that the Duster had four doors. Denning scurried into the front. Jill
and the servant helped
Mrs. Page into the back, throwing Pittman's gym bag and Jill's suitcase
onto the floor. Pittman pushed the passenger seat back into place,
hurried behind the steering wheel, slammed his door, started the car,
and sped away from the curb. In the opposite lane, ten cars were backed
up, headlights gleaming, drivers and passengers leaning out in
confusion. But Pittman's lane was completely empty, the Rolls and the
car that had hit it blocking traffic behind him.
"Stay down!" Pittman yelled to Jill and the others. "If those gunmen
are still in the area ... !"
He sped through a murky intersection, steered sharply to avoid a
pedestrian, shuddered, and turned on his headlights. In the sudden
glare, flat-faced brick town houses with cars parked along curbs were a
blur on either side of the Duster.
"We got lucky!" Denning blurted. "The crowd scared them away!"
"Maybe," Pittman said.
"What do you mean maybe?" Denning peered behind him. "I don't see any
headlights! No one's following us!"
"I agree with you. I think we got away," Pittman said. "At least for
now. What I meant was, I'm not sure they were scared by the crowd."
Denning shook his head in confusion.
"I have a hunch that if it suited their purposes," Pittman said, "they'd
have shot us right there in the street. In the dark and the panic,
who'd be able to identify them?"
"Then why didn't they?"
Tires protesting, Pittman swerved the Duster around a corner, speeding
south on Thirty-fourth Street. Slow down, he warned himself. You can't
let the police stop you. Sweating, he reduced speed and blended with
traffic. "You didn't answer my question," Denning complained.
"If you don't think they were frightened by the crowd, why didn't they
shoot us when we got out of the Rolls? What do you mean, it didn't suit
their purpose?"
"The idea wasn't just to kill us all," Pittman said. "You're right. I
am Matthew Pittman. The police want me for murdering Jonathan Millgate.
But I swear to you, I didn't do anything to him. If anything, I was
trying to help him." Pittman explained what had happened at the
Scarsdale estate. "I've been on the run ever since. What Millgate told
me is dangerous enough to all of them that they're desperate to kill me
before I figure out what it means."
Driving, Pittman stared nervously ahead, seeing the lights and traffic
of Pennsylvania Avenue. "To prevent me from finding out, they also
killed several people I went to for information. They made it look as
if I had killed those people. That's why the newspapers create the
impression I'm on a homicidal rampage. But I haven't killed anyone. No,
that's wrong. I have to be totally honest with you. God help me, I did
kill. I had to defend myself against a man in my apartment, against a
man who tried to shoot me on a street in Manhattan, and against a man
who threatened Jill in her apartment."
"That's my real name," Jill told Mrs. Page. "Those men think I know
something, too."
"But the rest of us," Mrs. Page said. "Why would they want to-?"
"Those men work for your father and presumably the other grand
counselors," Pittman said. He reached Pennsylvania Avenue and turned to
the right onto brightly lit M Street. Traffic was dense. "Your father
knows how much you hate him. He knows you want to destroy him. You're
a logical person for us to go to and ask for help."
Denning objected. "You weren't aware of her. If it hadn't been for me
"But Eustace Gable doesn't know that," Pittman said. "What he does know
is that I'm a former reporter. He might have been afraid that I'd use
my sources to about Mrs. Page and go to her-which is exactly what
happened tonight. My guess is, he had a man watching the house in case
we showed up. When we did, the man telephoned for help."
Ahead, Pittman saw the gleaming lights of Francis Scott Key Bridge and
steered left onto it, following traffic across the Potomac into
Virginia. "I'm supposed to be on a killing spree, some kind of vendetta
against the grand counselors. They'd have made it seem that I'd killed
you. Why would I have done it? Who knows? The authorities think I'm
insane, after all. Maybe, because I couldn't find Eustace Gable, I
vented my rage on his daughter. But Eustace Gable was worried about his
daughter. He sent men to see if she was safe. They caught me after I'd
killed her. Shots were exchanged. Jill and I didn't survive. End of
story. End of the threat to the grand counselors. And with no one to
prove otherwise, the police would have gone along with that explanation.
"
"The police," . Page said. "We have to go to the police. "
"You can," Pittman said. "I think they'll listen to you. With your
money and prestige, they'll do their best to protect you. But your
father will do everything in his power to discredit you, to make people
think you're insane. Which is more acceptable to the authorities, that
I'm a maniac or that your distinguished father was so determined to keep
a secret that he didn't care if his daughter was killed?"
