Good King Sauerkraut (19 page)

Full strength. Oh, yes indeedy
. King had never felt stronger in his life.

It took King three tries the following morning to reach his lawyer in Pittsburgh. He told him he wanted to buy Dennis Cox's share of the business, and to start drawing up new partnership papers.

That done, King tried to think what to do next. The unexpected appearance of the police in the airport restaurant the day before had reminded him exactly how seriously the NYPD was taking the supposed threat to his and Mimi's lives. It occurred to him that if he went on acting as if he
knew
he wasn't in danger, they just might change their minds. Things were going too smoothly for him to risk making the police suspicious now.

What would a man do who thought his life was in danger? Never leave the safety of his nest, first of all. But that was only a temporary measure; sooner or later, he'd have to go out. So then what? Hire a bodyguard? Possible, but unpalatable; King just didn't want to put up with the inconvenience. But there had to be something he could do.

His phone conversation with his lawyer in Pittsburgh still lingered in his mind and provided him with the nudge he needed. He'd go see a lawyer. A man who thought he might die suddenly would make a will.

He scouted up a copy of the
NYNEX Yellow Pages
and found nearly fifty pages of lawyers and their advertisements. He looked at the guide of lawyers arranged by practice; under the heading
WILLS TRUST & PROBATE ESTATES
only about twenty entries were listed. Well, then, which one? He ran his finger down the list and one name jumped out at him: Howard J. M. Liebermann. Now who the hell was Howard Liebermann and why should that one name have stood out from the rest? Howard Liebermann, with two middle initials.

Two middle initials
… it came back to him. The kid he'd met during one of his stops on Fifty-seventh Street—Ricky, that was his name. Liebermann was the lawyer handling Ricky's father's estate, and the one Ricky suspected of fooling around with his mom. King felt an urge to take a look at this seducer of grieving widows; he called Howard J. M. Liebermann and made an appointment for late that afternoon.

When the time for his appointment approached, he told Mimi what he was going to do and asked if she had made a will; his earlier reluctance to worry her had abated considerably. Mimi's face changed expression about three times, but she said her affairs were in order.

In the limousine on the way to Liebermann's office, King remembered that Monday was the day he was supposed to go back to the hospital for a check-up. But he couldn't very well go when he didn't know which hospital he'd been in. Of course, one telephone call to Rae Borchard would take care of that. Well, perhaps tomorrow. King kept looking through the rear window of the limo, trying to spot the police car that must be following him. No luck. In the movies, “making” a tail was so easy; in the reality of New York traffic, it was impossible.

The suite of offices occupied by Howard J. M. Liebermann and staff reflected a solid if not glamorous practice. Liebermann himself was a surprise; the great Lothario was short, plump, and balding. He had delicate hands that he used gracefully when he talked, showing off the carefully manicured nails. A bit vain, then. But the overall impression the lawyer created was one of stodginess, and King began to suspect that Ricky had been mistaken.

King didn't have to do much explaining. Liebermann knew who he was; he'd read the
Times
account of the two deaths last Thursday and got straight to the nub of the matter. “You think you are in danger, Mr. Sarcowicz?” he asked.

King frowned. “The police think so. At first I was convinced both deaths were just accidents, but now I'm not so sure. Anyway, I figured it wouldn't hurt …”

“I understand,” the lawyer murmured smoothly. “Everyone should make out a will anyway, whether there's danger or not. Do you have a previous will?”

“No. I can't tell you exactly how much I have to leave, because it changes from week to week. A dollar amount isn't necessary, is it?”

“Not at all. All that's needed is a statement of your intent for the disposition of your property and effects.” Liebermann drew a legal pad toward him and started making notes. “How many heirs will there be?”

“Only two. With the exception of a hundred thousand dollars, I want everything I own to go to Gale Fredericks. That includes my business, my house and its contents, and a few investments my partner made for me. My late partner,” he amended. Reading upside down, he saw that Liebermann had written down
Gail Fredericks
. “That's g-a-l-e,” he told him.

