A Long Line of Dead Men

"It's not a specific club, like the Harvard Club or the Addison. Or a restaurant like 'Twenty-one.' It's a particular kind of club. Oh, let me explain."

The explanation was lengthy and thorough. Once he got started, he reported on that evening in 1961 in detail. He was a good storyteller; he let me see the private dining room, the four round tables (eight men each at three of them, six plus Champney at the fourth). And I could see and hear the old man, could feel the passion that animated him and caught hold of his audience.

I said I'd never heard of an organization anything like what he'd described.

"I guess you didn't hang out much with Mozart and Ben Franklin," he said, with a quick grin. "Or with the Essenes and the Babylonians. I was thinking about that the other night, trying to decide how much of it I believe. I've never really researched the subject beyond an occasional desultory hour in a library. And I never came across an organization anything like ours."

"And no one you've mentioned it to has been familiar with anything similar?"

He frowned. "I haven't mentioned it much," he said. "To tell you the truth, this is the first detailed conversation I've ever had on the subject with someone who wasn't a member himself. There are any number of people who know I get together with a group of fellows once a year for dinner and drinks, but I've never talked about the group's links to the past. Or the death-watch aspect of the whole thing." He looked at me. "I've never told my wife or my children. My best friend, we've been close for over twenty years, and he has no idea what the club is about. He thinks it's like a fraternity reunion."

"Did the old man tell everybody to keep it a secret?"

"Not in so many words. It's hardly a secret society, if that's what you mean. But I left Cunningham's that night with the distinct feeling that this thing I'd become a part of ought to be kept private. And that conviction deepened over the years, incidentally. It was understood early on that you could say anything in that room with the certain knowledge that it would not be repeated. I've told those fellows things I haven't mentioned to anyone else in the world. Not that I'm a man with a lot of secrets to tell or not to tell, but I would say I'm an essentially private person and I guess I withhold a good deal of myself from the people in my life. For Christ's sake, I'm fifty-seven years old. You must be close to that yourself, aren't you?"

"I'm fifty-five."

"Then you know what I'm talking about. Guys our age grew up knowing we were supposed to keep our innermost thoughts to ourselves. All the pop psychology in the world doesn't change that. But once a year I sit around a couple of tables with a bunch of men who are still virtual strangers to me, and more often than not I wind up opening up about something I hadn't planned on mentioning." He lowered his eyes, picked up the saltcellar, turned it in his hands. "I had an affair a few years back. Not a quick jump on a business trip, there have been a few of those over the years, but a real love affair. It went on for almost three years."

"And no one knew?"

"You see what I'm getting at, don't you? No, nobody ever knew. I didn't get caught and I never told anybody. If she confided in anyone, and I assume she must have, well, we didn't have friends in common so it's not material. The point is that I talked about that affair on the first Thursday in May. More than once, too." He set the saltcellar down forcefully. "I told her about the club. She thought it was morbid, she hated the whole idea of it. What she did like, though, was the fact that she was the only person I'd ever told. She liked that part a lot."

He fell silent, and I sipped my coffee and waited him out. At length he said, "I haven't seen her in five years. Well, hell, I haven't had a cigarette in twelve, and I damn well wanted one for a minute there, didn't I? Sometimes I don't think anybody ever gets over anything."

"Sometimes I think you're right."

"Matt, would it bother you if I had a brandy?"

"Why should it bother me?"

"Well, it's none of my business, but it's hard not to draw an inference. It was Irwin Meisner who recommended you. I've known Irwin for years. I knew him when he drank and I know how he stopped. When I asked him how he happened to know you he said something vague, and on the basis of that I wasn't surprised when you didn't order a drink. So- "

"It would bother me if I had a brandy," I told him. "It won't bother me if you have one."

"Then I think I will," he said, and caught the waiter's eye. After the man had taken the order and gone off to fill it, Hildebrand picked up the saltcellar again, put it down again, and drew a quick breath. "The club of thirty-one," he said. "I think somebody's trying to rush things."

"To rush things?"

"To kill the members. All of us. One by one."

3