Грэм Мастертон - Famine

Dr Benson let out a grunt of amusement. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ he asked. ‘Apart from ask your consent?’

‘I flew in from Washington yesterday,’ Della told him. ‘I spent last night looking over Mr Hardesty’s farm at South Burlington, and now I’m interested in talking to you. Have you discovered what causes the blight yet?’

‘No… not exactly. We’re still working on the theory that it might be a form of powdery mildew.’

‘I thought you believed it was a virus.’

‘Did Mr Hardesty tell you that? Oh, well, I was only generalising. It could be any one of a dozen things. It’s going to take our people at Hays and Garden City a long time to find out which.’

Della stood up. ‘We’re sending out a television statement on Sunday evening from Senator Jones’s home at Fall River. If you can spare me an hour or so, I was wondering if you could give me some scientific background. We want to make it all sound authentic.’

‘Well, er – I have a quick call to make – then maybe I can spare you a little time. Would you excuse me for just a minute or two? You could sit in my secretary’s office across the hall.’

‘Sure,’ smiled Della, and stepped out of the office, closing the door behind her. She quickly crossed the corridor to the office marked ‘Enquiries’, switched on the light, and went across to the grey steel desk. The tell-tale light on the telephone was already lit up, so she carefully lifted the receiver, and listened in.

‘—called me urgently and confidentially, and said that the Pentagon’s chemical warfare people had identified it as Vorar D – that’s right – well they used to use it for defoliation work in Vietnam – but he doesn’t want to leak the story himself – no – well, as far as I understand it, Senator Jones can put some sort of a squeeze on his family – that’s right—’

When the light blinked off again, Della quietly replaced the receiver, and tippy-toed across to the window. By the time Dr Benson came in, shrugging on his car-coat again, she appeared to be absent-mindedly staring out at the light of Wichita’s Civic Centre.

‘I thought we’d go down to the coffee shop,’ said Dr Benson. ‘I haven’t eaten in hours.’

‘Personally, I could do with a drink,’ smiled Della. ‘Is there a good cocktail bar near here?’

‘Well, I guess so – but the truth is I don’t usually—’

Della linked her arm in his. ‘Oh, come on. Surely work’s over for the day, even for you busy agricultural scientists.’ Dr Benson shrugged. ‘I guess I’m all right as long as I stick to Coke.’

‘Coke?’ asked Della, as they walked along the corridor to the elevator. ‘What kind of a scientist drinks Coke?’

Dr Benson didn’t answer, but pulled her an uncomfortable smile as they descended to the lobby. Della cuddled his arm, as if he was an affectionate old white-haired sugar-daddy, and when the security guard opened the downstairs door for them and let them out into the cool night air, he gave Dr Benson such a significant wink that Dr Benson felt like Humbert Humbert on his night off.

‘Is that the bar?’ asked Della, looking across the neon-lit plaza. ‘The Silver Star?’

‘That’s the bar,’ said Dr Benson, in a resigned voice.

The rented chauffeur-driven Lincoln Continental skirted the trees on the southern side of Fall River Lake and came out at last into a clearing. The driver had done this run before, and he turned up the driveway which led to Shearson Jones’s house without having to be directed. He stopped at the white-painted wrought-iron gates, let down his window, and said, ‘Senator Jones and party,’ into the driveside microphone. There was a pause, then a click and a hum, and the gates swung open.

Sitting in one of the jump seats, Karen couldn’t see the house very well until the chauffeur turned the Lincoln around on the gravelled front apron, applied the brake, and opened the door for her. When she climbed out, though, and stood waiting for Peter and Senator Jones in the wind that blew off the lake, she realised just how much one and a half million dollars could buy, especially out in rural Kansas.

Lake Vista – a name which one of Shearson’s mistresses had chosen – was a modernistic two-story house built out of natural stone, timber and glass. It was set in the rock overlooking the lake, with two balconies actually overhanging the dark and glittering water. But its most striking feature was the triangular timber roof which rose from the centre of the house like a stylised Indian tepee. Shearson kept at Lake Vista one of the country’s most valuable and important private collections of primitive Indian art, including a Pottawatomie painting on buffalo hide that had been valued at six million dollars.

‘Quite a place, huh?’ asked Peter, taking Karen’s arm and leading her towards the front door. ‘You wait until you see the inside.’

‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Karen. ‘It’s just like something out of the movies.’

The featureless wooden front doors of the house opened up, and two tall blue-jawed men in plaid shirts and mushroom-coloured stetson hats came out to help Senator Jones across the gravel. One of them tipped his hat to Karen and said, ‘How are you?’

‘They’re the Muldoon brothers,’ explained Peter, leading Karen up the steps and into the polished wood hallway. ‘They used to work a farm in Elk county, until they were bought out by an oil company. They’re pretty wealthy in their own right, but for some reason they’ve always attached themselves to Shearson as unpaid side-kicks. Don’t ever ask me why. You’ll have to find out for yourself.’

The inside of Shearson’s house was even more spectacular than the outside. The interior of the pointed wooden roof was lined with zig-zag galleried steps, so that a visitor could climb upwards from level to level, admiring Shearson’s Indian paintings and artifacts all the way up to the very tip of the house. Under the stressed-concrete beams which supported the ‘tepee’, there was a spacious conversation area; and off to the left, towards the lake, there was a sitting-room with Cherokee rugs and leather furniture and genuine Canadian totem poles.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Karen.

Behind her, the Muldoon brothers were almost carrying Shearson into the house. Grimacing, they supported him through the doors, across the conversation area, and into the sitting-room, so that they could deposit him at last in a sturdy studded library chair, with a view through the sliding-glass windows of the darkling lake.

‘Travel grows less and less desirable every day,’ grumbled Shearson. ‘Did Della get here yet?’

‘She called and left a message,’ said one of the Muldoon brothers. ‘She said she was talking to someone called Dr Benson at the Silver Star cocktail bar in Wichita, and that she didn’t expect to be late. Things were going just fine, she said.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Shearson. ‘Now, will one of you boys bring me a bottle of champagne, and some glasses? I think we ought to celebrate our safe arrival.’

Peter nudged Karen towards a large couch, covered in rough-brushed hide. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘The senator won’t eat you. Will you. Senator?’

Senator Jones took out a large linen handkerchief and mopped sweat from his face and his jowls. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘I’m so damned hungry I could eat anything, and she looks pretty tasty.’

It didn’t take Ed long to find them. The security guard at the agricultural research centre had seen them leave the building, and walk across the plaza towards the Silver Star bar. When he pushed his way through the Dodge City-style doors, he saw them at once. Dr Benson with his white-haired head in his hands, Della with her arm around him, and Mike Smith from the radio station, short and crewcut and stubby, standing beside them with a helpless look on his face.