My Gal Sunday (14 page)

“And so,” Rather went on, “the drama continues to unfold. Through the courtesy of a viewer, we have been fortunate to receive home-movie footage of Congresswoman Britland as she appeared in her fourth-grade dance recital. We are pleased to share that with you now.”

Oh my God, Sunday thought as she viewed herself prancing about on a stage, wearing a green tutu and carrying a sparkling wand. They’ve got to be kidding.

Her head had still been covered when Klint brought her here, but they appeared to be in yet another cellar, although, if possible, this one seemed even more seedy. Klint had brought his television set with him and had plugged it into the same outlet the dim bulb was hanging from.

The metal chair she was tied to had sharp, rusty edges, but she was beyond caring. The only thing that mattered was that Henry had picked up her message. She was positive that had not been Henry in coveralls and flight jacket. It probably was the agent who sometimes used to stand in for him when they wanted people to think they had seen the president board a helicopter headed to Camp David.

She also recognized the talk about brunch as being a stall tactic. But did Wexler Klint suspect anything? Cautiously she glanced to the side of the room where he sat sprawled on a moldy mattress, the monk’s robe beside him. He had changed into a wet suit, and kept impatiently plucking at the tight-fitting material.

Sunday fought back the sense of rising panic. If Henry followed my clues and went to my old files, Sneakers’s name would have popped up, she thought as she struggled to reassure herself. I’m certain he’s looking for me right now. Otherwise he would be on that plane.

Some fifty miles away, Henry’s private helicopter was circling over Long Branch, New Jersey. Dozens of agents were swarming over every inch of oceanfront property. Others were ringing doorbells and searching every house that appeared to be empty.

“Sir, if she’s here, we’ll find her,” Marvin Klein said for the fifth time in less than half an hour.

“But if there was any semblance of reality in what that poor old woman said, then why can’t we find any record of them living here? There’s no record of a deed registered to Klint in or even near Long Branch,” Henry said, the frustration showing in his voice. “The whole thing could have been just a figment of her imagination.”

Time is running out. Time is running out,
he said over and over in his mind. There isn’t a shred of evidence to indicate that this is anything other than a wild-goose chase. Klint could have her on a beach as far away as North Carolina by now. They might not have even owned a house here; they might have just rented. Or they might have used a different name. We just don’t have time to follow up on all the possibilities.

“Get me Trenton State Prison on the phone,” he said to Klein. “I want to speak to Sneakers again.”

As time passed with absolutely nothing happening, newscasters were reduced to repeating the known bits of the crisis over and over again. The camera remained focused on the SST sitting on the distant runway.

“Now that it’s almost noon, the brunch must be nearly over,” Tom Brokaw informed his viewers. “We should see the chef emerging from the plane any time now.” What he didn’t say was that he, along with many other experienced newsmen, had begun to suspect that this was merely a delaying action.

“If that plane doesn’t take off by 12:30, you won’t be around to wave bye-bye to your husband,” Wexler Klint said angrily. “I’m tired of this. I’m starting to think that they’re playing with me.” He stood up and walked to the cellar door and looked outside. “Getting cloudy again. Real windy, too. That’s all to the good. No one’ll be out on the beach today.”

He left the room and returned with an old-fashioned alarm clock. He wound the noisy mechanism and set the hands to the proper time. Then he set the alarm. Placing the clock on the floor in front of her chair, he looked at Sunday and smiled. “At 12:30 you and I take our swim.”

Claudus Jovunet finished the last of the caviar he had brought with him to the plane. There was, of course, no actual chef on board the SST, just the former president’s stand-in and a bunch of federal agents, including the one who had impersonated the chef for the benefit of the media. Nonetheless, he had enjoyed the repast he had been able to scrape together from yesterday’s leftovers. “My, my, my, how I do miss the good life,” he said with a sigh. He looked with longing around the comfortably appointed plane cabin. Then his gaze turned to the Vuitton luggage, which held his beloved new wardrobe. Since it was part Of the whole ruse, the agents had acceded to his request that it be allowed to accompany him on board.

“Do you suppose that when they return me to Marion, in gratitude for the cooperation I have given them, they might allow me to keep the Belois ties?” he asked Henry’s stand-in.

“Mr. President, if I could help you, I would,” Sneakers Klint said plaintively. “I mean, these guards here ain’t always the easiest people to get along with, if you get my drift.” He paused. “Look, here’s all I know. Mama had Wex when she was forty-three, me when she was forty-five. Our dad? Who knows? I never knew him, and Mama never talked about him. Ran out sometime right after I came along, I guess.”