Liebermann raised an eyebrow and made the correction. “Changing times. ‘G-a-l-e' used to be a man's name. Her address?”

King gave him the address of Keystone Robotics. “I'll get her home address to you later.”

“Fine. And the hundred thousand dollars?”

“I want that to go to Mrs. Rowe, r-o-w-e, my next-door neighbor. She'd going to be having medical expenses and a cash gift will help.”

“First name?”

King felt sheepish. He'd lived next door to the old lady for eleven years without ever bothering to learn her first name. “Elvira,” he improvised. “No—wait. She once told me that was her middle name. I'll have to get back to you on that.”

Liebermann asked for her address and wrote it down. “Well, I see no problems. Call me as soon as you have Ms Fredericks's home address and Mrs. Rowe's first name, and I'll have the will ready for your signature an hour later.”

“That's all?”

“That's all. It's a straightforward bequest with no conditions attached. Just don't delay getting the missing information to me.”

King said he wouldn't and thanked the lawyer for his help. He was tempted to ask Liebermann what Ricky's last name was and whether the boy was doing all right or not; but even that tenuous a connection to Fifty-seventh Street was something he'd better avoid. When he left the building he paused a moment, to make sure the police saw him coming out. He still couldn't spot them.

He climbed into the limo. King wanted to buy a billfold, but he didn't want a repetition of yesterday's scene at the airport restaurant. He took a fifty-dollar bill from the envelope of cash Gale had brought and asked the limo driver to go into a store for him. All the time the driver was gone, King kept looking around for Joe College or whoever was on duty today. A
man could get paranoid
.

Back at the apartment, with his new billfold containing cash and nothing else, King indulged in a few moments' silent gloating. Someone from the police department was probably in Liebermann's office right then, finding out what King had been doing there. Or, if they truly were protecting him and not checking up on him, he could mention to one of the investigating detectives that he'd just made out his will and Liebermann would be there to back him up. He was covered either way.

But his visit to the lawyer's office had set him to wondering how old Mrs. Rowe was doing. Would she be back home yet? Probably not. So King called Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh and made his inquiries. He was told that the old lady had suffered a second stroke Friday morning and had died.

Tuesday was Dennis's funeral. King remembered something he ought to do; he called Gale Fredericks and asked her to find a phone number for Dennis's parents. King had never met them, but they'd think it odd if they didn't hear from him at a time like this.

Mr. Cox took the call. King expressed his condolences and told the older man he couldn't come to the funeral because the police wouldn't let him leave New York. Yes, Mr. Cox said, Mrs. Fredericks had already explained his situation.

That was all right, then.

Early in the afternoon Rae Borchard came to the apartment. By then King and Mimi were in a position to tell her some of what they'd be needing from MechoTech and its contractors. The conference table in the office was covered with papers, lists and graphs and schedules as well as a superb collection of creative doodling. King noticed that Mimi kept sneaking sideways glances at Rae when she thought the other woman wasn't looking; then he remembered that Mimi suspected Rae of being out to kill them all. The best antidote to that nonsense was work.

“One thing, Rae,” he said. “I've been studying the specs the earlier design teams worked with, and the weapons systems are different in every case. And in every case the original designs were amended. The last team before us had twenty-seven different weapons modifications they had to accommodate.”

“Yes, alas. Defense is always trying to improve on what they've got,” Rae stated. “Some of those modifications were quite minor. But the weapons manufacturers are still hard at work building the absolutely perfect, no-fault, wearever electromagnetic gun.” Her tone indicated skepticism.

“Meaning they'll be pulling a few switches on us?”

“Meaning exactly that. You're going to have to be flexible.”

“Lovely,” Mimi said sarcastically. “How can I design a program for weapons that keep changing all the time? Rae, we can't really get going on this until we interface with the people at Army Tactical Command and Control Systems. But they're in Washington, and we can't leave New York. You see the problem?”

