Desperate Measures (23 page)

Pittman gradually straightened from where he’d been scrunched down on the seat. His back hurt. “Where are we?”

“A few miles outside Montpelier, Vermont.” Jill raised the shade on the window.

Although the sun was barely up, Pittman squinted painfully at a line of pine trees that suddenly gave way, revealing cattle
on a sloping pasture. Across a narrow valley, low wooded mountains still had occasional patches of snow on them.

“What time is… ?”

“Six-fifteen.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any coffee left from last night.”

“You’re dreaming.”

“In that case, wake me when this is over.”

“Come on,” Jill said. “Straighten yourself up. When this train stops, I want to hit the ground running.”

“Are you always this energetic so early in the morning?”

“Only when I’m terrified. Besides, when you’re used to working the night shift, this is late afternoon, not morning.”

“Not for me.” Pittman’s eyes felt gritty, as if sand had been thrown into them.

“Let me whisper something that might get you going.”

“It better be good.”

“Breakfast, and I’m paying.”

“You’re going to have to, since I don’t have any cash. But I’ll say this—you do have a way with words.”

“Montpelier? Sounds French.”

“The first settlers in this area were French.”

“And this is the capital of Vermont?” Pittman sat with Jill at a restaurant table that gave them a window view of New England
buildings along a picturesque street. “It doesn’t feel as if many people live here.”

“Fewer than ten thousand. But then only about six hundred thousand people live in the entire state.”

“A good place to hide out.”

“Or to send students to a school that’s isolated enough that they won’t be contaminated by the outside world while they’re
being taught to be aristocrats.”

Pittman sipped his coffee. “Do I detect a little anger?”

“More than a little. My parents tried to raise me that way—to think of myself as better than ordinary people. They’re still
horrified that I’m a nurse. All those sick people. All that blood.”

“I get the feeling your background involves a lot more money than—”

“In polite society, this isn’t talked about.”

“I was never good at manners.”

“Millions.”

Pittman blinked and set down his coffee cup.

“I don’t know how much,” Jill said. “My parents won’t discuss it. We’re having a difference of opinion about how I should
conduct my future. They’ve been trying to punish me by threatening to disinherit me.”

“So that’s what you meant about the trust fund from your grandparents.”

“They’re the ones who earned it. They could handle it without being jerks. But my parents think the money gives them some
kind of divine right to look down on people.”

“Yes, you
are
angry.”

“I told you, I want to help people, not ignore them or take advantage of them. Anyway, my grandparents anticipated all this
and let me be independent by establishing the trust fund for me.”

“We have a similar attitude. When I was a reporter—”

“Was? You still are.”

“No. I’m an obituary writer. But there was a time… before Jeremy died, before I fell apart… The stories I loved doing the
best were the ones that involved exposing the corruption of self-important members of the Establishment, especially in the
government. It gave me a special pleasure to help drag them down and force them to experience what life is like for all of
us ordinary bastards of the world.”

“Drag aristocrats like Jonathan Millgate down?”

“I sure tried my damnedest.”

“Be careful. If you talk like that to the wrong person, you could be providing a motive for why you might have wanted to—”

The next obvious words—
kill him
—never came out. Abruptly Jill stopped talking as the waitress set down their orders: grapefruit, English muffins, and yogurt
for Jill; hash browns, eggs, and bacon for Pittman.

“You’ll never get back into shape if you keep eating that way,” Jill said.

“At least I ordered whole-wheat toast. Besides, I’ve been using a lot of energy lately.”

“Right. You’re not in enough danger—you’ve got to order a death sentence for breakfast.”

“Hey, I’m trying to eat.”

Jill chuckled, then glanced around at the warm dark tone of the wood in the rustically decorated room. “I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?”

“Somebody just left a newspaper.
USA Today
.” She looked eager to read it, but once she returned to their table and studied the front page, she murmured, “Suddenly I’m
not hungry anymore.”

“Bad?”

