The Color Of Night (45 page)

Well aware of their tight schedule, Knight quickly retrieved Cao’s drawings from the vault and, while keeping up a rapid-fire, though oblique, explanation of Ms. Paille’s situation, placed the portfolio on the library table and opened it with a precious manner.

He stepped back. Claude Corsier silently studied the Balthus encased in the first leaf. Then he methodically went through the portfolio without hurrying, much to Knight’s increasing agitation. Occasionally Corsier leaned forward to examine a drawing more closely, his nose nearly touching it. At last he straightened and turned around.

“Ms. Paille, you are in possession of a very handsome collection here. I’m sure you know that.”

“Mr. Knight has made me aware,” she said.

Corsier elaborated on his thoughts about each of the drawings, turning to look at one of them now and again. Knight could see that the old bear found Ms. Paille to be a bright brush stroke of beauty, eliciting his most charming manner.

After consulting his watch, Corsier excused himself, pleading obligations elsewhere. He took Ms. Paille’s hand once again with a shallow bow.

Knight walked him down the stairs to the door.

“Are you going to offer those drawings to Schrade, too, Carrington?” Corsier asked softly, pausing in the foyer.

“I think I am, yes.”

“You should. What a remarkable collection.”

He walked to the cloak closet and took out his raincoat. “You know, Carrington, you should keep them in the vault until the very last moment, until the Schiele deal is completed. Bring them out just before he’s about to leave.”

“Don’t worry.” Knight smiled. “I’m going to squeeze the most out of the Schieles. I won’t let the drawings compete. They are a completely separate situation and negotiation—altogether.” He handed Corsier his umbrella.

Corsier smiled also. “Thank you, Carrington.” He turned to the door. “Oh, the woman, Ms. Paille. Is she going to stay for the meeting?”

“No, I think not. Definitely not.”

“Good,” Corsier said. He turned and walked out the door, putting up his umbrella. He descended the front steps and disappeared around the corner on Carlos Place.

He looked at his watch. He had been sitting in the foyer, with yet another cup of coffee, for more than half an hour. Mara would be getting ready to leave for Carrington’s in a cab. He guessed that Schrade would wait to come down at the last minute and go straight to his Mercedes. Still, he had come early in case Schrade had an earlier agenda.

Schrade rounded the corner from the elevators, his pace deliberate, his back straight, and headed into the front hall. He was alone, no Howard. Was Howard waiting in the restaurant for him? In the front hall out of Strand’s view? Strand quickly left some money beside his coffee cup and followed Schrade, glancing around for Howard.

Just as he got to the sidewalk, Schrade was getting into the backseat of the Mercedes. Alone. Moving without hurrying, Strand stepped across and got into one of the waiting cabs along the street.

As he had done the previous night, he leaned forward and gave the driver a large note.

“I need to follow the Mercedes
discreetly,
” he emphasized.

“Yes… yes, sir.” The driver’s eyes boggled at the size of the note as he digested the instructions. “Oh, right, sir.” He was suddenly alert, responsible, ready. He flipped on his windshield wipers and pulled out into the traffic of Brook Street.

“The driver’s going to be watching for this sort of thing.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

He seemed to. He allowed traffic to get between them, then quickly crowded up close as they approached Bond Street, where all the traffic had to turn right in the direction of Piccadilly. He let the Mercedes move up again several car lengths. The traffic muddled along. These few blocks were something of a bottleneck. Bond Street was not a through street at this point, being interrupted by a pedestrian court a few blocks ahead, after which it began again and went on to Piccadilly. Traffic slowed here since it was forced to turn into side streets or continue on a contorted series of turns to get back to Bond. The Mercedes remained in the left lane, then it pulled to the curb and stopped.

“Hold up, hold up,” Strand cautioned. The traffic slowed to a creep. They were still three cars behind the Mercedes. Schrade got out and hurried across the puddle-strewn sidewalk to a shop three doors back from his car: Stefan Kappe: Silver and Goldsmith. He was now directly across from Strand.

