Authors: Lawrence Sanders
“Oh dear. No ice.”
She pressed a concealed button. A black zipsuit materialized instantly from somewhere.
“Modom?”
“Some Jellicubes, please, John.”
“Immediately, modom.”
She waved me to the lumpy couch. She seated herself gracefully and looked at me with sympathetic interest.
“Have you been busy, Nick?” she asked.
I had the oddest impression of a little girl stumbling about in her mother’s high heels, pearls down to her knees, wearing a crazy chiffon gown and oversized garden hat. With makeup awkwardly painted on in patches.
But Grace Wingate was wearing tawny pants so tight they could have been sprayed on. A knitted tank top of some sheeny material, cut wide at neck and arms. Ashen hair flung loose. Spatulate feet bare. About her neck, partially covering the cleavage between her tanned breasts, was a silvery, oversized reproduction of a snowflake, hung from a leather thong.
“Your necklace,” I said. “Beautiful.”
She grinned with delight, forgetting I had not answered her question.
“I do thank you. It’s a new alloy of silver, palladium, and platinum. It was given to me by the manufacturer. But of course we’re not allowed to accept gifts. So Mike paid for it. The wholesale price. That's all right, don’t you think, Nick?”
I laughed. “Yes, I think that’s all right. Perfectly legal. It’s lovely.”
“Well, they’re all over now, but this is the first striking of the design.”
She looked down at the gleaming snowflake, stroking it. Her long fingers were close to the soft bulge of her breasts. Fingernails touched her sinuous neck.
I could not fathom her. She seemed an odd combination of the fey and the profound I could not analyze. That line that enclosed her
sculpted corpus appeared to complete her. But I had the sense of a force bursting to spring free. I just did not know. She was unique in "my experience.
The black zipsuit returned with a tub of Jellicubes, then disappeared. I mixed vodka-and-Smacks for both of us. We hoisted plastiglasses to each other, smiled, sipped delicately. Then we sat in silence. I wanted her to make the approach. Finally. . . .
“You said. . . .” she murmured faintly. Then stopped.
“Yes, Mrs. Wingate?”
“I asked you to call me Grace. Will you not?”
“I want to,” I said. Still smiling. “But it’s difficult. Your husband is very important.”
“I know. Oh, God, do I know. Nick, what have you—”
I pursed my lips and pressed them with a forefinger. So dramatic! A Restoration comedy. She rose and moved toward French windows. I joined her there. We looked over a rather scrubby garden. A kneeling em, head shielded with a white riot helmet, was loosening dry soil about azalea bushes.
“You must be patient,” I urged her. “I promised to help, and I shall. Grace, tell me—are you certain? Of your husband and Angela Berri?”
“Oh, yes.”
I had to force her, not only for my own need to know, but to make her face it and say it.
“Are they users?” I asked.
She tried to speak but couldn’t. Finally she nodded dumbly. I I wanted to tongue that vulval ear revealed as her fine hair swung aside.
“Do you have any letters, documents, tapes—any physical evidence?”
She looked at me scornfully.
“Physical
evidence? I have all the
physical
evidence I need.
"
Nick, a wife '
knows'.”
“Yes, yes,” I said quickly. Convinced.
She put a hand on my arm.
“Nick,” she said, “you’re my only hope.”
In retrospect I can be objective. But at that particular moment in time, I was so overwhelmed by her proximity, her presence—scent, the matte of her skin, dark eyes, syrupy voice—that I would have said anything, done anything to prolong the interview.
“I asked you to have patience,” I repeated. “A month, two months, possibly three. No longer.”
“Then you’ll—you’ll—” She couldn’t finish.
“Yes,” I told her. “Then I’ll stop Angela Berri, or myself be stopped. Is that guarantee enough?”
We stood motionless, not speaking. Did her look turn to sympathy? To pity? To acquiescence? To complaisance? I simply did not know. A pulse fluttered low on her neck. I wanted to swoop and kiss it still. Strange that even then—so early—I was aware of what was happening.
There was a sharp rap at the parlor door. The moment shattered. We turned back into the room. A black zipsuit announced scheduled visitors. I made a polite farewell, leaving my prospectus to her.
At the doorway, smiling her good-bye, one hand rose almost languidly and touched the back of my head, my neck.
