Whistler's Angel

by John R. Maxim

  An ocean and part of two continents away, Harry Whistler was having misgivings of his own. Adam had assured him that he wasn’t involved in that mess of the previous evening. But Adam had seemed just a trifle too breezy in dismissing his father’s concerns.

  The more he thought of it, however, the more he felt sure that Adam was probably telling the truth. Even if Adam had been near the scene, he would have known enough to mind his own business. Secondly, he’d know better than to get involved with a high-profile character like Ragland. Add to that, the assailants had since been identified as a pair of religious fanatics. Two men he’d never heard of from a church he’d never heard of. No conceivable connection with Adam.

  He placed a call to Kate to tell her as much. He could now tell her that they're fine, they're having breakfast, not to worry. The boat’s out at anchor; they’re out of harm’s way, not that there was any harm in the first place.

  No answer from Kate. He got her machine. It was barely after six in the morning, her time. He said, “Oh, Kate, please tell me you didn’t. Please tell me that you’re not on an airplane.” He tried her twice more, still no answer.

  He went to his computer and hit several keys. A long list of codes filled the screen. He chose one of these and hit several more keys. A list of flights came on. He typed in one more code. This time a passenger list filled the screen. He scanned it and muttered, “God damn it.”

  He tried the boat again and got another machine. He tried Adam’s cell phone. Again, there was no answer. With a growl, he cursed Adam under his breath. When he’d asked him to leave the phone on from now on, that meant be available, be reachable. He slid his chair to a different screen. He typed in another series of digits and waited for a blip to appear on the monitor. It appeared, but the boat’s position had changed. The boat seemed to be back at its slip.

  He returned to his console, hit a few more keys, this time the code for a pager. In less than a minute, his telephone rang. Donald Beasley was calling him back.

  “Donald, I’m afraid I need to fly to the States. This is very short notice, but can you two go with me?”

  “You gotta ask? Yeah. But how short? Like right now?”

  “Oh, heck. Never mind. This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s Adam again, right?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know.”

  He explained, very briefly, the who, what and where. He told Donald about his exchanges with Kate. He’d confirmed, he said, that she was enroute. She would get there and find that there was nothing amiss. All this flying around would be pointless.

  “Yeah, might be,” said Donald. “But you got a bad feeling?”

  “With nothing whatsoever to support it.”

  “Nah, that ain’t you. There’s something. What is it?”

  “Well, whatever it is, I can’t pin it down. There’s a dim little light that keeps blinking in my brain. I move toward it, but it just floats away.”

  “Some connection between Adam and this guy that got shot?”

  “I think so. I just can’t seem to place it.”

  Donald said, “Harry, you know what I think? I think you worry too much about Adam.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “That one time a year ago, when Claudia got shot, he wasn’t thinking straight and I don’t blame him. But you didn’t raise any pussycat, Harry. Adam’s good. He can handle himself.”

  “He…always could when he’s been on his own. But, Donald, you just said it. He’s got Claudia to take care of.”

  “Meaning what? She gets hurt and he’ll lose it again? Harry, it was you who put them together. It’s a little late to have second thoughts.”

  Harry said, “Oh, I’m not. At least not about that. She’s the best thing that’s happened to him.”

  “Maybe all it is…you miss him. It’s been a long time.”

  “Yeah, it has been. And I do.” Harry paused for a moment. “I don’t suppose you know anything about churches.”

  “Now you want to talk churches? Like what? What they teach?”

  “Ever heard of the Reconstructionist Church?”

  “I don’t think so. What’s that? Like a cult?”

  Harry shrugged. “All religions started off being cults. No, you wouldn’t know anything about churches.”

  “I wouldn’t? Who says? Me and Dennis grew up Catholic.”

  Harry blinked. “You’re kidding. Did you, really?”

  “Yeah, we did. With the nuns. And then the Jesuits after that. Me and Dennis even served Mass a few years.”

  “You’re…telling me that you were an altar boy, Donald?”

  “What, you don’t believe me? I could give you some Latin. Back then, all the priests always asked for me and Dennis. They liked that we came as a set.”

  Harry chuckled at the vision that had formed in his mind.

  “See that? You laugh. But you seen us in church. We went with you at least three times, I can think of.”

  Silly me, thought Harry. In fact, they had. They’d been to his wedding when he married Andrea. And then to her funeral. And to Alicia’s a year later. He damned sure didn’t want to add Adam’s.

  “Hey, Harry?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Where’d this church question come from?”

  “I don’t know. It’s that dim little light I can’t reach. Forget it. It’s probably nothing.”

  “You keep saying nothing, but it’s something. Let’s go. Worst case will be that we wasted a plane ride, not to mention forty grand worth of fuel.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Except…you feel up to it? How’s your back?”

  “It’s holding up.”

  “Maybe just me and Dennis should go. How ‘bout that?”

  “And leave me sitting here? I’d go nuts.”

  “Okay, but figure ten hours is the soonest we could be there. That gets us in when?”

