Act of Darkness(80)

He picked up the telephone, dialed a number he knew by heart, then dialed a little more when he got the series of beeps that told him he’d plugged into the computer. It occurred to him that he would not have been able to make this call if he wasn’t using a touch-tone phone, and that he had come in here without knowing that the phone would be touch-tone.

It was the kind of mistake he had never made before, and he didn’t like it. It was the kind of mistake losers made, and he had never been a loser.

Instead of ringing, the phone was beeping at him again. That was all right. He had expected that. He waited a little while, and then Carl Bettinger’s voice came on the line, sounding tired.

“Bettinger here,” he said.

“Dan Chester,” Dan said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Where are you?”

“I’m in my car,” Bettinger said. “That should be obvious.”

“This number only rings in your car?”

“No. It rings in my office. I’m sorry, Dan. I’m in my car. I’m on my way.”

“You got here yesterday faster than a case of crabs.”

“That was different.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dan said. “Different how? Do you know what’s happening here? Stephen’s dead.”

“I heard, Dan. I heard it on the police band.”

“Marvelous. What have you been doing since? Scratching your ass?”

“I had a few things to clear up. And the roads are bad. I said I was on my way.”

Chester found himself wanting to strangle the man. “I repeat,” he said, “yesterday you were here faster than a case of crabs.”

Dan had expected another apology. He didn’t get it—and, not getting it, he began to feel uneasy. He had brought Carl Bettinger in on this thing himself—or had he? All he remembered was that Stephen had started having those attacks and he had been frantic. He’d gone searching for someone to help him out, someone discreet, and he had asked a friend of his in the White House for a name. The name had been Carl Bettinger’s. But—

But, Dan Chester thought again, and then: Oh, shit.

On the other end of the line, Carl Bettinger cleared his throat. “Dan? Are you still there?”

“I’m still here,” Dan said.

“There’s some kind of parade going on here. The highway is clogged. And it’s getting dark. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Is Demarkian working out all right? Is he getting involved?”

“He’s running my life,” Dan said. “Never mind, Carl. Just get here. I think I’m going to go back to the fray.”

“I hope you’ve at least calmed down.”

“Right,” Dan said. “I’ve calmed down. You sound very calm yourself, Carl. I’m going to hang up now.”

“Dan—”

“Forget it.”

Dan Chester dropped the phone back into the hook and stood back to contemplate it, marveling. There were people out there who called him a modern Machiavelli, there really were. He had heard them, and he had been flattered. A modern Machiavelli was exactly what he had always wanted to be.

And here he was, in the middle of the worst mess of his life, just waking up to the fact that the man he’d thought was his private asset at the FBI had all along had him suckered.





THREE


[1]


WHEN CARL BETTINGER FINALLY showed up, Gregor Demarkian was talking to Patchen Rawls. Talking to Patchen Rawls was not easy. Listening to her, for any logical person, was worse. She seemed to be incapable of linear thought. Solid facts were scattered haphazardly through a dense mass of trivialities and cosmic philosophies, like raisins in a hot rice pudding. Pseudo-facts were brought out with a ceremonial solemnity that might have suited the election of a pope, and usually had to do with Universal Energy or the Metaprinciple of Destruction or the Great Consciousness. It took no time at all for Gregor to decide two things about Patchen Rawls, absolutely. In the first place, she was a profoundly stupid woman, so stupid it was useless to try to get past that stupidity to any kind of sense. She possessed no sense. She possessed no integrity, either. In these days, when it was fashionable among the people she lived with to be pantheist, environmentalist, and vaguely to the political left, Patchen was pantheist, environmentalist, and vaguely to the political left. In another time and place, when it might have been fashionable to believe in technological progress and the good intentions of Adolf Hitler, she would have been that. Gregor much preferred people like Victoria Harte and Clare Markey. He even preferred people like Dan Chester. They were all people who had analyzed their world and come to their own conclusions. As different as those conclusions might be from his own—or from each other—Gregor could at least understand the process. Patchen Rawls was the kind of person who made him think that somewhere, somehow, the Christian God must exist. She had to be held in existence by some outside force. There was nothing inside her to do it.