Not a Creature Was Stirring(15)

Gregor thought it over. “That’s probably the son,” he said finally. “The son of the Robert Hannaford who came to see Father Tibor. Tibor said he, this Robert Hannaford, had seven children—”

“Then he’s not my Robert Hannaford,” George said. “They called this one an eligible bachelor. You know what that means. Not married and making whoopie with every girl he meets.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “But a robber baron?”

“A corporate raider,” George said helpfully.

“Ah,” Gregor said. “This is getting interesting. Seven children, one of them a—robber baron. One of them a famous novelist—”

“Bennis Hannaford,” George said, excited. “Father Tibor gave me her books. She’s very good, Krekor. Very exciting.”

“Does everybody around here read those things?” Gregor asked. It was remarkable what cultural climate could do. He had no interest whatsoever in fantasy fiction, or in fiction of any kind, but he was getting the urge to read Bennis Hannaford’s books. He took another sip from his cup. “Mr. Hannaford asked Father Tibor to get in touch with me. He wants me to go out to his house and have dinner there on Christmas Eve.”

“That was it? Just that you should have dinner there?”

“That was it for the request. He gave Father Tibor his card, and Father Tibor gave the card to me. I’m supposed to make a phone call. But Tibor said Hannaford insisted, and he stressed the ‘insisted,’ that there was nothing more to it but one dinner on the Main Line.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re famous,” George said, repeating the inaccuracy that was apparently believed by every resident of Cavanaugh Street. “Maybe he wants to impress his friends by bringing you out to dinner.”

“Maybe.”

George threw up his hands. “So what is it? It has to be something. What did he do, threaten Tibor with a gun?”

Gregor sat back, stretched out his legs, and told George all about the briefcase, the money, and the deal. His powers of narration seemed to have increased since he left the FBI. He’d never claimed quite that degree of attention from his listeners before.

By the time Gregor was finished, George was up on his feet and pacing—something, given arthritis and the general creakiness of old age, he never did. “But Gregor,” he said. “That’s crazy. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s even crazier than you think it is,” Gregor said.

“I don’t see how it could be. It’s crazy enough to start.”

Gregor held up his glass and let George take it from him. He wasn’t in need of another drink, but watching George pace that way, in such obvious pain, made him feel terrible.

“Listen,” he said. “If Robert Hannaford had been a self-made man, I might have looked at this thing and decided it was crazy but not impossible. But Robert Hannaford is not a self-made man. Do you see what I mean?”

“No,” George said.

“Self-made men sometimes think anything can be solved by money. Their whole lives have been motivated by money. A man I knew, a congressman, told me once it was true that anyone can get rich in America—as long as that was all he wanted to do. That’s the kind of commitment it takes, to be Carl Icahn, say. But the hereditary rich are different. They have money.”

“So?”

“So they learn early that there are a hundred better ways of getting what they want than shelling out cash. They have family connections—in Washington, in New York, in government and industry and the security services. If Hannaford wants me out at Engine House for Christmas Eve dinner, why not just call somebody who knows somebody at the Bureau? The Bureau knows where to find me. What’s more, anybody with any sense has to realize I owe those people.”

George nodded. “All right. So why?”

“My considered judgment?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Gossip,” Gregor said definitely. “Whatever’s going on with Robert Hannaford has to be sensitive enough so that he doesn’t want any gossip. Which means it’s probably actionable. You know what I’d do, if this had happened when I was still working?”

“Send Mr. J. Edgar Hoover after them?”

“J. Edgar,” Gregor said, “is blessedly dead. Blessedly for the rest of us, I mean. No, what I’d have done is go straight to the senator I thought I could trust most. And I do mean straight.”

George had settled himself in his chair again. The part of him moving now was his head. It was going back and forth like a door swinging on its hinge in a stiff wind. “Krekor, you’re talking as if this is about spies.”