19 Purchase Street (64 page)

A fastidious man, Hine concluded. That was good. No doubt he would not want any dirt in his private life either. This had been an excellent idea. He should have thought of it sooner. Why, he wondered, hadn't it occurred to Darrow?

Hine pressed the doorbell.

No one came.

He pressed it again more insistently, and after a wait decided to go around the side of the house to the rear grounds. There was a man about a hundred feet from the house on a level spot between two large oaks.

The man noticed Hine but went on with what he was doing, which at that moment was stacking firewood, picking up splits of logs from a pile and placing them onto a stack. The logs were all the same length, so that in a stack their raw sawn edges formed a neat pattern.

The man was sweating. Despite a nip in the early autumn air he was stripped to the waist, had on a pair of heavy work shoes and cowhide work gloves. A chunky man in his sixties. Solid chest, thick upper arms and neck, the sort of overdevelopment that usually came from a life of hard labor.

Hine went halfway up to him. “Where might I find Mr. Pickering?”

The man's glance took in Hine. He picked up four logs and found snug places for them on the stack.

Hine was about to repeat his question when the man asked: “What do you want?”

“Mr. Pickering.”

“He's gone to hell.”

“What?” Hine thought he hadn't heard right, but if he had this was an insubordinate son of a bitch. He'd kick his old ass and fire him if he was Pickering.

“I'm Rodger Pickering,” the man said, taking off his gloves and slapping them down on the stack to demonstrate his annoyance at the intrusion. “Who are you?”

Hine was so put off balance that he extended his hand, something he had not done in seventeen years. “I'm Arnold Hine.”

Pickering took one step forward for the shake that was brief and crushing on his part.

“I happened to be nearby and thought I'd drop in and introduce myself,” Hine explained. “I'm related to the Whitcrofts.”

“You don't look like a Whitcroft.”

“By marriage. I'm married to George Whitcroft's daughter.”

“I've met George on occasion but I'm closer to Phillip.”

He would be, Hine thought. Lois's uncle Phillip was the High Board Whitcroft.

“Can I offer you a drink or anything,” Pickering asked.

“No thank you, sir.”

“Phillip and I do business now and then. Had dinner with him recently in Washington. I presume you know he donated his old master collection to the National Gallery.”

“He's always been generous.” Hine was feeling more on top of this now. However, he reminded himself not to get smug, to remember who and what Pickering was. For the past few years, Pickering had been on the brink of becoming nearly High Board, as close to High Board as anyone not entirely qualified could ever get, way above Horridge, for example. First opening that occurred on that level Pickering was slated to drop right into it. It wasn't just a rumor. Hine had heard it mentioned by his father-in-law. Yes, he thought, Pickering was perfectly positioned to give a boost.

“Is Mrs. Pickering about?” Hine asked.

“Mind if I work while we talk? I'm cooling off and I want to get this done.”

“Not at all.”

Pickering put his gloves back on. He slapped his grip onto a whole thick log that had to weigh a hundred pounds, rolled it aside and stood it on end for a seat for Hine. There was a motorized log-splitter nearby, a long low machine with a pair of wheels. Pickering stepped over it to get at some split logs.

Hine brushed off the face of the log and sat down. He offered to help but it hardly came off as wholehearted.

Pickering did not want help.

Hine decided a little bridge was called for. He gazed around and complimented Pickering on the appearance of the grounds, how natural looking they were and yet not overgrown.

“You enjoy the outdoors?” Pickering asked.

“Not particularly.”

“Thought not.”

Enough. Hine again inquired after Mrs. Pickering.

“She's around.”

“I've met her.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“Exceptional woman,” Hine said, testing.

“The great beauty of my time.”

Hine agreed.