As the waitress seated a man and a woman at the table next to them, Jill handed him the newspaper. “Some things are better
left unsaid.”

Pittman scanned the story, becoming more and more disheartened. The crazed obituary writer’s murder spree continued, bold
letters announced. Pittman was being blamed for killing Father Dandridge. He was also being charged for shooting a man who,
with two associates, had supposedly been sent to Jill’s apartment by Jonathan Millgate’s son to pass on his thanks for the
skillful attention she had given his father while in intensive care. In addition, Pittman was suspected of abducting Jill.

“It keeps getting worse,” Pittman said. “Maybe I ought to just hang myself and be done with it.”

“Don’t say that, not even as a joke.”

Pittman thought about it.“The thing is, it
was
a joke—about suicide. I’m amazed. A couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Jill looked at him harder. “Maybe some good will come out of this.”

Pittman gestured toward the newspaper. “At the moment, it doesn’t look that way. We’d better leave. We’ve got plenty to do.”

“Find the library?”

“Right.” Pittman stood. “There’s a reference series most libraries have. The
Dictionary of American Biography
. It lists the background, including education, for almost every intellectually famous person in the United States. It’ll
tell me if all the grand counselors went to Grollier. Then maybe the librarian will be able to help with something else.”

“What’s that?”

“How to find Grollier Academy.”

“Four hundred dollars?” Jill shook her head, skeptical.

“I know. I’m not crazy about it, either, but I think this is the best deal we’re going to get,” Pittman said. “Every other
used car on the lot costs more than the cash we have.”

The car salesman, gangly, wearing a bow tie, watched with interest from the window of his office as Pittman and Jill circled
the gray 1975 Plymouth Duster. The two-door sedan had what was once considered to be a sporty outline, but the rust on the
rear fenders and the cracks in the vinyl top were evidence of the hard use that the vehicle had received.

“Then let’s forget about paying cash,” Jill said. “I’ll write him a check and get something decent.”

“Can’t.” Pittman recalled an interview he had once conducted with a private detective who was an expert in tracing fugitives.
“An out-of-state check. The salesman will probably decide to call your bank to see if the check is good. The police will have
put the bank on alert about reporting any attempt to get money from your account. My guess is that the grand counselors will
have used their influence to get the same information. They would all know where to focus their search. It’s the same reason
we can’t rent a car. To do that, we need to use your or my credit card. The moment either name is in the computer, we’re blown.
The grand counselors would immediately figure out why we’re in Vermont. They’d have men waiting for us by the time we showed
up at Grollier Academy.”

“Four hundred dollars.” Jill bleakly surveyed the rusted automobile.

“I know. It’s a fortune when the only money at our disposal is a thousand. But we don’t have an option. At least we bargained
the salesman down from four hundred and fifty.”

“But can we be certain the car won’t break down when we drive it off the lot?”

“Well, the best thing I can tell you is, this car has a Chrysler slant-six engine. It’s almost indestructible.”

“I didn’t realize you knew about auto mechanics.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how—?”

“I once did a story about used-car lots and ways to tell if the buyer was getting cheated.”

“Remarkable. I’m beginning to realize you’re the sum of all the interviews you conducted.”

“Something like that.”

“And if we buy this heap, you think we’ll be getting a good deal?”

“Only if the salesman gives us a free tank of gas.”

As they headed northwest from Montpelier past the mountains that flanked Route 89, the Duster performed better than Pittman
expected, its slant-six engine sounding powerful and smooth.

Because his bandaged left hand made it awkward for him to steer, Jill did the driving. She opened her window. “Whoever owned
this car sure liked cigars.”

“On the positive side, the seat covers don’t look bad. Which is more than I can say about me. I’d better get presentable for
when we arrive at Grollier.”

He took the battery-powered razor from his gym bag, and while he shaved, he stared at the wooded peaks. “The map the used-car
salesman gave us says this range is called the Green Mountains. An odd name for a place known for skiing.”

