Big fish, p.21
Big Fish, page 21
Rachel could see through the upper windows that the fire had engulfed the top floor. The flames filled the windows. But the glow in the sky seemed to be coming from farther back. Then there was a cracking sound, and she could see a flame flickering up into the air above the roof.
The bobby saw it too, and announced to the crowd, "Fires are unpredictable. Fires are best seen from a distance." Then he performed his part in the imaginary line of policemen again.
Rachel studied the people around her. They were all turned toward the flames, which illuminated their faces and glowed in their eyes. Whenever the solitary policeman urged them to move, they'd step backward a couple of paces without looking away from the fire, but within a few seconds they'd begin drifting inward again. Almost all of them seemed to have the young, smooth faces of students; only a few older people stood here and there.
Altmeyer skirted the circle and kept moving. "Come on," he said. '1 think our friend will meet us down the street." They moved past the main herd of people and stood on the sidewalk two doors away, where the light of the flames didn't reach them. "He'll come by to see if it's burning, and just stay long enough to convince himself there's nothing he can do about it."
They watched as a pair of firemen broke the lock on the front door and stepped to the side. When they kicked the door inward, a bright light from within seemed to come out and float into the air. Then Rachel realized it was billowing clouds of thick smoke caught in the light of the fire. Three firemen crouched in the street like a team of gunners, clutched the long brass nozzle of a hose, and trained it into the doorway, blasting a thick stream of water inside. It seemed only to increase the outpouring of smoke.
There was a continuous crackling noise, then a terrible creak as one of the floors inside gave way, and a deafening crash as it came down on the one beneath it. Still more smoke poured out of the house, and the flames on the roof were higher now. Other firemen were trying to move a hose into position to reach it with an arc of water.
Arthur coughed and held his handkerchief to his mouth. "We must be downwind."
They started to back away, when another sound startled them from behind. It was a high-pitched, constant, electronic buzzing noise that came from deep inside the next house on the street.
"What's that?" said Bucky.
"I can't place it," said Paston.
Then the noise seemed to grow abruptly, as though the volume had doubled. They looked at the house, but there were no lights visible. Then the sound swelled again. In the time it took to realize it, the buzz grew four more times, and kept adding volume in sharp, rapid increments. In a few moments it was loud enough to compete with the engines of the fire trucks, and it was increasing. People began moving from the fire toward the novelty of the noise, and soon there were dozens of them standing there staring at the dark building, as others drifted to join the throng.
Suddenly the door burst open and three men dashed out of the building into the crowd. Rachel saw them clearly for a second as they ran down the steps. At first she thought they were wearing identical whitish pajamas, but then her mind rejected that, because they had little hats with goggles on them, and that meant they must be firemen in special gear. But the men all had their hands over their ears because of the horrible noise, and firemen never did things like that. She managed to get the shout into Altmeyer's ear just before the sound grew again. "Smoke detectors."
Altmeyer was already moving, cutting through the crowd at an angle behind the first man as he broke through in the middle of the street. Altmeyer dropped three paces behind, falling into step with the man.
In a quick, unexpected movement Bucky stepped out of the crowd, threw his arms around the man in white, and whirled him about to face Altmeyer.
Bucky held the man, who struggled to free his arms. The pinioned man seemed to be trying to say something, but it was impossible to hear him.
The noise grew still louder, and Bucky's lips moved. Altmeyer could see his throat straining to make his yells audible above the hundreds of shrieking smoke alarms. Altmeyer saw Bucky's lips form the words, "Kill him."
The man seemed to hear Bucky's shout, and he gave a wrenching twist that broke Bucky's grip and pushed him away.
Altmeyer's arm came up out of his pocket. He fired once into the man's forehead, and backed into the crowd.
In a moment he was almost abreast of another man in a white suit. The man never saw Altmeyer, but he seemed to sense something, because as the muzzle of the silencer came up behind his ear, his hand started to reach upward to brush it away. As he slumped to the ground, Altmeyer walked past at the same pace, then cut to the right toward a white hat bobbing above the crowd. The man who wore it seemed to be surrounded by people who were trying to hold him. When Altmeyer moved closer he saw that the man was coughing and gasping for breath. He was leaning on a woman, his arm over her shoulder.
Altmeyer moved into the group and saw that the woman was Rachel. Then beside him the crowd parted and Arthur Paston appeared, carrying a blanket. Paston threw the blanket over the man's shoulders, and he and Rachel ushered the staggering man out of the crowd and away from the smoke. Altmeyer followed, and noticed that the blanket had some kind of emblem on it and the words fire brigade. When they reached the opposite curb, Paston turned to Altmeyer. His face was grave, and looked pale in the flickering light. As his eyes met Altmeyer's, Paston nodded.
The shot at the base of the man's skull puffed a wisp of his hair but left him standing. As the man's knees lost their tension, Rachel and Paston eased him to a sitting position and pulled the blanket up over his neck.