“Okay, this is good enough,” Strand said. He got out of the cab in the middle of the street and popped up his umbrella as the surprised driver thanked him profusely. At that moment the traffic began moving again, and the cab pulled forward as Strand stepped away and onto the sidewalk.

He stood in the drizzling rain and hesitated. He didn’t dare go into the shop. It was too small. The slap of the pistol firing would be obvious. The sidewalks of Bond Street were perfect. Because of the rain everyone was hurrying, umbrellas up. The abundance of smart shops along the way assured that the pedestrian traffic was ample, in spite of the rain, and the streets themselves were full of cars, cabs, and delivery vans. The slap would easily be swallowed by the sounds of the city.

Strand moved closer to the shops to get out of the line of sight of the Mercedes’s rearview mirror. He made a quick calculation. Schrade was about twenty to thirty steps from the Mercedes. He was not carrying an umbrella, so he would be in a hurry when he started back to the car. If Strand were close enough, he could easily engineer a collision. If other pedestrians were around them at that moment, all the better.

He walked to a shop window one door over from Kappe’s. He peered inside, oblivious of what he was seeing. The rain was steady, splashing his trousers legs. He was so aware of the blood hammering in his ears that the noise of the traffic was distant. How long could he wait? How long dared he wait before he risked having the chauffeur—who, of course, was more than a chauffeur—notice him? He couldn’t walk any farther because Schrade might come out any moment, and Strand would be too far away to make it to him before he reached the Mercedes. He looked at his watch. Schrade was due at Carrington’s in twenty minutes. He was now ten minutes away from Carlos Place. Could Strand remain inconspicuous for ten minutes, standing still in the rain, pacing in the rain, dawdling in the rain?

He had to admit the situation was perfect. Schrade would come out. Strand would bump into him and fire into his stomach. Schrade would slump. Strand would act confused, then yell for help. He would yell loudly enough for the chauffeur to hear him, and then he would stay with Schrade, holding him in the rain, holding the umbrella over him…

The door to Kappe’s opened and Schrade paused in the open doorway. He looked up at the rain, turned inside, and spoke to someone.

Strand looked both ways. Pedestrians were converging, God sent as if he had prayed for them: a young woman who looked as though she were an art student—Cork Street and the Royal Academy of Arts were nearby—carrying a large portfolio and coming from the direction of Clifford Street, followed closely by a preoccupied businessman; from the other direction a second businessman, head down, plowed through the rain; while a painter who was involved in remodeling a nearby shop slammed closed the rear door of his parked van and, clutching an armload of wadded tarpaulin, started running diagonally toward Strand.

At the same instant, the door to an expensive luggage shop behind Strand opened and a woman emerged with a plastic-covered bag nearly too large for her to carry.

Schrade said one last thing over his shoulder and bounded out into the rain.

Strand moved toward him.

The art student twisted to miss Schrade, who had burst out in front of her.

The businessman behind the student swerved to miss her and stepped right into Schrade’s path.

The woman with the luggage never saw any of them as she dashed to the curb where her car was parked behind Schrade’s Mercedes.

The painter and the preoccupied businessman from the other direction both twisted in midstride to miss the woman with the luggage.

Strand intercepted Schrade, who had lunged ahead at the last instant to try to avoid the businessman.

The three men collided.

Strand grasped Schrade’s arm as if to catch his balance, jammed the pistol into Schrade’s stomach, and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. He heard nothing, felt nothing. The painter and the woman with the luggage both dropped what they were carrying as the art student flailed at her oversize portfolio, trying to keep from dropping it. The businessman blurted an apology as Schrade swore in German and wrenched away from Strand’s grip.

The second businessman went around all of it and never stopped.

As Schrade pulled away, Strand staggered into the first businessman, who reflexively caught him, steadied him, and apologized again.

Strand was dumbfounded. After twisting away from the businessman, he wheeled around to orient himself. Everyone was recovering: the woman quickly had picked up her luggage; the painter had snatched up his tarpaulin; the art student was well down the sidewalk. The businessmen were gone.

