The Nicholas Linnear Novels (30 page)

“Yeah, I suppose I should.” He popped the peanut into his mouth.

They walked down the tired stone steps into the Central Park Zoo. They strolled over hexagonal tiles, smelling the mingled musk of the animals in the heat. They walked north, toward the Monkey House.

“But I won’t. I know that now.”

“There’s nothing stopping you. Nothing at all.”

Vincent shook his head. They went down the stone steps to the plaza. On their left, beyond the great empty cage meant to house the avians, they could see the Seal Pond, where now several new sea lions dove and dashed alongside the elderly female, the lone survivor of happier years here. “It’s my family, Nick. My sisters. If I went back, I would have to see them. Duty. I can’t face them. Not now. Not after what I’ve become.”

Near the Monkey House a swarthy man with a thick mustache and a sailor’s hat stood next to a pair of green metal cylinders. He made helium balloons in front of the wide eyes of a group of children. Each time he did it, it seemed like a giant sucking in his breath.

“What have you become?”

The other turned his head. “That’s just it. I don’t know anymore. But I’m not what I once was. I’ve been assimilated; I feel as if I’ve been corrupted by this place. My values have changed. The traditions are crumbling around me.” There was a crowd in front of the gorilla cage watching delightedly as the family inside was hosed down by a female attendant. The mother reached out and, putting her palm against the water, sprayed the onlookers. There were squeals and the crowd broke apart momentarily. Laughing, they surged back toward the cage. Next door, the haughty orangutan looked on unperturbed, studying the odd creatures through the bars of his cage as if for research for a book.

“Come on,” Nicholas said lightly. “I remember when we first met. You, Terry and me. It was at Michita, remember? We were all kind of lost then—all in the same way. Which is why, I suppose, we all coalesced at that spot.” He smiled, or tried to at least. “A bit of home.” He shook his head. “But what was it that brought
us
together? Was it merely that we were all slightly homesick? I don’t think so.”

“Eileen used to say that it was the martial spirit which linked us. Like a magical umbilical. I think she must have thought we were like children in that way.”

Nicholas shook his head. “No. You’re wrong there. She respected that in us. She didn’t—I suspect
couldn’t
—understand it. But she recognized its power and would not interfere. That was why she always declined to come when the three of us got together. She knew she would be out of her element even though we would make every effort to make her feel comfortable. Terry told me once that she said she thought she’d only inhibit us and she was right.”

“I don’t know,” Vincent said. “It all seems so far away to me now as if we were talking about the customs of Finland. I’m not sure whether
I
understand it anymore.”

“That’s just talk—so many meaningless words. The way a Westerner would think. Open your mind and you’ll still feel it. Being here can’t make it go away.” He seemed to be telling himself as well as Vincent. “We were born in the land of the martial spirit. It binds us more powerfully—timelessly—to one another than a blood bond. What has been taught us will never leave us, you know that. You’re still the same person, at the core, who got off that JAL plane twelve years ago.”

“Oh no, I’m not. Not by a long stretch. I don’t talk the same, I don’t think the same way. America has changed me and the process seems irreversible. I can never go back. I no longer belong to Japan and I don’t feel like I belong here. The West has taken something very valuable from me, snatched it away while I wasn’t looking.”

“You can get it back. It’s not too late.”

Vincent looked at him, put his hands in his pockets and walked on. They were near the arch on top of which perched the famous clock that chimed in each hour with a parade of animals dancing in a semicircle. Beyond was the Children’s Zoo, its bright laughter and clip-clop of hastily running feet.

“I haven’t told anyone this, not even the police. I got a dead-line call the night Terry and Ei were murdered.” He looked up. “But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that I did hear something, after all. Some music.”

“Do you remember what it was?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was Mancini.” He did not have to add that Mancini was Eileen’s favorite composer.

Vincent shivered. “It was like Terry was calling to me from beyond the grave.” He lifted a hand hastily. “I know. I know. I don’t believe in that kind of thing. But, damn it! It was as if he was trying to tell me who did it.”

“You mean he
knew
the murderer?”

Vincent shrugged. “Maybe I’m making too much out of it. I don’t know anymore. I just wish—I wish you had been in the city that night, that’s all. Christ, they were your friends, too!”

