Timothy Culver - Power Play

Wellington shook his head. “I thought they’d use more professional people,” he said.

“We’ll have to tell Patricia,” Holt said.

Wellington seemed to be thinking about something else. He looked at Holt without really focusing on him, then suddenly seemed to draw himself back in. “You’re right,” he said. “We’ll have to tell several people. But not Bradford. We get him away from here first.”

“It’s a hell of a complication,” Holt said. “Isn’t that a bitch? I should be pitying Earl, and I do, but all I can really think is, it’s a hell of a complication.”

Wellington said, “Bradford doesn’t have to know about it till tomorrow. We can have it covered by then.”

“If we’re lucky.”

“Get to Evelyn,” Wellington said. “Tell her to hurry Bradford along. No need to tell her why.”

Holt nodded, and went away. Wellington went into the parlor where the food and drinks were to be found, and disguised himself with a small plate of turkey and a cup of coffee. He then stood unobtrusively in a corner, watching, unnoticed. The small voice in his ear was talking to him, telling him the current situation, the whereabouts of the body and the seven captured young men, the present legal position, the handling of the problem of the two Chinese agents waiting at the farmhouse, the search for the still-missing eighth Twelfth of July activist. From time to time, shielded by his coffee cup, Wellington’s lips moved, but no sound escaped. He might have been chewing, or talking to himself.

Two men with drawn guns came in the front door of the farmhouse. One of the Chinese, seeing them, jumped to his feet and ran through the farmhouse toward the rear. As he dashed into the kitchen, two more armed men entered through the back door. He turned in mid-flight, as though to jump through the closed kitchen window, and both men fired. Killed by two bullets in the head, he crashed forward and down into the sink, and flopped backwards onto the floor.

In the living room, the other Chinese rose and held his hands high up over his head. “I am your prisoner,” he said, in carefully enunciated perfect English, as though it were a magic phrase that would change the situation, or remove him to another place, or render him invisible. One of the two men strode up to him, pressed the barrel of the pistol against the left side of his chest, looked coldly into his astonished eyes, and pulled the trigger.

The family was sorting itself out. Ten minutes ago, Wellington had seen Bradford leave, in his car, accompanied by Evelyn and Howard. Two other cars had followed him, at an unobtrusive distance; in the first were Robert Pratt and John Bloor, John’s wife Deborah, his cousin Albert Jr., and Albert’s wife Jane, and in the second were Gregory and Audrey Holt, and Thomas Wellington. (No further trouble was assumed, but they were taking no chances.)

Off to the police to make their statements about the death of Earl Chatham — so as to allow the mills of justice to begin to grind without too noticeable a pause for special interests — were four of the group of six that had discovered the body and the young killers: the three Wellingtons, Walter and William and Mortimer, and the psychiatrist James Fanshaw. A man of Wellington’s had already seen the young men, and pointed out to them that any statement about their intention to kidnap Bradford Lockridge would only further complicate their already bleak legal picture, whereas cooperation might eventually, in unspecified ways, redound to their favor.

Still downstairs with Sterling were Elizabeth’s two brothers, Albert and Edward Bloor, and their wives; Edward and Janet Lockridge; and about a dozen wives waiting for their husbands to be finished with family business.

Upstairs, in a sitting room with French provincial sofas, was the new widow, Patricia Chatham. With her were her parents, Harrison and Patricia Lockridge. Marie Holt, who seemed suddenly to be Patricia Chatham’s closest friend, was there at Patricia’s insistence, with her husband George. Meredith Fanshaw, the Senator, was there at Harrison’s insistence. And facing them were Joseph Holt, Eugene White and Wellington.

This had begun as a delicate task, handled jointly by Joe and Wellington: the informing of Patricia Chatham of her husband’s death. It had grown rapidly, had moved upstairs in the process of its growth, and was swiftly altering in tone and purpose. And the change had begun with the elder Patricia, when she had said to Wellington, “I hold you responsible for this.”

Wellington said nothing, it wasn’t the sort of remark to which he would respond, but Joe Holt immediately rose to the bait, saying, “How can you say such a thing? In the first place, the work Wellington did organizing things here today was nothing short of brilliant. And in the second place, every one of us knew there might be trouble. When those fellows jumped out of the car there, they might have been armed, they could have had knives or guns, there was no way for us to tell.”

“We shouldn’t have had to go through this,” the elder Patricia said. She stood behind her daughter, who was sitting on one of the sofas, her face gray with shock. The mother’s hands were on the daughter’s shoulders, the daughter had one hand up to hold her mother’s wrist; the usual cat fighting had ended at once, with the news of Earl’s death.

Eugene White said, “Of course we shouldn’t have had to go through this. Nobody wants to be involved in this situation. But it’s with us, and we—”

“Why?” She looked around, apparently hoping for someone else to join her at the barricades, but her husband Harrison was looking at the carpet between his feet, as were Meredith Fanshaw and George Holt. Marie Holt, sitting beside Patricia Chatham, was limiting her gaze to that Patricia’s face.

The elder Patricia went on at last by herself: “Why do we have to be in this? The man’s crazy, isn’t he? Why can’t we admit he’s crazy, just admit it, and lock him up, the way you would with any other man?”

“Because he isn’t any other man,” Joe said quickly. He sounded shocked by what Patricia was saying.

“Oh, of course not,” she said. “He’s Bradford Lockridge, isn’t he? That’s something special, isn’t it?”

“He’s done a lot for this family,” Joe said.

“He’s done a lot for you, maybe. Turned a third-rate doctor into a world authority, maybe. But what’s he done for us ? I’ll tell you what he’s done for us. My brother is dead by his own hand, and Bradford Lockridge is responsible. He killed Herb as much as if he’d pulled a trigger and shot him in the head. And now my son-in-law is dead, and that’s Bradford Lockridge, too. Earl is dead, defending Bradford Lockridge. From whom? From Bradford Lockridge!”

Joe Holt, obviously stung by the third-rate doctor remark, said angrily, “Bradford Lockridge got you that son-in-law in the first place. He got you the dress on your back. If it weren’t for Bradford Lockridge, your husband would have starved to death forty years ago.”

“Bradford Lockridge didn’t get me my brother!”

“If it weren’t for Bradford, your brother would be a hardware store clerk in Eustace, Pennsylvania, right this minute.”

“That’s worse than dead?”

“You seemed to think so when you latched onto Harrison.”

“Latched on? He wasn’t pregnant, you foul-mouthed twerp!”

Eugene White, trying to calm things down a little, said, “Patricia, you and Joe are both getting excited. All he means is that Bradford made it possible for Herbert to have a lot better standard of living than he would—”

“Herbert’s standard of living is lousy right now, thank you.”