I started to wonder about the other players in the Four Horsemen game. Were there really four of them, or was that just the name of the game? Who were these players? How was the game actually played? Did all, or indeed any, of them act out their fantasies in real life?
My message to Conqueror was simple and straightforward and not too threatening, I hoped. I didn’t see how he could resist answering me.
DEAR MR. HIGHSMITH, I AM A HOMICIDE DETECTIVE IN WASHINGTON, D.C., LOOKING FOR INFORMATION ABOUT COLONEL GEOFFREY SHAFER PERTAINING TO THE FOUR HORSEMEN. I UNDERSTAND THAT SHAFER WORKED FOR YOU IN ASIA. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. I NEED YOUR HELP. PLEASE CONTACT DETECTIVE ALEX CROSS.
Chapter 82
I WAS SURPRISED when a message came right back. Oliver Highsmith—Conqueror—must have been on-line when my e-mail went through.
DETECTIVE CROSS. I AM WELL AWARE OF YOU, SINCE THE ONGOING MURDER TRIAL IS A RATHER BIG STORY IN ENGLAND, AND IN THE REST OF EUROPE, FOR THAT MATTER. I HAVE KNOWN G.S. FOR A DOZEN YEARS OR MORE. HE DID WORK UNDER ME, BRIEFLY. HE IS MORE AN ACQUAINTANCE THAN A CLOSE FRIEND, SO I HAVE NO EXPERTISE OR BIAS ABOUT HIS GUILT OR INNOCENCE. I HOPE IT’S THE LATTER, OF COURSE.
NOW, AS TO YOUR QUESTION ABOUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN. THE GAME—AND IT IS A FANTASY GAME, DETECTIVE—IS HIGHLY UNUSUAL IN THAT ALL OF THE PLAYERS ASSUME THE ROLE OF GAMEMASTER. THAT IS TO SAY, EACH OF US CONTROLS HIS OWN FATE, HIS OWN STORY. G.S.’S STORY IS EVEN MORE DARING AND UNUSUAL. HIS CHARACTER, THE RIDER ON THE PALE HORSE—DEATH—IS DEEPLY FLAWED. ONE MIGHT EVEN SAY EVIL. THE CHARACTER IS SOMEWHAT LIKE THE PERSON ON TRIAL IN WASHINGTON, OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME.
HOWEVER, I MUST MAKE A FEW IMPORTANT POINTS. THE APPEARANCE OF ANY MURDER FANTASIES IN OUR GAME ALWAYS OCCURRED DAYS AFTER REPORTS OF MURDERS IN THE NEWSPAPERS. BELIEVE ME, THIS WAS THOROUGHLY CHECKED BY US ONCE G.S. WAS ACCUSED. IT WAS EVEN BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF INSPECTOR JONES AT THE SECURITY SERVICE IN LONDON, SO I’M SURPRISED YOU WEREN’T INFORMED BEFORE NOW. THE SERVICE HAVE BEEN TO SEE ME ABOUT G.S. AND WERE COMPLETELY SATISFIED, I ASSUME, SINCE THEY HAVEN’T BEEN BACK.
ALSO, THE OTHER PLAYERS—WHO HAVE THEMSELVES BEEN CHECKED OUT BY SECURITY—ARE ALL REPRESENTED BY POSITIVE CHARACTERS IN THE GAME. AND AS I’VE SAID, AS POWERFULLY INVOLVING AS HORSEMEN IS, IT IS NEVERTHELESS ONLY A GAME. BY THE WAY, DID YOU KNOW THAT BY SOME SCHOLARLY ACCOUNTS THERE IS A FIFTH HORSEMAN? MIGHT THAT BE YOU, DR. CROSS?
FYI—THE CONTACT AT THE SERVICE IS MR. ANDREW JONES. I TRUST HE WILL VOUCH FOR THE VERACITY OF MY STATEMENTS. IF YOU WISH TO CONVERSE FURTHER, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. I AM 67 YEARS OF AGE, RETIRED FROM INTELLIGENCE (AS I LIKE TO PUT IT), AND A RATHER FAMOUS WINDBAG. I WISH YOU MUCH LUCK IN YOUR SEARCH FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE. I MISS THE CHASE MYSELF.
CONQUEROR
I read the message, then reread it. “Much luck in your search?” Was that as loaded a line as it sounded?
And was I now a player—the fifth Horseman?
Chapter 83
I WENT TO COURT EVERY DAY the following week, and like so many other people, I got hooked on the trial. Jules Halpern was the most impressive orator I had ever watched in a courtroom, but Catherine Fitzgibbon was effective as well. The verdict would depend on whom the jury believed more. It was all theater, a game. I remembered that as a kid I used to regularly watch a courtroom drama with Nana, called The Defenders. Every show began with a deep-voiced narrator’s saying something to the effect of, “The American justice system is far from perfect, but it is still the very best justice system in the world.”
That may be true, but as I sat in the courtroom in Washington, I couldn’t help thinking that the murder trial, the judge, the jury, the lawyers, and all the rules were just another elaborate game, and that Geoffrey Shafer was already planning his next foray, savoring every move that the prosecution made against him.
He was still in control of the game board. He was the gamemaster. He knew it, and so did I.
I watched Jules Halpern conduct smooth examinations that were designed to give the impression that his monstrous, psychopathic client was as innocent as a newborn baby. Actually, it was easy to drift off during the lengthy cross-examinations. I never really missed anything, though, since all the important points were repeated over and over, ad nauseam.
“Alex Cross…”
I heard my name mentioned and refocused my attention on Jules Halpern. He produced a blown-up photograph that had appeared in the Post on the day after the murder. The photo had been taken by another tenant at the Farragut and sold to the newspaper.
Halpern leaned in close to the witness on the stand, a man named Carmine Lopes, a night doorman at the apartment building where Patsy Hampton had been murdered.
“Mr. Lopes, I show you Defendant’s Exhibit J, a photograph of my client and Detective Alex Cross. It was taken in the tenthfloor hallway soon after the discovery of Detective Hampton’s body.”
The blowup was large enough for me to see most of the detail from where I was sitting in the fourth row. The photo had always been a shocker to me.
In it, Shafer looked as if he had just stepped out of the pages of GQ. In comparison, my clothes were tattered and dirty. I had just come off my crazy marathon run from the zoo, and I had been down in the garage with poor Patsy’s body. My fists were clenched tightly, and I seemed to be roaring out anger at Shafer. Pictures do lie. We know that. The photograph was highly inflammatory, and I felt it could instill prejudice in the minds of the jurors.
“Is this a fair representation of how the two men looked at ten-thirty that evening?” Halpern asked the doorman.
“Yes, sir. It’s very fair. That’s how I remember it.”
Jules Halpern nodded as if he were receiving vital information for the first time. “Would you now describe, in your own words, what Detective Cross looked like at that time?” he asked.
The doorman hesitated and seemed slightly confused by the question. I wasn’t. I knew where Halpern was going now.
“Was he dirty?” Halpern jumped in and asked the simplest possible question.
“Er, dirty… sure. He was a mess.”