This job, he had decided that morning on the plane up from Florida, was important enough to handle himself.
Kaiser was at his desk in the inner office, talking to a young man seated on the leather couch. Vanderglass had never been in the office. He had only spoken twice to Kaiser, both times on the phone.
The offices were incredibly dirty, he thought. The walls were streaked with dirt and the remains of posters, old clippings, pages torn from newspapers. One yellowed page from the Washington Post announced that President Nixon had resigned.
A woman sat behind a typewriter in the outer office. She was unkempt and her eyes were large. She had sallow skin and she typed very rapidly on the old Olympia manual office machine.
Vanderglass did not speak to her.
He walked directly into Kaiser’s room and stood at the littered desk, careful to keep his trousers away from the grimy edge.
Kaiser looked up at him.
“Kaiser,” Vanderglass said in a voice he knew would be remembered by the older man.
Kaiser stared at him and then glanced at the young man on the couch. “Cassidy. Get your ass in gear, get out of here.” The voice was harsh, gravelly. “I got business to talk with this guy.”
Kaiser lit another cigarette. Cassidy got up, looked at Vanderglass, and then edged his way out of the door of the crowded room. Vanderglass kicked the door closed behind him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kaiser said.
Vanderglass stared at him.
“What the hell do you want here?” Kaiser said.
“You must know the answer to that.”
“Get out of here.”
“I want your girl.”
Kaiser gaped at him, the cigarette smoldering in one of his ham fists. “I haven’t heard from her. You mean Rita.”
“I mean Rita,” he said.
“She isn’t around.”
“You know where she is.”
“The hell I do.”
“We never found the journal.”
“Maybe there isn’t a journal.”
“One of our men, he talked to the housekeeper at that rectory in Florida. She was a little suspicious of him but she talked to him. Yes. She talked to him at last.” Vanderglass spoke in a soft, smoky voice, nearly without inflection, as though he were the mildest of men. “She told us, finally. The housekeeper. The old priest gave her a red-bound book. To give to your girl. Rita Macklin. She has it now and we want it, but you know that, don’t you?”
Kaiser’s eyes widened. He seemed genuinely surprised. Vanderglass noticed it but did not make a gesture of acknowledgment.
“She got the journal? She got it?” He sounded almost exuberant. “Lovely, Rita. Lovely. She didn’t call me, she didn’t get in touch—”
“Shut up, fat man,” Vanderglass said. His face was as dark as a cobra; his hair was dark, close to the head, his eyes were hooded and his mouth revealed thin, sharp teeth.
“Look, you, you don’t come in here with—”
“Shut up, I said.” The voice was final. “Where would she go to ground? I mean, if she didn’t trust coming back to see you?”
“What did you do to her? I called her—”
“You’re the one gave her a warning? You’re in trouble, fat man. Very bad trouble. Your son’s in trouble, too.”
“What did you do to her?”
“We can do more. But all we want is that journal. It doesn’t matter about her.”
“You’re going to hurt her.”
“We’re not going to hurt anyone. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“You killed three men. Three priests. You—”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Vanderglass said. His voice was as mild as the truth. “The old priest died by accident, this Lu Ann Carter person got hysterical—”
“Crap,” said Kaiser, his voice rising. “Some kind of device down there. There was a story in the Post this morning.…”
“You don’t want to concern yourself with these things,” Vanderglass said.
Kaiser felt afraid again.
“You should have told us, Kaiser, when you let your little girl go after Leo Tunney in the first place. It would have saved a lot of problems.”
“It was different then. I didn’t know InterComBank was involved.”
“Who told you that? Did we even mention the bank? I don’t want you to become careless, Kaiser. I don’t want to hear the name of that bank again.”
“But you’re involved now—”
“We’re all involved, fat man. You and me. And your little girl reporter. Where is she now?”
“She was in Florida.”
“I was in Florida.”
Rita was on the run, Kaiser thought. She got out in time. The warning had meant something after all. And she had the journal.
For a moment, he thought of her and he was overwhelmed by despair. It was hopeless now; he had ruined everything for her, for himself.
And he knew they wouldn’t be able to stop now until they killed her. He understood that clearly. They would have to kill her; it was the only way.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Home. Where’s her home at?”
“I don’t know. You know where she lives in Bethesda—”
“I don’t want to waste my time, Mr. Kaiser. She worked for you, remember? She came from someplace, didn’t she?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“You have to tell us. You know that. Don’t be unreasonable about it.”
“No. You want to kill her. I won’t help you kill her.”
“No one is going to get killed.”
“Liar,” Kaiser hissed. “You dirty bastard, you fucking liar. Get out of here, you fucking bastard.”
“Did you forget your son? In New York? Did you forget the matter of embezzlement from my employer? He has a life, he has children. Those little daughters of his. Did you forget them?”
“You would remind me.”
“He could go away for ten years. Yes. Ten years in a federal prison. Mr. Fraser is a powerful man, I assure you. An example would be made of him.”
“But that was my son, that was me. It wasn’t Rita.” For a moment, his voice broke; he felt the despair like a web closing over his soul.
“Rita,” he said.
Vanderglass did not understand. “Yes, Rita Macklin. That’s who we’re talking about.”
“I won’t let you kill her.”
“Self-interest, fat man. Decent self-interest. On the one hand, you have a reporter you have known for two years. An employee. On the other, you have your son, your kith and kin. Your only kin. You have your daughter-in-law. Can you picture her in your mind? And the two little girls… what were their names again? I would have to say for myself it was no contest, wouldn’t you say so?”
“But you will kill her,” Kaiser said.
Vanderglass stared at him solemnly.
“No,” Vanderglass said. “I swear to you before God that we will not harm her. I promise you that on my solemn word of honor. I promise you.”
Kaiser stared back at him and yearned to believe him; and yet, he saw the lie. And yet. He had to believe.
“Yes,” Kaiser said dully. “You make a promise.”
He looked down at his dirty ink-stained hands resting on the littered desk. Reporter and editor, that was all it had meant.
He thought of Rita the first day, frightened and nervous, yet with a certain sense of bearing, a sort of sense of herself and what she would do.
She had gotten the journal just as she said she would.
And now they would have to kill her.
Kaiser did not speak. He realized that he had cared about her and never told her. And now he would have to betray her.
“Please,” he said to Vanderglass as though there would be a reprieve, as though the nightmare really had an end to it.