Star Chamber Brotherhood (29 page)

“I’ll be here. It will be hard to leave.”

Without appearing to listen, Hagopian reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and brought out a bottle of amber spirits and two heavy shot glasses.
 

“Frank, I think you know me well enough to understand that I’m not the kind of man who would try to talk you out of something after you’ve made a decision,” the club owner began. “But I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that I’m disappointed. You could have made a real institution out of this club and I would have loved to see it. I hope you do as well in Utah. But more than that, Frank, I’m going to miss you.”

Hagopian filled both glasses to the brim and held one out to Werner. It was Jake’s favorite drink: Ararat Five Star, an aromatic and full-bodied brandy from his native Armenia.

“Here’s to the good years left in us,” Hagopian declared as he raised his glass. “May we live to enjoy them!”

The two men clinked glasses and downed the brandy in a single draught, Russian-style.

****

When Werner returned to the bar, he found Parker Motley waiting alone at a table in the center of the room. Unlike when Werner had met him digging a garden bed at the Old Manse dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, Motley now looked like a Harvard don in his three-button camel’s hair blazer, pleated flannel trousers, and polka-dot bow tie.
 

Motley stood and greeted Werner warmly as soon as he entered the room.

“I have some good news for you,” he said, accepting Werner’s handshake. “I thought of writing you a note, but on second thought decided it would be a better idea to come and deliver it in person.”
 

“That’s very kind of you,” Werner replied. “Please excuse me for keeping you waiting so long.”

“Not at all,” Motley assured him. “It was a lovely treat to come here and see the Club again. I remember lunching here with my grandfather when I was a senior in college, during the winter of 2001. He was a member and so was my father, until the Events. But enough of that.

“My reason for coming is that I have news for you from Monica Cogan. She’s been trying to reach you for weeks but the friend who passed her last message to you has moved away, so she didn’t know how to contact you. Anyway, Monica has been in touch with your daughter Marie in London. More than that, she gave me a letter for you.”

Parker Motley held out a small sealed envelope addressed “To Marie’s Father” in a woman’s handwriting that Werner did not recognize. Werner’s hand trembled to hold it.

“It’s been seven years since I last saw her,” he mused. “I can only imagine what she’s been through. Did Monica say what Marie is doing over there?”

“She told Monica she was staying with friends of her aunt and taking courses at the Central School for Speech and Drama.”

“ Not bad for a refugee,” Werner commented huskily as he returned the visitor’s kindly gaze. “Leave it to Marie to land on her feet, eh?”

He slipped a finger under the sealed flap but stopped short of opening it. Instead, he dropped it into a jacket pocket and steadied himself with a hand on the polished mahogany bar.

“Wow, I think I may need a drink before I sit down to read this. May I offer you something? Cognac? Champagne?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have calvados by any chance?” Motley asked sheepishly. “You may not remember, but when we met, you suggested that I try distilling some of my cider into applejack. Well, since then I’ve decided to give it a go and am very curious to sample the genuine article.”

Werner’s face broke out in a boyish grin.

“You’re in luck,
mon ami
.
Voila
, the finest calvados from Normandy.”

He removed the bottle from the shelf and filled two brandy snifters, then slipped the half-filled bottle into a brown paper bag and set it on the bar before Motley.

“The rest is for you. Here’s to your success as a distiller. And may your applejack find a home someday here at the Somerset Club.”

****

Motley stayed for a half hour, accepting a glass of Serbian plum brandy and one of Swiss Kirschwasser while describing Concord’s progress at restoring the kind of local economic self-sufficiency that had prevailed during the early nineteenth century under President Thomas Jefferson. Two centuries later, from the detritus of a collapsed economy, Concord had restored a thriving farmer’s market and flea market, established a sophisticated barter network for services, and attracted enough health-care practitioners to serve Concord’s basic medical needs except for a nagging shortage of pediatricians and obstetricians.
 

Suddenly it occurred to Werner to have Carol Dodge give the Concord hospital a call if her other options failed and she lost her apartment. A blacklisted pediatrician might do worse than to set up an off-the-grid practice in a town like Concord and live off the fruit of the land. He considered giving Motley Carol’s name but thought better of it. When the time was right, he would give her Motley’s name instead.

As soon as Motley stepped out the front door and onto the portico with his bottle of calvados, Werner returned hastily to the bar and closed the door behind him. Sitting at the same table in the center of the room where he had met with Motley moments before, he tore open the envelope and found a folded piece of copy paper onto which an excerpt from a webmail message had been printed:

“Dear Daddy,

Today was the happiest day in my life. A message reached me from an old Concord classmate that you had visited her. Having lost you for so long and fearing I might never see you again, no news could have given me more joy.
 

“I can only imagine how you must have worried about me and Mommy and Justine while you were away. By now you must know that we lost Mommy and Justine to the Saigon Flu the year after you were taken from us. That year was as close to hell as I think I will ever live to see.

“If I had not already made plans to study in London, I don’t believe I would have had the determination to escape before the borders were closed. And if Uncle Claude and Aunt Joan had not already moved here, I don’t know how I could have survived the first year.

“If you are able to send letters out, please write to me immediately at Aunt Joan’s and tell me…”

Before he could finish the sentence he heard footsteps behind him. The door opened and a disheveled figure slipped through the door and closed it without a word.

