Heathern (13 page)

"Depends on which one you talk to. The ones seeming
most culpable are presently being talked to." Thatcher
paused. "They're still kicking. We'll see."

"When were they brought in?"

"Last night," said Thatcher. "They're denying they know
anything, but if so, they're just as guilty. We might have to
bring their families into this. Might help 'em remember,
showing 'em that carrot on the stick."

"Why wasn't I told?" Gus asked, sounding no less angry
than Thatcher. "As Head of Security, why wasn't I told?"
Lester said nothing through all of this, watching intently as
if struck dumb by the workings of industry made flesh.

"Be realistic, Gus," said Thatcher. "You were up on the
estate with us. You think I wanted to send you down to New
York and leave us unprotected?"

"By a force of sixty-five-"

"Avi took care of the situation. And I did have to be sure
you and Jake weren't in on this in any way. I've ascertained
matters to my satisfaction now."

"You didn't trust us?" Gus asked, his face darkening.
"You didn't trust me?"

"If I didn't trust you, Gus, would I be telling you now?"

Something seemed to have shifted within Thatcher's
personality, on one hand allowing him to speak so freely
about company business with comparative strangers present; on the other showing every sign of having locked that
personality behind yet another door.

"What were you looking for that you found this out?" I
asked, hoping to distract them before anything could go
further. "What did you find out, besides what you say?"

"On Sunday," Thatcher said, "I asked Beekman to send
up a copy of the attending physician's report," he said,
passing a Xerox across. "I wanted to see the medical word. Tests they got now, they can tell what bay the fish they took
the poison from came out of. Anyway." He leaned forward;
the chair groaned beneath his weight. "The average person
wouldn't notice a thing wrong with those, don't you
think?"

"Whose thumb?" Lester asked; Thatcher smiled. A seeming shadow showed at second glance to be a long thumb
lying atop the line where the attending physician was to
sign.

"Be nice to think whoever did this did it intentionally,"
said Thatcher, "but I'd be fooling myself. Sort of gives one
pause, doesn't it? If the rest of the gang's no smarter than
this, running 'em down'Il be easier than pissing on ants."

"Whose signature is hidden?" I asked.

"I wondered that myself," said Thatcher. "So I had Avi go
down and bring back the original by hand. He called ahead,
they told him they'd looked but couldn't find it. When he
went there he took Jake along. They found it."

"Jake went with him?" Gus asked. "He said nothing to
me-"

"Well, I asked him not to, Gus. You understand." Thatcher passed me the original. "Shame they don't teach penmanship like they used to."

"This doctor," Gus said, his mouth tight, "is in custody?"

"No-" When Thatcher wanted to laugh but desired
more strongly to keep a straight face his feet would shake,
his joy finding its outlet by passing directly into the ground.
His shoes tapped against Bernard's family photos, knocking
them over. "I remembered the front page of the News,
morning after Jensen's little melodrama. It was the sort of
thing sticks with me." I remembered Susie's paper that day;
remembered a photo beneath the headline CRUSH HOUR. A
woman walking to work was pinned between a tank and
parked cars, trying to cross the street. The photographer
took his shot as the tank rolled away. "Probably wouldn't
have made the front page if she hadn't been a doctor."

"Her signature?"

Thatcher smiled. "They probably had it ready before he
was even brought in. Doubt she knew about it. Sure as hell
bet they had it ready before they brought her in. If they even
realized it, they probably just hoped nobody'd notice. She
and Jensen must have been in ER at the same time, but I
doubt they had much to say to each other. Which doctor
you say you'd spoken to?"

"One of the residents," Gus said. "Doctor Lao. Young
Chinese woman. Our doctors took over the case from her
when they arrived."

"When the bastards washed the ink off their hands,
you mean. Took over the case and when enough time
passed, they told you he died. She backs you up, all
right-"

"I don't need backup-"

"We talked awhile," Thatcher said. "I hired her, by the
way. I'd started to think they might even have made up the
cause of near-death, but she'd seen fugu poisoning before,
when she was an intern. Some toxiterrorist used it in San
Francisco while she was out there. When she heard Jensen
hadn't pulled out of it she said she was shocked. Told me
she never dreamed he wouldn't."

