Before me was the kitchen anti I stepped in closer. Dishes and spoons and glassware were submerged in a pool of yellow water. The table was scarred with drink rings and cigarette burns, and I went in and looked to the right, past a narrow door. Bathroom. Everything had been empty so far. My chest felt tight, as if I had raced up those stairs with concrete blocks balanced on my shoulders.
"Keith?" I called out, my voice sounding quite small in this empty apartment.
I retraced my steps into the kitchen, glanced over to the left, where there was another door. "Keith?" No answer. My chest felt even tighter as I nudged the door open with my foot, leaned in and looked around.
Empty.
I stepped in farther, sniffing at the air. It smelled metallic in here, as if someone had been burning some odd type of incense. Bed in the center, sheets and blankets piled up at the end. A bureau with a small black-and-white television set balanced on top. More paperback books on shelves. I spared them a glance. Fantasy and science fiction. Sure. Made sense. Seeing how trembling and nervous Keith had been last night, in the Lafayette House parking lot, I could see how books about fantasy worlds would be attractive. I stepped around the bed, heading to another bureau. There were photos on the bureau, of a younger Keith in his Marine dress blues, and Keith in the cockpit of an F/A-1B Hornet. I wondered quickly if he kept those photos displayed to torture he on what he had once been, or to show him how he could someday recover what had been right within him.
I was still wondering when something grabbed my ankle.
I fell back with a shout, stumbling into the bureau, making one of the photos fall over, and there was a gurgling and wheezing sound and a faint voice. "Lewis? Is that really you?"
I looked down at the bedding where a hand had emerged, soiled and brown with... with blood. I knelt down and picked up the bed and the mattress and box spring and managed with one large shove to move the damn thing to the other side of the room, and Keith Emerson looked up at me, blinking hard, his other hand clasped tight against his throat. Blood was oozing out between his fingers and dribbling down his wrist and falling upon the soiled white T-shirt he was wearing and he shook his head and whispered again, "Lewis..."
"Hold it right there," I said, standing up. "I'll cal--l-"
"No," he said, grabbing on to my ankle tight again.
"Wait ... I've got to tell you ... the battery room ... that's what caused it all ... a ... a ... the battery room ... "
I knelt down again and said, "What battery room? The one on your aircraft carrier? Is that what you mean? Keith, who did this to you? Who attacked you?"
He looked up at me, grinning despite the wound in his throat, the blood still oozing about his fingers, staining his beard and even his teeth. The wheezing and rattling seemed to echo in my ears and I leaned down to him.
"Keith? What do you mean? The batteries on your fighter plane? What battery room? Keith?"
He looked up at me, still smiling. His eyes fluttered and I called out again “Keith? Damn it, hold on."
I stood up and fumbled with my coat, remembering the cell phone Felix had given me, and I took it out and unsnapped the cover. And as I started punching the numbers for 911, I paused. The room was quiet. The gurgling and the wheezing had stopped. Keith Emerson, a volunteer for service to his country and one of the very few who could call themselves carrier fighter pilots, lay there unmoving, an ugly gash in his throat.
I stood still, looking down at the body. No movement. Keith had been right. Time wasted on making a phone call for an ambulance wouldn't have made any difference. And if I had done that, I would have missed those last words.
A battery room. That's what caused it. A battery room. "Damn it," I whispered down to the body. "I thought you said you wouldn't be drinking again."
I realized I was still holding the telephone. I could make a call to the Porter Police Department, get things rolling over here, get the investigation started, I might not be able to avenge this poor guy's death, so maybe it was time for the professionals. I moved to the phone again and was going to make the call, and then I stopped. I thought it through. Detective Joe Stevens and the State Police coming in. Lots of questions at the scene. Interrogation in a smoky little room at the Porter Police Department. Even more interrogations, questions after questions, hours being spent answering their demands.
Hours and hours. While a carrier task force in the Mediterranean continued steaming to the southwest, ready to make war.
