Sight Unseen (19 page)

“How’s he doing, nurse? Can we talk to him?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Gray,” Lockwood said. “Feel terrific. Ready for a big breakfast.”

“Will it tire him if we spend a few minutes with him, nurse?” Mr. Gray asked, still ignoring Lockwood.

“Mr. Gray! I said I’m fine! You want to visit, come closer and sit down and visit.”

The nurse looked from Mr. Gray to Lockwood and back, as if she thought the two of them might be nuts, and she walked out without
a word.

Steven walked around the timid Mr. Gray and said, “Say, Bill, you look like you made a miraculous recovery.”

“I’m doing fine, Steven. Get a chair for the chief.”

Gradually Mr. Gray got over most of his timidity, and they chatted for a few minutes. Lockwood realized that he had never
seen Mr. Gray outside the RCA Building. Once, as a joke, he had even called Mr. Gray at 1:00 at night, and Mr. Gray, still
there in that corner office, had answered the phone just as he did at 10:00 on a weekday morning—“Gray here.” One of the other
investigators said he had called Mr. Gray at noon on a Sunday, and he had also answered the same way—“Gray here.”

“Well, it’s good to see you looking okay, Lockwood,” Gray said finally.

“Thank you, sir. I’m flattered that you’ve come to see me.”

Gray ignored this comment, as he did any personal comment from one of his claims investigators. Steven smiled, he knew Lockwood
was baiting their boss.

Gray said, “We thought you’d been shot to death, Lockwood. The company would have lost a valuable employee. The board will
be pleased to hear it was only a surface wound.”

“Flesh wound,” Steven corrected him.

“Flesh wound,” Gray repeated. “Steven here, I want him to drive you back to your place, now that—”

“Except you got another offer, Bill,” Steven said.

“Another offer?” Lockwood asked.

“Yes. Miss Rodman of Moriches called and said you’d need some nursing and volunteered her services and her place, if I would
drive you.”

“Myra! Her place! Say, that would be swell. And you’d drive me, Steven? Do you mind, Mr. Gray?”

Gray looked pained. “Lockwood, the company will make the contribution of his time to drive you to your recovery, but the doctor
says by Monday you could well be recovered enough to do light paper work, and I would like your pledge that you won’t malinger
this into—”

“Sir, when I’m able, you can be sure I’ll be back at work.”

“Yes. That’s what I told Tom Gordon.”

“Mr. Gordon knows I got shot?”

“Oh, yes. He wrote this damn—dumb—policy, and the federal government has been at him about it for days now. He has quite an
interest in making sure that this matter gets resolved.”

For Mr. Gray, his thin smile expressed intense enjoyment.

That afternoon they left the hospital at 2:00. They took Lockwood’s Cord, and the drive out was as gorgeous as that Lockwood
had first made the previous Wednesday when he had started this case. The dogwood had blossomed, and in every town the birds
flew about and chirped joyfully, and Lockwood could hardly believe his luck in heading toward Myra’s for a long weekend of
her caring for him. He got her on the telephone before they left and she told him that she had been able to take the two days
off till the weekend—Greer could handle things at the plant—and they could spend lots of time together.

“We have a lot to talk over,” Lockwood said.

Her answer vibrated warmth and strength. “A lot.”

“I won’t be in your way? I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Just the opposite! What’s a house for—what’s a friend for—if you can’t help out in a spot?”

“It’s peaceful in your cottage. I need the rest.”

“We’ll rest the arm,” she said. “Maybe your other parts—maybe they could use some exercise.”

Lockwood laughed, and he loved the trill of her answering laughter. He had felt so euphoric and light-headed as Steven drove
him out that he realized he hadn’t known what living had been up to meeting her. Not really. God, wouldn’t it be wonderful
to have children? He pictured a stiff-backed son who looked like him and a beguiling daughter who looked like Myra. Would
they have red hair like hers? A deep and new tingling emotion swept from Lockwood’s legs up into his chest. My God, what an
adventure all this could be! Something new, children of his own!

With enormous excitement he arrived at the small cottage. Lockwood had insisted they stop at Jerold’s in Babylon where he
could pick up fancy provisions: smoked turkey, vegetables like jewels they were so plump and ripe, half a dozen aged steaks,
and an entire deep-dish apple pie.

As Steven got the bags from the trunk, Lockwood, favoring his right arm, eased himself out of the car. At the touch of his
unwounded hand, the door of the cottage swung open. It hadn’t been latched. A bit alarmed, Lockwood pushed it all the way
open with his index finger.

