Desperate Measures (41 page)

"A security expert and a weapons specialist. I'll explain as we drive.', "But what if they remember you?" Mrs. Page asked. "If they connect you with the newspaper stories and television reports ... "

"I interviewed them at least five years ago. I was heavier. I had a mustache. There's a good chance they won't recognize me. But even if the risk was greater, I'd still have to take it. I can't make this plan work without their help."

As they spoke, Pittman walked to the next door and knocked on it. When George came out, they went down concrete steps to where Jill was waiting at the car.

"Give me your room keys. I'll leave them at the desk and check everybody out," George said.

"Fine. We'll meet you at the restaurant down the street," Jill said. "Restaurant?" Mrs. Page looked horrified. "That's not a restaurant.

"Okay, it's a Roy Rogers. Think of it as a broadening experience. We're so pressed for finie, we'll have to eat takeout as we drive."

"Time. Yes. We have to make time for something else," Mrs. Page insisted. "We have to see about Bradford. We have to go to the hospital."

Amid the drone of fluorescent lights and the pungent odor of antiseptics, Pittman frowned in response to Jill's frown as she came back from speaking to a nurse at the counter outside the cardiac-care unit.

"What's the matter?" Pittman's hands suddenly felt cold. "Don't tell me he died." I 'He Is gone."

Mrs. Page stepped forward, ashen. "He is dead?"

"I mean he literally isn't here. He's gone. He left," Jill said. "The nurse looked in on him at five A. M. His bed was empty. He'd pulled an IV needle from his arm. He'd turned off his heart monitor so it wouldn't sound a warning when he pulled the sensor pads from his chest. His clothes were in a cupboard in his room. He put them on and snuck out of the hospital. "

"It's a wonder he had the strength," Pittman said. "What the hell did he think he was doing?"

George shook his head. "Last night, it was exhaustion. But if he's not careful, he'll give himself a heart attack."

"Obviously he believes the risk is worth it,', Jill said. "To get back at them. The remaining two grand counselors. I can't imagine anything else that would have made him act so obsessively."

"Damn it, now we've got a wild card out there," Pittman said. "He's so out of control, he scares me. God knows what he might do to interfere with our plan."

"But we can't let him worry us," Mrs. Page said. "We have to go ahead. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Pittman stepped forward. "Mrs. Page, how are your connections with the Washington Post? Do you think you can get someone in the obituary department to do us a favor?"

Eight hours later, in midafternoon, Pittman was back in Fairfax, Virginia, quickly passing through it, taking 29 west, then 15 north toward Eustace Gable's estate. During his second telephone call to Gable, which Pittman had made exactly at ten as promised, using a pay phone in Washington, Gable had given him instructions how to get to the estate. As Pittman drove toward the rendezvous, squinting from the sun, he glanced toward his rearview mirror and was reassured to see that despite congested traffic, the gray Ford van remained behind him, Jill visible behind the steering wheel. The van and the equipment inside it had been rented using George's credit card, and Pittman thought morbidly that George certainly deserved a bonus, the trick being for all of them to stay alive so he could receive it, Pittman passed farms and strips of woods, the sunlight making them seem golden, and he prayed that he would have a chance to see them again, to see Jill again. He thought about Jeremy, and as much as he missed his son,. he felt strangely close to him, as if Jeremy were with him, helping him. Give me strength, son.

As instructed, Pittman came to a sign-EVERGREEN COUNTRY CLUB-then headed to the left, trees casting shadows from the sun. A mile later, he went right, along an oak-lined gravel road. This time when he glanced toward his rearview mirror, he saw Jill stopping the van, parking it among bushes at the side of the gravel road. She was doing what they had agreed upon. Nonetheless, he wished she didn't have to. Until now he hadn't felt alone.

He rounded a curve and proceeded up a gentle rise Banked by AprU-Iush fields, and he couldn't help contrasting his increasing fear with the peaceful setting. More, he couldn't help contrasting his apprehension as he approached Gable's estate with the indifference to his safety that he had felt a week earlier when he had snuck into the estate in Scarsdale to find out why Jonathan Millgate had been removed from the hospital.

