The Zurich Numbers

by Bill Granger

  “No, Herr Rimsky.” Slowly, as precisely as if he were chewing a sausage. “Capitalism is like an Italian church, all murals and candles and statues of the saints, marble arches and gargoyles in the ceiling. That is capital; that is capitalism. For you, for what you are, all is gray, the same, dull, each day folding into each day to come like a box collapsing itself into another box. Without my numbers, there is no order to things. But I do not worship numbers; you do. Order is the end to people like you; it is only my means.”

  Rimsky blinked, still frowning.

  Krueger put down his fork and knife. The courier did not understand. He would never understand. Not the complexities of someone like this Wanda what-ever-her-name-was, using her freedom to make someone she loved do something he did not want to do. Slavery to slavery, all for love. He longed to point out the absurdity of it but a man as narrow as Rimsky would never understand.

  So. Business. “The papers are in order,” Krueger said.

  “As usual.”

  “Here is a receipt.” Krueger removed a slip of paper from his pocket, wrote in a number, and signed it. “When does the shipment arrive?”

  “In two weeks.”

  “The train from Vienna?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will be the host for the lunch, as always. Is the schoolteacher very pretty?”

  “Do you want to learn something?” Rimsky said coldly.

  “I do not involve myself.” Irritation flamed the back of his thick neck. “I observe, I am interested.”

  “I did not intend to insult you.”

  “Yes, I think you did.”

  A moment of silence. Then Rimsky said, “In six days, we want you to survey a group in Prague. A really large shipment. Thirty in the group.”

  “It will make it difficult to get back by the twenty-eighth—”

  “We can arrange for you to fly back from Prague.”

  It was intolerable. Felix Krueger permitted emotion to play on his heavy features for the first time. His small, calm eyes became agitated; his left hand began to tremble. Of course Rimsky had meant it, meant to mock him.

  “I do not fly in airplanes, Herr Rimsky,” Felix Krueger said slowly in a warning voice. “You know that.”

  “I forgot, I apologize, Herr—”

  “No. You do not apologize to me. I told you…” He seemed to choke on his words. “I do not want mention of this matter again and you mention it again. I do not wish to do business with you again.”

  Rimsky paled.

  “You tell your control that he must send another courier. Another who is not…” Again, he made a choking noise. He thought of the airplane, the walls pressed in, strapped to his seat, the plane banking into clouds, fleeing earth, toy mountains below, the peculiar sickening smell of oxygen blowing dryly into the cabin, climbing through clouds, winds banging against the plane, this way and that, the warning lights flicking on overhead…

  His face was covered with sudden sweat. He stared through Rimsky, seeing only his own vision, unable to step out of the horror his mind conjured.

  “No offense, I meant no offense, I apologize,” Rimsky was saying, the voice finally penetrating.

  Felix Krueger blinked, the vision left him, his hands were trembling against the white tablecloth.

  “You have spoiled my sausages,” Krueger said, heavy as a church bell tolling.

  Absurd. But Rimsky was more shaken than the large man in the opposite booth. Krueger was important to the Committee for State Security, more important than Rimsky; Krueger’s demands were always small and businesslike; there was no reason to offend him. Control would not be pleased with Rimsky. There were worse assignments than this. Yet something in the superior manner of the fat Swiss always offended Rimsky and forced him to the edge of cruelty in dealing with him. Now he had gone too far.

  “Herr Krueger. If it is possible for me to apologize. I could speak to my control, I could arrange for this woman who interests you…”

  “You are a fool, Rimsky. I spoke to you of her merely to see her more clearly. If I were as limited as you, she would be a number. I would transport her from column A to column B and think nothing about her. Once in a while, I wish to see what these creatures are, to see if they are flesh and blood. It is curiosity, a quality of intellect you do not share because your intellect is so blunted by your stupidity.” The words goose-stepped over Rimsky’s self-esteem. The smaller man shook with concealed rage; but it remained concealed.

  “You may pay for my lunch. I will be in Prague in six days.”

  “Again, I apologize—”

  Perhaps I will accept it,” said Felix Krueger, wiping his thick lips with the linen napkin and dropping it on the plate of congealed grease and sausage and potato remains. “These fourteen—” He tapped his breast pocket. “Is there one for Paris, a replacement for the Pole who was deported?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then isolate him from the others at the lunch. My remarks are for those going to the United States. I will speak privately with this other one. What about Gemp?”

