Scimitar

4

Carolyn Fremont was in the midst of packing for the move to Westhampton Beach, carrying clothing from her bedroom dresser to the open suitcase on her bed. Elita was slumped listlessly in an armchair near the window in her mother’s bedroom, early morning sunlight streaming through the partially cracked blinds, touching her blond hair with fire. Carolyn knew the signs well; Elita was in love again. Or, worse, Elita was in love again and had once again been abandoned.

“How anyone as bright and as beautiful as you are,” she said, “can manage to get herself abandoned as often as...”

“I wasn’t abandoned, Mom,” Elita said. “There was just some mixup at Penn Station.”

“Who is this boy, anyway?” Carolyn asked.

The two were in the Park Avenue apartment Carolyn had received as part of the divorce settlement from her former husband, Ralph Talbot Randall, known to her forevermore as The Late Colonel. The $1,939 alimony check she received each and every month was made out to her maiden name, which she’d begun using again even before the divorce was final. This sum was exactly forty percent of The Late Colonel’s salary. She had also received in settlement the house in Westhampton Beach, a brand-new (at the time) green Jaguar convertible, and child support and college tuition for Elita. Which served the bastard right for starting up with his gorgeous sergeant, a twenty-seven-year-old (at the time) redhead with spectacular tits but no brains at all.

“He’s not a boy, Mom, he’s a man,” Elita said.

“I’m sure,” Carolyn said, and rolled her eyes.

Her eyes were as blue as her daughter’s — well, perhaps Elita’s were bluer in that The Late Colonel’s eyes were blue as well, and their offspring had been twice blessed genetically. Carolyn’s hair had been as light as her daughter’s when she was her age, but over the years she and an assortment of beauticians had patiently guided it to its present shade, the tawny color of a lion’s mane. At thirty-nine, Carolyn was leggier than her daughter, fuller of breast, infinitely more attractive in a womanly way, and certainly not a person anyone would ever abandon.

“His name is Sonny,” Elita said.

“I thought he wasn’t a boy,” Carolyn said.

“He’s twenty-nine years old.”

“And he still calls himself Sonny?”

“His real name is Krishnan.”

“Is what?”

“Krishnan Hemkar.”

“I see,” Carolyn said, and went to the dresser for another stack of slips. Carrying them to the open suitcase on the bed, she wondered whether twenty-nine was too old for Elita, remembered that there was a fourteen-year age difference between her and her former philandering husband, decided ten wasn’t too terribly bad, after all, and then realized she was already marrying off the child to someone named...

“What’d you say it was?”

“What was?”

“His name.”

“Krishnan Hemkar.”

“You sound like you’re clearing your throat.”

“That’s his name, Mom. He’s half-Indian, half-British. And when you meet him, I hope...”

“Oh, am I going to meet him?”

“If you meet him, I hope you won’t make fun of his name.”

“I have a friend named Isadore Lipschitz, and I’ve never made fun of his name, so why should I make fun of Christie Hemmar’s name?” Carolyn said, and shrugged and went back to the dresser. “How many sweaters should I take?” she asked aloud.

“Krishnan Hemkar,” Elita said.

“Whoever. I’m sure he’s delightful, stranding you in Penn Station.”

“I wasn’t stranded, Mom. I managed to get my bags outside all by myself, and get a taxi all by myself...”

“Mama’s big girl,” Carolyn said, carrying sweaters to the bed. “Are you coming out with me tomorrow?”

“I thought I’d stay in the city for a few days.”

Carolyn turned from the suitcase, a white, pearl-buttoned cardigan in her hands. She looked at her daughter. “Why?” she asked.

“I just got home,” Elita said. “I want to spend a few days in New York before running out to the beach.”

“The city’s going to be an oven all week long.”

“So what? I like hot weather.”

“Since when?”

“Sometimes it gets very hot in L.A.”

Carolyn kept looking at her.

“It does,” Elita said.

“There’ll be a message on the machine, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Giving the Westhampton number. If anyone calls.”

“That’s not why...”

“If this Sonny person calls.”

“I just want to spend some time in New York, that’s all. And he’s not this Sonny person.”

There was a long, strained silence. Carolyn kept looking at her daughter.

“Elita?” she said at last.

“Carolyn?” Eyebrows raised, faint mocking tone.

“I hate when you do that,” Carolyn said.

“Do what?”

“Mimic me.”