“I’m aware of your family history,” Henry said, anxious to learn something, anything new.

“But I wanna reiterate again — ’cause it wasn’t Mama’s fault. Wex and I both kinda got in with a bad crowd, but Mama tried. She made us go to school, and for a while Wex even hung around with some college types. We was both smart, and I mean
smart.
But hey, what can you do? Right?”

“Look, did your mother ever own a house in Long Branch, New Jersey?” Henry snapped. “That’s all I want to know.”

“Listen, Mama’s pushing ninety. Give her a break. She didn’t know if I was going to prison or off on a Carnival Cruise. She’s out of it. So’s my brother, of course, only he can’t blame it on old age. He’s just plain nuts.”

“Stop it,” Henry said, nearly shouting now. “I don’t care! All I want to know is if your brother might have had a place in Long Beach.”

“You said Long Branch before. Which did you mean?” Sneakers said. “As a matter of fact, we did used to go to Long Beach Island. Wex and Mama liked it there. I’ve been thinking. He always was saying that someday people were going to know who he was. Always had harebrained schemes for doing something that he said would make him go down in history. He once got into trouble because he threatened to kidnap the mayor of Hackensack . . . His name was — get this — Obie Good. Short for Obious Good. What a moniker, right? Wex always used that dopey name as a sue-de-nim. O-period B-period Good.”

Henry had stopped listening.
Long Beach Island.
I wonder if Mrs. Klint could have made the same slip? At least she has a good excuse, he thought.

Long Beach Island was only fifty miles or so south of Long Branch, but it might as well have been a thousand given how little time they had left.

He scrawled a note to Marvin Klein. It ready simply, “Long Beach Island. Check listing for O. B. Good.”

Ten seconds later the entire fleet of helicopters had turned south, rushing to cover the distance between Long Branch and Long Beach Island, New Jersey. It was 12:28
P.M.

Dan Rather was on camera this time, with the shot of the SST appearing on a screen behind him. Clearly it still sat on the runway, and there seemed to be no activity anywhere around it. He shuffled a few papers he had in front of him, then looked to his right as if to check for instructions. Turning back to the camera, he said, “Well, our latest information is that the flight plan has been filed, but that an unexpected glitch in the engines has delayed the departure of the aircraft. President Desmond Ogilvey is about to make a personal appeal to the abductors of Congresswoman Britland requesting that they be patient and give the ground crew time to take care of this mechanical problem.”

The television was now the only light in the dank basement room at the New Jersey shore. The sound of President Ogilvey’s voice made a hollow sound as it bounced off the walls of the room. There was no one there to hear him.

 *  *  * 

T. S. Eliot wrote that the world doesn’t end with a bang but with a whimper, Sunday thought as she was shoved and prodded across the beach to the ominously gray Atlantic Ocean, but I’m damned if I’m going to whimper now! Her arms were tied in front of her, and while her feet were still tied together, there was enough slack in the rope to allow her to hobble through the sand. Propelling her was Wexler Klint, now fully encased in his wet suit, complete with diving mask and air tank. He had his arm around her and was rushing her toward the water’s edge.

It’s got to be freezing in there, Sunday thought. Even if I had a chance, I wouldn’t have a chance. I’ll end up with hypothermia. Or do I mean hydrothermia? Oh, Henry, I thought I’d do something with my life. I thought I’d do good things for deserving people and then come home to you. It would have been so wonderful, and I am so sorry to miss it.

They had reached the water’s edge, and she felt the icy surf hitting her feet.

Oh God, it’s so cold, she thought, her alarm growing.

A wave splashed around her knees.

From the time I was a little kid, I always loved the ocean, she remembered, thinking for a moment of herself as a little girl at the Jersey shore, always heading toward the water. Mom used to say she needed eyes in the back of her head to keep track of me on the beach, she thought. I could sure use those eyes on me now. Good-bye Mom; bye, Dad.

She was up to her waist in the swirling water; the undertow was starting to drag at her feet. “Henry, I love you,” she said to herself.

His eyes distant and mechanically cold, Klint continued to force Sunday out farther and farther from the shore. The fight seal of the wet suit and the roar of the water kept him from hearing the faint drone that approached from the northern end of the beach, growing louder by the second.