"Why?"

"Didn't have a strong enough dose, she didn't think,"
Thatcher said. "Strong enough to cause problems, sure.
See, when you go into storage like that not enough blood
tends to reach the brain. She said he'd probably been under
long enough he wouldn't ever be all right again. Now
whoever did it, for whatever reason, you know what I think
they wound up doing?"

We shook our heads. Thatcher had an innate talent for
research and detection which could but rarely be discerned
from his actions, or distractions.

"They zombified him. Like the Tontons Macoutes used to
do with their prisoners, you remember." Gus pursed his lips, as if such practices were beneath him. "Fugu poison,
yeah. From a Caribbean fish."

"Haitian techniques are not often adaptable," said Gus.
"It's a strange country."

"It's a rather outlandish thing to do, don't you think?" I
asked.

"I didn't say it was done deliberately," said Thatcher.
"This opens up all sorts of possibilities. Somebody more'n
likely just screwed up."

"Then the doctors would have finished up the job in the
back and sent the body on to Campbell's?"

"But they didn't," said Thatcher. "Maybe they didn't
want to kill him. Maybe they did intend to zombify him, for
whatever outlandish reason-"

"All entry points where his prints or eyes could be used
to gain access have been recoded?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Thatcher. "He won't be much more use to
'em than a coatrack if they were going to try walking him
up somewhere so he could get 'em in." Thatcher watched
Gus shrug, and turn away. "Could be Jensen had himself
taken care of. Could be somebody mistook him for someone else. Could be random and senseless, nothing more."

"Avi's been apprised of the situation?" I asked.

"Not entirely."

"Do Bernard and Susie know?"

"Told Bernard this morning," Thatcher said, toying at the
edges of the note with two fingers. "You know how
excitable's Susie's gotten herself about this. He's been
talking to her about it while we've been down here, seemed
like a good time to fill her in."

"Why are you letting me overhear all of this?" Lester
asked. "It really seems like none of my business-"

"It's company business," said Thatcher, winking. "You're
company."

"What do you trust me to do?" Gus asked.

"Don't take everything so personally, Gus," said Thatch er. "Everybody has an off day. Listen, go down there and
talk to the doctors. If they don't spill by tonight, well ..."

"Is the service over yet?" Bernard's voice broke in over
the intercom, coming in as if on cue, seeming that he knew
when best to enter for suitable dramatic effect.

"Come on down," said Thatcher, hauling himself upright. "Keep all this under your hat for the moment, Lester.
We keep lots of little secrets around here, you'll get used to
it. You have anything to add from what you've heard?"

"If the wound wasn't self-inflicted," Lester said, "I
suspect it wasn't unwelcome."

Thatcher nodded. "If there's reason to this, we'll find it."

When Bernard returned to his office he entered without
comment, took his seat behind his desk, and replaced his
family portraits, shifting them again into their proper
angles.

"What's eating you, Bernard?" Thatcher asked. "Have a
good talk?"

"We made progress," he said. "I've been thinking that we
should have Macaffrey's speeches written for him. We can't
take the chance-"

"What're you talking about now?" Thatcher said, exasperated by Bernard's endless qualifications.

"I was reading the transcripts of the questions put to him
earlier today," said Bernard. "It's worse than I imagined. If
God speaks through Macaffrey, all I can say is He's a
bring-down kind of a guy."

"You can't have a speechwriter for a messiah, dammit."

"Macaffrey," said Bernard, turning to Lester, "what's the
purpose of the universe?"

"Purposelessness."

Thatcher shoved his hands into his pants pockets and
glanced at the TV screen. Whatever presently played appeared so obscure in meaning that I believe even Bernard
might have hesitated to attempt exigesis. Gus stared at all of
us, wondering perhaps who was capable of the greatest betrayal. "Think of it as a matter of rephrasing," said
Bernard. "He says one thing, we say another."

"What would you say about Mystic, Connecticut?"
Thatcher asked. Bernard blinked his eyes as if worrying
away a cinder.

"It belies its name," he said.

"In this note," Thatcher continued, "'mystic' refers to
Mystic, Connecticut."

