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seventeen

The house had been subdivided into several family units, so space was limited. Bruce cleared away some junk and boxes in a small room that would eventually be Alice's and set up a folding bed there for Rita, while Jarrow made do with a couple of blankets on the living-room couch. It was comfortable enough, but he slept fitfully, unable to disengage his mind from continual replays of the things that had happened since his awakening in Atlanta. It didn't seem possible for it to have been only two days. What amazed him most was the uncanny way in which he knew just where the men who had come for him at Rita's would be and how they would react. It was almost as if he himself were one of them, and had known how people who did that kind of work would think. But he was unable to summon up any glimpse of a wider framework of associations, of which such knowledge would surely be a part.

The next morning Rita called Eric again while Sandy was scrambling eggs for breakfast. He had talked to Margaret the night before, who had sounded shaken but was otherwise all right. She had arrived home to find the street full of police, who had been called by the neighbors, taking statements everywhere. There was no sign by then of the men who had caused the disturbance. Whether that meant that they hadn't been from one of the law-enforcement agencies, or had, and were simply covering their tracks after a botched job, there was no way of telling. Eric had just called Margaret again that morning. The police had been keeping an eye on the street and there had been no further incidents. Apart from having the clearing up to do and some repairs to arrange with the landlord, Margaret was okay. Rita said she appreciated his help, promised to -explain it all one day, and hung up before he could start pressing her with questions.

There was really nothing new to be said over breakfast. Rita and Jarrow must have been followed from the airport; it was obviously Jarrow that these people were interested in, since he was the one that all the strange things had been happening to; neither he nor Rita had any better notion than they'd had last night of what to do now. They couldn't go back to the apartment now, Rita said. It would be -exactly what the police would be waiting for, and once they got involved with them there'd be no end to it.

Sandy wanted to know why the police wouldn't be the best people to get involved with. If guys were breaking down doors and coming after her, that would be the first place she'd go. That was what police were for. Rita -explained about the Maurice Gordon mystery, and the guns and other questionable items that Jarrow had been carrying in -Atlanta—which she knew all about, since they'd been there when Jarrow was Tony and she was with him, the night before he woke up as Jarrow. Who knew what Gordon had been mixed up in?

"True," Sandy agreed.

And even more to the point, Jarrow reminded them, as far as the rest of the world seemed to be concerned, he was Tony Demiro. But Demiro was supposed to be dead. The official Army records said so. So something very strange and distinctly malodorous had been going on involving official departments.

"Do the police talk to the Army?" Sandy asked.

"They all talk to everybody," Rita said. "They've all got lines into each other's computers. Anything that carries what's called a general public service code can be fished out anywhere. That includes a summary listing of most routine police reports."

Bruce glanced at the clock. "Well," he announced, "it doesn't seem as if we're any nearer to settling anything. I have to go and see a guy in fifteen minutes about some part-time help that might bring in a few bucks."

"Oh, right. I'd forgotten about that," Sandy said. "We could sure use it."

"I should be back in under an hour."

"You go ahead," Jarrow told him. "Don't let us keep you. As you say, we aren't really any closer to settling anything."

Bruce got up and went to put on his coat. Just then the phone rang. "Ten to one it's Eric," he muttered. It was what they expected. Naturally, after Eric got the story from Margaret, he would be calling around, trying to find out where Rita had contacted him from.

"I'll get it," Sandy said, crossing the room. She picked up the receiver. "Hello? . . . Oh, Eric, hi. What's up? . . . No, why? . . . she did? . . . You're kidding! . . . Oh, my God, is she all right? . . ." The gist of the conversation was clear from Sandy's responses. Had she seen or heard anything of Rita? Rita had called Eric last night and again just now, but wouldn't say from where. Eric then went on to relate the story, which Sandy of course had to listen through to be credible. She ended by assuring Eric that she'd let him know if they heard anything.

"The things I do for friends," Sandy sighed after she'd hung up.

"I won't forget it," Rita promised.

Bruce finished putting on his coat. "Anything you two need while I'm out?" he asked Rita and Jarrow. "I guess it would probably be better if you stayed inside."

"I could use some cigarettes," Rita replied. The few that Bruce had found hadn't lasted the previous evening.

"How about a paper?" Jarrow said. "There might be something about last night."

"I'll see to it," Sandy told them. "I've got to go out myself in a few minutes anyhow—do a few things and take the Wretch out for some air."

"Okay, take care." Bruce kissed her lightly and turned to the door. "See you later." He left, and they heard the front door close out in the hallway.

"You go ahead if you want," Rita told Sandy. "I can clear up in here."

