Atropos (20 page)

Murphy had thought it was simply logic on his part to look for Trotter (or Driscoll or whatever) in accounts of tragedies involving rich young women. He was afraid for Regina; he wanted evidence that would scare Regina away from Trotter—it seemed like the best way to go. Now he realized that his subconscious had been steering his logic.

It didn’t matter. The question was, what was he going to do now?

Should he take it to Regina? She was back in town; she and Trotter had returned from Washington a couple of days ago.

No. She was in love with Trotter, and by now Trotter had undoubtedly told her the way Murphy felt about her. What an idiot he was to have admitted he loved her. He didn’t dare say anything against Trotter. She wouldn’t believe it. Worse, she would lose whatever affection she felt for him.

He’d have to take it to Trotter.

No!
Trotter was not a normal man. Trotter, Murphy was sure, was not a man you could threaten. He was a blade with a brain. Murphy ran the tape back and reread the story of the Liz Fane case. People died when Trotter was around. People died nasty.

What else could he do with it?

Causing it to be printed in
Worldwatch
or any other organ of the Hudson Group would be worse than bringing it to Regina. Not only would he have attacked Trotter, but he would have gone behind her back and expropriated her own property to do so.

The police? The FBI? Some other part of the government? They’d laugh in his face. Or lock him up or have him committed. The theory was that Trotter was already working for the government, remember?

So he’d have to take it to Trotter. God help him.

But not naked. Not without
something
to back him up.

Murphy had the microfilm librarian pull him some copies of the photograph. He didn’t like the first batch—not clear enough. He ignored the technician’s mutterings as he tried again. Much better, this time.

Murphy clutched the photos to his chest as he returned to his office. He ignored the terminal on his desk and pulled an old Smith-Corona Silent Super portable out of the bottom drawer. What he was about to type would go into nobody’s memory banks. He sandwiched paper to make an original and two carbons. He rolled the paper in and hit the keys.

An hour later, he was finished. He put a picture and one copy of the document in each of three manila envelopes. He addressed two of the envelopes, left the third blank. He told his secretary he’d be gone for the day. He took the elevator to the parking-lot entrance. He got to his car and delivered the two addressed envelopes in person. He kept the blank one on the seat beside him. As he drove, he touched it lightly from time to time, as though he expected it to scorch him. Maybe it would.

He tried to think of what he would say to Trotter.

God, he wanted a drink.

No. No. He would not have a drink. The last time he faced Trotter with a bellyful of Dutch courage. This time, he’d just have to home-grow some of that, too.

“M
URPHY,” TROTTER SAID AS
he opened the door. He sounded almost glad to see him.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” Murphy said.

“I got your message last time,” Trotter said. One friend to another. You couldn’t find a threat in Trotter’s tone if you played a tape of it over and over for a year. Murphy shivered.

Trotter must have seen it. “Come inside,” he said. “It’s cold out there—I don’t want to tighten up.” Trotter turned his back on Murphy and went back inside. Murphy followed.

“Come down to the basement,” Trotter said. “I’ve got a couple more miles on the exercise bike and I’ll be through for the day. We can talk while I do that. Or grab a drink and wait.”

“I’ll come down.”

Trotter was wearing sneakers and socks, shorts and a sweatshirt. His face looked drawn. Scars like white zippers marred both legs. There was stiffness in the younger man’s walk as he went down the stairs, as if he were forcing himself not to limp.

Murphy felt faintly encouraged. It was closer to human than he’d ever let himself imagine Trotter to be. On the other hand, Murphy had about convinced himself that Trotter’s reported heroics on the catwalk had been a fabrication. Here was evidence the man really had thrown himself and a gunman thirty feet through space to a concrete floor. He’d had a bad smashup with something, that was for sure. A man who’d get himself hurt like that
on purpose,
Murphy knew, was dangerous. He swallowed.

Trotter climbed on a sleek object in textured white plastic with matte-black accessories. The only thing that marked it as an exercise bicycle were the pedals. Trotter pushed a few buttons, then began to pedal. Aside from beeping once in a while, like a microwave oven, the thing made no rattle, no whiz, no noise at all. Murphy decided he didn’t care for exercise equipment that wasn’t even human enough to clatter every once in a while. Trotter’s voice was breathy, but calm. “What can I do for you?” Murphy took the photo out of the envelope. Trotter took one hand off a dull black rectangle that was supposed to pass for handlebars and took it from him.

