The Shadow Man Read Free Page B

but cool. As he sat in a chair near Andrews’ desk, his eyes took in the veined marble clock on a bookshelf. It was ten fifteen; he was fifteen minutes late for his appointment. “My flight was one of those stacked up at Dulles,” he said by way of explanation.
    “I’d have waited around,” Andrews said casually, to put Larsen at ease. He sensed an uncharacteristic tension in his old friend. “Besides,” he added, “I knew it was important, or you wouldn’t have made the trip.”
    For an instant Larsen seemed vaguely embarrassed, as if suddenly doubting the propriety of his visit. “It’s about my series of talks with Martin Karpp,” he said hesitantly.
    “I assumed it would be. How’s the research going?”
    “Karpp has given me insights that are imperative for any sort of in-depth study of multiple personality. And he talks quite freely, referring to his other selves in the third person and taking our discussions seriously enough. Progress is being made.”
    “Can I get you a bourbon on the rocks?” Andrews asked.
    Larsen looked astounded. “Jesus, Jerry, it’s only a little past ten in the morning!”
    Andrews grinned. He’d known that Larsen was a teetotaler. But something had been needed to break the shell of “U.S. Senator” around Andrews that he found often kept even long-time friends like Dana Larsen from freely communicating.
    Larsen seemed a bit more at ease as he realized he’d been the victim of psychology—his game—and returned Andrews’ grin. He removed his dark-rimmed glasses and absently polished the lenses with a wrinkled handkerchief. “You’re in the right business, Jerry. It’s good that you never continued, trying to become an engineer.”
    “I didn’t really want to study engineering,” Andrews said. “It was that postgraduate instructor in trig, the one with the great figure. But don’t tell my political opponents. We’re not supposed to experience those urges.”
    Larsen said suddenly, “There’s something about Karpp—”
    Andrews raised a hand palm out, as if in casual self-defense against a thrown object. “Please, Dana, don’t tell me you’ve learned something new and important about the Hugh Drake assassination. A dozen witnesses in that shopping center crowd saw Karpp squeeze the trigger. And the crime’s been investigated and reported upon by everybody but the SPCA.”
    “Of course Karpp’s guilty.” Larsen seemed irritated now. “It isn’t that.” Parchment flesh beneath his left eye was drawn nerve-tight as if by thread and needle, causing Andrews’ own eyes to water. “I received a written message at my motel last week from Paul Liggett.” He paused and stared at Andrews.
    Andrews explored his mental file for a face to put with Liggett’s name, could come up with none.
    “Liggett is one of Karpp’s six personalities,” Larsen explained.
    Andrews remembered then from the relentless media coverage following Karpp’s arrest. He sat back in his swivel chair, hearing its faint squeak. Puzzlement always prompted caution in him. That was a prerequisite for political survival. “What sort of message?”
    “A warning, strongly suggesting that I leave the Carltonville area.”
    “Could Karpp somehow have sent it from the asylum?”
    “I’m told that’s impossible,” Larsen said. “I believe it. When Karpp so much as has a bowel movement, it’s X-rayed.”
    Larsen seemed so serious that for a moment Andrews thought he’d meant what he said.
    “The note was delivered to the motel desk,” Larsen went on. “No one seems to have seen who left it there.”
    “So it’s some local weirdo’s attempt at a joke,” Andrews suggested.
    “I don’t think so, Jerry. It disturbed me, because the day before, when I’d come back to my motel cabin after my interview with Karpp, I got the impression that someone had been there in my absence.”
    “Impression?”
    “A general feeling that things weren’t exactly as I’d left them. Ashtray a