After an hour it occurred to him that Sunday was an unpromising day for such a vigil. It could very well be that the only thing she’d go out for would be a newspaper—and she might have done that before he’d arrived. On the other hand, she might have gone out to brunch, in which case she’d be returning in an hour or two.
Three hours passed with leaden slowness, and he crossed off brunch. She was probably right where he’d expected her to be: inside her apartment. But by six o’clock he’d begun to doubt even that. After last night’s catastrophe, she might conceivably be anywhere—staying with a friend, gone home to mother. For all he knew, she might have taken a handful of sleeping pills and be lying there in a coma.
A phone call could settle all this, of course. But a phone call wasn’t in the bargain. He wanted the evidence of his eyes, not his ears.
He breathed a sigh of relief when her lights went on at 6:30. At least he now knew where she was. At 7:15 she moved past a window. Perhaps she was getting ready to go out. At 7:30 a lone man entered the building: a date? He didn’t pause to push a bell in the foyer, but that didn’t mean anything. As Greg knew, the foyer door was unlocked. A minute later the lights went on in the apartment above Carol’s: not a date, just another tenant.
At 8:30 he decided to give it another half an hour; the probability of her going out after nine seemed minute.
In the end, he left at 9:30. He stood on the sidewalk for a few moments looking up at her lights and thinking, All I’ve got to do is walk over and knock on the goddamn door.
But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
XXXVIII
AT 8:30 THE NEXT MORNING Greg slid into the same booth and laid another hundred on the table. The waitress—the same one from yesterday—said, “You a private eye or something?”
“Something,” he said, and ordered scrambled eggs and sausage.
He was about to take a sip from his third cup of coffee after breakfast when a cab pulled up in front of Carol’s building. A man in the back seat leaned forward to hand the driver some bills, then got out and closed the door behind him.
It was only for a tenth of a second that he was facing Greg, but it was enough. Groping for the saucer, Greg blindly replaced his cup and watched, fascinated, as Bruce Iles turned and entered Carol’s building.
Bruce Iles.
Visiting Carol Hartmann.
Of course there were half a dozen other people he might be visiting in that building. But the coincidence was too big to swallow.
Bruce Iles and Carol Hartmann.
And Ginny.
The pieces of the puzzle shifted and came together to form a pattern—a pattern almost too bizarre to be believed.
He looked out into the street again, but the cab was gone and Bruce Iles had disappeared into the interior of the building.
Bruce Iles, Carol Hartmann, and Ginny.
He looked again at the pattern and thought about what his paranoid friend Larry had said: I know it all sounds completely fantastic, I really do. But I saw it happen, just the way I see you sitting there.
Bruce had known he was planning to attend the design show.
Is that wise?
Sane and sensible?
Greg had told him that he’d met Ginny at the design show.
Carol Hartmann, Ginny’s double, had been at the design show. And was now entertaining Bruce Iles.
Ginny: stationed in Carol’s apartment, answering the telephone whenever it rang . . . until Greg called.
The party: all staged for Greg’s benefit, peopled with actors. The hostess nimbly separating him from Carol. Ginny waiting in a back room, ready to change into Carol’s clothes. Carol shipping away while a smoky-eyed brunette flattered him. Ginny unobtrusively taking Carol’s place while wave after wave of admirers kept him occupied.
Ginny looking up into his face, outraged.
Can’t you remember my name? It’s Carol.
All designed to get him ready for recommittal to the Glenhaven Oaks Sanatorium.
He could well imagine the next step in the plan. Bruce Iles would “hear a rumor.” A rumor about another Iles who’d behaved strangely at a party: very strangely, raving, hallucinating about someone named Ginny.
It would be child’s play to call in Greg’s promise to go back to the sanatorium “without making a fuss.” Back to the sanatorium, where there was a piece of paper in a file that would, Greg was sure, give Bruce and Ginny control over Richard Iles’ fortune.
Except that Ginny had said she wanted no part of that fortune.
For a moment the pattern blurred.
Then he got it back in focus. Ginny wanted no part of that fortune if it meant taking Richard Iles with it.
She’d been happy enough to have the use of it while Richard Iles had been a vegetable. It was only when he’d shown signs of recovery that she’d disavowed it.
And it was only then that she’d made herself and Bruce jointly responsible for committing him.
She knew she was going to need Bruce. If they were to succeed in separating Richard Iles from his millions they were going to need each other. And a Ginny look-alike.
I know it all sounds completely fantastic, I really do.
Greg shook his head. This was no delusion.
Not unless seeing Bruce Iles in front of that building was a delusion—and he was certain it wasn’t.
I saw it happen, just the way I see you sitting there.
Goddamn it, this was something he could prove. Right now. If Bruce was in Carol’s apartment, chances were that Ginny was too. All he had to do was go over there and confront them.
Yet he went on sitting through another minute, the muscles in his arms and shoulders jumping and twitching as if chilled by an arctic wind.
“Go,” he whispered. Gripping the sides of the table, he pulled himself out of the booth.
“Get you some more coffee?” his waitress asked, hurrying over.
