The Third Twin Part 49

Proust called at eight.

Jim had spent half the night at the Pentagon with a friend who was a general, questioning the data center personnel under the pretext of investigating a security breach. The general, a buddy from Jim's CIA days, knew only that Logan was trying to expose an undercover operation from the seventies and Jim wanted to prevent him.

Colonel Logan, who was still under arrest, would not say anything except "I want a lawyer." However, the results of Jeannie's sweep were on the computer terminal Steve had been using, so Jim had been able to find out what they had discovered. "I guess you must have ordered electrocardiograms on all the babies," Jim said.

Berrington had forgotten, but now it came back. "Yes, we did."

"Logan found them."

"All of them?"

"All eight."

It was the worst possible news. The electrocardiograms, like those of identical twins, were as similar as if they had been taken from one person on different days. Steve and his father, and presumably Jeannie, must now know that Steve was one of eight clones. "h.e.l.l," Berrington said. "We've kept this secret for twenty-three years, and now this d.a.m.n girl has found it out."

"I told you we should have made her vanish."

Jim was at his most offensive when under pressure. After a sleepless night Berrington had no patience. "If you say 'I told you so' I'll blow your G.o.dd.a.m.n head off, I swear to G.o.d."

"All right, all right!"

"Does Preston know?"

"Yes. He says we're finished, but he always says that."

"This time he could be right."

Jim's voice took on its parade-ground tone. "You may be ready to wimp out, Berry, but I'm not," he grated. "All we have to do is keep the lid on this until the press conference tomorrow. If we can manage that, the takeover will go through."

"But what happens after that?"

"After that we'll have a hundred and eighty million dollars, and that buys a lot of silence."

Berrington wanted to believe him. "You're such a smart-a.s.s, what do you think we should do next?"

"We have to find out how much they know. No one is sure whether Steven Logan had a copy of the list of names and addresses in his pocket when he got away. The woman lieutenant in the data center swears he did not, but her word isn't enough for me. Now, the addresses he has are twenty-two years old. But here's my question. With just the names, can Jeannie Ferrami track them down?"

"The answer is yes," Berrington said. "We're experts at that in the psychology department. We have to do it all the time, track down identical twins. If she got that list last night she could have found some of them by now."

"I was afraid of that. Is there any way we can check?"

"I guess I could call them and find out if they've heard from her."

"You'd have to be discreet."

"You aggravate me, Jim. Sometimes you act like you're the only guy in America with half a f.u.c.king brain. Of course I'll be discreet. I'll get back to you." He hung up with a bang.

The names of the clones and their phone numbers, written in a simple code, were in his Wizard. He took it out of his desk drawer and turned it on.

He had kept track of them over the years. He felt more paternal toward them than either Preston or Jim. In the early days he had written occasional letters from the Aventine Clinic, asking for information under the pretext of follow-up studies on the hormone treatment. Later, when that became implausible, he had employed a variety of subterfuges, such as pretending to be a real estate broker and calling to ask if the family was thinking of selling the house, or whether the parents were interested in buying a book that listed scholars.h.i.+ps available to the children of former military personnel. He had watched with ever-increasing dismay as most of them progressed from bright but disobedient children to fearless delinquent teenagers to brilliant, unstable adults. They were the unlucky by-products of a historic experiment. He had never regretted the experiment, but he felt guilty about the boys. He had cried when Per Ericson killed himself doing somersaults on a ski slope in Vail.

He looked at the list while he dreamed up a pretext for calling today. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Murray Claud's father. The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. Eventually Berrington figured this was the day he went to visit his son in jail.

He called George Da.s.sault next. This time he was luckier. The phone was answered by a familiar young voice. "Yeah, who's this?"

Berrington said: "This is Bell Telephone, sir, and we're checking up on fraudulent phone calls. Have you received any odd or unusual calls in the last twenty-four hours?"

"Nope, can't say I have. But I've been out of town since Friday, so I wasn't here to answer the phone anyway."

"Thank you for cooperating with our survey, sir. Good-bye."

Jeannie might have George's name, but she had not reached him. That was inconclusive.

Berrington tried Hank King in Boston next. "Yeah, who's this?"

It was astonis.h.i.+ng, Berrington reflected, that they all answered the phone in the same charmless way. There could not be a gene for phone manners. But twins research was full of such phenomena. "This is AT and T," Berrington said. "We're doing a survey of fraudulent phone use and we'd like to know whether you have received any strange or suspicious calls in the last twenty-four hours."

Hank's voice was slurred. "Jeez, I've been partying so hard I wouldn't remember." Berrington rolled up his eyes. It was Hank's birthday yesterday, of course. He was sure to be drunk or drugged or both. "No, wait a minute! There was something. I remember. It was the middle of the f.u.c.king night. She said she was with the Boston police."

"She?" That could have been Jeannie, Berrington thought with a premonition of bad news.

"Yeah, it was a woman."

"Did she give her name? That would enable us to check her bona fides."

"Sure she did, but I can't remember. Sarah or Carol or Margaret or-Susan, that was it, Detective Susan Farber."

That settled it. Susan Farber was the author of Identical Twins Reared Apart, Identical Twins Reared Apart, the only book on the subject. Jeannie had used the first name that came into her head. That meant she had the list of clones. Berrington was appalled. Grimly, he pressed on with his questions. "What did she say, sir?" the only book on the subject. Jeannie had used the first name that came into her head. That meant she had the list of clones. Berrington was appalled. Grimly, he pressed on with his questions. "What did she say, sir?"

"She asked my date and place of birth."

That would establish that she was talking to the right Henry King.

"I thought it was, like, a little weird," Hank went on. "Was it some kind of scam?"

