The Color Of Night (22 page)

Howard turned to her. “Mara, get him to give it up. Look, he miscalculated. Hell, it happens. Convince him to walk away from it. He can keep the interest he’s made during the past four years. It’s a goddamn lot of money.”

Howard’s voice changed. When he spoke again it was flat, clinical.

“If Schrade’s people don’t kill him, our people are going to make him wish they had. Convince him to give it up. He’ll get a life out of it.”

It was late afternoon, and they were still several hours away from leaving for the Villa d’Este to meet Lu. They undressed and lay on the bed, their balcony doors open to the afternoon warmth and the faint sounds of the harbor. Everything in Bellagio was languorous. Here even the black kites that scavenged the shoreline and the alpine swifts that skimmed the surface of the lake for insects did so in an unhurried manner that was at once graceful and serene. Strand could smell the water and the cypresses on the hillsides and the faint sweetness of Mara’s body.

The idyllic setting was in sharp contrast with the reality of their situation and with the roiling emotions that he struggled to temper. There were treacherous days ahead, and a sense of ever shortening time wore and tore at him like a debilitating fever. He had been enormously relieved that Mara had chosen to stay with him, not only because it confirmed how much they meant to each other, but also because he could not in good conscience have allowed her to go. If she had fled, she would have lost even the dubious protection he was able to give her. Schrade would have found her in days.

In watching her come to this decision, Strand observed yet another dimension of her personality. She was not simply giving up, yielding to his wishes. Rather, her decision was the result of her sensible assessment of her circumstances. She must have reasoned that her best chances of survival lay in trusting him, even though, despite her personal feelings about him, she must have found it difficult to do. It was this calm common sense that he had been slow to appreciate. In most people a talent for balanced judgment was not an attribute that advertised itself. But in an attractive woman it was even less readily apparent. Beauty was too often an unintended diversion, a distraction that seduced one’s attention away from the essential qualities of the person who possessed it.

“Where is Wolfram Schrade?” she asked, breaking the silence. Her head was on his shoulder, her long legs running alongside his, her breasts against his side.

“What do you mean?” He was surprised at the sudden question.

“Do you really think he doesn’t know where we are, or does he know and he’s just… waiting?”

Strand decided not to finesse the answer. “I’ve asked myself that a thousand times,” he said. “I honestly think that when we left Rome, the way we left Rome, we slipped his surveillance. And I think we’re still clean.”

“What makes you believe that?”

“I told you last night, if he knew where we were, I think he would’ve let me know that he knew. Just like he did in Rome with the videotape.”

“You don’t think Ariana’s death was a similar notice?”

“Maybe you’re right… but I don’t think so. If that’s the way he’s working and if he knows where we are… why are you still alive?”

Mara said nothing, but she grew very still, her breathing momentarily interrupted. He felt a pang of conscience. God, that must have sounded raw to her, grim evidence that his theory was sound. In truth, he was talking with far greater confidence than he was feeling. A pall of anxiety lay upon him that acquired a denser gravity with each shocking death.

As for the FIS surveillance, he was even less sure about having eluded that than he was of having escaped Schrade’s private intelligence operatives. He knew what the FIS was capable of doing, but he also knew that excellence in surveillance required planning, and planning took time. He was beginning to have doubts about how long they had been on to him. If they had known about the embezzlement scheme before Ariana went to them—if they had had time to actually target him for a surveillance operation—it would be a serious challenge to hide from them.

So in part his argument was specious, an attempt to portray a confidence in their safety that he really did not feel. Moreover, he guessed that she knew what he was doing. He thought he felt her body gradually tense against him.

“What about you?” she asked.

“He wants to kill me. And maybe he will—eventually. But not until he gets his money. I’m okay until he either gets it or knows once and for all that he can’t get it.”

A murmur of voices wafted in from the balcony, a man’s laughter, a shout, and then they subsided and were gone. He could almost feel her thinking. And he could feel the impulse to speak rising from her abdomen against his hip, rising until it emerged on her breath, almost apologetically.

