Scimitar Read online

  “I didn’t know your mother’s first name. There are dozens of Randalls in the Manhattan …”

  “She uses her maiden name now. It’s …”

  “Besides, I finally found the slip of paper.”

  “Well, in case you lose it again, her name’s …”

  “I’ve already written it in my book.”

  A National Park Service ranger wearing olive drab trousers, a tannish-green shirt and a Smokey the Bear hat was waving tourists onto one or another line on either side of the center doors leading into the base. He was a tall, burly man with blue eyes and a reddish-brown mustache, and he kept chanting, “Admission is to the right or left. No admission through the center doors. Admission is to the right or left, depending where you want to go.”

  “Excuse me,” Sonny said.

  “Yeah?” the ranger said, and then immediately to the approaching crowd, “Admission is to the right or left, depending where you want to go. No admission through the center doors. Yeah?” he said again.

  “How do we know which line to get on?” Sonny asked.

  There was a National Park Service patch sewn to the ranger’s shirt over his left pectoral. A little brass National Park Service shield was pinned over the pectoral on the right. Below the shield was a narrow brass rectangle with the ranger’s name stamped onto it: ALVIN RHODES.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

  “Well, until we know which line goes where,” Sonny said, “how can we …?”

  “The line on the left is for people who don’t know where they’re going,” the ranger snapped, and then began chanting again, “Admission is to the right or left, depending where you want to go. No admission through the …”

  As it turned out, the line on the left wasn’t for people who didn’t know where they were going, but was instead for people who wanted to climb the stairs going up to the crown. A girl tending the rope at the head of the line told Sonny they were looking at a twenty-two-story climb …

  “That’s three hundred and fifty-four steps,” she said.

  … and maybe a wait of two to three hours. If they wanted her advice, they’d get on the other line and take the elevator up to the pedestal.

  “Get a good view of the harbor all around that way, save yourself a lot of sweat and strain. Here’s a plan, shows you where the pedestal is,” she said, and handed him a printed drawing of the “Planning Your Visit” sign he’d photographed on the mainland:

  “What do you think?” he asked Elita.

  “Sounds good to me,” she said.

  “I’ll let you through,” the girl said. “Just cross over to the other line.”

  “Thank you,” Sonny said.

  He was thinking he would remember Alvin Rhodes. He was thinking, I hope you’re here on the Fourth, Alvin.

  They were in the open space where Liberty’s original torch was now displayed, a large rectangle surrounded by an upper level, which he guessed was the Second Level indicated on the Planning Your Visit sketch. As they walked toward the people waiting on line for the elevator, Sonny looked up and saw signs indicating there were restrooms upstairs. He spotted a staircase, took Elita’s elbow, said, “There are restrooms up there,” and led her toward the steps. She wondered if he had read her mind.

  The men’s room was on one side of the open rectangle, the ladies’ room on the other. Again, their agendas were different. Elita simply had to pee. Sonny was looking for a likely lay-in spot, should the plan call for one. An open wooden door led into an angled alcove that shielded the men’s room from the corridor outside. He ran his palm over the door, seemingly studying the paint job, while actually checking out the lock. A man passing by looked at him curiously, and Sonny said, as if commenting admiringly, “They painted it to look like bronze,” which in fact they had. The man nodded in vague agreement and hurried into one of the stalls. The lock on the door was a spring latch, fitted with a keyway on the outside. A wooden wedge held the door open. Sonny glanced behind the door and saw a push bar on the inside. Mickey Mouse time.

  There was another door in the little alcove, painted grey and right-angled to the entrance door. Someone had left it either accidentally or deliberately ajar, open perhaps some eight to ten inches. As Sonny passed it, he glanced into the darkened room beyond and saw a pail with a mop in it. The room was a utility closet. The outside of the door was fitted with a circular keyway. He walked past at once, hurrying through into the main section of the restroom. There were the requisite number of urinals, stalls and sinks. You could lay in overnight in a stall, but if a cleaning man came in to mop up—

  The man who’d agreed with him about the imitation bronze door was coming out of the closest stall. He washed his hands at one of the sinks, glanced sourly at the blowers attached to the wall, dried his hands on his handkerchief instead, and left the room. Sonny took a position at the end of the row of urinals. A man at the other end was taking forever to pee. Sonny waited for him to finish, waited for him to leave the room—without washing his hands—and then zipped up his fly. He went to the sinks, quickly washed his hands, dried them inadequately on one of the wall blowers, and moved immediately to the grey utility closet door. He yanked the door all the way open, checked its inside surface in an instant. A thumb latch. Nothing else. No knob on the door, no push bar. Just the latch, designed to spring the lock in case someone accidentally trapped himself inside. He feigned elaborate surprise at having entered a closet. But there was no one in sight as he backed out into the alcove again; his little act hadn’t been necessary at all.

  Elita was waiting for him in the corridor. He glanced over the railing, said, “That elevator line looks long,” and suggested that they walk up to the pedestal.

