The Sandler Inquiry Part 85

"Like what side he was really on. Like whom he was really controlling Sandler for. And why." Whiteside rubbed his chin in reflection, then hissed his final words with restrained anger.

"Your father headed a network" he declared, 'a d.a.m.ned good network. But whose was it? The Huns'? The Bolsheviks'? The Cowboys'?" Another uneasy pause, then,

"Take your pick, Mr. Daniels.

Because it had to be one of the three!"

Thomas stared at Whiteside for several seconds, weighing the question.

"How could I ever know any more than I know now?" he asked.

"Very simple" scoffed Whiteside.

"Ask the girl. Before she manages to kill you'"

Chapter 30 It was eight thirty in the morning. Jacobus, returning home from a night's work, was as concerned as he was tired. After all these years in the United States, after obtaining employment in the proper building, after carrying through years of planning without the slightest impediment, there were hints of trouble.

Corescaneu had been stopped by a city policeman, or what appeared to be a city police officer, and made to open his trunk. And then a night later another officer had been prowling around Rota Films on Varick Street.

Jacobus had been given a red light. Nothing new to do until an all-clear signal was given. He slid the key into the door of his home, the upstairs apartment of a two-story house. He slammed the door behind him as he entered. He cursed to himself in Russian, a language he hadn't spoken aloud since his entry into the United States.

Next thing he knew, he cursed, he'd be under surveillance.

He dropped his black metal lunch box in the front hallway and hung up his red-and-black-checked overcoat. He walked into the living room and froze.

He had a visitor, quite uninvited and equally unwelcome. The visitor sat in an armchair in a far corner to his extreme left, the only blind corner in the room. The only place where he wouldn't have seen someone immediately He cursed again to himself. He'd worried about that corner for years. Now every worry was confirmed. The visitor held a small snub-nosed pistol aloft, pointed right at the center of his chest.

"h.e.l.lo, Sergei. Please don't move."

He glared back.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked.

"I.

have no money. If you wish to rob me-" "Be quiet:' was the command.

"You're an Eastern European.

Hold still. You should like cla.s.sical music."

A gloved hand went to a radio by the armchair. The radio was turned on and the volume turned up. The music grew louder and, by chance, the cras.h.i.+ng end of an orchestral piece neared.

"Firebird Suite. How perfect. I'll bet you're a Stravinsky fan."

Jacobus could read the intruder's intentions. He'd been on the other side of such confrontations in his life. He knew how they worked. He knew also that loud music masks the sound of a pistol.

He wondered if Stravinsky had known that. He wondered if he could jump back and be out the door before the trigger could be pulled.

The sound of drums and cymbals arrived much too quickly. Jacobus whirled and leaped toward the hallway but at the same instant the pistol erupted.

The bullet caught the night custodian in the center of the chest, shattering his breastbone as the shot tumbled upward through the flesh and bone of his body.

The second shot, fired a quarter second after the first, crashed into a rib bone on the left side, traveling into his body straight thereafter and ripping into the right ventricle of the heart. All Jacobus felt was the sudden searing pain in the center of his chest, an intense stabbing sensation, and he understood that he was going to fall.

But the fall itself was experienced only by his body, not by the man who'd inhabited it. His huge frame tumbled against the wall and sprawled over a table and an umbrella stand before rolling onto the floor and landing on its side, one arm outstretched and the other pinned beneath the body.

Gradually the volume of the music was lowered until, as the suite ended seconds later, the radio was turned off. Jacobus, dead before he'd even hit the ground, was motionless, his eyes still open in terror.

The a.s.sa.s.sin carefully tucked the small pistol into an overcoat pocket.

The body on the floor was inspected gingerly and turned over with a deft toe. The intruder knelt down and delicately felt the wrist for a pulse beat. There was none.

The telephone rang at a few minutes past nine A.m. Thomas was sitting alone in his apartment, submerged in thought.

Whiteside's accusations the suggestions and implications unnerved him.

They challenged the very foundations of truth which Thomas had always accepted: his father's ident.i.ty. The unswerving, unrelenting patriotism of William Ward Daniels. How could a lifetime of jingoism possibly be questioned?

And yet . . . Thomas thought. And yet . . . ? The questions wouldn't go away.

Examined from another angle, studied in a different light, William Ward Daniels might have seemed a different man altogether.

And yet it was ridiculous, Thomas concluded. How could a fastidious and dedicated man like Whiteside be so far off Then again, was Whiteside Whiteside? Or was Leslie Leslie?

The bell of the telephone jingled a third time. Thomas answered it and recognized Leslie's voice immediately. It was a voice which he now greeted with both attraction and anxiety, strong feelings pulling in two directions.

"I'm glad you called," he said.

"I filed two motions in probate court for you yesterday. I also filed photocopies of your birth certificate and your parents' marriage license. It's the first step toward-" "Listen to me very carefully,"

she said.

"It's vital."

"You sound upset."

"Not upset. just concerned."

"What's wrong?"

"The people who are after me" she said.

"They may be very close' His mind drifted back to rural Pennsylvania. The man in the blue car. Grover. Neither of whom she'd face. He received her words with a certain skepticism that remained unspoken.

"Why so suddenly?" he asked.

"There are reasons' she said.

"I can explain. Believe me, Tom, I can explain any questions you have, but not now."

"Why are you calling?" he asked.