Black Heart, page 71
Tisah gazed at him from over the rim of her frost-rimmed glass. 'It was only to please you,' she whispered. 'I wanted so much for you to be proud of me. I knew what you required of
me.'
The Monk said nothing. His eyes dropped to the toes of his polished shoes. He was thinking of his meeting with Macombet. Of how, in the story he had told the industrialist, he had seemingly been helping Macomber with an obstacle in his path, Tracy Richter, while trying to achieve the opposite. The Monk had enough faith in Richter's ability to believe that, once he was made aware of Macomber's involvement, he would find a way
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to stop him. He looked at his daughter now. For purely personal reasons, he wanted Macomber stopped ... permanently. 'It is jnost fortunate that you did not tell Lauren all of it,' he said. 'That would have been a serious error.'
'Why? I know you hold no love for this man Macomber.'
'Not personal love, no,' the Monk acknowledged. 'But the government wishes to see his plans played out. They believe it could be advantageous to us.'
'And you concur?'
'It is irrelevant what I think in this particular matter. I am but an arm of China.'
'Surely you ' But she stopped, halted by her father's emphatic gesture. He had put his forefinger in a vertical position up against his closed lips.
'I grow restless,' he said, 'cooped up inside all evening. First the performance and then dinner; most recently the interview here. Come' - he reached out a hand, took hers 'let us take a stroll in the moonlight.'
Together they went down the hallway and out the front door. They took the winding gravel driveway as far to the left as they could, then went into the mown grass of the lawn. Dwarf orange trees and jasmine rose spectrally about them, the rough bark slightly luminescent in the cool blue-white light.
They went deeper into the garden which had fallen into disrepair before the Monk had' come to live here. It was the first of many renovations he had had instituted since his arrival. There was a gentle breeze blowing, just enough to rufHe the eaves of the foliage. Still it was hot, the nocturnal insects somnolently in evidence.
'First and foremost,' he said, 'came my obligation for the debt
owed Mr Richter. I could not proceed any further without having fulfilled that.'
He turned and the moonlight silvered half his face, bringing Bright points to life on the convex surfaces of his obsidian eyes. Tisah thought she had never seen eyes so full of wisdom.
'I chose very carefully the amount of information I gave to Lauren. Is it more than enough to help Tracy, of that I have no doubt.'
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'But by doing so you've placed him in a great deal of danger ' The Monk saw the concern on his daughter's face and sighed inwardly. He reached out, touched her glorious hair. 'My dear' he said, his voice matter-of-fact, 'firstly, I have full confidence in Mr Richter's capabilities. Don't forget I know what he's made of as well as you do. Secondly, he was always in danger His relationship to Macomber' - his feigned difficulty in pro, nouncing that name had been dropped along with his role of simple Chinese businessman 'put him in jeopardy from the beginning. Your Mr Richter was in the centre of this maelstrom all the time. I have merely given him the edge to extricate
himself.'
'Do you know what he plans to do?' Tisah meant Macomber 'No. I do not. That is for Tracy to discover for himself.' For a long while the Monk said nothing. He appeared to be listening to the sounds of nature all around him: the crickets' song, the cicadas' chittering, the leaves' rustle as the warm night wind fanned them. An owl hooted not far away and there was a brief flurry of feathered wings above their heads. A shadow swooped across the face of the pale moon and was gone, accelerating downward, skimming the vast expanse of ploughed fields beyond the western wall.
Just as he had lied to Lauren about his current status within the CPR intelligence network so he had lied to his daughter now. It was for their own good. Tisah must never know the gravity of the situation Tracy was now in; for if she should the Monk feared that even he could not control her. She would insist on flying to him to tell him all - and in the process she would unwittingly cause her own father's execution.
The fact was that the Chinese People's Republic had decided to allow Macomber's plan, articulated to them by the Monk, to succeed. They felt that its fruition would bring the full resources of the United States to bear on the Soviet Union, China's number one enemy.