Back then, Pittman's only motive had been to get a story for Burt Forsyth, to relieve his obligations to his friend. Obsessed with the need to conunit suicide, Pittman had felt liberated from apprehension as he had crept through the rainy darkness, circling the Scarsdale mansion, finding Millgate surrounded by a nurse, a doctor, and the grand counselors in a makeshift hospital room off a deck above the five-stall garage. The effort had been easy, the sense of danger nonexistent, because Pittman hadn't cared what might happen to him. Prepared to kill himself, he had felt immune to any risks. Not anymore.

At wide intervals, mansions were set back from the road.

White wooden fences enclosed horses. Ahead on the left, Pittman saw a high stone wall. He came to a closed metal gate and stopped within view of a security camera mounted to the left on top of the wall. As instructed, he leaned out his driver's window SO that the camera could have a good look at him.

Immediately the gate whirred open. Pittman drove duough, checking his rearview or, noting that the gate closed behind him while he followed a paved lane through spacious grassland. The lane went over a hill, and on the other side, snuggled into the slope, just below the crest on the right, was a distinctive, sprawling one-story complex that reminded Pittman of homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The main impression was of limestone, terraces, and beams, and the way it conformed to the landscape, aided by plentiful trees and shrubbery, would make it invisible from the golf course below, Pittman guessed.

From the moment that the gate had opened, allowing him onto the estate, Pittman had noted the absence of guards. TO anyone who nught be watching from the road, there was nothing out of the ordinary. To all appearances, pi was an unremarkable visitor who knew Eustace Gable well enough that the gate had been opened without delay. The closer Pittman came to the house, g a downward curve in the lane, proceeding to the right, passing fir trees, the more Pittman was struck by the lack of activity on the property. Given the size of the estate, he would have expected gardeners at least, maintenance personnel, someone to take care of the horses that came into view below him in a paddock next to a long, low stable rinnned by more fir trees and made from limestone, matching the house. But the place seemed deserted. There weren't any cars, which presumably had been placed in a garage on the opposite side of the house.

Perhaps the lack of guards was intended to make him feel unthreatened, Pittman thought. To encourage him not to change his mind. To lure him into a trap. But if the purpose was to lull him, the opposite effect had been achieved. Instead of lowering his defenses, the eerie solitude intensified Pittman's apprehension, sending warning signals throughout his body, compacting his muscles.

He reached a circular driveway in front of the house, stopped the car, and got out, surveying the apparently deserted area. He heard water trickling from somewhere, presumably a fountain. He heard a breeze whispering through the fir uses. A horse whinnied.

A door opened, and Pittman, who had glanced toward the stable on the slope below him, whirled toward the house. An elderly man, narrow-faced, with white hair, spectacles, and wrinkle-pinched features, stepped from a polished wooden doorway onto a stone terrace. Tall and slender, he wore a dark blue three-piece suit that conformed to his rigidly straight posture. Pittman recognized him from photographs and the incident at the Scarsdale estate. Eu stace Gable. "Four P. M. precisely. I admire punctuality." Even at a distance, it was obvious that Gable's chest heaved. "We have much to discuss. Come in, Mr. Pittman."

Pittman took one last look around and, seeing no threat, climbed steps to the terrace. He ft-owned when Gable offered his hand.

"This won't do, Mr. Pittman. Rudeness is a poor way to begin a negotiation."

"I'm not used to civility from people who want to have me killed."

"The formalities matter," Gable said. "Even when negotiating with the most bitter enemy, it is essential to be respectful and courteous. "

"Sure. Right. But it sounds like hypocrisy to me."

Gable coughed, raising a handkerchief to his mouth. The ripple of pain thatcrossed his wrinkled features made Pittman realize how much effort it took for the old man to stand as straight as he did, to maintain the diplomatic bearing that had made him famous in his prime.

Composing himself, Gable again held out his hand. "Ritual controls emotion. It encourages order. "

"Is that what you told yourself when you arranged for Jonathan Millgate to be murdered?"

