Time to Kill (12 page)

Neither was there when he presented himself at the Chase Manhattan Bank as Adam Peterson and produced his identification documents at the securities section, although there was a slight delay in locating the duplicate bank key for the double lock deposit box. There was no curiosity from the securities official at his not having accessed the facility for so long, but on their way to the vaults Mason followed Patrick Bell's lead and talked generally of being glad to be back in America after so long abroad in the Middle East and the oil fields of Uzbekistan and latterly Scotland. The bank officer dutifully smiled when Mason remarked that the Middle East was better for getting a suntan than the former Soviet republic or the north of the British Isles. There was no attempted comparison between his signature on that day's access register and the Adam Peterson documents, but Mason himself was satisfied with the match. The official's unlocking with the bank key was a second's operation but Mason patiently endured the explanation of the summoning bell for him to be escorted back up when he'd completed his business.

Alone in the locked examination room adjoining the vaults Mason felt something approaching a sexual excitement, the first he'd experienced – and welcomed – after years of monk-like abstinence, at the moment of opening the box to gaze down at its contents. Everything lay before him as he'd left it eighteen years earlier: the money neatly stacked according to its wrap-secured and identified denominations. He'd opened the deposit before the never suspected affair between Ann and Sobell, never imagining the gravy train was going to dry up even if he were suddenly re-assigned to another overseas posting. Against that possibility and his not being able to regularly travel to New York Mason had ensured there were sufficient support funds for the facility in his open Adam Peterson account, reflecting as he put in most of his withdrawn inheritance that had his sentence run its full term there would not have been sufficient to cover the regular cost. Although it was unnecessary, because he could remember to the last dollar how much was there, he still counted each wrapped and labelled bundle. Well aware, from the closeness with which he'd kept himself up to date from newspapers and television, of bank reporting requirements under anti-drug trafficking legislation, Mason divided into two piles the cash he intended taking with him, keeping that with which he was going to replenish his account just short of $750 than that which would have triggered the legal necessity.

Like a child on their birthday saving the biggest present until last to unwrap, Mason left until last the second section of the deposit box. The Glock, snug in its still oiled cloth, the eight ten-milimetre bullets separate in their glassine envelope, appeared reassuringly before him. He'd illegally obtained the Austrian-manufactured handgun during his Viennese tour and had it shipped undetected back to the United States in the embassy's diplomatic bag. It had been an absurd oversight not to have obtained more ammunition, but he'd never imagined the need for the revenge he intended. Although he fantasized about inflicting as much agony as possible upon Slater and Ann – the rattlesnake of the Capote book he'd read in the prison library remaining his favourite – Mason realistically decided that he'd have to use the handgun, for which he would have to get more shells. He'd driven the 300 miles from Washington to New York to avoid any airport detection with the weapon upon his return from Vienna and recognized as well that with the anti-terrorism hysteria that gripped the country since 9/11 he was going to have to repeat the car journey eventually to get it back to Frederick. It would, Mason thought philosophically, provide further driving experience.

For the moment, though, the incriminating Glock had to remain where he'd left it, all those years ago. Until the time came to use it upon the two people he hated more than he'd imagined it possible to hate another human being.

The securities official responded at once to Mason's summons, returned with him to the vault for the box to be restored and double locked, and escorted him back to the main, public section. The service manager to whose position he was directed was a proud-busted black girl named Helene Balanda who wore her hair ethnically braided and who, like the First National official in Washington, almost at once embarked upon an unexpectedly strong sales pitch for the various customer services up to and including cheques printed not just with fine art images but photographically those of the customers themselves, an identification that Mason actually allowed himself to laugh at. Mixed with the amusing absurdity of his risking such a choice was another stir of excitement, very definitely sexual this time. He greatly expanded his foreign posting invention with accounts of having used the various banks of the countries in which he had worked, with funds still having to be transferred, and talked of continuing to bank at the Chase Manhattan, although of there being a possible branch switch because of the uncertainty after such a long time out of the country of exactly where he might permanently resettle. He expected to be living in hotels for the foreseeable future. She accepted his account refunding deposit and, visibly disappointed, promised a replacement, name-endorsed plain-paged chequebook – for which she received no commission – and bank and Visa cards within a week. Mason said that because of his uncertain accommodation he'd personally return to collect them. Within that week he might have established a Post Office box number for his mail.

