The Wind Chill Factor (46 page)

The driver opened the door of the Mercedes and I moved into the shelter of his black umbrella. Peterson had climbed into the car already. “I will.”

Roeschler was standing on the steps while we moved slowly up the narrow alley. The wipers beat across the windshield. At the top of the alley I looked back. On the third floor of his narrow, spindly house a light clicked on behind the glass, the white curtains parted, the car turned into the street, and that was all.

The air terminal was shiny and metallic and bright, like schoolrooms on rainy days of childhood. I was vague and disoriented, I knew, and without Peterson I would probably have bungled it all and missed the plane. But he was quietly in charge, saying as little as possible, attending to the luggage and boarding checks and passports. I let myself go, let him take care of me, and my mind wandered helplessly in the memories crowding the present out of my consciousness. I settled back in a window seat, watched the tears of rain bead up and spin along the glass as the plane gathered speed on the runway, and I ate my breakfast like a good boy as we climbed up out of the clouds and rain into a molten sky with the rays of sun like sticks of glowing gold. Germany was behind us.

S
OMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC
, hours later, I came to and felt a bit more like a human being. The ocean looked like metal in the sunlight and the sky was pale blue, cloudless. Peterson was reading
Playboy.
He saw that I was awake.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“My teeth are wearing socks.”

“Do you feel like a drink?”

“You forget I’m an alcoholic,” I said.

“You can have tomato juice and fixings, no booze.”

We took the little stairway up to the lounge. We settled back in black leather chairs and listened to the piped-in music. It was a pianist playing “Where or When.” I sipped my tomato juice and fixings and tried not to remember where I’d last heard the song.

“Well, your health,” he said, sipping.

“Your wealth,” I replied and he grinned, shook his head.

We sat in silence for a while longer.

“Well, John,” he said at last, “we didn’t accomplish much, did we?”

“I don’t know. I suppose we didn’t.”

“I wonder if Milo Keepnews killed your brother?”

“Maybe we’ll never know. But he sure as hell tried to kill me.”

Peterson nodded.

“What do you think Cyril was going to tell me?”

“I think he’d figured out most of it. He probably felt like we do.”

“And how do we feel?” I asked.

“Like who the hell can we tell? He could tell you and that was going to be a relief to him. But who the hell is there for us? Can you imagine trying to explain all this? It isn’t that people would laugh at us—no, they just wouldn’t be able to make any sense of it. The conspiracy theory of history, rampant paranoia. How would we blow the whistle? Produce the bodies? Blow Steynes’ cover? Try to get Roca to talk in Buenos Aires? Or Maria Dolldorf?”

I thought of her, remembered the golfers in Palermo Park and the fire in the night.

“Nobody would talk. It’s too big, it’s too audacious, and it’s too well camouflaged.” He sighed philosophically. “They know we’re handcuffed … they know we can’t really expose it. But still—”

“What?”

“But still, why take the chance? Why let us go?”

“You forget,” I said. “I’m one of the family. Who would want to take the responsibility of killing Edward Cooper’s son?”

“But who would they have to answer to? Who the hell is at the top?”

“Another thing we’ll never know,” I said.

“But why were they willing to risk killing you for a while and not now? There’s always some kind of logic in a paradox. Why then and not now? Someone is protecting you, Cooper, that thought just won’t go away.”

“Well, what difference does it make?” I said.

“None, if it’s all over. No difference at all.”

“What do you mean, if it’s all over? What could be left?”

“Nothing, I didn’t mean anything.”

I looked out of the window for a long time.

“It’s not worth it,” he finally said.

“What?” I came back slowly.

“Crazypants. I didn’t say she’s not worth it—she’s probably okay if you like crazy women. I said it’s not worth it. You’re sitting there thinking about her, wondering if you’ll ever find her again, racking your brain to figure out where it all went wrong. Well, let me tell you, it could never have gone right. It was a mess from the beginning, I knew it was the first time I heard about her.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. My face was hot and I was beginning to sweat.

