20

In the penumbra of the smoky light filtering through dirty windows, Admiral Toothacher circled the room. His nose twitched of its own accord at the odors—staleness, mildew, stubbed-out cigars, synthetic carpet permeated with dust. He removed the impossibly tacky color photograph of the President from the wall and examined the cobwebs behind it. He ran his fingertips over the joints of the bricked-in chimney. He inspected the once wilting, now dead, plants on top of the safe, lifting them one at a time from their plastic flowerpots. He examined the safe. He tapped a knuckle against the grimy windows, noticed for the first time that there were double panes to prevent lasers from picking off voice vibrations and reproducing what was said in the room.

How could he have done it? he wondered. The paper trail led to dead ends. The people trail also. Which left electronics.

Somehow the author of the love letters had ticked to rods and hair triggers and wedges and Stufftingle and Ides of March, and last but by no stretch of the imagination least, Kabir.

Toothacher circled the conference table as if it were mined. Paper plates, plastic utensils, empty diet cola cans littered the table. On an impulse he swept them with the back of his arm into a large government-issue wastebasket lined with a blue plastic garbage sack. As an afterthought, he jerked off the felt tablecloth scarred with cigarette burns and tossed it into a corner. He watched the particles of dust float up from the felt in the half light and imagined for an instant that he was descending through a cloud of Wanamaker’s dandruff.

He warily circled Wanamaker’s desk, studying the stains on the glass top. He toyed with the black plastic levers of the squawk box. He slid open a desk drawer. It was filled with hundreds of paper clips bent into distorted shapes. He spun the swivel chair one complete revolution and listened to its squeak. He let his gaze drift to the only other object on the desk—the telephone.

His eyes, which on ordinary days bulged, slowly widened.

“The telephone,” he said out loud. A smile of intense satisfaction spread across his sunken cheeks. There was only one truth, and it was knowable—and he had discovered it.