Sandy grinned. "You're just jumpy for a cigarette, right?"

"Right."

Sandy hauled Alice out of the baby chair and wiped off the worst of the morning's devastations. "Okay. We shouldn't be more than half an hour. I need to stock up on a few groceries. Anything in particular you'd like?"

Jarrow took out a couple of twenties and held them out to her without asking. "Here's a contribution. We're not asking for a free hotel."

"What are you talking about?" Sandy protested. "I don't want that. You're friends of the family, for chrissakes."

"But I'm not," Jarrow reminded her.

Sandy and Rita caught each other's eye in a brief hiatus. Rita pursed her lips silently and looked down at the table. "Okay, we're not proud." Sandy took the bills and nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Dick. It'll be a big help."

Sandy picked up Alice again and carried her out to the hallway, where she unfolded a stroller from its storage space by the closet.

"Winston," Rita called after her, to remind her of the brand.

"Got it." Sandy closed the door and began the routine that she was sure she went through at least a thousand times every week of buttoning, buckling, and tying Alice into a panoply of quilted pants, coat, bonnet, furry boots, mittens, and restraining straps that would have defied Houdini.

In the kitchen, Jarrow refilled his mug and raised his eyebrows at Rita. She nodded, and he poured her another too.

"We didn't exactly get a chance to find out much about each other yesterday," he said.

Rita added a spoonful of sugar and stirred it in. "I can't imagine why not."

"You seem to know something about official data -networks."

"Right, that's what I do."

"You said something about having a government job."

"I'm just a clerk—with the state Economic Coordination Bureau here. That's why I moved back into the city when you . . . when Tony disappeared. We process the permits that companies get limiting production of indexed materials to conform to the quota assignments from the Resource Allo-cation Agency. I'm with a section called Petroleum-Derived Plastics. So it doesn't matter how much a customer's prepared to pay for, you can't ship more than our people say. Guess why Bruce doesn't have a job."

"You don't sound as if you approve," Jarrow commented.

"It started as part of what was supposed to change indus-try into putting service to the public good in place of private profit," Rita said.

"Well, that's a pretty desirable thing to strive for, isn't it?"

"I don't know, is it? Is that what you teach the kids?"

"I teach them what ought to be obvious to anyone: that industrial activity is basically damaging and polluting, and anything beyond the minimum that we have to put up with should be discouraged," Jarrow replied stiffly. He didn't like the undertone in her voice, which sounded mocking, nor did he like being cross-examined by somebody who still came across as half his age, however different it might look physically.

"But that isn't how it works," Rita said. "There's still a lot of profit to be made from giving out the permits. And I'm talking about private profit. When you can close down a billion-dollar plant, you make friends real easy."

"That would be illegal," Jarrow objected.

Rita laughed delightedly. "I don't believe this." Jarrow's face tightened defensively. Rita laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Sorry, don't get me wrong. You seem like a nice enough person, but you buy all this brainwashing that they pump out. Nobody down here in the real world—" The phone rang again and interrupted her.

She swung her head away to look at it. "Don't answer it," Jarrow murmured, lowering his voice instinctively, as if it might catch his voice even while still on the hook.

Rita looked back toward the door. "Has Sandy gone yet?"

She got up from her chair just as the door opened and Sandy reappeared. "Okay, I heard it." A wail went up from beyond the door. "Go and keep an eye on Wretch, or strangle her or something."

"Sure," Rita said, and hurried out. The wailing abated.

Sandy picked up the phone. "Hello? . . . Yes it is. Who's this?" She frowned as she listened. Then her eyes widened. Her expression changed suddenly, and she looked unconsciously at Jarrow with a confused, fearful expression. "No, I can't. He's dead. He was killed in an accident." Jarrow, startled, set down his mug and waited tensely. Sandy shook her head as she listened. "But, that's impossible. . . . I'm sorry, I can't help you." She listened some more, than nodded. "All right, if I do. One moment." She unhooked a tethered pen from its clip on the wall and pulled over the memo pad lying on top of the refrigerator. "Okay. . . . Yes, I said I would, if I hear anything, Good-bye." She hung up and stood staring down at what she had written.

"What is it?" Jarrow asked.

Sandy looked up bemusedly. "It was a woman—she didn't give any name. Said she wanted to get in touch with Tony Demiro. She understood we were friends of his. I told her he was dead. She said that was impossible, because she saw him two days ago in Atlanta. There's a number here to call if I hear anything."

Jarrow took the pad from her hand and looked at it. The number meant nothing to him.