Pickering believed he knew now why this fellow Hine had come calling. Happened to be nearby? Bullshit. Twice in the space of only a couple of minutes he'd asked after Leslie. That was what he was there for, something to do with Leslie and very likely one of her affairs, her latest with that young man, Gainer, no doubt. Hine had come to inform on her, trade some information, maybe even photographs, for whatever he wanted, a favor of some sort, or money. Over his years with Leslie others like this Hine, unaware of the Pickerings' marital arrangement, had made similar approaches. Usually money was expected. This fellow Hine, however, did at least have a sort of calling card. He
was
married to a Whitcroft, or at least so he claimed. Didn't matter, Hine still had that snitcher's look and nervousness about him. Maybe he'd been turned down by Leslie and his balls couldn't handle that and so he was here to recoup. Well, not at my expense, Pickering decided. With unmistakable point he told Hine: “Leslie can do no wrong so far as I am concerned.”

Hine was amazed at the sensitivity of Pickering's antenna. He had planned to ease into the topic of Leslie Pickering and gradually reveal her involvement with Gainer and the robbery at Number 19. He had thought that surely Pickering would see how such a thing might jeopardize his imminent appointment to a post that was so close to High Board and would be glad to settle on a trade: not having that known in exchange for a boost.

Hine had not, however, expected Pickering to be as much man as he was. Now, Hine's instinct told him it would be at least professionally unwise to cast even one pale beam of bad light in Mrs. Pickering's direction.

Hine took the conversation to business, and as modestly as he could got the point across that he was not naive about what the air was like in the upper stratospheres. Such as Boston. He also got on to a couple of his theories about how investment could be put to use in Africa to gain ultimate control. If from this he at least made a positive impression, it was worth something, Hine figured.

The split wood was stacked.

Pickering started the pneumatic splitter. Its engine was too noisy for talk.

Hine watched Pickering lift a whole heavy log in place on the splitter. The blade of its sledge drove into the end of the log, crackled and splintered it in two. Hine was glad that log wasn't his head. He got up and signaled that he was leaving. Pickering didn't pause from his labor, merely acknowledged by raising his hand. As he went up the path, Hine believed he could feel Pickering's smile on his back, a smile directly related to what had
not
been said.

A few words held back. The whole thing had come that close to coming apart. If Rodger Pickering had learned what his Leslie was into, the robbery at Number 19 and the rest of it, he would have had no choice but to act on it, use all possible means to straighten it out. It would have meant cutting Leslie from his life at once and he would have done it or, at least, had it done as swiftly and cleanly and thoroughly as possible. To avoid contamination of his proximity to the High Board. Leslie's death would have been hard on Pickering, but despite his genuine fondness for her, actually a kind of love for her, one had to accept things in the order of their importance. He would have done it, and then he would have done in Arnold Hine.

T
WENTY
minutes later Hine was driving south on Purchase Street. Up ahead he saw a Harrison Township police patrol car, its light rack strobing. The police car was stopped near the entrance to Number 19. Officer McCatty appeared from around it. He recognized Hine's blue Porsche, gestured that Hine should pull over.

Now Hine saw the problem.

It was the last thing he needed.

He got out and strode angrily in the direction of the gate. McCatty fell in beside. “I just got here myself,” McCatty explained. “All I know is it wasn't here when I went by ten minutes ago.”

The way the tanker truck was parked lengthwise close up to the gate it prevented all traffic to and from Number 19. It was a huge eighteen-wheeler with the blue, orange and white
Gulf
logo on its long cylindrical body along with the words AVGAS 100LL and flammable.

Officer McCatty pointed out the tire tracks of the tanker where it had been steered onto the shoulder of the road and over some rough going so that it could be positioned as it was. “Looks deliberate to me,” McCatty said.

Three security men were going over the tanker.

Hine stood clear. The thing might be set to explode. It appeared dangerous. In fact it had the word
Danger
painted permanently on it in several places. Hine imagined how much of an explosion such a mass might make. He backed off another twenty feet, to the opposite side of the street where there was a rock wall he could get behind.

“The keys are in it,” a security man called down from the cab of the tanker.

“Don't touch the ignition,” McCatty advised him.

