The Infiltrators (23 page)

After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business, anyway.”

Her voice had an absent quality, as if she’d suddenly lost interest in the subject; she was looking ahead as we walked along a street lined with trees. I noticed that they displayed very little in the way of leaf buds yet. A few thousand feet of altitude, and a few hundred miles of latitude, made a considerable difference in the seasons.

“Are we going where I think we’re going?” I asked at last.

She said, “Yes, it’s right up ahead.”

“I know. I was there once, remember?”

She stopped in front of a two-story house set back from the sidewalk, flanked by large cottonwoods, in a grassy yard all its own, one of the few such private oases of greenery remaining in that part of town. She looked down at herself, and glanced at me a bit uncertainly, almost shyly.

“Do I look all right?” she asked.

“No,” I said honestly. “You look all wrong, but isn’t that what you want?”

She nodded. “Will you let me handle it, Matt? I’m going to make a paranoid spectacle of myself—I want to check out some wild and impossible theories that used to come to me in prison when I was feeling particularly downtrodden, betrayed by the whole world—at least my whole world. All I want you to do is look embarrassed and try to hush me, and apologize for me if it seems indicated, just as you did back there at the police station. Take your cues from me, please.”

“It’s your show,” I said. “Carry on.”

She hesitated, and glanced down at herself, and gave a rueful little laugh. “Do you want to know something funny? Even after everything that’s happened to me, I still find it very hard to go in there looking like such a tramp. God, I remember how carefully I used to check my hair and lipstick and nylons every morning before I started up this walk. So let’s get it the hell over with before the lady loses her nerve.”

She squared her shoulders and turned up the neatly swept concrete path towards the massive building. It was an old residence—almost a mansion—that had been lovingly converted to offices in the days before it became fashionable to bulldoze everything flat and cover the solid old foundations with flimsy modern structures. I saw her make her high-heeled, tight-pants walk deliberately vulgar and provocative as she mounted the steps to the covered porch—
portal
, in the local idiom.

Mrs. Madeleine Ellershaw walked straight up to the heavy old front door; but before marching inside she paused very briefly to touch—reminiscently, sadly—the discreet brass plate, nicely polished, that read:
BARON AND WALSH
—
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
.

The reception room was large and luxurious and rather old-fashioned, as befitted the building. For waiting clients—one sensed they’d never have to wait long in this well-run place—there was a comfortable sofa with a couple of deep chairs to match, and a low table supplied with a few reasonably current magazines, but not so many that the place looked like a dentist’s waiting room. More like a well-lived-in den or study. There were real rugs on the floor instead of the usual synthetic wall-to-wall stuff. I saw one little Navajo number in the corner, about five by seven, that I’d have liked to have if I’d had anyplace to put it, but it would have given my sterile, furnished Washington apartment a bad case of artistic indigestion. It’s only a convenient place to sleep between assignments, anyway.

The receptionist at the antique-looking mahogany desk in the alcove by the fine old stairway was a self-conscious beauty with a lot of pale gold hair pulled back severely to roll at the nape of her neck. I recalled from my long-ago forays into fashion photography that you could call it a chignon if you wanted to be fancy. She was wearing a severe white silk blouse, the kind with a built-in ascot-looking arrangement of the same material at the throat. The jacket of a severe gray suit, on a hanger, was neatly suspended from an old-fashioned coat tree in the corner. She was presumably wearing the equally severe gray skirt of the suit—that area wasn’t visible as she sat behind the desk—but I didn’t think she’d have interested me greatly even if she’d left it off. I mean, there’s a rumor to the effect that the ones who make a production of looking untouchable usually aren’t; but my own minor researches in the field indicate that it’s generally a lot of work to find out and hardly ever worth it when you do.

She raised her delicate, carefully drawn eyebrows as Madeleine marched up. She’d obviously appraised at a glance the roughly dressed female who’d just entered, and decided not to waste on her the gracious smile of welcome reserved for important clients.

“Ye-es?”

Madeleine said, “I want to see Mr. Baron and Walter Maxon in Mr. Baron’s office. As soon as possible. Would you arrange it, please?”

