The Matarese Circle (66 page)

He climbed the white stone steps and rang the bell. The carriage lamps on either side of the door threw more light than he cared for.

He heard the sound of footsteps; a nurse opened the door and he knew instantly that the woman recognized him; it was in the short, involuntary gasp that escaped her lips, in the brief widening of her eyelids. It explained why no one was on the street, the guard was
inside
the house.

“Mrs. Appleton, please?”

“I’m afraid she’s retired.”

The nurse started to close the door. Scofield jammed his left foot into the base, his shoulder against the heavy black panel, and forced it open.

“I’m afraid you know who I am,” he said, stepping inside, dropping his attaché case.

The woman pivoted, her right hand plunging into the pocket of her uniform. Bray countered, pushing her farther into her own pivot, gripping her wrist, twisting it downward and away from her body. She screamed. Scofield yanked her to the floor, his knee crashing up into the base of her spine. With his left arm, he viced her neck from behind, forearm across her shoulder blades, and pulled up violently as she fell; ten more pounds of pressure and he would have broken her neck. But he did not
want to do that. He wanted this woman alive; she collapsed unconscious to the floor.

He crouched in silence, removing the short-barrelled revolver from the nurse’s pocket, waiting for sounds or signs of people. The scream had to have been heard by anyone inside the house.

There was nothing—there was
something
, but it was so faint he could not fathom what it was—he saw a telephone next to the staircase and crept over to pick it up. There was only the hum of a dial tone; no one was using the phone. Perhaps the woman had told the truth; it was entirely possible that Mrs. Appleton had retired. He’d know shortly.

First, he had to know something else. He went back to the nurse, pulled her across the floor under the hallway light, and ripped apart the front of her uniform. He tore the slip and brassiere beneath, pushed up her left breast, and studied the flesh.

There it was. The small, jagged blue circle as Taleniekov had described it. The birthmark that was no birth-mark at all, but instead, the mark of the Matarese.

Suddenly, from above, there was the whirring sound of a motor, the vibration constant, bass-toned. Bray lunged across the unconscious body of the nurse, into the shadows of the stairs, and raised the revolver.

From around the curve of the first landing an old woman came into view. She was sitting in the ornate chair of an automatic lift, her frail hands holding the sculptured pole that shot up from the guard rail. She was encased in a high-collared dressing gown of dark gray, and her once-delicate face was ravaged, her voice strained.

“I imagine that’s one way to leash the bitch-hound, or corner the wolf-in-season, but if your objective is sexual, young man, I question your taste.”

Mrs. Joshua Appleton, III, was drunk. From the looks of her, she had been drunk for years.

“My only objective, Mrs. Appleton, is to see
you.
This woman tried to stop me; this is her gun, not mine. I’m an experienced intelligence officer employed by the United States government and fully prepared to show you my identification. In light of what happened I am checking for concealed weapons. I would do the same under like circumstances
anywhere, anytime.” With those words, he had begun, and with an equanimity born of prolonged alcohol-saturation, the old woman accepted his presence.

Scofield carried the nurse into a small drawing room, bound her hands and feet in slipknots made from the torn nylon of her hose, saving the elastic waistband for a gagging brace, pulled between her teeth, tied firmly to the back of her neck. He closed the door and returned to Mrs. Appleton in the living room. She had poured herself a brandy; Bray looked at the odd-shaped glass and at the decanters that were placed on tables about the room. The glass was so thick that it could not be broken easily, and the crystal decanters were positioned so that a new drink was accessible every seven to ten feet in all directions. It was strange therapy for one so obviously an alcoholic.

“I’m afraid,” said Scofield, pausing at the door, “that when your nurse regains consciousness I’m going to give her a lecture about the indiscriminate display of firearms. She has an odd way of protecting you, Mrs. Appleton.”

“Very odd, young man.” The old woman raised her glass and cautiously sat down in an antimacassared armchair. “But since she tried and failed so miserably, why don’t you tell me what she was protecting me from? Why did you come to see me?”

“May I sit down?”

“By all means.”

