Desperate Measures (21 page)

"Me?"

"Tell me how I can help." The bank Jill used, Citibank, had a branch south of Central Park, at Fifty-first and Fifth Avenue. As usual on a Sunday afternoon, the avenue wasn't busy. Making sure that passersby didn't overhear him, Pittman explained how the police had arranged for his bank's automated teller machine to seize his card. "But they haven't had time to do anything about your card. What's the maximum the bank allows you to take out?"

"I'm not sure. It could be as much as a thousand dollars."

"That much?" Pittman shook his head. "Not that it does us any good. I doubt you've got it in your account."

Jill assumed an odd expression. "I might have."

"Well, I know it's a lot, but this is an emergency. Please, get as much as you can.

They entered the bank's vestibule. Jill shoved her card into the machine and responded to the computer screen's inquiries, pressing buttons. A minute and a half later, she was stuffing a wad of twenties and tens into her purse.

"Don't forget your card," Pittman said. "And here's your transaction printout.

He glanced down, wondering what information might be on it that someone could use if the printout had been left behind. The printout indicated the remaining funds ill the account, and Pittman abruptly understood the odd expression on Jill's face when he asked her about the size of her account.

"Eighty-seven thousand dollars and forty-three cents?" Jill looked uncomfortable.

"You've got a fortune in this account."

"That printout is confidential." Her blue eyes flashed. "I couldn't help looking," Pittman said.

"Surely it occurred to you that I couldn't be living in a large Upper West Side apartment on a nurse's salary."

Pittman didn't answer.

"You mean you had no idea I had money?" "No. How did-?"

"My grandparents. A trust fund. Some bonds just came due. I'm deciding how to reinvest. That's why there's so much money in the account."

Pittman studied her with wonder. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"Hell no. If you've got that much money, how about treating a starving man to a decent meal?"

The restaurant-on East Seventy-ninth Street-was small and unassuming: a linoleum floor, plain booths, red plastic tablecloths. But the veal scallopini, which Pittman recommended, was excellent, and the modestly priced house Burgundy was delicious.

A few tables had been set out on the sidewalk, and Pittman sat in the sunlight with Jill, enjoying the last of his salad.

"that's your second helping," Jill said. "I didn't think you'd ever get full."

"I told You I was hungry. This is the first decent meal I've had in quite a while. Mostly I've been eating on the run. You didn't like the food?"

"It's wonderful. But the restaurant doesn't exactly announce itself. How on earth did you ever find this place?"

Pittman bit into the final piece of garlic bread. "I used to live around here." The memory made him solemn. I was married."

"When "Past tense?" Jill set down her wineglass. "Grief and connubial bliss don't seem to go together."

"Now I guess I'm the one who's snooping."

"There isn't much to tell. MY wife was stronger than I was. That doesn't mean she loved Jeremy less, but after he died, I fell apart. Ellen didn't. I think she was afraid I was going to be like that for the rest of my life. She'd lost her son, and now she was losing ... I scared her. One thing led to another. She divorced me. She's married again Jill almost touched his hand. "I'm sorry."

Pittman cried. "She was smart to get out. I was going to be like that for the rest of my life. Last Wednesday night, I had a gun in my hand, ready to ... And then the phone rang, and the next thing - - ."

Jill's eyes widened with concern. "You mean the newspapers weren't exaggerating? You have been feeling suicidal impulses?"

"That's a polite way to Put it."

Jill's brow furrowed with greater concern.

," hope you're not going to try to be an amateur psychoanalyst," Pittman said. "I've heard all the arguments- 'Killing yourself won't bring Jeremy back.' No shit, But it'll certainly end the pain. And here's another old favorite: If I kill myself, I'll be wasting the life that Jeremy would have given anything to have. The trouble is, killing myself wouldn't be a waste. My life isn't worth anything. I know I've idealized Jeremy. I know that after his death I've made him smarter and more talented and funnier than he actually was. But Jeremy was smart and talented and funny. I haven't idealized him by much. A straight-A student. A sense of humor that never failed to amaze me. He had a droll way of seeing things. He . Could make me laugh anytime he wanted. And he was only fifteen. The world would have been his . Instead, he got cancer, and no matter how hard the doctors and he fought it, he died. Some gang member with a handgun is holding up a liquor store right now. That scum is alive, and my son is dead. I can't stand living in a world where everything is out of balance that much. I can't stand living in a world where everything I see is something Jeremy will never see. I can't stand remembering the pain on Jeremy's face as the cancer tortured him more and more each day. I can't stand ... "

Pittman's voice trailed off. He realized that he'd been speaking faster and louder, that some of the customers in the restaurant were looking at him with concern, that Jill had leaned back as if overwhelmed by his emotion, Spreading his hands, he mutely apologized.

"No I" Jill said. "I won't try to be an amateur psychoanalyst." "Sometimes everything builds up inside me. I say more than I mean to." "I understand."

"You're very kind . But you didn't need me to dump on you."

"It's not a question of being kind, and you obviously needed to get it out of you. "It's not, though."

"What?"

"Out of me. I think - Pittman glanced down at the table. "I think we'd better change the subject.

Jill folded her napkin, neatly arranging the edges. "All right, then. Tell me about what happened Thursday night, how you got into this."

"Yes," Pittman said, his anger changing to confusion. "And the rest of it."

It took an hour. This time Pittman spoke discreetly, keeping his. voice low, pausing when anyone walked by. The converSation continued after Jill paid the waiter and Pittman strolled with her along Seventy-ninth Street.

"A nightmare."

"But I swear to God it's all true," Pittman said. "There's got to be a way to make sense of it." "Hey, I've been trying my damnedest."

