Sight Unseen (20 page)

“How much are you giving him?” Edwards asked. The resident was a man of twenty-four, his face as smooth of blemishes as a
new axe.

“Ummmm, one hundred cc’s of Acquacordant,” Dr. Sayers said. “Say, thirty cc’s of Pentathon.”

“One hundred cc’s!”

“Nothing less will rouse him.”

Edwards looked alarmed. “I can’t participate in this, Dr. Sayers,” Edwards said. Lockwood looked at him and saw a young man
pulled up to his full height. His face was stretched hard and taut. “I became a doctor to save lives, not kill people.”

Dr. Sayers stopped filling the second syringe and looked at Edwards in a curious way. He turned to Manners. “We don’t have
much time, Guy.”

Manners stepped up to the young resident. “Look, kid. You work for the government, right? You don’t want to be here for this?
Okay. It won’t go on your record.”

Edwards teeth were bared. “I hope it does!”

“This man is going to get these shots,” Manners said. “He’s going to tell us what he knows.”

“Ah, Mr. Manners,” Dr. Sayers interrupted. “May I suggest you continue this discussion in the hallway? You’d be surprised
what those in deep coma can register.”

“I’m not leaving here,” Edwards said. “You’ll inject him as soon as I leave.”

“Out, Edwards,” Manners said. “You got to have him in here, Doc?”

“I might need someone to hold his head.”

“Mr. Lockwood here is your new assistant. Okay, Hook, I mean Bill?”

“Make it Hook,” Lockwood said. He moved around the operating table to the other side of Edwards. Edwards grabbed the edge
of the table and held on with white knuckles. He looked prepared to fling his body across Braunschweiger’s to keep Dr. Sayers
from injecting him.

Manners came up to Edwards on the other side. “Out, Edwards.”

“We can do this the easy or the tough way,” Lockwood said.

Edwards looked from one to the other. His grip on the table increased.

They took a step toward him, and each grabbed an arm. The young man seemed to collapse.

“All right, all right. I’m going.” He pulled away from them and headed toward the door. When he reached it, he stood there
and shouted, “But I’m going to write a report. I’m going to make sure the papers hear about this.”

The door slapped shut, and they heard the clatter of his shoes running away.

“Doesn’t that worry you? The papers?” Lockwood asked Manners.

Manners seemed more interested in Sayers, who was pushing the plunger of the first syringe into Braunschweiger’s arm. “All
the editors check with us before they run something like that. They know we’re at war.”

Dr. Sayers injected the second syringe. Braunschweiger stirred slightly.

“Let’s step into the booth to watch,” Dr. Sayers said. “We can discuss strategy.”

The booth was behind a picture window that allowed them to sit in club chairs and watch the unconscious man.

The darkened booth soothed and stirred up Lockwood. It seemed that he had been rushing now for days, but actually it had only
been twelve hours ago that he had found Myra. The picture of her half on, half off that sofa was burned into his memory. He
wanted to collapse here now, to slide down off the club chair and hug it in the same manner he found her, to let himself go
into grief and crying and despair over his loss. She was so bright and gay and she sparkled. And she was gone. It seemed impossible.
He wanted to go down into the darkened operating room and strangle Braunschweiger, even if he had had nothing to do with Myra’s
death, just to avenge her. Never mind if the avenging was misdirected. And he wanted to walk out of his life, the life he
had built over the past ten years and that he ran so well, to some other. Something more simple. Become a farm hand perhaps.
Wash dishes. Something where he would not meet a woman who would be important enough for some other person to need to kill.
She and he would be simple, and they would let the forces of war and nations clash over their heads. He would have happiness
without the risk he had taken with Myra. A risk he hadn’t even known he had taken.

He became aware of Dr. Sayers and Guy Manners talking in hushed tones in the darkened booth.

“What you’ll have is a man who should be alert and awake with much more heightened suggestibility,” Dr. Sayers said.

“But he will respond to questions?” Manners said.

“You can’t be sure with this stuff, especially with a fellow who’s been injured on the head, but yes.”

“So we tell him we’re his friends,” Manners said. “And then we ask him questions. Maybe he knows where the missing object
is. Will he believe we’re his friends?”

“If you tell him so,” Dr. Sayers said. He found a pipe in his white coat and lit it. “He’ll believe anything you tell him
as long as it’s reasonably consistent with his experience of reality.”