  “Early evening their time.”

  “Are you worried what can happen in the meanwhile? Ten hours?”

  “Yeah, I am. I suppose that I am.”

  “So call Bannerman. He could have someone there in, like, two. You thought about that, am I right?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “So make the call.”

  “About something as insubstantial as this?”

  “Harry…the guy is a family man himself. Him and Susan have a kid of their own. He’ll understand.”

  “More likely, he’ll think I must be losing my grip.”

  “No, no. What he’ll think is Harry Whistler is his friend and Bannerman takes care of his friends. He came through for you in Denver, am I right?”

  “That was real.”

  A patient sigh. “Let me ask it this way. Let’s say Carla Benedict came over to, say, Munich. The next day it’s on the news that some guys got cut up. A female assailant; the cops don’t know who. Bannerman hears about this and he starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, these guys pissed her off.”

  “Because she’s in the same city?”

  “Same country. Wouldn’t matter. His head tells him, no, this is crazy, no way. But his head then reminds him that she’s not tightly wrapped and that when we hear ‘knife,’ we think ‘Carla.’ Now…don’t misunderstand me. Me and Dennis like Carla. So, when I say that the lady is not tightly wrapped, you know I’m not trying to be negative.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Who would Bannerman call to get this checked out? No-brainer. It’s you. Same with him.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “No question.”

  “Um…Donald?”

  “What?”

  “This example you used…Carla Benedict in Munich…that was strictly hypothetical, correct?”

  “It was just a for instance. It could have been Zurich.”

  “Donald…what I meant…” Harry sighed. “Never mind.”

  “You gonna call him?”

  “I’ll try him right now.”

  “We
using the Gulfstream? I’ll see it’s gassed up. Talk to Bannerman, then be ready in about twenty minutes. Me and Dennis are outside in twenty minutes.”

  Harry Whistler had tried to reach the boat one more time before placing his call to Paul Bannerman. As with Kate, he got Adam’s machine. He again tried Adam’s cell phone. The result was the same. Adam, he thought, could have no excuse for not at least having his cell phone at hand. And why, he wondered, had they brought the boat in? Why, for that matter, had he moved in the first place?

  He knew that he was getting himself worked up and that it was probably

  over nothing. But he said he’d call Bannerman and he would.

  At this hour, Bannerman should be at his office on the Post Road in Westport, Connecticut. Bannerman had bought a travel agency there. He’d chosen that business, well…because he’d been everywhere, but largely because of the computers. No one ever wonders why a travel firm would need so many computers. Bannerman, like himself, believed in keeping in touch. He liked to know what was going on in the world and especially what was happening around him.

  A number of his people owned other small businesses. There was

  a restaurant, a few shops, one worked as an electrician and one had joined the police force. The electrician, by now, had probably wired every building whose occupants were of interest to him, including, of course, police headquarters. But primarily, Bannerman had acquired these businesses for them in the hope of keeping them busy, out of trouble. And to make friends. And to spread themselves around. And to avoid congregating together too much, the better to melt into the community.

  It worked up to a point. Most behaved, by and large. And nearly all of them started to make friends. Bannerman had assumed that this was a good thing until one of his people, one Billy McHugh, was revealed to have been thinning the town’s population for the benefit of his new friends. Bannerman blamed himself. He thought he should have known. Billy was a huge man, about fifty years old, whom many thought of as a monster. He’d probably never had a normal friend in his life, but he was loyal to Bannerman to the death. Bannerman had put him to work tending bar in a restaurant that was run by Molly Farrell. He thought that regular interaction with customers might elicit a few social skills.

  Mario’s? Yes, Mario’s. That was the restaurant. It was down by the Westport railroad station, very popular with the locals and commuters. Over time these regulars had come to know Billy, and some, inevitably, started telling him their troubles. Some would tell him the troubles of others. A woman, for example, might have just left the bar and a customer might say to him, “There goes Sally, poor gal. She’s afraid to go home. Her husband beats the shit out of her for no reason. It’s a shame. Somebody ought to do something.”

  Any other bartender might listen and sympathize, but Billy, his concept of friendship still evolving, undertook to solve some of their problems. He solved ten or eleven before Molly caught on. She confronted him, then had to tell Bannerman.

  Bannerman was unhappy with him, to say the least. But Bannerman soon had more to worry about than the recent rash of “suicides” and “accidental deaths,” all of which Billy admitted. He soon had to fight a short but bloody war against those who wondered why he’d come back to this country and just couldn’t believe that he had no grand scheme except to try to live a quiet life. More or less.

  If they couldn’t believe that Bannerman was just a travel agent, and if they couldn’t believe that Molly Farrell was just a restauranteur, imagine the trouble that they had believing that Carla was just a librarian. Well, not now, but she had been. She had always liked books. However, she always kept her books locked away because she thought that if others knew what she read, they would know far too much about her. The fact is that her tastes were in no way bizarre. It was not as if her shelves were lined with books that explored her own abnormal psychology. She read good literature, mostly, and some history, biography, and she loved the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She couldn’t read those without crying.