It was Wexler Klint’s plan to drag Sunday into deep water, drown her far from shore, then float her body far enough out to be caught in the fast-moving current. It might wash up somewhere in a few days, or a month, but what difference would it make? She would be dead, and that was all that mattered. He didn’t even care if he got caught eventually. He would make his mark. He would have his place in the history books.

“Sir, to the left! Look!”

Henry rushed to the other side of the helicopter. Through his binoculars he could see a figure out in the water, at least twenty yards from shore. He adjusted the focus, trying to get a clearer view. The figure appeared to be holding something down. He couldn’t make out what was happening, if maybe this might just be a lone fisherman intent on getting his catch at any cost. Time was too precious to waste it on the wrong thing.

They were getting closer. He adjusted the focus once more; then he finally saw it: blond hair, floating on the churning surface of the water! Sunday, he thought.
That has to be Sunday!
“Dive!” he shouted.

The helicopter began its rushing descent.

Tightly held by Klint, Sunday was struggling, but she could not keep her head above the water.
Good-bye, Henry,
she thought.

It was then Klint heard the roar of the approaching helicopters, looked up, and realized what was happening. Frantically he wrapped his arms around Sunday’s neck and pulled her under the water. He still had time to finish her. Even though he’d be caught, he’d have his place in the history books. He’d show those jerks. How much he hated them.

Those jerks in Washington.

It was Wexler Klint’s last thought before he woke up some minutes later, firmly in custody.

Henry’s cannonball plunge into the ocean allowed him to spring immediately back to the surface. He grabbed Sunday in one arm. With the other, he ripped Klint’s face mask off and squeezed his neck in a paralyzing pinch. I hope he drowns, Henry thought. Helicopters deposited a fleet of agents into the water around them.

“My love, my love,” Henry said over and over to Sunday as he swam through the breakers, towing her beside him.

“Henry, darling,” a shivering Sunday whispered back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t dare kiss me until I have a chance to brush my teeth.”

In his entire life, Henry Parker Britland IV had hardly ever told anyone to shut up, but he came perilously close at that moment. He was also perilously close to tears as he reached the beach and rolled onto the sand, holding his beloved Sunday cradled in his arms. Ignoring her request, he kissed her lips and whispered, “Do be quiet, darling.”

He was rewarded by a faint giggle, emerging through chattering teeth.

He looked into her eyes. Hysterical, he thought. “Let it out,” he said soothingly. “You’ve had a terrible time.” Then added incredulously, “By God, you’re
laughing!
”

“Oh, it’s not at you, darling,” she said, burrowing her face against his neck as a wave washed over them. “I was just thinking that this is a crazy time of year for us to be playing Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr.”

“What are you talking about?” Henry asked, bewildered.

“From Here to Eternity.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES.
November 8

Former President Henry Parker Britland IV has purchased the yacht
Columbia,
reclaiming ownership for his family. Built for the Britland family and launched in 1940, the
Columbia
was sold in 1964 to the late Hodgins Weatherby. Just prior to that sale, the vessel had been the scene of the mysterious and still-unsolved disappearance of Costa Barria’s Prime Minister Garcia del Rio.

In the three decades after it passed out of Britland hands, the yacht acquired the reputation of being haunted, due in part to the disappearance of Mr. del Rio and in part to the rather eccentric and at times controversial behavior of her most recent owner.

Larger and reportedly far more luxurious than the onetime official presidential yacht
Sequoia,
the
Columbia
has been a favorite retreat for presidents from FDR to Gerald Ford.

In the Edwardian Room of Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, Congor Reuthers, a thin, muscular man in his fifties, tremblingly followed orders to read the newspaper item aloud and then looked up in fear at his employer.

They were seated at a window table that looked out on Central Park, and the horse-drawn carriages across the way were sending faint clip-clopping sounds into the quietly elegant room. As he waited for a response, Reuthers had an instant flashback to his first fox hunt. As a young lad, he’d wondered how the fox felt when trapped. Now he knew.

The reaction that unfolded was exactly what he had expected: His employer’s coffee cup was slowly returned to the saucer.

Even the china-blue contact lenses could not conceal the searing fury in her frosty black eyes. As usual, Angelica was traveling incognito. Presently she was in her Lady Roth-Jones disguise, wearing the blue lenses, a severe dark blond wig, a tweed suit, and oxfords.

When she continued to stare at him, Reuthers dropped his eyes. “ I’m sorry,” he mumbled, then wished he’d bitten his tongue.

“You’re sorry.” The tone was level. “I would have hoped for a more appropriate response. Where was Carlos?”

