“You know,” I said. “Does Metargon come first with him? Would he be delighted to know you were holding his daughter at gunpoint?”
“If Alison paid attention to Metargon the way her father wants her to, this never would have happened. She brought all this on herself.”
I kept up a meaningless patter, hoping to distract the three men while I looked for escape routes. I glanced at the monitor on the worktable. The camera feed was still on, but I couldn’t see Judy Binder.
“What did you do with Martin’s mother?” I asked.
“The junkie?” Durdon said. “She’s a lost cause. Mr. Breen told me to grab her from the hospital; he figured even though she’s a meth head, the Binder kid wouldn’t want to see her hurt, but the bitch can hardly walk. We dumped her in the kitchen once we had Binder and Alison under control.”
“Is she still alive?” I was eyeing the ferromagnetic device Martin had been building. Could the loose wires dangling from the grid be used as a weapon?
“What difference does it make? Where did you put that drawing you stole from us? We busted open your safe and looked through all your papers. We searched your apartment this morning. What did you do with it?”
“It’s like Mick Jagger keeps on saying, Durdon: You can’t always get what you want.” I kept my voice light, but I was frightened, worried about Mr. Contreras. I didn’t ask if he’d tried to stop them. If I showed my fear, Durdon would add him to their list of potential hostages.
“The drawing?” Alison repeated numbly. “Are you saying—Vic—did you steal the BREENIAC sketch? I thought Tuesday was the first time you were in the workshop.”
“It was. But Deputy Davilats planted it in Julius Dzornen’s house on Wednesday morning after he murdered Julius. I found it in the coach house Wednesday afternoon. Your father blamed the theft on Julius so it would seem as though Julius had harbored a grudge against your grandfather all these years.”
“That isn’t true—it can’t be true!” Alison cried. “The sketch has been on the wall ever since I can remember. Anyone who visited us could see it. Mr. Dzornen must have stolen it himself.”
I shook my head. “No, sweetie, it didn’t happen like that. Edward liked to hang it over his desk, to gloat about how he’d pulled a fast one by stealing the design and claiming it for his own. Cordell inherited the sketch and the gloat. It was when Martin recognized Newton’s prisms and knew he’d seen them before that your dad became alarmed. He knew he had to get any other papers Martina left behind before Martin made them public. Cordell used his contacts in the Department of Defense to get Homeland Security involved.”
“We have a mission to safeguard our country’s nuclear secrets,” Curly growled. “Whatever crap you’re spouting is beside the point.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said wearily. “National security, blah blah. Do you know, do you care, that Cordell Breen made you an accessory to murder? He sent Durdon down to Palfry to work with a bent cop to steal the papers from Ricky Schlafly. Schlafly was not one of nature’s princes, but he didn’t deserve to have his eyes eaten out by crows.”
“He didn’t cooperate!” Durdon said. “And you won’t, either. You should have kept your Polish nose out of our business.”
“I should have had a keener Polish nose,” I said. “I should have recognized you right away when you picked up Mr. Contreras and me Tuesday night. That bruise on your face—that was when I whacked you with my gun in the parking lot down in Palfry. When you were breaking into my car to steal the documents Deputy Davilats told you I’d found.”
Alison’s legs gave way. She grabbed at the edge of the worktable but ended up on the floor. When Martin went to her side, Moe pointed a gun at him, but decided Martin wasn’t going to do anything rash.
“Yeah, it’s a nice story,” Durdon said. “It doesn’t matter what you say or think since you won’t have anyone to say it to before too long.”
I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The patent for the Metargon-I expired decades ago, so it’s not as though Metargon would lose their rights to the design, but the company could lose a lot of face. Knowing Edward stole the BREENIAC design would make people question products coming to market today. They’d look at things like the Metar-Genie and think it was flawed because Metargon didn’t really know how to design computers. The share price could sink, the Defense Department would start to look for someone else to design Princess Fitora.”
“You talk too much,” Durdon said. “Tell me where you put the BREENIAC drawing, or I’ll shoot the little girl.”
Meg screamed and lay on top of Lily, who started howling again at her mother’s terror.
“It’s in the University of Chicago Library,” I said quickly. “I put it in an envelope inside a book I returned there yesterday.”
Durdon looked at me suspiciously. How could he be certain I was telling the truth?
“What book?” he demanded.