The Zurich Numbers Page 5

“I don’t know. I’m eighty-five and terribly tired. Perhaps I really am ill. I feel too old to save anyone. You were lucky to reach me in my prime.”

  “Jean Brodie,” Devereaux said.

  “You could have done much worse,” Melvina said with a smile that was almost a secret. “Mary drinks. She reminds me of your mother. I wanted to help your mother.”

  “You wanted to help yourself.”

  “The world is such a wicked place, Red. It has always been so. It has never disappointed me. You never disappointed me. But slavery? I don’t expect that. Not in this age. My God, it is hard to grow old, not because the end of days has come but because nothing has changed, nothing at all. Life was mean when I was a child and grows meaner still. What a stupid thing for life to do.”

  “What about the two men?”

  “Yes. That interests me, too. To see what you want to tell me about them. In the morning, Red, when I’m not so tired. I have a lot of things to tell you.”

  He waited.

  “That poor woman. I did love your mother, you know.”

  “Are you talking about her? Or about your cleaning woman?”

  “Your mother is dead, Red. The living concern me.”

  God. He wanted to kill her. He sat very still.

  “Why does this involve me?” he asked.

  “But you know it does already, don’t you?” Smiling, swaying slightly, moving to the hall, gripping the bannister. “In the morning, Red. When I’m not so tired. There’s time in the morning.”

  5

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Frankfurter and Gleason circled the apartment building in Bethesda slowly, passing along the front on Old Georgetown Road, down to the turn into an unmarked lane, behind the building (through the parking lot), around a second lane, back on Old Georgetown Road. It was their ninth pass in the last two hours. They parked on the unmarked lane. It was just after eight; the darkness in the semirural section was palpable. No wind, no night sounds.

  “You wanna turn on the radio?”

  Frankfurter belched an answer.

  “Is that yes or no?”

  “No, I don’t want the fucking radio on. Fucking radio drives me crazy. I hate shit like this, you know? I hate shit like this.”

  Gleason knew.

  “She’s been in there three hours. Don’t she go out?”

  “She doesn’t get a phone call, she doesn’t go out. She doesn’t look that bad a broad. Maybe she’s a lesbian.”

  “So? Lesbians go out, don’t they?”

  “I don’t know. You can’t tell about lesbians. My daughter brought this girl home from Smith. Over last Christmas. Nice girl. Nice tush. You know.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Hey, I don’t mean that. You can’t help but noticing these things. Nice girl. Very polite. Please and thank you and mother, may I. You know. One day I’m driving down to the Seven-Eleven with Tammi—”

  “Tammi your daughter?”

  “Yeah. I thought you knew. I thought I mentioned it.”

  “No. You never mentioned it.”

  “Tammi and me, I don’t know, we’re getting some more stuffing or something. I think it was Christmas Day in fact. I think the Seven-Eleven was the only thing open, so we’re talking and out of a blue Tammi says, ‘You know, Beth is a lesbian.’ Just like that. I nearly went off the fucking road. I mean, why the hell would she tell me something like that?”

  “Maybe she was trying to tell you something.”

  Gleason turned to Frankfurter and rested his left arm on the steering wheel. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means what it says. Maybe she was trying to tell you something.”

  “You mean Tammi is trying to tell me that she’s a fag, too? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It happens. Kids go through stages.”

  “You’ve got your mind in the fucking gutter, you know that?”

  “You asked me, I told you.”

  “I didn’t ask you. I was telling you that you can’t tell about these things.”

  “And I was agreeing with you.”

  Silence.

  Gleason turned on the radio.

  “Aw, why’d you turn that fucking thing on?”

  “Because I want it on. You mind?”

  “I mind. I already told you I mind.”

  “Too fucking bad.”

  “This is a goofy idea, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Watching this broad. If our customer didn’t contact her all the months we had him stashed in that flat in New York, he isn’t going to contact her now. I think he just got stir-crazy, decided to take off for a few days.”

  “Maybe he got lucky in that Irish bar on Eighth.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. What a freak show, huh? I had two weeks’ duty up there, I was going out of my mind. There was this one bimbo goes in there every night for a J&B and Coke. You know, shine broad. But a blond wig. And she’s got the miniest miniskirt. I mean, you can see her snatch when she walks. Boots. They all got boots. You think fashions would change.”

  “Whatever turns you on.”

  “When I was with DEA, we’d do some shit on Broadway. This is ten years ago. Same fashions. Why the hell he’d go down there, to get looped?”

  “Just sat in the bar, two, three nights a week, watching the freak show passing by. Couple of babes hit on him, he ignored them. And a guy hit on him. Same thing. This guy is not interested in sex.”

  “That isn’t what got him into this wringer in the first place. He put it all on the line for this broad. I mean, she’s a good-looking broad but a broad is a broad; they all look the same upside down.”

  “He’s lucky Uncle wanted to save his ass. She is, too.”

  “Yeah.” Frankfurter turned the radio off. It was all right.

  Gleason said, “I’m thinking about it. You figure the Red Machine is off his case?”