“He was there, as ordered.”

“Then why didn’t he bid for the yacht? No, not
bid;
why didn’t he
buy
the yacht?”

“He was afraid that one of the Secret Service men might recognize him. No one knew that Britland was planning to be there. We had not anticipated the competition. Carlos rushed out to send for Roberto to do the bidding. By the time Roberto could get through security, President Britland had tripled the opening bid. An instant later the yacht was his. The proceeds were going to charity, you see . . .”

His employer stared at him in silence for several moments, then asked, “What are Britland’s plans for the yacht?”

This time Reuthers would have preferred to swallow his tongue rather than answer. “He is said to be sailing on it immediately to his private marina in Boca Raton, Florida. He has an architectural degree, as you know, and it is said that he plans to redesign the interior himself, then present the yacht to the government so that once again it will become a retreat for visiting heads of state. With the gift, there apparently will be a sizable endowment for maintenance.”

“We know what
that
means.”

Reuthers nodded dumbly.

“Neither Carlos nor Roberto is useful to me any longer.” Fingers that previously had held the delicate china coffee cup were suddenly convulsive as they gripped the edge of the table.

“Surely . . .” Reuthers closed his lips to stifle the protest.

“Surely?” A venomous whisper mocked him. “Be careful you don’t join your friends. What use are you to me?
You
should have known that Britland was planning to bid on the
Columbia.
” The hard eyes glared at Reuthers with heart-stopping coldness. “Get out of my sight!”

“Henry, darling, I still can’t believe it,” Sunday sighed as she pressed against the railing of the
Columbia,
straining to catch the first glimpse of Belle Maris, the Britlands’ oceanfront Florida estate. Craning her neck, she brushed breeze-blown, wheat-colored hair from blocking the view of sparkling blue eyes.

“My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heaven’s last, best gift, my ever new delight!”
Henry Parker Britland IV mused as he looked up from the lounge chair on which he was stretched out, studying the blueprints of the
Columbia.
Since Sunday’s recent abduction, these tender words of Milton had come frequently to mind.

“Why don’t you believe it?” he asked affectionately.

“Because when I was nine, I read a book about the
Columbia
and tried to imagine what it must have been like when President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sailed down the Potomac on her. Can you imagine the conversations they had? And President Truman used to play the piano for his guests when he and Bess had a party here. And the Kennedys and the Johnsons loved this boat, and did you know that President Ford used to practice his golf swing on the foredeck?”

“He hit the captain, once,” Henry observed dryly. “In fact, the joke was that the staff received combat pay when President Ford got out his golf clubs.”

Sunday smiled. “I should have realized you are aware of everything about the
Columbia.
You practically grew up on her.” Her expression became serious. “And I
do
know that you’ve never forgotten the night Prime Minister del Rio vanished. And I can understand that. We’re still living with the ramifications of his disappearance.”

“I was twelve,” Henry said somberly. “And the last person to speak to him before he went out on deck for a smoke. The most charming man I’ve ever known. He had asked me to walk with him.”

Sunday could see that her husband’s eyes grew clouded and sad. She walked over to the lounge chair and perched on the side.

Henry moved his legs to give her more room and reached for her hand. “Since I was the sole member of this generation of Britlands, my father included me on every possible occasion. Good heavens, I even flew with him to visit the shah, during the heyday of the monarchy in Iran.”

Sunday never tired of hearing Henry’s stories about his adventures as a child and young man. It was so totally different from her own experience of growing up in Jersey City as the child of a motorman on the New Jersey Central.

Now, keen as she was to find out what had happened when Henry visited the shah, Sunday was more interested to learn what had happened on the
Columbia
that night. “I didn’t know you were the last one to actually speak to Prime Minister del Rio,” she said quietly.

“The dinner had been very pleasant,” Henry said. “The prime minister had announced Father’s plan to send his engineering company to build a series of bridges and tunnels and roads in Costa Barria, half of the cost to be his personal gift to the country. It would have drastically improved the economy. Everyone in that room realized that the economic boom would mean del Rio would be able to hold onto power absolutely and thus keep Costa Barria from sliding back into a dictatorship.”

“Del Rio and his associates must have been extremely happy,” Sunday said. “Do you believe it’s possible that he committed suicide?” Noting the frown that suddenly clouded her husband’s forehead, she added, “Henry, darling, I think I know how painful it is for you to talk about this. So feel free to tell me to take a hike.”

