The call from the St. Regis was to Bradleigh’s office. Bradleigh wasn’t there. He was expected Monday.
Mathieson tried Bradleigh’s home phone. He got an answering machine. Mathieson identified himself, said he would call back Saturday evening at six.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
New Jersey — New York: 1–6 November
1
He drove to the lake house and let himself in. Vasquez and Homer were in New York for the day doing surveillance on Pastor and his family. Mathieson found Roger in the house fiddling with lamps, taking experimental footage with the Arriflex. The living room had a cathedral ceiling and high glass doors across the length of one walclass="underline" They gave a view of most of the lake.
Roger was bundled in sweater and jacket. “My feet are colder’n a witch’s tittie.”
“Try a bucket of hot water.”
“You talk like my grandma. You get Bradleigh all right?”
“It’s all set. Any trouble with the camera?”
“No. Go set in that chair, let me take a bead on you and run a few frames, we’ll see how the lighting works out.”
Mathieson sat down with the Times and let Roger photograph him from various angles, moving the tripod clumsily around the room and zooming the lens in and out. Mathieson said, “You’ve got both black-and-white and color, right?”
“Right. High-speed color, the new stuff. Otherwise we’d need klieg lights all over the place.”
“These two kinds of film, they’re compatible? I mean they can be spliced together?”
“Sure. Same sprockets, same sound-on-film tracks. We use the same splicer on everything. It’d go easier with a Movieola but it would’ve cost a fortune and I couldn’t find one to rent. We’ll make out with what we’ve got.”
“You’ve got a week to practice. Get it right.”
“Old horse, time I get through with this even old Jack Ford would be proud of me.”
“Or rolling over in his grave.” Mathieson put the newspaper down. “It’s time we wrote the script for the first piece of film.”
“You write the script, old horse, I’ll direct it.”
“We’ll both write it. It’s got to be right.”
“Go ahead. I’ll take a peek over your shoulder now and then.”
“We’ve got four days,” Mathieson said. “Thursday, as they say in the vernacular, the snatch goes down.”
“Why Thursday in particular?”
“Because it’s her birthday.”
2
She let her mind drift; under the dryer she neither read nor spoke. Alexandre returned after forty-five minutes and lifted the cone off her head and removed the curlers and began to brush her hair out. “Glorious,” he intoned with professional cheer. “Madam is a vision.”
She inspected herself critically in the mirrors. “It’s nice, Alexandre. A really fine job.”
“Thank you. I’m thrilled that madam is pleased.”
He helped her into her full-length suede coat. She gave him a smile that seemed to brighten his day; he went to the door and held it for her.
It was another of those crystal fall days and she blinked when the brightness hit her eyes; she found the sunglasses in her handbag and put them on.
The limousine was not at the curb; there were no parking spaces. She looked at her watch: 11:40. She’d told Belmont to pick her up at a quarter to twelve. She looked down the length of Madison and didn’t see it anywhere; probably he was waiting double-parked in a side street — Belmont was always punctual, it was what he was paid for. She window-shopped antiques and paintings for a few minutes, not really looking at them. She was still thinking about the child. Frank Junior. She still heard Frank’s laughter last night: Let’s hope the kid has your looks and your brains. She caught her own smile in the window’s reflection — and behind it she saw the long Mercedes draw up.
She crossed the curb toward it; Belmont was just getting out, starting to come around the car to open the door for her; people straggled by along the sidewalk, topcoated against the chill; two men were coming toward her, deep in animated conversation, and she hurried briskly across their path toward the car. She stepped off the curb between two parked cars and suddenly the two men crowded against her.
“Anna — Anna Pastor, isn’t it?”
The voice was vaguely familiar and she turned with a polite hesitant half-smile. Belmont came around the back of the limousine and she glanced at him. Then she froze. It wasn’t Belmont.
The man who had spoken was reaching amiably for her arm. Something glinted in his hand. She drew back instinctively but his companion moved in closer and when she took a backward step she felt hard fists grip her by both arms from behind: the man who wasn’t Belmont.
She opened her mouth but the taller man, the bearded one, said in a low voice, “Honey, I wouldn’t do that was I you. You could get hurt real bad.”
In a terrified confusion she glanced down. The man who had spoken first — the one with the moustache and glasses — had a firm grip on her right arm and now for the first time she saw the syringe clearly.
There was no time to react, no time for anything. The needle plunged into the soft web of skin between her thumb and forefinger. All three men held her tightly: She couldn’t move. The bearded man loomed, screening her from the curb. A bus went by with a swishing roar, filling the air with a noxious stink. The man behind her had something against her mouth — a handkerchief, she thought dispassionately. To keep me from screaming. It all went so fast...
They were pushing her into the car. She kept waiting for a shout of discovery from the people crowding past on the sidewalk.
She found herself in the back seat between the two tall men. The man in the chauffeur’s uniform got in behind the wheel. The doors shut, sealing her off from the world.
She cleared her throat. “What was in that needle?”
The man with the moustache said, “Sodium pentothal. It won’t hurt you. You’ll go to sleep for a while.”
The voice: Finally she recognized it. She turned and stared in horror at the man with the moustache.
“Merle.”
“Just take it easy, Mrs. Pastor. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
The bearded man said, “Move it on out, driver.”
“I don’t see the boss’s car.”
“Probably hung up in traffic. Get going — he’ll catch us up.”
The limousine eased out into the knotted traffic. Anna tried to reach the door. Merle gripped her arm — surprisingly gentle; he forced her back in the seat between them. “Easy now.”
Her head swam. “My God this stuff works fast.” By the time she spoke the last of the six words her tongue was thick. She tried to rouse herself, to stay awake. In five seconds she gave up the struggle and plunged into darkness.
3
She awoke with a sensation of having been asleep for a very long time. But they were still in the car, still moving. She seemed unable to open her eyes. She could hear and understand but her body was still asleep. She listened to their voices.
“Transfer point coming up.”
“She should come around in a minute. That stuff wears off fast.”
“Gave me a turn, old horse. Right out there in front of God and everybody. But nobody raised an eyebrow.”