  Carla solved her need to keep her reading habits private by opening a small bookstore in town. Just as no one would wonder about Bannerman’s computers, no one, she reasoned, ever thinks twice about what a bookseller reads. Her partner in the bookstore, and apparently in her life, was the KGB major whom she’d nearly shot to death when…

  The phone was ringing. His call had gone through. The travel agency’s receptionist had answered. He said his name; she asked him to hold; she’d said “You’ll want a private line. Just one moment.”

  In a blink, Harry heard Paul Bannerman come on. “Hello, Harry. Glad you called; I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Bannerman always spoke in a calm, quiet voice. It had often reminded him of Adam’s. Same gray eyes as well. Very soft, oddly gentle except when they weren’t. He could have been Adam’s older brother.

  They exchanged a few pleasantries. How was Susan? How’s the family? He learned that Bannerman’s daughter just had her sixth birthday and that Susan was pregnant again.

  Susan’s father, Raymond Lesko, a great bear of a man, was then living in Switzerland himself. He was a former New York cop who once nearly killed Bannerman after someone else had nearly killed Susan in reprisal for something that Bannerman had done. It wasn’t Bannerman’s fault, but we know how fathers are. In any case, it worked out; a friendship gradually developed, and Lesko – who had been long divorced from Susan’s mother – married into the powerful Brugg family of Zurich. In fact, Lesko and the former Elena Brugg then went on to have a child of their own. Late in life. Harry, who had often had dealings with the Bruggs, had been invited to attend the child’s christening. Since then, he and Lesko had become friends themselves.

  Bannerman asked about Adam and Claudia. “Still together? It’s been what…about a year?”

  “Just about.”

  “Well? Is it working out as you’d hoped?”

  “Yeah, it is,” Harry told him. “I think it’s made all the difference. I think he’s grown up a lot. ”

  “Grown up?”

  “Well…let’s say that it’s made him more balanced.”

  “Harry, Adam’s a long way from being a kid. You’re the only one who thinks of him that way.”

  “You never thought there was something…incomplete about Adam?”

  “Like in you before Andrea? Like in me before Susan?”

  “Me, especially, but good point,” Harry answered.

  “You can’t be Adam’s father forever, Harry.”

  “Yeah, I can. So will you be. Wait and see.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Bannerman, “his year’s almost over. Are you still planning to bring him in with you?”

  “It might take a little selling, but yes.”

  “And what about Claudia?” Bannerman asked. “Do you think she’ll stick with him?”

  “I hope so. I’m betting that she will.”

  “At least as long as she thinks she’s his guardian angel. Does she still?”

  “She more than thinks it; she’s sure of it.”

  Bannerman said, “Well, then maybe she is. I’ll tell you who believes it. It’s Carla. Carla says Viktor had a similar experience after she put those holes in his chest. Viktor saw the white light himself.”

  “You’re saying Viktor came back as her guardian angel?”

  “No, he was only told that he should forgive her and that Carla should stop sending people his way.”

  “Whose way? Viktor’s?”

  “No, the white light’s. So now she tries to only cut them. Case in point, Aubrey’s goon. The one she caught up with at the airport in Denver.”

  “That was Carla?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “The twins tend to brief me in pretty broad strokes. I’d heard that one of them, Briggs, lost most of his face. This is Carla’s idea of moderation?

  “Well, you’d have to say it’s progress,” said Bannerman with a sigh. “I mean, it’s not up there with the conversion
of Saul, but she has developed a spiritual side. She’s been doing a good deal of reading about it. Carla’s sorry that she never got to meet Claudia, by the way. She said that she’d like to compare notes.”

  “That…sort of brings up the reason I’m calling. Adam and Claudia are back in this country. They’re down on Hilton Head Island.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Harry Whistler took the ‘Oh, really?’ to mean that Bannerman had been watching the news about the shooting. Bannerman added, “Small world.”

  “Well, it isn’t that small. And neither is that island. The place must get a million tourists a year and…”

  “Even so, you think Adam had a hand in it?”

  “I asked him; he said no, but I’m not sure I believe him. Now you’ll ask me why I doubt him and I simply don’t know, but Adam’s been making himself hard to reach. And my friend, Kate Geller…”

  “The girl’s mother?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is that ‘friend’ as in ‘lady friend?” Bannerman asked.

  “Okay, more than a friend. And she doesn’t like it either.”

  Kate Geller, he explained, was on an airplane at that moment. She’d arrive, assuming that her flights were on schedule, on the island in roughly two hours. He said she’d flown there against his advice. He could reach her on the plane, but it would do little good. Having come that far, she’d keep coming.

  Bannerman asked, “So you’re coming yourself?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “With the twins?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is all on gut feel. You have no reason to think that this has touched you or Adam. Aside from Olivia, I mean.”

  “Aside from who?”

  “Olivia Ragland. She’s what I meant by ‘small world.’”