Scimitar Page 6

  Sonny nodded.

  He hated idle elevator talk. It was like elevator music. Vapid and dull. Worse in New York than anywhere else in the United States. He supposed that all the service people here were instructed to bend over backward in an effort to dispel the city’s reputation for surly rudeness. Chattered on aimlessly where no conversation was necessary at all. A total waste of time in that the city’s reputation was well earned and no amount of empty servility could disguise it.

  Sonny had known that when the call finally came it would most probably summon him to one of two places: New York or Washington. As a result, he had learned both those cities intimately, acquiring a working knowledge as well of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the two next likely candidates. But—

  —I think I’ve found an apartment for you.

  Where?

  Here in New York.

  Telling him where.

  All things considered, he guessed he was glad they’d chosen New York. There were a great many ways to get out of New York. Washington was far easier to blockade. And once this was over—

  “Here we are, sir, 2312.”

  The bellhop unlocked the door, allowed Sonny to precede him into the room, and then came in to do his stand-up routine about the air-conditioning and the television set and the wake-up calls and the restaurants available here at the hotel, seamlessly performing his little tip-seeking dog-and-pony act, which Sonny rewarded with two dollars and a friendly smile he hoped was masking his impatience.

  The bellhop left.

  Sonny went immediately to the telephone.

  He dialed the number from memory.

  The phone rang once, twice, three times …

  “Hello?”

  A man’s voice.

  Sonny hung up at once.

  The ringing telephone scared hell out of Santorini.

  Alone here in the apartment where the English lady had been killed, early afternoon sunshine streaming through the windows and slanting onto the bed where her blood had soaked into the covers and mattress, alone here with the evidence of sudden violent—

  And the goddamn phone rings!

  He yanked the receiver from the cradle.

  “Hello?”

  A sharp intake of breath on the other end.

  And then silence.

  And a click indicating the caller had hung up.

  Santorini wondered why.

  He knew he could not go to the apartment.

  And will you let me know when you get here?

  Her words on the telephone.

  He had just tried to let her know he was here, but a man had answered the phone, and he knew that no one but Mother would ever have answered the private line in her apartment, no one but she herself was permitted to answer that phone, this was the simple hardfast rule.

  But a man had indeed answered it.

  If Mother had answered Sonny would have used her code name at once. Priscilla. The name premised on the s-c sequence, Priscilla Jennings, the s-c buried in her given name. He had no idea what her everyday cover name might be; he knew that whatever name she’d been given at birth was as deeply buried in the archives as was his own. But she’d been expecting a trade call today, and she’d have asked for his code name …

  Who’s this, please?

  Scott Hamilton.

  … and only then would she have proceeded with, “Go ahead, Scott. This is Mother.”

  He could not go to the apartment. If she’d been discovered, then going there might put the entire operation in jeopardy.

  How did you find it?

  In The New York Times.

  His fallback position.

  He picked up the phone again, dialed the bell captain’s extension, and asked him to send up a copy of today’s Times. The paper came up some ten minutes later. It was already a quarter to four. He opened the newspaper to the Classified ads, and began searching through the Help Wanted columns. The heading fairly leaped off the page.

  LANDSCAPE GARDENER WANTED

  SAN FRANCISCO AREA EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL.

  NO OTHERS NEED APPLY. TOP SALA …

  His eye skipped to the number at the bottom of the ad. He dialed it, and a woman answered the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m calling about your ad in the Times,” Sonny said.

  “Which ad is that, please?”

  “For a landscape gardener.”

  The s-c sequence.

  “Have you had experience in the San Francisco area?”

  Repeating the sequence.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Do you have references?”

  “I worked for Priscilla Jennings.”

  “Can you tell me your name, please?”

  “Scott Hamilton,” he said.

  “I’m Annette Fleischer,” the woman said. “Go ahead, Scott.”

  Repeating the name immediately after confirmation of it. The essential double-check. Had she not said the name again, he would have ended the conversation at once.

  “I tried to call Mother,” he said, “but …”

  “Mother is dead.”

  A silence on the line.

  Sonny waited.

  “Where are you now?” she asked.

  “The Hilton. Room 2312.”

  “When are you available?”

  “I’m available now.”

  “Can you come here?”

  “Where are you?”

  She gave him an address on the upper east side.

  “Give me half an hour,” he said.

  “I’ll be expecting you,” she said.

  He waited.

  There was a silence on the line. She was waiting for his prompt.

  “And will you be there?” he asked, supplying it.

  He would not go to meet her unless she responded correctly.

  “You can be sure,” she said.

  He had never seen the woman he’d known on the telephone as Priscilla Jennings. His control. Mother. The woman who, he’d been told, would one day awaken him from sleep. The woman who had, in fact, awakened him last Saturday morning.

  Now he wondered what she’d looked like.