"Does it?" Bernard asked, looking at him, and then at
Lester. "Should you be discussing family matters around
the help? Or did this conceit from beneath the stairs?"

"Mystic and Mahaica," said Thatcher. "Two ports. One
importing, one exporting. Think New England's smuggling
clams down to Rio?"

"If those two ports are involved," Bernard said, "a
definite if, then any smuggling going on it would involve
shipments of the product. Someone stepping into where
we've left off."

"That's what someone's doing," said Thatcher. "I can
smell it. Bringing it up from Bolivia in raw, maybe. Over
from Colombia down the Amazon highways. Probably
using those damn minitrucks to run the shift. Could we
doublecheck those on satellite photos, see what's in the
back?"

"With appropriate resolution we could count the change
in the driver's pockets," said Bernard. "Say some operation
along this line is ongoing. Should it matter at this stage? We
don't have to keep that aspect of the operation going
anymore, you've been saying that for a year now. Maybe it's
some of the old Medellin boys have never quite given
up-

"They'd have been in direct touch," said Thatcher. "It's
not them. And it's not amateur. Jensen wasn't running this,
that's evident."

"It's certainly corporate," said Bernard. "Too many aspects of it are too senseless for it not to be. Whoever's involved here simply used Jensen as they'd have subcontracted any locals, here or there."

"My locals," said Thatcher. "Wouldn't mind getting
reimbursed for all this free labor I'm probably providing."

"The operation isn't large or we'd have found additional
traces of it by now," said Bernard. "It strikes me as test
marketing."

"Then I reckon I know who's testing."

Bernard picked up the photo of his wife and pushed it an
eighth of an inch to the left. "I reckon," he said. "Even if the
Japanese are in it, Thatcher, what difference does it make?
You claim we're getting out of the field."

"Drugs make the world go round," Thatcher said, shutting his eyes. "They need cash. Need to barter something
other than electronics gear. If they're getting involved with
the product, they'll start hauling in money and they can
pick the market as they choose, long as we're not in it.
Guess which market they'll take over if we get out."

"It would be preferable for Americans to be drugged with
American drugs, of course," said Bernard.

"What if this Otsuka bird is behind it? I've only had a
chance to look at this agreement once. Isn't there something
in there about promising to support them in new Latin
American ventures?"

"Purely pro forma," said Bernard. "We agree to discuss
with them any proposals involving countries in this hemisphere before giving our approval. If we don't agree, we
don't approve and they don't go ahead."

"This is some agreement you cooked up," said Thatcher.
"Why do they want to sign it?"

"So they can get back to business, simple as that. Free up
their assets. They've had to coast for too long-"

"There's another reason," said Thatcher. "And if
Otsuka's big as you say he can't help but be in on this."

"Well, so we stay with the product and drive them out of
the market," Bernard said. "But if you ever want this damned computer to go online we need their assistance.
Our boys can't take development further by themselves. We
get them in on it as agreed and we're over the top. We don't
sign, we don't get their help. I doubt we could pull off a
kidnapping in that circumstance, so don't even consider it."

"Always good to keep all options open," said Thatcher.
"You say Otsuka's pretty sharp?"

"He knows his yen from his yang," said Bernard. "You'd
never guess. He looks like a root you'd find in a Chinatown
grocery. Don't do anything to upset him, Thatcher. No
confrontations, no escapades, no backup plans. He'll want
to sign and he'll want to talk. Let him."

"Talk about what?"

"Whatever he wants. He likes hockey, talk about that. He
loves old automobiles, flower arranging, bondage cabaret.
He writes poetry." Thatcher sneered. "Talk about his
grandchildren-"

"Grandchildren? How old's this guy?"

"Is it pertinent?" Bernard asked, smoothing the wisps of
hair above his forehead down with a dry palm.

"Was he in the war?"

"Does it matter? We dealt with Griesing in Frankfurt all
the time until he died last year, and we had substantial
proof of what he had done."

Thatcher shook his head, as if by denying it he could even
more assuredly swear that it had never happened. "Don't
worry, Bernard. I'll handle it. You've seen me do it before.
I'm taking Joanna along. It's another new project, after
all."