The Color Of Night (33 page)

“Second, you’d want to do it for the three million dollars I’m going to put in a Belgium account for you. It’s properly sheltered, safe to access.”

“That’s goddamn blunt,” Howard said.

“If I remember, you’re impatient with finesse.”

“Yeah.”

It was a crucial moment, but Strand never doubted how it would end.

“Three million dollars…” Howard’s eyes were fixed on the bit of paper, which he had now folded and unfolded so many times that it was getting limp. Then, to Strand’s surprise, Bill Howard seemed to grow angry. Strand could actually see him trying to control his temper, tucking in his chin, tightening his nostrils, his face flushing.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Howard said abruptly after a little thinking. “So, when I have something, if I have something, I contact you?” He raised the piece of paper and waggled it.

“Yeah. One other thing. I’m leaving London tonight. If you want to talk to me personally after tonight, it won’t be easy. It’ll take a little time to arrange.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not staying anywhere very long,” Strand said.

“I’ll see what I can do. Shit.”

“It’s not something he really has to ponder, Bill.”

“Harry, for Christ’s sake… Okay, look, how complicated is the money end of this situation?”

“Not too complicated.”

“Well, shit, that clarifies it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do I tell him? A week? Days?”

“Hours.”

Howard perked up. “Hours?”

“Yeah.”

Howard studied him. “Where do you want to meet him?”

“I’ll get to that.”

“When?”

“When I see how he reacts to the offer.”

Howard folded the paper one last time and put it in the side pocket of his suit coat. As the elderly couple passed by he held his next comment, watching the dog disapprovingly. When they were out of earshot he went on.

“What’s the time frame here?”

“We’ll work it out.”

“The sooner the better?”

“That’s right.”

Howard was feeling better. He was trying to cover all the bases.

“What if he turns you down, Harry? What then?”

“Eventually he’ll get me. I know that.” He paused. “But I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing half a billion dollars of his laundered cash do some good for a change.”

“But you’d cough it all up to save your ass.”

Strand looked at him. “I tried to do what I thought would be a good thing,” he said. “I guess I’ve found out that I don’t have the guts to give my life for it. Or Mara’s. I’ve already lost everything but her. That’s what I was telling you at the beginning, Bill. None of this is very pretty, any way you slice it.”

Howard walked away toward the Audley gates. From years of experience, Strand knew that he wouldn’t look back. The meeting had left Strand drained and anxious. He couldn’t decide whether Howard had been entirely satisfied with Strand’s story or whether he harbored a lingering suspicion that Strand was setting him up.

Leaving Mount Street Gardens, Strand made his way through Mayfair to Piccadilly, emerging on Berkeley Street just down from the Green Park underground station.

He rode the underground all the way to Knightsbridge and then all the way back to Piccadilly Circus. He spent some time milling in the crowds there and then walked up the Burlington Arcade, where he drifted in and out of the shops. He worked his way back to Half Moon Street, which he followed to Curzon, stopping in at George Trumper to buy a tube of sandalwood shaving cream.

He turned up Curzon, stopping to look at the film posters on the front of the Curzon Cinema before turning back and following Curzon to Fitzmaurice Place. Half a dozen telephone booths lined the sidewalk just at the Charles Street corner. He stepped into the second one from the right, closed the door, and checked his watch. For seven minutes he stared at the poster advertisements that prostitutes had stuck to the walls of the booth, exposing their wares in black-and-white photographs of steamy vamping.

At precisely five o’clock, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“You’re going to like this place, Harry,” Mara said, giving him the address. “I’ll leave the front door open.”

The town house was close. He turned into Charles Street and started up the hill. Just past Queen Street he turned into Chesterfield Hill, and there, nearly halfway up the first block and across the street, was the red-brick Edwardian town house, newly refurbished, that Mara had leased.

He crossed the street and was pleased to see the “Available” sign still attached to the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the front garden. Upon entering the gate, he walked up the steps and let himself in through the moss green front door, shiny with layers of paint.

