‘For what purpose?’
The director of Special Projects looked over the roof of the car at Evan Kendrick’s house, at the now dimly lit windows and what they held beyond the glass. ‘All that will come later, O’Reilly. I won’t hold anything back, I promise you. But from what you’ve described to me I have work to do. I have to reach the shroud squad and that can only be done at my car.’
The shroud squad? What the hell is that?’
‘A group of men neither of us would care to be a part of. They pick up corpses they can never testify about, forensically examine evidence they’ve been sworn not to reveal. They’re necessary and I respect every one of them, but I wouldn’t be one of them.’
Suddenly, the staccato, grating ring of the detective’s cellular telephone erupted. It had been tripped to Emergency, the sound echoing throughout the still, cold night, bouncing off the brick wall, each echo receding into the woods beyond. O’Reilly yanked open the door and grabbed the phone, pulling it to his ear. ‘ Yes?’
‘Oh, Jesus, Paddy!’ screamed Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly, her voice amplified over the speaker. ‘They found him! They found Phil! He was down under the boilers in the basement. Good Christ, Paddy! They say his throat was cut! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’s dead, Paddy!’
‘When you say “they” exactly who do you mean, tiger?’
‘Harry and Sam from night maintenance—they just called me, scared out of their skins, and told me to phone the police!’
‘You just did, Annie. Tell them to stay where they are. They’re not to touch anything or say anything until I get there! Understood?’
‘Not say anything…?’
‘It’s a quarantine, I’ll explain later. Now call C-Security and have five men armed with shotguns posted outside the office. Say your husband’s a police officer and he made the request because of personal threats against him. Understood?’
‘Yes, Paddy,’ replied Mrs. O’Reilly, in tears. ‘Oh, holy Jesus, he’s dead!’
The detective spun around in his seat. The CIA director was running to his car.
* * *
Chapter 28
It was four-seventeen in the afternoon, Colorado time, and Emmanuel Weingrass’s patience had run out. It had been close to eleven o’clock in the morning when he personally discovered that the phone was not working, subsequently learning that two of the nurses had known it several hours earlier when they tried to place calls. One of the girls had driven into Mesa Verde to use the grocery store phone and report the disruption of service to the telephone company; she returned with the assurance that the problem would be repaired as soon as possible. ‘Possible’ had now dragged out over five hours and that was unacceptable to Manny. A renowned congressman—to say nothing of the national hero that he was—demanded far better treatment; it was an affront Weingrass had no intention of tolerating. And although he said nothing to his coven of witches, he had bad thoughts—like disturbing thoughts.
‘Hear this, you prognosticators for the Thane of Cawdor!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs in the glass-enclosed veranda at the two nurses playing gin rummy.
‘What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Manny?’ asked the third from a chair by the arch in the living room, lowering her newspaper.
‘Macbeth, you illiterate. I’m laying down the law!’
‘The law’s the only thing you could handle in that department, Methuselah… Gin!’
‘So little you know about the Bible, Miss Erudite… I will not remain beyond reach of the outside world any longer. One of you will either drive me into town where I can call the president of this mishegoss telephone company or I will urinate all over the kitchen.’
‘You’ll be in a straitjacket first,’ said one of the girls playing cards.
‘Wait a minute,’ countered her partner. ‘He can call the congressman and he could put on some pressure. I really have to reach Frank. He’s flying out tomorrow—I told you—and I haven’t been able to make a reservation at the motel in Cortez.’
‘I’m for it,’ said the nurse in the living room. ‘He can call from Abe Hawkins’s grocery store.’
‘Knowing you dears, sex will out,’ said Manny. ‘But we call from the phone in Gee-Gee’s office. I don’t trust anyone named Abraham. He probably sold weapons to the Ayatollah and forgot to make a profit… I’ll just get a sweater and my jacket.’
‘I’ll drive,’ offered the nurse in the living room, dropping the newspaper beside the chair and rising. ‘Put on your overcoat, Manny. It’s cold and there’s a strong wind from the mountains.’