Trotter looked at the picture with no expression whatever. Then he looked up, pointed to a stack of towels on a nearby table, and asked Murphy to get him one. Murphy complied. Trotter handed the picture back when he took the towel. He removed his glasses and wiped them carefully with the towel, then wiped his face. He put the glasses back on and asked for the picture again.

He’s stalling, Murphy thought. I’ve stung the bastard. He doesn’t know what to say.

Murphy thought he’d help him along a little. “Recognize it?”

Trotter was still looking at the picture. “Mmm?” he said, without looking up.

“I asked you if you recognized it.”

Now Trotter met his eyes. His face was bland. “There’s a caption right here.”

Murphy kept hold of his Irish temper. “That’s not,” he said quietly, “what I meant.”

“I know,” Trotter said. He smiled. The son of a bitch was smiling at him. Like he was kidding around with an old friend or something. “Of course I recognize it,” Trotter went on.

“You do?” It couldn’t be this easy.

“Sure. It’s Cliff Driscoll. He used to work at the State Department. People used to say we looked alike.”

Murphy had his eyes closed. “What people?”

“People who knew us both. When I worked for the
Sun.
Baltimore’s not all that—” There was a long beeping noise. Trotter let out a sigh and let his legs stop pumping. He took the towel from where he’d draped it on the pseudo handlebars, took off his glasses and wiped his face again.

If I had a knife, Murphy thought, I could stab him in the belly when he’s doing that, when he’s wiping his eyes. I could kill him. I could kill him and not even go to confession after.

Trotter put his glasses back on, smiled, and picked up his train of thought. “Baltimore’s not all that far from Washington, you know.”

“I’d like to interview this guy. This Driscoll. Maybe you could help me get in touch with him.”

“Can’t be done, Sean.”

Murphy could feel his fingers tightening into fists. “Why’s that, Allan?” Even to himself, his voice sounded like the voice of a man being strangled.

“Because Driscoll’s dead.”

“Driscoll’s dead,” Murphy echoed.

“Right after Liz Fane was returned. He had a car crash on his way back to town to take part in debriefing. Girl’s mother was killed, too.”

Murphy was kicking himself for not having followed up on the career of “Mr. Driscoll” after he’d found the photograph. There was undoubtedly something fishy about this Driscoll’s “death.” Murphy might have been able to spot what it was.

Too late now. Better to brazen it out than to let himself be tossed any curveballs.

“Bullshit!” he said. “Driscoll isn’t dead.
You
are Driscoll, and I’m giving you just five seconds to admit it!”

Trotter wiped his face again, muttering something into the towel.

“I can’t hear you,” Murphy said.

“I said, ‘Five seconds to admit it, or else
what?
What have you got besides a wish to make me play along with your fantasies?”

“It’s no fantasy, damn you. And if you don’t do what I tell you, this picture and the rest of the evidence I’ve collected gets a blanket release to the media, not just the Hudson Group.”

“Uh-huh.” Trotter threw one scarred leg over the exercise machine and stood up wincing. “Ouch. That’s it, screw the sit-ups today. What do you want me to do?”

Murphy could feel himself losing it. He was an experienced reporter; he’d played cat and mouse with too many people too often not to know that if he were in control of this situation, it wouldn’t seem so easy.

Nothing to do but play it out. “I want you,” he said, “to disappear. Fake your death. If Driscoll could do it, so can you. Just take off. Get out of Regina’s life before you get her killed. Before you hurt her worse than she’s already been hurt.”

“Uh-huh,” Trotter said again. “I suppose you’ve got a lot of those envelopes squirreled away with people you think you can trust.”

“Enough. And if anything happens to me, they all go out.”

“You’re afraid something is going to happen to you?” Trotter sounded incredulous. “Come on.”

The fact was Murphy had
not
been afraid that anything might happen to him. Until right now. He suppressed another shudder. He was glad he’d taken precautions.