“Why don’t you just give him the money, Harry?”

He had anticipated that question since the moment in her bedroom in Rome when he had told her what he had done. She had waited far longer to ask it than he had guessed.

“I can’t,” he said.

Pause. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not possible.”

“You’ve spent it?”

“No. I haven’t spent any of it.”

She was silent, but again he could sense the turmoil of her disquiet. She didn’t move. There was no caressing hand, no tucking into him to be closer than close. She didn’t ask him what he meant, and she didn’t press him further on his questionable assessment of the danger they were in. It was an unexpected and unusual display of restraint, and Strand found himself as curious about the reasons for her reticence as about her ability to deal with her fear in a manner that seemed extraordinarily controlled. The extremity of their circumstances was becoming a foil for revealing the complexity of Mara’s personality. It was yet another shifting, unstable element in a kaleidoscope of shadows.

Then her hand, which had been resting on his chest, moved around to his side, and she drew herself closer. They lay that way for a long time, floating away in their own thoughts as the afternoon grew balmy. After a while he stopped trying to feel her thinking, concentrating instead on the hum of the cicadas in the cypresses. Her breathing grew steady and shallow as she slipped into sleep. Against his intentions, he too grew light-headed and drifted away.

The little village had no name, which was even better, but not something he had planned. It was not really a village, either, but some houses clustered in the hills above the Mediterranean. The only reason anyone knew about it at all, and many did, the reason the narrow little road was paved rather than dusty gravel like most of the others in the area, was because of the old villa that had been turned into a wonderful restaurant. The restaurant was open only in the evenings, and even though the prices were high—the haute monde expected it—the place was a losing proposition if one looked strictly at the bookkeeping aspect of it. Yet it flourished, in an understated, very elegant sort of way.

The large, bearish figure of Charles Rousset was easily recognizable on the terrace. He was dressed in a linen suit that was designed and tailored with the Cap d’Antibes in mind, and he was here because he knew the owner of the villa. The owner was very wealthy—of vague resources—and a longtime friend of Rousset’s, who therefore enjoyed special privileges, such as having the shady terrace all to himself, overlooking the beryl waters of the Corniche de l’Estérel, for this special meeting. He and his companion were not disturbed. They came and went unobserved.

Mr. Skerlic was uneasy. The elegant surroundings did not impress him as much as they pissed him off. Rousset knew the little Serb thought him irritating and a poser, but he didn’t care. He knew also, however, that Skerlic appreciated Rousset’s discretion and was beginning to be comfortable with that, which was important. Rousset doubted that Skerlic would ever be able to find his way here again because the countryman who drove him here from St. Raphaël, and whom Skerlic considered the village idiot, had never stopped talking so that Skerlic could concentrate on where he was being taken.

“So, how are we doing?” Rousset asked when they were finally settled on the terrace. “Progress, I hope.” They sat alone at a sturdy wrought-iron table with a granite top, enjoying a view that normally cost handsomely to appreciate. Skerlic was not dressed for the Côte d’Azur. He was perspiring a little.

“Everything I need is in London,” he said, and he tried the wine, which, Rousset noted, he seemed to dislike. It was expensive and superb, but it might as well have been a local beer as far as Skerlic was concerned.

“Oh, very good.”

“You said you had some ideas about ‘how,’” the Serb said. “Before I go any further I want to hear what you have to say along those lines.”

“Yes.” Rousset grew serious and sat forward in his chair. He took off his straw hat and set it on the table and looked at Skerlic. He stroked his mustache and goatee. “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he added, prefacing his presentation with an expression of calculation. “Wolfram Schrade is a passionate collector of certain kinds of art,” he began. “Passionate. He pursues it. He is a collector of the first order and readily spends a great deal of money for what he wants. And he wants an awful lot. It happens that I know his habits in this regard, in an intimate way. I know his desires. I know his unfulfilled desires, things he wants but cannot have, for one reason or another. I know the honey to which this bee will come.”