Bray began his ploy. “As I mentioned, I’m an intelligence officer attached to the Department of State. A few days ago we received a report that implicates your son—through his father—with an organization in Europe known for years to be involved in international crime.”

“In
what?
” Mrs. Appleton giggled. “Really, you’re very amusing.”

“Forgive me, but there’s nothing amusing about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Scofield described a group of men not unlike the Matarese council, watching the old woman closely for signs that she had made a connection. He was not even sure he had penetrated her clouded mind; he had to appeal to the mother, not the woman. “The information from Europe was sent and received under the highest security classification. To the best of my knowledge, I’m the only one in Washington that’s read it, and further, I’m convinced I can
contain it. You see, Mrs. Appleton, I think it’s very important for this country, that none of this touch the Senator.”

“Young
man,
” interrupted the old woman. “Nothing can touch the Senator, don’t you know that? My son will be the President of the United States. He’ll be elected in the fall. Everybody says so. Everybody wants him.”

“Then I haven’t been clear, Mrs. Appleton. The report from Europe is devastating and I need information. Before your son ran for office, how closely did he work with his father in the Appleton business ventures? Did he travel frequently to Europe with your husband? Who were his closest friends here in Boston? That’s terribly important. People that only you might know, men and women who came to see him at Appleton Hall.”

“ ‘Appleton Hall … way up on Appleton Hill,’ ” broke in the old woman in a strained, whispered sing-song of no discernible tune. “ ‘With the grandest view of Boston … and ever will be still.’ Joshua the First wrote that over a hundred years ago. It’s not very good, but they say he picked out the notes on a harpsichord. So like the Joshuas, a harpsichord. So like us all, really.”

“Mrs. Appleton? After your son came back from the Korean War—”

“We
never
discuss that war!” For an instant the old woman’s eyes became focused, hostile. Then the clouds returned. “Of course, when my son is President they won’t wheel me out like Rose or Miss Lillian. I’m kept for very special occasions.” She paused and laughed a soft, eerie laugh that was self-mocking. “After very
special
sessions with the doctor.” She paused again and raised her left forefinger to her lips. “You see, young man, sobriety isn’t my strongest suit.”

Scofield watched her closely, saddened by what he saw. Beneath the ravaged face there had been a lovely face, the eyes once clear and alive, not floating in dead sockets as they were now. “I’m sorry. It must be painful to know that.”

“On the contrary,” she replied whimsically. It was her turn to study him. “Do you think you’re clever?”

“I’ve never thought about it one way or the other.”
Instinct.
“How long have you been … ill, Mrs. Appleton?”

“As long as I care to remember and that is quite long enough, thank you.”

Bray looked again at the decanters. “Has the Senator been here recently?”

“Why do you ask?” She seemed amused. Or was she on guard?

“Nothing, really,” said Scofield casually; he could not alarm her. Not now. He was not sure why—or what—but something was happening. “I indicated to the nurse that the Senator might have sent me here, that he might be on his way himself.”

“Well, there you
are!
” cried the old woman, triumph in her strained, alcoholic voice. “No wonder she tried to stop you!”

“Because of all these?” asked Bray quietly, gesturing at the decanters. “Bottles filled—obviously every day—with booze. Perhaps your son might object.”

“Oh, don’t be a damn fool! She tried to stop you because you
lied.
”

“Lied?”

“Of course! The Senator and I meet only on special occasions—after those
very
special treatments—when I’m trotted out so his adoring public can see his adoring mother. My son has never been to this house and he would never come here. The last time we were alone was over eight years ago. Even at his father’s funeral, although we stood together, we barely spoke.”

“May I ask why?”

“You may not. But I can tell you it has nothing to do with that gibberish—what I could make of it—you talked about.”

“Why did you say you never discussed the Korean War?”

“Don’t presume young man!” Mrs. Appleton raised the glass to her lips; her hand trembled and the glass fell, brandy spilling on her gown. “
Damn!
” Scofield started out of his chair. “Leave it alone,” she commanded.

“I’ll pick it up,” he said, kneeling down in front of her. “No point stumbling over it.”

