Pilgrim shrugged. "I figured you'd be back, even without the invitation I extended when I let you see this map. I take it that you weren't too impressed with our show?"
"Who is Parker?"
"He really is a lieutenant—a lieutenant colonel. He's with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's supposed to act as a liaison between the Pentagon and the Institute."
"Supposed to?"
"Parker spends half his time dreaming up and trying to run dangerous, off-the-wall experiments, and the other half trying to keep me from finding out about them."
"Most of your budget comes from the Defense Department, doesn't it?"
"Unfortunately, a big part of it."
"Were the police even called?"
"Nope."
"How did you know I'd be able to get back in here?"
"Good instincts," Pilgrim said with a broad smile. "Let's just say I had a sneaking suspicion that you're a bit more than a very talented artist who augments his income by working as a kind of 'street detective,' helping a lot of people nobody else would pay any attention to. Incidentally, I like the way you accept bartered goods and services in exchange for your help. Nice touch. You seem to get involved in more than your share of heavy cases, and now and then you'll make the papers. You have a lot of admirers in the NYPD, but a lot of other cops and city officials wish to hell you had an investigator's license just so they could pull it. I don't know about your friends, but you've made all the right enemies."
"You know a lot about me," Veil said carefully. "I don't recall providing any of that information during my intake interview."
"On the contrary, I don't think we know much about you at all—at least not some very important things. Henry's a damn good investigator, and we always do heavy research on prospective guests before we issue an invitation to come here. With you, we ran into some problems."
"What kinds of problems?" Veil asked, his voice flat.
"1963 to 1972."
"I was in the Army."
"Indeed. Henry has access to service records. Yours covers about three-quarters of a page. It says something about a six-month hitch in Saigon as a driver in a motor pool, and the rest of the time spent as trainer and adviser to various National Guard units. What do you make of that?"
"I don't make anything of it. It's my service record. I didn't have a very distinguished career."
"I think it's bullshit. They gave you a medical discharge, labeled you a psycho. Now, I can understand how working with some of those National Guard units could drive a man crazy—but I don't believe it happened to you."
"Believe it, Jonathan."
"Henry checked, and he couldn't find a single person in any of those units who'd ever heard of you. Some very heavy people have tried to erase nine years of your life. Not only were they sloppy, but they had to be in a real big hurry. It was a patchwork job; when it seemed to be working, nobody bothered to go back and do it right. Everybody involved just breathed a great collective sigh of relief and went on about their other business."
"You could have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble if you'd just told me yesterday that I could stick around."
"Why change the subject?"
"Because it's a pointless discussion. There's no mystery there, just botched records. Why didn't you talk to me yesterday? Don't you trust Ibber?"
"Oh, I trust Henry. Let's just say that I wanted to see how committed you were. Some men simply would have gone home."
"What do you want from me, Jonathan?"
"That was some number you did on the guy who came after you."
"Maybe it happened the way I said it did."
"Being with NASA, I never made it to 'Nam," Pilgrim said as he puffed thoughtfully on his cigar and stared hard at Veil. "Still, we got our fair share of feedback. One of the stories we heard was about a guy with a move like yours, a martial arts master who could tear out a man's esophagus with his fingers. He'd won a bucketful of medals in South Vietnam, and then he was sent into Laos to help the Hmong tribes there fight the Pathet Lao. He was supposed to be a kind of one-man army, a very serious bad-ass. To tell you the truth, I never believed all the stories until I saw what was left of Golden Boy in the locker room and realized that you were the man they'd been talking about."
"Don't ever repeat any of that, Jonathan," Veil said softly. "It's for your own good."
"There's more to the story, although details are very fuzzy. Rumor had it that the brass and politicians were drumming up a big PR campaign to publicize this guy's war exploits, to win back the hearts and minds of Americans for the war effort. Then something very nasty happened in those jungles, and no one ever talked about this guy again. It seems he'd done something to make everyone's shit list. I've always wondered—"
"Jonathan, you're not listening," Veil interrupted. He slowly raised his right hand and pointed the index finger like a gun at Pilgrim's forehead. "If I were this man, I'd warn you about the danger of idly speculating about secrets nobody wants known. Repeat what you've just said to me to the wrong people and somebody could very well come to kill you. Do you understand?"
Pilgrim continued to stare at Veil for some time, then slowly nodded. "I hear you," he said evenly. "You must have fucked somebody over good."
"Who was the man in the locker room?"
"You want a beer?"
"Sure."
Pilgrim reached down to the floor, removed a sweaty can of Budweiser from an ice bucket, and tossed it across the room to Veil. He pulled the tab on the can, then went and sat down on the edge of Pilgrim's desk.
"I promise you we'll get to Golden Boy," Pilgrim said, "but first I'd like to ask you something. Your background notwithstanding, that guy should have had your ass. You're pushing forty; Golden Boy was young, trained constantly, and it was a situation he'd prepared for carefully. These things I know, Veil, so we can dispense with the mugger story. By rights, he should have been able to kill you before you even knew he was in the neighborhood. In exchange for information about Golden Boy, I'd like to know how you managed to take him."
"Why?"
"Just curious. Where did he slip up?"
"He didn't."
"Oh?"
"He came after me in the pool, not the locker room. I was warned."
"How?"
Veil sighed. "Jonathan, you won't believe me."
"Try me. I've been known to believe six impossible things before breakfast."
"Do you believe in a 'sixth sense'?"
"I certainly do. As a matter of fact, we've done a good deal of research here on what some people call 'sixth sense.'"
"I seem to have been born with a kind of sonic 'sixth sense.' When I'm in danger, I hear a sound inside my head."
"What kind of a sound?"
"It's like a chime ... a velvet-covered chime struck by a velvet-covered hammer. It begins very softly, as something I can actually feel, as well as hear, behind my eyes. It will grow increasingly louder as the danger increases. It's saved my life a good many times. It saved my life in the pool, since it gave me time to turn around and see the man coming. After that, I really did just get lucky."
"Interesting," Pilgrim said, and took a sip of beer.
Veil felt curiously disarmed by Pilgrim's reaction, or lack of it. "You believe me?"
Now Pilgrim seemed genuinely surprised. "Why shouldn't I believe you?"
"You're the first person I've ever told about the chime. There are times when I'm not sure I believe it myself. But it does happen."
Pilgrim shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure it does. I can assure you that I've investigated some very strange things that turned out to be true. That's what the Institute is all about. Perhaps one day we'll look into this chime thing."