“Sorry.”

“And call me by my first name.”

“Gee, sorry.”

“You know I hate that. I’m not Carolyn, I’m your goddamn mother.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“You’re staying here because you’re hoping he’ll call, aren’t you?”

“I told you why I’m staying here.”

“Because you hope Sonny Lipschitz...”

“Goddamn it, Mom!”

“... will call. You’re going to mope around here in the apartment for the next...”

“I am not!”

“... three, four days...”

“I told you I...”

“... waiting for some goddamn Indian you met on a train...”

“He’s half Br...”

“... to call you! Instead of...”

“I’ll come out sometime next week, okay?”

“... instead of for once in your life exhibiting the tiniest bit of pride and self-respect!”

“Mom.” A pause. As lethal as her sudden glare. “I don’t want to go to Westhampton tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, fuck it.”

“Nice talk,” Elita said.

Carolyn turned away from her and hurled the pearl-buttoned sweater into the suitcase.

The two detectives who’d caught the squeal were pounding up the steps ahead of Santorini. One of them was called Hawk for Hawkins because his first name was Percival and anyone who called him Percival or even Percy would have risked a mouthful of knuckles. He did not look like a hawk at all. He looked, in fact, more like a bear. Two hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed a dime. Wearing a blue polyester suit he’d bought at some discount joint. White shirt and red tie. Beer barrel belly hanging over his belt. Sweating bullets as he climbed the steps.

His partner was black. The strong silent type. Wearing his hair in what they called a hi-top fade, looked like some kind of upside down flower pot sitting on top of his head. Plaid sports jacket, looked like wool, the guy’d never heard of tropical weight fabrics. Tall and slender, maybe a bit over six feet, a hundred sixty-five pounds stepping out of the shower onto a scale. Big knuckled hands of a street fighter. Eyes as black as midnight. Skin the color of a coconut shell. Santorini figured him for the sharper of the two. And the more lethal. Down here, this was the One-Nine. If he ever worked anything down here again, he had to remember to ask for Lyall Gibson, which was the black guy’s name.

Hawkins was doing all the talking. Puffing up the stairs, throwing the words over his shoulder. Santorini was doing a little puffing himself; the victim was in an apartment on the fifth floor of the walkup. There were the usual cooking smells you found in any building in this city, even some of the expensive condominiums. Made you want to puke sometimes, the smells in the hallways. They kept climbing. Hawk kept talking.

“... saw the inter-departmental alert you guys put out, figured this one would really interest you. You’da got it anyway, sooner or later...”

“Not necessarily,” Santorini said.

He was not eager to take on another case. The stiff rightfully belonged to Gibson and Hawkins, they were the fucking cops who’d caught the squeal. So why were they busting Homicide’s balls?

“... the coincidence and all,” Hawkins was saying.

“It’s no coincidence, Hawk,” Gibson said.

He pronounced it coincidence, the way people from the South pronounced umbrella or police. Santorini figured he hadn’t been up North too long. Either that or he’d picked up his speech patterns from a mother who’d been born in Mississippi or Georgia.

“I hate these buildings got no elevators,” Hawkins said.

“No doorman, either,” Gibson said.

“No doorman, she gets a coupl’a bullets in the head,” Hawkins said.

Santorini wished he had a nickel for all the homicide victims he’d seen who had doormen and a couple of bullets in the head. They were on the fourth floor now. One more to go. They turned and walked across the landing to the next flight of stairs. As they began climbing again, he could see a pair of blue uniformed trouser legs at the top of the stairwell. Puffing, he followed the two detectives onto the landing. The uniformed cop was standing outside the door to apartment 5A. The A, some kind of metallic shit that wasn’t real brass, hung crookedly from one screw.

“How you doing?” Hawkins said to the cop outside the door.

“Okay,” he answered.

“Everybody still here?”

“Yes, sir. Except the M.E., he just left.”

“They didn’t take away the stiff, did they?”

“No, sir. Lieutenant gave strict orders Homicide had to see it first.”

“Well, this here’s Detective Santorini from Homicide, we’re gonna go in now, show him the body.”

“Yes, sir.”

Santorini wondered what all the fuckin’ fuss was about. Dragging him all the way down here to look at some dame got shot in the head ’cause she didn’t have a doorman? Why couldn’t he have viewed the corpse at the morgue? A stiff was a stiff no matter where or how you looked at it. They went into the apartment. At least it smelled better than the morgue. Big burly guy in a grey tropical suit and wearing a greyish straw fedora came over with his hand extended.

