David Morrell - Desperate Measures

“Drag aristocrats like Jonathan Millgate down?”

“I sure tried my damnedest.”

“Be careful. If you talk like that to the wrong person, you could be providing a motive for why you might have wanted to-”

The next obvious words- kill him -never came out. Abruptly Jill stopped talking as the waitress set down their orders: grapefruit, English muffins, and yogurt for Jill; hash browns, eggs, and bacon for Pittman.

“You’ll never get back into shape if you keep eating that way,” Jill said.

“At least I ordered whole-wheat toast. Besides, I’ve been using a lot of energy lately.”

“Right. You’re not in enough danger-you’ve got to order a death sentence for breakfast.”

“Hey, I’m trying to eat.”

Jill chuckled, then glanced around at the warm dark tone of the wood in the rustically decorated room. “I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?”

“Somebody just left a newspaper. USA Today .” She looked eager to read it, but once she returned to their table and studied the front page, she murmured, “Suddenly I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Bad?”

As the waitress seated a man and a woman at the table next to them, Jill handed him the newspaper. “Some things are better left unsaid.”

Pittman scanned the story, becoming more and more disheartened. The crazed obituary writer’s murder spree continued, bold letters announced. Pittman was being blamed for killing Father Dandridge. He was also being charged for shooting a man who, with two associates, had supposedly been sent to Jill’s apartment by Jonathan Millgate’s son to pass on his thanks for the skillful attention she had given his father while in intensive care. In addition, Pittman was suspected of abducting Jill.

“It keeps getting worse,” Pittman said. “Maybe I ought to just hang myself and be done with it.”

“Don’t say that, not even as a joke.”

Pittman thought about it.“The thing is, it was a joke-about suicide. I’m amazed. A couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Jill looked at him harder. “Maybe some good will come out of this.”

Pittman gestured toward the newspaper. “At the moment, it doesn’t look that way. We’d better leave. We’ve got plenty to do.”

“Find the library?”

“Right.” Pittman stood. “There’s a reference series most libraries have. The Dictionary of American Biography . It lists the background, including education, for almost every intellectually famous person in the United States. It’ll tell me if all the grand counselors went to Grollier. Then maybe the librarian will be able to help with something else.”

“What’s that?”

“How to find Grollier Academy.”

“Four hundred dollars?” Jill shook her head, skeptical.

“I know. I’m not crazy about it, either, but I think this is the best deal we’re going to get,” Pittman said. “Every other used car on the lot costs more than the cash we have.”

The car salesman, gangly, wearing a bow tie, watched with interest from the window of his office as Pittman and Jill circled the gray 1975 Plymouth Duster. The two-door sedan had what was once considered to be a sporty outline, but the rust on the rear fenders and the cracks in the vinyl top were evidence of the hard use that the vehicle had received.

“Then let’s forget about paying cash,” Jill said. “I’ll write him a check and get something decent.”

“Can’t.” Pittman recalled an interview he had once conducted with a private detective who was an expert in tracing fugitives. “An out-of-state check. The salesman will probably decide to call your bank to see if the check is good. The police will have put the bank on alert about reporting any attempt to get money from your account. My guess is that the grand counselors will have used their influence to get the same information. They would all know where to focus their search. It’s the same reason we can’t rent a car. To do that, we need to use your or my credit card. The moment either name is in the computer, we’re blown. The grand counselors would immediately figure out why we’re in Vermont. They’d have men waiting for us by the time we showed up at Grollier Academy.”

“Four hundred dollars.” Jill bleakly surveyed the rusted automobile.

“I know. It’s a fortune when the only money at our disposal is a thousand. But we don’t have an option. At least we bargained the salesman down from four hundred and fifty.”

“But can we be certain the car won’t break down when we drive it off the lot?”

“Well, the best thing I can tell you is, this car has a Chrysler slant-six engine. It’s almost indestructible.”

“I didn’t realize you knew about auto mechanics.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how-?”

“I once did a story about used-car lots and ways to tell if the buyer was getting cheated.”

“Remarkable. I’m beginning to realize you’re the sum of all the interviews you conducted.”

“Something like that.”

“And if we buy this heap, you think we’ll be getting a good deal?”

“Only if the salesman gives us a free tank of gas.”

As they headed northwest from Montpelier past the mountains that flanked Route 89, the Duster performed better than Pittman expected, its slant-six engine sounding powerful and smooth.

Because his bandaged left hand made it awkward for him to steer, Jill did the driving. She opened her window. “Whoever owned this car sure liked cigars.”

“On the positive side, the seat covers don’t look bad. Which is more than I can say about me. I’d better get presentable for when we arrive at Grollier.”

He took the battery-powered razor from his gym bag, and while he shaved, he stared at the wooded peaks. “The map the used-car salesman gave us says this range is called the Green Mountains. An odd name for a place known for skiing.”

“I told you the French were the first settlers here. Analyze the name of the state. Vermont is another way of saying mont vert : Green Mountain.”

“It seems so peaceful here. What could there possibly be about Grollier Academy that’s so terrifying to the grand counselors?”

“At the library, the Dictionary of American Biography sure wasn’t much help,” Jill said. “Professor Folsom was right. Eustace Gable and Anthony Lloyd went to Grollier, the same as Jonathan Millgate. But the other two grand counselors don’t have any mention of Grollier in the entries about them.”

“That still doesn’t prove anything. Does it mean they didn’t actually go there, or is it that they don’t want to advertise?”

As the Duster rounded a curve, revealing a meadow flanked by spruce trees, wooded peaks looming above them, Pittman was so preoccupied, he barely noticed the vista. “Maybe they realized that it wasn’t in their best interests for it to be known that they all went to the same prep school.”

“Why would that hurt them?”

“Too blatantly chummy. The general public might catch on about one of the federal government’s nasty secrets: how inbred it is. Certain prep schools for the elite prepare the cream of the future Establishment to go to Ivy League colleges. That future Establishment graduates from those colleges and heads toward Washington. There they dominate various branches of the government. The CIA is tight with Yale, for example. The State Department used to be dominated by people from Harvard. Clinton’s administration has a close relationship with Yale Law School.

“But it gets more specific. Ivy League colleges have secret societies, and the most prestigious-Skull and Bones, for example-are almost exclusively for members of the Establishment. A President appoints his classmates, his fellow society members. They become ambassadors or serve on the cabinet or as his advisers. You know the story-the President goes out of office and his appointees move into the private sector, where as members of the boards of various corporations they use their influence in Washington to manipulate government regulations. Or else they form their own consultation businesses and cater to foreign clients who pay them extremely well to use their powerful contacts. That’s the reason I wanted to bring Millgate down to my level. Because he was in thick with the weapons manufacturers. He advocated military involvement in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, and Iraq, to name the most famous instances. But the question is, Was that for the good of the country and the world, or was it for the good of the weapons manufacturers and Millgate’s Swiss bank account?