by Jeff Sutton
"Didn't you wonder at that?"
"It made me rather uneasy."
"That's the usual reaction," the agent admitted. "Did you ever see the other man?"
"The one by the curb? Only in death. The paper said he was an ex-convict."
"A punk," the agent agreed. "How did the shots sound?"
"The first one was somewhat like the backfire of an automobile. That was my first impression. Then a fusillade of shots rang out—two volleys, as I recall." Kane smiled selfconsciously. "I dove for the floor."
"Can't say that I blame you." Conrad's dark eyes measured him. "Why would you suspect they might be shooting at you?"
"I didn't consciously suspect it, although the murders of Dr. Cantrup and Dr. Freyhoff might have been in the back of my mind. I suspect it's the reaction anyone might have to sudden gunfire."
"He who ducks in time lives to duck again," Conrad observed. "What did you do then?"
"I heard a car start up and speed away, then ran outside. That's when I saw Wygant."
"How much time would you say elapsed between the single shot and the first volley?"
"Perhaps two or three seconds. The next volley came within another few seconds. Again that's just an impression. Time is tricky under those circumstances."
"Very tricky," the agent agreed. "Did you see anyone else at the time?"
"No, just the two men who had been shot. A few porch lights were flicking on and several people were running toward the spot, but that was a moment or so later."
"So there were no actual eyewitnesses, is that it?"
"I don't believe so," Kane answered.
Conrad rose leisurely. "Is there anything else you can tell me, Dr. Kane?"
"Not a thing," he answered flatly.
"I'll try not to trouble you again." The agent moved to the door, then glanced back. "I'd stay away from that window at nights," he advised dryly. Before Kane could answer, he was gone. Afterward Kane was to remember the night with clarity.
It was the night Bernardi of Italy was killed.
XI
Kane plunged fervently back into his work. With Cantrup, Freyhoff, Vosin and Bernardi dead, he drove frantically to achieve the breakthrough which, at times, he felt was tantalizingly close. The knowledge that so much of the burden had fallen to him was an unrelenting spur to his efforts.
News of Bernardi's death had come as a crushing blow. The truck that had smashed his car had been stolen, its driver escaping the scene in an unidentified vehicle that had been following. He had scant doubt that it had been murder. Now, with the exception of Saburo Tanaki, the renowned Japanese mathematician, he alone was left to probe for the hidden dimensions of the space-time world in which he lived.
Often at night he awoke with the knowledge, shivering, then would dress hurriedly and drive back to his laboratory. Dawn often would find him deep in his work.
It was the small hours of the morning that he came to like best, for then the world was still and quiet, permitting him a degree of concentration he seldom knew during the regular school day. At times he studied, at times he philosophized, at times he stared at the wall of his small office, trying to untangle the role of the Bornji transformations in Wygant's death. But in the end he would have to give up: the relationship appeared as inexplicable as multidimensional space itself.
Part of his drive, he knew, was to banish Anita from his mind. Occasionally, when he could examine his feelings objectively, he had to admit that the hurt was more to his ego than to his heart. Yet such objectivity could not assuage his feelings, nor prevent him from thinking about her, nor of John Androki. Especially not John Androki. Several gossip columnists had linked their names romantically, and a lead article in Today's Pageant had asked: "Will John Androki
marry his beautiful blonde art curator?" He winced at that.
But it was difficult to forget Androki for other reasons. The press carried ever' more news about him; he long since had pushed the President from the front page. It was all but impossible to turn on the television without hearing the name. Now he was being hailed as "the new Simon Bolivar" for the huge multi-nation industrial empire he was forging from one end of the South American continent to the other; at the same time he was being damned for his attempt to convert the Common Market into a private financial cartel.
On the home front, Congress had adjourned with an embattled Senator Blaire still trying to have Androki subpoenaed to testify in his investigation into what he termed "flagrant and outrageous violations of the antitrust laws." The tirade against the senator made it appear that he, not Androki, was the chief culprit.
But it was as a figure of mystery that he most gripped the public's imagination. "Who is John Androki?" became the columnists' favorite question. Each would attempt to answer according to his own imagination or sources of information.
To the women's press, he was the world's most sought-after bachelor. Secret romances were hinted, along with a prolific scattering of such adjectives as "charming."
"distinguished" and "gallant." Another writer reported that he had remained a bachelor because of the tragic death of his "one true love." Other news reports were given over to descriptions of the fabulous estate he was building above the Malibu coast. One syndicated columnist reported that the magnificent Hearst castle at San Simeon was being duplicated by Androki for use as servants' quarters.
But of John Androki himself, despite hundreds of photographs, there was nothing.
If Kane was trying to forget Anita and Androki, not so Maxon. The financier had become an obsession with him.
"He's got to be a downthrough," he declared time and again. "His instincts are too unerring for it to be guesswork."
"Instincts?" Kane challenged.
"You're picking at words," Maxon accused. "You know damned well what I mean."
"I get the general idea," he admitted.
"If I can't get to him any other way, I'm going to do an article on him," Maxon declared. "I'm going to title it, Is John Androki a Downthrough? He couldn't sue me for that."