“Lieutenant Costanza,” he said, “we got something good for you.”

“I wonder what it could be,” Santorini said, thinking he was making a joke about calling Homicide in to see yet another dead body. But everybody here was looking so serious and solemn, like they just found the latest victim of Buffalo Bill; the trouble with too many cops nowadays was they saw too many fuckin’ movies.

“Over here,” the lieutenant said.

The dead woman was surrounded by what had to be a dozen cats, all of them looking confused. One of them, a white cat with yellow eyes, was sitting closest to the woman and meowing incessantly.

“Goddamn cats,” the lieutenant said.

The woman herself was half-seated, half-lying on a sofa with floral-patterned slip covers. There were two overlapping bullet holes between her eyes. The slugs had torn out the back of her skull and splashed the wall behind her with blood the color of the slipcover flowers. Her hair was clipped short, a sort of reddish color, but not as bright as the blood. She was wearing a grey sweater. The M.E. must’ve unbuttoned it a bit to slip his stethoscope onto her chest; she had good firm breasts. Santorini figured she was fifty, fifty-five years old, a woman who might have been good-looking when she was younger. There were cat hairs all over the grey sweater.

“Her name’s Angela Cartwright,” Hawkins said. “We found a passport with her name and picture in it.”

“A British subject,” Gibson said.

So that’s the coincidence, Santorini thought. Two fuckin’ Brits get killed in the same week, right away they run to Homicide.

“You know...” he started to say.

“M.E. noticed this while he was examining her,” Costanza said, and unbuttoned the dead woman’s sweater to reveal her white brassiere. Gently, almost tenderly, he eased her left breast out of its restraining cup. Just beneath the nipple, Santorini saw:

“We figured it tied in with the one in your alert,” Costanza said. “Two Brits, both of them with swords tattooed on their chests.”

“Guy kills ’em and tattoos ’em,” Hawkins said, and shrugged at the simplicity of it all.

Santorini knew this wasn’t the case; the coroner’s report had indicated that the tattoo on the last victim had not been a fresh one at all.

“Anyway,” Costanza said, “we figured we’d turn it over to you right away.”

Terrific, Santorini thought. Now I’ll get to talk to that dumb fuck at the Consulate again.

Arthur Scopes had chosen the venue himself; his private office at SeaCoast Limited had been swept for listening devices and further equipped with a babbler to confound long-distance ears. On the telephone, he told Sonny that he knew the place was completely sanitary. The words private office conjured for Sonny a wood-paneled area offering both space and solitude, with windows overlooking on one side Seventy-second Street and on the other Columbus Avenue. But as the ancient elevator in the soot-stained building creaked and whined its way up to the third floor, he began to realize that his expectations may have been a trifle ambitious.

SeaCoast was at the end of a narrow hallway that contained two other offices, one an accountant’s, the other a firm that repaired electric shavers. The door to the shaver-repair firm was standing wide open. An electric fan swept back and forth over a counter opposite the entrance, wafting cool air into the hallway as Sonny walked past. At eight-thirty this morning, just before he’d left the hotel, a television forecaster was predicting temperatures in the high nineties.

The words SeaCoast Limited were lettered in black on the upper, frosted-glass panel of the company’s entrance door. Sonny grasped the brass doorknob, turned it, opened the door, and found himself in a smallish room where two people — one an Asian girl, the other a white male — sat at desks with telephone receivers to their ears.

A pair of windows at the far end of the room admitted mid-morning sunlight. The room was noisily air-conditioned by a single window unit in the window on the left, a virtual babbler in itself. The Asian girl was speaking in what Sonny assumed to be Chinese. The white male was saying “... three-ninety-nine a pound for the chicken lobsters, six and a quarter for the jumbos. May I take your order, sir?”

An organizational cover beyond reproach. A legitimate business that could withstand even close scrutiny. Sonny was impressed. The Chinese girl — she was in her twenties, Sonny guessed — finished her conversation, turned from the phone, and asked, “May I help you, sir?” Her speech was entirely accent-free. She was wearing a white blouse and a blue mini-skirt that rode high on her upper thighs. Sandals with white leather thongs. Good Chinese-girl legs. Long black hair fastened with a blue plastic barrette. Sonny had recently read that Chinese women were undergoing cosmetic surgery to remove the folds in their eyelids and make their eyes look rounder. He figured the women in China were going crazy.