Berrington invented something on the spur of the moment. "She was prospecting for leads for an insurance company.

It's illegal, but they do it. AT and T is sorry you were bothered, Mr. King, and we thank you for cooperating with our investigation."

"Sure."

Berrington hung up, feeling completely desolate. Jeannie had the names. It was only a matter of time before she tracked them all down.

Berrington was in the deepest trouble of his life.

54.

MISH D DELAWARE REFUSED POINT-BLANK TO DRIVE TO Philadelphia and interview Harvey Jones. "We did that yesterday, honey," she said when Jeannie finally got her on the phone at seven-thirty Philadelphia and interview Harvey Jones. "We did that yesterday, honey," she said when Jeannie finally got her on the phone at seven-thirty A.M A.M. 'Today's my granddaughter's first birthday. I have a life, you know?"

"But you know know I'm right!" Jeannie protested. "I was right about Wayne Stattner-he I'm right!" Jeannie protested. "I was right about Wayne Stattner-he was was a double for Steve." a double for Steve."

"Except for his hair. And he had an alibi."

"But what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to call the Philadelphia police and talk to someone on the s.e.x Crimes Unit there and ask them to go see him. I'll fax them the E-FIT picture. They'll check whether Harvey Jones resembles the picture and ask him if he can account for his movements last Sunday afternoon. If the answers are 'Yes' and 'No,' we got a suspect."

Jeannie banged the phone down in a fury. After all she had been through! After she had stayed up all night tracking down the clones!

She sure as h.e.l.l was not going to sit around waiting for the police to do something. She decided she would go to Philadelphia and check Harvey out. She would not accost him or even speak to him. But she could park outside his home and see if he came out. Failing that, she could speak to his neighbors and show them the picture of Steve that Charles had given her. One way or another she would establish that he was was Steve's double. Steve's double.

She got to Philadelphia around ten-thirty. In University City there were smartly dressed black families congregating outside the gospel churches and idle teenagers smoking on the stoops of the aging houses, but the students were still in bed, their presence betrayed only by rusty Toyotas and sagging Chevrolets with b.u.mper stickers hailing college sports teams and local radio stations.

Harvey Jones's building was a huge, ramshackle Victorian house divided into apartments. Jeannie found a parking slot across the street and watched the front door for a while.

At eleven o'clock she went in.

The building was hanging on grimly to the vestiges of respectability. A threadbare runner climbed the stairs wearily, and there were dusty plastic flowers in cheap vases on the window ledges. Neat paper notices, written in the cursive hand of an elderly woman, asked tenants to shut their doors quietly, put out their garbage in securely closed plastic sacks, and not let children play in the hallways.

He lives here, Jeannie thought, and her skin crawled. I wonder if he's here now.

Harvey's address was 5B, which had to be the top floor. She knocked on the first door on the ground floor. A bleary-eyed man with long hair and a tangled beard came to the door barefoot. She showed him the photo. He shook his head and slammed the door. She remembered the resident in Lisa's building who had said to her, "Where do you think you are, lady-Hicksville, USA? I don't even know what my neighbor looks looks like." like."

She clenched her teeth and walked up four flights to the top of the house. There was a card in a little metal frame attached to the door of 5B, saying simply "Jones." The door had no other features.

Jeannie stood outside, listening. All she could hear was the frightened beating of her heart. No sound came from inside. He probably was not there.

She rapped on the door of 5A. A moment later the door opened and an elderly white man came out. He was wearing a chalk-stripe suit that had once been das.h.i.+ng, and his hair was so ginger that it had to be dyed. He seemed friendly. "Hi," he said.

"Hi. Is your neighbor home?"

"No."

Jeannie was relieved and disappointed at the same time. She took out the photo of Steve that Charles had given her. "Does he look like this?"

The neighbor took the photo from her and squinted at it. "Yeah, that's him."

I was right! Vindicated again! My computer search engine works.

"Gorgeous, ain't he?"

The neighbor was gay, Jeannie guessed. An elegant old gay man. She smiled. "I think so too. Any idea where he might be this morning?"

"He goes away most Sundays. Leaves around ten, comes back after supper."

"Did he go away last Sunday?"

"Yes, young lady, I believe he did."

He's the right one, he has to be.

"Do you know where he goes?"

"No."

I do, though. He goes to Baltimore.

The man went on: "He doesn't talk much. In fact, he doesn't talk at all. You a detective?"

"No, although I feel like one."

"What's he done?"

Jeannie hesitated, then thought, Why not tell the truth? "I think he's a rapist," she said.

The man was not surprised. "I could believe that. He's peculiar. I've seen girls leave here sobbing. Twice, that's happened."

"I wish I could look inside." She might find something that would link him with the rape.

He gave her a sly look. "I have a key."

"You do?"

"The previous occupant gave it to me. We were friendly. I never returned it after he left. And this guy didn't change the locks when he moved in. Figures he's too big and strong to be robbed, I guess."

"Would you let me in?"

He hesitated. "I'm curious to look inside myself. But what if he comes back while we're in there? He's kind of large-I'd hate to have him mad at me."

The thought scared Jeannie, too, but her curiosity was even stronger. "I'll take the risk if you will," she said.

"Wait there. I'll be right back."

What would she find inside? A temple of sadism like Wayne Stattner's home? A gruesome slum full of half-finished takeaway meals and dirty laundry? The excessive neatness of an obsessional personality?

The neighbor reappeared. "I'm Maldwyn, by the way."

"I'm Jeannie."

"My real name is Bert, actually, but that's so unglamorous, don't you think? I've always called myself Maldwyn." He turned a key in the door of 5B and went in.

Jeannie followed.