  It turned out there was no way they could walk all the way up. But the steps at the far end of the corridor went up to a landing and then another flight of stairs, ten steps in each flight, and then to a level with some kind of telephone exhibit that was out of order at the moment …

  Out of order, he thought. Yes. Good.

  … and then two shorter flights of steps leading up to three pairs of exit doors fashioned of thick plate glass framed in bronze—real bronze this time. Deadbolts on all of them, inside and out. He pushed open one of the doors in the middle set, and allowed Elita to precede him outside, where he took a picture of her standing beside a stanchioned sign that read STAIRS TO GROUND LEVEL, with an arrow pointing toward the doors they’d just come through.

  They walked all around the star-shaped level; this was where the old fort had stood. Actually the shape was less a star than a square with a series of angular bastions protruding from it, two on each side except for the one facing the harbor channel, where a larger bastion jutted out. Standing at the point of this larger abutment, looking up directly into the statue’s face some hundred or more feet above, it was easy to see why the sculptor had oriented the front of his statue in this direction, at the mouth of the Hudson, and visible to any vessel passing through the Narrows.

  It was also easy to determine that here was where the President would give his Independence Day speech. Here where the television cameras could pan up and away from Bush’s solemn, sincere, candidate’s face to the great impassive face of the lady in the bay. Whether they set up the speaker’s stand and microphones on this level … or the level above … or the one above that …

  “Let’s see if there are any more stairs going up,” Sonny suggested.

  “This is fun, isn’t it?” Elita said, and squeezed his hand.

  She stood virtually naked in her mother’s bedroom, the room cool and dim now that sunshine had abandoned the Park Avenue side of the building, Sonny standing behind her, his hands on her breasts as they faced the vanity mirror. She could feel him stiff against her, erect between her cheeks, watching herself in the mirror, watching them both in her mother’s mirror.

  She was wearing a white garter belt she’d taken from her mother’s lingerie drawer, sheer white nylon stockings, red paten
t-leather, ankle-strapped, outrageously high-heeled pumps, also her mother’s. She looked like a recklessly disheveled nurse wearing chorus-girl shoes designed by the devil. The shoes lifted her buttocks, raised them to his probing cock. She hoped he wouldn’t try to …

  “Bend over,” he said.

  “Listen, I don’t want you to …”

  “Hands flat against the mirror.”

  She leaned into the mirror, obeying him, palms flat against it, face turned, cheek against the reflecting glass. She was truly frightened now, there was something about him that was sometimes terrifying.

  “Lift it to me,” he said.

  “Please don’t,” she said.

  And felt him probing her nether lips, felt him sliding familiarly into her wetness below, and lifted herself to him in gratitude and relief. Standing taller in her mother’s heels, she accepted him deeper inside her, and began throbbing almost at once, wave after wave of uncontrollable spasm seizing her as she strained against him, gasping, accepting him completely, melting against him, dizzy with pleasure, flush and faint and “Fuck me,” she said, “fuck me, oh fuck me …”

  She lay beside him on her mother’s bed. His eyes were closed. He looked utterly peaceful and relaxed. She wondered if he’d learned to do all those things in medical school. The things he did to her. Did they teach you that in medical school?

  “How many girls have you done this to?” she asked.

  “Done what to?”

  “What we just did.”

  “Thousands,” he said.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “How many?”

  “Nine hundred and ninety-nine,” he said.

  He was kidding, of course.

  Wasn’t he?

  “No, seriously,” she said.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  His eyes were still closed. With her forefinger, she began tracing the green scimitar tattoo on the underside of his left pectoral.

  “I want to be special,” she said.

  “You are special.”

  “How am I special?”

  “You’re passionate, and …”

  “Well, anyone can be passion …”

  “And responsive, and inventive, and …”

  “How am I inventive?”

  “You have a lively, inquisitive …”

  “Mind? Give me a break.”

  “Cunt, I was about to say.”

  She fell silent. Finger still idly tracing the tattoo, wondering if she could dare …

  She decided to risk it.

  “I don’t like that word,” she said.

  “Oh?” he said, and seemed to go suddenly tense beside her.

  Immediately she said, “I didn’t mean …”

  “That’s okay,” he said, and sat up. He turned to her, smiled in polite dismissal, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and began walking toward where he’d draped his clothes over her mother’s chaise lounge.

  “Sonny?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “What’d I say?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and pulled on his Jockey shorts.

  “Where … where are you going?”

  “Home,” he said.

  She was off the bed in an instant, rushing naked to him. He was reaching for his trousers. “No, don’t go,” she said, and hurled herself against him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  “Let go,” he said.

  “Sonny, please, I didn’t mean to …”

  “I said let go.”

  “Please, I’m sorry, please don’t …”

  The telephone rang.

  “Answer your phone,” he said.

  “Sonny, I don’t want you to …”

  “Answer it,” he said.

  She went back to her mother’s bed, lifted the receiver on the bedside phone, said “Hello” dully, and watched him as he pulled on his trousers and reached for his shirt.

  “Miss Randall?”

  “Yes, who …?”

  And recognized his voice. The jerk from the British consulate.