“I have an appointment with Martin Hackett,” he said.

His everyday cover name.

“And your name, sir?”

“Scott Hamilton.”

“One moment, please.”

She rose in a single fluid motion, smiled briefly, and went to a closed door Sonny assumed was Hackett’s private office. She knocked...

“Yes, come in.”

... opened the door, entered, and closed it behind her. Sonny waited. The white male on the phone was still giving prices to whoever was on the other end of the line. He did not so much as glance at Sonny. The Asian girl came out, said, “Mr. Hackett will see you now,” and stood aside for him to enter.

The door eased shut behind him.

He was looking at a large man wearing a white cotton jacket of the sort people wore in supermarkets. Embroidered in red over the breast on the left-hand side of the jacket were the words SeaCoast Limited. The man’s looks were clearly Arabian. Black hair and dark brooding eyes, an aquiline nose. A strapping man of the desert stuffed into a cheap white jacket that was too tight across his shoulders. But this was no camel herder.

“I’m Arthur,” he said, and smiled, and rose, extending his hand.

Arthur Scopes. The Martin Hackett was for civilians, but Arthur was the code name he’d be using for the business at hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Sonny said.

“Sit down, hmm?” Arthur said, and indicated a straight-backed wooden chair in front of his very dark, virtually black, indeterminately wooden desk. The windows here in the front office faced the Columbus Avenue side of the building. On the street below, Sonny could hear cab drivers impatiently honking their horns. The walls were painted a grim shade of grey. There were two pictures hanging on the wall behind the desk, one of what appeared to be a French landscape, the other of a laughing peasant girl with golden curls. Sonny took the chair. It was uncomfortable.

“So,” Arthur said. “You’ve been briefed, hmm?”

“I’ve been briefed, yes.”

“Have you read the letter?”

“I’ve read it.”

“Does it explain everything?”

“Everything,” Sonny said.

He had read the letter at least a dozen times. Remembering the events it had triggered, he became enraged all over again, the anger igniting his eyes — but only for an instant. He was a professional; there was work to be done here.

“What happened to Mother?” he asked.

“Mm, Mother,” Arthur said, and tented his fingers. Huge hands. Blunt fingertips. Manicured nails. “She was murdered,” he said.

Sonny’s eyebrows went up.

“We don’t know who or why. We’re watching it closely. This may be a countermeasure of some sort.”

“How was she killed?” Sonny asked.

“Gunshot wounds. All we really know so far is what we’ve read in the newspapers. The police are still investigating. I’ll keep you informed.”

“I hope you will. If my back needs covering...”

“Oh, no question, we’ll let you know at once.” He hesitated a moment, and then said, “Were you told this is a No-Fail operation?”

“No.”

“That’s what it is. Does that trouble you?”

“Not particularly. I’ve been trained for any eventuality.”

“You understand, don’t you, that a pistol is out of the question?”

“Yes. That’s what No-Fail...”

“Because pistols aren’t infallible, are they?” Arthur said. “We don’t want him surviving, the way Reagan did. And we don’t want him left a vegetable, either. He’s to be eliminated, hmm? Cleanly. Completely. And anonymously.”

Sonny looked at him.

“We’ll claim no credit afterward, we want no later retaliation. Just kill him, Sonny. And vanish.”

Or die if I must, Sonny thought.

“Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Good. What will you need?”

“A drop.”

“Use SeaCoast.”

“Can I have deliveries made here?”

“Of course.”

“Are we still using the same cobbler?”

“McDermott, yes.”

“Is he at the same address?”

“Yes. East Seventieth Street.”

“I’ll also need some basic information.”

“What sort?”

“Precinct numbers, the addresses of police supply...”

A buzzer sounded on Arthur’s desk console. He hit a button.

“Yes?”

“A Mrs. Fremont on four,” the Chinese girl said.

“I told you not to disturb us.”

“She said it’s urgent.”