"But there was more to it than that," Sandy said. "Something in her voice, I could tell. It wasn't just a casual -inquiry. She knew."

* * *

Jarrow's main concern was that despite their precautions, they had been traced, somehow, to Bruce and Sandy's. He could only conclude ruefully that his ideas on how to lose tails left a lot to be desired.

"We have to get away from here," he said to Bruce and Sandy when they talked things over after Bruce was back. "This isn't your problem. You've already done more than enough, and you've got other considerations to worry about. It'll be best all around if we just go now, and don't give any leads."

He was right, of course, and nobody went through the motions of arguing with him. "What are you going to do?" Sandy asked.

Jarrow spread his hands. "Call the number. It's the only way we're ever going to learn anything. Why else did that woman mention Atlanta than as a way of signaling that whoever she's with knows a lot I'm interested in?"

But Bruce was still uneasy. "It has to be a trap," he insisted. "If they get you to a phone, they'll trace where you are. And we already know the kind of people we're talking about."

"What about public phones or vehicle phones?" Rita asked. "Can they trace those?"

"I don't know. I just know that if it were me, I wouldn't trust anything," Bruce replied.

"But they must know already where Rita and Dick are," Sandy said to him. "Why else would they call here?"

"Then why bother calling first at all?" Bruce said. "if they know, they could have sealed off the whole block by now."

"Maybe they're just not sure," Rita suggested. "They can't go around tearing the whole city apart on guesses—especially after last night."

"So if Rita and Tony . . . Dick, I mean . . . if they return the call, then it would confirm their location," Bruce said, feeling that it made his point.

Silence fell while everyone went over the same questions again in their minds, and came up again, inevitably, with the same answers. Finally Rita said, "There isn't any other way." Jarrow looked across, and she showed a hand imploringly. "Either we call the number and take whatever risk is involved; or we turn ourselves in to the cops and wait for whatever happens then; or we carry on hiding off the streets for the rest of time."

"I don't want to get involved with the police," Jarrow said. "Not until I know something more about who Gordon is and what he's been doing, anyway."

Rita was already nodding. "Exactly. I know. And option three isn't a way to spend a life. So we're left with option one. That's why I said there isn't any other way."

Jarrow nodded, resigning himself. They would have to deal with whoever the mysterious woman caller had spoken for. "But you don't have to get mixed up in this," he told Rita. "Whatever's been going on has had to do with me. I called your number from Atlanta, that's all."

The words needed saying, but he was unable to inject much conviction into them. He already knew what her answer would be.

"Look," she said. "Whatever else you may think, as far as I'm concerned you're Tony. And if you think I'm just going to let you walk out of my life again after you come back from being dead, you're out of your mind. So let's go."

They took the Howard/Englewood el into the city center and found an open shopping arcade off State Street with a line of nonscreen pay-phone booths. Jarrow made the call, while Rita stood watching the door.

A gruff voice answered after a couple of rings. "Quincy's bar."

"Bar? Er, look, I don't know if I've got this right. I got a message. The name's Demiro. Somebody wanted me to call, but didn't give a name. She left this number."

"That's Tony, right?"

"Yes." Jarrow's eyebrows lifted in surprise. So he had got it right.

"Well, she ain't here, but I can get her to call you," the voice told him. "What's your number?"

"I'm not sure I want to say," Jarrow replied warily.

"What's up?" Rita hissed.

"It's just a bar," Jarrow whispered, raising a hand to stall her as the voice spoke again.

"Then I can't help ya. Look, I'm just doing the lady a favor, okay? I don't know what this is all about. If you want to talk to her, she'll call you. I got better things to do, you know. I run a bar, not a dating service."

"He wants this number so that she can call here," Jarrow whispered to Rita. "I'm not sure I like it."

"Tell him two minutes." Rita said.

"Just two minutes," Jarrow said into the phone. "Tell her I'll be here for two minutes, then I leave."

"Whatever you say," the voice answered in the kind of tone usually reserved for humoring psychotics. "I'll see what I can do." The line went dead.

"I don't understand it," Jarrow muttered as they waited, looking anxiously along the arcade and back at the entrance from the street. "If they had an idea we were at Bruce and Sandy's, they could have been waiting there. It's almost as if they are worried about being traced."

The call came in less than a minute later. But the voice was a man's. It had what sounded to Jarrow like an Eastern European accent, strengthened by the acoustics of the phone. He introduced himself as Josef.

"Where did you get our message?" Josef asked. Which meant that whoever they were, they had left it at a number of places and hence didn't know everything.

Jarrow wasn't about to reveal that it had been at Bruce and Sandy's. "I just heard it," he answered.