Rousset liked the metaphor. Skerlic didn’t even seem to notice. Talking to this wicked little beast was like talking to a cultural tabula rasa. It was astonishing the things of which Skerlic was unaware. Like the wild boy of Avignon, raised by wolves, he knew nothing but the tricks of survival.

“An art dealer in London sells work to Schrade very often, more often than any other dealer with whom Schrade trades,” Rousset continued. “He happens to specialize in the kinds of things that appeal to Schrade, and he is deeply knowledgeable about them. Schrade trusts him. Schrade will listen to him if he comes up with something unusual, just because this man has found it.”

Warming to his subject, he leaned forward and took a pear from the bowl of fruit beside the wine bottle. He took a small knife from the bowl and began cutting the pear into thick slices.

“I propose to offer this particular dealer—he has one of those names that is all surnames, Carrington Hartwell Knight, and that’s the name of his business: Carrington, Hartwell, and Knight.” Rousset smiled. “Clever, really. Anyway, I’m going to offer Carrington a piece of art that I know Schrade wants very much. Now, Carrington is… well, a peculiar fellow in his own right. He deals in only the very best, even the best of the best. He’s odd and has been doing business the same way for thirty-five years. This man has an office in Mayfair. The same address for twenty-two years. He dresses very modern, but his business is carried on in a very traditional way. Electric locks, but no videocameras. A security guard who acts as doorman and decoration. But his wealthy clients can come and go quietly, without attracting attention, unobserved.”

Rousset had cut the pear into a dozen slices, which now lay on the table fanned out in a semicircle. He took one and put it in his mouth and chewed it, savoring its ripe freshness. Then he ate another, and as he chewed he looked at Skerlic and nodded at the slices. “Please, have one. They’re delicious.” The Serb didn’t respond at all. Rousset swallowed the bite he was chewing and went on.

“He lives above, in the same building, and he keeps a fortune in fine art there. This is known, but it is not well known. Those who need to know, do know. This man is a rather flamboyant personality, but he is a very subtle dealer.

“Most important, among his numerous personal peculiarities is his attachment to this residence of twenty-two years. He will do business nowhere else. If you want to sell him something, you go there. If you want to buy something from him, you go there. That is all there is to it. There are no exceptions. The delivery boy goes. The art-loving mogul goes. The wealthiest men in the world go to this address in Mayfair.”

Rousset paused, then smiled softly again.

“Well, as it happens, this is an interesting analogy,” he said. “This odd man, this good fellow, is very much like death itself. To him, all men are the same, and he treats them all the same. Eventually all men come to him, prince and pauper alike. He is indiscriminate.”

Skerlic did not appreciate the comparison. He pushed away the wine. He had no idea why rich people came here so they could sweat on this hot fucking coast. He took off his sport coat, which was so pedestrian as to be almost indescribable. In fact, Skerlic himself was so unremarkable as to be almost indescribable.

Rousset reached for another slice of pear.

“That’s the best place to kill Wolf Schrade.”

“Can you get to the point?”

Rousset took a small bite of the slice of pear and chewed it a moment, thinking. Then he went on.

“Schrade will go to Carrington’s to inspect the art.” He paused to emphasize the self-evident point. “We ourselves can prescribe the exact place,” he said, “and the exact time and thereby minimize the chance of any missteps.”

Skerlic studied Rousset. “What about this art dealer?”

“What about him?”

“You have a plan to avoid blowing up his ass in the process?”

“I have a plan, yes. It will require some very precise timing.” He looked at Skerlic’s scorned wine. “Would you like something else?”

“What’s the plan?”

“The plan? That is the plan, my part of it. I can make sure of the delivery. You have to make sure of the execution… so to speak.”

Skerlic used the side of his thumb to wipe the perspiration that had gathered on his brow like beads of warm dew. Then he reached for the bowl of fruit and broke off the long stem of an apple, stripped off the leaf, and rolled the stem between his fingers to remove the rough spots. Then he put the twig into his ear and began probing, tilting his head slightly.