His biggest hurdle surmounted without the slightest hindrance or question, Mason left the bank with the rest of the day – and the night if he chose – at his absolute choice, enjoying afresh and in a new city the still unfamiliar freedom. He took his time walking up town, via Broadway. He hesitated at 42nd Street and its sex show and hooker reminders. On impulse he turned east, disappointed that there appeared fewer erotic offerings than when he had last been in the city, and on further impulse he cut into Grand Central Station and lunched leisurely in the basement fish restaurant off oysters and soft-shelled crabs and imported Chablis.

There were a few loitering hookers hoping for afternoon business who might have stood more chance if they'd waited for the kinder street-lit darkness but within a few yards of turning up 6th Avenue, towards the park, Mason isolated a blonde so much better dressed and made-up that he wasn't absolutely sure she was a working girl. He was re-asssured when she answered his smile and further encouraged by her careful, vice squad protective approach – ‘Are you a stranger, looking for directions?' – when he slowed.

‘I might be.'

‘Is it a hotel or an address you're looking for?'

‘I don't have either. Perhaps you could recommend me?'

‘There would be a finder's fee.'

‘How much?'

‘That would depend upon the sort of accommodation you're looking for.'

‘I like everything fully appointed. Are you familiar with such accommodation?'

‘Fully appointed accommodation costs $350. It comes with a complete survey.'

‘I think I need to see it.'

‘I think you need to, too.'

Mason liked her perfume and the name she used – Miriam – and the clean, just showered smell when they got into the cab, and that she didn't try to crawl all over him. He was glad, too, that it was an apartment, just off Columbus Circle, and not a pay by the hour professional hotel. When they got inside Mason decided it was where she lived, not her workplace. He declined her offered drink and when he handed over the four $100 bills he told her he didn't expect any change.

She said, ‘Let's make it more than a pleasure to do business with you.'

‘Let's,' said Mason, following her into the bedroom. It was dominated by the bed, a mirror inset in its canopy.

‘You want to undress me? Or watch?'

‘Watch.'

She was good, very good. Not trying to make it a gyrating striptease but neither shedding her dress, pants and bra like a discarded skin. It was the first live naked female body he had seen since he couldn't remember when and he thought she was magnificent, no sag or lines to her breasts or stomach.

‘And you?'

He wasn't feeling anything: no excitement at all! ‘You help.'

The girl did that well, too, stripping him with her hands on the inside, not the outside, of his clothes, so that every movement was an erotic caress. Mason still stayed flaccid, even when she knelt before him to slide off the final piece.

She nuzzled his groin, pushing him back upon the bed, and said, ‘You got a favourite? Something you really like that makes it extra good? Anything at all?'

An essential for Mason's predatory sexual need had always been cunnilingus but he'd only ever practised it with trusted mistresses, not with one night stands and never with hookers and he didn't want to risk it now, desperate though he was to be aroused. ‘Blow me.'

The girl had difficulty fitting the condom, so flaccid was he. She licked and sucked and he stared up into the mirror at her perfect body as she tried. He remained limp.

‘Relax. Don't tense,' she murmured

Nothing.

‘You want to feel? Touch me? I want you to touch me.'

Mason touched her, going into her and she splayed and said, ‘Look. Really look.'

But nothing happened and finally he said, ‘It's no good.'

‘It will be good. It happens like this sometimes but it will be good, next time. You want my number, for next time?'