“No. No, I’m leaving now.”
“Well, you have a good day then.”
Greg lurched through the door, staggered across the street, and, carrying his body like an awkward burden, mounted the stairs to Carol’s apartment.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. It opened after half a minute, and Carol peered up at him, shook her head, and started to close it. Greg blocked it open with a foot.
“I want to see Bruce,” he mumbled.
Her eyes widened. “Look, will you just go away? There’s no one called Bruce here.”
He put his shoulder to the door and pushed his way in. Looking around, he saw an array of living room furniture and a pair of drafting tables side by side with the usual litter of proofs and layout sheets.
There was no one there but Carol, gaping at him. “Where’s the bedroom?” he asked, then answered his own question by turning down a hallway to the left, throwing open doors as he went.
There was no one in the closets, no one in the bedroom, no one in the bathroom.
When he returned to the living room, Carol was punching out a number on the telephone. He took it away from her and hung it up.
“Where are they?” he demanded.
“Listen,” she said, her eyes blazing, “you are fucking crazy, you know? You need help!”
“Where are they?”
“Where are who, for Christ’s sake? There’s nobody here but me. You can see that.”
Speaking very slowly, through his teeth, he said, “Where are Bruce and Ginny?”
Her eyes grew very wide and her face went white. “Look. I don’t know who you’re talking about. Honest to God. I don’t know anybody named Bruce, anybody named Ginny.”
Before she could move, he took her by the shoulders.
“The people who arranged all this with you, Carol. The man who hired you to go to the design show. The woman you changed places with at the party.”
“Oh Jesus,” she whimpered.
“Where are they?”
“Please, Richard. Please don’t do th
is to me.”
He dug his fingers into her arms and started shaking her.
“Just tell me where they are.”
“They’re . . . they’re in the kitchen.”
When Greg looked up and relaxed his grip, Carol twisted away and broke for the door. He caught up with her in two long strides and wrapped an arm around her waist, half pulling her off her feet. He felt her take a deep breath to scream and clapped a hand across her mouth.
She bit him, hard, catching the knuckle of his index finger, and he slung her away.
Falling backwards, she twisted in the air. The side of her head slammed into the corner of a drafting table, and she crumpled into an untidy heap, one arm caught beneath her, her cheek against the floor, a look of slack astonishment in her staring eyes. Greg knelt down beside her, brushed the hair back from her face, and winced over the bloody dent in her temple. He groped for a pulse at her throat and wrist but his fingers were frozen, numb, and he found nothing.
He stood up, made his way to the telephone on wobbly legs, and called 911 to report an accident and ask for an ambulance. Then he sat down and put his head in his hands.
After a few minutes he went back to the phone and dialed the number of his uncle’s office. When he identified himself, the receptionist told him that Dr. Iles was with a patient.
“That’s all right,” Greg said. “Maybe you can help me. Do you know how long he’s been there?”
“Been here?”
“What time did he arrive this morning?”
“Oh. Just a few minutes before nine. His first patient was due at nine.”
“And he hasn’t been out? He’s been there ever since?”
A puzzled silence. “That’s right. Why do you ask?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, and hung up.
He waited until he heard the lugubrious hee-haw of the approaching ambulance, then he slipped out of the apartment, leaving the door open.
XXXIX
WHEN HE CALLED THE SANATORIUM, he was told that Dr. Jakes wasn’t in her office. He checked his watch and saw that it was just noon—one o’clock in that part of Kentucky.
“She’s probably still in the dining room,” he said. “Would you check, please? It’s an emergency.”
“One moment.”
It was nearly ten minutes before Agnes’s reassuring con-tralto came on the line.
“Agnes,” he said, “this is Richard Iles.”
“Ah, Richard. How are you?”
“Not well, Agnes. I need your help.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Richard. But you know I’m always available.”
“I need you here, Agnes. In Chicago.”
“In Chicago,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Why in Chicago, Richard? I can’t do anything for you there.”
“You can, though. I’m in deep, deep trouble.”
A half-minute’s pause. “Richard, I think you’re asking a bit much of me. You know where I work. You know that I have patients here. Much as I might want to, I can’t go running off to answer distress calls all over the country.”
“Agnes, please. I’m begging you.”
She sighed. “What exactly is the problem?”
“I . . . I’ve been hallucinating.”
“Richard dear, that isn’t something we can tackle in an overnight house call. Come back to Kentucky. Or, if you like, I can send someone to Chicago to pick you up. Alan perhaps.”
“You don’t understand. Someone’s been . . . hurt.”
“Hurt. Hurt by you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean physically hurt?”
“Yes. Badly, I’m afraid.”
“I see. Are you telling me that you’re in custody?”
“No, but I’m afraid that’s just a matter of time. A lot of people knew we’d . . . been together recently.”
“Oh, Richard, Richard . . . All right, I’ll come. I don’t know what flights there are, but I should be there by early evening. You’re at the address you sent at Christmas time?”
“Yes. Do you want me to meet you at the airport?”
“No, you stay right where you are. And Richard . . .”
“Yes?”
