Pleased by his elegant reasoning and by the calm with which he had thought his way through these dangerous shoals, Dr. MaceMaskil mixed a pitcher of martinis.
Sunday morning, after expertly managing his hangover by taking a massive dose of vitamin B complex chased with milk of magnesia, he felt queasy, not because of the previous evening’s indulgence, but because intuition insisted that he had made the wrong decision. No matter what the reason that Setsuko Nozawa wanted to contact Lucas, if she mentioned MaceMaskil, her version of their encounter would be the first that Lucas heard, and thereafter it would be more difficult to sell him a version more flattering to the professor.
After further managing his hangover with three raw eggs and a dash of Tabasco sauce blended in a glass of orange juice, Dr. MaceMaskil spent the morning and early afternoon crafting a story of his confrontation with Setsuko Nozawa that might have occurred in an alternate universe.
72
During the weekend, Mr. Nakama Otani had been able to conduct meaningful surveillance on only two of the three properties owned by the Drackman Family Trust of Chicago: a nine-story office building in the district known as the Triangle, catering to medical professionals—ophthalmologists, dermatologists, endodontists, and the like—and an eight-story upscale apartment building in Bingman Heights, with only eight through-floor units. The second had appeared more promising than the first, though at neither address did he glimpse even one of the five persons of interest or see any suspicious activity.
He took Monday as a vacation day, and by seven o’clock in the morning, he had the third property in his sights: one of the grand old houses lining the streets around Riverside Commons, a four-story Beaux Arts structure of limestone, featuring bronze windows and a flat roof with a balustrade as a parapet. Through the first half of the century, there would have been black-tie parties at this house, bejeweled women in the most stylish of gowns, horse-drawn carriages with candled lamps aglow and liveried drivers waiting, and later fine motorcars, limousines. Now perhaps the residents were thieves and thugs and mad bombers.
During the weekend, most of Mr. Otani’s surveillance had been conducted from a parked car, not a comfortable post in the heat of July. But because this house faced Riverside Commons, he was able to take up a most pleasant position there. He sat just inside the park, in the deep—and masking—shade of a mature and spreading chokeberry tree. On the bench beside him were a folded newspaper, a hardcover of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a thermos of iced tea, and a canvas tote that contained packages of snack crackers, two candy bars, and his Smith & Wesson .38 Chief’s Special in a holster. The tote also contained a pair of binoculars, which he would use only if absolutely necessary.
Sitting on a cushion he’d brought with him, dressed in athletic shoes without socks, Bermuda shorts, and a colorful Hawaiian shirt, Mr. Otani was the very picture of a man on his day off, settled in for a morning of nature and literature.
People passing on the paved path that wound through the park didn’t give him a second look until she came trotting along, tanned and glowing, taking her morning exercise in white short shorts and a yellow halter top, long-legged and healthy and jiggling precisely where she should. Mr. Otani didn’t forget many faces, and hers was especially memorable, even more than half a year after he had chatted her up in the nightclub on New Year’s Eve, before Tilton Kirk had joined her there. And of course he had seen her photograph from the City College demonstration. Aurora Delvane.
He saw her glance at him in the shade, and he might have picked up the book and ignored her if he hadn’t seen her do a double take and start to smile. The least suspicious thing that he could do was seize the initiative, so he called out to her, “Hey, hi there! Great day, huh? Remember me?”
She did remember him, in part because Mr. Otani could be quite charming but also because his physique was atypical for a Japanese American. At six foot two, weighing two hundred pounds, with hands as big as those of a pro basketball player, he couldn’t make himself inconspicuous even sitting down in chokeberry shadows.
He rose to his feet as she came to the bench, and she said, “New Year’s Eve. Did you ever find him?”
“No. The bitch stood me up. Pardon my French. He’s history.”