He took her card, promising to call, but didn't shower, anxious to get away. He got a cab at once and asked for La Guardia airport, eager to get back to Washington. It wasn't his fault, he told himself. Too early, after such an abstinence. Shouldn't have tried it with a hooker, either. Needed someone he could trust: whom he knew would be clean. Not his fault at all. She was right. It would be good the next time, like it always had been. But not with her. He crumpled her card into a ball and dropped it on the cab floor, wishing the frustrated anger would go away.

Ten

I
t was time.

Not immediately, not today. Today began the actuality after all the deadly – literally – fantasy. There were computer snares to be put in place from what he'd discovered when he'd got back from New York the previous night and worked out now, lying there in the dawn half light. Tomorrow. He'd set everything up for tomorrow, have a car ready in the basement car park to avoid any delay. Maybe he shouldn't have waited as long as this, maybe … Mason brought the reflection up short, refusing it. Not refusing. Rejecting, annoyed the doubt had ever come to mind, been allowed to
enter
his mind. He hadn't unnecessarily held back from embarking upon the retribution, as if he had second thoughts: doubtful, frightened second thoughts. As if, even, at the final moment of decision that he didn't want to go through with it. To do it. That he was frightened, didn't trust himself to do it. Didn't believe that he could do it. The doubt, the unthinkable, unacceptable doubt that he was incapable of untraceably killing those he was going to kill burned through Mason – scourged through him – and he physically reared up from his bed, the fury vibrating from him and through him, as it had when he wrapped his arms around himself, astonished by whatever had caused that reaction then and what was arising within him now. Why should he – how
could
he! – have any doubt about what he was going to do!
Had
to do. At how he had to inflict all the hurt and punishment upon those who had inflicted as much hurt and punishment upon him. OK, so Peter Chambers didn't come within that justification. But what the hell did that matter? The only thing that mattered was the hidden three million dollars that was going to ensure the very full and very satisfying future life of Adam Peterson. Forcefully, as if there were people, witnesses, to impress or convince, Mason cast aside what little remained of the bed covering and just as determinedly, anxiously, began his restricted exercises, his mind closed off against any thought other than the preparations he had to make for what inevitably was to follow, as inexorably as the night was being succeeded by day through the drawn-back drapes. With that full day before him Mason didn't cut back on the morning's run, totally encircling the Constitution Gardens and was still back at Guest Quarters before Washington DC and its commuters were properly awake and moving.

His previous night's computer discovery from his Trojan Horse bug within her website was that Glynis Needham had finally made contact with her parole officer counterpart in California. The colleague was another woman, Beverley Littlejohn, and from the tone of Glynis's email the two knew each other. It was still, though, a straightforward professional exchange. His scanned photograph and a précis of his trial and imprisonment record was an attachment to the email itself. In it Glynis Needham alerted the other woman to Mason's intended, as yet unspecified, arrival on a possible resettlement visit to California. Mason smiled at Glynis's description of him as a contrite and obviously rehabilitation-seeking offender, the judgement qualified by the recounting of the Frank Howitt episode. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the prison officer was guilty of gross professional – even criminal – misconduct which was going to be severely punished by an internal enquiry. She was trying to dissuade Mason from pursuing compensation litigation. Such litigation, upon the evidence already assembled for the internal tribunal, would most probably be successful. She and the prison authorities feared the resulting publicity and virtual retrial of Mason's case would make impossible any chance of Mason's unrecognized re-entry into a community, quite apart from the damage it would cause to the prison service. Glynis urged the other woman to initiate a discussion and add her dissuasion to his continuing with the threatened action. Mason smiled again at the personal conclusion that Glynis Needham liked him – 'which is rare for me, as you can guess' – and wanted him to have the best possible chance to be re-absorbed, unknown, into a city or town and any re-employment he might choose. From that concluding remark Mason guessed that Beverley Littlejohn was probably gay, too, but after what had happened, or failed to happen, in New York thoughts of sex, either sex, any sex, weren't high on his agenda.