Lord Carey, the British Foreign Secretary, said that ‘much as I regret the course of action we have had to take in relation to United States citizens arriving in the United Kingdom, it is apparent that the tragic events of the past twenty-four hours would have led many of them to seek to stay in the United Kingdom indefinitely… And while I wish to the bottom of my heart that we had the facilities and the finance to cope with a massive influx of American refugees… the fact remains that we have not… and therefore with the understanding of the President, we have regretfully been obliged to turn away, for the time being, any United States citizen who arrives at a British port of entry.’
Germany, France, Holland, and the rest of the EEC countries quickly followed the British example. They were all sorry. They all spoke of their regret. But even ‘special relationships’ could not overcome the impossibility of accepting refugees who might eventually arrive from the United States in their tens of millions.
Watching the television in his room, Shearson Jones said to Peter Kaiser, ‘Don’t you ever wonder why we fought for those sons-of-bitches at all? I mean, don’t you wonder?’
But as Monday drew to a close, there were more important questions than that, and they were still unanswered. The looting and the arson had been so devastating that most of the networks had forgotten why they started at all, and nobody was asking if the threat of a famine was real, and how serious it was, and what the President was going to do about it.
Of course, nobody in the administration had yet been told about the Abbott family, of Portales, New Mexico. And nobody had yet been officially told about the isotope that Square had found in the grain elevator in St Louis.
And that was one of the reasons why the Duncan family, of Willingboro, New Jersey, sat around their kitchen table that evening for a supper of canned salmon and salad without any feelings but feelings of family closeness and good appetite, and gratefulness to the Lord for providing their daily sustenance. There were four of them – Emmett Duncan, a telephone engineer, his wife Dora, and their two daughters, Jenny and Kate. If you had asked any of them what Clostridium botulinum was, they wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But the salmon they ate that night was swarming with it.
Six
It was two o’clock on Tuesday morning when Ed was awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. He thought he was still dreaming at first – a strange airless dream of waiting in a funeral parlour for the body of his father to arrive – and he struck out with his left arm and hit Della on the side of the head. She seized his wrist and said, ‘Quiet. I don’t want to wake up the Muldoons.’
Ed rolled over and sat up in bed. He’d been drinking for most of the afternoon, and his mouth tasted as if he’d been chewing alfalfa seeds. Della was wearing an emerald green silk wrap, and she smelled of Paco Rabanne. ‘What’s the matter?’ Ed asked her, frowzily. ‘Couldn’t you just have slipped into bed?’
She smiled in the darkness. ‘I don’t have time for that tonight. I’m afraid. I need your help.’
‘Help? What kind of help?’
‘Shearson and Peter Kaiser have been forced to clear out the Blight Crisis Appeal faster than they wanted to. That’s why you haven’t seen them around today. They’ve been diverting as much money as possible into false-bottomed trusts and phoney accounts.’
‘Well? What do you expect me to do about it?’
‘Ed – all the telexes and the memos and the accounts are still downstairs in Shearson’s office. All the documentary evidence I’m going to need to bring him before a Grand Jury. But if I leave it until tomorrow, Peter Kaiser’s going to have time to spirit them all away, and file them where they can’t be traced.’
‘You’re going to break into Shearson’s office and steal his papers?’ asked Ed, incredulous.
‘It’s the only way. I can’t get through to the FBI office in Wichita and order up a search warrant. Shearson’s keeping a check on every single telephone call. But I can get in there and take the paperwork I need.’
‘What’s Shearson going to do if he catches you at it?’ Ed wanted to know.
‘I think I know the answer to that better than anyone,’ Della replied. ‘Shearson Jones is suspected by the FBI of implication in at least five killings, and probably more.’
Ed frowned, thinking of Season and Sally, and Peter Kaiser’s threat to kill them. ‘Do you mean that?’ he asked. ‘Of course I mean it. He’s a very wanted man.’
‘Somebody in the FBI actually has proof?’
Della sat up straight. ‘What do you want, Ed? One minute you’re publicly tearing the man apart, and now you’re doubting he’s a potential killer. Do you want to see blood?’
‘Not my own, thanks. And not yours, either.’
‘Well, in that case, why don’t you give me some help? The sooner I can lay my hands on some incriminating paperwork, the sooner Shearson Jones is going to find himself in the federal penitentiary. That’s if they can find him a cell large enough.’
‘This is crazy,’ said Ed. ‘I’m a farmer, not a burglar.’
‘You used to be an actuary, though, didn’t you? There’ll be scores of accounts and bank drafts to sort out down there, and if I’m going to get it done quickly. I’m going to need some expert assistance.’
‘How the hell are you going to break in there?’
‘Just leave that to me. I’ve been trained. All you have to do is keep quiet and do what I tell you.’
Ed ran his hand through his scruffy hair. ‘This is a heck of a way to spend the night,’ he said, but he climbed out of bed, and reached for his pants and his red sweatshirt, the one with South Burlington Farm emblazoned on the front.
As he was pulling the sweatshirt over his head, Della asked him, ‘Did you manage to call your wife?’
Ed’s head appeared through the circular neck-hole. ‘Not yet. Why?’
‘No reason. I wondered if they were still giving you that busy switchboard routine.’
‘I haven’t tried since seven o’clock last night.’
Della stood up, and tightened the silk tie around her waist. ‘I guess Shearson’s trying to keep us all out of public circulation until his money’s been safely salted away.’
Ed said, ‘The truth is that Peter Kaiser said I could call Season if I wanted to.’
Della looked up. ‘He did? And you didn’t? Don’t tell me you didn’t want to.’
Ed stooped down and picked up his sneakers. When he stood straight again, he simply gave Della an unhappy smile.
‘It’s not because of me, is it?’ asked Della. ‘You mustn’t ever think of abandoning your wife because of me.’
‘No,’ said Ed, quietly. ‘Peter Kaiser says there’s a private detective following Season and Sally around. Well – I don’t have any way of telling whether he’s bluffing or not. But the twist is that unless I suffer severe loss of memory whenever anybody asks me about Shearson Jones and the Blight Crisis Appeal, that private detective is going to get orders to kill both of them, right away. I’d like to call them, but I think it’s safer if I don’t. Not just yet, anyway.’
Della came slowly over to Ed and laid her hands on his shoulders. Her hair gleamed coppery-gold in the faint light from the open windows. ‘So that’s why you wanted to know if the FBI had any proof that Shearson was really a killer.’
‘Yes,’ said Ed, quietly. He hesitated, and then he said, ‘I know that things haven’t been too good between me and Season lately… We’ve bickered over the farm, and we’ve argued over living in Kansas, and we’ve had enough rows about my mother to send up the Goodyear blimp. But I don’t want anything like this to happen… not in a thousand years.’