The Talbot Odyssey (44 page)

Joan Grenville shrugged and kept her eyes to the binoculars. “‘Piss when you can’ indeed. He probably had to use the phone more than he had to use the john. These people even lie about the weather.”

Karl Roth stood at the long table in the spacious kitchen and surveyed the cellophane-covered trays of food. “There’s something here for everyone.”

Maggie Roth turned from the sink and glanced at the trays heaped with meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and pastries. Small labels identified the special dietary items, including kosher meats. “You’ve gone to some trouble, Karl. Even hiring two extra serving girls. We’ll not make any profit on this one.”

“Van Dorn is a good customer. Sometimes you have to give a little extra. For public relations.”

She laughed. “You’re the best bloody Communist capitalist I know.”

Karl Roth’s eyes darted nervously around the busy kitchen. “Maggie, watch your tongue.”

She looked at the wall clock. “We should begin serving soon.” She walked to the table and peeled back a cellophane covering.

Karl Roth held up his hands. “No, Not yet.”

A passing busboy reached out and deftly filched a steak tidbit, popping it in his mouth.

Roth bellowed, “Keep your filthy hands off!”

“Stay cool, pop.” The boy walked off.

Maggie Roth said, “Karl, what are you so jumpy about?”

He didn’t answer, but glanced at the wall clock as he hovered protectively over the food-laden table.

She said, “It’s really past time. Get the girls to pull off the wrappings and let’s serve.”

“No.” He began rubbing his hands together and Maggie could see he was very agitated. She shrugged and went back to the sink.

The swinging door opened and Claudia Lepescu entered the noisy kitchen, carrying a drink and wearing a clinging black knit dress. She looked at Karl Roth and said, “Are you the caterer?”

Roth stared at her for several seconds, then nodded quickly.

Maggie Roth turned her head and stared at Claudia, taking in the clothing, which she thought was inappropriately dressy for an outdoor party. She wondered what sort of accent that was. Like many immigrants, she didn’t particularly care for foreigners. Karl, too, she reflected, was usually curt with fellow Europeans. Now, however, he was making little shufflings and scrapings of servitude toward this woman. Odd. Maggie turned back to the sink.

Claudia said, “Please leave me your card. I could use your services.”

Again Roth nodded, but said nothing and averted his eyes from hers.

Claudia walked to the table and peeled back the cellophane on a tray of hors d’oeuvres, taking one and putting it in her mouth. “Very good. You should serve these before they get stale.”

Roth’s head bobbed up and down and he began taking off the remainder of the cellophane from the trays.

Claudia wandered aimlessly around the kitchen.

Karl Roth knelt under the table where he had stacked several boxes, found a small parcel taped closed, and ripped it open. He retrieved a plastic spray bottle and stood. He shook the bottle vigorously and began spraying the trays of food with a light misty mixture of oil and water.

Maggie looked over her shoulder and said, “That’s not necessary, Karl. Everything is fresh.” She shot a look at Claudia.

Roth replied in a distracted tone. “It makes everything look better. . . . You should read the trade journals instead of your stupid movie magazines.”

Maggie watched him and noticed his hand shaking.

Roth finished the spraying, went to the sink, and emptied the remaining contents of the bottle down the drain. He rinsed the bottle and placed it in the trash compacter, then washed his hands with soap.

Maggie walked deliberately to the table and picked up a piece of smoked salmon, raising it to her mouth.

Roth hesitated, then came up quickly behind her and grabbed her hand. Their eyes met and she said softly, “Oh, Karl . . . you fool. . . .”

Claudia stood some distance off and watched, then began moving toward Maggie Roth.

Katherine Kimberly turned the corner of the long second-floor hallway and saw Marc Pembroke emerging from a passage that led to the back service stairs. She watched him for a moment as he approached the door to his room, then called out and walked up to him. “I’ve been looking for you. May I speak with you a moment?” She indicated his door.

“Actually, no. I’m rather busy.”

She shot a glance at the closed door. “We can go to an empty room.”

He hesitated, then followed her down the hallway and entered a storage room piled high with boxes and holiday decorations. She snapped on an overhead light and said, “Do you have Joan Grenville in your room?”