Manners chuckled in what sounded to Lockwood like a nasty fashion. “Then we tell him it’s a week from now, and he’ll think
the whole thing’s over.”

Below them, the man under the sheet stirred. He seemed to strain at his straps, and his head pulled up, as if he were trying
to rise.

“Let’s go,” Dr. Sayers said. “You’re in luck. He’s responding fast. That means you’ll have more than I hoped to work with.”

“Let me talk to him,” Lockwood said to Manners as they entered the operating room.

“You’ll get your chance,” Manners answered. “I promised.”

“No, this suggestibility thing. I’ve got something.”

“I’m the government agent.”

“Guy, Guy, I know. But I got something that will get what you want too. I’ll get your stuff first.”

“Hurry, gentlemen,” Dr. Sayers said. “You might have only a few minutes.”

Lockwood sprang forward. “Good morning, Herr Braunschweiger. Congratulations! The Fatherland is proud of you.”

Braunschweiger’s face clouded over with a series of changes—confusion, fear, hope, relief.

“
Guten
morning,” Braunschweiger said feebly. “Who?”

“I am Captain Haupmann, Herr Braunschweiger. Speak in English. It will be safer here.”

The German’s face lightened. “
Ja
. Yes, that is best. They won’t know.”

“Your work has been exemplary, Herr Braunschweiger,” Lockwood said. “The Fuehrer is having a special medal struck for you
alone.”

“For me?”

“Yes. We received the bombsight; and the mission to kill the scientists, it worked. Five are dead. The American effort is
crippled.”

A smile spread over the face of Braunschweiger. “I am so happy.”

“And so you should be. You are in the hands of good German doctors, who tell me you are shortly going to be fully recovered.
The nurses here in the hospital are beautiful, they tell me.”

“Whatever I did, it was for the Fatherland.”

“We need some answers, though, Herr Braunschweiger.”

“Answers?”

“It was with difficulty that we rescued you.”

“Yes, you rescued me. The roof. The shooting. I was hit. I fell.” Pain moved over his face.

“Yes, we rescued you. And now we must rescue the others. We must not have the Americans pull out of them what they know.”

“No, we must not.” He looked staunch.

“Where are they?” Lockwood asked.

“I don’t know. They would have scattered. Or gone to….”

“Where?”

Braunschweiger’s face clouded over in thought. “It’s hard to see.”

“We saved you, Herr Braunschweiger. Don’t you want to save your comrades?”

“
Ja. Ja
. I do.”

“Start from the beginning. Give me the way you planned to move the bombsight. Telling your plans will help bring your memory
back.”

“Ah yes. Tibbett told us what to do. Who to see at the trucking company. To radio shop.”

Lockwood made scribbling motions to Manners, who took out his pocket notebook and leaned over the German.

“Pops Tibbett!” hissed Manners. “The old bastard!”

“Yes,” Lockwood said. “On 53rd Street. Then you transported it to 86th Street. Who was with you?”

“John and Peco.”

“Okay, John and Peco.”

“And Rocca.”

“Rocca?”

“Peco’s woman-friend.”

“Yes. Tell me your movements.”

“After I was there—in the apartment—we moved the bombsight to the pickup spot.”

“Of course. How did you move it?”

“Bought a truck. You will be proud of where we hid it, Herr Commandant.”

“Ah, Braunschweiger! Where was this?”

“The safest place in all New York—under the American Fuehrer’s platform at the Bund rally in Madison Square Garden.”

“How safe!” Lockwood exclaimed. “How brilliant!
You
must have thought of that.”

Braunschweiger beamed. “Yes, I was the one.”

“But the rest of it,” Lockwood asked. “How did you get it to the—rendezvous?”

“Easy. We promised them we would do our own cleanup after the rally. So the truck, the retired mechanic’s truck, would pick
it up late that night and take it directly to the rendezvous. Has the U-boat received it?”

“Of course, Herr Braunschweiger. You remember nothing of that?”

Confusion over what was expected swept over Braunschweiger’s face. “Oh yes,” he lied.

“Of course. Now, the important question, Herr Braunschweiger. Where were Peco and John and Rocca to go? So we can get them,
too, out of America.”