“Thank you, Nick,” she said.
I was lost, I thought suddenly. For some reason I did not wish to compute, the thought pleased me.
It took almost two hours, in a cab, and visits to five jewelry shops before I was able to locate and purchase an exact replica of Grace Wingate’s necklace—a silvery snowflake swinging from a leather thong.
But I was only ten minutes late for my meeting with Paul Bumford and Mary Bergstrom in front of DOB headquarters. I climbed into the back of the limousine, and we started off for New York immediately.
“Well?” I asked Paul.
“Worse than we supposed,” he reported. “Very heavy social unrest. They’re pillowing most of it—but who knows for how long? Bombings, assassinations, arson, kidnappings. A complete mosaic.”
“Who?” I asked.
He shook his head. “That's what’s so weird. Everyone agrees it’s not organized. Just a kind of general discontent.”
“But
why?"
I said loudly. Angrily. “They never had it so good.”
“The pee-pul." Paul shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Show them,” Mary Bergstrom muttered sullenly.
We both, Paul and I, looked at her in astonishment. But she volunteered nothing more, and we went on as if she had never spoken.
The remainder of the trip was spent reviewing input from the Field Offices at Houston, Spokane, and Honolulu, dealing with the physiological, psychological, and mental sources of pleasure. Even these preliminary reports generated grave questions. We drove through gathering darkness, debating the nature of happiness.
I visited my Times Square mail drop every day. Nothing from Simon Hawkley. Anxiety growing. My position was perilous. I was owner of a factory selling drugs to my own department of government. I knew what the results of discovery would be.
Finally, on September 20, rainy, windswept, I found a short, coded message from Hawkley. Just three series of numbers. Decoded: FISH BITING. CALL.
I called San Diego from a corner booth. We kept our conversation as brief and cryptic as possible. A letter had arrived at Scilla Pharmaceuticals from Headquarters, Department of Bliss. It was signed by an Edward T. Collins. His title was Commercial Coordinator, Security & Intelligence. It stated that since Scilla was engaged in the production and sale to the US Government of restricted drugs, according to Public Law, Section DOB-46-H3, subsection 2X-31G, the premises, the production methods, and the distribution procedures of Scilla were required to be examined and approved periodically. At 1500, on September 29, Mr. Art Roach, Chief, Security & Intelligence, would arrive at Scilla to make such an inspection.
I told Simon Hawkley I would get back to him with instructions for Seymour Dove well before Roach’s arrival.
I discussed it with Paul Bumford that night.
“You really think they’re taking the bait?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I told him. “Those
in situ
inspections are customarily made by a road crew, PS-4’s, conditioned for that service. I never heard of an S-and-I chief inspecting a factory personally. ”
“You don’t seem too happy,” he said.
“I’m happy enough. I suppose, subconsciously, I was hoping Angela would make the approach personally. But I should have known better. I should have known she’d use Roach as a bagman, keep a level between her and the overt act. Then, if push came to shove, she could terminate him with prejudice. Well, we’ll have to manipulate Roach and compromise her through him. Let’s get started on the scenario. The first consideration is the time frame. . .
There was never any doubt that Paul and I would have to be in San Diego when the trap was sprung. In fact, we’d have to be there a day or two earlier to help install and test the sharing equipment in Seymour Dove’s office at Scilla, and to instruct and rehearse him in his role.
“Getting out there with a legitimate cover should be no problem,” I said. “I have a backlog of threedays. You can go out to inspect Nancy Ching’s operations in the FO. The problem is-— where do we stay? The letter Scilla received states that Roach will arrive at 1500 on September twenty-ninth. But what if he takes a threeday and gets there on the twenty-seventh, or maybe just a day earlier to scout the ground? His profile says he is shrewd, clever, suspicious. We’re so close now, Paul, we can’t take the chance of getting out there early and discover we’ve checked into the hotel where he’s staying. Am I being paranoid?”
“My God, no!” Paul said. “We can’t leave anything to chance: It’s risky enough as it is. How about Nancy Ching’s place on the beach?”
“Think she'd let us have it?”
“Of course.”
