Part 17 (1/2)

'Afternoon, sir,' Tucker said into the mouthpiece, 'I'm calling for a customer who wants the info for the meeting.' He listened for a moment, studying Charlie and Drummond meanwhile, as if per something the man on the other end was saying. Placing a hand over the mouthpiece, he said to Charlie, 'He needs the name of your calculus teacher at Clara Barton.' If Tucker thought the request was strange, he kept it to himself.

Huddling with Drummond, Charlie asked, 'What do you make of that?'

'A false subtraction cipher, maybe,' Drummond said.

'What is a false subtraction cipher?'

'I*It's on the tip of my tongue.'

'Hang on for just a bit, sir?' Tucker said into the phone.

Charlie asked Drummond, 'Could it just be a straight question?'

'Why would they do that?'

'If they suspect we're too addled to remember what false subtraction is. Also it's the sort of information that wouldn't have made it onto any database. But you might have told it to a friend.' Drummond had followed Charlie's progress in math like other fathers did their sons' accomplishments on the ball field.

'I'm sorry, Charles, I just *' With a hangdog look, Drummond sought refuge in the Racing Form Racing Form.

'Mrs. Feldman,' Charlie told Tucker.

Tucker repeated the name into the phone, listened, and relayed to Charlie, 'The meeting's at seven thirty at the Montezuma Restaurant on a hundred sixty-fourth.'

'Dad, Montezuma Restaurant?'

'A Mexican restaurant?'

If the clock above the refrigerated shelves was accurate, it was now 2:10 P.M. Charlie estimated they could make it to New York by 7:30*if he drove like Dale Earnhardt. Which would entail having a car. The Cavalry man had had no reason to think they were on foot, but surely he knew, as soon as his phone rang, where they were.

Charlie turned to Tucker, 'Can you ask if he means tonight, or*?'

Tucker was glaring at the receiver, as though that would chasten the man on the other end of the line for the abrupt hang-up.

Charlie huddled with Drummond. 'Could Montezuma Restaurant on one sixty-fourth' be code?'

'What isn't code, really?' Drummond said.

Charlie might have considered the question profound, but Drummond's eyes were bobbing along with the hot dogs on the roller grill.

Charlie reflected that he and Drummond had demonstrated proficiency with the Drummond Clark-to-Duck cipher. So maybe the Cavalry was rolling with it.

From a spinning rack stuffed with road maps, he plucked one that included Monroeville and its environs, then tried to apply the cipher to 164th Street.

There was no 1st Street in the area, no 6th either. No Route 4, no 4th Street, no 4th anything. There was a narrow Country Route 1 ten miles north of Monroeville. Also, a few miles up Country Route 1 was a tiny blue soldier icon, labeled MONUMENT. And by dropping certain letters from Montezuma Restaurant *

Charlie's thoughts went to an old track axiom: 'If you hear hoofbeats behind you, it's a horse.' He felt the horse's breath on the back of his neck.

But what about the time of the rendezvous? 7:30 would mean five and a half hours to kill. Or to be killed*7:00 helped, but not enough; 0 would mean midnight, by which time their bones might be licked clean by buzzards; 3:00 was doable.

If they had wheels. Drummond could surely hot-wire the old pickup parked outside. But absconding with it would entail either bringing Tucker along or incapacitating him so he couldn't call the cops.

'Charles, what do you say I treat you to lunch?' Drummond said, digging a sheaf of bills from his bowling pants.

'Is that the motel manager's money?' Charlie asked, delighted as much as anything by the measure of justice in recouping his $157.

'No, the fellow who also lent us his wrist.w.a.tch.'

They'd strapped Cadaret's watch to a stick and floated it down the first stream they came upon. When tying him up, Drummond must have 'borrowed' his wallet too.

Five hundred dollars bought four hot dogs, two big bottles of Gatorade, the road map, two pairs of dungarees, two coats, a pair of sneakers for Drummond, and the decrepit 1962 Chevrolet short bed Tucker probably would have happily parted with for just the price of a fifth hot dog.

The truck's engine coughed rheumatically on ignition and the tailpipe sprayed the yellow clapboards with black oil. But soon enough, Charlie and Drummond were on their way to the monument, at fifty miles an hour, and in excellent spirits.

'All things considered,' Charlie said, 'we really owe that Cadaret a nice note.'

25.

According to the map, the '62 Chevrolet short bed needed to rattle and gasp just one more mile to reach the monument. At the wheel, Charlie imagined the government vehicle that would meet them and bring them in from the cold. He had no idea whether the Cavalry would send a sleek government car or a helicopter or something clandestine*a VW Love Bus, for instance. Whatever they sent, even another rusted-out '62 Chevrolet short bed, he was sure he would luxuriate in the ride. the map, the '62 Chevrolet short bed needed to rattle and gasp just one more mile to reach the monument. At the wheel, Charlie imagined the government vehicle that would meet them and bring them in from the cold. He had no idea whether the Cavalry would send a sleek government car or a helicopter or something clandestine*a VW Love Bus, for instance. Whatever they sent, even another rusted-out '62 Chevrolet short bed, he was sure he would luxuriate in the ride.

Drummond was smothering his second hot dog with a fourth packet of ketchup.

'Trying to get more condiments into your diet, Dad?'

'An interesting piece of information is that four tablespoons of ketchup have the nutritional value of an entire tomato.'

That actually is sort of interesting, Charlie would have said. But just as the pickup was about to chug past the weed-colored Battle of Staunton Historic Monument sign, which was mostly hidden behind tall weeds on the roadside, he spotted it. He pumped the brake and jerked the steering wheel, heaving the truck onto a long, b.u.mpy dirt road that wound through thick woods. The tires kicked up so much dust, the truck appeared to be chased by a sandstorm.

'So much for stealth,' he said.

'Oh,' said Drummond, squeezing the last molecule of ketchup from the packet.

The driveway terminated at a ramshackle blacktop. Some two hundred parking spots ran along one side of a much longer field of overgrown gra.s.s that was golden in the afternoon light.

Drummond's nostrils flared. 'There's no one here,' he said.

Indeed, the only sign of life was a few ravens perched on a statue of a soldier on horseback, about fifty feet into the field. Charlie pulled into a s.p.a.ce close to the statue, at the center of the parking strip. 'We're still five minutes early,' he said.

'Five minutes? That's all?'

'What were you expecting?'

'An hour at the least.'

Charlie wasn't sure what to make of this. Drummond's internal clock had been off by decades lately. But his intuition couldn't be discounted. 'Would you ideally have allowed yourself time to conduct one of those countersurveillance things, or to work up an escape route, something like that?'

'Of course. When is the meeting?'

'Uh, five minutes from now.'

Drummond pushed open the pa.s.senger door. The hinges croaked, scaring off some of the ravens. He lowered himself to the asphalt and edged toward the field. His eyes jumped around, as if he were watching the battle that had taken place here.