"My distinguished father," Mrs. Page said with disgust.
"And there's always a risk that your father will arrange to have an
accident happen to you while you're in protective custody," Pittman
said. "Seven years ago, Jonathan Millgate arranged to have the Boston
police arrest me for suspicion of burglary while I was investigating
him. Two men working for him broke my jaw while I was in jail."
"That's why we haven't given ourselves up," Jill said. "If Matt
surrenders to the police and tries to tell his story, he doesn't think
he'll be safe. He won't be believed."
"The evidence is against me. My chances are a whole lot better if I
stay free and do what I can to prove I'm innocent.
"How?" Mrs. Page asked. "I've been thinking about that. But I can't
do it alone. Will you help?"
"Tell me what you need."
"I'm still figuring out all the details. But I know this much right
now. At your house, people saw the gun in my hand. They saw us put you
in our car. They'll almost certainly have seen our Vermont license
plates. What happened can be interpreted as a kidnapping. The police
will be looking for us, and they'll be counting on our Vermont license
plates to make it easy for them." Across the Potomac, opposite
Washington, Pittman drove along Fort Myer Drive in Rosslyn, Virginia. "I
need to find a nice big bar with a crowded parking lot."
"Yes," Denning said. "I could use a stiff drink."
"That's not exactly what I had in mind," Pittman said. "I want to steal
somebody's Virginia license plates. After they're on, we're going to a
pay phone. I want you to call your father, Mrs. Page. There are
several things I want you to say to him."
"But I don't have his private number. He refuses to give it to me."
"No problem. I've got the number," Pittman said.
"You do? How?"
"Someone I once i
nterviewed gave it to me."
The phone booth was outside a brightly lit convenience store. Pittman
parked with other cars in front, and as people went in and out of the
store, he remained in the buster, coaching Mrs. Page on what he wanted
her to say.
"Can you remember all that? Do you think you can do it?"
"I'm going to enjoy this," Mrs. Page answered y, the tautness of her
face emphasized by shadows in the car. It's exactly what I want to say
to him."
"I hope I'm not misleading you. You understand that this can put you in
danger."
"I'm already in danger. I need to protect myself. But I don't see why
we have to use a pay phone. Why can't we rent a hotel room and use its
phone? We'd be more comfortable. "
"If your father's as obsessed about security as I think he is, he'll
have equipment to trace the phone calls he receives. It's not that hard
to do anymore. Look at Caller ID. it can be done instantly," Pittman
said. "In that case, he'd send men to the hotel. Our room would be a
trap."
"Of course," Mrs. Page said. "I should have thought."
"But you thought of it," Denning told Pittman. Pittman rubbed his brow,
troubled. "The precaution just seemed obvious to me. " He was
beginning to realize that he had a talent for being on the run. His
head throbbed as he wondered what else he didn't know about himself.
Jill came back from the store, handing Pittman coins from a five-dollar
bill that she had changed. "We'll soon be out of cash."
"I know. Thanks for the coins." He pointed. "What's in the paper
bag?"
"Coffee and doughnuts for everybody."
"You'll never eat right again."
"I just hope I get the chance to try."
Pittman touched her hand, then turned to Mrs. Page. "So what do you
think? Are you ready? Good. Let's do it." He escorted Mrs. Page to
the phone booth, which was situated where they wouldn't be disturbed, a
distance from the store's entrance. He pulled out a sheet of paper with
the list of telephone numbers that he'd gotten from Brian Botulfson's
computer. After putting coins into the box, he pressed the buttons for
Eustace Gable's home and handed Mrs. Page the telephone.
She stood in the booth and glared through the glass wall before her as
if she was seeing her father. In a moment, she said, "Eustace Gable...
. Oh, in this case, I think he'll want to be disturbed. Tell him it's
his loving daughter. " Mrs. Page tapped her pointed fingernails
impatiently against the glass of the phone booth. "Well, hello, Father
dear. I knew you'd be concerned, so I thought I'd call to tell you that
in spite of the goons who came to my house, I'm safe." She laughed
bitterly. "What goons? The ones you hired to kill me, of course... .
Stop. Don't insult my intelligence. Do you actually expect me to
believe your denials? I know I've. disappointed you in a number of
ways, not the least of which is that I'm not perfect. But you can take
pride in this. You did not raise an idiot. I know what's happening,
Father, and I'm going to do everything in my power to guarantee that
you're stopped... . What am I talking about? Duncan Kline, Father....
