The Hour of the Cat (50 page)

Roberta drove west as far as Eighth Avenue, where Dunne told her to make another right. Back against the door, arm resting on the back of the front seat, he watched behind. They were quickly mired in a noontime traffic jam.

“At this rate, we should be in Yaphank by sometime next Saturday. Mind telling me why we're headed there?”

“It'll take a while.”

“We're not exactly in a rush.” Roberta nodded at the standstill in front of them.

Dunne told her for the first time about his visit to the Hermes Sanatorium, the fire that followed, and the supposed death of Sparks. In imminent danger of being implicated in the murder of Miss Lynch, Sparks and his henchman Huber had torched the place and staged their deaths. Huber, he speculated, had come looking for him and, finding Lina in his apartment, killed her instead, in the same way he'd killed Lynch. Huber was the reason they were headed to Yaphank.

“It all sounds so weird.”

“Ah, Miss Dee,” Anderson said, “you've gone to the root of the dilemma. The Saxon word for fate was
wyrd
, from which our word ‘weird' is taken. Certainly, in the modern sense, there is a weirdness to the detached homicidal objectivity of a man like Sparks, more so than the traditional savagery of a thug like Huber. But when such weirdness is institutionalized, when it's accepted as truth by supposedly reputable scientists and medical men, when it's advocated as a political program and turned into a policy of state, such a concept approaches the meaning of
wyrd
in the ancient sense: a destiny we cannot avoid, a fate we won't or can't resist.”

Roberta looked again in the rearview mirror. Anderson's grin made her unsure if he was joking or not. The traffic gradually thinned as they went north. They turned east on 125th Street and drove past the Apollo Theater, where a line of well-dressed Negroes waited to be admitted to a matinee. Once on the other side of the Triborough Bridge, they exited onto Astoria Avenue, in Queens, and followed it to Northern Boulevard.

It was almost two-thirty by the time they reached the uncluttered, open lanes of the Northern State Parkway. Roberta turned on the radio. H.V. Kaltenborn was reporting on the previous evening's joint British-French communiqué announcing that the two nations would accept Hitler's demands and insist that the Czechs return the Sudetenland to Germany. Prime Minister Chamberlain would soon depart for Bad Godesberg, in the Rhineland, for his second meeting with Hitler, at which the deal would be concluded and an orderly transfer arranged. “So far,” Kaltenborn concluded, “mighty America refuses to speak. She seems primarily concerned with keeping out of war.”

“If you wouldn't mind turning off the radio, I'd be most appreciative.” Closing his eyes, Anderson fell asleep instantly. When they reached the end of the Northern State, the country opened into a flat vista of cultivated fields occasionally interrupted by single farmhouses and clusters of the weathered, tumbledown shacks used by migrant laborers. The air was seasoned with the sharp, rancid odor of duck farms, fertilizer and brine from the adjacent but invisible sea baked together through the long summer season.

Roberta rolled up her window. “Who says the city smells? Give me Fifth Avenue any day.” They were a short distance beyond Smithtown when Roberta pulled over at a roadside beer garden. “Time for a break,” she said.

They sat in a small grove beneath a latticed canopy. Dunne ordered hot dogs and beer for the table. Roberta asked for a root beer.

“What's the plan?” Roberta asked.

“Ask the general,” Dunne said. “It's his expedition.”

Anderson either ignored or didn't hear Dunne's comment. A cluster of brown and yellow leaves on the tree above were beginning to glide down one by one. He studied them, as if something significant was being revealed.

“Anybody know exactly where we go from here?” Roberta said.

“At this moment that's the general condition of humanity, isn't it?”

“I asked where
we're
going, not the world.”

“Either case, the answer is, ‘I am not sure.' I'm afraid that's the best I can do.”

“Would you mind telling me what's your interest in all this?” Roberta said. She lit a cigarette. The day had turned sultry and close. The Englishman's philosophical air had begun to annoy her, and so had his grin.

“My interest is in seeing Sparks brought to trial. A proper exposé of his program of medical murder and its relationship to the greater ambitions of the Nazi Reich might help wake Americans from their sleep and stiffen their will to resist.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Who pays me?”

