They exchanged yet another glance.
“For further information,” Stone said, “I refer you to Mr. Lance Cabot, director of the CIA. He’s at Langley, except when he wishes to be elsewhere. I happen to know that he was in New York last evening.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because we share a mutual acquaintance who would know.”
“Who was?”
“I’m afraid that is confidential.”
“And where are Mr. Collins’s remains?”
“At the bottom of the sea,” Stone said. “They were scattered by his widow yesterday, I believe.”
“We won’t trouble you further, then,” one of the men said. “Thank you for your assistance.” They stood and left.
Joan came in. “What did they want?”
“They didn’t seem to know,” Stone replied. “I had to explain it to them.”
“Lance Cabot is on one.”
Stone picked up the phone. “Lance,” he said, “what a surprise!”
“Have you heard from the FBI about our mutual acquaintance?”
“They just left, knowing little more than when they arrived,” Stone replied. “And I think ‘acquaintance’ is a bit of a stretch, when one of the two parties got dead early in the game, a fact of which the two FBI gentlemen had not been apprised by their superiors.”
“They never cease to surprise me,” Lance said.
“Before you go, Lance, I would be grateful if you would explain why John Collins was in Maine on your instructions and why you don’t want anybody to know that.”
“I compartmentalize,” Lance replied, “and Mr. Collins and everybody else were in different compartments.”
“Is there any other information about the man that you would like me to disseminate the next time I’m asked about him?”
Lance seemed to think for a moment. “I believe not,” he said, then hung up.
Stone buzzed Joan.
“Yes, sir?”
“Joan, if you should receive any calls from people seeking information about one John Collins, please deny all knowledge of him and hang up.”
“Got it,” she said.
8
The next morning, Stone had a coffee at his desk and read the Times. On a back page, a death notice caught his eye. These were paid advertisements announcing the deaths of people who were not famous or notorious enough to warrant a full-blown obituary by the newspaper. Their purpose, apparently, was to tell people who might have known them that they were deceased. John Collins’s announcement appeared without a photograph, and after the recitation of his dates of birth and death, he was described as a graduate of the City College of New York and of NYU School of Law and a civil servant.
Joan buzzed him. “Bill Eggers on one.”
Stone picked up the receiver to speak to the managing partner of his law firm, Woodman & Weld. “Good morning, Bill.”
“Morning. Did you see the Times this morning?”
“My dog brings it to me in bed every morning.”
“I mean the thing about what’s-his-name.”
“It’s a big newspaper, Bill,” Stone replied. “Can you give me a hint? News, sports, business, crossword?”
“Dead people.”
“Ah, the obituaries.”
“No, at the bottom of the page.”
“Death announcements?”
“That’s it, in the little, tiny newsprint.”
“I check it most days to find out who I’ve outlived.”
“You knew him, of course.”
“I’m sorry, Bill, you haven’t zoomed in far enough.”
“Jack, ah, Cummings!”
“Bill, do you possess a magnifying glass?”
“Right here, on my desk.”
“Apply it to the announcement you’re talking about and read me the name.”
“Collins.”
“Ah, the infamous John Collins.”
“He was also at NYU Law. Everybody called him Jack.”
“Got him,” Stone said, “bottom of the page.”
“That’s the one. You had to know the guy, Stone. He made quite a name for himself.”
“I tend to ignore ones like that. They were always wanting to borrow your notes, or something.”
“He kept the whole law school in grass.”
“Well, he wasn’t afraid of risk, was he?”
“Didn’t you ever buy from him?”
“Bill, I don’t even smoke cigarettes. I choke if I try to inhale any foreign substance. Sometimes, I vomit.”
“Everybody knew this guy.”
“I didn’t meet him until late in life, very late in life.” Stone gave him the condensed version of that meeting.
“That’s crazy. Same school as this guy, then decades later, he turns up dead in your garage!”
“He turned up dead on the ferry. My garage was used to keep him cool and dry until they could airlift him to the morgue. You may recall the rain of last weekend.”
“Oh, yeah. Did you get a look at his face?”
“Yes, it was bland and uninteresting.”
“Did you see the scar?”
“I must have missed that.”
“Two guys tried to steal his stash, and he fought them off, except one of them had a knife. It made the Daily News.”
“I’ve always read the Times.”
“You were a snob even then?”
“You wound me, Bill. I never knew you thought I was a snob.”
“Of course you’re not. Weren’t. But some people thought so.”
“I was just reserved, I guess, and some people mistook that for being snobbish.”
“That sounds right.”
“Bill, is there anything I can do to ease your pain on the loss of your college pal and dealer?”
“He wasn’t my dealer. I didn’t have a dealer. He was just everybody’s dealer.”
“The CIA must have missed that when he applied.”
“He applied for the CIA?”
“And was accepted. He was an officer in the operations department at his death.”
“Does Lance know about this?”
“I assure you, he does.”
“So he just ignored this guy’s criminal record.”
“I’m not aware that he had a record.”
“Well, maybe not, but he should have had one.”
“Perhaps Lance knew but regarded it as a mark of Jack’s enterprise and found that attractive in a candidate.”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t say so. That was just a wild guess.”
“Well, I’d better get going. There’s a couple of more people who’d like to hear about this.”
“Bill, don’t mention Jack’s after-school job on the phone. You never know who’s listening. You don’t want to besmirch his name this late in the day.”
“Yeah, right.” Eggers hung up.
9
After lunch, Stone got up from his desk, used the toilet, then returned, to find Lance Cabot sitting across from him. “Good afternoon,” he said.
“Good afternoon, Lance. Have you had lunch? Can we offer you a sandwich?”
“Thank you, no. I had a taco from a street vendor.”
“Can we get you a Pepto-Bismol?”
“Not yet. I’ll keep you posted. Stone, why didn’t you tell me that you and John Collins were friends in law school?”
“Because I learned that he was at NYU only when reading the Times death notice this morning. And when he was there, I didn’t know him.”
“You never bought grass from him?”
“I’ve never bought grass from anyone — except once, when a girlfriend wanted to bake me brownies, then she bought it, and I reimbursed her. Tell me, Lance, why didn’t you mention at the outset that not only did you know Collins, but he was your creature?”
“That’s putting it rather too strongly,” Lance said.