"Where are you? In the city?"

"Pretty central," Jarrow said vaguely.

"Are you anywhere near the Bismarck Hotel?"

"Wait a second." Jarrow covered the mouthpiece. "Where's the Bismarck Hotel?" he hissed at Rita.

"Not far. A couple of blocks."

"Pretty close," Jarrow said into the phone.

"Can you be there in fifteen minutes or so, say at ten-thirty?"

"Who is this? Why should I trust you?"

"I suspect that you are having some serious problems, and I think we might be able to help. Besides, who else can you trust? The people who nearly got to you last night won't give up."

"What do you want from me?" Jarrow asked.

"We need to find Ashling, urgently. I think you might be the key."

"I don't know anyone by that name," Jarrow said.

Josef seemed to have been half expecting it. "We need to talk," he said.

Jarrow drew a long breath. "Very well. I'll be at the Bismarck at ten-thirty."

"Come to the tenth floor. Somebody will meet you there."

"One more thing, I have somebody with me. Is that okay?"

"You mean Ms. Chilsen? Yes, bring her too, by all means."

There was nothing else for it, Jarrow decided. In those few sentences Josef had shown that he knew more than they had any hope of uncovering in weeks. And for some reason Jarrow believed him when he said that he wasn't connected with the men who had broken into Rita's the previous night.

They got to the Bismarck early and walked around the block to bring them back to the main doors at exactly ten-thirty. Inside, they crossed the lobby to the elevators. Jarrow glanced furtively around while they waited, feeling conspicuous and jittery like an amateur investigator on his first assignment, but nobody seemed to be paying them any attention. Just as the car arrived, a bearded man in a tweed hat and tan parka appeared from a side passage and got in with them. Jarrow pressed 10 and glanced inquiringly at the stranger.

"Two, please," the man said. Jarrow complied.

The three of them stared at the inside of the door in silence as the elevator ascended. It arrived at two, and the bearded man moved forward. Suddenly he turned and announced, "I am Josef. We get off here. Come with me, please."

Jarrow and Rita looked at each other uncertainly. But there was nothing else for it. They followed Josef out onto the landing and along one of the corridors, then through a door to a concrete stairway and back down to ground level. From there a service passage and rear door led out to a side yard where a closed van was waiting, aged and battered, painted a drab shade of brown. Josef thumped on the rear doors, which were opened from the inside by a man in a light overcoat. Another man appeared with him, and together they helped Jarrow and Rita up, and over to one of the wooden boards serving as bench seats along the sides. Up front of them, a woman was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Go," Josef said tersely. They moved off.

As the van turned onto the street, Josef peered out through the small windows set high in the doors, apparently worried about being followed. It reinforced the suspicion that Jarrow had already begun to form that these people were as nervous about trusting Jarrow as Jarrow and Rita were about them. The two men who had been in the van were sitting well apart on the seat opposite, watching them warily and, Jarrow couldn't help but -notice, keeping their right hands very close to the fronts of their coats.

"See anything?" Josef called to the woman.

"Looks clean to me," she replied, checking her mirrors.

Josef seemed satisfied and sank down on the seat oppo-site, next to the man in the light overcoat. "Dear me. I'm getting too old for this. An unorthodox way of introducing oneself, but I'm sure you understand the necessity, sometimes, in this questionably sane world of ours." He indicated his companions. "You know my name already. These are Leon and Arnold." Jarrow nodded noncommittally. "The lady driving us is called Susan." At the front, Susan acknowledged by momentarily raising a hand. "And you, of course, are Warrant Officer Demiro."

Jarrow frowned, unsure of how to respond. If these people were going to be of any help, they might as well all get the situation straight right from the start. "I'm not sure," he replied.

"What do you mean?" Josef asked.

"I'm not sure who I am."

Josef seemed surprised, as if part of something that had been carefully planned and thought out was already coming apart. "Who do you think you are?" he asked cautiously.

"As far as I'm aware, my name is Richard Jarrow."

Josef looked taken aback. "Jarrow? I don't think I've ever heard the name. Who is Richard Jarrow?"

"I'm a schoolteacher, and I come from Minneapolis," Jarrow told him.

Josef stared at him for several seconds and seemed nonplussed. He had a ruddy, snub-nosed face with light-colored eyes that seemed to glitter, and was maybe in his late forties. Behind the eyes, Jarrow sensed a quick and adaptable mind, already racing to make sense out of a revelation that had been totally unexpected.

Finally Josef said, "Oh, dear. I have a suspicion that this could be even more complicated than we thought."

 

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