ON THE THIRD RING he heard Daniels pick up the phone, his private line.
“Yes?”
“This is Bruce.”
“Yes …” The inflection had shifted guardedly.
“The—ah—nose wheel. It could be a problem, getting it fixed by Sunday.”
“Then you’ll have to find us a charter.”
“All right. I’ll let you know.”
“Is that the reason you called?” It was a haughty question: the emperor, interrupted during his dinner hour. Unthinkable.
“There’s—ah—something else.”
“Something else?” Another change of inflection, this one plainly apprehensive. The emperor, faltering.
“I’m at the airport. I talked to Holloway. He’s the manager. He said that a private detective wants to talk to me. His name is Bernhardt.”
“Bernhardt?”
“Alan Bernhardt. And he—he comes from San Francisco.”
“San Francisco …”
“Right.”
“What’s he after?”
“It’s about …” Should he say it? Was the line secure? He was in a phone booth at the airport parking lot. But Daniels’s line could be—
“It’s all right.”
Always, Daniels knew what he was thinking, a mind reader.
“It’s about Carolyn.”
“Ah …” The single word was spoken very softly. The emperor, wounded. Flicked by a sword point, blood on the silken sleeve. The first wound of many.
“Does he want to talk to me?” Daniels asked.
“I don’t know. All Holloway said was that Bernhardt wanted to identify Carolyn—wanted to find out her name.”
“Her name …”
“Right. And Holloway told him that I’d probably know. So—”
A police car was turning into the parking lot, coming closer. Chief Farnsworth. Unmistakably, Joe Farnsworth behind the wheel.
“What is it?”
“It’s Farnsworth.”
“Looking for you?”
“I don’t know.”
“If he’s talked to Bernhardt …”
“I know.”
“Call me back—” A pause, for calculation. “Call me about ten-thirty.”
“What about Bernhardt, though?” As he spoke, he saw Farnsworth’s car stop at one of the parking lot’s intersections. “Holloway knows where I live. He told Bernhardt, gave Bernhardt the phone number on Sycamore. What if—?”
“I’ve got to go. Call me at ten-thirty.” The line went dead.
He hung up the telephone and stepped clear of the booth. His car was parked in the small licensed lot adjoining the airport’s main parking lot. It was a Buick Skylark, the same car he’d driven the night he killed Jeff Weston.
To get to the Buick, or to return to the terminal, he must cross Farnsworth’s line of sight. It was as if the policeman had taken up a position calculated to command two fields of fire, trapping him.
Meaning that he must walk down the aisle, pass Farnsworth’s car, nod pleasantly to the fat man behind the wheel, and cheerfully continue walking to his car.
Daniels’s car, really.