Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (62 page)

 
          
 
Then he thought: To hell with it. I have to
know. He said, "Do you?"

 
          
 
The President smiled, as if he appreciated
Burnham's reticence, and said, "No. I've got instincts, and usually I
trust 'em, but I'm not gonna send boys to rot in some stinking jungle on the
basis of some gut feeling, the way Lyndon Johnson did. There's no Bobby Kennedy
pecking at my shell."

 
          
 
"Well then, Mr. President, shall we take
it from the top?"

 
          
 
"After you, my boy." The President
spread his hands, inviting Burnham to proceed. "The night is young."

 
          
 
Suicide, Foster Pym decided, was not an
option. For one thing, it might not be an end-all. For another, as afraid as he
was at the moment, he was even more afraid of dying, and as unpleasant as the
fear of dying was, he'd rather be afraid than dead.

 
          
 
He saw that he had arrived back at the front
door, having circled the block. He set off again, to walk somewhere, anywhere,
it didn't matter. It felt good to be outside. The apartment had become
confining. The radio and television threatened him with more news of Louise;
the telephone threatened to ring with new alarms. Out here, at least, the bad
news couldn't reach him.

 
          
 
He had to think, had to come up with a plan. A
plan to do what? He didn't know. He felt too old to run, too scared to hide.

 
          
 
Teal wanted him to call Peter Jennings, wanted
Jennings
to blow the lid off the spy scandal in the
White House, to force the government openly to acknowledge Burnham's perfidy.
Humiliate the President. Rattle his shaky coalition in Congress. Stir the pot.

 
          
 
Great idea.

 
          
 
Just one problem: What would really be
humiliated, rattled and stirred would be Foster Pym. His cover would be blown
sky-high. The FBI would descend on him like a pack of vultures.

 
          
 
He had no desire to become a human sacrifice.

 
          
 
His "friend" Peter Jennings. That
was another gruesome joke. If he barged in on Peter Jennings, he'd end up in
St. Elizabeth's Hospital, wearing a nice white coat with sleeves that tie
around the back.

 
          
 
Maybe he could make an anonymous phone call to
the ABC Washington bureau, but that was about all.

 
          
 
He turned the comer. A car was parked at the
bus stop. The only reason he noticed it was that the driver was smoking a
cigar, and as he dragged on it, the ember glowed like an orange beacon. But Pym
quickly dismissed it. People sat in parked cars at night all the time around
here—junkies, pushers, hookers, cops.

 
          
 
As he drew abreast of the car, a voice called
out from the darkness of the back seat, "Hey, man, you got the time?"

 
          
 
Before he had time to recognize something
familiar in the voice, Pym had taken a step toward the car and had tilted his
watch to catch the glow from the streetlight and had said, "It's—"

 
          
 
He didn't see the back door fly open, or the
crouched figure dart out of the car at him. He felt something grab his belt,
saw a blur of car and street and lamplight, heard his skull strike steel and
felt a terrible pain in his head as he was flung to the carpeted floor of the
car.

 
          
 
Then something was happening to his trousers,
and the pain in his head was gone, replaced by a piercing agony in his
testicles.

 
          
 
He tried to thrash away, but whatever had his
testicles gripped them even tighter, and a foot stepped on his forehead. Bile rose
in his throat.

 
          
 
The voice spoke again, and this time he
recognized it instantly.

 
          
 
"Vice grips," said Teal. "Got
'em from Brookstone. Nice, eh? Got this little wheel here, I can tighten 'em
right down. See?"

 
          
 
Pym would have thought it impossible, but the
pain got worse. He tried to scream, but the foot on his forehead pressed
harder, driving his face into the footrest.

 
          
 
"Or, if you're a good boy, I can loosen
'em, too. See?"

 
          
 
The pain eased some. The car pulled away from
the curb. It stopped—a red light, probably—then started again.

 
          
 
Pym felt sick. He thought he might faint. Then
Teal must have backed the screw wheel down some more, for the pain eased again.
The foot slid off his forehead onto the floor of the car.

 
          
 
Slowly, Pym turned his head and looked up at
the owner of the foot. He could see nothing but a short, lumpy, dark figure
sitting back in the seat, wearing a dark hat that covered his face in shadow.

 
          
 
Then he turned his head farther and saw Teal
kneeling over him, holding the vice grips, grinning.

 
          
 
Pym thought before he spoke, desperate not to
say anything that would cause his balls to be broken. His impulse was to say.
What do you want? Instead, he said, "What have I done?"