Rae nodded, unperturbed by this first roadblock. “Let me see what I can do about getting the mountain to come to Muhammad. They ought to be willing to meet with you here, considering the circumstances.”

“And we'll need to see the gun manufacturers as well,” King reminded her.

“Yes. If I can't arrange a conference, I'll have a word with our legal department. I don't think the police can force you to stay in New York. MechoTech can always hire bodyguards to go with you.”

King leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, staring up at a chandelier that bore a suspicious resemblance to the spaceship in
Close Encounters
. “Bodyguards, you say. Rae, we're pretty much stalled until we can talk to those people in Washington. I don't much like the idea of bodyguards, and here at least it's not necessary. The police are keeping an eye on us.”

“Aren't they, though?” Mimi told Rae how they'd been followed to JFK on Sunday.

“It's just as well they are following us,” King pointed out. “Mimi and I are going batty cooped up like this. We've got to get out.”

Rae was adamantly opposed. “No—you mustn't go out. Not yet. Put up with it a while longer. It won't last forever.”

King grinned. “At home sometimes I virtually lived in my lab, trying to meet a deadline or working on some problem I couldn't let go of. Talk about cooped up! And you know something? It didn't bother me a bit. Because there I knew I could walk out any time I wanted to. It makes a difference.”

“I know it's not pleasant. But surely the police are following you from a distance? How much protection can they give you that way? You can't go out yet.”

“King went out yesterday and nothing happened,” Mimi said, a little too casually. “Maybe we're making too much of a fuss.”

Good old Mimi
, King laughed to himself.
Count on her to tattle
. With a show of great reluctance, he allowed Rae to drag it out of him that he'd been to see a lawyer about making his will. That little tidbit cast a satisfying pall on the conversation.

And that was the moment the police chose to arrive.

King let them in. Sergeant Marian Larch and Sergeant Ivan Malecki stood in the entryway, looking grim. “Where's Mimi Hargrove?” Sergeant Larch asked.

“In the office, with Rae Borchard. Why? What's happened?”

“We'll follow you,” Sergeant Malecki said pointedly.

King shrugged and led the way. In the office, Malecki told him to sit down. The two police detectives remained standing.

“What is it?” Rae Borchard asked.

“For the last five days,” Sergeant Larch told them, “we've been questioning the people who worked on this Defense project before you. We've had the police in four states helping us out. I've been to California myself, and my partner spent two days in Texas. And every single person we contacted said the same thing. They said this weapons platform you're working on is a loser, that there's no way to make it work within the specifications the Defense Department is insisting on.”

“Well, of course they'd say that,” King snickered. “They failed, after all. The platform's going to be tricky, no question of that—but it's do-able.”

“Whether the platform can be made to work or not isn't the point. The point is that all four of the earlier design teams
think
it can't work. Don't you understand? They don't
want
a second go at it.”

“And if they don't want another chance,” Sergeant Malecki spelled it out for them, “they have no reason to kill off your design team. Got it?”

“They're lying,” Mimi stated flatly. “Trying to save face.”

“We checked their books,” Sergeant Larch told her. “They all took a bath, without exception. The funding that looked so generous at first wasn't enough to keep up with all the changes the government kept making. So every one of them put their own money into it, gambling on winning huge contracts if they could make the damned thing work. But they couldn't.”

Malecki was reading from a notebook. “They all said Defense kept adding refinements to the weapons that took up space they needed for other things, like wheels and such. A couple of 'em got additional grant money, but it was never enough. A hell of a lot of money's been wasted on this thing.”

His partner nodded. “One of the men I talked to told me his company got so badly stung the first time that now they wouldn't touch the project with a ten-foot Bulgarian. Another company went bankrupt trying to keep up with all the changes and additions. Mrs. Hargrove, Mr. Sarcowicz—none of these people are out to kill you. They don't want anything to do with your electromagnetic gun platform.”