"He'd probably buy the university and fire you," Kane replied.
"I'm serious. I mentioned the idea to Anita."
"Oh, when did you see her?"
"Several days ago. I ran smack into her out on Sunset. She was driving ten thousand bucks' worth of Jag—the new V12 job with a double overhead cam on each cylinder bank." Maxon grinned cynically. "Those curator jobs must really pay off."
"Yeah." Kane suppressed his hurt. "What did she say?"
"About the article? She said John would blow his top. She called him John. What do you think of it?"
"The article?" Kane considered it briefly. "With your name on it, I would say it would raise a stir."
"It might start a lot of people thinking. You should see my file." Maxon measured with his hands. "Three feet thick. Did you know that he's a magnet for murder? Two of them occurred practically next to him—one in Philadelphia and one in Seattle. Count the guys who got knocked off on your lawn and that makes four."
"You can't count them," Kane objected.
"There's a link." Maxon nodded sagely. "Three of those birds sprang from the same nest."
"I don't follow you."
"Three of them were never identified; or, rather, their identification documents—the wallet variety—were false. Actually there were no official records of any kind on them. No fingerprints, social security numbers, nothing like that.
The Times carried quite an article on it. Did you know that no one knows Androki's background?"
"So what's new?" Kane forced a smile.
"Don't you ever keep up on that bird?" Maxon demanded. "He's bigger news than the lunar landing."
"I'm surprised he hasn't tried to buy it."
"The moon? Give him time. He bought Madagascar last week." Maxon eyed him piercingly. "Did you read Senator Blaire's statement this morning? He ran quite an investigation on Androki. He told the press that he wanted to satisfy himself that Androki wa
s an American citizen, but that he could find no such evidence."
"I thought he came from Wisconsin?"
"That was the rumor. He was supposed to have been born somewhere around Green Bay—near a village called Cooperstown. It's a dairy farm area. But Blaire couldn't discover any record of his birth. He's shouting that to the high heavens."
"Why would Androki pick a spot like that if it weren't true?" Kane argued.
"A small village? Well, it's Polish."
"So are sections of New York, Chicago, almost any place you can name," he countered. He paused thoughtfully. "Perhaps he came from the slums, is trying to hide it."
"I don't believe that's it at all," Maxon stated.
"What do you believe?"
"Three guys with absolutely no known records are murdered in the vicinity of a fourth man with no known record." Maxon eyed him expectantly. "Does that spell anything?"
"What do you believe it spells?"
"They all came from the same place, Bert."
"Where is that?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
Kane shook his head slowly. "Your reasoning doesn't hold water, Gordie. You're thinking with your emotions."
"I am?" Maxon hunched forward in his chair. "Perhaps you're right but I'd like to see the hole in my thinking."
"You're saying that you believe they were downthroughs?"
"I didn't say it but that's what I think, yes. They were four of a kind."
"If they were downthroughs, wouldn't they have foreseen their murders? And if foreseeing them, wouldn't they have taken steps to avoid the situation?"
"I don't read it that way," Maxon answered. "If they had avoided their deaths, how could they have foreseen them?"
"But they were murdered, that's the whole point of it," Kane declared. "And because they were, they would have had to know what was coming. That is, if they were downthroughs."
"You're building paradoxes, Bert."
"Yes, but answer them."
"Time has baffling twists. You know that."
"That's no answer."
"Perhaps they could foresee their deaths but couldn’t avoid them," Maxon argued. "If a downthrough sees the future— the act defines the talent—then he is seeing the inevitable. It's quite logical to assume that they foresaw their murders but were helpless."
"Gobbledegook, Gordie."
"Perhaps, but I believe we have to apply logic to the illogical. Do you realize how many deaths can be linked in one way or another to Androki? Nine."
"Nine?" Kane was startled.
"I'm keeping a box score," Maxon affirmed grimly. "The first was a multimillionaire named Winthrop Farrand, who apparently had some sort of business dealings with Androki just about the time Androki first was coming into the lime-light. Farrand got knocked off by a truck a la Bernardi. Cantrup was second, Freyhoff was third. The unidentified corpse in Philadelphia and another in Seattle make the fourth and fifth. Add the two guys who got it on your lawn, then throw in Vosin and Bernardi, and the total is nine."
"How can you count Cantrup, Freyhoff, Vosin and Bernardi?" Kane demanded. "Especially the European mathematicians? They weren't even remotely connected with Androki. Aside from that, Vosin died of a heart attack."
"Do we know that? Would the Russians admit to one of their top mathematical geniuses being murdered?" Maxon glared at him. "I'll admit that a few of the links are weak, but they are links. Did you ever hear of Murder, Incorporated? Androki must have bought out the business."
"Ah, ah, keep your objectivity," Kane admonished.
Maxon grinned. "I'm trying, I honestly am, but that bird makes it extremely difficult."
As the weeks slipped by, Kane continued the routine he'd developed since his break with Anita. Mainly it was a routine of long hours in the lab, with little sleep and almost no recreation. Yet he thrived on it.