I put the phone back in my coat, wiped at my eyes, which had suddenly gotten moist. I backed out of the bedroom and went into the kitchen. I went to the door and thought quickly, and pulled out a handkerchief. I wiped the doorknob and used the piece of cloth to open the door. Out in the hallway, I closed the door softly, wiped down the doorknob again, and walked quickly downstairs. Nobody had seen me, not yet, anyway, and when I got into my Explorer I started up the engine and smoothly drove away.
I went a couple of blocks and found a small convenience store. I pulled into the parking lot just as my legs started trembling uncontrollably, and I stayed there, my eyes wet yet again. I wiped at them with my handkerchief and then I ---
The chiming of the cell phone startled me so much that my head shot up and struck the roof of the Ford. I fumbled again, getting the phone out, and after unsnapping the cover and extending the little antenna, I managed to croak out a "Hello?"
"Yeah," said the male voice on the other end. "Is Freddy there?"
"Who?"
"Freddy."
"Sorry, there's nobody here by that name."
"'Kay," said the voice. "Sorry."
After shutting the phone off and putting it back in my coat, I started up the Ford and went back into Porter traffic. I had at least one more place to go before calling up Laura Reeves and letting loose with everything I knew.
At the Porter Submarine Museum, a group of people were clustered around the entranceway. Two tour buses were in the lot, diesel engines running. Some of the people were pressed up against the glass windows and doorway, peering in with their hands clustered about their faces. I drove by slowly and saw the two bus drivers, each with a cell phone up to his ear.
On the doorway was a little red-and-black sign that said CLOSED. I stopped and looked around the parking lot. Jack Emerson's little pickup truck was missing.
"Damn this morning," I said, and I drove out, leaving the disappointed tourists behind me.
It took some long minutes for me to find this particular house, for the guide I had the last time wasn't with me. I had to go to two convenience stores to find a phone book and get the right street address, and then I went to a gas station to buy a local map of Porter. By then I was sweating from nervousness and fear, and the weight of my pistol digging into my side wasn't even close to being a comfort. About a half hour after I had left the submarine museum, I was on the right street in Porter, driving slowly, checking out the houses. There. Small two-story home with the sagging couch and rusting refrigerator on the front porch.
And parked in the driveway an old pickup truck with the bumper stickers that still said bravely SUPPORT THE PORTER SUBMARINE MUSEUM and THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF BOATS: SUBS AND TARGETS. I parked halfway down the block and got out, walking quickly up the street, dreading what I was about to discover. Up to the front porch, where I spent a couple of minutes ringing the doorbell and rapping on the door. No answer. I took out the cell phone and placed a call to the number I had lifted from the phone book. Thirty rings later I gave up. I leaned over and peered through the windows, which were blocked by white curtains. Nothing.
I looked around and then got off the front porch, and went out to the rear. The yard was tiny, with a small brick patio that had a picnic table and a gas grill covered by a plastic tarp. At the rear entrance the door was open, leaving a storm door closed. It was fastened shut, but only by a hook-and-eye clasp. From my wallet I took out a credit card and slid it up through the crack between the door and doorjamb, and the clasp popped free. I opened the door and called out, "Jack? Are you home? It's Lewis, Lewis Cole."
No reply.
The entranceway opened into a laundry room, and from there, the kitchen. Unlike his son's, Jack's kitchen was clean and tidy. No dishes in the sink, nothing on the table except a napkin holder and a small collection of bills and letters. From the kitchen I went into the living room. Typical couch and chairs and television, and books, lots of books, piled up neatly on shelves. Most were hardcover and almost all had something to do with World War II or the Navy or submarines. A few newspapers were piled neatly at one end of the couch. The house smelled dusty but tidy.
“Jack?”
In the living room was a door that led down to the cellar.
The cellar had a dirt floor --- not uncommon in a lot of old New England houses --- and it held some trunks and a workbench and a dusty collection of rakes, shovels, and an old push lawnmower. The ceiling was low and I was hunched over as I walked about. There was a
Playboy
wall calendar from 1972 over the workbench and no sign of a human being.
