Metzger's Dog (8 page)

12
                  
Porterfield had to sidestep twice to avoid the electricians on ladders installing the security gear in Donahue’s laboratory. Bits of wire and boxes with molded foam padding littered the hallway. When he reached the end of the corridor he saw the one who must be Donahue sitting behind a desk and talking, the telephone cradled on his shoulder. The man held up a finger to Porterfield but didn’t smile.

Porterfield waited in the hallway. He was glad it was Saturday. It would be only Donahue and the technicians, and he was sure he’d seen one of them with Goldschmidt at Langley only a month ago. He watched as the man spliced something into a line that led nowhere near the security equipment, then stuffed it back behind the drilled-out plaster and began to seal the hole.

“Mr. Porterfield?”

He turned and saw Donahue in the doorway. They shook hands and went inside.

“I’m terribly sorry about this,” said Donahue. “There’s been a burglary in the office, and as luck would have it, the damned electricians are just now installing the alarm. I think they’re finished with the noisy part, though, so we may be able to talk.”

“Burglary?” said Porterfield. “Too bad. I hope they didn’t get anything that can’t be replaced.”

“Oh no. Actually, they missed everything you’d have thought would attract them—office equipment, the petty cash. They stole several unpublished manuscripts of mine. Thank God I had them on storage disks for the word processor. I can retrieve them at six hundred words a minute whenever I choose. The problem is—and I know I can trust you to keep this confidential—much of the material had a certain national security interest, so I’m a little concerned about seeing that it’s recovered.”

“I see,” said Porterfield. “I hadn’t realized you were much involved with the Defense Department.”

Donahue shrugged and smiled but said nothing. Porterfield had checked the history of the payments to Donahue, and all of them had been made through the National Research Foundation. Porterfield said, “I see. Perhaps I’m wasting your time. Mr. Morrison had mentioned to me that you were doing some research that was of interest to the Seyell Foundation and that the funding for it was becoming difficult. If—”

Donahue held up his hand. “Don’t misunderstand me. At the moment I’m preparing some proposals with the Seyell Foundation in mind.”

Porterfield stood up and smiled. “Very good. Just send them along when they’re ready and I promise they’ll get plenty of attention. They’ll be high on our agenda for next year, which would mean that the actual funding could come through the year after that. It’s been a pleasure.” He turned to go.

“Two years?”

Porterfield stopped. “Well, not two years, Professor Donahue. More like a year and a half.”

“But even the government is faster than that.”

“The deadline for this year’s screening committee is already past, and while I could return to Washington tomorrow with something to slip into the mass of material they have to deal with, after that it would be impossible. Meddling with deadlines would jeopardize our tax-exempt status.”

“I can show you some things that would change your mind,” said Donahue. “Things I was working on for the National Research Foundation.” His desperation seemed to be swallowed for a moment by some other emotion that wasn’t immediately identifiable. “It’s going to knock them on their asses.” Then he added, “If there’s anyone there qualified to read it.”

Of course the little bastard would be this way—bitter, waiting for the chance to revel in some personal triumph over people who certainly never thought about him, probably never even heard of him; but that too would be part of it. These people spent their lives telling themselves they had international reputations because they were quoted in a journal with two hundred subscribers. He’d forgotten about that part of it. “Of course, for a distinguished scientist like you we might be able to deal with a body of work, at least until a specific contract could be constructed.”

Donahue beamed. “When does your plane leave?”

“Late this evening—ten forty-five.”

“I can have the manuscripts out of the machine by six.” He reached in his desk drawer and began fumbling with a row of word processor disks in gray envelopes.

Porterfield moved to the door. “Eight will be fine.”

He passed along the corridor to the end of the suite of offices. The electricians seemed to have gone, although there still was a toolbox on the floor near the door. When he turned the corner, Goldschmidt’s man was waiting for him. Porterfield said quietly, “It’s all on word processor disks in his office. We’ll need his access code.”

“Do you need to talk to him some more?”

Porterfield glanced at Goldschmidt’s man as he walked. He was definitely one of the ones Goldschmidt had trained to be what he called professional. He always found them in their early twenties, intelligent and athletic like this one, and somehow induced in them that strange, attentive look. This one had to be thirty or more, which made him something of a veteran. Porterfield thought about Donahue for a moment, then shrugged. “No. He’s nothing.”

