The Man Who Heard Too Much

by Forrest, Richard;

It was a natural movement, and his second turning of his back on Martin was only the slightest breach of security. The long hours of watch and Martin’s apparent low mental capacity had lulled him into a single error.

  Four more steps into the kitchen. Martin took the steps separating him and Two Spot two at a time. He reached the other man at the moment he started to look back.

  Martin held the neck of the bottle with both hands and brought it forward against Two Spot’s larynx.

  The gunman dropped without a sound, and as he went down Martin hit him a second time at the vulnerable spot where skull and spinal cord meet.

  Two Spot crumpled lifelessly on the kitchen floor linoleum.

  The .45 slithered partway across the waxed linoleum.

  Martin grabbed the weapon and felt its heavy weight fit comfortably into his grasp.

  The falling man’s body had made only a slight sound as it hit the floor, but it might have been enough to alert Man Mountain. Martin threw his body sideways and aimed the automatic at the door.

  He waited.

  He counted to ten under his breath. The swinging kitchen door was still shut, and he could not hear any movement in the hallway outside.

  He slowly got to his feet, and kept his back against the wall as he sidled toward the door. He pushed it open a few inches. The hall was deserted. He stuck the large automatic into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back and started down the corridor.

  He was halfway to the living room when Man Mountain looked out of the archway. His pistol was pointed toward the floor.

  “Where in hell is Two Spot?” Mountain asked.

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Tell him to get his ass back here.”

  Martin stopped and let his mouth gape. “Huh?”

  “Tell him. Never mind.” He called out. “Two Spot!”

  Martin was only yards from the large gunman. He bent forward into a shooting crouch, and with one fluid motion withdrew the .45 from his pants, braced it as Billie had instructed, aimed at the large man before him, and tried to pull the trigger.

  The trigger would not pull!

  “What the hell!” Mountain’s gun swung toward Martin and fired as he snapped off a quick shot.

  The sound of the shot reverberated in the hallway as Martin grabbed the banister and vaulted over. Mountain fired again and the bullet splintered the wood near his face.

  Martin slid the safety, thumbed back the hammer, gripped the weapon firmly and fired.

  His shot caught Man Mountain in the shoulder and spun the man in a circle.

  Martin stood and fired again as the large man fell. The second shot killed him.

  Sara screamed from the living room. “Martin! Come quick! Something’s wrong with the senator!”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Senator Harris Crowell’s complexion was blue-white, his breathing came in shallow gasps, while perspiration beaded his forehead.

  Sara knelt next to the couch and loosened the stricken man’s shirt collar. Martin stood over them anxiously.

  “Is he going to die?” Martin asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The old man’s eyes flicked open. “Pocket … right hand pocket. Medicine. Hurry.”

  Sara began to frantically search through the legislator’s clothing until she found the small pillbox.

  “Prop him up, easy,” she said.

  Crowell fumbled with the open pillbox, picked out one tablet and then another, which he placed under his tongue. He signaled that he wanted to lie back on the couch.

  They stood over the frail man and watched as his breathing returned to normal. His color was still poor, and the pasty complexion attested to extremely poor circulation. Crowell’s eyes opened and he gave them a small smile. “I won’t die on you—yet,” he said.

  “We’ll call for an ambulance.”

  “Our visitors?”

  “Both dead,” Martin replied flatly.

  “I expected as much,” the senator said. He closed his eyes a moment as another wave of pain racked his body. “No ambulance. There’s too much to explain just now. It will all have to wait until later in the day.” He struggled to sit and Martin immediately bent to prop him up against the cushions. “I must get to my office. I have a speech to prepare for today’s session.”

  “You can’t do that,” Sara said in alarm.

  “My dear, I can’t not do that. Let me rest half an hour and then we must go. You will have to help me into the car. I think perhaps I would like some tea now. Can you arrange that?”

  “Of course,” Sara said.