The other two security men opened the panel of the housing along the left side of the tanker, where its five pumping connections and valves were located. They examined the capacity indicators attached to each valve. “It's empty,” one of the security men reported.

Or, more likely, made to appear that way, Hine thought. Any moment he expected someone to touch whatever it was that would set the tanker off. What would Horridge think? Such an explosion was sure to draw attention. Horridge would hate that, and he, Hine, would have to take all the blame. This certainly had not been one of his better days, Hine thought.

A security man was now up on the ramp that ran along the top of the tanker. He undid the hatch to one of the compartments. Gasoline fumes hit him. He peered down into the tanker. “Someone get me a flashlight,” he said.

McCatty got one from the patrol car.

The security man beamed the flashlight down inside.

His first impression was that he was looking at enough
plastique
explosive to blow away Number 19 and all its neighbors. Bags and bags of it. Black mesh laundry-type nylon bags.

He lowered himself down into the compartment. Moments later his head and shoulders emerged. He motioned to Hine.

Reluctantly, Hine went to him, climbed up on the tanker.

The security man spoke to him in a low tone.

“Don't bother with it,” McCatty was saying to Hine, “I'll call in and have someone come take it away—”

“No you won't.” Hine was actually grinning.

McCatty directed traffic on Purchase Street, even stopped it and had it backed up quite a ways while the tanker was maneuvered forward and back time after time, its air brakes hissing. It took some doing and once it seemed impossibly jackknifed, but finally it was straightened out and headed in the right direction. The gates to Number 19 were opened. The tanker was driven in and up the winding drive, parked at the north end of the house. Except for the AVGAS 100LL designation the tanker displayed, it was not out of place, could well have been there for a regular delivery of heating fuel oil.

The security men and the collators were put to work. Hurrying, but with care, to cause as little fuss as possible, the bags containing the cash were hefted out of the compartments of the tanker and carried up the backstairs to the second floor north wing and on into The Balance Room. Most of the money was still in its original bound sheaves. Hine examined it as it was weighed on the electronic scale. He kept an exact record of the pounds and ounces that registered. Soon the last million was neatly back in place on a Balance Room shelf. They had done it without disturbing Horridge, which was what Hine wanted. He would break the news to Horridge in his own way.

In the confined atmosphere of The Balance Room all that money together gave off an even stronger odor of gasoline. It would gradually disappear, Hine thought, but to help, Hine instructed that the heat sensor alarm system be turned off so the air conditioning could be set high for ventilation. He also had the new mass-measuring alarm adjusted before he closed and bolted The Balance Room door.

By then it was nine o'clock.

Hine sent word down to cook that he would take dinner in his quarters. He ordered poached scrod and some boiled vegetables, bread pudding with hard sauce for dessert, and tea.

While waiting for the food to arrive he sat in the leather chair Darrow had so often previously sat in, kicked off his shoes and crossed his legs on the matching hassock. Using an electronic calculator capable of performing to fifteen digits, he converted the weight of the money that had been recovered.

The figure he came up with was 1,038,000,000.

One billion, thirty-eight million.

Gainer, the stupid fucker, had even shorted himself. Withheld only forty-four million instead of the fifty million they had agreed on. Hine thought Gainer must have miscounted because he was scared. That wild business yesterday on and then around Ellis Island must have shook him. Why else, except to try to buy his good will, would Gainer have put the money right there on Number 19's doorstep? No matter, Andrew Gainer still had the big one coming.

Hine checked his figures again. They still came out one billion, thirty-eight million.

He sat back, stretched.

He felt absolutely blessed.

It was almost as though he'd been favored by an omnipotent force. The way he had gotten the idea in the first place and the way Gainer came to fit so perfectly into it. The way Gainer and the Pickering woman hadn't been killed yesterday. Killing the Pickering woman would have been a terrible error, he now realized. And trying to leverage her husband would have been just as bad. Now the money, at least the bulk of it, was back in The Balance and he would be the new Custodian for sure.