Sighing heavily, Arthur hit another button on the console and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” he said, and listened for a moment. “No, don’t be silly,” he said, rolling his eyes heavenward, “always plenty of time for you.” He listened again, nodded, said, “Mmm, I see. Yes, a very good idea, and I quite agree it’s of paramount importance to make certain the fish is fresh. But, you know... SeaCoast is a wholesaler, hmm? Yes. To restaurants and fish markets and the like. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, I see. Well, what I could do... hmm? The seventeenth, did you say? Well, that’s... well, let me see,” he said, and glanced at his desk calendar. “That’s still three weeks off, I’m sure I could...” He rolled his eyes again, impatiently this time, and listened for what seemed an interminably long time. “What I was going to suggest,” he said, “was that I put you in touch with a retailer on the island... yes, I’ll be happy to do that. I’ll find a good one and get back to you. I’m sure I have your number, but let me have it again, hmm? Uh-huh,” he said, writing, “uh-huh, good. I’ll call you as soon as I... what? Oh. Thank you. The seventeenth, yes, I’ll put it on my calendar. Good talking to you,” he said, and hung up and expelled his breath in exaggerated exasperation. “A neighbor,” he explained. “She’s having a fish party, God help me.”

Sonny smiled.

“You were saying?” Arthur said.

“Police supply houses, police precincts...”

“You’re planning elementary substitution, hmm?”

The “hmm?” was an annoying verbal tic that threaded his conversation like a shiny metallic wire.

“I’m not sure,” Sonny said. “But I’ll need to know which precinct the Plaza is in...”

“Of course. But you realize, don’t you, that we’re still not sure he’ll be at the Canadian affair?”

“I’ll be there, anyway.”

“Ready to improvise, hmm? Play it by ear, so to speak.”

“No, I’ll have a plan by then.”

“It’s not that far off, you know.”

“I’ll have a plan, don’t worry.”

“You’ll want to check out the Baroque Room...”

“Is that where the...?”

“Yes, sorry. I got that today.”

“Still at the Plaza?”

“Yes. The Baroque Room at the Plaza Hotel. It’d be convenient if he did decide to come, wouldn’t it? Get him and the bitch at the same time, hmm? But I haven’t yet heard if that’s likely. The Statue of Liberty’ll be harder. It’s on an island, you know...”

“I know.”

“... and security will be very tight, I imagine. So...”

“I’ll need the number of that precinct, too.”

“I’ll get it for you. But... I was about to say... if you’re planning to go in as a cop, it might be extremely difficult. The space is too confined, and getting close to him...”

“That’s what I’ll have to figure out.”

“Be much easier at the Plaza. Big ballroom, lots of space to roam around in, lots of exits and entrances. Even so, it won’t be easy. I don’t know what kind of security the British will provide for Thatcher, if any at all, now that she’s out of office, but I’m sure the Canadians and Mexicans’ll have agents all over the place. And if Bush does show up...” Arthur rolled his eyes. “Be literally thick with them, hmm?”

Sonny nodded. He was thinking that either way — the ballroom or the island — he might have to do a lay-in job. He didn’t want to discuss that quite yet, not until he knew for sure what his weapon would be and how he would...

“What weapon did you plan to use?” Arthur asked.

Mind reader, Sonny thought.

“I don’t know yet. I didn’t know this was a No-Fail till just...”

“Of course. The point is, will you need help?”

“Maybe.”

“You’ll let me know, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You know,” Arthur said, and hesitated. “The Canadian affair is on the first. That’s only five days away.”

“I realize that. But I got here as soon as I could. My outside deadline...”

“Of course, I’m merely saying. The point is... if you have to go for the second option, that’s only three days later. So if you’ll need any weaponry assistance from us... will you be considering explosives, for example?”

“I’m not considering anything yet.”

“Because we have a man who can rig whatever kind of...”

“So can I.”

“Of course. Forgive me. I’m merely saying we can help you with whatever...”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good. Phone me if you...”

“The Chinese girl and the other one, are they...?”

“Not Scimitar, but yes, with us, of course. She’s not Chinese, by the way. She’s from Bali.”

“Oh.”

“In any case, you don’t have to go through the SeaCoast line. The number you have is my private line and completely secure. As I told you.”

“How soon can you get me the information I need?”

“I’ll put someone on it...”

“Because the sooner the...”

“I was about to say I’ll put someone on it immediately, hmm?”

All at once, it was clear to Sonny that Arthur did not enjoy having his authority questioned. Fuck him, Sonny thought. Time was of the essence here, and he preferred directness to convolution. His plans had to be formulated as soon as possible, the one for the ballroom, the contingency plan for the island. If Arthur couldn’t get the information he needed quickly, then he would go elsewhere for it.

“I’ll need some cash, too,” he said.