C
HINESE
G
ORDON LIFTED
the telephone receiver.

“Mr. Gordon.”

“Hi there, Jorge. You certainly took a long time making up your mind.”

“I had arrangements to make, people to talk to. You know how it is, I’m sure. I’d like to make you an offer.”

“Okay.”

“Seven-fifty.”

“Fine.”

“What?”

“I said yes, I’ll take it. I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t want to be a pig about it. I’ll call you at ten. But Jorge?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t be too ambitious. It hasn’t been anywhere you could find it for sometime, so all you would do before ten is get somebody killed. Just be ready with the cash. You can bring as many people as you can fit in one car, all heavily armed if that seems good to you, but remember it’s going to be a public place.”

“Of course. It would be.”

Chinese Gordon hung up and dialed Kepler’s number. “Time to go.”

Chinese Gordon walked across the shop to the door. Doctor Henry Metzger was curled in a furry ball on the metal welding table, but stretched himself and lashed his tail from side to side. “See you later, baboon ass,” said Chinese Gordon. Beneath the table Doctor Henry Metzger’s dog stirred. The large, alert, pitiless eyes opened, and the upper lip curled to bare the jagged array of teeth. “You too, you mental case.” The dog’s horrible maw widened into a yawn, and then the broad, untroubled face settled into sleep.

Chinese Gordon made his way down the alley to the back door of the grocery store. There was no sign that anyone was watching. He supposed a man like Grijalvas could probably connect an unlisted telephone number with an address easily enough, but this was about the time he had walked to the grocery store every day since the arrival of Doctor Henry Metzger’s dog. He walked through the shop to the counter, bought a pack of cigarettes, and went out the front door to the street.

At the curb he got into Margaret’s car and drove off. Since it was a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, he decided that he favored “Bringing in the Sheaves.” As he coaxed the bright yellow Volkswagen to sixty and eased into the center lane, his voice reached maximum volume, but he had already sung the only verse he knew. Undaunted, he amused himself by inventing obscene lyrics until he reached the Hawthorne Boulevard exit ramp.

Chinese Gordon drove on in silence until he reached the beach, then parked and waited for a half hour, watching to be sure no one had followed. Then he drove onto the vast parking lot set in the sandy hillside above the ocean and got out of the car, leaving the keys under the seat.

By the time he reached the entrance gate there were three buses in the loop spewing their hordes of passengers onto the walkways. In the distance he could see families beginning the long trek across the parking lot, the tall pairs of parents moving with straight, unswerving purpose toward the entrance, while smaller shapes scampered and cavorted about them in a reckless, random expenditure of energy. Chinese Gordon sighed. Judging from the size, they’d all be named Joshua or Laura and their mothers would be Kathys or Karens.

Inside the park he made the first telephone call. “Be at the phone booth at the Griffith Park Observatory at eleven.”

“Shit,
amigo
. Are you going to do that to me? It’s embarrassing.”

“I can’t help it. I need the insurance.”

“I understand.”

By eleven he’d seen the others. Immelmann was at the head of a line of people and was buying a long string of tickets to the Skyride, a shaft that rose over two hundred feet in the air and served as the track for a glass elevator. He looked excited and happy as he folded the string of tickets, hung his binoculars over his neck, picked up his knapsack, and wandered off. Chinese Gordon tried to convince himself that Immelmann’s expression was different from that of the ten-year-old boy who came to the window next, but he was distracted when he heard Margaret’s voice beside him. “I suppose you wrecked my car.”

“No. Everything’s fine. See you at noon.”

The telephone rang only once at the Griffith Park Observatory. Chinese Gordon said, “The telephone booth outside the Museum of Science and Industry in Exposition Park in half an hour,” and hung up.

A few seconds later the telephone in Chinese Gordon’s booth rang and Kepler’s voice said, “He still hasn’t called anyone else. He’s got three with him, no second car. Got to go.”

Chinese Gordon bought a hot dog and stared out at the ocean. A squadron of brown pelicans skimmed the calm, shining surface a few hundred yards offshore, pumping their wings several times in unison and then gliding in single file and finally soaring upward to bank and plummet into the water. He shared the hot dog bun with an inquisitive sea gull and then went off to make the final telephone call. “Ocean Land,” he said.

“I’m getting tired,
amigo
. This is the third park.”