“I suppose,” Trotter went on, “that the very first packet of evidence, whatever it is, goes to Regina herself.”

Murphy stared at him.

“Doesn’t it?” Trotter asked. “It’s not that hard to figure. What you want to do is get me away from Regina. Or her away from me, I guess, from your point of view. The best way for you would be if I take this conversation to heart and just split. The next best would be for you to discredit me just in

Regina’s eyes. If she doesn’t trust me, I can’t achieve whatever nefarious things you think I’m up to.”

“Go to hell.”

“The media blitz is the last resort. It would, the way you see it, neutralize me, but it would also make a new scandal for the Hudson Group, which has barely gotten over the last one. And anything that hurts the Hudson Group hurts Regina. Hey!”

Murphy jumped.

“I’m being a terrible host,” Trotter said. “You’ve been sitting on that stool all this time. Let’s go back upstairs; the chairs are more comfortable and I’ve got to drink some Gatorade before I cramp up.”

“Lead the way,” Murphy said.

Trotter grinned. “Okay, but I’m pretty slow going upstairs these days.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

“And you’re not letting me get behind you, either. Okay, okay. Here goes.” Trotter walked over to the stairs and started lifting himself up. “I’m so damned stiff,” he said. He looked back over his shoulder at Murphy, who was keeping a cautious, four-stair distance between himself and his host. “Oh. How am I doing, by the way?”

“You’re getting there. Don’t put on a show for my benefit.”

“I wish it were a show. But I’m not talking about the stairs. How am I doing at figuring out your strategy?”

“Nobody ever said you weren’t smart.”

Trotter brought him to the living room. “Take a chair. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the kitchen. That’s where the Gatorade is. Want to come along, see I don’t come back with an Uzi or something?”

“No, thanks. Anything happens to me, those documents go out.”

“Right, right, the documents.”

Trotter walked stiffly from the room. Murphy could feel himself growing more paranoid by the second. What if Trotter was calling for help? What if he had agents tracking down and killing everyone Murphy could trust, so those documents couldn’t go out? Murphy tiptoed across the rug to the doorway and listened hard. He heard a refrigerator open and close. He heard ice clink in a glass. He heard liquid being poured. He heard footsteps returning.

He just got back to his chair before Trotter returned. The younger man had a tall glass with ice and a pale-green liquid in his right hand, a squat bottle of the same green liquid in his left.

“You want anything?” Trotter asked, plunking himself down in the middle of the leather couch.

“Nothing.”

“Right,” Trotter said. “Might slip you a hypnotic drug and make you get the documents back by yourself.”

“I don’t find anything about this funny, Trotter.”

“Sean, I like you. I really do.”

“Don’t like me,” Murphy heard himself saying. “Don’t you
dare
like me.”

“I can’t help it. But forget that for a minute. Can I ask you a question?”

“You haven’t answered any of mine yet.”

“We’ve got plenty of time. I might surprise you.”

“Ask. I don’t promise to answer.”

“Why do you hate the idea of my being with Regina so much? What is it you think I
am
?”

“I know damn well what you are. You’re a spy, almost certainly for the American government. You work for a group so secret I couldn’t get a
sniff
of you through ordinary channels. You were there in the Liz Fane case, and a lot of people, probably innocent people, died. I get the feeling you didn’t care, as long as you got your job done. Now you’re working on Regina, you’ve got her to the point where she thinks she’s in love with you; for God’s sake, she thinks she’s going to
marry
you. You’re setting her up for something, and I won’t have it.”

Trotter pursed his lips. “Well,” he began.

“You sound like Reagan.”

Trotter laughed. “Are you accusing me of being Reagan, now?” He waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. I deny it. I deny everything, of course.”

“I don’t care what the hell you admit or deny. Just get out of town. Out of Regina’s life.”

“You wanted to talk. We’ll talk first.” Trotter’s face told Murphy it was not a request.

Trotter drank Gatorade. “Let’s assume, though, just for the sake of argument, that you’re right. That I
am
a spy, in deep cover, working on some top-secret operation. You say yourself that if I were, it’s the United States I would be working for. Doesn’t that make a difference?”