The Secret History - Donna Tartt [71]
There was the sound of keys being punched in on a computer. I tapped my foot impatiently and glanced out the window for Henry’s car. Then I remembered, with a shock, that Henry didn’t have his car. I hadn’t taken it back to him after I borrowed it on Sunday and it was still parked behind the tennis courts where I’d left it.
In a panicky reflex, I nearly hung up—if Henry didn’t have his car I couldn’t hear him, he might be halfway up the walk that instant—but just then the operator came back on. “All set, Mr. Winter,” she said briskly. “Didn’t the agent who sold you the tickets tell you it wasn’t necessary to confirm on tickets purchased less than three days in advance?”
“No,” I said impatiently, and was about to hang up when I was struck by what she’d said. “Three days?” I repeated.
“Well, generally your reservations are confirmed at date of purchase, especially on non-refundable fares such as these. The agent should have informed you of this when you purchased the tickets on Tuesday.”
Date of purchase? Non-refundable? I stopped pacing. “Let me make sure I have the correct information,” I said.
“Certainly, Mr. Winter,” she said crisply. “TWA flight 401, departing Boston tomorrow from Logan Airport, gate 12, at 8:45 p.m., arriving Buenos Aires, Argentina, at 6:01 a.m. That’s with a stopover in Dallas. Four fares at seven hundred and ninety-five dollars one way, let’s see—” she punched in some more numbers on the computer—“that comes to a total of three thousand one hundred and eighty dollars plus tax, and you chose to pay for that with your American Express card, am I correct?”
My head began to swim. Buenos Aires? Four tickets? One way? Tomorrow?
“I hope you and your family have a pleasant flight on TWA, Mr. Winter,” said the operator cheerily, and hung up. I stood there, holding the receiver, until a dial tone came droning on the other end.
Suddenly something occurred to me. I put down the telephone and went back to the bedroom and threw open the door. The books on the book shelf were gone; the padlocked closet stood open, empty; the unfastened lock swung open from the hasp. For a moment I stood staring at it, at the raised Roman capitals that said YALE across the bottom, and then went back to the spare bedroom. The closets there were empty, too, nothing but coat hangers jingling on the metal rod. I turned quickly and almost stumbled over two tremendous pigskin suitcases, strapped in black leather, just inside the doorway. I picked one of them up, and the weight nearly toppled me.
My God, I thought, what are they doing? I went back to the hall, replaced the paper, and hurried out the front door with my book.
Once out of North Hampden I walked slowly, extremely puzzled, an undertow of anxiety tugging at my thoughts. I felt as if I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what. Did Bunny know anything about this? Somehow, I thought not, and somehow I thought it better not to ask him. Argentina. What was in Argentina? Grasslands, horses, cowboys of some sort who wore flat-crowned hats with pom-poms hanging from the brim. Borges, the writer. Butch Cassidy, they said, had gone into hiding there, along with Dr. Mengele and Martin Bormann and a score of less pleasant characters.
It seemed that I remembered Henry telling a story, one night at Francis’s house, about some South American country—maybe Argentina, I wasn’t sure. I tried to think. Something about a trip with his father, a business interest, an island off the coast … But Henry’s father traveled a good deal; besides, if there was a connection, what could it possibly be? Four tickets? One way? And if Julian knew about it—and he seemed to know everything about Henry, even more so than the rest—why had he been inquiring about everyone’s whereabouts only the day before?
My head ached. Emerging from the woods near Hampden, into an expanse of snow-covered meadow that sparkled in the light, I saw twin threads of smoke coming from the age-blacked chimneys at either end of Commons. Everything was cold and quiet