else?'
'You people are so persistent,' the voice said accusingly. 'A statement will be issued in due course.'
'About what? I just want to make an inquiry-'
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm just too busy to prolong this.'
And she cut the call.
He could tell that the rudeness wasn't personal. She was clearly under intense pressure.
'Can anyone tell me why a pharmaceuticals firm called Manflex should be under siege by the press?' he appealed to the librarians at me desk nearby.
There was some shrugging and head-shaking before one of them piped up, 'I heard something about Manflex. Their price is rocketing on the stock exchange, that's what happening. They slumped badly and now they bounced back, only more so.'
If Manflex was currently reversing a fall on the New York stock market, people were making money. And if Manflex had been the sponsor of Naomi's mother's postgraduate research, then perhaps there was some reason why Naomi had been kidnapped just as the company's stock was soaring.
He tried phoning again, but the line was busy.
There was plenty to occupy him in the library. He located some reference books on medical science that were written in English he could follow, so he made a determined effort to interpret the gobbledygook he'd copied from the computer. Yuko Masuda's research papers were all concerned with the treatment of comas induced by alcohol and drugs. All comas were attributed to some kind of insult to the brain, as it was so evocatively expressed. Dr. Masuda specialized in comas induced by poisoning of the brain, rather than by injury, pressure, infection or lack of sugar.
The half hour's concentrated study may not have turned Peter Diamond into a neurological specialist, but he reckoned he was better equipped to talk to the people at Man-flex.
He pressed out the number again. No one was answering.
Instead, he left the library and went to look for a taxi.
The Manflex Building was one of the older landmarks on West Broadway, tall by most standards, yet dwarfed by the twin towers of the World Trade Center nearby. When Diamond got close, he saw that the two sets of revolving doors to the entrance hall appeared to be locked. Armed security guards were preventing anyone from using the doors at the side. Two young women with the look of secretaries quite junior in the firm came out and were routinely approached by press people with microphones. They said with equal casualness that they were making no comment. It had the look of a ritual that had been going on for some while.
He ambled across to one of the reporters, a woman in an oversize suede coat and white boots. 'Excuse me, could you tell me what's going on here? Is someone famous in there?' He added in excuse for ignorance, 'I'm from England.'
She gave him a sympathetic look. 'This is the Manflex Building.'
'Should I have heard of it?'
'Pharmaceuticals.'
'Ah? Is that of interest to the press?'
Now she looked at him as if he were Rip Van Winkle.
'Manflex's rating on the stock market has been rocketing on rumors of a new wonder drug. They're due to make an announcement Tuesday and there's any amount of speculation.'
'Manflex-is that an all-American firm?'
She was obviously starting to think that she was stuck with a headcase. 'Haven't you heard of Manny Flexner? He was a legend in the pharmaceuticals business. Very dynamic. His son just became Chairman.'
'What's he like?'
'Nobody knows yet. He only took over a few weeks back. He's keeping his head down right now.'
'If this rumor is true, he's off to a good start.'
'He needs it. There was a big loss of confidence after Manny jumped.'
'Jumped?'
'Out of bis office on the twenty-first floor.'
Diamond stared upwards.
'He fell on the other side,' the reporter informed him. 'A small executive parking lot'
Diamond thanked her and took a walk along Broadway, working out what to do next He'd heard enough about the seesawing fortunes of Manflex to justify more inquiries, but he doubted whether he'd be able to convince Lieutenant Easdand that something should be done. For the present he preferred to pursue this tenuous line of inquiry independently. However, he wasn't going to be able to bluff his way past the security guards. Some different strategy was wanted.
He found a stationery store and went in to buy a notepad and envelope. Then he wrote a letter to David Flexner, die Chairman of Manflex, introducing himself as a detective from England conducting an inquiry involving murder and the abduction of a child. As a matter of extreme urgency, he went on, he needed an interview with the Manflex management to discuss the mother of the child, Dr. Yuko Masuda, who had carried out research sponsored by Manflex at Yokohama University in the early 1980s. He gave the address and phone number of bis hotel and added the words 'Detective Superintendent' below his signature. He addressed the envelope to Flexner, marking it 'Personal-Extremely Urgent' Then he returned to the Manflex Building and handed the letter to one of the security guards, stressing that it was vital that it was delivered to the Chairman immediately. And once again his old police identity card came in useful; security staff are invariably ex-policemen themselves.
Before returning to the hotel he called at a bank and used his credit card to get more cash to patronize a deli he'd just passed. Later, he thought, he'd be able to tell Steph that for lunch he'd restricted himself to a sandwich. She'd never seen the size of an American sandwich garnished with dill pickles.
It wasn't surprising that he took a postprandial nap in his room.
The phone woke him.
'Hello.'
'Superintendent, er, Diamond?'
He sat up in bed. The digital clock beside it said 3:36. 'Yes.'
'David Flexner. You wanted to speak to me about this Japanese lady.'
'Correct.'
'There isn't much I can tell you at this point in time, and you'll understand that things are pretty busy here.'
'I appreciate that, but the child's life-'
'Sure.' There was a pause. 'I can meet you, but it would be easier someplace else, not in this building. Let me think a moment You know the Staten Island Ferry?'
'I can find it.'
'Battery Park. Anyone in New York will tell you. I'll see you in the ticket office around seven-fifteen. That's the earliest I can do. How will I know you?'
'I wear a fawn-colored raincoat.'
'Like Columbo?'
'Like five Columbos. I'm well fed. I'm also bald, but you won't be able to tell, because I wear a brown trilby.'
'A what?'
'I believe it's called a derby here.'
'Fine. Look out for a stringbean with long, blond hair and a red windbreaker. We shouldn't have much trouble, Super.'
He got up and took a shower. Super. No one had ever called him mat before. Flexner had sounded like a sixteen-year-old. If he had anything to be ashamed of, it hadn't come through in the voice. When this comes to nothing, Diamond thought, where do I go next? No messages had been left by the police, so they hadn't made any progress. These intervals of inactivity were the devil to endure. In his days on the force, he'd have spent this time chivvying the murder squad, or-as they would put it-making their lives a misery. Here, in this godforsaken hotel room, he had only himself to goad.
He went out and took a walk in Central Park that didn't deserve to be called a walk when compared with the