“Bullshit I don’t understand,” he said softly. “I understand. The problem was, once you saw her, you never treated her like a sister. You came on telling her she was your sister but you were obsessed with her as a woman. You fell in love with her. You came back from your walk in London, the day you tailed her, and you were in love with her already. You were in love with just looking at her. But, goddamn it, what could I do? She was the key to it—by then there was a lot more to it than just finding out if she really was your sister.

“And look at it from her point of view. She didn’t know if you were brother and sister, but she was a woman, an unhappy woman, and she must have sensed your feeling about her. Now what was she to make of that? Say she finds herself attracted to you—but she’s got her own identity crisis, her own set of problems. Like I told you, Cooper, she’s just a woman. … And little men keep dropping in on her, telling her they’re her brothers. But you’re not acting like a brother. She doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t know what’s going on—no more than you did. Then, wham, last night any doubt is erased. She finds out she is your sister and she realizes that you’re in love with her regardless of who she is.” He shook his head, drained the glass, and the ice cube slid down and hit his nose. “No picnic. I don’t know what went on between you two last night. I don’t want to know. But I’d advise you to look at it from her point of view. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Johnnie, and think about the lady you left behind.”

“I’m thinking about her,” I said.

“Ah, what the hell,” he said.

“What difference does it make?”

Peterson looked at me balefully.

“There is an old belief,” he said, and I could tell he was quoting, “that on some distant shore, far from despair and grief, old friends will meet once more.” He cleared his throat. “I read that once. Somewhere.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s all right with me.”

New York sparkled in the night.

The 747 settled down through the night, floating through wisps of cloud like ack-ack from Long Island battlements. It was warm when we came down the corridor into the Kennedy receiving section for international flights. People swarmed around us. Rain streaked the vast windows. Two men in brown suits and narrow ties and tan, wet raincoats picked us up on our way out of the customs area. They looked like very strong accountants, faceless, like the men who had come to the schloss, killed Siegfried, and brought us back to Munich.

“Mr. Peterson? Mr. Cooper? Will you please step this way? We’ll only be a moment.” One of them went ahead of us, one brought up the rear, and we marched quickly into a small office fronting a concourse. A pale-tan curtain was drawn across the window. The walls were pale-green, needed paint, and a modern steel and Formica woodgrain desk faced the door. An empty room, a dead room. “Please sit down. We’ll be very brief. You both must be tired.”

“Right. We’re tired. Now who the hell are you?” Peterson asked.

“I’m Mr. Jackson, he’s Mr. Whitney.” Mr. Jackson flipped open a fake-alligator wallet and showed it to Peterson, who scowled, peered at the small, gilt-edged document encased in a plastic shield. “And these are your new tickets.” He handed us each a folder. Mr. Whitney quickly attached luggage tickets to our bags. “Washington, official business,” Mr. Jackson said pleasantly, imperturbable, businesslike, as though he spent a good deal of time spiriting people from airplanes and explaining who the hell he was.

Peterson flipped his folder. “Eastern Airlines,” he muttered. Mine was United, the friendly skies and all.

“I believe you’ll find them in order, gentlemen. Time is short. Are there any questions?”

“You’re goddamn right,” Peterson said. “I’m not going to Washington. I’m going with him—” He grabbed my folder and opened it, ran a finger along the ticket. “Minneapolis. I’m going to Minneapolis with Cooper.”

“Please, Mr. Peterson, let’s not make a problem here.” It was Mr. Whitney. He had a determined voice and a terribly dirty raincoat which shot his neat, efficient image. I wondered who they were but I really didn’t give a damn: Roeschler had said we’d be met. What difference did it make?

“You’re due in Washington this evening, Mr. Peterson. Now, let’s move it—no shit.”

“Look, no need for unpleasantness. We’re all on the same side here. Mr. Peterson, it’s really essential, the whole show is set. If you don’t trust us, trust Doctor Roeschler.” Mr. Jackson smiled reassuringly.

“Come on, George,” Mr. Whitney said. “I don’t give a flying fuck if he believes you or not. He’s coming.” He reached for Peterson’s arm, which was a mistake. Peterson reached up and closed his fist around the arm.

“Mr. Jackson, do you value the life of this silly bastard?”

Mr. Whitney’s eyes were wide and the color was draining from his face.