“Myra?” he shouted.

Silence. She had probably gone to the store. She would be back in a minute and hadn’t bothered to lock up.

Lockwood stepped in the house and turned toward the living room.

Although he could sense there was no one in the house, it was so still, something made him call again, “Myra!”

Complete stillness. He shivered as he crossed the threshold of the living room.

There lay the naked body of a female on the sofa—half on, half off—her back to him, as if she were hugging the sofa to keep
herself from sliding off onto the floor. Naked. No clothes. Lockwood started and took a half-step back. The woman looked stiff
and odd-postured. Lockwood wanted to move forward, he wanted to run back out to the car and go to another house, but he was
frozen. Red hair.

Red hair that fell below her shoulders.

But it couldn’t be. The world spun.

No one else in the world had red hair like Myra’s.

Was this a game?

Lockwood felt himself reeling. Any minute now Myra was going to jump up and tell him the name of this game, and he would rush
to explain that any second now Steven would burst in with all these bags of groceries and she should put something, his coat,
to cover her—

“Hey, Lockwood, where do you want all thes—”

Lockwood vaguely heard the bags of groceries hit the floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Steven said. “What’s happened here?”

Lockwood couldn’t take his eyes off the neat black hole on her temple just to the base of Myra’s red hair. The neat trickle
of blood that led from it. As if somebody had held her by her long red hair and put the circle of the barrel of the gun next
to her head and pulied the trigger.

“I can’t do it, Hook.”

“Yes, you can!”

“No, I can’t,” Brannigan insisted.

“Well, I can! Just leave me alone with him and this stuff, and I’ll get it out of him.”

“You’re upset.”

“Yeah. You guessed it.”

Brannigan looked around the hospital conference room for help, but the bare white walls gave him none. “He couldn’t have done
it, Hook. He was here and out like a light the whole time it happened.”

“But he knows, Jimbo. He knows. He knows who the hell did it. She was going to build another bombsight.”

“They wouldn’t do something like that—would they?”

“I didn’t think so either. She kept trying to tell me they would.”

Lockwood paced around the conference table, and then back. Brannigan smoked his cigarette and watched the younger man. Lockwood
searched for some way to get Brannigan over to his side. He had never felt so agitated in his life, so full of jerky movements.
He wanted to do something, and that something was to throttle somebody.

“Sit down, Hook.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can’t. Don’t you see what’s going on with yourself?”

“What do you mean? I got to find—”

“Hey. Sit down.”

Lockwood continued to pace about. “See, we’ve run up blind alleys everywhere. These guys are no ordinary thieves, they—”

Brannigan roared. “Sit down, Lockwood! Stop that goddamn pacing!”

Lockwood stopped and looked at him. “Hey, I don’t have to take any guff from you, Brannigan. The woman I wanted to marry is
dead. And why? Because she knew how to design a piece of military hardware? We’re not at war with any of these jerks.”

“When you do sit down, sooner or later, you’re going to have it fall on you, Hook. Grief. You’re going like crazy to keep
away from it. What’s his face—your sidekick Steven—told me about you driving in here with that arm of yours—”

“Forget my arm!”

Brannigan punched out his cigarette. “You want me tc lock you up to stop you?”

“You can’t do that!”

“No, I can’t, but I will.”

They glared at each other. The door opened behind them, and they turned.

“Manners,” Brannigan said.

“Yeah, what happened to Miss Rodman?”

Brannigan threw a thumb at Lockwood. “He found her. They had a thing going. Now he wants to give this new’ drug to Braunschweiger.”

“New drug?”

“Penta-something that the doc says will maybe wake him up and give us a chance to find out who killed the girl and who’s got
this thing you guys are after.”

“New drug, huh?”

“The doctors won’t use it,” Lockwood said. “Their ethics. This guy is the ringleader of a gang that shoots an innocent woman
in cold blood, and they have ethics.”

Manners picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Put me through to the director,” he said, and this was something he had
to say another three times before, from the way he straightened, Lockwood figured he was talking to the director.

By way of making up, Brannigan shoved the package of Camels over the surface of the conference table to Lockwood, who took
one and shook one out for Brannigan. Lockwood lit both. They only heard snatches from Manners, whose back was turned to them.