Nicholas said nothing, stared at the smiling children eating ices, sticking out their patinaed tongues at the solemn apes. He wished he felt something. Grief was a useful emotion; better that than carrying it around with you like a hunchback. He felt an abrupt stillness as if he were at the eye of a raging hurricane. Safe and protected, he nevertheless was witness to the devastation going on all around him. Was there a way to stop it? He knew a way, most definitely, but he was reluctant to take it. Vincent was still looking at him, as if by his gaze alone he would wrench some confession from Nicholas’ bowels. It had to be done, then. As he knew it from the moment the deal had been proposed. There was obligation; there was duty. Vincent was right. They were his friends.

Vincent touched his arm. “Sorry, old friend,” he said. “It’s me. I’m on edge. You can see it. Jesus, it’s not fair to take it out on you.” He smiled thinly. “You see how Westernized I’ve become.”

Nicholas returned the smile with more warmth than he felt. “No. You were right. Neither of us has forgotten the importance of obligation and duty.”

“Listen, Croaker’s invited me to dinner. Why don’t you join us? At the place.”

“All right.” Nicholas nodded. “I’d like that.”

Vincent glanced at his watch. “Back to the salt mines. See you later.”

Nicholas searched through the park for a phone, finally went out on Fifth Avenue. He called Justine. Doc Deerforth answered.

“What’s the matter?” Nicholas said. His heart was racing.

“A slight accident. Nothing to worry about. But I think you ought to come out if your work permits.”

“What happened?”

“Justine was caught in the undertow. She’s all right.”

“Are you certain that’s what it was?”

“Reasonably. What do you mean?”

“Were there other people around? Did anyone see anything suspicious?”

“There were plenty of people. A neighbor helped drag her out of the surf. No one mentioned anything else.” “Can you stay with her until I get there? I’ll take the first train out.” He looked at his watch.

“Sure. There’s nothing pressing. My service knows where I am. But if there’s an emergency—”

“I understand. Doc—tell her I’ll be there.”

“When she wakes up. Don’t worry.”

He hung up and hailed a cab, took it to Penn Station. Downstairs at the Long Island Rail Road counter he bought a ticket, found that he had twenty-five minutes to spare. He called Tomkin. There was a considerable delay. He stared out at the passing parade of people, scanning unconsciously. A pair of teenagers struggled with enormous backpacks and, just behind them, a young woman stood against a pillar waiting impatiently to be met. He wondered whether it was her boss who was late.

“Nicholas?” The voice came crisply into his ear.

“Tomkin.”

“I’m glad you called. Have you thought about my offer?”

Bastard, he thought. Bastard to bring Justine into it. But now he knew that Justine
was
a part of it. He hated to be in this position. Methodically, he calmed himself. “I’ve thought about it. I’ll start work for you today.”

“Good. Why don’t you come up to the tower and—”

“No. I’m at Perm Station. I’m taking the next train out to the Island.”

“I don’t understand—”

“There’s work to do out there. Justine’s out there.”

“I see.”

“I’m sure you do,” Nicholas said savagely. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

“Nich—”

The voice was cut off as he cradled the receiver.

The man was on the job. He had come to work for Lubin Bros, over a week ago. He had been assigned to a construction site on Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn until Manucci had turned up sick and he had been transferred to the Park Avenue job. Tomkin was paying extra to make certain construction did not fall behind schedule and the management of Lubin Bros. was doing everything in its power to keep things moving along. That included making sure there was always a full complement of workers.

The man worked tirelessly at every assignment he was given. He was a good worker and spoke very little; no one noticed him. When he reported that day, his mind had been filled with his work of the night before: early morning, that is. It was a way of thinking about today’s assignment. Some new wrinkles were needed, and while his forebrain was recounting last night’s work, the subconscious dissected the present problem.

It had been no trouble at all to gain access to the Actium House subbasement parking lot; he had come in in the empty backseat of a Lincoln Continental which had disgorged its passengers at the street-level entrance. Then it had simply been a matter of waiting.

Tomkin’s limo had come down the ramp at ten minutes after three in the morning. He was a notorious insomniac and spent the better part of each weekday night in his office at the new building.

