The Art of the Devil (29 page)

But other tubes snaked out of Isherwood's body. He began to pull them free. Tendrils of the dream clung obstinately: the Bomb on its way, the window to the east standing open, the fate of the free world in his hands.

‘Ish,' Spooner said. ‘Slow down.'

‘Take your friend's advice. That tube in your side is decompressing your lung. If you tug it out, you risk a collapse.' The doctor leaned forward, inspecting his patient dubiously. ‘What we're going to do is take some X-rays, see how fully your lung has expanded, and then stitch you up if things look good. For the time being, you must not exert yourself. Just relax – lie back. If all goes well, we might have you out of here by the end of the day.'

Consulting a clipboard, the doctor and nurse left the room. The Chief watched them go. Then he turned back to Isherwood and communicated more with a wry lift of his brow than he could have with words.

Darkly, Isherwood laughed – and then winced.

‘I'm getting you out of here.' The Chief spoke furtively, beneath his breath. ‘With or without their by-your-leave. I need you back at the farm.' He described the night just passed: joining Sheriff Knox in a canvas of local motels, looking for evidence of a room rented by Richard Hart. At three a.m., they had found the motor court at which the man had registered under the name Robert Farrow. But inside was no sign of a disguise, rifle, or other concealable weapon … which to Spooner's mind suggested trouble.

‘A second triggerman,' he clarified. ‘Hart was lying in wait for
you
– but another assassin is lying for Eisenhower.'

THE EISENHOWER FARM

Breathing hard, Elisabeth leaned away.

She took inventory of herself. Except for the wound on her forehead, she seemed unharmed. She listened, concentrating. Nobody seemed to be rushing toward the room to investigate. Tentatively, she explored her brow with her fingertips. Two deep, bloody furrows marred the fine skin. Otherwise she was all right.

She felt a whisper of self-recrimination. This could cause problems. She should have been prepared for the counter-attack.

She would manage.

Wetting her lips, she looked around the room. The instant the body was found, the farm would doubtless be locked down and every inhabitant thoroughly investigated … but as long as there was no corpse, it would take time for worst-case conclusions to be reached.

Experimentally, she got her hands beneath Josette's arms. The girl weighed twelve stone if she weighed an ounce. Elisabeth lowered the body again. The best place to hide a cadaver would be inside the corn crib, underneath the recent harvest – but dragging the heavy body out there, beneath the paling sky, would be too dangerous. Josette would need to be stowed right here, inside this room.

Carefully, Elisabeth rolled the corpse beneath the bed. For a moment her friend's face was unfortunately close to her own: black tongue lolling out thickly, eyes rotated to white. Then Josette turned over and hit the wall with a soft thump.

Reaching for the tweed case, Elisabeth found that the assembled gun was slightly longer than the container, which was already half-filled with remnants of splintered guitar. Briefly, she considered partly disassembling the weapon – even just removal of the butt might do the trick – but decided against it. She needed to be ready to move at an instant's notice. Instead, she wrapped the rifle in her navy pea coat and then slid it beneath the bed, up against Josette, followed by the case. The knife went back into the bottom drawer.

Blood spots marred the floor. As she wiped them up with a stocking, she deliberated. Somehow she would need to deflect suspicion as news of Josette's disappearance swept the farm, until the sun had risen high enough in the sky. The gouges taken out of her forehead would not help matters – but she had come too far to quit now.

Outside, a rooster crowed gutturally; chickens clucked, coming awake.

Positioning herself before the mirror, she went to work on the gouges, applying a light concealer, blending it in, and then moving on to a darker shade. Then powder, using a compact pad, dabbing evenly and gently. Then foundation, again light before dark. Then blush, taking care to match her pale skin tone. A quick touch-up, and she was satisfied.

A last pass over the floor; the bloody stocking went inside the dresser drawer beside the butter knife. She lay back down. The creak of bed springs sounded cataclysmic. She braced herself to make contact with Josette through the thin mattress, but thankfully did not.

Even a few minutes of rest would have been welcome. But only seconds passed, it seemed, before the house matron moved down the hallway, knocking on doors.