  “Sure. We haven’t had a peep for months. Nothing in the spaghetti on the radio either. Nothing. They were watching her for a couple of months but now she’s clean. I figure they never were much interested in hitting this Macklin broad at all. I think they were just on our customer’s case. A case of a real hard-on for the guy. What’d he do? They lost two agents in three years because of him, not counting the hits that went down. And that business in Florida that blew up in their faces. And Helsinki last year. You can see from the Red Machine’s point of view, this guy is a problem. He doesn’t play the game.”

  “He doesn’t follow the rules,” agreed Gleason.

  “Right. He’s a fucking intelligence operative, not fucking James Bond. He keeps sticking his neck out, naturally they’re gonna chop it off. We’re supposed to gather intelligence, not knock off each other.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Frankfurter reached for the “Record” button on the built-in tape. Over the radio speaker, they heard a telephone ringing. It was the line to Rita Macklin’s apartment. It rang five times.

  RITA: Hello?

  VOICE: Hello? Rita?

  RITA: Yes. Is this Tom?

  TOM: Yeah. Listen, I wanted to see if you wanted to go down to Sharko’s. I just found out Teddy Brown’s band is booked back there starting tonight.

  RITA: You always call up at eight o’clock on Thursday night for a date?

  TOM: Listen, I just found out. We go down tomorrow night, we won’t get in the place. You’re a big girl.

  RITA: A big girl getting an early night in. I’m flying up to Boston on the shuttle tomorrow.

  TOM: Shit. Too bad. ’Nother time?

  RITA: Give me a day or two notice, okay?

  TOM: Sure. I figured you’d rather I call you than not call you just because it was something that was happening now. I mean, this is the twentieth goddam century.

  RITA: Are you mad at something?

  TOM: Just you.

  RITA: Good. I thought it might be something important.

  (Click.)

  Frankfurter switched off the
tape. “Sassy bitch, huh?”

  “Well, the guy’s an asshole, too, calling her up for a date the same night he wants to take her out.”

  “Listen, she’s been around the track. We’re not talking about high school.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  “You know, she’s making an early night of it. Soon as we see the lights go out, we can head over to Wisconsin, get a hamburger or something,” said Frankfurter.

  “How about a beer?”

  “A beer, okay. Let’s go off now. Nothing is happening tonight.”

  “What if he comes?”

  “He isn’t going to come. He comes, then we turn on the super set, pick up the bedroom bug, listen to our honey tussling with him.”

  “Or snoring.”

  “Or snoring.”

  Malenkov turned off the tape when he heard her snores. He picked up the black phone, which was swept daily for taps and dialed a number in Arlington, Virginia. The phone rang three times. The conversation was in Russian, in the accent of Moscow.

  “Yes.”

  “Asleep. I shut down the recorder. I looked out the window a little while ago, and the two watchers from NSA have gone. I don’t know if they’ll be back tonight.”

  “What else?”

  “She’s going to Boston tomorrow. There was one conversation with a ‘Tom’ regarding a date at a place called Sharko’s. It is in Georgetown, on M Street.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “Yes. There was a conversation four weeks ago. He dated her. I looked up the relevant data. It was filed by Adamovich at three hundred eighty-seven.”

  “What else?”

  “Boston. Perhaps that is where he has been kept.”

  “We have also received information about an apartment in New York City but it’s still very vague. They have begun construction of a new file for him but we have not penetrated. The woman seems the best chance. Adamovich will be at your post in the morning. Follow her to Boston. Report at 1830, use frequency 102.44.”

  “At this number?”

  “Yes.”

  Malenkov replaced the receiver. He turned on the receiver but not the tape.

  He listened for a moment to Rita Macklin snoring. It made him tired. He stretched, rose, and began to unbutton his shirt.

  6

  CHICAGO

  Devereaux watched her for a long time before he spoke. She was aware that he watched her but there was nothing she could do about it. Once she smiled at him; he did not smile at her. He watched her as a cat watches a curious thing. Yes, she thought: exactly like a cat watches.

  He stood in the doorway to the kitchen. From there he could see both the dining room and the foyer that led to the front room. The downstairs windows were barred against break-ins. The ugly tips of the bars were sharpened to impale any felon stupid enough to vault them or try to squeeze between the bars and the window. The windows permitted thin sunlight to cloud the rooms; a pattern of the bars was made on the lace of the dining room table.

  Mary Krakowski was on her knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the white tiles.

  She was thirty-four. Her hair was dyed red. She had large, cloudless blue eyes so common to Poles; her cheeks were red with exertion and that made her pretty. She would be heavier as she grew older; her waistline was thick. But her youth carried her extra fifteen pounds now. She wore a cotton housecoat over her skirt and sweater. She had taken off her nylons when she changed into the housecoat and she would put them on again when she left the house.

  The man in the house excited her because John Stolmac had told her that someday a man might come to this house. John had described the man. He would have gray hair and gray eyes and a worn face. He would be so tall and weigh so much. When he came to the house, Mary Krakowski was to tell John. Depending on what happened, she might not work for Miss Devereaux again.

  John Stolmac had told her these things almost a year ago. She had nearly forgotten them. Then this morning she saw the man John had described, sitting at the kitchen table with Melvina, drinking coffee.

