The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,216

looked uncomfortable. Janson pushed his empty coffee cup forward to be refilled, and the man pointedly did not do so. "Then you'd better ask him about it, hadn't you?" the man said, and his gaze returned to the vision of unattainable paradise across the street.

"Seems to me," Janson said, tucking a few bills beneath his saucer, "that you and your son both have an eye for the bottom line."

The town grocery store was just down the street. Janson stopped in and introduced himself to the manager, a bland-looking man with light brown hair in a modified mullet. Janson told him what he had told the man at the diner. The store manager evidently found the prospect of a new arrival lucrative enough that he was downright encouraging.

"That is a great idea, man," he said. "These hills - I mean, it's really beautiful here. And you get a few miles up the mountain and look around and it's totally unspoiled. Plus you got your hunting and your fishing and your ... " He trailed off, seemingly unable to think of a third suitable item. He wasn't sure this man would be a regular at the bowling alley or take much interest in the video arcade recently installed next to the check-cashing joint. Safe bet they had those things in the cities, too.

"And for everyday stuff?" Janson prodded.

"We got a video store," he volunteered. "Laundromat. This store right here. I can do special orders, if you need 'em. Do that once in a while for regular customers."

"Have you, now?"

"Oh yeah. We got all kinds around here. There's one cat - we've never seen him, but he sends a guy down here every few days to pick up groceries. Superrich - gotta be. Owns a place somewhere up in the mountains, some kind of Lex Luthor hideaway, I like to think. People see a little plane touching down near there most every afternoon. But he still uses us for groceries. Ain't that a way to live? Get somebody else to do your shopping!"

"And you do special orders for this guy?"

"Oh for sure," the man said. "It's all real, real secure. Maybe he's Howard Hughes, afraid somebody going to poison him." He chuckled at the thought. "Whatever he wants, it's not a problem. I order it and a Sysco truck comes by and delivers it, and he has a guy come get it, he don't care what it costs."

"That right?"

"You bet. So, like I say, I'm happy to special-order whatever you like. And Mike Nugent at the video store, he'll do the same for you. It's not a problem. You're going to have a great time here. No place like it. Some of the kids can get a little rowdy. But basically it's as friendly as all get-out. You're gonna have a great time here once you settle in. My bet? You're never gonna leave."

A gray-haired woman at the refrigerated section was calling to him. "Keith? Keith, dear?"

The man excused himself, and went over to her.

"Is this sole fresh or frozen?" she was asking.

"It's fresh frozen," Keith explained.

As the two carried on an earnest conversation about whether the designation signified a way of being fresh or a way of being frozen, Janson wandered over to the far end of the grocery store. The stockroom door was open, and he stepped into it, casually. At a small metal desk was a stack of pale blue Sysco inventory lists. He flipped through them quickly until he reached one stamped special order. Toward the bottom of a long row of foodstuffs in small print, he saw a bold check, from the grocer's Sharpie marker. An order of buckwheat groats.

A few seconds elapsed before it clicked. Buckwheat groats - also known as kasha. Janson felt a stirring of excitement as thousands of column inches from newspaper and magazine profiles whirred through his head in a ribbon of light. Every day starts with a spartan breakfast of kasha ... A homely detail found in dozens of them, along with the near obligatory references to his "bespoke wardrobe," "aristocratic bearing," "commanding gaze" ... Such were the stock phrases and "colorful" details of feature writing. Every day starts with a spartan breakfast of kasha ...

It was true, then. Somewhere on Smith Mountain lived a man the world knew as Peter Novak.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
In the heart of midtown Manhattan, the bag lady stooped over the Bryant Park steel-mesh trash can with the diligent look of a postal worker at a mailbox. Her clothes,