When he closed the door behind him the hollow sound echoed through the unfurnished rooms, which smelled of fresh paint and wallpaper paste. On the second floor a large reception fronted the street. To the left was a broad bay window overlooking Chesterfield Hill. Centered between the arms of the windows was a box spring and mattress on the floor, scattered with plastic packets of new linen. Mara walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“Welcome home,” she said.

At the other end of the long room, on the wall opposite the bay window, were stacked painters’ supplies, five-gallon paint buckets and painters’ canvases and scaffolding boards and ladders.

“I convinced the estate agent to leave everything as it was,” Mara explained.

“The ‘Available’ sign is a good touch.”

“Yeah, I asked him to leave it for another week. He thought it was an odd request but shrugged it off.”

Mara had scavenged together the rough scaffolding boards and paint buckets to make a long table, which she covered with the paint-flecked canvas dropcloths. There was a telephone on the table and books stacked beside it, and a little farther over sat one of the laptops, the screen already lighted. A cobalt blue vase with fresh flowers in it sat on the far end of the table.

“The telephone was a lucky stroke,” she said. “The estate agency had it installed to communicate with the workers who were doing the refurbishing work. We just transferred over the names.”

Strand looked at her and smiled. “You’re right, this is perfect. It’s close to everything.”

“I got it fairly early this morning,” she said, walking over to him, folding her arms, the dish towel dangling from her hands. “It was the third place they showed me. I really had to fork over the money to speed up the paperwork”—she turned and gestured to the bed—“paid extra to get the furniture store to have the bedding delivered within a few hours. It’s taken all day.”

Strand walked over to the bed and tossed the shaving cream on the new mattress, then took off his coat and tossed it down, too.

Mara waited, her arms folded, her weight shifted to one leg. “Well, how did it go?” she asked.

“I think it’s going to work. He’s taking it to Schrade. He’s supposed to get back to me as soon as possible.”

“Then you feel good about it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Mara thought a moment. “God, it’s just so hard to
believe
what Howard’s doing. You’d think the FIS would have
some
suspicions about him.”

“I just hope he’s swallowing this, that they both swallow it. Of course, Schrade’s psychology is in our favor. He
wants
to believe. Greed’s giving us a leg up here. None of them can stand the thought that the money’s really out of reach. The longer we can make them believe it isn’t, the longer Schrade’s going to put off coming after us.”

Strand looked around. “We’re going to need something for the windows.” He rolled his head from side to side, trying to limber up his stiff neck as he unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie.

“I’ve got extra sheets for that. Do you think Howard believed you when you told him you’d sent me away?”

“I didn’t get a feeling that he was suspicious,” Strand said.

Mara went over to the bed and began taking everything off it.

“I was just as concerned that he not get the impression I was staying in London,” Strand said. “I tried to make him think this was just a stopover for me. But I don’t know…”

Mara opened the packets of new sheets and shook them out. Strand went over to help her.

“While the estate agent was drawing up the papers for me to sign,” Mara said, putting down the first sheet, “I took a cab to a Grosvenor Square. The agent recommended a solicitor there. I got the papers authorized that the Houston bank wanted in order to release the drawings and faxed them to Houston. About an hour ago I called them and they said everything was in order. They’d already called in the fine arts museum conservator to do the packing. I gave them Léon Gautier’s name and address on the Rue des Saints-Pères. They’ll get the drawings on a flight tonight. I’m to call him tomorrow for the flight number and arrival time in Paris.”

They tucked in the last sheet, and Mara threw a bedspread over the bed. Strand straightened it from his side and then sat on the bed while Mara put pillowcases on the pillows.

“When is Bill going to get back to you?” she asked.

Strand shook his head. “I don’t know. I told him I was leaving London tonight. After that it would be more difficult to arrange a meeting.”

“So we just wait.”

“That’s right.”