The powerful headlights had scored the roof of the lot, then dipped as the limo came down the last part of the ramp. The motor thrummed quietly in the dark as the chauffeur rolled it to the parking space and slid in. The motor died.

The man knew by heart the next movements of the chauffeur, but even so he waited a full hour after the other had left. Time was one element that he had plenty of now. It could be the best of friends or the most implacable of enemies, thus he treated it with respect. It never paid to be hasty.

At last he uncoiled himself and moved toward the limo. He was like a shadow on the prowl. In seconds he had the back door of the car open and closed again. Inside, he used a pencil flash and a surgeon’s scalpel. Where the plush carpet met the edge of the rear seat, he scored a line with the scalpel. He made a second cut so that the two were in a T shape. Then he peeled back the small flaps and inserted a round object no more than half an inch in diameter and, using an odorless resin epoxy, he closed the flaps carefully. Next he turned his attention to the phone. He opened the box and, ignoring the receiver, placed a second disk on the inside wall of the box. He sat in the backseat precisely where he knew Tomkin sat and opened the box, looking down at the receiver. He could not see the disk. Satisfied, he closed the box. He turned off the pencil flash and let himself out of the limo. Within twenty seconds he was walking down Fifty-first Street, hunched over in his black nylon windbreaker. In all, he had been in the limo precisely nine minutes.

Now as he worked on the riveting in the atrium lobby of Tomkin Industries, the man worked on the problem of getting upstairs.

At lunchtime he took the outside cage elevator up as far as it would go, one floor below Tomkin’s office. Here the hallways were still raw plaster. Pencil marks were strewn about like engineering graffiti. The corridors were deserted but he was careful enough and there were numerous doorways to plunge into. Every so often he paused and, completely still, listened to the sounds of the building. He would know instantly if there was the slightest change.

He was not worried about his face. There was flesh-colored putty on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose had been built up. Treated cotton rolls were placed in his mouth between gums and cheek. Too, his posture had changed from the man who had entered Terry Tanaka’s
dōjō.
He had become slightly stoop-shouldered and he walked with a noticeable limp, as if one leg were shorter than the other. This was due to an inch lift in his right shoe. Disguising one’s face was all well and good but there were myriad ways one could be identified by an expert. One had to be as meticulous about all parts of the body as one was about the face—the overall image. A disguise had to be total. One needed only the slightest alterations, however, because the idea was camouflage and it did not do to overdo specific characteristics.

He found the fire stairs, went carefully up to the top floor. Here there was much activity. Both workers and Tomkin’s staff were present. All the better, he thought.

Tomkin’s office, a full corner of the floor, was nine-tenths complete but it had priority because he was already working out of it. Therefore lunch breaks were not observed up here. The morning shift went down to eat while a swing shift arrived to continue the work. The man was just in time to join them. He walked past the steady gaze of Frank, who stood just inside the thick metal doors to the office. This was hardly the most difficult part. It was doing what he had to do in plain sight of everyone.

The answer, of course, was easy. He merely had to look as if he knew what he was doing and no one paid him the slightest attention. It might even have been amusing, the way in which he performed the most clandestine of movements out in the open like the living embodiment of “The Purloined Letter,” if he had allowed himself the luxury of feeling. That, however, was quite impossible for him in this context, thus it was merely an object of intellectual curiosity like a peculiarly striated rock brought home from a summer field trip.

He had, of course, to work in fits and starts: that is, to work on what was his own in between what he was given. This presented no problems other than extending his time in the office.

He turned it, however, to his own advantage, as was his wont, by using the time to memorize the contours, the tiny nooks and crannies, the open spaces and the closed. He found where the wall was baffled and where it was bare beneath the paint and plaster; where the wiring went and the placement of all of the electrical outlets; where the circuit breakers were and where the auxiliary lighting. At the moment none of these things fitted in with his plans but one never knew when the knowledge might be crucial. Meticulous planning was essential; however, one always had to build into one’s plans a bit of leeway because events had a peculiar way of determining themselves and often,
too
often, a random element—an extra guard, a rainstorm, even an unexpected sound; a minute thing that could not be foreseen—slipped in. One never knew.