Braunschweiger suddenly seemed gone. The doctor came forward and listened to his arm with the stethoscope, then picked up
a syringe and shot it into the German’s stiffened vein.

“Hurry,” Dr. Sayers muttered.

“We don’t need any more,” Manners said. “This is terrific. The Bund rally is tonight.”

“Tonight?” Braunschweiger asked, awake again.

Manners laughed. “Yes, tonight, you fool.”

“Fool? I does not understand.”

Lockwood shouted, “Shut up, Manners!”

Braunschweiger strained at his straps and opened his eyes. “This is not a German,” he said. “This one I know. Photographs.
An American agent.”

Manners shouted at him, “The rally is tonight, you fool! We’re going to pick that crate up ourselves. We tricked you, you
dumb jerk!” Manners laughed in a manic way.

Lockwood leaned over Braunschweiger and hit Manners with a massive sweep of his arm. Manners went over backward to the floor.

“Pay no attention to him, Herr Braunschweiger. He loves to play jokes.”

“I say no more.” Braunschweiger’s face looked pulled by a dozen forces in different directions.

“You must,” Lockwood shouted. “The Fatherland expects you to help.”

Braunschweiger closed his eyes. His body gave a series of long jerks and starts as if it might burst through the straps. Dr.
Sayers reached for another syringe, injected him again, then put the round coin of his stethoscope against the German’s wrist.

“He’s gone,” Sayers said. “That shock—finding he wasn’t in Germany. Too much.”

Manners had picked himself off the floor and shook his head vigorously. He shouted, “You hit a federal officer, Lockwood.”

“You fool,” Lockwood shouted back. “He would have told me who killed her. If you could just have kept your mouth shut.”

“He told us where the bombsight is,” Manners shouted back. “That’s what counts.”

“It’s what counts for you,” Lockwood said. “It’s not what I was here to get. I’m going to slug you again.” He strode around
the table toward Manners.

Manners backed away. “Don’t you dare, Lockwood. I’ll have you locked up, so help me.”

Smoldering, Lockwood stopped. “You help me find who killed her, Manners, or I take it out on you.”

“Okay, okay. You don’t have to get so damn touchy about it.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“They’re all out looking for the damn bombsight,” Manners said.

“You don’t have anybody to go to the rally?” Lockwood asked.

“I got three guys.”

“Three guys can’t do anything there, Manners,” Lockwood said.

They sat in Manners’ radio car in front of Madison Square Garden. It was late in the day, and people were streaming into the
Garden for the Bund rally.

“I didn’t know so many people went to something like this,” Lockwood said.

“It’s a free country,” Manners said. “And if you want to get on a soap box and mouth off that it shouldn’t be free, you got
every right to do it.”

“I’m not going to leave it all to you, Manners,” Lockwood said. “You’ve messed things up enough for me.”

“Hey, where’re you going?” Manners asked.

“I’m going out to Patchogue. It sounds to me like one ex-machinist is a one-man death squad. He’s the one who did her in,
and I want to do him in.”

“Forget Pops Tibbett. Your country needs you here.”

“I need me out there.”

“Don’t you want to recover the bombsight? So you won’t have to pay off. Your company won’t?”

“Forget the bombsight. Forget my company.”

“Tibbett may be here. Don’t you think he’s going to want to make sure that it gets on the submarine?”

Lockwood, half out the door, stopped. “You’re just saying that to keep me here. You want four guys instead of three.”

“I’ll get the cops.”

“You coudn’t get anything from the cops in this town, Manners.”

“What do you mean?”

“Say Braunschweiger was telling the truth. Say they’ve even kept to the original plan. So the damn thing’s there, under the
speaker’s platform. How many helpers do you think they have in there? And how many cops do you think it’s going to take to
keep all those helpers from spiriting the damn thing off?”

Manners looked crestfallen. “I see what you mean. Every Nazi sympathizer in three states is here.”

“Forget sympathizers. Think of active members.”

“Hundreds.”

“Maybe thousands. Police aren’t going to shoot them on your say-so. Not in the next half-hour or hour. You won’t find enough
brass on a Friday night at headquarters to order them to send enough cops—if they’re on duty—or to do the shooting you need.”

“So what’s the use in your staying?”

“Something like that.”

Manners looked crafty. “Still, Tibbett may be here.”

Lockwood thought about this and then slammed the door shut. “You’ve got a point.”