  Martin and Sara took seats in the front row of the Senate gallery as two aides helped Harris Crowell down the aisle below. They positioned him in his chair and signaled for a Senate page.

  Whispered instructions were given and the aides quickly left the Senate floor. The young page stood at attention next to Crowell’s desk as the senator scrawled a hasty note, folded it, and handed it to the teenager.

  The page crossed the floor to the dais and handed the note to the president pro tern, Millicent Cartwright.

  “The chair recognizes the senior senator from Kansas, the Honorable Harris Crowell.”

  Senator Crowell stood, gripped the edge of his desk, and nearly lost his balance. His initial words were hesitant but gained strength as his speech continued.

  “Madam President, other honorable members, in a few hours, United States naval vessels on station in the South Atlantic are going to experience an armed attack by foreign gunboats.”

  There were murmurs throughout the chamber, which died out as Crowell continued.

  “This incident, which operates under the code name of Barbados, has been manufactured, planned, and executed under instructions of the junior senator from Virginia, Rutledge G. Baxter.”

  The undercurrent of remarks on the Senate floor increased as Senator Crowell continued. Martin noticed Senator Willard, whom he recognized from Camp Mohawk, blanch and immediately leave the floor at a near run.

  “At 7:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, two torpedo gunboats will make a flanking attack on our vessels at map coordinates …”

  Martin noticed a flurry of activity near the dais as the president pro tem turned the chair over to a young senator from Georgia. Then the president pro tem also left the chamber, hurrying out a rear door.

  President Pro Tem Millicent Cartwright rushed through the ornate double doors to the right of the dais. She ran into room S212, the ceremonial vice president’s office located just off the Senate floor, and snatched up a telephone. She found herself breathing rapidly, nearly gasping, as she asked the operator for the White House.

  Secret Service agent Edward Brumby yawned as the president of the United States made a chip shot into a sand bunker, just off the fourteenth green. The president’s colorful curses drifted across the golf course. Brumby smiled and looked at the grim-faced army warrant officer sitting by his side in the golf cart.

  The warrant officer had a black briefcase chained to his wrist. He did not smile in return. The officers with the black box never did.

  A device on the agent’s belt beeped, and he reached into the rear of the cart and picked up the receiver of the radiophone. “Mesa I,” he answered. He listened for a moment and then drove the cart one-handed toward the president.

  The president was rocking back and forth on his heels in preparation for his bunker shot. He looked up in annoyance at the approaching cart. “What is it, Ed?”

  “The White House has patched through a call, sir. Senator Cartwright says it’s a national emergency.”

  Brumby felt the warrant officer by his side tense as his fingers curled over the edge of the case containing that day’s missile release codes.

  There was a quick flicker of fear behind the president’s eyes, which disappeared as he reached for the phone receiver. As he spoke, he continued studying the lie of his ball, half-embedded in sand.

  “Millicent, how are you?… Has Harris gone se
nile making remarks like that on the floor?… Baxter … that doesn’t surprise me …” He continued listening for a few more minutes and then handed the receiver back to Brumby. “Can you get me the chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that thing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then make it snappy. I’ve got a fire to put out before it gets started.”

  “Go to the East Front and drive under the side steps,” Althea directed the cab driver. The driver nodded and swerved into the right lane.

  The pain began again. It seemed to circle along her back, traveling down her shoulder to her arm and radiating along the flesh encased in the cast. She wanted to pop another Percodan but was afraid that the cumulative effect would lessen her ability to think or coordinate properly. No, she couldn’t take another pill. She would have to withstand the pain and force herself on. She eased back against the seat cushion and grimaced.

  A few more minutes. A few more feet to walk. A few more ounces of will to be drawn.

  There was little will left. The recent events had numbed and frightened her.

  It would stop soon. It would all be over soon.

  The hospital authorities and police investigator had been skeptical over her story of an unknown sniper. They had checked their files and, since they were unable to tie her into any known crime, had begrudgingly taken notes on the non-existent man who had allegedly shot her. No one had really believed her, but it was the only story she could manufacture on the spur of the moment, and it had sufficed.