'Why not allow the United States to do for us what we are as yet incapable of accomplishing?' His superiors had said to him
rhetorically.
Yet he feared that his superior's intense hatred of the Soviets
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had blinded them to the terrible ramifications of Atherton Gottschalk's rise to power. For the Monk feared the collapse of nuclear containment. He knew the ultimate power that Gottschalk and Macomber craved was not so easy to control. And if it flew out of hand? In a nuclear holocaust they would all die: Soviets and Chinese alike. There would be absolutely no difference.
So,, clandestinely, he had decided to leak just enough information to Tracy Richter. He could not openly defy the wishes of this country. But in this subtle manner he could rid himself of the awesome debt he owed the American and, at the same time, perhaps defeat Macomber. If he had not overestimated Richter's ability.
The Monk looked into the distance, into the moonlight. He thought of the unutterable beauty only nature could give birth to; what human being could recreate such exquisitely delicate illumination?
Then his gaze fell on Tisah and his heart skipped a beat. Her beauty brought tears to his eyes, made him believe in the importance of life, of living. Did not even politics pall in comparison to the form and grace of this ineffable architecture?
'Do not be afraid,' he said softly, taking her hand. They began to walk beside the western wall. He felt keenly her vitality and warmth stealing over him. 'Fear makes one weak; fear diminishes the soul; fear causes the wheel of life to creak to a halt.'
Tisah turned her head, smiling at him and it was if the sun had risen to overtake the cold light of the moon.
Tracy came through the Magic Eye doors of the Eastern Airlines shuttle arrival lounge and saw a black cop with splay teeth walking towards him.
He smiled as he approached Tracy, held out his hand. 'Mr RJchter," he said, pumping Tracy's hand enthusiastically. 'I'm Patrolman Ivy White. Thwaite sent me.'
'Glad to meet you.'
'Here,' White said, taking the strap of Tracy's carry-on bag, kt me have this. Thwaite told me to give you the de luxe ^rvice.'
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r
They walked side by side out into the New York atmosphere It was slightly less humid than Washington but, it seemed to Tracy, just as warm even this early in the morning. The leather weekend bag that White was now carrying had been waiting for Tracy at the concierge's desk when he had come down earlier this morning to pay his bill. That had already been taken
care of.
On the way out to the airport, he had opened the bag, delved inside. All the belongings he had left so hastily in Hong Kong were there, including the small black velvet box from the Diamond House. Slowly, almost nostalgically, he opened the top, stared at the perfect blue-white stone in its platinum setting. What had possessed him to buy it? He barely understood the impulse now. Hong Kong was a wonderfully romantic city and he put it down to that. In the reality of Washington, DC and the anticipation of New York, he wondered if he would ever see Lauren again, let alone have a chance to give her the ring. Her anger had been absolute, unshakable.
White led him to a black Chrysler. 'Climb in,' White said. He went around to the driver's side as Tracy slid in and they took off at high speed, White squealing the siren in short bursts where he had to get past small clumps of traffic.
Til take you right to Thwaite.'
Tracy had thought about that all during the fifty-minute flight into La Guardia. 'If you don't mind, I'd like to make a stop first.'
'Sure. Where to?'
'Christopher Street,' Tracy said. 'I want to go to my father's
apartment.'
White kept his eyes studiously on the road. 'Right. No problem. I know where it is.' It was out before he realized it.
'You do?'
He turned his head for a moment and Tracy caught the sad look in his eyes. 'Yeah, well, I tried to get a handle on the case for Thwaite before the Feds crept in. I don't know why they were interested.'
'He worked for them.'
'Uh huh. Well, that makes sense. Guys who picked up the
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squeal found a lotta strange stuff in, I guess it was, his workroom. They couldn't seem to make heads or tails of
it.' 'He was the world's best at miniaturized explosives devices,'
fracy said.
'Christ, that a fact.' White nodded. 'No wonder the boys virere stumped. Out of their league.'
"He was out of everyone's league.'
'Like you said.' White made the turn for the Midtown funnel.