Mara looked out the window. It was near dusk, and street lamps were coming on all over Mayfair. The room was growing gloomy as the light outside slipped away.

“Come on,” she said, “we’ve got to put up one of these sheets before we turn on the lights.”

Using the painters’ ladder and thumbtacks—Mara had overlooked nothing—they tacked the top of one of the sheets to the ceiling, following the angle of the bay window, hanging the sheet a couple of feet away from the windows themselves. This created a luminous effect, softening and expanding the glow from the street lamps.

“I hate to say this,” Mara said as Strand was putting away the ladder, “but I’m starving. My day was frantic, and I skipped lunch. I’ve got to have something to eat.”

They went around the corner to Charles Street and walked to the top of the hill to a little pub that served meals in two rooms in the back. The rooms were small and intimate, and most of the other tables were occupied, which meant that they had no opportunity to talk about their plans. So the dinner was perfunctory, and by the time they had finished and pushed their way through the pub crowd to the front door and the yard outside, it was well after dark.

As Mara took his arm and they started down the hill, Strand realized the weather was beginning to change. Though it was still warm, the air was growing heavy, and the night sky was gauzy with humidity, hazing the street lamps in the distance.

“I’ve got to leave for a couple of hours,” Strand said.

“Really? To do what?”

“I’d rather explain it to you after I get back,” he demurred. “It’ll be easier that way.”

She said nothing for a moment, then she stopped and turned to him.

“Look, Harry,” she said, “I want to remind you of something: You are not running an intelligence operation here. We’re dealing with our
lives
now, and conceivably, mine is more at risk than yours at this point. So quit acting like you’re a case officer. Stop compartmentalizing. If you don’t think I have every right to all the information you have, to all the planning you’re doing, to all the possibilities that affect
me
directly, then you’d better explain to me why that is. Either you trust me all the way on this, Harry, or you don’t. If you don’t, I may want to rethink what the hell I’m taking all these risks for.”

She was standing with her back to the brick row houses along the sidewalk, the spill of a street lamp softly lighting her stern expression.

“It’s not a matter of trust, Mara. Not trust.” He hesitated. “You’re right about my reserve, and I know it. Old habits. I’m sorry. But give me a couple of hours here… just a couple of hours.”

He gazed out the cab window at the London streets. A light fog encircled the street lamps with bright halos.

Knightsbridge.

Mara had been right to call his hand. He couldn’t do that to her anymore, even though all of his years of experience running agents made him resist revealing his plans to her. Under the circumstances, however, it actually would be foolish of him to continue to keep his intentions from her. But in this present instance, what he was about to do definitely took their conspiracy to another level. It would provoke some serious discussion, and Strand knew they hadn’t had time for that before he left.

Hammersmith.

He had to admit that he found making decisions far more complex now that he was making them for the two of them rather than for himself alone. He found himself second-guessing his instincts, double-checking his gut reactions. His responses to developments were slower. Worst of all, his doubts were more profound. He actually began to fear them.

King Street.

In all the years he had been involved in intelligence operations, never had so much been at stake. If an operation went to hell, seldom did his own life risk a mortal wound. Failures were disappointments, not tragedies. Not for him personally. For others? Yes, but he dealt with that. Perhaps what he was going through now was retribution for all those tragedies in other people’s lives that he had managed to “deal with.” It wasn’t the same at all now. In those days he told himself that if he suffered with everyone who suffered, he wouldn’t be able to go on. And that was true, of course. But he wasn’t sure it was moral to have been so stoic, to have repressed so much compassion in the name of emotional self-preservation.

Chiswick High Road.

The Terrier pub was on a street of darkness. Chiswick was littered with pockets of urban moribundity, and the Terrier, it seemed, was the last living thing on this street. Brick row houses on either side disappeared into the fog. The inhabitants seemed to be gone, swallowed up by the maw of Disappointment, the last mythical creature of the modern age in which people still actually believed.