Prelude to Terror Read Free

phrase he had heard so often? “Preserving art for posterity...” Whose posterity? Theirs?
    Cut that out, he warned himself for the third time, or else you’ll lose any friendly persuasion you once possessed. And it did succeed, sometimes—just often enough to keep alive your belief in human generosity. But even that phrase sounds too sarcastic. Preserve me from becoming the middle-aged grouch with a permanent sneer and jaundiced eye, he thought as he cleared up the kitchen: without beliefs and enthusiasms, our daily bread would turn to a diet of ashes. Now, why didn’t I tell that to the Congressperson?
    * * *
    All clear in the kitchen. Desk in the living-room put in order, ready for some more immortal passages of impassioned prose in the morning. Nothing more to be done here, in this empty apartment. Or should he forget about duty, and skip the party? The exhibition had been his idea originally, but Martin Carfield had taken it over, and a cocktail party had been tacked on. Max Seldov, who usually supported Colin, had backed down and decided that a party was in the Dali tradition. Old Schofeld, of course, thought anything that pleased their clients was good for art, as well as for the Gallery.
    An empty apartment to match an empty life, he thought as he stood in the bedroom, peeling off his damp shirt, preparing for another shower, his eyes on Jennifer’s photograph. It stood on the chest of drawers, always there, always watching his moods with those teasing blue eyes and a smile just breaking on her lips. Her head was tilted slightly, as it used to be when she was listening to something preposterous, her smooth dark hair falling over her brow. In another moment, she would speak, saying something equally preposterous, and they’d both burst into laughter.
    He had chosen this particular photograph of Jennifer to keep beside him, and blot out the memory of a face almost unrecognisable, cruelly smashed by a bullet in the side of the head. A late September afternoon, a small quiet street in Washington. A boy speeding on roller-skates. Jennifer walking far ahead. The boy—fifteen perhaps, one of the two witnesses said, maybe sixteen; thin and tall, all arms and legs—steadying himself with his two skates drawn parallel as he drew near Jennifer. “All too quick,” the nearer of the witnesses had said. “Only saw dark blue clothes and the hair. I thought he was going to veer around her, scare her, they do that, you know. I didn’t even see a gun until I heard the blast.” One shot, and the skater was flying on his way, down to the corner where the busier street began. And was lost. And never found.
    Colin Grant touched the photograph. “You’re curing me,” he told it. He could now, objectively, almost coldly, let himself recall the witnesses’ accounts. The wound was healing, although the scar was permanent. Then he began dressing. He’d arrive at the Schofeld Gallery ahead of time, even if he walked the six blocks, choosing the shaded side of the street, from here to Madison Avenue. What else was there to do? Besides, Schofeld’s had air-conditioning.
    As he waited for the elevator, he suddenly remembered, looked back quickly at his front door. The paper bag was gone. Now, who the hell—? The service man had been off duty since noon; the front elevator was automatic; the tenants opposite were away for the summer; the people next door had jobs that kept them absent until six o’clock. Ronnie—surely not. Yet who else? She’s telling me something, he thought angrily. She’s wiping out all reminders of a temper tantrum, and let’s forget today: it didn’t happen. My God, did that woman never get the message?
    * * *
    In spite of weather and late-afternoon traffic, he covered the six blocks in six minutes flat. His anger had receded. But he was still unaware of the thin middle-aged man, waiting near his apartment house, who had been hard pressed in keeping up with Grant’s stride. The stranger watched him