“Last I heard, the two were related.”

“I pay myself.”

After only a puff, Roberta dropped her cigarette on the ground. “Let's not waste any more time. At this rate, we won't get back to the city before midnight.”

The rest of the way, Roberta kept fiddling with the radio dial to find music and avoid the news bulletins. It was dark when they reached Yaphank. They stopped at a small grocery. Dunne came out with six bottles of beer and directions to the camp. “It's directly up the road. Turn left at the top of the hill. There's a dirt road that leads to it. Guy behind the counter says it's been pretty much deserted since Labor Day.”

They reached the road in a few minutes. “We'll walk from here,” Anderson said.

“Bet nobody thought to bring a flashlight,” Roberta said.

“The moonlight will suffice.” Anderson set off into the woods.

“Wait up,” Dunne called.

Roberta slouched behind the wheel. “I'll stay here. Don't do anything stupid.”

Beneath a partial moon half-hidden by clouds, Anderson stumbled over fallen trees and underbrush, his curses alerting Dunne where to tread carefully. They came into a clearing as the moon escaped the clouds and shone on a towering slab of concrete. They drew close to it. Atop was a bronze eagle, a wreathed swastika clutched in its talons. Beyond the meadow was a neat row of cabins. Anderson tried the door of the first. It was unlocked. Each side of a central aisle was lined with metal-frame bunk beds. The door on the other end was flanked by pictures of George Washington and Adolf Hitler. They stopped and listened. On the path of pebbles that connected the cabins, came the slow, cautious, unmistakable crunch of footsteps. Anderson pointed to the ground. He lay flat, and Dunne lay beside him.

The footsteps stopped. Dunne felt the thump-bump, thump-bump of his heart against the ground. A beam from a flashlight appeared in the window directly above, darted around the cabin and spilled through the floorboards. Anderson crouched, in a running position. Dunne got set to dash behind him. A second light appeared on the side of the cabin and approached rapidly. The instant the person carrying it turned the corner, Anderson jumped up, drove a forearm into his throat, and landed a hard punch to his stomach. The flashlight rolled on the ground. Anderson grabbed it, turned off the beam, and used it as a bludgeon. The blow made a distinct thud.

The backdoor of the cabin flew open and the beam of the other flashlight pinpointed Anderson astride the person he'd just clubbed into unconsciousness.

“Move, and I'll shoot!”

Dunne tucked his immobilized hand beneath his left arm, aimed his shoulder at the knees of whoever was standing directly above him on the cabin steps, and leaped forward. A shot went off as Dunne toppled him. Anderson was on him in an instant and hit him with the flashlight until he lay still.

“You weren't hit, were you?” Anderson said.

Dunne got up. “No, it was a wild shot.”

Anderson pointed the light to the man at their feet. He was moaning.

“Turn off the light.” Dunne knelt, put his head on the chest of the man, and took his pulse. “He's not dead. But, congratulations, you've knocked out two FBI agents.”

“How can you tell?”

“This one's name is Agent Lundgren. We've crossed paths.”

“It was self-defense. They made no effort to identify themselves. We should stay and explain ourselves.”

“Self-defense? You beaned the first guy before he knew we were here. We should get the hell out of here before they haul us off to the federal pen.”

They blundered their way through the woods, back to where Roberta was parked. She was visibly upset and fumbled with the choke. “I thought I heard a shot.”

“You did. Let's go.” Dunne jumped in the front seat.

The car didn't start. She tried several more times before the engine turned over. She pulled onto the main road. “Where to?”

“It might help if you could see the road.” Dunne reached over and switched on the headlights. “Make it seem you know where you're going and aren't in any hurry. Anderson, get down on the floor. This way we're just a man and woman out for a spin.”

They drove for several minutes in silence before Roberta spoke: “What happened back there?”

“Anderson decided to murder the bugler.”

From the back seat came Anderson's muffled voice: “I didn't decide to
murder
anyone. It was pitch dark. I acted in self-defense.”

