Ben Bova - The Multiple Man

“How’d you know which flight I’d be on?”

“Checked with Denver.” She looked very pleased with herself. “I may not have started life as a newspaper reporter, but I know how to find things out when I want to.”

“You ended a sentence with a preposition,” I said.

“The hell I did.”

We walked together out past the empty, echoing baggage carousels, mindlessly turning even though there was no luggage on any of them. The traffic rotary outside the terminal, so noisy and bustling all day long, was dark and quiet now. I didn’t see a cab anywhere.

“I’ve got my car,” Vickie said, pointing toward the parking area on the other side of the rotary.

“I didn’t know you had a car.” It was a little chilly in the night air. The sky was clouded over, although a quarter moon glowed through the overcast dimly.

“Well, it’s not really mine. It belongs to a friend. He’s out of town and I’m minding it for him.”

I didn’t reply. We walked straight across the rotary, just like Boston pedestrians, marching across six traffic lanes, a big circle of withered grass, and six more lanes on the other side. The parking area was automated. We got into the car—a thoroughly battered old gas burner that roared and coughed when Vickie started it up—and drove out, stopping only to pay the parking fee at the unattended gate.

“You didn’t walk around here in the dark by yourself,” I said.

“Sure. It’s okay… the place is really deserted. And they’ve got television monitors watching everything. The guards would have come out of the terminal building if anyone had bothered me.”

“Just in time to join the gang bang,” I muttered.

“Worried about my honor?” she asked as she turned onto the bridge that led across the Potomac.

“Worried about your life.”

“I can take care of myself. I’ve never been raped yet.”

“Once is enough, from what I hear.”

She grimaced. “I suppose you’re right.”

By the time we had pulled up in front of my apartment building, she had told me all about the car and its owner. The engine had been converted to hydrogen fuel, which is why the old five-seat sedan was now a two-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.”