Tracy took a look at him. 'You find anything else out ... before the Feds came?'
'Only that it was someone good who did it. A professional for sure. There were no prints but even so, the - I'm sorry about this- the way it was done, with the piano wire and all, was slick all the way. The guy knew what he was doing.' White cleared his throat. 'No offence intended, Mr Richter, but you sure you wanta go up there? I mean the place hasn't been cleared up or anything and it's a mess. A lotta ... well, you know, blood and all. Your father put up quite a fight. There's ... I mean the bathroom's crusty with it.'
'It's all right, Patrolman. I've seen plenty of blood in my time.'
'I sure would feel a whole lot easier if you'd call me Ivory. Everyone else does' - he grinned 'even my wife.'
'Okay,' Tracy said, grateful for the man's ease at lightening the atmosphere. 'Ivory it is.'
'Great,' White said, putting on speed. 'Here we go.'
They went careening around a turn and up ahead Tracy could see the clogged steel grey skyline of Manhattan. It set his heart hammering.
When they arrived in front of the building, White killed the ignition. 'If you don't mind, I'd like to catch a bite of breakfast while you're upstairs.'
'I don't mind at all.' Tracy smiled. White was first-rate all nght. He knew Tracy wanted to be alone, chose the most gracious way of arranging it.
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I'll be rieht here when you come back down. Don't worry. IU be ng»^ , ed w a bar and ^
I'm only gomg down *e bl^re?^hite said, throwing a pair ^J^S?^*'-*"*********
: > , TI_:^_ .1 i
ot in
OI Keys av,i>j^
in.'
Tracy looked at him as he caught them and White shrugged
"Thwaite thought they might come in handy.'
Tracy went into the vestibule, using the first key to open the locked inner door. He noticed they had put ivory-white curtains up on the inside to cover the panes of wired glass.
The elevator creaked as it ascended. It smelled of damp feet and roses. He got off at his father's floor, stepped out into the corridor. For no good reason he could think of, he went not towards his father's apartment but rather in the opposite direction.
He stopped in front of the stairway door, then put out a flat palm, pushed it open. There was no lock; the painted-over brass knob did not even work. He took one step inside, peered around in the gloom. He did not know what he expected to find but he understood one fact: whoever murdered his father would not have been stupid enough to use the elevator all the way to this floor. Therefore, he had to have been approximately where Tracy was standing now.
He had been here and Tracy wanted to smell him, feel his presence, sink into his soul. He wanted to know him; know him so that he could destroy him. Because that was what this was all about now. It was very personal. And he recognized that it had been from the very beginning. From the moment he had picked up the telephone in the dead of night and heard Moira's voice in his ear, Oh, God.' He's dead! I really think he's dead!
Oh, Christ, how had it got so out of hand? How had he let it? He leaned against the dingy hallway wall, the lights of the corridor seeming far away indeed now. He was back in that stinking jungle ten million miles away from civilization. More. It was just a word. The kind one says all one's life and then pronounces one day only to find it has lost its meaning. Civ-1' li-za-tion. He mouthed it syllable by syllable as if that might help him to understand the concept again.
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But monsters did not live within the confines of the civilized world. They were enough chameleon to be able to fool those around them for a length of time. But how could they be expected to live within the confines of something they did not understand?
And this is what we have here, Tracy thought now. An elemental monster.
He went down the corridor, past closed doors, their mirrored peep-holes staring at him like accusatory eyes. How could you have allowed this to happen? They seemed to be saying to him. And he answered them, how could I have prevented it?
He fumbled with the key, opened the front door. He allowed it to swing all the way back before he stepped across the threshold. The barrenness of the place, caused by the absence of human life, struck him immediately and, for an instant, he wanted to turn around and get out of there.
But the feeling passed and he knew he could not do that. This had not been his father's house and he wanted to be here now, to feel its warmth as he had felt the chill in the stairwell.