“Yesss,” I said slowly. Computing. “I think that would serve. We’ll stay out there as much as possible, going into the city only when it’s absolutely necessary. That should reduce a chance meeting with Roach to the ult min. Now let’s talk about what equipment we’ll need. Chauncey Higgles, Limited, will supply the heavy stuff. But we’ll need cameras, film, maybe some personal devices. Just in case.”
We served long hours for three evenings. We went over the Personality Profile of Art Roach, trying to determine how he might react in certain situations. We pored over the Federal Criminal Code to determine what kind of evidence we’d need to stop Art Roach and Angela Berri.
Finally, the scenario was in a form where anything added or subtracted would just be tinkering. We agreed to go ahead with what we had. I sent a letter to Simon Hawkley the following morning by commercial mail. Merely: “Arriving Sept. 27. Adventurer.”
After our planning was completed, in the few days prior to September 27, I served hard, clearing my desk for the threeday 1 announced I was taking. I doubted any emergency would arise. But if it did, I told Ellen Dawes she could contact me through my father in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. I sent my father a letter instructing him to forward any messages for me to the San Diego Field Office.
We arrived in San Diego, on a commercial flight, a little before 1100, Pacific time, on the morning of September 27. We rented a black, two-door Dodge sedan, a Piranha, with a high-performance eight-cylinder internal combustion engine. Nancy Ching had closed her beachhouse for the season, but had readily agreed to lend it to Paul. She had promised to leave the keys in the sand under the first step of the porch.
We drove directly there, stopping just once to pick up vodka, Smack, some sandwich groceries. It took us about an hour to get the place aired out, to unpack, and settle in. Then I called Simon Hawkley to announce our arrival. I told him from then on, I would deal directly with Seymour Dove at Scilla and keep my contacts with him, Hawkley, to a minimum. He approved of my caution. I thought he might wish me good luck, but he didn’t. Perhaps he didn’t think I’d need it.
I then called Seymour Dove at Scilla, told him where we were, asked when he could join us. He said two hours. I told him we’d be waiting. And so we did. Wait. We spent the time discussing unexplored approaches in the development of the UP pill. I know I felt no nervousness about our current activity. If Paul felt any, at this late stage, he hid it very well.
I had alerted Paul, but still he was startled when Seymour Dove sauntered in. A vision in peacock blue, including blue sunglasses, blue sandals, blue bone earrings, blue eye shadow, and a blue, feathered hat left over from the road company of
The Three Musketeers.
He grinned at us, whites flashing against that incredibly tanned skin. Then he twirled slowly for our inspection, arms akimbo.
“Jerk you?” he said.
Paul laughed, and we all stroked palms. We made vodka-and-Smacks and prowurst sandwiches. Then we started on the details of the scenario.
We all agreed that the sharing operation should be kept as simple as possible. Seymour Dove pointed out that with the number of servers at Scilla, assigned to all levels of the main building, including the basement, it would be practically impossible to place clandestine wiring and power sources without being observed. We would have to opt for self-powered devices. The critical danger was that such devices could usually be detected by a portable meter, or even a wrist monitor. Art Roach might well be carrying or wearing either.
I believed I had the answer to this problem. In scanning the Chauncey Higgles, Ltd., catalogue, provided by Mrs. Agatha Whiggam, I had noted a new (1997) device which seemed almost to have been designed with our mission in mind.
It was a conventional, one-meter TV receiver, a console model available in three furniture styles: Contemporary, Traditional, and Mediterranean. It was not one of the new 3-D, laser-holograph sets, but still utilized a cathode tube. However, installed within the tube, photographing through the plastiglas faceplate, was a miniaturized TV camera, picking up both sight and sound. It was powered by the electric current supplying the television set.
Its greatest advantage was that the set was always “hot." That is, diminished power was constantly fed to the picture tube so that, when the viewer clicked the On button, it was not necessary to wait ten seconds for the set to warm up; the image appeared on screen almost instantaneously. Thus, if the set was checked with a meter, of course it would show a power flow, for a very innocent reason.
We agreed that such a set, designed for home or office, would be entirely appropriate in the executive suite of Scilla Pharmaceuticals. The monitor was small, compact, and would easily fit into the back seat of our rented Dodge sedan. The monitor consisted of a loudspeaker, a 20 cm viewing screen, and a TV tape attachment by which voice and visual communication could be recorded. We, in turn, in the car, could talk to Seymour Dove via his TV set.