The three fanned out through the crowd, and met again on the other side. As they converged, Bucky joined them. None of them turned to look back. They walked quickly and without hesitation, stepping toward their own long, wavering shadows. Behind them the whole neighborhood was bright with the leaping flames of the ruined house, and the air was vibrating with the terrible, deafening shriek of two thousand Ashita Sleeping-Tite Smoke Alarms.
LOS ANGELES
Rachel opened the shding glass door and walked out onto the sun deck. Arthur sat back on his chaise longue, pulled the plaid blanket up over his chest, and stared out at the ocean.
"Leonard is on the phone for you, Arthur."
"Tell him I'll call him tomorrow. I'm feeHng a little peaked today." He bent his long right leg under the blanket and tapped his foot against the frame of the chair.
"I'll tell him," said Altmeyer. He stood up and put on his shirt, then went inside and closed the glass door.
Rachel touched Paston's shoulder. "How about a martini, Arthur?"
"No," said Paston. "I think not."
"It's eighty degrees, and you look like you're on a ship in the North Atlantic. You need something to warm your innards." She waited for a few moments, then said, "Come on, talk to me."
Paston shrugged. "There's not much to say, is there? We were all present."
"We had to do it, Arthur," said Bucky.
"We were the only ones who were there, and knew, and could do it. Now we're here and I don't feel like having a
martini." He gave a cold, tired half-smile. "People used to think I had a drinking problem. They didn't understand."
"What didn't they understand?"
"What it was like to be Arthur Paston. I had accomplished everything I ever wanted to do, and collected a great deal of money without spending much time thinking about it. And over all the years I had tremendous fun. What I was doing was celebrating."
Rachel sighed.
Paston looked up at her. "Things changed. Somehow while I was enjoying this long and interesting life, I didn't pay attention. Then that night it was like a film. There was an ancient, weak, greedy, twisted old creature that looked like the corpse of a pharaoh from the British Museum and he got out of his box. And he was walking the streets killing young men to protect his treasures. Or maybe it was to suck their blood so he'd live forever." His empty half-smile returned. "There are always a few bugs in the script, but already I can tell that the final shot isn't the pharaoh sipping a martini."
Bucky stood up so quickly his chair clattered to the deck behind him. "You're right, Arthur. A lot of things have changed, including us, and the change stinks out loud." He bent over to pick up the chair.
"Bucky," Rachel began.
Bucky held up his hand. "No, the pharaoh is right. It's possible to cross a line, to do something that ruins you forever. Think about those three scientists. They had crossed the line. They went to a hell of a lot of trouble to put themselves so far over the line that somebody else had to cross it to execute them. As long as they were alive there was a distinct possibility that ground zero would be the Beverly Hills Hotel."
Paston shook his head. "We murdered those people to save the Polo Lounge."
"Absolutely. I'd do it again, and be glad I had the chance. I've had an interesting life, too. I am late paying alimony at this minute to four of the most beautiful and stupid women in America. If killing scientists is what I have to do to keep
on making a fool of myself with beautiful women, okay. It's already put me over that line, and that's tough for me. I just have to live with it, because the other choice is to die."
Altmeyer sat at the bar. He poured himself a glass of Scotch with one hand and held the telephone with the other.
"Sorry, Leonard. The old guy is exhausted from the trip, and he's asleep. If he's up to it later, I'll have him call you."
Leonard said, "I told him he was too old to go all over the place looking at investments. Besides, it's a waste. I'll bet you didn't learn anything, did you?"
"Not much. By the way, did you find out anything about the clinic in Santa Barbara?"
"Oh yeah. I found out what I could, which isn't much, of course."
"Why not much? It's a corporation, isn't it?"
Leonard chuckled. "A businessman like you should know better than to ask. I found out they're prosperous, which is not a shock. They own a lot of real estate around Santa Barbara, mostly rental property. The chief executive officer of the corporation is also the head doctor. His name is Bernard Felitan."
"What kind of clinic is it?"
"Gynecologists. That's the funny part. One of their investments is a place in Nevada called the Hummingbird Ranch Club. It's a legal brothel."
"Doctors own a whorehouse?"
"It's probably the least earthshaking news of the week. Doctors make a hell of a lot of money, and they invest it, and make more money. At least this is legal. When I had my brokerage, doctors used to come in all the time with big piles of cash they wanted put into something that would pay a quiet, modest return."
"And you think this Dr. Felitan is somebody who might do that?"
"Look, hiding money from the IRS is the national sport. You're probably a fair player yourself, so you don't have to
waste all this righteous indignation on me. If I were to guess about the biggest skimming operation in the country, Fd say it wasn't casinos. It's doctors by a mile."
"What about Felitan?"
"If he can hide money from the IRS, he can hide it from me. He's got what amounts to a hospital up there, and a list of associates that makes you wonder if you're reading some of the names twice, and about eight medium-sized businesses on the side."
"Is he big enough to buy Ashita?"
"I don't know. He might have a hard time if all he could use was the money he's showing, but I wouldn't rule it out. Besides, as you know, we're not sure anybody bought Ashita. You don't have to buy the whole thing to control its assets."
"But it's not out of the question?"
