The Last President. Michael Kurland

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СКАЧАТЬ Kit said. It seemed to be contagious. He got off the couch and pulled a straight-back metal-and-plastic chair over to the window. He stared through the blinds at the deserted street while St. Yves retrieved a small battered suitcase from the far end of the couch. The suitcase was lined with thick foam plastic that acted as a shock packing for its contents. Resting on the foam was a complex-looking set of tubes and lenses which St. Yves began to expertly screw together. When he was finished with the optical erector set, he had produced a small tripod-mounted telescope with a 35-millimeter camera mounted at the eyepiece end. The camera was a single-lens reflex with a ground-glass top, so by looking down at the ground glass you could see whatever the scope saw.

      “You look like you’re preparing for a long watch,” Kit said, as St. Yves adjusted the scope and sighted it in on the doorway across the street.

      “I doubt if the son of a bitch is stupid enough to leave the information lying around,” St. Yves said. “We might have to be watching and listening to him for a while before we get through him to Mr. Rat.”

      “Schuster. Schuster,” Kit said again. “Skinny guy with a big nose? I met him once.”

      “That right?” St. Yves said calmly, peering into the ground glass.

      “I forgot till just now. He came up to my office to question me about the Watergate business.”

      “What’d you tell him?” St. Yves asked.

      Kit shook his head. “Not a damn thing. What could I tell him?”

      “That’s right,” St. Yves said, his head still down over the scope. “Some of the things he found out, you didn’t know.”

      Kit stared out at the empty street and saw his face reflected back at him in the window glass. Did St. Yves suspect him? Was this a double test to see if Kit would react in some way to the possibility that the name Christopher Young might be found on some slip of paper in Schuster’s desk drawer? St. Yves had clearly known that Schuster had met with Kit even before Kit had placed the name. He must have gone through the name register at the entrance to the Executive Office Building. When Schuster had asked for Kit, both names had been recorded. Had St. Yves invited Kit along to see if he suddenly remembered the name? Did that make him more suspicious—or less? Was St. Yves playing cat-and-mouse with him? Did that explain the lecture on loyalty? Or was this whole thing just making him paranoid? Wheels within wheels. Kit shook his head and decided to ignore the whole business. Schuster was the one with a problem, not him.

      * * * *

      Schuster turned off Massachusetts Avenue onto Belmont Road and began looking for a place to park. The French Embassy was on the next block. There would almost certainly be valet parking, but that meant tipping the valet and Schuster was constitutionally unable to pay someone else to park his car or pull out his chair at a restaurant. He believed in tipping for service, but not when the service was created merely to get the tip.

      He found a place almost directly across from the Embassy and parked and locked the car, then hurried across the street. Waving his invitation at the uniformed doorman, he allowed it and his coat to be taken from him as he was ushered into the building.

      Outside, the man called Curtis pulled his car up at a convenient fire hydrant where he could see both Schuster’s car and the French Embassy’s front door. He turned off the engine and lit a cigarette, prepared for long wait.

      Inside Schuster’s apartment Peterson finished screwing together the phone in the living room and picked up his walkie-talkie. “Blue Bear,” he said.

      “Right.”

      “Phone check,” he said.

      “Right.”

      Peterson put the walkie-talkie down and dialed a number on the phone. It rang five times. “Suicide Prevention Center?”

      “What took you so long?” Peterson said.

      “Excuse me?”

      “It rang five times.”

      “I’m sorry,” the voice said. It sounded like a young woman.

      “Talk to me,” Peterson said.

      “Of course,” the voice said. “Whatever I can do to help. What is your problem? Do you want to talk about it?”

      “I need someone to talk to me,” Peterson said, his voice flat, emotionless.

      “Yes, yes,” the woman said. “What shall we talk about?”

      “Whatever you like,” Peterson said.

      “Yes, well. Let’s talk about your problem,” the woman said. “Maybe I can help. We’re trained, you know, to help.”

      “My problem is, I need to talk to someone. On the phone.”

      “Yes, well, what about?” the woman asked. “Where are you calling from?”

      “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

      “Are you feeling depressed?” the woman asked.

      “No.”

      “You must be honest with me if you expect me to help you,” the woman said. “And I do want to help you, you must believe that.”

      The walkie-talkie made a churping sound, as of suppressed laughter. Then came St. Yves’ voice: “Phone check okay.”

      “I have to hang up now,” Peterson said into the phone.

      “Let me help you!” the woman said. “You mustn’t give up!”

      “Good-bye,” Peterson said in his flat voice. “Thank you for trying.” And he hung up the phone.

      Schuster walked through the Embassy mansion and out into the greenhouse. She was sitting there waiting for him. Her hands, folded demurely in her lap, were covered by long white gloves that made her arms look too slender to be real, too slender for the remembered strength of passion. The blue dress with its almost conservative neckline in this day of daring wives made her prim and proper and gave little hint of the exciting body it sheathed. She was in earnest conversation with the undersecretary of something or other when he came out, but her eyes caught his and did not let them go.

      He walked past the two of them, and stood with his back to her, admiring flowers he wasn’t sure were there, waiting for her to come.

      Then her hand was on his arm. “Ralph.”

      “Hello.”

      “Just ‘hello’? That’s not very friendly.”

      He turned to look down at her. “Hello, my love,” he said. “If I get more friendly I’ll screw you here in the greenhouse, and your husband will challenge me to a duel.”

      “Can’t you take me away and screw me somewhere else?” she said, her gray eyes staring intently up into his brown eyes, just the hint of a smile on her face.

      “Say the word,” he said.

      “My СКАЧАТЬ