Strand wheeled around again, just in time to see Schrade slam the door of the Mercedes, casting an angry scowl at Strand through the window. The Mercedes pulled away from the curb and turned smoothly into Conduit Street.

Strand stood with his mouth open in astonishment, his umbrella open and upside-down on the sidewalk. He looked down at the gun in his trembling hand. Desperately he snatched up the umbrella and ran to the curb. Stepping between two cars to hide what he was doing, he pointed the pistol into the gutter and jerked the trigger. Once: slap! Twice: slap! Three times: slap!

He was stunned. What in God’s name… ?

Fumbling with the umbrella and the pistol, he removed the clip from the handle. Two shots were left. He hadn’t fired a single pellet at Schrade.

Corsier sat on the edge of his chair, headphones in place, his eyes glued to the binoculars on the tripod. He had said nothing to Skerlic about the gorgeous woman at Carrington’s. He was exceptionally uneasy about her. Despite Knight’s assurances, Corsier was afraid she would remain for the meeting with Schrade. Ever the opportunist, Knight was probably going to take full advantage of Corsier’s carefully planned scheme. Corsier only hoped that this already baroque enterprise did not collapse under the stress of Knight’s ratcheting up the complexity to a full rococo encounter.

How extraordinary that this Ms. Paille had brought her client’s drawings at this time. It was a bothersome interference. Might it even be suspicious? Corsier could not for the life of him imagine any possible connection here between Ms. Paille and his own endeavor. He had planned this in as near a vacuum as he had been able to manage. He was afraid that what he was seeing here was the appearance of that dreaded poltergeist of every covert operation: the unforeseen intrusion.

The microphones in the frames were working fabulously, and although Corsier was nearly weak from an unsettled nervous stomach, he was mesmerized by his ability to overhear Knight and Ms. Paille.

When Strand finally came to his senses, standing in the gutter between the two cars in Bond Street, all the confusion and uncertainty that had clouded the previous fifteen minutes turned to an instant understanding and clarity of what had to happen in the next fifteen minutes. He had to get to Carlos Place before Schrade.

The one-way streets pretty much dictated Schrade’s route once he had turned left on Conduit Street. Strand had just about the same distance if he ran into Bruton Street and caught a cab that would take him by a different route around Berkeley Square. Neither course had much of an advantage over the other. He broke into a dead run for the Bruton Street entrance directly across from Conduit Street.

Mara stood before the two Schiele drawings, waiting for Carrington Knight to make his way back up the curving stairway. She was struggling with a peculiar sense of disorientation that had hit her the moment she’d seen Claude Corsier. Though his mustache and goatee had prevented instant recognition, within moments his face had reassembled itself in her memory from the Camp Peary files of six months earlier. She was caught completely off guard.

What was happening here? Newly discovered Schieles? Corsier’s Schieles? Brought to Knight only a few days ago? Was she supposed to believe all of this was coincidence? She would not believe it. She could not. Why was Corsier being introduced as Blanchard? Her mind fumbled for explanations, but nothing even remotely satisfactory came into focus.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Knight asked. She was still standing with her back to him, facing the two Schieles.

“No, thank you,” she said without turning around.

“Do you know this artist?” he asked, approaching her.

“I recognize the style, but I can’t really say I ‘know’ his work.”

Knight smiled with affectionate indulgence. “Egon Schiele. A contemporary and friend of Mr. Klimt in your collection. He is a much coveted artist these days. Very popular.” He paused. “Mr. Schrade is an ardent collector of this man’s work, just as he is of Klimt’s.”

She turned and squared herself to Knight. “This was planned, then, having my drawings here with the Schieles?”

“Yes and no. It’s the damnedest coincidence I’ve ever experienced in all my years in the business.” Knight’s eyes widened theatrically. He told her briefly of how he had come by the Schieles, skimming over the facts.

“So, this Mr. Schrade was coming to London anyway, then, to see Mr. Blanchard’s drawings?”

“Indeed. Only…” Knight shrugged his shoulders in a way to indicate a delicate matter. “Only Mr. Blanchard is offering these drawings anonymously, as you are. I can’t say that happens too often, either—back to back, that is.”