Back up on the first floor, I spotted the stairs and released my 9-mm from holster and started going up to the second floor. I stayed to the side of the stairway, so my weight wouldn't cause the steps to creak, which was stupid, since I had been calling out Jack's name and rambling through the house for the past ten minutes. But it was comforting to do that, and comfort was mighty hard to find this day.
Top of the stairs, a bathroom. Empty. What looked like a guest bedroom to the right. Nothing. Closet empty, bed just covered with a bedspread, and a quick check showed nobody under the bed.
Which left one other bedroom, where the door was closed. I walked over, the hand holding the Beretta trembling a bit.
With a handkerchief covering my other hand, I opened up the door and said in a normal voice, "Jack ? You in there?"
Silence, except for the slow creak of the door opening up on the hinges. I knelt down and looked in, not wanting to give anybody a quick and easy target. The door opened up to reveal a carefully made bed with a white bedspread. I scurried in, saw that the place was empty. I took another quick look under the bed and saw a few dustballs. The thumping in my chest started to ease off and I had a quick look into the closet. A spare cane, shoes, pants and shirts and two suits, carefully hung up.
I replaced my pistol into my holster, sat on the edge of Jack's bed. "Damn it, where are you?" I said aloud.
On the other side of the room was a large window that overlooked the tiny backyard, and next to the window was a large oak chest covered by a lace cloth. There were three framed photos up there. One showed a very young Jack Emerson in the Navy, and the other showed Jack in an ill-fitting tuxedo and a woman in a white wedding dress. Both Jack and his bride were smiling widely.
The other photo was similar to one I had seen earlier, at Keith's apartment. It showed Keith in his flight gear, standing in front of an F/A-18 Hornet on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Again I was drawn to the man’s face and look, seeing the cocky self-confidence of a jet pilot ready to take on the world.
A battery room, he had said. A battery room.
I looked around the sparse room and then, for no reason at first, I found myself looking at the photo of Keith. It was similar, but it was different from the one I had seen at his apartment. For in this one, it looked as if Keith was ready to go out on a mission, for he had his pilot's helmet underneath his right arm, like a soccer ball or basketball. The helmet had jagged lightning stripes along the side, and like most military pilots, it had his nickname or call sign emblazoned on the front, in big bold letters ---
Now I was standing in front of the bureau, holding the photo close up in my hands, not even remembering the few steps I took from the bed to this bureau, to this photo, which showed a young Keith Emerson when he was a fighter jock and an air god, master of his universe, holding his helmet, showing the world what his nickname was, what his call sign was in the pantheon of his fellow air gods:
WHIZZER.
Chapter Seventeen
On the way south back to Tyler, I had called Laura Reeves twice --- using the cell phone supplied by Felix --- and had spoken to Gus Turner both times. "She's still out and about," he had said during the last call. "Anything I can help you with?"
"No," I had said, not wanting to explain over the very-eavesdroppable airwaves what I had been up to. "When I get home I'll come over and wait for her."
"Oh," he had replied. "Well, if you want ... "
"Sorry, Gus," I had said, "this call's breaking up," and I had hung up on him.
Now I was on the streets of Tyler, heading home, trying to keep both my speed and my emotions in check. Coming down on the interstate, I had easily exceeded the speed limit by twenty miles an hour in my rush to get home, but after taking the Tyler exit, I realized I had to take it easy. I had found out who Whizzer was. The man identified as Whizzer had even told me that he know where the uranium was hidden. True, his last message was cryptic and made no sense --- a battery room --- but it was a hell of a lot more than Laura Reeves and I and the other NET members had known at the start of this morning. If Laura had resources that she said were now coming to her --- a second NEST team, another squadron of FBI agents --- then the chase would be on for real. Poor dead Keith Emerson's life would be dissected and examined and traced, and everybody he knew and every place he had visited would be checked and rechecked. He had been the contact man for the Libyan. He knew what the missing uranium looked like. And he said it was in a dark place, a place that he was afraid of.