light on for him. He drank a glass of milk, turned out the lights and
went to the bedroom. She was asleep. She made a soft whistling sound with each
inhalation. He undressed without awakening her and got into his bed. Farm dogs
were barking on faraway hills. A diesel hooted in the valley. He turned on his
side. The nervous sweat of his encounter with the police had given his body an
acid smell. Take a shower in the morning. Take the car in and leave it at the
garage. Ask Bess when the brown dacron was due back
from the cleaners. Buy blades. And get a dozen Medalists in town. They don’t
carry them at the pro shop. Got to work on that slice. Lucky break hitting that
tree on the eighth and bounding back onto the fairway. That’s a funny sound she
makes when it’s right for her. Sort of a whimper. He rolled onto the other
side. If she’d stop that damn whistling, it would be easier to get to sleep.
Chapter Four
When the porter pushed the button
that sounded the buzzer inside Roomette 8 of Car 801 on the advance section of
the Commodore Vanderbilt, eastbound, at ten minutes of eight on a Thursday
morning in June, forty minutes outside of Stockton, New York, the occupant of
the roomette, Thomas Marin Griffin, awoke immediately and was immediately aware
of his precise location in time and space. He answered the porter at once,
pinched the shade latch, and slid it up. The fields were June-green, gently
rolling, sprawling ripe in the morning sun.
Griffin slid the mirrored door open, backed against the zippered curtain,
and slid the bed up so that it banged and latched itself into the wall. He
moved with a deliberate precision that gave him a look of slowness, yet he
accomplished all routine tasks with an astonishing quickness because there was
no waste, no blundering, no pauses.
Trains and the roomettes on trains pleased him. It was stainless,
functional design. The train rode on straight rails. You knew where the rails
went. Air travel did not please him. There was a formlessness about it. In the
air you were given no privacy, no steel place in which to work. At forty
Griffin could have been a youthful fifty, or a tired thirty. He was of middle
height, and weighed within five pounds of what he had weighed at twenty. His
hair was very black, and though it was a heavy growth that gave his forehead a
narrow look, there was a lusterlessness about it that
made it seem wiglike , unreal. His skin was very
white, with a look of transparency. His eyes were a pale gray-blue, meaningless
as marbles. There was a look of Irish about him, a suggestion of the black
Irish in the jut of blue-shadowed chin. And a look of remoteness and
dedication. There was something priestlike about him.
Only the most unimaginative were ever at ease with him. He seemed always to be
watching and condemning. He wore dark clothing, subdued neckties. He should
have been invisible in any crowd, and yet he never was. He was always noticed.
And many people speculated about him. And they were nearly always wrong.
After he had shaved and dressed and closed his suitcase and unzipped the
green curtain, the train was ten minutes out of Stockton. He sat with his
briefcase on his lap, opened it, and took out a Manila folder. He looked at the
balance sheet of the Stockton Knitting Company. SK stock was not listed. It was
not offered for sale. With Delevan ownership of the stock, the firm was under
no obligation to make their financial affairs a matter of public record.
Griffin had gone to considerable effort to construct this balance sheet, and
the accompanying profit and loss statement. He knew they were inaccurate. And
he knew the inaccuracies were most probably minor.
When he felt the train begin to slow down, he closed the briefcase. The
conductor hurried down the aisle announcing the stop at Stockton. Thomas Marin
Griffin put on his hat and waited a few minutes, then walked down the car after
the porter had taken his suitcase forward. He stepped down onto
went to the bedroom. She was asleep. She made a soft whistling sound with each
inhalation. He undressed without awakening her and got into his bed. Farm dogs
were barking on faraway hills. A diesel hooted in the valley. He turned on his
side. The nervous sweat of his encounter with the police had given his body an
acid smell. Take a shower in the morning. Take the car in and leave it at the
garage. Ask Bess when the brown dacron was due back
from the cleaners. Buy blades. And get a dozen Medalists in town. They don’t
carry them at the pro shop. Got to work on that slice. Lucky break hitting that
tree on the eighth and bounding back onto the fairway. That’s a funny sound she
makes when it’s right for her. Sort of a whimper. He rolled onto the other
side. If she’d stop that damn whistling, it would be easier to get to sleep.
Chapter Four
When the porter pushed the button
that sounded the buzzer inside Roomette 8 of Car 801 on the advance section of
the Commodore Vanderbilt, eastbound, at ten minutes of eight on a Thursday
morning in June, forty minutes outside of Stockton, New York, the occupant of
the roomette, Thomas Marin Griffin, awoke immediately and was immediately aware
of his precise location in time and space. He answered the porter at once,
pinched the shade latch, and slid it up. The fields were June-green, gently
rolling, sprawling ripe in the morning sun.
Griffin slid the mirrored door open, backed against the zippered curtain,
and slid the bed up so that it banged and latched itself into the wall. He
moved with a deliberate precision that gave him a look of slowness, yet he
accomplished all routine tasks with an astonishing quickness because there was
no waste, no blundering, no pauses.
Trains and the roomettes on trains pleased him. It was stainless,
functional design. The train rode on straight rails. You knew where the rails
went. Air travel did not please him. There was a formlessness about it. In the
air you were given no privacy, no steel place in which to work. At forty
Griffin could have been a youthful fifty, or a tired thirty. He was of middle
height, and weighed within five pounds of what he had weighed at twenty. His
hair was very black, and though it was a heavy growth that gave his forehead a
narrow look, there was a lusterlessness about it that
made it seem wiglike , unreal. His skin was very
white, with a look of transparency. His eyes were a pale gray-blue, meaningless
as marbles. There was a look of Irish about him, a suggestion of the black
Irish in the jut of blue-shadowed chin. And a look of remoteness and
dedication. There was something priestlike about him.
Only the most unimaginative were ever at ease with him. He seemed always to be
watching and condemning. He wore dark clothing, subdued neckties. He should
have been invisible in any crowd, and yet he never was. He was always noticed.
And many people speculated about him. And they were nearly always wrong.
After he had shaved and dressed and closed his suitcase and unzipped the
green curtain, the train was ten minutes out of Stockton. He sat with his
briefcase on his lap, opened it, and took out a Manila folder. He looked at the
balance sheet of the Stockton Knitting Company. SK stock was not listed. It was
not offered for sale. With Delevan ownership of the stock, the firm was under
no obligation to make their financial affairs a matter of public record.
Griffin had gone to considerable effort to construct this balance sheet, and
the accompanying profit and loss statement. He knew they were inaccurate. And
he knew the inaccuracies were most probably minor.
When he felt the train begin to slow down, he closed the briefcase. The
conductor hurried down the aisle announcing the stop at Stockton. Thomas Marin
Griffin put on his hat and waited a few minutes, then walked down the car after
the porter had taken his suitcase forward. He stepped down onto
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