“He knocked out two FBI agents. Lundgren was one of them.”

Roberta put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, Christ.”

“You helped, Fin. You tackled the chap on the steps,” Anderson said.

“After you'd KO'd the first one, I didn't have much choice.” They drove on a narrow, winding road through a heavily wooded area that emerged in a treeless expanse of cultivated fields. They continued until they reached Riverhead. The town was deserted and closed up for the night.

“What now?” Roberta parked in front of a gas station that was dark and shut tight. “We don't have much gas left.”

“Ten to one, Lundgren and his companion weren't by themselves. They've probably been found by now. If there's a roadblock, it'll most likely be west of Yaphank looking for cars headed back to the city. Best thing for us to do is keep driving east.”

Roberta followed his instructions to drive slowly, as though returning from a church meeting or dinner with friends. Dunne watched the roadside. When he spied what he was looking for, a dirt road that veered toward Peconic Bay, he told Roberta to turn. The car jolted violently over the pitted, rutted surface.

Anderson popped his head up, “Have we lost our way?”

“I'd say so, but consult our navigator,” Roberta said.

“Straight,” Dunne said. “It should be right ahead.”

The headlights rested on a one-story cabin with a sagging roof. “I hope you made reservations. Looks like it's all booked up.” Roberta turned off the headlights.

Dunne switched them back on. “I need the light.” He got out of the car and stepped onto the front porch. “Doc?” he said. “Anybody here?” He opened the door. Warm, mildewed air, wafted past. Doc Cropsey, it seemed, had yet to start his retirement. Dunne turned on the bulb that hung over the ice box and opened the windows. He went back on the porch and told Roberta and Anderson to come inside.

Anderson's eyes had a dazed, distant look. He seemed not so much unsure of where he was as oblivious. “Are we staying the night?”

“Got a better idea?” Dunne said.

“Not at the moment.” He bowed slightly. “The day's activities have left me quite spent.” He removed his jacket, draped it over a kitchen chair, and disappeared into one of the two rear bedrooms.

Dunne retrieved one of the beers he'd bought earlier. He took an opener from the kitchen drawer. There was no sign of Roberta. He presumed she'd lay down in the other bedroom. He sat on the front steps and sipped the beer. The stars were visible and numerous, but faded. A lone sliver of cloud nibbled at the lower edge of the moon's half sphere and moved on.

“Star light, star bright, what's your wish tonight, Fin?” Roberta was standing at the screen door behind him.

“Thought you went to bed.”

“I can't stop thinking about what happened to Lina. I caught a glimpse. It was sickening. I'd hate to see them get away with this.”

“Sparks once told me that he admired my persistence. Well, now he's going to find out firsthand.”

“Where did Anderson come from?”

“Friend of a friend.”

“Doesn't he seem a little strange?”

“Not after you get to know him.”

“What's his real interest in this? One minute he seems so removed. The next, he sounds as though he's out to save the world.”

“It's a long story.”

“And sad?”

“One of the many. He's in love with a dying woman.”

She came outside, sat on the bottom step and stretched out her feet. “Doesn't feel like the last night of summer. Still seems like July.”

“Want a beer?”

“No thanks.” Leaning back, she peered up at the stars. “They look tired.”

“Maybe they can't pay the electric bill. Join the club.”

Without a word, she pushed herself up and strolled to the water's edge. She dropped her dress, removed slip, garters, and stockings, and stripped to her skin. She walked into the water up to her buttocks, raised her arms above her head and dove in.

He waited for her to reappear, but the surface stayed still. He put down his beer and called her name. Other than the gentle pulse of the bay's insignificant waves, there were no sounds. He pulled off his shoes and socks and ran to the water. He called her name again.

A breeze ruffled the vacant bay. Hampered by the cast on his hand, he tore off a button as he removed his shirt and was unbuckling his belt when, far from where she'd submerged, Roberta rose gracefully from the sea. The water cascaded off her hair. She swam several yards farther out, stopped and cried, “Come on, Fin, it's beautiful!”