“How much?” Arthur said at once.

“A few thousand for now. Perhaps more when I know what my plans will be.”

“Fine,” Arthur said, and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He took from it a small, grey, metal cash box, unlocked it, and removed from it a sheaf of banded hundred-dollar bills. Breaking the paper band around the bills, he began counting them out.

“You know how important this is to us, don’t you?” he asked, counting, his head bent.

“I do,” Sonny said.

“You won’t fail us, hmm?” he said, and looked up sharply, his eyes meeting Sonny’s.

“I won’t,” Sonny said.

“I hope not,” Arthur said, and smiled, and handed the bills across the desk to him. They felt new and crisp. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Is there a safe house? If I should need one?”

“Of course.”

“Where is it?”

“In Westhampton,” Arthur said.

The call from Miles Heatherton came at twelve-ten that Friday afternoon, just as Geoffrey was leaving the office for lunch. A glance at his watch told him that his stomach was understandably growling and that, incidentally, it was already a bit past closing time in London.

The first words Heatherton said were, “Are you having us on, Geoff?”

“How do you mean?” Geoffrey asked.

“This second passport notification request.”

Geoffrey had rung London at eleven this morning, shortly after Santorini had left the consulate office. The detective had seemed almost gleeful that yet another British subject had turned up dead in this insufferably hot and murderous city. With an identical scimitar tattoo on her breast, no less. Which report Heatherton had received silently and non-committally, promising to call on Monday. It was not yet Monday. It was merely lunchtime today — and thank God it’s Friday, as the natives were fond of saying. Geoffrey waited now for whatever dire information Heatherton was about to transmit.

“Having you on how?” he prompted.

“The two persons she listed in the passport?”

“Yes.”

Get on with it, he thought.

“Non-existent,” Heatherton said.

“I see.”

“And it’s the same passport.”

“How do you mean?” Geoffrey asked.

“As the first one. The name on it is different, of course, Angela Cartwright on this new one, as opposed to Gillian Holmes on the first one...”

Oh dear, Geoffrey thought.

“And the dates and places of birth are different as well. Colchester in 1943 for the Holmes woman, London in 1937 for the Cartwright woman.”

Oh dear dear, Geoffrey thought.

“Which are almost certainly false names,” Heatherton said, “since, you see, the passport numbers are identical.”

Geoffrey glanced at the number he’d copied from Angela Cartwright’s passport before making his call to London this morning.

“Which number,” Heatherton said, “is the number of a passport issued to the same Hamish Innes McIntosh.”

Born in Glasgow, Geoffrey remembered.

“Born in Glasgow,” Heatherton said.

In 1854, Geoffrey remembered.

“In 1854,” Heatherton said. “So what we have here is a case of two women claiming to be British subjects, for reason or reasons as yet unknown, seemingly unrelated save for the identical passport number and the rather curious tattoo adorning their, ah, respective bosoms.”

Geoffrey sighed audibly.

“I’ve turned this over to MI6,” Heatherton said flatly. “I rather imagine someone in New York will be contacting you.”

Geoffrey looked at the calendar.

“When?” he asked.

“Depends how urgent they feel it is, wouldn’t you say?” Heatherton said. “There are two corpses already, you know...”

But not British subjects, Geoffrey thought. So why...?

“So perhaps they’d like to move on this before there are any more of them, eh?” Heatherton said. “How’s the weather there in New York?”

“Beastly,” Geoffrey said.

“Quite the same here,” Heatherton said, “but in a different way, I’m sure. I wouldn’t plan on dashing off to the mountains, by the way...”

Shit, Geoffrey thought.

“... or the seashore,” Heatherton said, “until the man from MI6 has made contact. Shouldn’t want him to think you rude, eh?”

Geoffrey looked at the calendar again.

Friday, the twenty-sixth day of June. He had, in fact, planned to go to the seashore tomorrow. A friend in New Jersey...

“What do you think those bloody scimitars represent?” Heatherton asked.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Geoffrey said. “When do you think this chap will be contacting me? To be quite frank, I’d made arrangements for the weekend, and the thought of hanging about in New York, waiting for a telephone call...”

“I shouldn’t think it would be before Monday,” Heatherton said. “But, Geoff...” His voice lowered. “I really wouldn’t leave the city, were I you. Truly.”

Shit, he thought again.

“Toodle-oo,” Heatherton said, and hung up.