Acts of Mercy

Fifteen

Harper said, “Have you seen Wexford this morning, Nicholas?”

Augustine had been loading a pipe from a humidor of tobacco, but now he paused. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

“I stopped by his compartment a little while ago. I wanted to talk to him-”

“Talking to him won’t do any good, Maxwell.”

Harper repressed an annoyed sigh. “The point is,” he said, “Wexford wasn’t in his compartment. Nor was he there last night when I first went to talk to him. Nor was I able to find him anywhere else.”

Augustine frowned. “That’s odd.”

“I’d say so, yes.”

There was a moment of silence as Augustine put the cold pipe between his teeth, gnawed reflectively on the stem. It was just past seven A.M. and they were sitting in the President’s office, where Harper had found him sipping coffee and scribbling what he said were “campaign notes” on a scratch pad. Pale sunlight gave the compartment a dusty, almost elegiac aura. Beyond the windows patterns of early-morning mist drifted among the mountain evergreens like smoke from smoldering fires; the view made Harper feel cold.

His lips curving in a faint smile, Augustine said finally, “Maybe the bastard fell off the train during the night.”

Harper stiffened. “That’s not at all humorous, Nicholas. We have enough problems without any more of your ill-timed wit.”

The words came out more sharply than he had intended, but Augustine seemed to take no offense. He said only, “Yes, I expect you’re right,” and made sucking sounds on the pipe stem, as if it were lighted and he was trying to get it to draw. “Well then, he’s around somewhere. He’ll turn up by the time we arrive at The Hollows at nine.”

“I can’t wait until then,” Harper said. “There’ll be press people at the station. And you told me yourself you’d disinvited him to join us at the ranch.”

“All right. If it will make you happy, ask Christopher to find him for you. Tell him I said to take care of it.”

“I’ll do that,” Harper said. He stood, paused. “If you want to be present when I talk to Julius, I can have Justice bring him here-”

“No,” Augustine said. “Definitely not. I don’t want to see or listen to that son of a bitch today.”

Now he’s turned petulant, Harper thought. He said, “Just as you say, Nicholas,” in a neutral voice, and went to the door and out into the corridor,

Maybe the bastard fell off the train during the night.

The President’s words echoed in his mind as he made his way forward to the security’s Pullman. God, suppose something like that had happened to Wexford? Ridiculous, of course. And yet, was it really any more ridiculous than some of the other things which had happened of late? When matters degenerated toward chaos, anything was possible. Anything at all.

But Weacford hadn’t had an accident, wasn’t dead; he was alive and well somewhere in the bowels of this damned mechanical serpent. Of course he was.

Maybe the bastard fell off the train during the night…