“Try not to brood. I’ll talk to our lawyer about this. I hope it’ll be his opinion that you’d be within your rights to return with me to Kentucky. I really think that would be best for you all round if we can manage it.”
“All right, Agnes. Thanks.”
“You understand . . . you’ll have to sign some papers.”
“Yes. Okay.”
“Try to take it easy till I get there. Get some rest.”
After hanging up, he poured himself a drink, took it into his bedroom, kicked off his shoes, and lay down on the bed. If he could, he knew he’d be very happy to pass the next few hours in sleep. He felt not the slightest temptation to brood over what had happened. He would cheerfully turn it all over to Agnes and let her brood over it. Cheerfully and mindlessly, relieved to be rid of the responsibility for his own life, his own actions.
His eyes closed and, shielded by a forearm, he took a sip of bourbon and, in memory, saw Bruce step out of the cab in front of Carol’s apartment. He’d glanced out over the roof of the cab for the briefest of moments, looking a bit haggard. Straining at the image, Greg imagined Bruce wasn’t as carefully groomed as usual, his morning shave a bit sketchy.
And at that moment, while the Bruce Iles of reality was with his second or third patient of the day, Greg had never felt saner in his life.
He took another swallow of bourbon, reminding himself that he wasn’t going to brood about it.
In a way, it was a pity. He’d had the whole conspiracy so neatly worked out. Even now it seemed like a masterpiece. A bit melodramatic, of course, but not as screwy as Larry Fielding’s drugged coffee. Not quite. The notion of the very upright-seeming villain substituting one woman for another had come from some movie or other. Was it Hitchcock? Yes. James Stewart, Kim Novak. Vertigo.
So, not entirely original, but a pretty good idea all the same.
And he’d told Carol in the first minute that, though crazy, he was perfectly harmless.
Emotionally exhausted, he was teetering on the edge of sleep when he was jerked back to wakefulness by the imagined sound of an ambulance siren approaching Carol’s apartment.
Eee-aww, eee-aww, eee-aww.
He lay there for a while listening to it, his drink resting on his stomach, his eyes open now, staring at the ceiling.
Smiling, he remembered the old saw: Even paranoids have enemies. Maybe the man Larry Fielding drove to the airport was a lunatic himself. Maybe he carried chloral hydrate to knock out his own delusional enemies . . . like Larry. Stranger things have happened. Greg hadn’t thought of it at the time; maybe the joke was on him after all.
Eee-aww, eee-aww, eee-aww. The old horselaugh.
That raised a good question: do the police of Nassau ride horses? He somehow didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure, since he’d never been there to see for himself. But suppose he’d gone to Nassau after all. Would the police be on horses or not?
Big to-do at the police station as Greg’s plane taxied to a halt at the airport.
White uniforms? Absolutely, Sah! Bahamian accent? You bet, Sah! Big grins? Big islahnd grins, Sah!
Horses? Ah. Not quite sure about that.
Your Bahamian accent slipped there.
Ah. Not quate shu-ah about that, Sah!
That is a lousy Bahamian accent. I can’t do a Bahamian accent, but I can sure as hell recognize one when I hear it, for Christ’s sake!
Sorry, Sah.
Maybe we’d better skip Nassau.
I really think it would be best, Sah.
Grinning, Greg sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and looked around. Idly, he switched on the lamp beside him, switched it off, shrugged: of course. Something as obvious as his electricity wouldn’t be neglected.
He looked around some more and went to a
closet, switched on a light and stood contemplating its contents. He slid a jacket from its hanger and held it for a moment as if judging its weight; then he turned it around and, grabbing the fabric on either side of the vent, ripped it up the back. He examined the open seam carefully and frowned.
Well, whaddya know. Real thread.
He dropped the jacket on the floor and looked around again. Still frowning, he slipped a tie from a rack: the paisley he’d bought on Saturday. He ran it through his hands, looking for a break in the pattern; at the center he paused and examined it more carefully; there was no break in the pattern. He threw it aside, took another one from the rack, and went through the same procedure. Then he went on to the next and the next and the next. All the ties in his closet were flawless.
Very cunning. He allowed himself a grin of triumph, then self-consciously wiped it away.
God may be watching.
He stood staring down sightlessly at the tangled pile of ties for a while. Then he left the bedroom and walked to the kitchen. He took a hammer from a drawer, sent his eyes around the walls, and picked a spot beside the light switch. He went over and smashed the hammer into the Sheetrock and started pulling chunks away with the claw. After a couple of minutes, he stopped and thought, This is going to take forever. What I need is a crowbar.
He stood for a moment as if trying to remember where the crowbar was. Then he went to the pantry and found it leaning against the wall beside the broom and dustpan.
The work went much more quickly with the crowbar, and he’d soon opened a hole about a foot and a half in diameter. It was big enough to see that there was nothing hidden behind the Sheetrock. Nothing at all.
He looked around for another place to try. There was only one area within easy reach that wasn’t tiled, around a plate of electrical switches, and he attacked that next.
Except for bare studs, there was nothing behind that wall either. Very cunning. But not cunning enough.