As Dunbarton let herself in, Elisabeth prepared for the woman to notice something awry. The matron would bend over to peer beneath the bed. Elisabeth would move silently to the dresser. The knife, dull but adequate, would fit into her hand like an old friend. The back of the harridan's neck would be exposed; she could envision the pale hairs, the slim tough muscles, the single ugly mole which would serve as a bullseye …

But Dunbarton hardly glanced into the room. ‘Get dressed,' she said crisply. ‘Your day off was yesterday.' Then she closed the door and moved off down the hall, rapping smartly as she went.

GETTYSBURG HOSPITAL

Spooner tried the supply closet's knob.

The door slipped open. Refraining from looking down the corridor, he stepped purposefully inside. Closing the door behind himself, he felt an illicit thrill plait down his spine. Against all expectations, he had become again the boy he once had been: shoplifting from Woolworths with Max, emulating Pretty Boy Floyd.

He found a light switch. The closet was filled with cleaning supplies, rubber gloves, boxed sutures, wrapped syringes, rubber tubing. Hanging on a hook he found a doctor's white coat, fraying at the collar; pressed against the rear wall he found two folding wheelchairs.

Five minutes later, head lowered, white coat flapping, he wheeled Isherwood through the waiting room, right past the young doctor, who was engaged in conversation with a pretty nurse. Outside, he manhandled the wheelchair roughly forward, across an oval-shaped pavilion and curving turnaround, toward the Cadillac Fleetwood parked by the curb.

THE EISENHOWER FARM

The house matron appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Where's Josette?' she demanded.

None of the half-dozen girls in the room answered. Frowning, Dunbarton put hands on hips and cast her gaze penetratingly back and forth. ‘Speak up. Someone must know.'

Silence.

With visible effort, Dunbarton restrained herself. Carefully, she fixed a flyaway strand of hair. ‘Miss Grant – my office, if you please.'

Elisabeth followed the house matron into her first-floor office. Closing the door, Dunbarton took a seat behind her glossy walnut desk. Before speaking again, she let her gaze drill into her young charge. Then, with venomous restraint: ‘Where … is … Josette?'

‘Last time I saw her,' said Elisabeth meekly, ‘she was on her way to bed.'

‘So where is she?'

‘I don't know, ma'am. But …'

‘But?'

Elisabeth hesitated.

‘Out with it, Miss Grant.'

‘But she was always talking about leaving the farm, ma'am. Going to Hollywood, she said, and trying to get discovered at a soda fountain. Like Babs, she said.'

‘Oh, for the love of God.' Dunbarton's nostrils flared. ‘You girls and your stupid movie magazines. Your empty little heads get filled with all sorts of ideas.'

Elisabeth said nothing.

‘Did she truly give the impression that she planned on leaving last night, just like that?'

Elisabeth shrugged.

‘And did you try to talk her out of this foolishness?'

‘I told her it sounded risky.'

‘
Risky
.' Again Dunbarton visibly checked herself. She shook her head in disgust. She started to open a drawer, and then thought better. After another moment, she sighed violently. ‘You're dismissed, Miss Grant. Get yourself to work: post-haste.'

T
urning into the driveway, the Cadillac Fleetwood jerked to a stop before the barricade.

Isherwood fought off the slip-sliding feeling of skating toward a lagoon of dreams. He watched blearily as Spooner exchanged a few words with Bob Skinnerton, inside the booth, who nodded and turned away to raise the barrier.

Isherwood sat up straighter. His side objected; he caught his lower lip in his teeth and bit down hard.
Hang in there
, he thought harshly.
Miles to go before you sleep.
The Chief would not have spirited him away from the hospital only to let him bleed to death here on the farm … he hoped.

At the fork in the driveway, Spooner's driver turned west, toward the Secret Service office. Isherwood raised a hand in protest. ‘Silo,' he said thickly.

‘Zane's watching it,' answered the Chief.

Elisabeth moved to the nearest window.

Visible beyond the partition of Norway spruce, Farm One sprawled in hillocks and furrows beneath the climbing sun. Changing her angle, she found the Georgian farmhouse with its screened-in porch.