“Yes, sir. Hummmm, I’d say Governors Island would do fine. No, that’s not New York City jurisdiction. Right, sir. I understand,
sir. Don’t worry about a thing.”

Finally, Manners hung up. He took a cigarette from the pack on the conference table without asking and lit up.

“What are you up to, Manners?” Brannigan asked. The big Irish cop looked wary, as if he knew Manners was about to practice
a bit of sleight of hand on him.

“I want to move my prisoner to Governors Island, Lieutenant.”

Brannigan thought about it. “He’s under New York City arrest. Murder. Weapons charge. Resisting arrest.”

“I can get a federal court order.”

Brannigan looked at him for several seconds, took another drag, and contemplated the smoke as he expelled it.

“You could?”

“I could.”

“It’s that big?”

“It’s that big.”

“And you got doctors out there who’ll give him the drug?”

“They’ll do what they’re told.”

Brannigan shrugged. “I got no love for the man, and I’m told he probably won’t make it. It don’t seem right to me is all.”

“Nobody said it was the right thing to do,” Lockwood said. “I can’t bring her back, but I want the guy who did it.”

“I look at it as saving London and Washington from a possible bombing, and sacrificing the half-gone life of an international
thief,” Manners said. “That trade doesn’t bother me at all. I’ll see you guys.” He turned to go.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Lockwood said. “I’m going with you.”

“’Fraid not, Bill. This is strictly government work now.”

“How about Myra’s death, her murderer? Whose work is that?”

Manners looked from Lockwood to Brannigan and back again. “I suppose Suffolk County’s. Not mine.”

“Well, it’s mine.”

Manners shook his head. “No, Bill.”

“How’d you like a certified check from Transatlantic Underwriters to Northstar? In twelve hours?”

“Certified check? How?”

“If this guy testifies that he took the bombsight, it’s going to go a long way toward establishing that an outside party did
take the bombsight.”

“What will go all the way?”

Lockwood stepped up to Manners. “Letting me ask him a couple questions about who might have been assigned to do her in.”

“Assigned?”

“Sure. They want to make sure that not even a copy of this prototype is rebuilt.”

“Then Greer and his chief engineers could be in the same danger.”

“Yes, of course! Haven’t you seen this?”

“No, why didn’t you tell me?”

Brannigan cut in. “Because he’s been all cut up by Miss Rodman’s death. He’s not thinking straight, Manners.”

Manners looked from one to the other of them. He walked to the phone and dialed and barked into it, “Give me Greg. Greg! Listen
carefully. This Rodman thing—it may be the beginning of a wholesale slaughter of the top engineering brass at Northstar. Put
bodyguards on them and do it right now. Drop everything else but the search for the bombsight, you got that?” He slammed down
the phone.

“Okay, Lockwood. With your certified check you’ve bought yourself a place on the team. Heaven help you if a word of this leaks
to anyone.”

Lockwood grinned. “Let’s go, smart-shot.”

“Strap him, Edwards,” the doctor said.

The resident looked at the doctor in a puzzled way. “But Dr. Sayers, he’s in no condition to move.”

“He will be,” the doctor said. He pulled a little table closer to him on which lay several ampules and half a dozen syringes.
To Guy Manners, Dr. Sayers said, “We’re going to use Acquacordant as well as Pentathon. Not only should he talk—follow suggestions,
really—but it will pump adrenalin out of the adrenal glands.”

“Acquacordant!” the resident said.

“Edwards is bothered because given his condition, this man might not survive.”

“He’s not likely to survive anyway,” Manners said.

The doctor looked amused as he turned over the ampules. “Well, you never know. People have amazing resilience.”

The doctor selected an ampule and began to fill a syringe. He filled nine syringes from four different kinds of ampules. Four
people were present in the operating room, as well as Braunschweiger, who lay under a sheet, his head swathed in bandages
after his fall down the stairs at West End Avenue. Besides Edwards the resident, Dr. Sayers the government doctor, and Guy
Manners, Bill Lockwood stood in the shadows watching the slow rise and fall of the sheet covering Braunschweiger that told
him how close to death the German was. Now he had mixed feelings: he, too, was bothered by giving the Nazi—he presumed the
man, these men, were Nazis—drugs that would likely kill him. But Myra’s death had cut through him like a cleaver, and he would
pay any price with his feelings to put his hands on the man who had done it. Every time he thought of the senseless loss he
wanted to run full tilt through a wall. It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right to live in a world where such joy could be plucked
away from you.