  She had become so excited that she blushed.

  The man noticed this but said nothing. The man noticed everything. It made her feel strange to be watched so closely. She scrubbed the tiles harder. She thought she had a pretty face. She had smiled at him and even flirted with him but he had not responded to her.

  She was finished with the floor. She dropped the scrub brush into the pail of water and got up from the floor and went to the doorway with the pail on her way to the bathroom. She looked boldly at him and then turned her cloudless blue eyes away. “Excuse me, mister,” she said in a thick accent.

  Devereaux, coffee cup in hand, stepped aside and let her pass to the bathroom, where she dumped the pail of water into the toilet and pulled the chain to flush it. Melvina, who had a Betamax machine in her bedroom so that she could watch old movies at night, had never updated the bathroom. The tub (there was no shower) sat on cast-iron lion’s paws.

  Mary Krakowski came out of the bathroom. He was still watching her. It unsettled her. She thought about the small bottle of vodka in her purse. But her purse was upstairs in the changing room, and he would notice her leaving to go upstairs and might even follow her. He was bold, as bold as the men who stood on War Memorial Square and eyed the women in the evening as they promenaded. Long ago, when she had been young.

  “You are visit?”

  “Yes,” Devereaux said.

  She tried the smile again.

  “You live?”

  “New York.”

  “New York? I see New York in airport only. Then go on plane to Chicago. John wait for me, take me to this place.”

  “Here?”

  “No. Where I live.”

  “Who is John?”

  “John. Also old country.”

  “Melvina says you work at the university.”

  “Yes. Clean at night, four nights, work here one day. Once I work five nights but no more.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Building. Is Randall Hall?”

  “Randall?”

  “Ya. Big building. We clean.”

  Devereaux stared at her silently for a moment. Mary Krakowski felt compelled somehow to stand very still. What had she said to him?

  John might be angry. She should have said nothing. When John was angry, he could hurt her. John was very strong, very mean at times. He could be gentle as well; he understood Mary, he could get money for Mary to buy vodka. Sometimes, he drank with Mary. But when he was angry, he hurt her. Afterward, Mary always felt ashamed, somehow dirty, somehow of no worth.

  “Family? You have a family here?”

  “Not here,” she said.

  “In Poland,” Devereaux said.

  For a moment, her eyes reflected hurt. She squinted and her eyes misted, as though summer rain fell while the sun shone in another part of the fields. “Yes. My son. He is ten.”

  “Are you going to get him out?”

  “Hard, mister. Always too hard. Many times I apply, I have to…” But then, what should she tell him? Who was he that John had warned her to watch for him? “Polonia,” she said. “Much trouble.”

  “Does he stay with family?”

  “No family, mister. We are alone. The orphan place—”

  “How could you leave him?” Without mercy or pity or even judgment; asked in the tone of a man asking about a bus trip or the place to purchase a newspaper.

  How could he know how hard it was? American. “Soon,” she said with sudden fierceness. “Soon I have Karol with me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Her hands trembled. Was this a threat? Who was this man? All those months. The contract was nearly fulfilled. Why did he come here and ask questions?

  “Do you have a contract?”

  Panic welled in her. She staggered back a step. She looked from left to right but there was no one except her and this man in the old house.

  “Who were the
two men who came here two months ago?”

  She blinked, confused.

  Devereaux stared and then asked another question.

  “You have a contract. With whom?”

  “Contract. For work. Always need for permit. To come to United States. Cannot work if there is no guarantee for work. I have. I have green card.”

  “What did you promise to do?”

  “What you mean? Clean.”

  “No.” Quietly. Coldly. She was too afraid, too guarded. He played a hunch. “What did you promise to get Karol out of Poland?”

  “Mary, Mother of God.” She dropped the pail on the carpet and was not aware of it. She took another step back. She covered her breasts with her right hand and arm. She felt very afraid.

  “Sit down, Mary. In the kitchen.” Flat and cold and without sympathy, a voice without resonance, depth, life. A dead voice sailing on a dead sea.

  He took a step forward. His mother had made the gesture in the same way, hand across her breasts, the eternally threatened woman, the universal victim, the slave. Slave of what master?

  Devereaux had never accepted the gesture. Not from his mother, dimly remembered. Not from Mary Krakowski.

  She sat down. She folded her arms on the table in front of her. Her head was bent, her eyes cast down. Devereaux noticed her nails were cut short, for work.

  “I have papers, mister.”

  “I don’t care about your papers, Mary.”

  “What you want?”

  “What do you do in the Randall Building?”

  “Clean.”

  “What else?”

  “Clean. Only this.”

  “Who were the two men who came to this house two months ago? They asked about you. They asked about me.”

  “I not know.”

  “They were from Immigration they said.”

  “I have green card.”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “I have all papers. Papers, green card, legal.”

  “And a contract.”

  “Contract for work. Need this.”

  “Contract to get Karol out of Poland. When is it fulfilled?”

  “Three—” She cut herself off.

  “When does Karol come to you?”

  “Why you ask this?”