Winter Kills by Richard Condon Read Free Book Online

That’s it. But let’s stay with the big point. Whoever paid to kill your brother paid other people to smother all the evidence, no matterwhere it popped up or how fast it popped up.”
    “But that would take police cooperation.”
    “More than that. Beyond that. Whoever arranged it sure got the cooperation of the FBI and the Pickering Commission. If the same guy had been in charge when they murdered Julius Caesar, Shakespeare would have been short one play, I can tell you. Never have so many been clammed up by so few.”
    “It’s crazy. It’s like the whole government was dropping acid.”
    “It’s been crazy for fourteen years. You just started to notice it.”
    “I don’t see how everybody could let it happen.”
    “Well, you let it happen. And the American people got three marvelous days of television out of it. Outside of that they didn’t seem to be shook up. You try telling any one of them that there was a second rifle—just a second rifle, don’t confuse them—and see what happens.”
    Nick was dazed. He stood up and sat down and walked to the window, then went over to look down at Fletcher’s body.
    “It’s more droll than you know,” Keifetz said. “One of the White House Secret Service detail who was on the job in Philly that day announced that he wanted to testify before the Pickering Commission about the failure of the Secret Service to take proper precautions to protect the President. They indicted him. Yeah. On the wild charge of trying to sell government files. And the Pickering Commission announced they just didn’t have time for stuff like that. Get it? This guy was working on the President’s detail that day, fahcrissake.”
    “Where is he? We’ve got to find him and talk to him.”
    “He was number sixteen. He’s dead.”
    ***
    When the police and the photographer came in, Keifetz fell into Bahasa, and they went to work takingprints and mug shots of Fletcher. Keifetz freed the room for the resident and two nurses about twenty minutes later. It was a quarter to two in the morning when he drove Nick to the VIP guesthouse. Every insect in the surrounding jungle was alive and sounding. “Room eight,” Keifetz said at the main door. “Right down the hall.”
    “Thanks.”
    “What’s the next move?”
    “I have to think about it.”
    “Don’t think too much. It always slows you down.”
    “That is insubordinate.”
    “That’s what you have me around for.”
    “Just shut up, will you do that?”
    ***
    Nick, in white pajamas, lay across the bed in the guesthouse. He tried to think about Yvette Malone, but she wouldn’t come into his head. Tim had been dead for fourteen years. The whole world was satisfied (except maybe a few Frenchmen) that the man who had killed him, Willie Arnold, had paid the penalty. Siegfried had floated off down the river on a leaf at last. The past was out of sight. The thing now was to know what was wisdom. Was all this why history contained so little truth? Was the history of all time piled up in a refuse heap at the back of humanity’s barn, too ugly to be shown, while the faked artifacts that were passed around for national entertainments took charge in the front parlors? Could the seven hack lawyers of the Pickering Commission, with a new President for a client, decide that two hundred million people could not withstand the shock of history?
    He got up from the bed wearily. He carried his attaché case to the table in the room, opened it, took out a book of piano scores and a folding practice keyboard. He laid the keyboard across the table and pulled up a chair. He leaned on his feet, but the weight of his body rested on the chair so that his trunk couldmove freely. His arms assumed a slightly stretched position at a higher level than the keyboard to facilitate the velocity of octave and chord playing. However, he was careful not to assume a high forearm position, because that could make the functioning of the muscles so unreliable that