  Leaving the hospital had been more difficult, and although her clothing had been placed in her room closet, she had not been able to sign for her valuables. The four-block walk to her apartment had been the longest distance she had traversed, but when she reached the pills in her bureau, they had helped.

  The taxi pulled under the Capitol steps and halted. Althea gave the driver a ten-dollar bill and nodded for him to keep the change. “Will you help me inside?” she asked. “To the elevator.”

  “You sure you’re all right, lady?”

  “Just to the elevator, please.”

  She got off at the third floor, since she knew that the Senate Gallery was only a few feet down the hallway. It seemed an interminable distance, and twice she had to stop and lean against the wall to let a spasm of pain pass. Visitors, clutching gallery passes, gave her looks of curiosity as they hurried by.

  A pass! She didn’t have a pass. A simple thing to acquire. She knew half a dozen senators or aides that would provide her with one, but she didn’t have the strength to walk to their offices.

  She would try the press gallery. There seemed to be an unusually large cluster of reporters surrounding the door to that gallery and she might be able to sneak in.

  A Capitol policeman stopped her. He glanced first at her cast then at her pain-ravaged face with its bandages. He seemed embarrassed to detain her.

  “Can I see your bag, ma’am?”

  “Of course.” She shrugged the purse strap off her shoulder and struggled with one hand to undo the clasp. The guard nodded, glanced cursorily inside for concealed weapons and let her pass through the door.

  Althea walked down the steep steps and took a seat at the rail immediately above the gallery floor. She saw that Senator Crowell was speaking, and she smiled grimly. They had done it. They had reached Crowell and convinced him.

  She rested the heavy cast on the railing and searched the floor for Rutledge Baxter.

  He wasn’t there—yet. But he would be.

  Sen. Rutledge Galation Baxter rushed through the cloak room doors and hurried to his desk. He signaled to the chair for recognition. “Will the honorable senator from Kansas yield?”

  “I will not, sir,” was Harris Crowell’s immediate response.

  “I call a personal point of order,” Baxter yelled at the chair.

  Althea was able to fire the .32 snub-nosed revolver that was hidden inside her cast three times before a Capitol guard was able to reach her and knock her away from the rail. She screamed in pain as the revolver slipped from her fingers.

  Sen. Rutledge Galation Baxter, a look of stupefaction on his face, slid to the floor of the U.S. Senate and died.

  Epilogue

  Russell Sage had always been considered brilliant. He had finished high school at fifteen, his undergraduate work at eighteen, and now at twenty had completed most of the course work toward his doctorate. The intensity of his academic life and natural competitiveness had filled him with a certain unfortunate pomposity.

  He stood at a small podium in front of the class and wiped his glasses carefully. The long windows to the side were brimmed with autumn leaves, while the dark wooden panels of the room’s walls seemed to reflect the smell of fall foliage.

  “Are you ready, Mr. Sage?”

  “Yes, doctor. I have completed my testing and have arrived at a conclusion.”

  “Excellent.” There was a faint tinge of humor in the professor’s voice that unsettled the gifted student only momentarily. “Will you enlighten the rest of us?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sage opened a file folder and meticulously rearranged the papers. When he began to speak he unconsciously lowered his voice two registers to a tone he considered more somber and fitting for his recitation. “I held a lengthy interview with the subject this morning, and personally conducted a Wechsler-Bellevue Series III individualized intelligence test on the subject.”

  “Did you make personal notes on the subject’s appearance,” the professor interjected, “along with your results?”

  “Indeed I did.”

  “We would like to hear them preliminary to your objective test findings and scores.”

