I carefully unfolded the sheet and studied it. There were four symbols printed at the top of the paper: a square, a circle, a triangle, and a parallelogram; and beneath each symbol was a column of boxes. There were checks in some of the boxes, distributed among the four columns in what appeared to be random order. The checks in the boxes toward the bottom of the page were darker, shakier, heavier, as though the writer had been growing increasingly nervous and had been pressing harder. None of it made any sense to me.
I refolded the paper and slipped it into my pocket, then repacked the books and went downstairs, taking the book on parapsychology with me. I found Mrs. Vahanian in the kitchen, staring out a window. I thought she'd been crying, but her eyes were dry when she turned to me.
'Was your search fruitful, Mr. Frederickson?'
I showed her the book. 'Is this the book you mentioned?'
She nodded. 'I remember because Arthur spent so much time reading it at home. He didn't usually do that.'
'Does this mean anything to you?' I asked, taking the paper out of my pocket and pressing it across the counter top.
She looked at the paper and shook her head. 'Where did you find it?'
'It was wedged into the binding of this book. Did you ever see Dr. Morton writing on this kind of paper?'
'No, I can't say that I did.'
'Do you mind if I keep these things for a few days?'
She shrugged. 'Not if you think they'll help. Do you really think the book and paper mean anything?'
'It's hard to say, Mrs. Vahanian.'
After the sodden heat of the attic, the chill of the air conditioning was threatening me with a terminal case of pneumonia. I thanked Mrs. Vahanian again and left her staring out the window.
Outside, I wedged the paper back into the binding of the book, which I put in the trunk of my car. Then I made a U-turn and headed toward the gate. I was anxious to get back to New York and begin the task of finding Mary Llewellyn.
Slowing down for the S-curve, I honked, then began to accelerate. I was halfway around the second bend of the S when the green Caddy loomed in front of me.
Somewhere along the line I'd missed a move. Or the men in the car had known where I was going all along. There was no one in the car, which meant that the two men were hiding in the bushes somewhere, probably lining me up in their gunsights at that very moment.
There was no way of getting by the car without wrapping myself around a tree, so I jammed on the brakes and pulled the wheel hard to the left; the car's rear end fish- tailed and slammed into the Cadillac, but I was turned around. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and started back up the road.
A short, dark man in a shiny gabardine suit calmly stepped out into the road a hundred feet in front of me. He had a pipe clenched tightly between his teeth and a Sten gun braced on his hip, pointed at the windshield of the car.
There were three choices: try to run the man over and get killed; try to swerve around him and get killed; or stop and maybe live a while longer. If the man wanted to kill me, he could have done it already. I braked to a halt a few feet from where he was standing. His face was calm, almost smiling; I found his air of total self-assurance annoying as hell. Something about him struck me as being distinctly European.
He motioned with his gun for me to get out of the car. I did so slowly, tensing, waiting for some kind of opening while I looked around for his red-haired partner. But the two of them were fast and professional; I never saw or heard the second man move up behind me. There was just a sharp blow to the base of my skull, and then nothing.
13
When I regained consciousness, I was giggling uncontrollably. I found the idea of being ambushed by two men in a green Cadillac outrageously funny. My head felt twice its normal size, pumped full of helium that was carrying me off to a Land of Oz peopled with smiling, gun-toting Europeans who lived in the glove compartments of green Cadillacs. I giggled some more.
In between my flights of hysteria, the two men-who spoke with British accents-took turns asking me what I thought were the most absurd questions about Victor Rafferty. I'd answer, then howl at the thought that anybody should be asking me questions on a subject about which I knew so little.
A few times I thought I heard my own voice talking back to me. That would be my tapes. I tried to get angry at the Englishmen for breaking into my apartment, but everything was just too funny.
I told them about the book and the piece of paper. One of the men left the room while the other went through my pockets. It tickled, and I laughed. The man with the red hair asked me about the Fosters, and I told him what I knew. I thought it was funny that they should know about the Fosters. I laughed and laughed, and finally fell asleep.
I woke up with a wicked drug hangover. My mouth was dry, raw, puckered. My head still felt twice its normal size, but now it was filled with tacks. I lay still and surveyed the room in front of me through half-closed eyes. I wanted to get some idea of the order of this particular universe before I welcomed company.
It seemed to be a moderate-sized room, rugless, with peeling yellow paper on the walls. I was lying on a convertible sofa that smelled of age and mildew. Overhead was a large chandelier that looked as if it had been imported by someone with a droll sense of humor. To my left was a rickety card table on which had been placed two tape recorders. A few feet in front of me, just above eye level, was a dirty window; I could see the tops of trees through it, which would put me on the second or third story of the building.
There were voices coming from behind me. The two men were discussing European- politics in their clipped British accents. I continued to lie motionless.
Someone mentioned tea. There was the sound of a chair scuffing against a hardwood floor, then footsteps. I peered through my lids as the darker man paused beside me, then walked out into the adjoining kitchen to my right. I waited until I heard him rummaging around with the pots and pans, then moaned softly. Again there was the sound of a chair being pushed back, heavy footsteps. The red-haired man loomed over me. He was the man who'd hit me; I opened my eyes and smiled dreamily up at him.
'Hey, Georgie!' the man yelled. 'The little bloke's awake!'
The little bloke grunted and kept grinning.
'All right, Peter,' the answering reply came from the kitchen, 'get him up.'
'I don't know. He still looks pretty dopey.'
'Well, walk him around. I want to ask him a few more questions.'
Peter reached down to shake me. I waited until he had both hands on my shoulders before I gave him another big grin, whispered that he was a son-of-a-bitch, and hit him in the jugular with the side of my hand. His eyes bulged and his hands flew to his throat as his face turned purple. He made a series of staccato choking noises that could barely be heard. My head immediately began to feel better.
I swung my legs over the side of the sofa, stood up, and relieved him of the automatic he had in his belt. I hit him in the gut with it, bringing him down to my level, then rapped him on the back of the head. He hit the floor hard with his face and stayed there.
The commotion brought George, pipe still clenched between his teeth, rushing into the room. He braked, skidded on one foot, and finally came to a halt when he saw me and the gun pointed at him. His swarthy face grew still darker as it mottled with blood. His eyes flashed as he did a double take between me and his fallen partner. He hunched his shoulders and started forward.
'Stay,' I said quietly, punctuating the sentence with a loud lead exclamation point just over the top of his head. A chunk of plaster fell from the wall.
George stayed, but he bit through the stem of his meerschaum. The pipe, minus half its mouthpiece, clattered to the floor, and George spat out the rest. 'He'll kill you,' he stammered, pointing to the gasping redhead. 'If he doesn't, I will.'
'Oh, shut up, George, and sit down,' I said, pointing with the gun toward a chair.