Henry raised his eyes. “Sweetheart, if you took a hike, you’d have a pretty good swim to shore. And even though you haven’t mentioned it —
yet
— I do know that you haven’t decided on your vote on the bill before Congress that would resume aid to Costa Barria.”

Defensively, Sunday said, “I know you believe it would be better to continue to keep the squeeze on, but it is hard to ignore an island with eight million inhabitants, many of whom live in poverty and who desperately need our help.”

“Bobby Kennedy gave a version of that argument concerning the opening of China.”

“In 1968, wasn’t it?” Sunday asked.

“June of 1968, to be exact,” Henry replied. “As to the prime minister, he was a great friend of my father and had visited with us regularly. I’m proud to say that he had taken a liking to me, and since I had made it my business to learn everything I could about his country, including the political situation as well as the economics, he enjoyed quizzing me. On that last day, he and I had been swimming together in the outdoor pool. It was a beautiful afternoon, but he seemed melancholy. And then he said something very odd. Quite somberly, he told me that for some reason Caesar’s final words had been haunting him.”

“
‘Et tu, Brute?’
Why on earth would he say that?”

“I don’t know. He lived with the possibility of assassination, of course. It was a constant. But on the
Columbia
he’d always felt secure. However, I
do
know that he was subject to spells of depression, and from what I understand now, that constant apprehension may have gotten to him that evening.”

“That’s possible,” Sunday agreed.

“As I mentioned, the dinner was quite enjoyable and ended at quarter past ten. Madame del Rio retired immediately, but the prime minister stayed behind to exchange pleasantries. Then, as I was leaving the dining room, he appeared at my side and invited me to stroll around the deck. I replied that my mother expected me to phone her at ten-thirty. Mother was entertaining her old friend Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who was visiting New York that week. Then, looking at his face, I realized that beneath the genial manner, del Rio was deeply troubled. I quickly told him that Mother would be honored for me to accept his invitation and accompany him.”

“Then you can’t blame yourself,” Sunday insisted.

Henry stared past her into the sea. “I remember that he patted my shoulder and said that I must not disappoint my mother, that perhaps I had made the best choice for both of us. He said that he needed to be alone, that there was something quite urgent he had to think through. Then he embraced me and in the same gesture surreptitiously took an envelope from his pocket and slipped it into mine. In a whisper he told me to hold it for him until he asked for it.

“And so,” he continued, “I went down to my stateroom and called Mother to tell her about the evening, and then was awakened in the morning to the frantic screeching of Madame del Rio. And I knew that whatever had happened, I might have been able to prevent.”

“Or you might have shared del Rio’s fate, trying to save him,” Sunday said briskly. “It would be just like you to dive in after him. Do you think a twelve-year-old boy, even you, could have changed what happened? You’re being too hard on yourself.”

Henry shook his head. “I suppose you’re fight. It’s just that I keep going over and over that evening, knowing that I might have observed something untoward and not understood it at the time.”

“Oh, come on, Henry,” Sunday protested. “You sound like some of the people I represented as a public defender: ‘The guy who shot my wife went thataway.’”

“No,” Henry contradicted. “What you don’t understand, darling, is that my father had told me to write down my every impression of that eyening, as I had of all the other significant events at which I’d been present. My journal was a loose-leaf binder, so that in the future, I could group that chapter with others in a similar vein. Which of course is what I’m doing now that I’m writing my memoirs.”

“
My
diary was in a spiral notebook,” Sunday told him.

“I would very much enjoy reading it.”

“Not on your life. But anyhow, what are you telling me?”

“After I spoke with Mother — even though I was extremely tired — I forced myself to make a detailed entry. I left the journal on my desk with the prime minister’s envelope on top of it. During the night, those pages as well as the envelope disappeared while I slept.”

Sunday looked at him, astonished.

“You mean some unknown person got into your room while you were sleeping and stole the envelope as well as your impressions of the evening?”

“Yes.”

“Then, Henry dear, two words come to mind,
Foul Play.
”

 * * * 

“They’re here, Sims,” Marvin Klein called as he stood at the front windows of the salon in Belle Maris and watched the sleek yacht drop anchor.

Sims moved at a stately pace across the room where he’d been rearranging the flowers on the coffee table. “So they are,” he said warmly. “And I am happy to say everything is quite in order to receive them. My, the
Columbia
is a beautiful vessel, is she not? I sailed on her several times, you know.” He sighed. “Until that last dreadful event.”