  His new control—if such she turned out to be—was a woman in her mid-fifties, he supposed. Dark brown eyes, a vaguely Mediterranean look about her except for the reddish-blond hair, clipped close to her skull like a medieval archer’s helmet. She was wearing a grey cotton cardigan buttoned up the front over ample breasts. Her dark skirt was festooned with cat hairs. There were cats everywhere Sonny looked. At least ten or twelve cats in the apartment, one of them sleeping on the windowsill, another perched on the upright piano, yet more flopped on cushions or silently stalking the small apartment. Everywhere, there was the faint aroma of cat piss. Mrs. Fleischer poured tea. Sonny listened to the sounds of summer filtering up from the street and through the open window where the cat snoozed. He was thinking that never in a million years would anyone guess this woman was one of them.

  “So,” she said. “When did you arrive?”

  “This afternoon,” he said.

  Not a trace of accent in her speech. She could have been Greek or Turkish, even Israeli, but nothing in her speech revealed a country of origin. Her hand pouring the tea was steady.

  “Where’s Priscilla Jennings?” he asked.

  “Pardon?” she said, and raised her eyebrows. Faint polite inquisitive look on her face.

  “Priscilla,” he said. “Jennings.”

  “I don’t believe I know her,” Mrs. Fleischer said. “Milk? Lemon?”

  “Lemon, please.”

  She caught a wedge of lemon between the jaws of a small pair of silver tongs. She dropped it on his saucer. She passed the saucer to him. He was wondering why she was now denying the existence of his previous control. She had acknowledged her name on the phone—but no, she may only have been confirming the s-c sequence. It was quite possible she knew nothing at all about her. Yet she had informed him that Mother was dead. What …?

&nb
sp; “Did you get a chance to sleep on the train?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and thought suddenly of Elita. And just as quickly put her out of his mind.

  “Are you well rested then?” Mrs. Fleischer asked.

  “Completely.”

  “Completely awake?” she asked.

  “I’m an early riser,” he said.

  Their eyes met.

  She smiled.

  “I have your instructions,” she said.

  Voice low and steady.

  He had been waiting for these instructions from the time he was eighteen. He had come to America eleven years ago, trained and prepared, and had been anticipating these instructions ever since. He leaned forward now.

  She opened her handbag. She removed from it a glossy black-and-white photograph, some three inches wide by four inches long. Handing it to him, she said, “She’ll be here for the Canada Day celebration on the first of July. Security will be tight, access difficult.”

  He looked at the photograph.

  And felt mild disappointment.

  Had they awakened him for this? Merely this?

  “The celebration will take place at the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, are you familiar with it?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “The Prime Minister of Canada will be there, of course, as well as the President of Mexico. But Mrs. Thatcher is only your secondary target. Your primary target …”

  “Yes, who will that be?”

  “… may or may not be present at the dinner that night, we haven’t been able to ascertain that as yet. In any event, you must not do anything to jeopardize your main objective. There’s a possibility you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak …”

  A faint smile.

  “… but only if your primary target …”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “… is present at the dinner and ball. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait till the Fourth of July,” she said, and grimaced. “Their big holiday, Independence Day. There’ll be a ceremony at the Statue of Liberty which he is scheduled to …” She hesitated, studied his face. “They told me you were familiar with New York.”

  “I am.”

  “You seemed puzzled when I mentioned the Statue of …”

  “No, I was only wondering who.”

  “I want to make certain, first, that you understand you can’t be diverted from …”

  “Yes, I do understand.”

  “The whore is relatively minor.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you can accomplish both objectives, all to the good. But you mustn’t sacrifice purpose to expediency. Forget her if you must …” A nod toward the photograph in his hand. “But get him.”

  “Yes, who?” he asked again.

  She handed him another small photograph.

  “Him,” she said.

  Sonny looked at the picture.

  And then, truly puzzled now, he looked up at Mrs. Fleischer.

  “The whore because …”

  “Yes, I realize, but …”

  “… without her, the bombing would have been impossible.”

  “Yes, but …”

  “He has not forgotten,” she said. Hatred burning in her eyes now.

  “None of us has forgotten.” The hatred leaping into his own eyes, enflaming them. “But …”

  “Nor has God forgotten. Or forgiven.”

  “Allah be praised,” Sonny said.

  “Praise God, for there is no God but He.”

  There was a silence. They sat staring at each other, memories flaring. One of the cats mewed softly. The silence lengthened. At last, Sonny asked, “But why have we chosen …?”

  “This will make it clear to you,” she said, and handed him an envelope. “The letter will explain. When you’ve read it …”

  He was already reaching into the envelope.

  “Not now,” she said. “There’s a telephone number in the envelope. Call it after you’ve read the letter. Ask for Arthur Scopes. You are not to contact me again. I have never entered your life, I no longer exist. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “May God go with you,” she said, and snapped her handbag shut.

  The click sounded utterly final.

  4

  Carolyn Fremont was in the midst of packing for the move to Westhampton Beach, carrying clothing from her bedroom dresser to the open suitcase on her bed. Elita was slumped listlessly in an armchair near the window in her mother’s bedroom, early morning sunlight streaming through the partially cracked blinds, touching her blond hair with fire. Carolyn knew the signs well; Elita was in love again. Or, worse, Elita was in love again and had once again been abandoned.