  “I would be glad to do so.” Russell searched briefly through his notes and began to read. “The subject is a Caucasian male who is thirty years of age. He has excellent musculature. Dress was sloppy, shoes unlaced, and food stains were observed on his tee shirt. He walks with the characteristic gait of the severely retarded. His visage could only be termed blank. Facial features and voice are devoid of expression with occasional inappropriate response. This examiner’s conclusion is that the subject is severely intellectually handicapped with a suggested mental age of five.”

  “Objective evidence,” the professor snapped.

  “The records supplied to me, which of course I read extensively before the clinical work, indicated that the subject had been placed in a training school for the profoundly retarded approximately twenty years ago. Extensive testing at the school showed results consistent with my findings.” He stopped reading from his notes and glanced up at the class. “At this point, I hardly felt that an extensive objective test was necessary, but I proceeded to fulfill the requirements of the assignment.”

  “Your objective results,” the teacher insisted.

  “Consistent with my preliminary examination. I can state conclusively that the subject is of subnormal intellect and is in fact severely retarded.”

  “Educable?”

  “No. He can be taught a bare minimum of functions.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Russell Sage removed his glasses and glared at the class leader. “I will stake my grade in this course on my conclusions.”

  Dr. Sara Bucknell quickly crossed the room and opened the classroom door to admit Martin Fowler.

  Martin shuffled into the room and sat awkwardly in a straight chair near the podium. His hands dangled between his legs and his mouth gaped slightly as he stared blankly at the class.

  Russell Sage glanced at his subject and a slight smirk curved across his face. “I would be glad to point out the salient characteristics of the severely retarded after long years of institutionalization.”

  At the rear of the class, a young woman with blond hair nearly down to her waist abruptly stood up. There was a deep flush of anger spotted across her cheeks. “I understand the necessity for clinical work, Dr. Bucknell, but not the appearance of the subject before a full class. It’s … it’s like he’s an exhibit at a zoo!
”

  “Would you like to question the subject, Miss Rawligs?”

  “I don’t care to participate in this display!”

  Martin shifted position in his chair. His mouth closed, he crossed his legs, and his features assumed animation. He smiled at the standing girl. The few changes in posture and look caused an immediate metamorphosis of his appearance, and a low gasp went up in the class.

  “I don’t mind being on display, Miss Rawligs,” he said. “However, I would like to point out several errors that Mr. Sage made.”

  “Objective tests can’t be phon—” Sage’s sputter dropped into silence.

  “Mr. Sage neglected several important lines of inquiry,” Martin continued. “To begin with, he did not determine whether English was my primary language. It so happens that it is, but it might have made a significant difference in score results. He also did not make inquiry into possible emotional deprivation due to child abuse.”

  Russell Sage left his notes on the podium and returned to his seat. “I think I’ve been had,” he mumbled.

  Sara smiled tightly. “I want to thank Dr. Meade for allowing me to participate in an area not in my discipline. But, perhaps Mr. Fowler and I have something to offer you in this brief hour. I hope you have all learned something through this demonstration. Shortly, you will all be going into clinical work.” She leaned forward intently, choosing her words carefully and emphasizing each one. “Do not make drastic initial assumptions. Do not categorize. Do not assume all you read in files to be correct. Now, we shall spend the remainder of our hour discussing emotional deprivation and the individual’s dependency on institutionalization.”

  Dr. Meade stood next to Russell Sage as they looked out the window to watch Martin and Sara, hand in hand, cross the campus lawn.

  “Who is he?” Russell asked.

  “If you got your beak out of a book once in a while, you’d know,” Meade replied. “Mr. Fowler is chief of maintenance and Dr. Bucknell’s husband.”

  “And one hell of an actor,” Russell added.

  About the Author

  Richard Forrest (1932–2005) was an American mystery author. Born in New Jersey, he served in the US Army, wrote plays, and sold insurance before he began writing mystery fiction. His debut, Who Killed Mr. Garland’s Mistress (1974), was an Edgar Award finalist. He remains best known for his ten novels starring Lyon and Bea Wentworth, a husband-and-wife sleuthing team introduced in A Child’s Garden of Death (1975).