What's the matter? All of a sudden,'you don't seem to have anything to
say. When I was young, you always interrupted everything I tried to
tell you. Now you're finally listening. My, my. Duncan Kline, Father.
Grollier Academy. The snow. You murdered Jonathan Millgate to keep it
-a secret. But I'm going to let your secret out. And damn you, I hope
you spend the rest of your life suffering. For what you did to Mother."
Mrs. Page set the telephone on its receptacle, stared at it, exhaled,
and turned to Pittman. "That was extremely satisfying.
"You'll have plenty of other chances. I want to put pressure on your
father, on all of them," Pittman said. "But right now, we need to get
back to the car and drive out of this area-in case your father did trace
the call."
Twenty seconds later, Pittman watched the lights of the convenience
store recede in his rearview mirror. "We'll drive for a couple of
miles, then use another pay phone.!"
"Right. Now it's my turn to make a call," Jill said. "To Winston
Sloane. I can't wait. It feels so good to be confronting them."
At last it was Pittman's turn. He stopped the car at a phone booth on
the edge of a shopping mall's deserted parking lot in Fairfax, Virginia.
Standing in the booth's light, he studied the list of phone numbers, put
coins in the box, and pressed numbers.
The phone on the other end rang only once before a man answered, his
deep voice somewhat strained. "Standish residence. "
"I need to speak to him."
The voice hesitated. "Who's calling, please?"
"Just put him on. I'm certain he's still awake, because I'm certain he
of them."
"How do you know that, sir?"
It wasn't the type of question that Pittman expected a servant to ask.
Just as the voice had hesitated a short while earlier, now Pittman
hesitated. His plan depended in part on the likelihood that the grand
counselors would feel pressured by the phone calls, that they would
contact one another and feel even more pressure when they learned that
each had been called in a similar manner but by different people. The
message to them was clear. You failed to keep your secret;
more and more people know what you did in the past and what you've done
to hide it. With luck, the grand counselors would overreact, make
mistakes, and ...
The deep, voice interrupted Pittman's thoughts. "Sir, are you still
there? I asked, how did you know that Mr. Standish received telephone
calls from Eustace Gable and Winston Sloane?"
"Because I want to talk to him about the same matter they wanted to talk
to him about," Pittman said.
"And what is that?" The voice sounded more strained.
"Look, I'm tired of this. Tell him Duncan Kline, Grollier Academy. Tell
him he can talk to me about it or he can talk to the police."
"I'm afraid I don't understand. Duncan Kline? Grollier Academy?"
In the background on the other end of the line, Pittman heard other
voices, the sound of people moving around. What the hell's going on?
Pittman thought. "Who am I speaking to?" the voice insisted. "I get
the feeling you're not a servant."
"Mr. Standish won't speak with you unless he knows who's calling. If I
could have your name .
In the background, Pittman heard a man call out, "Lieutenant. "You're
with the police," Pittman said.
"The police, sir? What makes you think that? All I need is your name
and I'll ask Mr. Standish if-"
"Damn it, what's happened?" 11 Nothing, sir. "
"Of course. That's why you're having a police convention at his house.
"
"Just a few guests."
"Stop the bullshit! I assume you're trying to trace this call.
't bother. I'm going to hang up if you don't answer my questions.
What's happened?"
"I'm afra
id there's been an accident," the voice on the phone said.
"Victor Standish is dead?" Jill leaned forward, startled, as
Pittman drove quickly from the pay phone in the shopping mall's deserted
parking lot.
"How?" Mrs. Page asked in astonishment.
"The policeman wouldn't say." Pittman merged with traffic on Old Lee
Highway. "I'm surprised he told me even that much. Obviously he hoped
to keep me on the line until he had the number I was calling from and
could send a cruiser there. Behind him, Pittman heard a
fast-approaching siren. He peered tensely toward his rearview mirror
and saw the flashing lights of a police car speeding through the glare
of traffic.
"Maybe I didn't hang up soon enough."
The cruiser switched lanes, taking advantage of a break in traffic,
increasing speed. Unexpectedly, it veered off the highway.
Pittman's cramped hands were sweaty, sticking the steering wheel. "I
think I've had enough adrenaline for one night."
"I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels exhausted Mrs. Page
said. "I could use a chance to lie down. "
"Isn't it wonderful," Denning exclaimed.
428 429
"What?"
"Three dead. Two to go," Denning said gleefully. "They're dropping