  “How anyone as bright and as beautiful as you are,” she said, “can manage to get herself abandoned as often as …”

  “I wasn’t abandoned, Mom,” Elita said. “There was just some mixup at Penn Station.”

  “Who is this boy, anyway?” Carolyn asked.

  The two were in the Park Avenue apartment Carolyn had received as part of the divorce settlement from her former husband, Ralph Talbot Randall, known to her forevermore as The Late Colonel. The $1,939 alimony check she received each and every month was made out to her maiden name, which she’d begun using again even before the divorce was final. This sum was exactly forty percent of The Late Colonel’s salary. She had also received in settlement the house in Westhampton Beach, a brand-new (at the time) green Jaguar convertible, and child support and college tuition for Elita. Which served the bastard right for starting up with his gorgeous sergeant, a twenty-seven-year-old (at the time) redhead with spectacular tits but no brains at all.

  “He’s not a boy, Mom, he’s a man,” Elita said.

  “I’m sure,” Carolyn said, and rolled her eyes.

  Her eyes were as blue as her daughter’s—well, perhaps Elita’s were bluer in that The Late Colonel’s eyes were blue as well, and their offspring had been twice blessed genetically. Carolyn’s hair had been as light as her daughter’s when she was her age, but over the years she and an assortment of beauticians had patiently guided it to its present shade, the tawny color of a lion’s mane. At thirty-nine, Carolyn was leggier than her daughter, fuller of breast, infinitely more attractive in a womanly way, and certainly not a person anyone would ever abandon.

  “His name is Sonny,” Elita said.

  “I thought he wasn’t a boy,” Carolyn said.

  “He’s twenty-nine years old.”

  “And he still calls himself Sonny?”

  “His real name is Krishnan.”

  “Is what?”

  “Krishnan Hemkar.”

  “I see,” Carolyn said, and went to the dresser for another stack of slips. Carrying them to the open suitcase on the bed, she wondered whether twenty-nine was too old for Elita, remembered that there was a fourteen-year age difference between her and her former philandering husband, decided ten wasn’t too terribly bad, after all, and then realized she was already marrying off the child to someone named …

  “What’d you say it was?”

  “What was?”

  “His name.”

  “Krishnan Hemkar.”

  “You sound like you’re clearing your throat.”

  “That’s his name, Mom. He’s half-Indian, half-British. And when you meet him, I hope …”

  “Oh, am I going to meet him?”

  “If you meet him, I hope you won’t make fun of his name.”

  “I have a friend named Isadore Lipschitz, and I’ve never made fun of his name, so why should I make fun of Christie Hemmar’s name?” Carolyn said, and shrugged and went back to the dresser. “How many sweaters should I take?” she asked aloud.

  “Krishnan Hemkar,” Elita said.

  “Whoever. I’m sure he’s delightful, stranding you in Penn Station.”

  “I wasn’t stranded, Mom. I managed to get my bags outside all by myself, and get a taxi all by myself …�
��

  “Mama’s big girl,” Carolyn said, carrying sweaters to the bed. “Are you coming out with me tomorrow?”

  “I thought I’d stay in the city for a few days.”

  Carolyn turned from the suitcase, a white, pearl-buttoned cardigan in her hands. She looked at her daughter. “Why?” she asked.

  “I just got home,” Elita said. “I want to spend a few days in New York before running out to the beach.”

  “The city’s going to be an oven all week long.”

  “So what? I like hot weather.”

  “Since when?”

  “Sometimes it gets very hot in L.A.”

  Carolyn kept looking at her.

  “It does,” Elita said.

  “There’ll be a message on the machine, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Giving the Westhampton number. If anyone calls.”

  “That’s not why …”

  “If this Sonny person calls.”

  “I just want to spend some time in New York, that’s all. And he’s not this Sonny person.”

  There was a long, strained silence. Carolyn kept looking at her daughter.

  “Elita?” she said at last.

  “Carolyn?” Eyebrows raised, faint mocking tone.

  “I hate when you do that,” Carolyn said.

  “Do what?”

  “Mimic me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And call me by my first name.”

  “Gee, sorry.”

  “You know I hate that. I’m not Carolyn, I’m your goddamn mother.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “You’re staying here because you’re hoping he’ll call, aren’t you?”

  “I told you why I’m staying here.”

  “Because you hope Sonny Lipschitz …”

  “Goddamn it, Mom!”

  “… will call. You’re going to mope around here in the apartment for the next …”

  “I am not!”

  “… three, four days …”

  “I told you I …”

  “… waiting for some goddamn Indian you met on a train …”

  “He’s half Br …”

  “… to call you! Instead of …”

  “I’ll come out sometime next week, okay?”

  “… instead of for once in your life exhibiting the tiniest bit of pride and self-respect!”

  “Mom.” A pause. As lethal as her sudden glare. “I don’t want to go to Westhampton tomorrow, okay?”