“A gentleman does not tell, and a lady should not ask.”

“I ask because her husband holds a sensitive position in my firm.”

“I see. Well, yes, I admit I pumped her in more ways than one. But she’s rather uninformed. Tom doesn’t tell her much.”

Katherine said evenly, “Who exactly
do
you work for?”

Pembroke seemed a bit impatient and glanced at his watch. “Oh, different people. You, at the moment. O’Brien, to be exact.”

“And what do you do for us, Marc?”

“Well, I’m not involved with intelligence gathering, analysis, or anything clever like that. I kill people.”

She stared at him.

“Really. But I only kill villains. To answer your next question, I decide who are villains.”

She drew a deep breath, then asked, “What do you know about these recent deaths?”

“I know I didn’t do them. Except for your fiancé’s friends this morning.”

“Yes, I wanted to thank—”

He waved his hand. “I’m billing your firm for that. You’ll see that it’s paid, won’t you?”

She ignored the question and asked, “And you had nothing to do with Arnold Brin’s death?”

“In a way I did. I should have protected him. I wish I’d known you had him working on something—”

“Are you trying to blame me?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean to—”

“And if you had the job to protect him, why didn’t you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t my job. I mean I wasn’t
hired
to do that. I was supposed to do that. He was my father.”

She drew an involuntary breath. “What? Arnold Brin . . . ?”

“Actually Brin was his nom de guerre, but he kept it after the war. Our family name is not Pembroke, either, but that’s not relevant.”

She looked at him closely in the dimly lighted room, focusing on his eyes, then his mouth. “Yes . . . yes, you are his son.”

“So I said. Archive work is dreadfully boring, and unremunerative. But it does give one some good leads to villains. I began my career bumping off old Nazis for the Israelis. Then I ran out of Nazis and I switched to Eastern Bloc targets.”

“Are you working now for Mr. O’Brien? Or are you working to avenge your father’s death?”

“There’s no money in vengeance.” Pembroke walked to a small dusty window and stared out at the distant Manhattan skyline silhouetted by the last traces of dusk in the western sky. He added, “However, as it happens, Mr. O’Brien’s needs and my desires coincide. But I am a professional, and though your fiancé was the proximate cause of my father’s death, I did not kill him. I’m after his bosses.”

Katherine sat on a packing crate and stared at Marc Pembroke’s profile. Subconsciously she had always compared him to Peter, but now the contrasts were striking and obvious. Peter was charmingly amoral. Marc was charmingly immoral. Peter, like an infant or an animal, hadn’t the vaguest idea of right or wrong; Marc did, and chose to kill. By the standards of conventional theology, psychology, and jurisprudence, Peter was innocent, Marc was culpable. Yet, by those same standards, Peter was beyond help or reason, while Marc Pembroke could be saved. She thought of him standing at the gravesite and suspected she was looking at a reluctant killer, like a soldier who in times of peace would not take up arms. She said, “I like you. I wish you’d reconsider archive work. There’s an opening.”

She saw the trace of a smile pass over his lips. He turned to her but didn’t reply. He glanced at his watch again, then said, “Well, I must run. We’ll continue this another time.”

She stood, blocking his way. “Wait. What do you know of Tony Abrams’ mission? Where is he?”

“Close by, actually.”

“Next door?”

Pembroke nodded.

“What is he doing there?”

Pembroke did not reply.

“Is he safe?”

“I rather doubt it. But if you’ll step aside, I can go and try to find out.”

She remained standing in front of him. “If he’s not safe, will you . . . can you do something?”

“No. The Iron Curtain begins at the next property line.”

“But—”

“Please step aside. I have pressing business to attend to.” He added, as though he suddenly realized she was actually his employer, “I don’t mean to be rude.”

“You’ll keep me informed?”

“Certainly.”

She walked to the door and opened it for him. Pembroke moved toward it, then hesitated. He said, “I never ask, you know. I mean, about the larger picture. But is it true, Kate, that this is the last throw of the dice?”

She replied carefully, “That’s what some people seem to think.”

