Shadow of a Broken Man by George C. Chesbro Page B

held the secret to the riddle of Victor Rafferty. I was beginning to see the dimensions, if not the exact shape, of the nightmare she was living.
    Foster was out on a job, but his wife gave me a number where he could be reached. I dialed and finally got through to him.
    "Frederickson here, Mike."
    "Right." He sounded anxious.
    "We should talk," I said. "Can we meet sometime today?"
    There was a short pause. His breathing was rapid and shallow, as if he'd been running. "I can't get out of here now. Later?"
    "How about dinner?"
    "All right," he replied after another pause. "I'll tell Elizabeth I have to entertain a client."
    "Can you stop home first?"
    "Probably. Why?"
    "You mentioned a safe containing some of Rafferty's personal effects. Can you get into it?"
    He thought about it. "I don't know, Frederickson. I can't go rummaging around without Elizabeth asking why."
    "I need something with Rafferty's fingerprints on it."
    "I'll do the best I can," he said. "Have you got a suspect?"
    "Just taking a wild shot. Do you know where Danny's is?"
    "West Seventy-second."
    "Is seven good?"
    "Seven it is."
    Next, I called Abu's office. His secretary told me he was out to lunch. "I want to leave a message," I said. "Tell him that Mongo called." I spelled it for her. "Right. Tell him I said to lay o ff our project. He'll know what I mean. Ask him to call me when he gets in, or whenever it's convenient." I gave her my number, thanked her, and hung up.
    My talk with Lippitt had left me a little shaky. I certainly didn't want to be responsible for anyone's getting hurt, so I thought it better to ease off on any inquiries until I'd had more of a chance to determine whether Lippitt had been telling the truth or was just trying to bluff me.
    Not wanting to miss Abu's call, I stayed in the apartment; I made myself some lunch and picked at it. The phone didn't ring. I tried reading a book and fell asleep; it was past five when I woke up. It wasn't likely that I'd slept through a ringing telephone, but I called Abu's office anyway. He hadn't returned from lunch. I sat by the phone for another forty-five minutes, then showered and tried to put the worry out of my mind as I went to meet Foster at Danny's.
    Foster was sitting in a back booth, under an autographed picture of Mel Torme. I sat down next to him under a photo of Jack Dempsey. Foster's light hair was unkempt, as if he'd been running his fingers through it. He pointed silently to a package wrapped in oilcloth on the table in front of him. I carefully unwrapped the cloth. He'd brought me a draftsman's tool kit. I used the tip of my table knife to lift up the cover; inside was an array of drafting tools. Most of the surfaces were thin and round, but there were just enough flat surfaces to make me think there might be latent prints there.
    "I imagine a lot of people have handled that box since Victor's death," Foster said, "but there may be some of his prints on the tools inside. Nobody would have had a reason to handle those."
    I thanked him and slipped the thin box into my jacket pocket.
    "Whose prints are you going to compare those with?" Foster asked.
    "I told you it was a wild shot," I said, evading the question. "In any case, I think it's a good idea to have some kind of fingerprint record on Rafferty. The police didn't have him long enough to print him."
    Over vodka martinis I brought Foster up to date. He absorbed it all in silence, occasionally stirring his drink. When I finished he grimaced and slowly, emphatically, shook his head.
    "This Lippitt character is lying."
    "Why do you say that?"
    "I knew Victor Rafferty as well as anybody. He wasn't any Russian agent. He couldn't have been a spy. Architecture was his whole life. My God, Victor just didn't have time to be a spy."
    "He did a lot of traveling, didn't he? His career would have given him a perfect cover."
    "I'm telling you he wasn't a spy," Foster said determinedly.
    "Actually, Lippitt never said Rafferty was a spy. He said