Conspiracy Theory(135)

“So he recruited Kathi Mittendorf and she did his scut work for him,” Gregor said. “Then what?”

“Well, then he put out his newsletter,” Henry said. “And that’s a very interesting artifact too. Most of these things take on everybody and everything. The World Bank. The United Nations. George W. Bush. And there’s some mention of that stuff in The Harridan Report, but not enough of it. Everything I could find, everything on the Web site, everything you gave me, ninety percent of it was targeted at Anthony Ross and his bank. Specifically, his bank. Not Morgan. Not Citigroup. Not Chase. Not banks in general.”

“What was the other ten percent targeted at?” Gregor asked.

Henry shrugged. “Everything and nothing. The usual mix, except that you were quite right. For at least a month before the murders, there are small but persistent mentions linking the Russian Orthodox Church and the other Orthodox Churches in the Soviet union   to the KGB and the ‘worldwide conspiracy for One World Government.’ Etc. Armenia and the Armenian Church are mentioned directly several times.”

“Wonderful,” Gregor said.

“Why the Armenian Church?” Jackman said, bewildered. “What did the Armenian Church have to do with Tony Ross? What does any of this have to do with Charlotte Ross?”

“There’s just one thing,” Henry Barden said. “If you’re right in your theories, and I’m right in mine, then he’s got to get rid of Kathi Mittendorf and he’s got to do it as quickly as possible. And he can’t do it himself. Not now. Not under the circumstances. So—”

“So what?” Jackman said.

“So we have to get to Kathi Mittendorf,” Gregor said. “But I told you that already.”





FOUR



1


Ryall Wyndham knew, as well as he knew anything—better than he knew how to enter a ballroom when he was sure to be the poorest person there, or how to ride a horse, or how to shoot a rifle in a way that would make sure to not have people laughing at him—that the one thing he could not do in the situation in which he was in was to let people see him sweat. Unfortunately, ever since Annie Ross had showed up at his apartment door, he had been doing nothing but sweating, and sweating was the thing that made him most like the Italian-peasant ancestors who lurked back there in his family tree. Hell, they did more than lurk. They dominated. You could forget the genealogical chart that hung on the wall next to his desk in the corner of the living room, the one the photographers so liked to catch when they produced pictures of him for the publicity shots that would appear in the papers on the day he was due to appear on Dateline or Larry King Live. Ryall was beginning to think he should not have allowed those photographers to see him in his apartment at all. By now, they all had to be as suspicious as hell. He would be if somebody claimed to come from one of the most important families in Philadelphia but lived in a dump like this, and a messy dump at that, without so much as a glance from a cleaning lady. The one thing he wanted, the one thing that really mattered to him, was that he not have to go back to being nothing but Philadelphia’s “most important” society gossip columnist. That was like being Akron’s “most important” cultural reporter. Forget Katharine Hepburn. Forget the Main Line. Society was worse than dead. It had metamorphosed into an octopus of excess, and what it cared about these days was not the venerableness of family lines or the purity of generational commitment to High Culture. What it cared about was money. Thirty years ago, he would have said this was impossible. Money was a New York thing. Now he knew that, when the really rich people in the country paid any attention at all to the Main Line, they did so in the way they paid attention to old movies. They found it quaint, and somewhat endearing. It was only those people— like Tony Ross—who meant something in the great world outside, who were powerful in the institutions that were centered in New York and Berlin and London, who “counted” outside the very rarefied small circle of Old Philadelphia Families who still talked only to each other. Ryall used to think they only talked to each other because they were too careful of their associations ever to let outsiders in. He now knew they talked only to each other because nobody of any importance was interested in talking to them.

It was a bad idea to start thinking of Tony Ross, or especially, Charlotte Deacon Ross. It made his face flush and his blood pound in his ears, as if he were the hero of a paperback thriller being chased through the city by the personification of Civic Malignity. He still hated them, though. He hated both of them. He hated Tony for thinking that he was nothing but a clown, a buffoon who need not be listened to courteously, never mind taken seriously. Not that Tony had ever been anything but courteous. Tony would have been courteous to Satan if he’d encountered him on a street corner. Tony was courteous to homeless women asking for spare change. Ryall thought it would be difficult to exaggerate the extent of that man’s condescension. That was what they were all like— condescending. They talked to him as if they were talking to a child.