John Abbott - Scimitar

“Would you care to join me?” he asked.

“Sorry?” she said.

“That night. Would you care to come with me?”

“Well, I...”

“I’d be honored,” he said.

She looked at him. He was, in his stuffy British way, quite handsome. Very dark eyes, which he lowered now under her scrutiny. High cheekbones and good jaw, a faint cleft in it. Thick black hair combed casually to give him an exceptionally youthful appearance. She wondered suddenly how old he was. At their first meeting, he had asked her how old she was, and she had tried to make herself seem twenty. Her guess was that he couldn’t be much older than that himself — twenty-two or three, perhaps. A mere boy in comparison to Sonny.

He raised his eyes again, looked at her hopefully, almost entreatingly.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

If the dais was set where the cooperative Miss Lubenthal indicated it was normally set, and if Thatcher and Bush were sitting side by side at the table, as Sonny expected they would be, then he could eliminate both targets in the wink of an eye. His escape route was clear. Directly up the stairs to the left of the room, then around and down again to the Central Park South lobby. Out the door into the street and then down into the subway. New York’s subway system was a safe house in itself.

But if the President didn’t show...

Well, his orders were clear.

There’s a possibility you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, but only if your primary target is present at the dinner and ball. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait till the Fourth of July .

On his visit to Liberty Island last Saturday, he had learned that it would be closed on the Fourth until noon, at which time regular ferry service would resume. This meant that the President would be making his speech sometime that morning. The exact time had not yet been announced in the newspapers, but he knew that it would be. His tentative plan was to lay in the night before. He knew he could carry a gun onto the ferry and onto the island — no one had searched anyone yesterday, and he doubted that anyone would bother him on the third of July. The last boat left the island at six-thirty. He would not be on it.

But security on the Fourth would doubtless be exceptionally tight: the Secret Service for sure, with park rangers as backups, and possibly cops from the First Precinct as well. He had seen only one ranger wearing a gun last Saturday: a good-looking woman with a .357 Magnum on her hip. The others were carrying walkie-talkies in their holsters. He was positive they would all be armed on the Fourth. So whereas he’d be carrying a gun that day, he would not use it except in self-defense. As Arthur had pointed out, guns were not infallible, and this was a No-Fail operation.

Bush would undoubtedly be arriving by helicopter. Good photo op, the chopper with the presidential seal on its side, coming out of the sun to land on the wide brick circle with the American flag flapping on a tall flagpole at its center. Walk him to the statue itself, cameras following, the President tossing quips and waving his hand — Hello, folks, here’s the once and future President of the United States. Into the base of the monument, up the same stairs they’d taken on Saturday and out onto the star-shaped Fort Hood level. Sonny felt almost positive that this was where the speech would be delivered. More room here for maneuvering cameras, more opportunities for utilizing Liberty herself. The levels above were narrower, more restrictive to creative camera work.

The way Sonny looked at it, this entire appearance was one giant political photo op and the President’s men would be bending over backward to give the networks whatever assistance they needed. The Fort Hood level was the spot Sonny would have chosen if he were running CBS or ABC. The President standing against the high whitish stone wall behind him, the lady herself soaring above him into the sky. Place one of your cameras at the point of the star for your full shots of the statue, another midway toward the podium for your medium shots of the President with flags flying all around him no doubt, yet another camera for those sincere close shots. Yes, that’s where it would take place. Sonny would be ready for any other contingency, but he knew in his deepest heart that the President would die where Fort Hood once had stood.

He did not think there would be security on the level directly above the President, if only because the television pictures would then show men in blue suits lined up like vigilant tin soldiers, a bad image to project. Position your men instead at the stairs leading to the level above, out of view of the cameras. Keep your security on the Fort Hood level out of camera range as well, creating the impression of a fearless leader of the people, standing bold and unafraid before the worldwide symbol of freedom.

So unless he got to him first at the Canada Day celebration, what he planned to do...

The telephone rang.

Sonny picked up.

“Hello?” he said.

“Mr. Gomez?” Santorini asked.

He was standing in the lobby downstairs, using one of the house phones. His earlier call from the precinct had informed him that the guest in room 2312 was registered as Mr. Albert Gomez. Now he was here to find out just who Albert Gomez was, and why the number of his hotel room was scribbled on a scrap of paper in a dead lady’s garbage.

There was a silence on the line.

“Mr. Gomez?” he said again.

“Yes?” a voice said at last.

“This is Detective Allan Santorini, Homicide North?”

“Yes?”

“I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time.”

“Well... sure,” Sonny said. “Homicide, did you say?”

“Homicide North, yeah.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re investigating a case, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“A murder case?”

“Well, yeah, that’s what we do. Investigate murder cases.”

“What’s a... murder case got to do with me?”

“Well, nothing, actually,” Santorini said. “There’re just some routine questions I’d like to ask you.”

Routine questions, Sonny thought.

“Whose murder are you investigating?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when I see you,” Santorini said. “If you’d like to meet me in the lobby bar, I promise I won’t take more than ten minutes of your time.”

There was a long pause on the line.

“Mr. Gomez?” he said.

“Why don’t you just come up here?” Sonny suggested.

There was no answer at the number Geoffrey had given her for Sonny’s apartment. She let the phone ring twenty times, and then dialed the number again in case she’d made a mistake the first time, and let it ring another twenty times before hanging up. The second number he’d given her was for the hospital where Sonny worked. She dialed that next, slowly and carefully. It was a quarter to two in New York, ten forty-five in Los Angeles.

She told the woman who answered the phone that she wanted to talk to someone in Personnel, please. The nurse, or whoever the twit was, asked Elita what this was in reference to — she hated when underlings in doctors’ offices or hospitals did that. She said, “It’s a private matter, thank you.” Like a vaginal itch , she thought, as if it’s any of your goddamn business.

“Personnel,” a woman’s voice said.

“Yes, this is Elita Randall,” she said. “I’m calling from New York City.”

“Yes?”

“I’m trying to get an address here for Dr. Krishnan Hemkar, I wonder...”

“I’m sorry, we don’t give out personal information on staff.”

“This is regarding his mother,” Elita said. “She’s very ill.”