"I've got experience with doctors. I went partners on some land with a psychiatrist once. His credit was terrific, he had the down payment, and everything was rosy until the bank put a lien on the land. And even then, his credit was great. The man bought an airplane with a credit card. I'm telling you—"
"Thanks, Leonard. There's somebody at the door, and I don't want them to wake Arthur up."
"Right," said Leonard. "Tell him we'll talk tomorrow."
Altmeyer set his drink on the bar and turned up the sound on the television set. Then he stepped to the glass door and called, "The news is on again."
Altmeyer returned to his stool at the bar and sipped his Scotch, gazing up at the television set.
"Today the British government has released more information on the three American scientists who were murdered during a fire two days ago in London. The three were identified as Paul Weston, thirty-seven, William Lister, forty-eight, and John Tedesk, twenty-nine. Tedesk and Lister were physicists on leave from the University of California at Santa Bar-
bara, and Weston was a physician, also a resident of Santa Barbara."
"I'll bet I know where his office was," said Altmeyer to the television.
Anchorman David Harden looked up from the stack of papers in his hands and stared into the camera. "The three men had been in London preparing scientific equipment for an expedition, scheduled for next spring, to study drift ice off the Princess Ragnhild Coast of Antarctica. Although the project was first reported to be associated with London University, officials there were unaware of it. We have since been informed that it was a privately funded research expedition."
"Hard to beUeve, Dave," said Altmeyer. He sipped his drink.
David Harden's left eyebrow lifted sardonically. "The three men are survived by their wives and children." He moved a sheet of paper to the bottom of the pile and his face moved with precision into the deUcately gauged expression of concern he reserved for international developments. "The British government spokesman said that five terrorist groups have claimed responsibility so far, but none has offered an explanation for the large quantity of weapons-grade uranium that was found in a second building near the university involved in the laboratory blaze."
Altmeyer smiled. "The next one will, if you keep talking."
"The British said it was too early to speculate on the possibility that this is the same uranium reported missing from a Canadian storage facility that serves four nuclear power reactors in Alberta."
"They'll work up to it."
Altmeyer walked back out to the sun deck and sat down beside Paston. "It looks like they were going to set one off on the ice near Antarctica."
Bucky sat down. "Broiled penguins?"
Altmeyer stared at the ocean. "No. I mean that was the
menu, but it's like Mr. Cord said. You make a bunch of them and then set one off somewhere. Then everybody knows you've got something to sell. But Antarctica ..."
Rachel said, "I get it. There aren't any people, just outposts of scientists from all over the world, and they've got all kinds of seismic equipment and thermometers and wind velocity meters and God knows what else. And they're from just about every country, so no government could hush it up."
"Very clever," said Paston. "So much for the Beverly Hills Hotel, Bucky."
"The penguins might not have come up with enough money to buy them off after the first demonstration," said Bucky. "The next one might have been right in the middle of your martini shaker. I know pharaohs don't care, but think about the rest of us."
Altmeyer studied Bucky for a moment. "I want two things from you people." He turned to Paston. "You bestir your ancient bones and get on the phone to Leonard. Tell him to submit an official offer for you to buy Ashita to their home office in Japan. We'll negotiate the price later."
Rachel said, "What's the other thing?"
"I need a volunteer for that one. The person must be brave, intelligent, observant." He paused for a moment. "And female."
"Am I going to hate this? Is it awful?"
Altmeyer sipped his drink. "Yes."
Rachel walked down the cold, empty little hallway past the row of curtained booths, trying to hold the white tunic closed. She slipped into the third one and started to dress. She felt dizzy and breathless and had to lean against the wall for a minute before she could step into her shoes without losing her balance.
As she straightened her skirt, she thought about Dr. Schumaker. She was sure he didn't know. He was too foolish and pleased with himself to be mixed up in something like
that. The examining room, with its Httle clock shaped like the steering wheel of a ship, and the fake porthole on the wall, seemed so childish. But most of all, it was the little leather pads on the stirrups that convinced her.
She listened at the curtain, then slipped down the empty corridor to the other door and through it into the main hallway. It would have to be big, and it would have to be far away from the main reception area. At the end of the hall, she saw a sign that said conference room, with an arrow. Conference rooms were where bosses called everybody in to sit around a table, so the room must be near there. She cautiously turned the corner, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps, and made her way along the wall.
Altmeyer sat in the bright sunlight staring up at the gnarled green hills that dominated the space beyond the low, glass-fronted building. When Rachel came through the glass doors, he started the engine of Bucky's Mercedes, then got out to open the door for her.
"How did it go?" he said.
"Awful, but not surprising. There's the blood test, then the pee test. Then there's the ladies-only special featuring pain, probing, humiliation, and a device that automatically turns up the air conditioning when anything touches the stirrups. I'll bet it's made by Ashita."
"What did you find out?"
She fished in her purse. "I'll draw you a Httle map."
Altmeyer put the car in gear and let it drift forward. "Draw it in the hotel room. I don't want to navigate using a bunch of jiggly lines on the back of an old shopping Hst."
She looked up at him. "Altmeyer, what exactly are you going to do?"
Altmeyer kept his eyes on the road ahead. "I told you that you were going to hate this. You will."