Weingrass muttered a minor epithet as he passed the woman and headed for his bedroom in the south wing of the first floor. Once out of sight in the stone hallway, he hastened his pace; he had more to retrieve than a sweater. Inside his large room, redesigned by him to include sliding glass doors across the south wall opening on to a flagstone terrace, he walked rapidly to the tallboy, grabbing and dragging a chair from his desk to the high chest of drawers. Cautiously, holding on to the knobs, he climbed on the chair, reached over the curlicued top of the imposing piece of furniture and removed a shoe box. He lowered himself back to the floor, carried the box to the bed and opened it, revealing a .38 calibre automatic and three clips of shells.
The concealment was necessary. Evan had given orders that his shotgun case was to be locked and all ammunition removed, and that no handguns were permitted in the house. The reasons had been too painful for either man to bring up: Kendrick believed with more logic than less that if his old friend thought the cancer had returned, he would take his own life. But for Emmanuel Weingrass, after the life he had led, to be without a weapon was anathema. Gee-Gee Gonzalez had remedied the situation, and Manny had only once smashed open the shotgun case and that was when the media had descended on them pissing all over the grounds.
He slapped in one clip, put the other two into his pockets, and carried the chair back to the desk. He went to his cupboard, took a long, heavyknit sweater from the shelf and slipped it on; it covered the protrusions effectively. He then did something he had not done since the redesigned room had been built, not even when the reporters and the television crews had assaulted them. He inspected the locks on the sliding doors, crossed to a red switch hidden behind the curtains and turned on the alarm. He walked out of the bedroom, closing the door, and joined the nurse in the front hall; she was holding his overcoat for him.
‘That’s a handsome sweater, Manny.’
‘I got it on sale in a Monte Carlo apres-ski shop.’
‘Do you always have to have a flip answer?’
‘No kidding, it’s true.’
‘Here, put on your coat.’
‘I look like a Hasid in that thing.’
‘A what?’
‘Heidi in the edelweiss.’
‘Oh, no, I think it’s very masculine—’
‘Oy, let’s get out of here.’ Weingrass started for the door, then stopped. ‘Girls!’ he shouted, his voice carrying to the veranda.
‘Yes, Manny?’
‘What?’
‘Please listen to me, ladies, I’m serious. I’d feel much more comfortable, what with the phone being out, if you would please turn on the main alarm. Humour me, my lovelies. I’m a foolish old man to you, I realize that, but I really would feel better if you did this for me.’
‘How sweet of him—’
‘Of course we will, Manny.’
That humble crap always works, thought Weingrass, continuing towards the door. ‘Come on, hurry up,’ he said to the nurse behind him who was struggling with her parka. ‘I want to get to Gee-Gee’s before that phone company closes up for the month.’
The winds from the mountains were strong; the trek from the massive front door to Kendrick’s Saab Turbo halfway down the circular drive was made by leaning into the gusts. Manny shielded his face with his left hand, his head turned to the right, when suddenly the wind and his discomfort became irrelevant. At first, he thought that the swirling leaves and erratic pockets of dust were distorting his still viable eyesight—and then he knew it was not so. There was movement, human movement, beyond the tall hedges that fronted the road. A figure had rushed to the right, lurching to the ground behind a particularly thick area of the foliage… Then another! This one following the first and going farther.
‘You okay, Manny?’ shouted the nurse as they approached the car.
‘This stuff is kindergarten compared with the passes in the Maritime Alps!’ yelled back Weingrass. ‘Get in. Hurry up.’
‘Oh, I’d love to see the Alps some day!’
‘So would I,’ mumbled Weingrass, climbing into the Saab, his right hand unobtrusively slipping under the overcoat and the sweater to reach his automatic. He pulled it out and lowered it between the seat and the door as the nurse inserted the key and started the engine. ‘When you get to the road, turn left,’ he said.