"That bachelor's life is the good life." Maxon had stated that often enough; now Kane felt that it was true. He would have denied it emphatically during the eleven years he had been married to Margaret. Those had been golden years, idyllic, and for a short time he believed he had recaptured them with Anita. Now, with Margaret alive only in memory, he could see the virtue of a life like Maxon's. Without Margaret, it was all that remained.
Then, during the Christmas holidays, he encountered Anita coming out of Wanamaker's with her arms laden with bundles.
"Bert, it's good to see you." She halted almost in mid-stride, looking at him over her burden. Her face held a tentative smile.
"Let me help you." He sprang forward to relieve her of her heavier parcels.
"My car's in the next lot."
"You look wonderful." Stepping back with the larger boxes, he gazed at her, thinking she'd never been more beautiful. At the same time he perceived that much of her beauty lay in her fashionable hair-styling, eye shadow, and in the long artificial eyelashes that swept down to create a demure look. An expensive mink jacket added to the effect. "How's the new job?" he asked.
"Fine."
"I hear Androki's building quite an art gallery up at Malibu." He fell into step alongside her as they headed toward the parking lot.
She nodded. "It'll "be finished in around two months."
"Will you be living in that area?"
"Yes, of course." She stared stiffly ahead. "How is your work coming?"
"Still puttering."
"I can't believe that." She cast him a sidelong look.' "I imagine that you work sixteen hours a day."
"It's my life," he answered gravely.
"And when it comes to an end?"
"That will never end," he answered solemnly.
"Not even if you make the breakthrough?"
"Especially not then." He glanced at the sky, wondering if it was going to rain. It had that feel in the air. "That will be just an incentive for the next step."
"Which is?"
"Frankly, I don't know." He smiled pensively. "The mathematical possibilities are like space and time: unending. I say that in the knowledge that we'll never know all there is to know about it. One step leads to another, ad infinitum."
"I feel that way about art," she reflected.
"See Gordie lately?"
"I bumped into him a few weeks back."
"He's quite caught with the subject of your boss," he observed.
"So he told me." She laughed lightly. "He suggested doing an article on him. Isn't that silly?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, isn't it?"
"He's a public figure; plenty of people are interested in his activities," he countered. "I think an article of a psychological nature might do very well."
"Psychological." She sniffed. "Is he actually thinking of doing one? I thought he was joking."
"I believe he is. He's gathering the material."
"Ridiculous." She turned into the lot. "The Jag in the corner."
Kane eyed it. "Quite a car."
"Oh, I got it on time," she answered quickly. "The payments keep me broke."
"That's what money's for." He deposited the packages in the seat beside her.
"Can I give you a lift?"
"No thanks." He smiled crookedly. "The old heap's parked up the street."
"It's been good seeing you, Bert. Let's not make it so long next time." She started the engine.
"Let's not," he agreed. She fussed with her purse, gave him a quick smile, then started from the lot. He watched the white Jag swing into the stream of traffic. The meeting had left him faintly depressed.
Returning to his own car, he wondered if she was happy.
Charles Dorrance eyed the pile of reports he'd gathered on John Androki's activities. Although representing but a minute portion of the financier's file, he had selected them in the belief that somewhere among them lay the key to the man who had become the world's number one enigma.
He pulled out one of Philip Conrad's reports and scanned it. Although it was several months old, he had come back to it ti
me and again, sensing that the crux pi the whole story somehow was embodied in the few terse pages.
A man who had identified himself as Clifton Wygant, an agent, had been slain in a gun battle with a second man who, apparently, had been intent on murdering Bertram Kane. The latter's motive was read between the lines, of course, but Dorrance had scant doubt but that it was true. That cast Wygant in the role of Kane's protector.
Wygant's killer, who had also died in the gun battle, had been a small-time triggerman who a year earlier had beaten a homicide rap by the skin of his teeth. His police record typically was that of a street corner hoodlum graduated into gangland. Dorrance had scant interest in him, other than who his employer might have been. But he had a great deal of interest in Clifton Wygant.
Wygant's identification as a police officer had proved false —as false as his name, Dorrance decided. As a matter of fact, Wygant had never existed, at least insofar as any verifiable records were concerned. He had no fingerprint file, no military record, no social security number—no known public record of any kind. Like the murder victims in Philadelphia and Seattle, he seemingly had come from nowhere.
Like John Androki himself, he thought.
"I came back, I came back…" Wygant's dying words were a haunting refrain in his mind. Back from where? What had he been trying to tell Kane? More to the point, why had he given his life to save Kane? That he once had identified himself to Kane as a police officer held no great mystery; it had been a convenient cover-up. But why, with almost his dying breath, had he identified himself as an agent?
Dorrance had pondered that many times; he pondered it again. A dying man, more often than not, is a truthful man.
But not always. Yet why would he claim to be an agent? What could he have hoped to gain by such a claim? Had he merely been trying to identify himself? And if it were true, an agent for… whom?
As Conrad had resurrected the story, Wygant had been stationed by Kane's apartment to protect him—had died doing so. That appeared quite evident. And he had known of the Bornji transformations! That, Dorrance reflected, -was the big fly in the ointment. How did mathematical theory get tied in with murder?