He went slowly through the living room, noting as he did so, that nothing appeared out of place, nothing was missing, overturned or slit. No evidence of robbery, certainly. He went to his left, poked his head in the kitchen. He saw three or four cockroaches. There was a plate on the sideboard next to the oldfashioned sink. Two slices of rye bread lay overlapping the curving edge, opened as if to receive their filling. They were quite stale now.
Tracy threw them in the garbage, put the empty plate into the sink. Then he took the Black Flag from the cabinet beneath the sink and sprayed along all the baseboard edges and in the cabinet cracks.
He returned to the empty living room, went down the long tall. On the sideboard there, he saw that the lamp cord had been pulled out of the wall socket. He bent down, inserted the plug. 'he lamp burned mutely, offering mellow illumination.
Three steps forward and he came to the open doorway to the tathroom. He stopped on the sill, one hand on the doorframe.
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Ivory White's words rang in his ears: I mean the bathroom's crust
with it.
Yes, he had seen a lot of it in his time. But it had never bee his father's. He took a deep breath, went in. His nostrils flared The small room reeked with the thick, metallic stench of blood White had been right. The place was covered with it.
The water had been drained from the bath but the porcelain was rimmed with dark brownish-red sediment. The tiles coated with it, the walls against which the bathtub abutted, painted with it. The shower curtain was as stiff as wood with it.
Tracy knew precisely how much blood the human bodv contained and, seeing this, it seemed to him that his father had expended it all in his fight for life. Christ, Tracy thought, he hadn't wanted to die. He had wanted those six precious months but someone had made certain he would not get them.
Deep within the fetid jungles of Kampuchea Tracy had experienced great evil, had been witness to many things he did not wish to remember because he suspected that he could not live with himself if he did. But he felt now that this evil encompassed something more.
He blinked, his eyes burning. Dad, he cried silently, why did
it have to end for you here?
It was not an idle question. He knew it was one which he would have to find an answer for. He knew he would. He would find whoever did this and he would get his answers.
But for now he had had enough of this and he backed out, turning, retracing his steps back into the living room, going through it into the vestibule. And saw that it was filled.
Someone stood there, the elongated shadow rising up the vestibule's right-hand wall, thin and eerie. It was just a silhouette, the corridor light shimmering in around the outline, far brighter than the dimness of the apartment's vestibule. 'Tracy!' It was an indrawn gasp. 'Oh, my God! Tracy!' It was Lauren's voice, thin and anxious. Tracy began to say something but the words became a jumble, sticking in 'us mouth like a ball of cotton.
She took a step towards him and checked, rocking on her tee. 'What - ?' Her head moved in the darkness. 'It's so quiet.
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And tnen wlt-h a woman>s intuition, 'Where's Louis? What's ^opened to your father''
'He's dead,' Tracy said softly, hearing her answering cry, sensing her beginning to move, heading her off 'Don't go in there ' They were very close He could feel the heaving of her breasts
'Why not?> Her voice broke and he could feel her beginning to tremble 'For God's sake tell me what's happened1'
'He was murdered,' he heard himself saying 'I don't want you to go in there '
'You don't want me to go 7> Her face was turned up towards him but he could see no feature, only smell her slight scent, see pinpoint reflections along the curve of her corneas 'Dammt1' she struggled, pushing him aside 'He was my friend1' She was past him now 'He treated me -' He saw her rush through the living room, her head turning wildly this way and that 'I want to see '' Disappearing down the hall, her footsteps stopping at the open door to the bathroom as if by instinct Or perhaps she smelled that long last exhalation of blood
And now Tracy went after her, hearing the long wail of her scream, 'Ahhhhhhhh1' cutting through him like a surgeon's scalpel, paining his heart
He careened through the hall, stepping into the abattoir, found her collapsed and curled by the side of the lacquered bathtub, staring into it as if she saw the body still there, floating in the cooling sea of its own life force
He scooped her up, bringing her to the toilet in time for her to vomit there, the convulsive heaving of her abdomen coinciding with her sobs He held her close, his body pressed igainst her back, feeling her taut muscles contract in spasm
