Now and Then

26.

The next morning, I got to my office early. The door seemed intact. No sign of jimmying. No hint that anyone had worked on the lock. There was no point in Alderson rushing this. I probably hadn’t told anyone, if I was looking for cash. And if they just popped me first chance they got, they might not find the tapes and they’d be right where they had been before they popped me, so the sensible thing was for Alderson to play along.

I took my gun out and held it at my side while I unlocked the door and pushed it open. Nothing stirred. I waited. Nothing. I raised my gun and followed it into the room in a crouch. The room was empty.

I left my office door open, and put my gun back on my hip, and made coffee. I sat at my desk and opened the right-hand top drawer, where I kept a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357

Magnum. There were six rounds in the cylinder. If seven guys showed up, I could throw the gun at the last one. I took the little tape recorder from my middle drawer and put it on my desk near my left hand. Then I opened the paper.

I was reading today’s Calvin and Hobbes. Get it while it lasts. I liked the idea of rerunning stuff. Today Calvin and Hobbes, maybe someday Alley Oop? I had no fully developed plan for this venture. I had simply gotten tired of waiting and decided to poke a stick in the hive. I was being careful, but until Alderson could account for the tape, he probably wouldn’t be dangerous. He might eventually decide that the best approach was simply to make me tell him what I knew. But that wouldn’t come until he knew more than he knew now. For all he knew now, I was bait, and when he made a run at me a thousand FBI agents would jump out of the woodwork and say booga booga. I read Calvin and Hobbes, and Tank McNamara, and Arlo and Janis. I was studying Doonesbury when Alderson came into my office alone. He closed the office door behind him and came to the desk carrying my business card in his left hand.

“Mr. Spenser,” he said.

I folded the paper and put it down.

“Mr. Alderson.”

He was wearing a gray Harris tweed jacket with a black turtleneck sweater and tan corduroy pants. A long red scarf was draped around his neck. I thought the scarf made himlook like a horse’s ass, but he seemed pleased with it. He was looking at me closely. Probably wondering why I didn’t have a scarf. Then he tucked my card in his breast pocket and slowly looked around the room, at each wall, the fl oor and the ceiling. When he was through he studied my desk from where he stood. If he saw the gun in the open drawer, he didn’t react. He sat down.

“Are you an agent of the United States government?” he said.

“No.”

“Of any government?”

“No.”

“Are you taping, or in any way recording, this conversation?” he said.

“No.”

“What is the purpose of this meeting?” he said.

“I’m hoping to blackmail you,” I said.

He tipped his head back, as if stretching the front of his neck, and held it that way for a moment. Then he lowered his head and allowed me to see that his face had no expression.

“That’s rather bold,” he said.

I smiled modestly. He waited. I sat. A silence ensued. After a time, Alderson said, “Upon what basis are you planning to blackmail me?”

“I have an audiotape of you,” I said. “Before, during, and after sexual congress with the recently deceased wife of a recently deceased FBI agent.”

“Sexual congress is neither illegal nor rare,” Alderson said. 109

“But the postcoital chitchat suggests that you may be involved in, ah, antigovernment activity.”

“Who wouldn’t oppose this government?” Alderson said.

“Matter of degree and method,” I said.

Alderson gave me his blank dignified stare again, while he thought about things.

“Posit, as an hypothesis,” Alderson said after a time, “that such a tape existed, how would I know you had it?”

With my left hand, I pushed the play button on the tape recorder.

“Shall we have a drink while we talk about what you know?”

Alderson’s voice said.

“Let me get my body covered,” Jordan’s voice said.

“I like your body the way it is,” Perry said. “Stay here. I’ll get us a drink and we can talk in bed.”

“Perfect,” Jordan said. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Dennis.”

I shut off the recorder. Alderson pursed his lips slightly.

“Posit a second hypothesis,” he said after a while. “That it was actually my voice on that tape, and that I wanted to acquire it, how much would it cost me?”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” I said.

“What is to prevent someone from simply taking the tape from you?” Alderson said.

“Me,” I said.

“You fancy yourself a tough guy?” Alderson said.

“Known fact,” I said.

“And should one pay your price, how would one know one wasn’t getting one copy of many?”

“One would not know,” I said.

Alderson pursed his lips some more.

“You are arrogant,” he said.

“Confi dent,” I said.

Alderson mulled for a time.

“May I have time to consider this?” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “Week from today, in the afternoon, I turn everything I got over to the special agent in charge, Boston offi ce, FBI.”

Alderson stood and looked down at me for a while with his eyes empty. Then he turned and left without speaking again.