The Multiple Man

seater. The rest was fuel tank. Very bulky. And highly flammable.

“But don’tworry,” Vickie assured me. “Ron tells me the tank is very crashworthy.”

“I’m thrilled.”

Ron was a staffer for a Congressman from Kentucky. A very likeable hillbilly with a passion for cars, the way Vickie described him. I could feel my lip curl in contempt, in the darkness of the car. Twanging accent and the brains of a grease monkey, I thought.

“I met him at a car rally in Bethesda last year,” Vickie said. “We go to lots of races and rallies.”

“I didn’t know you were a car freak,” I said.

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” she answered as she pulled the stick shift back into parking gear. “Well… here you are. Door-to-door service.”

“Come on up,” I said. “Least I can do is make you a drink. Or some coffee.”

She shook her head slightly. “I can’t leave the car here. They’ll ticket it.”

“So what? I’ll pull rank and get it taken care of. Old Boston tradition.”

“They might tow it.”

“So let them. I’ll get it back before your hill-billy friend returns to town.”

She really looked perplexed. “Meric… I don’t fuck with the boss.”

I guess that was supposed to stop me, or warn me, or turn me off. Instead, I heard myself reply, “Don’t worry about it. The whole apartment’s protected by TV cameras. If I attack you, guards will spring out of the walls and beat my balls off.”

She laughed. A good, hearty, full-throated laugh. “All right, all right. As long as we understand each other.”

“Sure we do.” I was only half lying.

She did take coffee instead of a drink. I poured myself a couple thumbs of Scotch. Vickie sat on the chrome and leather rocker in my living room. I sprawled tiredly on the sofa.

After a sip of the Scotch I asked her, “What made you come out to the airport for me?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. She started to look for a place to put the coffee mug down, settled for the rug. “I guess I was curious to find out what you’ve been up to—what’s bugging you, and what all this interest in that laboratory in Minnesota’s about. I’m usually a late-night person anyway; never get to bed before one or two. So I thought I’d give you a surprise at the airport.”

“It was damned nice of you,” I said. “Nothing lonelier than getting off a late flight with nobody there to greet you.”

“I know,” she said. “You told me that once… in the office.”

“I did?” But instead of continuing that line of conversation, she bent down and took the coffees mug again.

“How’s everything been in the office the past few days?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Mostly routine. Hunter’s doing a good job, and the press is bending over backward to avoid any unusual treatment that might get interpreted as racist. Oh, you got a call from a Mr. Ryan, of the Boston News-Globe. He said you invited him down for an interview.”

“He invited himself.”

“I think Greta set him up with a tentative date next Monday.”

“Okay. That sounds good.”

We chatted for a few minutes more, and then she got up to leave. I’m not sure how it happened, but I wound up standing in front of the door, holding her hands in mine, and saying, “Don’t go. Stay awhile longer.”

“No, Meric… really…”

“Couple nights ago, on the phone, you said you wished you were with me.”

“That was…” She looked away, then back at me, her eyes the color of a tropical lagoon. “Its not fair to remember what I say when… well, it’s not fair.”

“Vickie… please. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Neither do I.”

“Well, then.”

“I told you,” she said, her voice rising a notch, “I don’t screw around with the boss.”

I didn’t let go of her. “Listen. Tomorrow I’m the boss. Tonight I’m a guy who wants you… who needs you.”

“What are you frightened of?” she asked.

I started to answer, but held it back.

“Something’s pursuing you, Meric. Something’s got you terrified. What is it?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“But maybe I can help…”

I shook my head and let her hands go. “No, Vickie. You don’t want to know. Believe me. You’re better off not knowing.”

She put a hand to my cheek. “My God, Meric. You’re trembling!”

I pulled away from her.

“It’s about Laura Halliday, isn’t it? I wish you could feel that much passion for me.”

“It’s not her,” I snapped. “And it’s not passion it’s fear. Just plain chickenshit cold sweat fear.”

“Fear? Of what?”

I slumped back onto the sofa and she came and sat beside me. “Meric, what’s happening? What are you so frightened of? Don’t I have a right to know?”

“No. You don’t. Dammit, Vick… I’m trying to protect you. As long as you don’t know anything about it, you’re safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“They killed McMurtrie,” I blurted. “Dr. Klienerman, too. Made it look like an accident.”

“They? Who?”

“General Halliday, maybe. Or Wyatt. Or person or persons unknown. I don’t know who! I don’t know why. But I might be on their list, too. And at the top of the goddamned list is the President.”

Her eyes widened.

“I’ve already told you more than it’s safe for you to know,” I said. “Now get out while the getting’s good. Go back to California and become a stock car racer. It’s a helluva lot safer and cleaner than what’s going on around here.”

I would have made a lousy intelligence agent. Vickie got the whole story out of me, bit by bit. The more I swore I wasn’t going to say anymore, the more I warned her that I was looking out for her own safety, the more I blabbered about the whole ugly business. A part of my mind watched the fiasco in disgust, while another part felt immense relief that I had somebody to talk to, somebody to share the whole incredible burden of doubts and fears. And anyway, I rationalized,between the fact that she works for you and you phoned her from General Halliday’s place, and she met you at the airport and drove you home, they probably figure she knows as much as you do.

By the time I’d finished talking, we were both drinking Scotch and looking very sober and scared.

“Then there’s nobody you can go to?” Vickie asked at last.

I shrugged. “McMurtrie was the one guy I trusted. He’s out of it now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wish to hell I knew.” I finished my glass, turned and saw that the bottle was empty. “There’s one thing I can do… the only thing I can think of.”

“What’s that?”

“Blow it wide open. Tell the press. Make the whole mess public.”

She thought a moment. Then, slowly, “If you did that…”

“I know. It’d paralyze the whole Government. Bring all of Washington to a standstill. Cripple everything. Maybe shake the whole damned Government apart and send us over the edge, once and for all.”

Vickie said, “I wasn’t thinking of that.”

“What, then?”

“If you tried to make it public, they’d have to try to kill you, too.”