Werner turned to see a familiar face scan the room with fearful eyes before fixing him with an unsteady gaze. It was Harvey Konig, dressed shabbily in a baggy blue blazer and creaseless gray trousers, his unshaven cheeks and tousled hair giving him the look of a sleepless fugitive who dared not return home. It seemed so unnatural a state for a well-tended man like Konig that Werner could not help but assume the worst.

“Surely you realize, Harvey, that you’re too hot to show up here,” Werner admonished him. “More than hot. Radioactive.”

“I didn’t come here to see you, Werner,” Konig replied dully. “I came to see Oshiro.”

“I haven’t seen Hank in weeks,” Werner lied. “I kicked him out for selling drugs. That wouldn’t by any chance be why you wanted to see him, would it?”

“I won’t lie to you. I ran out of sleeping pills.”

“That’s odd,” Werner remarked. “Last time he was here, Hank told me he sold his entire stock to you.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where he went…”

Konig’s face showed that he sensed Werner’s disapproval.

“Oh, never mind,” Konig replied. But a moment later, a new light entered his eyes. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, there is another favor I’d like to ask.”

“I’ll help if I can,” Werner answered warily.

“Would you mind putting this letter in a mailbox for me? The bloody Blues Brothers are still following me and if I post it, they may intercept it. It’s to my wife.”

Konig held out a thin letter written on hotel stationery.

Werner took the sealed envelope and examined it.
 

“Is this your home address?” he inquired.

“Yes,” Konig replied.

“Not a good idea,” Werner answered. “They’ll already have the address on a watch list at the post office. Could you address it to a friend the government doesn’t know about and ask the friend to deliver it to your wife?”

“Certainly. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that from the start. Lately my mind has not been functioning as well as it should…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Here, write the friend’s address on the back of the envelope,” Werner suggested. “I’ll put it in a fresh envelope and send it out when I finish tonight.”

“That would mean a great deal to me. My wife…” Konig began before swallowing hard and lowering his gaze to jot a name and address on the envelope. He handed it back to Werner, who slipped it into his shirt pocket.
 

“I saw those security goons following you last time you were here. What happened? Was there trouble with that government financing you were after?”

“I was an arrant fool to come back to Boston,” Konig confessed with a faraway look. “The Party lured me with the promise of a juicy deal and I took the bait. For them, it was never about the deal. They wanted me back so they could erase me from history. It won’t be long now before they finish me off. Except that I intend to deny them that pleasure.”

“Don’t make it easy for them, Harvey,” Werner replied. “If you do away with yourself, they get to write your story. Besides, maybe you’ve got it all wrong. Maybe things will work out after all. You owe it to yourself and to your family to play out the hand you were dealt.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Konig retorted irritably. “It’s over. I know what they’re planning to do, and I refuse to participate. I resign the match.”

“So you think you’re better off killing yourself? What if you wake up on the other side, still as miserable as ever but unable to do anything about it? Wouldn’t you wish then you’d given it your best shot?”

Werner felt an odd sense of déjà vu making this argument to Konig, as similar reasoning had been presented to him years earlier when he had nearly given up on life during a bout with severe depression in the Yukon. Fortunately for him, the matter had been settled by an amnesty that he could not possibly have predicted. For Konig, however, nearly four centuries of rationalist-materialist tradition dating back to the Enlightenment appeared to have closed his mind to the possibility of a miracle.
 

“I’ll take the risk,” Konig answered soberly. “When I die, I don’t expect to experience anything at all. Just nothingness. Darkness. Lights out.”

“So we’re here and then we’re gone? Is that all?” Werner probed. “Our lives are simply random events, without purpose? No meaning to anything you’ve done? Everything in your entire life completely pointless?”

Konig let out a deep sigh that seemed to drain him of his life force, then looked Werner in the eye and spoke.
 

“The way my life has turned out, I certainly hope so.”

As Werner opened his mouth to reply, the telephone rang. Both men looked at the battered black instrument, then at each other, unsure of what to say. Werner rose and crossed the room to take the call.
 

“Somerset Club. How may I help you?” he answered. A moment later he heard a click and the receiver went dead.

“Wrong number,” he announced with a shrug.

At that, Harvey Konig glanced at his watch.
 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the time,” Konig offered sheepishly. Do you mind if I use your facilities to freshen up? As you can surmise, I can’t go back to my hotel…”

“Of course,” Werner replied. “Down the hall to the right.”
 

Konig removed his blazer. His striped shirt was badly wrinkled and stained by sweat. Werner felt sorry for him, recalling how Konig had always taken such pains with his appearance.

“Looks like you could use a fresh shirt,” Werner suggested. “Take one of mine. It may be a tad big on you but at least you’ll be presentable.” He reached under the bar and brought out a white shirt, commercially folded and bagged.
 

Konig laid his blazer across a bar stool, accepted the shirt and started toward the door.

“And while we’re at it, how about a fresh jacket?” Werner added. “We always have a few in the coatroom that customers have left behind. What’s your size?”

Konig’s eyes lit up.
 

“Thirty-eight regular, but thirty-eight long will do. Or a forty, if that’s all you have.”

Werner laughed.
 

“I’ll see what we have in your size.”
 

While Konig headed for the men’s bathroom, Werner went to the cloakroom, found a brown herringbone tweed in a thirty-eight long and a blue blazer in a forty regular and brought them back to the bar.

No sooner had he laid them out than the telephone rang again.

“Somerset Club,” Werner answered.

A young man’s voice came on the line.
 

“Isn’t this Beacon Cleaners?” the man asked. Werner recognized the voice as Sam Tucker’s.