  “This is Geoffrey Turner,” he said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “As a matter of fact …”

  “I’ve run your friend’s name through the computer,” he said. “I’m happy to say …”

  “I’ve already found him,” she said. “Thanks, anyway.”

  “Well, good,” he said. “If I can be of any …”

  She covered the mouthpiece.

  “Sonny, wait,” she said.

  “… further assistance …”

  “Thank you,” she said, “I appreciate …”

  And covered the mouthpiece again.

  “Sonny, please!”

  “Miss Randall …”

  “Please, I’m very busy just …”

  “I was wondering if you might be free for …”

  “Thank you,” she said again, and hastily put the receiver back onto its cradle and hurried across the room to where Sonny was sitting on her mother’s plush velvet ottoman now, putting on his loafers. She forced herself onto his lap, threw her arms around his neck, lifted her lips to his face, tried to kiss him on the mouth, but he twisted away from her. She kissed his cheeks instead, his nose, his forehead, showered his face with kisses, murmuring “Please, Sonny, I love you, please, oh please …”

  His voice low and steady, the words measured, he said, “Don’t ever tell me what you don’t like.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “Ever,” he said.

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “Now get over there,” he said.

  She looked bewildered for a moment. Where did he want her? In front of the mirror again? Or was he …?

  “The bed.”

  Fearful she would anger him again, terrified she would lose him completely, she moved swiftly to the bed and sat on its edge.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  She nodded obediently. Swung her legs onto the bed. Raised herself on her elbows to look toward where he was still standing motionless near the ottoman. Her heart was pounding, she could scarcely breathe.

  She now knew that she would do whatever he asked her to do.

  Whenever.

  Forever.

  The story was on page eight of that afternoon’s New York Post. Santorini easily could have missed it, especially since he was eating a meatball grinder while reading the paper and was concentrating on not getting tomato sauce all over himself.

  The story said that Margaret Thatcher would be here on the first of July, to attend a Canada Day celebration at the Plaza Hotel.

  Santorini looked at his calendar.

  The first was a Wednesday.

  Four days from now.

  Only yesterday, the FBI nemesis of Eastern cattle rustlers had briefed him on the counter-intelligence panic that had followed the 1986 bombing of Tripoli. At the time, the CIA, the FBI, and Britain’s counter-intelligence people were all convinced that the Libyan leader had dispatched hit teams to kill Ronald Reagan for having ordered the raid, and Margaret Thatcher for having allowed the American bombers to overfly her country. Only after months had gone by without any actual assassination attempts were the concerned agencies able to relax their vigilance.

  “But green is Libya’s color,” Grant had told him.

  “Green, huh?” Santorini said.

  “Green. Their flag used to be red, white and black with a little gold eagle on it …”

  “Little gold eagle, huh?”

  “Yes, but Quaddafi changed it to solid green. The whole thing’s green. Just this big solid green flag.”

  “Solid green, huh?”

  “Green, right. Now your scimitar, come to think of it, is on the Saudi Arabian flag, with some squiggly Arab writing above it, probably means Allah be praised or some such shit. And that’s a green flag, too, though not solid green like the Libyan one.”

  “So maybe this is something Saudi Arabian, huh?” Santorini said.

  “Well,
it could be anything, who knows with those troublemakers over there? If the Israeli flag was green, I wouldn’t put it past those lunatics, either. The whole Middle East is full of maniacs, you ask me. But theirs is blue and white with a Star of David on it.”

  “Blue and white, uh-huh. The Israeli flag.”

  “Yes. But Libya has a thing about green, you see.”

  “A thing about green, huh?”

  “Yeah. Well, you know, Quaddafi’s got this vision about a state based on the masses—pretty original, huh?—which he tells all about in these three little booklets he calls the Green Book.”

  “Three of them, huh?”

  “Yeah, but he calls all three of them the Green Book. Singular.”

  “Why singular?”

  “Go ask him.”

  “Or green?”

  “Who knows with these lunatics? The point, man, is your swords are green, am I right? The tattoos? So maybe this is something Libyan, who the hell knows?”

  Especially since Margaret Thatcher’s coming to town, Santorini thought, and we’ve already got two dead British ladies on our hands.

  8

  Elita was just approaching the Third Avenue building when the man from the British consulate came out onto the sidewalk.

  “Mr. Turner!” she shouted.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, turned, looked at her, seemed puzzled for the merest instant, and then said, somewhat curtly, “Miss Randall.”

  “I was just coming upstairs,” she said.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” he said, “but I’m on my way somewhere. If you can come back in a few hours …”

  “I just wanted to ask … when you called me Saturday …”

  “I am in a frightful hurry,” he said.

  He did indeed seem as if he were anticipating a starting gun, his very stance giving the impression of a man already in motion. He was wearing the same grey suit he’d had on the last time she’d seen him, a striped gold and blue tie on his white shirt. His dark eyes were darting now, signaling his eagerness to move.

  “Can I walk with you?” she asked.

  “If you like,” he said, and turned and started off. She caught up with him, fell into step beside him.

  “I’m sorry about Saturday,” she said.