Cheating at Solitaire(26)

There were sounds in the background, including something that was best identified as a roar. Tibor cleared his throat. “There is somebody to see you,” he said. “I can’t remember the name. He is a big man with an accent, also a bald head, nearly as big as you, and Donna has wrapped ribbons around his head.”





Chapter Two


1

Gregor Demarkian would have gone a long way to see Stewart Gordon with ribbons on his head. As it was, he had only to go back to Philadelphia proper, and the only problem with that was finding a cab. His first driver had been right. It was nearly impossible to get back once you’d let your ride go on. The cemetery was too far out to be an ordinary cruising area. If he’d been on the other side of the city, he could have gone into the Carmelite monastery and asked Sister Beata for her help, but she would only have told him to use his cell phone, and he would have been embarrassed to have forgotten about it.

He was embarrassed now, but there was nobody to catch him at it, so he just got the damned thing out of his pocket, flipped through the phone book Bennis had made up for him—very carefully removing Susan’s number, or putting it someplace he’d never think to look—and tried only two companies before one agreed to send out a car for him. Then he had to stand in the cold, watching as the very few people who came here on a weekday made their way to the graves that were familiar to them. The very few people were almost universally old women in the solid black of traditional village mourning. Gregor found himself wondering if there were really that many old women in America who had come over on the boat instead of being born on the spot. It seemed to him the timing was wrong. That was his parents’ generation, not his own. His parents were buried in this cemetery too, and his brother, who had not been bright enough for scholarships to Penn and student deferments from the draft. Sometimes he thought they’d gotten it all wrong. The best idea was not to have only one or two children and husband your resources so that you and they could have all the best in clothes and education. The best idea was to have as many children as possible so that you didn’t end up standing in the wind on a cold January afternoon, wondering how all your family had disappeared.

Of course, Bennis was still young enough to have children, and she was one of seven, which meant she had to be not completely alien to the concept of large families. Gregor tried to envision Bennis as a mother and couldn’t. Her children would all have papier mâché in their hair, and quote Tolkein at three.

The cab finally showed up. Gregor got in and gave the address of Holy Trinity Church because it was easier than the explanations he would have to give if he gave the address of any other building on the street. A couple of years ago somebody had blown the hell out of Holy Trinity, and the story had made the news as far away as Djakarta. Gregor had a suspicion that tourists had come to look at the rubble for a while, if only to give themselves a thrill about the dangers of terrorism. For whatever reason, the cabbies all knew how to get to Holy Trinity without having to have the route explained to them, and Gregor was grateful.

They had turned onto Cavanaugh Street from Gregor’s least favorite cross street when he realized that he should have anticipated the problem. Stewart Gordon was no longer some guy he had known when they’d both been in the armies of their respective countries, training in intelligence and complaining about it. Stewart Gordon was now a Star, especially to small boys, and the small boys of Cavanaugh Street were lined up on the steps of Donna Moradanyan Donahue’s town house in the hopes of getting a look at him.

Gregor got out of the cab and contemplated the clutch of preadolescent maleness barring his way to Donna’s door. Then he got out his cell phone again and called.

“Use the alley and go around the back,” Donna said. “You can use the kitchen door.”

Gregor did as he was told. The alleys on Cavanaugh Street were like no other alleys he had ever seen anywhere, and the alley between Donna’s house and the house next door was the most spectacular in the neighborhood. People cleaned them, and not just the people from the city, either. When Donna wasn’t pregnant, she got out there with a broom and a bucket and a mop and washed the alley down at least once a month, no matter the weather.

Bennis was waiting for him at the kitchen door when he got there, a big mug of coffee in her hand. “This is interesting,” she said. “He says he’ll go out and sign things for people as soon as he’s talked to you, but I don’t think they trust him.”

“They’ve got to trust me,” Stewart bellowed from down the hall in Donna’s living room. “I’m Commander Rees. Everybody trusts me.”