“I told you the French were the first settlers here. Analyze the name of the state. Vermont is another way of saying
mont vert
: Green Mountain.”

“It seems so peaceful here. What could there possibly be about Grollier Academy that’s so terrifying to the grand counselors?”

“At the library, the
Dictionary of American Biography
sure wasn’t much help,” Jill said. “Professor Folsom was right. Eustace Gable and Anthony Lloyd went to Grollier, the same
as Jonathan Millgate. But the other two grand counselors don’t have any mention of Grollier in the entries about them.”

“That still doesn’t prove anything. Does it mean they didn’t actually go there, or is it that they don’t want to advertise?”

As the Duster rounded a curve, revealing a meadow flanked by spruce trees, wooded peaks looming above them, Pittman was so
preoccupied, he barely noticed the vista. “Maybe they realized that it wasn’t in their best interests for it to be known that
they all went to the same prep school.”

“Why would that hurt them?”

“Too blatantly chummy. The general public might catch on about one of the federal government’s nasty secrets: how inbred it
is. Certain prep schools for the elite prepare the cream of the future Establishment to go to Ivy League colleges. That future
Establishment graduates from those colleges and heads toward Washington. There they dominate various branches of the government.
The CIA is tight with Yale, for example. The State Department used to be dominated by people from Harvard. Clinton’s administration
has a close relationship with Yale Law School.

“But it gets more specific. Ivy League colleges have secret societies, and the most prestigious—Skull and Bones, for example—are
almost exclusively for members of the Establishment. A President appoints his classmates, his fellow society members. They
become ambassadors or serve on the cabinet or as his advisers. You know the story—the President goes out of office and his
appointees move into the private sector, where as members of the boards of various corporations they use their influence in
Washington to manipulate government regulations. Or else they form their own consultation businesses and cater to foreign
clients who pay them extremely well to use their powerful contacts. That’s the reason I wanted to bring Millgate down to my
level. Because he was in thick with the weapons manufacturers. He advocated military involvement in Korea, Vietnam, Panama,
and Iraq, to name the most famous instances. But the question is, Was that for the good of the country and the world, or was
it for the good of the weapons manufacturers and Millgate’s Swiss bank account?

“On the most basic level, one of the reasons there’s so much corruption in the government is that few politicians and diplomats
have the courage to question the behavior of a former classmate and club member. Good old so-and-so made a mistake by accepting
bribes. But he’s not really a bad guy. Why turn him in and make trouble for him? Some social commitments are more important
than representing the American people. Did you ever hear about Bohemian Grove?”

“No.” Jill looked puzzled.

“It’s another secret society: a males-only club, the main purpose of which is a summer outing that takes place each year in
a compound in the woods of northern California. Its members are among the most powerful men in the United States: senators,
cabinet members, major financiers, and corporate executives. Every Republican President since Nixon has been a member. The
members are allowed to bring equally powerful guests from foreign countries. And what do all these influential men do? They
get drunk, sing campfire songs, put on skits, and have pissing contests.”

“A boy’s camp for grown-ups,” Jill said.

“Right. And when the festivities are over, when all those men go back to their powerful occupations, is it likely that any
of them would ever accuse any others—they pissed against trees together at camp—of improper professional conduct? No way.
The ultimate consequence of Bohemian Grove is to make it seem in terribly bad taste for power brokers to accuse one another
of being unethical. And that’s just one example of how club rules are more important than society’s rules. The whole damned
thing stinks.”

Except for the drone of the Duster’s engine, the car became silent. Jill steered around another curve, passing cattle near
a stream in another valley.

At last she spoke. “Now that you’ve got that off your chest, do you feel better?”

“No.”

“My father went to Yale. He was a member of Skull and Bones.”

“I wasn’t trying to be personal.”

“But it’s true. My father works in international commodities. Because he belonged to Skull and Bones, he seems to have more
influence than his competitors. He’s able to call in better favors.”