn who knows it.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  I watched him stumble out of there. He was trying to keep his shoulders back, chest inflated. I wanted to be like that when I was his age: cocky and hopeful. None of us can win the final decision. But, with luck, we can pick up a few rounds. I hoped old Al Coburn would pick up this round.

  That blighted week … The sharpest memory I have is my Saturday morning phone call to Dr. Telford Thorndecker. I planned it: what I would say, what he might say, what I would reply.

  I got through to Crittenden Hall with no trouble, but it took them almost five minutes to locate Thorndecker. Then I was told he was in his private office at the Crittenden Research Laboratory, and didn’t wish to be disturbed except in case of emergency. I said it was an emergency. A string of clicks, and he finally came on the line. Angry.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  I told him.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Mr. Todd. Did you get that report I promised you?”

  “I did,” I said, “and I want to—”

  “Good,” he said. “Then I presume the grant will be forthcoming shortly.”

  “Well, not exactly. What I really—”

  “The skeptics,” he said disgustedly. “The nay-sayers. Don’t listen to them. We’re on the right track now.”

  “Dr. Thorndecker,” I said, “I was wondering if—”

  “Of course there’s a lot to be done. We’ve just scratched the surface. No one knows. No one can possibly guess.”

  “If you could—”

  “I don’t know when I’ve been so optimistic about a research project. I mean that sincerely. It just seems like everything is falling into place. The Thorndecker Theory. That’s what they’ll call it: the Thorndecker Theory.”

  All this in his booming baritone. But I missed the conviction the words should have conveyed. The man was remote: that’s the only way I can describe it. I didn’t know if he was trying to convince me or himself. But I had a sense of him being way up there in the wild blue yonder, repeating dreams.

  “Dr. Thorndecker,” I said, trying again, “I have some questions only you can answer, and I was hoping you might be able to spare me a few moments this afternoon.”

  “Julie,” he said. “She’ll be so proud of me. Of course. What is it you wanted?”

  “If we could meet,” I said. “For a short time. This afternoon.”

  “Delighted,” he shouted. “Absolutely delighted, Now? This minute? Are you at the gate? I’m in my lab.”

  “Well … no, sir,” I said. “I was thinking about this afternoon. Maybe three o’clock. Around there. Would that be all right?”

  There was silence.

  “Hello?” I said. “Dr. Thorndecker? Are you there?”

  “What’s this about?” he said suspiciously. “Who is this?”

  Once more it occurred to me that he might be on something. In never-never land. He wasn’t slurring; his speech was distinct. But he wasn’t tracking. He wasn’t going from A to B to C; he was going from K to R to F.

  I tried again.

  “Dr. Thorndecker,” I said formally, “this is Samuel Todd. I have a few more questions I’d like to ask you regarding your application to the Bingham Foundation for a grant. Could I see you at three this afternoon?”

  “But of course!” he said heartily. Pause. “Perhaps two o’clock would be better. Would that inconvenience you?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I’ll be out there at two.”

  “Excellent!” he said. “I’ll leave word at the gate. You come directly to the lab. I’ll be here.”

  “Fine,” I said. “See you then.”

  “And Mary and Edward,” he said, and hung up.

  It was Loony Tunes ti
me. I figured I might as well be equipped. I found a hardware store that was open, and bought a three-cell flashlight with batteries, a short stepladder, 50 feet of cheap clothesline, and a lead sash weight. They didn’t have any ski masks. I stowed my new possessions in Betty Hanrahan’s pickup and headed out to Crittenden to meet Mary Thorndecker. If she had showed up in a Batman cape, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. The whole world had gone lunatic. Including me.

  She wasn’t hard to find. Parked off the road in a black car long enough to be a hearse. I pulled up ahead of her, figuring I might want to get away in a hurry and wouldn’t want to be boxed in. I got out of the pickup, ready to sit in her limousine. It had to be warmer in there. The Yukon would be warmer than Betty Hanrahan’s pickup.

  But Mary Thorndecker got out of her car, too. Slammed the door: a solid chunk muffled in the thicker air. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone with me in a closed space. Maybe she didn’t trust me. I don’t know. Anyway, we were both out in the open, stalking toward each other warily. High Noon at Crittenden.

  But we waded, actually. Because there was a morning ground fog still swirling. It covered our legs, and we pushed through it. It was white smoke, billowing. The earth was dry ice. And as we breathed, long plumes of vapor went out. I glanced around that chill, deserted landscape. Bleak trees and frosted stubble. A blurred etching: fog, vapor, my slick trenchcoat and her heavy, old-fashioned wrap of Persian lamb. I hadn’t seen one of those in years.

  She wore a knitted black cloche, pulled down to her eyes. Her face was white, pinched, frightened. Everything that had seemed to me mildly curious and faintly amusing about the Thorndecker affair suddenly sank to depression, dread, and inevitability. Her demonic look. Bleached lips. Her hands were thrust deep into her pockets, and I wondered if she had brought a gun and planned to shoot me dead. In that lost landscape it was possible. Any cold violence was possible.

  “Miss Thorndecker,” I said. “Mary. Would you—”

  “How did you know?” she demanded. Her voice was dry and gaspy. “About the note? That I wrote the note?”