If what Trevayne perceived was the emerging pattern was correct.
And with Ian Hamilton that pattern spread into the area of the executive branch of the government. The President of the United States. For Hamilton, adviser to presidents, moved cautiously with quiet but enormous power.
In the morning, Trevayne would drive out to Evanston and surprise Ian Hamilton on the Christian Sabbath, as he’d surprised Aaron Green on the Hebrew Sabbath in Sail Harbor.
Robert Webster kissed his wife good night and swore again at the telephone. When they lived in Akron, Ohio, they never got calls at midnight that required his leaving the house. Of course, when they lived in Akron they could never have afforded such a home for him to leave. And how many Akron boys got calls from the White House? Though, God knew, this call wasn’t from there.
Webster backed his car out of the garage and sped off down the street. According to the message, he had to be at the intersection of Nebraska and 21st in ten minutes—eight minutes now.
He spotted the car, a white Chevrolet, with a man’s arm out the window.
He pushed the rim of his horn with two short blasts.
The white Chevrolet responded with one long sound of its horn.
Webster continued down Nebraska Avenue as the Chevrolet whipped out of its parking place and followed.
The two cars reached the immense parking lot of the old Carter Baron Amphitheater and came to a stop adjacent to each other.
Robert Webster got out and walked around to meet the man. «Christ! I hope this is worth it! I need a night’s sleep!»
«It’s worth it,» said the dark man in the shadows. «Move against the soldier. Everybody’s covered.»
«Who says?»
«Willie Gallabretto; that’s who says. It’s straight. I’m to tell you to go for the mark. Put him away. Loud.»
«What about De Spadante?»
«He’s a corpse as soon as he gets back to New Haven.»
Robert Webster sighed and smiled at the same time. «It’s worth it,» he said as he turned and walked back to his car.
The iron sign with the brass letters read one word: «Lakeside.»
Trevayne turned the car into the snow-plowed drive and started down the gentle slope toward the main house. It was a large white Georgian structure that seemed uprooted from some antebellum plantation in the Carolinas. There were tall trees everywhere. Beyond the house and the trees were the mostly frozen waters of Lake Michigan.
As he drove his car into a parking area in front of the three-car garage, Trevayne saw a man in a mackinaw coat and a fur cap walking with a large dog on a path. The sound of the automobile caused the man to turn, and the dog, a beautiful Chesapeake retriever, to start barking.
Andrew recognized Ian Hamilton immediately. Tall, slender, elegant even in his lumberjack clothes. There was a quality about him that reminded Trevayne of Walter Madison, another eastern-establishment corporate lawyer; but Madison—as good as he was—had a slight vulnerability about him. Hamilton had none whatsoever.
«Yes? May I help you?» said Ian Hamilton, holding the retriever by the collar as he approached the car.
Trevayne had rolled down his window. «Mr. Hamilton?»
«Good Lord. You’re Trevayne. Andrew Trevayne. What are you doing here?» Hamilton looked as though he’d misplaced his senses but would quickly find them again.
Another one alerted, thought Trevayne. Another player had received his warning. It was unmistakable.
«I was visiting friends several miles from here …»
Trevayne repeated a variation of the lie, and other than serving as a social buffer to lessen the awkwardness, it was no more believed than his previous lies had been. Hamilton, ever-gracious, pretended to accept it—without enthusiasm—and led Trevayne into the house. There was a roaring fire in the living-room fireplace, the Sunday papers strewn about the sofa and on the floor around a gold velvet-covered reclining chair. On a table in front of a bay window looking over the lakefront was a silver coffee service and the remnants of a single breakfast.
«My wife will be down shortly,» said Hamilton, indicating a chair for Trevayne, taking his overcoat. «We’ve had a twenty-year understanding. Every Sunday she reads and breakfasts in bed while I take my dogs—or dog, as the case is now—for a run. We both find a gratifying hour or so of solitude this way… I imagine it sounds rather old-fashioned.» Hamilton removed his mackinaw and fur cap and carried Trevayne’s overcoat into the hallway.
«Not at all,» answered Andy. «It sounds very civilized.»
Hamilton returned from hanging up the coats and looked at Trevayne. Even in a sloppy cardigan sweater, the lawyer had a custom-tailored appearance, thought Andrew. «Yes. It is civilized… Actually, I’m the one who formalized the routine. It gave me an excuse not to accept telephone calls … or interruptions.»
«I stand rebuked.»
«I’m sorry.» Hamilton walked toward the table by the bay window. «That was unnecessarily rude of me; I do apologize. My life these days is really far less strenuous than it’s been in decades. I have no right to complain. Have some coffee?»
«Thank you, no.»
«Decades …» Hamilton chuckled as he poured himself coffee. «I sound like an old man. I’m not really. Fifty-eight next April. Most men my age are in the heavy-thick of it now… Walter Madison, for instance. You’re a client of Madison’s, aren’t you?»
«Yes.»
«Give Walter my regards. I’ve always liked him… Very agile but completely ethical. You have a fine attorney, Mr. Trevayne.» Hamilton walked to the sofa opposite Trevayne and sat down, putting his cup and saucer on the solid oak coffee table.
«Yes, I know. He’s spoken of you often. He considers you a brilliant man.»
«Compared to what?… That’s a deceptive word, ‘brilliant.’ Overworked these days. A brief is brilliant, a dancer’s brilliant; a book, a hairpiece, eggs benedict, plans, machinery … I recall last summer a neighbor up the road called the horse manure for his garden ‘brilliant.’»
«I’m sure Walter’s more selective.»
«Of course he is. And unduly flattering… Enough about me, I’m really semiretired these days, just a name on the stationery. My son is rather prominent, though, wouldn’t you say?»
«Extremely. That was a good story in Life the other month.»
«It was highly fictionalized, to tell you the truth.» Hamilton laughed his elegant laugh as he sipped coffee. «You know, that story was intended to be derogatory. Nasty girl writer, up to her eyeballs in women’s liberation and convinced my son made sex objects of all females. He found out, I’m told, seduced the poor crusading bitch, and the article turned out fine.»
«He’s a remarkable talent.»
«I like what he’s doing now more than I did his previous work. More reflective, less frantic… Certainly you didn’t drop by to chat about the Hamilton family’s endeavors, Mr. Trevayne.»
Andrew was startled by the lawyer’s abrupt transition. Then he understood. Hamilton had used the small talk to marshal his thoughts, his defenses, perhaps. He sat back on the sofa with the expression of a very knowledgeable debater.
«The Hamilton endeavors.» Trevayne paused as though his words were a title. «That’s accurate, as a matter of fact. I dropped in because I find it necessary to discuss your endeavors, Mr. Hamilton. Relative to Genessee Industries.»
«On what possible presumption do you find this necessity?»
«As chairman of the subcommittee for the Defense Allocations Commission.»