“I’m afraid that without an appointment—”

Madeleine glanced at me. “Shit, I tried to be polite, I even said please, you heard me,” she said harshly. She put her hands on the desk, leaning forward. “Get on the phone, Blondie! Tell Mr. Baron there’s an unsuccessful case of his downstairs, one of his few failures, and if he tries to give her a runaround she’s going to commence dismantling the fucking premises starting with the bleached number with the penciled eyebrows!”

I said hastily, “Take it easy, take it easy.”

I turned to the girl and dropped my ID folder on the desk in front of her, open, to show the pretty badge-thing inside, so carefully designed to impress people. I picked it up, flipped it closed, and put it away.

“Helm, Matthew Helm,” I said. “Mrs. Ellershaw and I really would like a conference with the attorneys she mentioned, as soon as possible. Government business. Would you arrange it, please?”

“Mrs. Ellershaw?” Clearly recognizing the name, the blond girl threw a startled glance at the jeans-clad woman on the other side of the desk. “Well… well, as a matter of fact Mr. Baron gave instructions weeks ago that anytime Mrs. Ellershaw came in she was to be shown right up if he wasn’t with a client, but she didn’t give her name, so how could I know?” The receptionist’s voice was resentful. She went on with some satisfaction: “Anyway, there
is
somebody in his office right now. But I’ll let him know the minute he’s free—”

“Madeleine! My God, Madeleine!”

There was a quick pounding of feet on the carpeted stairs as a youngish man threw himself down them and came hurrying up to us.

“Hello, Walter.” Madeleine’s voice was soft.

“Gosh, it’s good to see you!” the man said breathlessly. “I… we were beginning to think you’d decided not to come home at all. I was going to try to find you as soon as I could get away…” He stopped, and reached out impulsively to take both her hands. “Let me look at you. Hey, you look great!”

The funny thing was, he meant it. He clearly wasn’t even noticing how she was dressed; he was remembering only the distressed, disintegrating woman in prison uniform with whom, several years ago, he’d talked so awkwardly in Fort Ames. It was obvious that he’d looked forward to this meeting with considerable trepidation, wondering what shape she’d be in—if she’d even be recognizable after her long imprisonment. His relief at seeing her whole once more, tanned and healthy, was rather touching.

“I… I got your letters,” Madeleine said. “I’m sorry I hardly ever answered them. There wasn’t anything to write about, in that place. But thank you; and thanks for sending the things I asked for… Walter, this is Mr. Helm, who’s, well, kind of looking into my case for the U.S. government, a little late. Mr. Helm, Mr. Maxon.”

We shook hands. He was a very boyish and sincere-looking young fellow—well, the record I’d read gave his age as thirty-five, but he didn’t look it. He was almost too good to be true; but his emotions upon seeing Madeleine had been revealing and, I thought, genuine. I decided to take him at face value for the time being. He was a little under six feet and a bit heavy, almost plump; if he didn’t start fighting it soon he’d have a real problem around the middle. He had mousy-brown hair cut moderately short but not short enough to make any kind of a crew-cut macho statement, and he wore a neat blue suit and big horn-rimmed glasses.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said. “It’s about time somebody looked into—”

The receptionist, who’d picked up the phone, interrupted: “Mr. Baron will see you now, Mrs. Ellershaw.”

Madeleine turned towards the stairs. A white-haired woman in an obviously expensive suit and blouse was descending with the care used by those whose knees aren’t quite as reliable as they once were; she glanced at Madeleine as they passed, and then looked back quickly, frowning. Abruptly, she drew her jacket about her and buttoned it carefully as if to protect herself from contamination. She swept out of the place holding herself very straight, her squared shoulders expressing disapproval.

I heard Maxon, beside me, mutter, “Old biddy!”

But Madeleine hadn’t even noticed; she was looking up at the man who’d come to the top of the stairs to greet her. I’d got a glimpse of Baron once in court, twelve years ago when I’d come here to get some information out of his client, Willy Chavez. I remembered that the senior active partner of Madeleine’s firm—Walsh had been retired as a lawyer even back then, although I’d gathered he still had a voice in running the firm—had looked like quite a sizable specimen, but he’d been sitting down at the time. I hadn’t realized how big he’d be standing up: a great gray grizzly of a man as tall as my own six-four and a great deal wider. Also, thank God, a great deal older, nearing seventy now, according to our information, so I could probably handle him if I really had to, but it wouldn’t be fun. I don’t mean that I had any specific reason to think I might ever have to tackle Mr. Waldemar Baron, attorney at law, but men who are in my line of work—and lots of men who aren’t—do tend to make that instinctive appraisal of anybody new and husky and masculine:
Can I take this large bastard or can’t I?