“You’ll love it,” said Chinese Gordon. “You’ll be in time for the twelve-o’clock dolphin show.”

At twelve o’clock Chinese Gordon was eating popcorn and sitting in the last row of the gallery surrounding the dolphin pool. Below him two young men who looked like lifeguards were taking turns talking in abnormally cheery voices into a public-address system that made their p’s and b’s explode in the ear: “…we want to remind you ladies and gentlemen that everything the animals do here at Ocean Land is absolutely natural. It’s not a trained animal act, it’s an exhibition of several of their natural behaviors. And now let me introduce two of the members of our cast, two Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Perky…and…Jerky!” Chinese Gordon watched as two dolphins approached the trainer by balancing on their tails in the water, churning their flukes furiously to remain erect. Strapped to their heads were two oversized plastic hats, one a top hat and the other a fireman’s helmet.

Chinese Gordon turned away to scan the crowd. Lined up at the railing were Jorge Grijalvas and three other men, all wearing suits. “Jerky!” shouted the trainer in exaggerated frustration. “Why can’t you be more like Perky?” Chinese Gordon watched as one of the dolphins did a one-and-a-half flip through a hoop and the other spit water at the trainer.

Then Immelmann sat down beside him. “It looks clean. All four together in plain sight, one car. They haven’t been near a phone, according to Kepler.”

Chinese Gordon glanced up at the rail and saw Kepler standing behind Grijalvas and his men. Chinese Gordon followed Immelmann up the concrete steps, past Grijalvas and across the plaza beside a pool where the fat, leathery shape of a walrus rolled off a ledge into the water.

They entered a building marked “Aquarium,” and walked along a dark corridor lined with windows opening into luminous blue. Now and then a large fish would glide past, a big unblinking eye would scan across them without surprise, and then there would be a flurry of smaller fish, fluttering like bright birds to scatter ahead into other windows before the cruising monster. The corridor curved and rose, a spiral ramp circling the tank. At some of the windows parents held small children up to peer into the lighted water, the children’s faces glowing blue in the dim hallway.

At the top of the ramp there were three doors along the wall. Chinese Gordon and Kepler entered the door marked “Men” and waited.

When Grijalvas and his companions came in, Kepler stood at the door. “I’ll watch for interruptions.”

Chinese Gordon was settled on a toilet. “Hi, Jorge. Sorry about all this.”

“Let’s get it over,” said Grijalvas. “Let’s see the cocaine.”

Chinese Gordon lifted his shirt and showed an array of plastic bags taped to his body. “Your turn.”

One of Grijalvas’s men reached into his coat, but Kepler was on him, the barrel of his pistol jammed against the man’s throat. Kepler pulled open the coat to reveal a shoulder holster. Chinese Gordon said, “Now dig deeper. There better be money somewhere near that gun.”

“There is,” said Grijalvas.

Chinese Gordon waited while Kepler extracted an envelope, examined it, found another and another. “All right,” he said. “Unload.”

Each of the four men pulled six envelopes from various pockets and tossed them on the floor. Chinese Gordon examined each carefully and put it into the knapsack at his feet. Finally he stripped off the bags of cocaine and stood up to stretch while Grijalvas and his men loaded their pockets.

Kepler snatched up the knapsack and tossed it onto the floor outside. He watched as the door of the Ladies’ room opened and Margaret walked out, picked up the knapsack, and disappeared down the dark corridor.

“Now what?” asked Grijalvas.

“Now we have a nice afternoon,” said Chinese Gordon. “You saw the dolphins, Perky and Jerky. Now we’re going to see one more show and then go our separate ways.” He glanced at his watch. “Come on.”

They filed through the doorway to the upper deck, where there was another gallery surrounding another large pool. Another pair of young men were standing at the edge of the pool, and one was saying, “We’d like to remind you that this is not a trained-animal act, but a display of certain natural behaviors of these magnificent creatures of the sea, the killer whales.” A gigantic black and white snout emerged from the water, and the glistening black body rolled after it. A fin that appeared to be the size of a car hood slapped the surface and drenched the front row of the audience, who gasped and giggled, but Chinese Gordon wasn’t watching. He was staring past Jo-Jo, the Madcap Joker of the Sea, and into the distant parking lot. In the far corner, a tiny bright yellow Volkswagen was moving past the exit gate onto the coast highway.