The Dead Man's Brother Read Free

villages, stinking swamps and slippery, rocky places sometimes called hills. But there, though, the intelligence people had pulled me back and given me a job filling out forms and yanking folders solely because of my performance in the field. I would get them the information they desired, but I lost so much in the way of aircraft on my reconnaissance runs that I began getting the impression that they would rather have the copters and light planes back than my reports. So I was considered a poor choice when in the field, and I did nothing of any interest when not. I did not feel that the CIA would have any special desire for my skills in the intelligence area.
    What, then?
    I pondered this all the way to Kennedy Airport, where the car was left with the rental service, where no one noticed the dented fender and cracked taillight from a small accident on the way over.
    All along the line to the ticket counter, I pondered. Then I said the hell with it and told my escorts I wanted to go to the men’s room and wash up. They agreed, and on the way there I bought a small throwaway razor and a tube of shaving cream. When I was finished scraping my face I saw them watching to see that I did indeed dispose of the instrument.
    I offered to spring for coffee or a beer, since a heavier than usual mixture of fog and air pollution had delayed the scheduled departure. They decided that coffee sounded like a good idea but they paid for their own.
    I dislike crowded, busy places, and when a place’s busy crowds are laden with luggage, briefcases, parcels, cameras, bags, hat boxes, umbrellas and God knows what all, garbed for every clime, babbling, rushing, waiting, standing, sitting, harassed by children and looking lost, with half-comprehensible announcements crackling above their heads, with sonic booms and growling engines somewhere without—all enacted before backdrops of flashing numbers and symbols and words that most ignore, I seldom fail to think of Breughel. It disturbs me, too, as I am rather fond of the mad Dutchman.
    We finished our coffee, made our way to our gate and waited through another delay. Four sleepy sailors, a family group, perhaps a dozen students and a number of men with briefcases waited with us. I returned to pondering.
    I tuned and focused on the big question again, the one that had occupied most of my thinking while I was in custody. Why did Carl Bernini die in my gallery? He might have gone there to steal something. He was a trifle too far along in years to be learning a new profession. On the other hand, he might have learned that the place was my home and have wanted to see me in a hurry. That didn’t wash, though, as there are plenty of other ways of getting in touch with someone. Whatever, though, he had apparently picked the lock neatly, entered, looked about a bit, gotten knifed, died where he fell.
    I reviewed my knowledge of the man: Carl was, or had been, somewhere in his middle fifties; height, about five feet, eight inches; his weight varied within the hundred-fifties; he wore glasses when he read or worked on locks; he seldom indulged in other forms of criminal activity than art theft; he did not drink much other than an occasional glass of wine; he was a heavy smoker; he never spoke of any relatives, though he had had a pretty steady girlfriend named Maria Borsini when I had known him; he was wearing a dark, somewhat shabby suit when I found him. Simple, basic facts, representing nearly everything I knew concerning him. And none of it seemed of use to me now. I felt as if I were trying to seize a fistful of water.
    At about this point we were allowed to board. As we did so, I reflected that I had not thought to ask either of my escorts for identification. That way, I might at least have learned their names. I had no doubts as to their authenticity, but it is nice to know who, specifically, is spiriting you away.
    They gave me the window seat, the larger fellow depositing himself beside me, the