The President was already standing behind his easel, in bathrobe and greatcoat. A Secret Service agent with a Superman curl hanging over a wide forehead stood motionless behind him. As Elisabeth watched, Mamie Eisenhower appeared on the porch between the two men. She offered something in her hands to her husband: a deck of cards. Words were exchanged; then they moved together to a small wicker table, pulling out chairs on either side.

From shadows thrown by the Norway spruce, Elisabeth judged the position of the sun in the sky. The time had come.

She looked down at her arms. They had broken out in gooseflesh.

‘And I say, what are you afraid of?' Mamie Eisenhower threw a fan of cards onto the wicker table. ‘Why must you act like such a child?'

The President rolled his eyes. ‘Because I don't want to make trouble where there's no need. A little milk of magnesia will set me right.'

‘That's what you said during the coronary. And so there you lay for twelve hours, suffering, rather than get the help you needed. Because you're stubborn as a jackass and proud as a peacock.'

Agent Leo Wayne, standing near the back of the porch, had become very interested in the cuticles of his own right hand.

‘Gas can be a sign,' insisted Mamie. ‘Gas can indicate an obstruction. There's too much riding on your damned health for you be such a damned selfish fool all the time—'

‘And that's why I've spent the past goddamned month living like a goddamned prisoner inside this goddamned pink house, for the love of Christ!'

‘Just tell Howard. That's all I ask.' She looked around theatrically. ‘Where
is
Howard?'

‘Mamie,' said Ike. ‘Take the hint; he doesn't want to hear about every fart and cough. Now sit down and quit being such a damned busybody. Do you want to play cards, or not?'

‘Cards,' she grumbled. ‘
Bridge
is cards.
Canasta
is cards. This is kid's stuff – like those stupid western novels you're so fond of.'

Eisenhower forced air out between clenched teeth and reached for the stock pile.

In the kitchen, Caroline Dreyfus was telling Linda Larsen about a recipe she'd seen in
Good Housekeeping
.

‘They call it a “grape chiffon pie” … grape juice and marshmallows and gelatin and whipped cream, all in a pastry shell. You know me, I could burn water. But I think I might give it a try, it just looks so yummy … Libby, where are you going?'

Elisabeth paused, turned to face the kitchen. With a sunny smile, she raised her goose-fleshed arm. ‘Just getting a sweater.'

She climbed the stairs quickly, moved into her room, and reached beneath the bed. The skin on her forearms still crawled. Her hands themselves felt oddly cold.

We've watched our parents dress in rags and scavenge food unfit for a dog. We've listened to the promises of our teachers that things will get better. And we've seen with our own eyes that the elder generation is not truly willing – or able – to take the necessary steps.
Karl's sculpted cheeks had caught the sunlight as he spoke, revealing his Aryan bone structure, glorious and strong.
We've come to understand that it falls to us, the chosen ones, the future, to step up and take our rightful place in history – as the
authors
of history.

From the guitar case she transferred ammunition into a pocket of her afternoon maid's uniform. She withdrew the rifle, wrapped in her pea coat, and then pushed the case back beneath the bed, wincing slightly as it bumped against Josette's body. Catching sight of her reflection in the mirror, she adjusted her bundle until it was mostly hidden along the line of her body.

We are not bound by tradition, by old ways of thinking. We are pure and strong, and mastery over others is our birthright. We will do whatever is required to attain victory.

The indignities were over. The menial work, the suffering in silence beside swine who had humiliated her countrymen on the battlefield, the living in fear of a knock on the door – all in the past. One way or another, she would now be only herself.

She moved her head slightly, catching a ray of sunshine on her own sharp cheekbone. Drinking in the sight, she spent a long moment admiring her true face: unsmiling, beautiful, and pitiless.

Then she turned, positioning her bundle carefully, and left the room for the last time.

‘Didn't Jim Hagerty tell you the same thing? “Ike,” he said, “you can't be such a stubborn damned fool any more; there's too much riding on your shoulders for such obstinate behavior.” I know he said it because I heard it, during his visit just two days ago, with my own ears.'

‘You were eavesdropping?'