It was clear that he’d been quite handsome; he was still a striking man, even though the creases and jowls of old age were getting the better of the strong bony structure of his face. Like Walter Maxon, whose role model he obviously was, he was rather formally dressed for Santa Fe, in another dark blue suit complete with white shirt and silk tie, and highly polished black shoes. The big horn-rimmed glasses perched on his sizable nose gave him an earnest, scholarly look despite his size. The eyes behind the glasses were steel-gray and didn’t miss the fact that I was there, with Maxon, although they didn’t have time for us at the moment.

As Madeleine reached him, he swept her into his arms and hugged her affectionately. “It took you long enough to get here, girl! I was beginning to think you’d done something stupid, like crawling off to hide under a rock somewhere, instead of facing down a little community disapproval right here where you belong.” He held her away from him. “Well, you look better than I expected, except for being dressed like a tramp.”

Her sudden laughter was sharp and bitter. “God, it’s like coming home! You’re still on that sartorial kick?” She freed herself irritably and laughed again. “Actually, the main reason I came back here is that Joe Birnbaum wants to see me about my folks’ estate, although why it couldn’t be handled by mail I have no idea. And you forget, Waldemar, I am a tramp, a cheap ex-convict tramp. Why shouldn’t I dress like one? What else is there left for me to be, after what you let them do to me?”

“Let them?” He stared at her for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was soft: “There were no recriminations after the trial. You were”—he stopped and swallowed—“you were so nice about it, you broke my heart. You’d trusted me to save you and I’d failed you, but not one word of blame did I get from you. And now you’ve decided… Well, I deserve it, but you didn’t give me much to work with, my dear. You wouldn’t take my advice and accept the rather favorable bargain I’d thrashed out with the prosecution… Ah, let’s not stand here on the stairs reviving ugly old memories! Come into my office…. You, too, sir. I gather you have some mysterious government business to discuss, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t do it comfortably. I’ll see you shortly, Walter.”

“I want Walter present,” Madeleine said.

Baron started to speak, stopped himself, and shrugged. “As you wish, my dear.”

He tried to put his arm around her shoulders as they proceeded along the upstairs corridor, but she shrugged it off impatiently, bringing a look of sadness to his face. But I didn’t feel there was anything sexual involved. It was more like a parent’s conciliatory advance being rebuffed by a sulky child. Well, I’d already gathered that she’d been Baron’s personal protégée, selected very young from, presumably, a number of other youthful legal prodigies, and carefully groomed and trained by him for a place in the firm. There would inevitably have been some emotional involvement on both sides, certainly respect and perhaps real affection; but I’d never had a hint of anything beyond that, and I got none now.

Baron’s office was a big, light, high-ceilinged room that might once have been the master bedroom of the imposing house. The design of the large rug on the floor looked vaguely familiar, and the name Aubusson popped into my mind, but I wouldn’t want to vouch for its correctness. The massive desk was quite old and quite ornate, but the chair behind it was an anachronism: a husky modern swivel armchair, metal, gray. Well, a man Baron’s size would want something solid and comfortable to hold him. Probably his two-hundred-odd pounds had splintered a few of the flimsy antiques bought on the advice of the interior decorator, and he’d got mad, ordered up the biggest and toughest thing the local office-supply store had in stock, and plunked it down in the middle of all the fancy decor and to hell with appearances.

There was a gold-framed mirror on one wall, and there were a couple of large, dark, old-fashioned paintings on the others, in which the sprightly nymphlike ladies were more or less covered by diaphanous white garments that drifted about them gauzily and rather interestingly. The gentlemen were more substantially clad, in an old-fashioned way, and looked rather stuffy and unenterprising. I mean, a girl dressed like that expects something to be done about it, doesn’t she? Get with it, boys!