Gable's expression hardened, his wrinkles becoming like cracks in the deep grain of weathered wood.

"And Burt Forsyth?" Pittman said. "And Father Dandridge? I wouldn't call their murders controlling emotion and encouraging order. "

Gable inhaled with effort. "Order dictates necessity. I'm still waiting."

Pittman finally shook his hand with exaggerated indifference, but the slight gleam in Gable's wizened eyes told Pittman that the old man thought he had won an advantage. Gable gestured for Pittman to enter the house.

Pittman's unease deepened. He almost turned away, wanting to get back to the car, to drive from the estate as fast as he could. But he told himself that if Gable meant to have him killed here, an expert marksman with a sniper's rifle could have done it easily when Pittman was in the open, climbing the steps to the terrace in front of the house. fbe plan, he thought. I have to go through with it. I can't keep running. I've used up nearly all my resources. This. might be the only chance I get.

,you know my temls," Pittman said.

"Ah, but you haven't heard mine." Gable's thin lips formed a grimace that may have been a smile - " After you - "

His veins swelling from increased pressure, Pittman entered the house.

Hearing Gable shut the door behind him, Pittman noted that the inside had walls and beamed ceilings made from various tropical woods of varying colors, mahogany and teak among others. The lighting system was recessed but remarkably bfight- The temperature was unusually warm. Passing a thermostat in a stone-iloored corridor, Pittman saw that it was set at eighty degrees. Even on the coldest winter day, he would have considered that temperature excessive. But given that this was a mild day in late April, Pittman had to conclude that Gable was using the heat to combat his evident illness. Similarly, the bright lights suggested that Gable's vision 'night be fading. TO Pittman's fear and anger, the unexpected emotion Of Pity was added, and Pittman urgently subdued it, knowing that Gable would take every advantage he could. For all Pitunan knew, the bright lights and the excessive temperature were Part of a carefully designed stage setting that would allow Gable to manipulate him.

Proceeding along the hallway, heading left, the direction that Gable indicated, Pittman listened to the old man's labored footsteps. An open door led to a spacious room with a wall length window that provided a view of the ponds and sand traps of the go]f course at the bottom of the slope.

But Pittman's attention was primarily directed toward two men who waited for him. One of them he recognized. A gaunt-cheeked elderly man sitting nervously on a sofa had a neatly trimmed white mustache, wore a dark -piece suit almost identical to Gable's, and was recognizable from photographs, particularly because of a distinctive cleft in his chin that had deepened with age-. the other remaining grand counselor, Winston Sloane. The second man was in his thirties, six feet tall, well built, with strong features emphasized by his short haircut. His gray suit looked less carefully tailored than Gable's and Sloane's. Indeed, the jacket seemed slightly too large and had a bulge on the left side. As Pittman studied the man, who stood in the middle of the room, it occurred to him that he knew this man also, or at least had seen him before. Last night, the man had been with the group who had attacked Mrs. Page's house. Pittman turned to Gable. "I didn't know that we wouldn't be alone."

"It doesn't do to negotiate unless all interested parties are in attendance. May I present my colleague-Winston Sloane." With effort, Sloane tried to stand. "No need," Pittman said. Gable pointed toward the second man. "And this is my assistant, Mr. Webley." Pittman nodded, giving no indication that he recognized the man.

"I'm sure you won't mind if Nft. Webley performs a security check," Gable continued.

For a moment, Pittman wasn't sure what Gable was talking about. "You're saying you want this man to search me?"

"We're here on good faith. There shouldn't be any need weapons. 'Then why is your assistant armed?" Webley's eyes narrowed.

"Because his duties require him to be armed. I do hope this isn't going to be a problem," Gable said.

Pittman raised his arms.

Webley reached for something on a chair behind hiirn and came over with a handheld metal detector, tracing its wand along the contours of Pittmans body.

It beeped when it came to the base of Pittman's spine. Webley groped behind the sport coat and removed Pittman's .45.