He nodded. “Yes, O’Brien did too.”

“Yes, he—what do you mean,
did?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to put him in the past tense. He’s fine as far as I know.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Pembroke seemed to notice her for the first time, and his distraction turned to close scrutiny. She was wearing white linen slacks and a white silk shirt with the top three buttons open. She looked sophisticated yet sensual. He said, “Look here, I don’t have the time to proposition you properly now, but later . . . if there’s any time left for any of us, I shall.”

She found herself breaking eye contact with him, which was not her habit in these situations. She said, “I’m sorry, I’m already involved.”

“Oh, but he’ll be dead shortly.”

She looked quickly at him. “What—? Who—?”

“Thorpe.”

“Oh.” She let out a breath. “No, I meant . . . someone else.”

He looked surprised, then nodded. “I see . . . yes, of course. I’m not paying attention. Well, Abrams is a fine fellow. Do him a favor and give him the archive job.” He turned and left.

Katherine watched him as he walked toward his room. Marc Pembroke, for all his guile, was not a good liar. He had some news about Pat O’Brien, and she suspected it was not good news. She was neither shocked nor stunned. She’d expected it. She’d also expected that if O’Brien was ever sick and dying, missing, or dead, the news would be held back for as long as possible, in much the same way that the death of a great general might be kept secret to avoid panicking the troops and giving comfort to the enemy.

She felt herself shaking and leaned back against the doorjamb.

No, she thought, it was no accident that the past had returned, or that there were so many coincidental relationships, personal and familial. It had been contrived by Patrick O’Brien and his friends. Marc Pembroke probably had at least a vague understanding that he had been maneuvered since childhood to perform a function. O’Brien’s recruiting and manipulation had been more far-reaching than she’d imagined. His corporation had many subsidiaries. She thought of something an English jurist had written in the seventeenth century:
Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be out
lawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls.
Also, they were ostensibly immortal. And though Patrick O’Brien might be dead, she hoped there was enough life force left in the wounded, immortal, and soulless being of his creation, so that inertia at least would carry it forward toward its last encounter with its enemy.

Mike Tanner drove the Lincoln into the dimly lit parking lot of the Glen Cove train station. The conversation had been confined to legal matters as instructed by Evans, who had warned that the Russians liked to plant bugs in their guests’ cars, “just to hear them talking about what a swell time they had.”

The Lincoln stopped and Abrams opened the passenger-side door. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.” He took his briefcase and closed the door.

Styler slid out the rear. “I’ll walk you.” He took Abrams’ arm and they stepped a few feet from the car. “What happened in there?”

“I saw a ghost.” He began walking slowly toward the tracks.

“You looked it. My God, you’re still pale.” He added, “You’re not home free yet. Are you being covered?”

Abrams turned to him as they walked, and regarded the older man closely. This was the first time Styler had actually acknowledged the fact that there was a mortal danger inherent in the situation. Abrams replied, “I imagine so.”

Styler said, “I hope they saw the high beams flash.”

Abrams replied, “If they were looking, they did.”

Styler glanced at his watch. “You have about ten minutes until the city-bound train comes.” He motioned ahead toward a flight of descending stairs. “That’s the pedestrian underpass that takes you to the westbound side.”

Abrams looked across the tracks at the station house, a small Victorian-style building that was dark and closed for the evening. On the platform in front of the station house, four people stood under a lamppost: a young couple and two teen-age boys, waiting for the train to Manhattan. There was no one on the eastbound platform directly in front of him. Abrams had not realized he was on the wrong side of the tracks, and having realized it, had not fully appreciated the fact that he could not cross over them but would have to take the tunnel to the other side.

Styler peered down the dark concrete staircase. “We’ll wait here until we see you board.”

“No. Go on. You’ve been told to clear out.” Abrams moved toward the stairs.

Styler nodded. “I know one shouldn’t question orders, but we can take you back to Garden City and you can catch the train there.”

“No, I’ve been instructed to take this train at this station, and if I start getting tricky I’ll lose any protection that’s been planned.” Also, he thought, if Androv had something planned, it might be interesting to see what it was. He wondered what had happened to his resolve to be more careful.