“Of course I do,” Mr. Jackson said. “Really, we are off on the wrong foot, aren’t we? Please, Mr. Peterson, do come along to Washington and try not to hurt Mr. Whitney.”

“Identify yourself then, Mr. Jackson.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have very specific instructions. It will all be explained in Washington.”

“What about Cooper?”

“He goes on to Minneapolis alone. You’ll be joining him within the week. Scout’s honor.”

Then Peterson dropped Mr. Whitney’s arm. Mr. Whitney leaned against the door, wiped his forehead. Peterson broke into a loud hearty laugh.

“Jesus! Scout’s honor! Okay, okay, Jackson. What the hell. …”

“Well, then, let’s go.” He opened the door. Peterson put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll call you when I get back. And remember this—everything’s going to be all right.”

I watched them walk away. I had an hour to wait. I went and had coffee and looked at the stuffed animals and the junk you used to prove to your kids you’d been in New York. But then I didn’t have any kids and I hadn’t been to New York.

When I arrived in Minneapolis I heard my name being paged. It was late. There weren’t many people, footsteps echoed. I’d have to find a cab.

“Mr. John Cooper, passenger John Cooper, please report to the Northwest Airlines information counter for a message. John Cooper to Northwest Airlines information.”

Northwest was the only ticket counter that seemed to be inhabited. The tired-looking man pushed his glasses back up his stubby nose and fumbled under the counter. He came up with a plain white business-size envelope with my name printed on it in thick black pencil.

I took the envelope. It had a large bulge. My hand was shaking; it was the tiredness, nervous strain.

There was no message. Only the keys to the Lincoln I’d left with the car at the garage in Cooper’s Falls. And a piece of paper: “Row 9, Slot 5.” It was obviously where I’d find the car. But no one had known I was coming. It was curious. But what difference did it make? The hell with it. I wasn’t worrying about understanding things anymore.

I got my bag on the lower level, which was all but deserted. It was wet and cool outside, stars shining after the rain. A jet whooshed up, hissing and roaring, past the slanting ramps, huge and effortless, red and white and climbing. I was back in God’s country and it was going to be all right. Nothing was going to go wrong now.

The car was immaculate, a new slab side, new paint, gleaming wax on the silver with rain standing in big shining drops. Everything was to be fine. I packed my pipe and lit it while I waited for the engine to warm up.

It was a pronounced euphoria, the sense of well-being which I knew perfectly well was the companion of people who’d undergone an overdose of strain, people who’d finally slipped off the old rocker. But since I couldn’t control it I let it be, let myself feel good as I drove out of the parking lot, eased it out along 494, went north on 35W, toward the lights of Minneapolis, left on 194 toward St. Paul, sweeping north again on 280, moving through the false spring night and the cool moist wind along the highways I knew, moving east on 36 toward the St. Croix and then north along the river road toward Cooper’s Falls. Not the menacing, unknown roads winding through the night to Land’s End and Cat Island, not up through the mountains past Bad Tolz. I was going home.

Finally, the gates were ahead of me, then I was through them, winding up the driveway. I wasn’t as well as I’d thought. I wiped my wet forehead with my glove and sat for awhile behind the steering wheel. I turned the lights out, shut off the engine, opened the window. It was quiet. I got out of the car and took a deep breath. The moonlight was bright and there were shadows everywhere. I saw the low railing circling the driveway, heard for an instant the awful tearing sound as the snowmobile skis caught under it and ripped apart. … But it was quiet and when I turned to look at the spot where he’d died and frozen, the gaunt man wasn’t there.

They say that careful, methodical, routine behavior is either a symptom or an antidote for incipient madness. The choice was in my mind when I woke up in the morning. I was in the guesthouse and for an instant I thought that maybe it was the first night home, that I’d just driven in from Boston to meet Cyril. For a moment I thought I was waking from a bad dream. But then, of course, it began to come back to me. It wasn’t the first time around: it was the second and I hadn’t been dreaming.

So I got out of bed and showered and cleaned up very methodically, gritting my teeth under the cold spray, watching ice melt on the lake and the icicles drip on the eaves outside the kitchen window. I made instant coffee, found a jar of strawberry preserves, and ate them with a spoon. The sun was shining on the lake and the ice reflected it like fire.