 
          
 
"It's what you didn't do. You didn't do
what I told you."

 
          
 
"It's only been—"

 
          
 
"They know."

 
          
 
"What? Who?"

 
          
 
"The Americans know about B-twelve."

 
          
 
"How do you know?"

 
          
 
"We know. Look. Believe it: We can tap
their typewriters in their embassy, we know what they know. And they know what
we know. These days, the world has got a bug up its ass. Everybody knows
everything."

 
          
 
"Do they know what you know? Do they know
you know that the information he was passing along is bad?"

 
          
 
"We don't know if they know we know. But
we know they know about him."

 
          
 
Pym flicked his eyes at the dark figure.
"Who is he?"

 
          
 
"Don't ask." Teal rotated the vice
grips, and Pym gasped. "Okay?"

 
          
 
Pym's fingernails scraped at the floor of the
car. He grunted and nodded and wished he would faint.

 
          
 
"Okay," Teal said, relaxing his
grip. "They haven't caught him yet. You gotta blow it wide open before
they catch him, 'cause if they catch him first, he'll disappear. And if that
happens"—Teal glanced at the dark figure—"you disappear. The only
person who'll know where you are is you, and take my word, you'll wish you
didn't."

 
          
 
"All right. First thing tomo—" The
word dissolved into a

 
          
 
Strangled scream, for Teal had torqued the
vice grips hard. Pym had a second's hope that his testicles would tear away.

 
          
 
"Tonight, chummy, tonight."

 
          
 
The car stopped.

 
          
 
The pressure on Pym's balls vanished as Teal
removed the vice grips. What remained was a gnawing, nauseating ache.

 
          
 
Teal grabbed Pym's lapels and pulled him
upright, reached behind him and opened the door, stepped backward out of the
car and dragged Pym after him.

 
          
 
"You have till Good Morning,
America
," Teal said. He turned Pym around and
pushed him toward the sidewalk, then stepped back into the car and slammed the
door.

 
          
 
Pym found himself gazing up at a glass office
building over the entrance to which, enclosed in a smart white circle, were the
letters ABC.

 
          
 
He didn't have to look, he knew that the car
hadn't departed. Teal and the dark lump were waiting to make sure he went into
the building, where a security guard was visible behind a desk, reading a comic
book.

 
          
 
He tucked his shirt in, made sure his fly was
zipped, and carelessly jangled his abused balls, which retaliated with a spasm
of pain that made him stagger.

 
          
 
What was he going to say? Peter Jennings!

 
          
 
He must look like a wino out for a night's
prowl. At best, they'd pitch him back onto the street; at worst, they'd call
the police.

 
          
 
An accent. Maybe he could put on a Russian
accent. Americans were suckers for accents. Something about the inferiority
feelings inherent in a young culture. A wino with no accent was just a wino,
but a wino with an accent might be a prince or a count or a duke: You had to
listen to him, at least hear him out.

 
          
 
He didn't know if he could do it. He had spent
so long eradicating all traces of his Slavic heritage that he wasn't sure what
Russian sounded like.

 
          
 
But the odds were, he knew more than the
security guard.

 
          
 
He pulled open the glass door and walked
across the marble floor.

 
          
 
The guard, a young white man with a Zapata mustache
and a bad complexion, looked up from his G.I. Joe comic and said,
"Yeah?"

 
          
 
"I am a Russian person, Pinsky by name. I
would like please to see Mister Peter Jennings."

 
          
 
"Right," the guard said, and his
little eyes scanned Pym's torso, searching for the telltale bulge of a
concealed weapon. "Write him a letter." He returned to the adventures
of G.I. Joe.

 
          
 
"But you see, I am having a story that
will be interesting him very much."

 
          
 
"Sure."

 
          
 
"It is involving espionage spies."

 
          
 
"Yeah?" The guard eyed Pym again.
"Whyn't you tell it to me?"

 
          
 
"No. What I am having to say is for
Mister Peter Jennings's ears only."

 
          
 
"Tough, then. Write him a letter."

 
          
 
"I am pleased your union has gained for
you such fine job security. You can perhaps direct me to the offices of
CBS?"

 
          
 
The guard closed his comic book. He licked his
lips and looked at Pym, who smiled affably down at him. The guard picked up his
phone and dialed four digits and said something into the mouthpiece that Pym
could not hear because he cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered.