“I’ve seen him.”
“You’ve seen John Borchard build a bomb?”
“Yes. I’ve been watching him. Look at this.”
He opened his suit jacket and withdrew two folded sheets of paper. All eyes were on them as he flattened them out on the desk.
Each was a photograph of a book, the same book on the same dark, heavily grained wood surface, with the corner of a brass penholder. The book was closed in one picture and open in the other. The closed book was a browned and aged antique, identical to many in the room watching them.
“The Kant,” Charles said.
“He can!” Patrick White said. “He is! See?”
The open book showed the yellowed pages cut, not in a rectangle as the Locke had been, but in a rounded, irregular shape. Exactly fitted inside was a black device, with one red and one gray button. The pictures were enlarged and grainy but still clear enough.
“Where did you get these?”
“I took them,” Mr. White said, smirking. “Now you believe me?”
“I don’t understand what they mean.”
“He’s making a bomb. What else could it be?”
“It can’t be.” Charles was still reacting slowly.
“And who else would it be for? An antique book! It’s for you!”
“Where did he get it?” Charles was speaking to himself. Patrick Henry White answered for him.
“It’s what he’s going to do with it that matters. But we can stop him. I couldn’t stop him before. This time I will.”
“Wait,” Charles said. “Let me think.”
For once Mr. White was the one left behind. Charles stared at the pictures.
“What are you going to do?” he asked finally.
“I’m going to stop him.”
“How?”
Suddenly, Patrick White stood. He took the papers from the desk and stuffed them away.
“Where are you going?” Charles said.
“I see what you’re doing,” Mr. White said. “He’s got you. Hasn’t he? If I tell you anything, you’ll go to him. He has you in his control.”
“But…” Charles shook his head. “If I’m on his side, why would he want to kill me?”
But Mr. White was beyond answering. “It’s all too late, anyway. He has everyone else on his side. Everyone else but one.”
“Who? Karen Liu?”
“Borchard has her, too.” Then he was on the stairs, and Charles hurried after him. He caught up halfway across the showroom. Alice shrank back into a corner behind the counter.
“Wait,” Charles said.
Patrick White stopped. “What?”
“You have no right.”
“No right? For what?”
“To do anything to John Borchard.”
“After what he’s done to me? Who else will?”
“You are destroying yourself, Mr. White.”
“I’m already destroyed.”
Before Charles could answer, he threw the door open and let himself out. But the door didn’t slam shut behind him. A customer was coming in, an older woman, in high heels and cashmere sweater and blue jeans. She shut the door softly and smiled sweetly.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but would you have any Greek tragedies?”
“Alice said you were in the basement with someone,” Dorothy said. She looked at him more closely. “And you look rather white.”
“It’s a Patrick White-white.”
“He was here again?”
“Very much. I’m worried, Dorothy. I think he’s going to do something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it serious, Charles?”
“I hope not.”
“What did he say?”
Charles took a slow and deep breath. For a moment he was seeing something far beyond the room, and then he was seeing only Dorothy.
“Nothing specific. Dear, I’ll be out for the rest of the morning. I’m going to talk to John Borchard.”
“Was Mr. White saying more wild things about him?”
“Yes. That’s what it mainly was.” He stood. The wind rattled the window. “I think I’ll take Angelo with me.”
“Sit up here,” Charles said.
Angelo shrugged, and closed the back car door and opened the front. Even that door was quiet closing by his hand.
“How do you do that?” Charles asked.
“How to do what?”
“How are you always so quiet?”
“That’s not a how you do.”
“Everything you do is silent.”
“You just don’t be noisy.”
For a while Charles was not noisy. Then he said, “I’m trying to decide if that’s not an answer or if it is.”
Angelo said nothing else, and in the car it was quiet.
“That building is it,” Angelo said, pointing. Charles pushed through the other cars into the left lane and turned into the parking lot. He parked at the front door. The first floor was painted cinder block. Above and to the side was sheet metal. The sign said Tyson Estate Agents.
“Hello?” Charles looked through the front room of two metal desks and cabinets.
“Just a minute,” a voice said from a hall. Charles waited. Angelo stood.
A man in canvas work pants and a flannel shirt sauntered in. He frowned thoughtfully at Angelo.
“There’s no package. Really.”
Charles frowned thoughtfully back. “There is,” he said. “But actually a different package. I wonder if I could speak to the lady who works here?”
“Jane! The guy’s back again for that package.”
A moment later, she entered. She wasn’t in a gray suit as he’d seen her before, but she was obviously in charge, and obviously very blond.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” Charles said. “You don’t remember me, but I’ve seen you before.”
“Oh? Where?” She sat at a desk.
“About two weeks ago. My name is Charles Beale, and I was at the auction of Derek Bastien’s estate.”
The woman’s expression changed to annoyance. “Are you police?”
“No. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.”
“I know I haven’t. What do you want?”
“I want to see the desk you bought.”
“Do you have a key?”
“No.”
“Sorry. I can’t let you into someone else’s room.”