"Maybe you're too close. Maybe you need someone else to see it from a different angle. Let's think this through," Jill said. "We know Millgate's associates took him from the hospital because a reporter got his hands on a secret Justice Department report that implicated Millgate in a covert attempt to buy nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. Millgate's people were afraid of reporters showing up at the hospital and managing to question him."

"They were also afraid of Father Dandridge," Pittman said. "More so. Millgate's people were afraid of something Millgate had told Father Dandridge in confession. Or of something Millgate might have told Father Dandridge if the priest had been able to see him Thursday night."

"Then you followed Millgate to the estate in Scarsdale. You got into his room to help him, but the nurse came in unexpectedly and saw you doing it."

"She also heard Millgate tell me something. Duncan. Something about snow. Then Grollier." Pittman shook his head. "But Father Dandridge told me that Grollier wasn't anyone's last name. It was the prep school Millgate went to."

"Why would that be important enough to kill anybody?" They reached Fifth Avenue, and Pittman faltered. "What's the matter?" Jill asked.

Pittman stared to the right toward a crowd going up and down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vendors, buses, and taxis contributed to the congestion in front. Several policemen on horseback maintained order.

"I guess," Pittman said, "I feel exposed." He glanced down at the weapon-laden overcoat draped over his left arm and guided her back along Seventy-ninth Street. "I want to find out about Grollier prep school."

"How are you going to do that? The only place I can think Of with that information is the library. Or someone at a college. But it's Sunday. All those places are closed."

"No, there might be another way.

The freshly sandblasted apartment building at the end of East Eighty-second Street overlooked Roosevelt Drive and the East River. Pittman could hear the din of traffic from the thruway below as he and Jill entered the shadows of the cul-de-sac known as Gracie Terrace. The time was almost five in the afternoon. The temperature was rapidly cooling.

Jill peered up at the attractive, tall brick building. "You know someone who lives here?"

"Someone I interviewed once," Pittman said. "When this started and I was trying to figure out how to get help, I realized that over the years I'd interviewed people with all sorts of specialties that might be of use to me. I'm sure the police are watching my friends and my ex-wife to see if I contact them, but they'll never think about people I've met as a reporter."

Nonetheless, Pittman felt nervous. He quelled his emotion and stepped forward.

In the building's shiny, well-maintained lobby, a uniformed doorman greeted them. "May I help you?"

"Professor Folsom. Do you know if he's in?"

"He just got back from his afternoon walk. Is he expecting you?"

Pittman breathed easier. He had been afraid that Professor Folsom might not live here anymore or, worse, that the elderly professor might have died. "Please tell him I'm a reporter. I'd like to talk to him about the Walt Whitman manuscript he discovered. "

"Certainly, sir.

They waited while the doorman walked toward a telephone on a counter at the side of the lobby.

"Whitman manuscript?" Jill whispered. "What on earth does Whitman have to do with-?

The doorman came back. "Professor Folsom says he'd be pleased to see you. " The doorman gave the apartment number and directed them past a fireplace toward an elevator in a corridor at the rear of the lobby.

"Thanks. "

"Whitman?" Jill repeated after they got in the elevator.

"Professor Folsom is an expert on him. He used to teach American literature at Columbia University. He's been retired for about fifteen years. But age hasn't slowed him down. He kept doing research, and five years ago he came across a Whitman manuscript, or what he believes is a Whitman manuscript, in some papers he was examining. There was a controversy about it. Was the manuscript authentic? Was it really a new Whitman poem? Some scholars said no. It seemed a good human-interest story, so I did an article about it. Foisom's quite a guy."

"But won't he remember you? Won't he call the police?"

"Why would he make the connection between a reporter who spoke to him five years ago and a man in the news this week? Besides, he doesn't have a television, and he thought it amusing that I was a newspaper reporter."

"Why?'

"He seldom reads newspapers." "But how does he get any news?"

"He doesn't. He's a fanatic about history, not current events. He's also an expert in American education. I doubt there's a college or prep school he doesn't know about."

The elevator stopped at the fifteenth floor, and Pittman knocked on Folsom's door.

A tall, slender, stoop-shouldered elderly man peered out. He wore a brown herringbone sport coat, a white shirt, and a striped yellow tie. His skin was pale. His short beard and long hair were startlingly white. His trifocal glasses had wide metal frames, which only partially hid the deep wrinkles around his eyes.

"Professor, my name's Peter LOgan. This is my friend Jill."

"Yes. The doorman explained that You were a reporter." Professor Folsom's voice was thin and gentle "I'm doing a follow-up on the Whitman manuscript You discovered. At the time, there was a controversy. I'm curious how it was resolved."

"You honestly believe your readers would care?" "I care."

"Come in, please. I always enjoy talking about Whitman. As Professor Folsom led them across a foyer, they passed an immaculately preserved walnut side table. Open doors on each side of the foyer showed similar well-cared-for antiques.

"That's quite a collection," Pittman said.

"Thank you."

They entered the living room, and here there were even more antiques.

"They're exclusively American," Professor Folsom explained with pleasure. "From the mid- and late nineteenth century. That secretary desk was owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne. That hutch was Emerson's. That rocking chair was Melville's. When my wife was still alive"-he glanced fondly toward a photograph of a pleasant-looking elderly woman on the wall-"we made a hobby of collecting them.

"Nothing that was owned by Whitman?"

"The old fox traveled lightly. But I managed to find several items. I keep them in my bedroom. In fact, the bed itself belonged to him." Professor Folsom looked delighted with himself. "Sit down. Would you like some tea?"

"Tea would be nice," Jill said.

For the next half hour, they discussed poetry and manuscripts with one of the most ingratiating people Pittman had ever met. In particular, the old man's sense of peace was remarkable. Pittman felt envious. Remembering Folsom's reference to his deceased wife, he wondered how it was possible to reach such advanced years and not be worn down by despair'