“Then pick it up. And get me another, if you please.”

“Certainly.” He crossed to a nearby table and poured her a brandy in a fresh glass. “You say you don’t like to discuss the war in Korea—”

“I said,” interrupted the old woman, “I
never
discussed it.”

“You’re very fortunate. I mean just to be able to say it
and let it go at that. Some of us aren’t so lucky.” He remained in front of her, his shadow falling over her, the lie calculated. “I can’t. I was there. So was your son.”

The old woman drank several swallows without stopping. “Wars kill so much more than the bodies they take. Terrible things happen. Did they happen to you, young man?”

“They’ve happened to me.”

“Did they do those awful things to you?”

“What awful things, Mrs. Appleton?”

“Starve you, beat you, bury you alive, your nostrils filled with dirt and mud, unable to breathe? Dying slowly, consciously, wide awake and dying?”

The old woman was describing tortures documented by men held captive in North Korean camps. What was the relevance? “No, those things didn’t happen to me.”

“They happened to him, you know. The doctors told me. It’s what made him change. Inside. Change so much. But we must never talk about it.”

“Talk about?…” What was
she
talking about? “You mean the Senator?”

“
Shhh!
” The old woman drank the remainder of the brandy. “We must never,
never
talk about it.”

“I see,” said Bray, but he did
not
see. Senator Joshua Appleton, IV, had never been held captive by the North Koreans. Captain Josh Appleton had
eluded
capture on numerous occasions, the very acts of doing so behind enemy lines a part of his commendations. Scofield remained in front of her chair and spoke again. “But I can’t say I ever noticed any great changes in him, other than getting older. Of course, I didn’t know him that well twenty years ago, but to me he’s still one of the finest men I’ve ever known.”

“
Inside!
” The old woman whispered harshly. “It’s all inside! He’s a
mask
.… and people adore him so.” Suddenly tears were in her clouded eyes, and the words that followed a cry from deep within her memory. “They
should
adore him! He was such a beautiful boy, such a beautiful young man. There was no one ever like my Josh, no one more loving, more filled with kindness!… Until they did those terrible things to him.” She wept. “And I was such a dreadful person. I was his mother and I couldn’t understand! I wanted my Joshua back! I wanted him back so badly!”

Bray knelt down and took the glass from her. “What do you mean you wanted him back?”

“I couldn’t understand! He was so cold, so distant. They’d taken the joy out of him. There was no
joy
in him! He came out of the hospital … and the pain had been too much and I
couldn’t understand.
He looked at me and there was no joy, no love. Not inside!”

“The hospital? The accident after the war—just after the war?”

“He suffered so much … and I was drinking so much … so much. Every week he was in that awful war I drank more and more. I couldn’t stand it! He was all I
had.
My husband was … in name only—as much my fault as his, I suppose. He was disgusted with me. But I loved my Josh so.” The old woman reached for the glass. He got to it first and poured her a drink. She looked at him through her tears, her floating eyes filled with the sadness of knowing what she was. “I thank you very much,” she said with simple dignity.

“You’re welcome,” he answered, feeling helpless.

“In a way,” she whispered, “I still have him but he doesn’t know it. No one does.”

“How is that?”

“When I moved out of Appleton Hall … on Appleton Hill … I kept his room just the way it was, the way it had been. You see, he never came back, not really. Only for an hour one night to pick up some things. So I took a room here and made it his. It will always be his, but he doesn’t know it.”

Bray knelt down in front of her again. “Mrs. Appleton, may I see that room?
Please
, may I see it?”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be right,” she said. “It’s very private. It’s his, and I’m the only one he lets in. He lives there still, you see. My beautiful Joshua.”

“I’ve got to see that room, Mrs. Appleton. Where is it?”
Instinct.

“Why do you have to see it?”

“I can help you. I can help your son. I know it.”

She squinted, studying him from some inner place. “You’re a kind man, aren’t you? And you’re not as young as I thought. Your face has lines, and there is gray at your temples. You have a strong mouth, did anyone ever tell you that?”