  Gemp had been placed in a Paris cell three months before, working at the Institut Pasteur as a maintenance man. He had foolishly allowed himself to be taunted into a fight with two Portuguese in a brasserie on the Quai Voltaire one night, with the result that all three had been arrested by the Paris police and deported after a hearing. The time spent in preparing Gemp for his assignment at the Institut Pasteur had been wasted; now a new man was ready to fill the spot.

  “Gemp? I don’t know. He was taken care of, I suppose.”

  “You are still accountable for him. The replacement will cost you full value.”

  “We understand the terms, Herr Krueger,” Rimsky said.

  “So the manifest for the twenty-eighth is fourteen full-cargo charges? Agreed?”

  Rimsky nodded.

  Business as usual. Gemp or Wanda Wyczniewski or any of the others were shipments—precious shipments to be sure, marked Handle with Care and Fragile, but shipments of goods nonetheless. Felix Krueger was a businessman in Zurich, an accountant and sometime banker and guarantor of insurance policies; he was a shrewd man of shrewd bargains with an eye for details whose books were always in balance. He dealt honestly; even the human cargo he dealt in had to admit to that. Someone who did not understand his business might think he bought and sold human beings on a perpetual international market that showed no signs of abating; Felix Krueger would have explained that a man who provides a service that benefits all, even those in temporary disadvantage, is merely a good man of business.

  Felix Krueger was not a monster. Not in his own eyes. He had an aged father in Bern whom he visited every other Sunday and to whom he showed honor and respect; he had never married but he had enjoyed the company of beautiful women and was a witty and sometimes charming companion to them. He was a middle-aged man of vigorous health with middle-age mores and middle-age values. He was not a monster at all. The human cargo from Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary could trust Felix Krueger and therefore could trust the bargaining faith of the monstrous regimes they fled.

  At the Grossmünster on Sunday morning, in the cold splendor of that Protestant edifice without icon or color, Felix Krueger prayed Sunday morning to God and felt certain that God would not judge him more harshly than He judged all men.

  These thoughts soothed him and he was not angry with Rimsky anymore.

  “The Prague shipments? For America?”

  “Not all. Six are to be diverted to Montreal before overseas manifests are signed.”

  Krueger nodded. “If there is a separate lading for them, the usual fee is one percent.”

  “Yes. I was told that was acceptable.”

  Krueger opened a little leather notebook and consulted a sheet. “The license for shipment 239 expires in three weeks. Is everything satisfactory?”

  “The bond sheets will be returned. There were no problems.”

  “I think I remember that shipment,” Krueger said
, staring at the notebook. “There were two sisters?”

  Rimsky smiled with the sincerity of a servant. “You have a good memory. They were quite useful. In fact, we have induced one of them to continue… her employment voluntarily.”

  “Really?” Krueger’s eyes widened. “Does that happen often?”

  Rimsky felt he had said too much. But the need to ingratiate himself with Krueger was greater than discretion. “Sometimes. Not often. Sometimes.”

  “Remarkable sisters. So alike, so different. I wished I had know them better. I wonder which one it was.”

  Rimsky did not speak.

  “All right. Business is concluded, Herr Rimsky. I shall expect to be met at Prague Central the morning of the twenty-eighth.”

  “I’ll be there,” Rimsky said.

  “And now the bill.” Krueger raised one freckled hand slightly and the waitress at the far end of the balcony came forward with the bill on a small plastic tray. She handed it to Krueger but the large man smiled.

  “Not for me today, Fräulein. My associate insists on paying for my little meal.”

  The heavyset waitress turned. Rimsky flushed in that moment and nearly spoke and then reached into the pocket of his jacket for his wallet. He had stepped once today against Felix Krueger; it was best not to do it twice. He took the bill and added it and reached for the francs in his wallet; when he looked up again, Felix Krueger was already at the stairs, beginning his descent. The humiliation, Rimsky was sure, was intended.

  4

  CHICAGO

  Nearly eleven. The plane had been twenty minutes late out of LaGuardia, as usual, and fifteen minutes late into Chicago. Devereaux had watched the descent out of his window, lazy as a cat. The city was broad and flat and crisscrossed with jeweled street lights. The American Airlines flight had banked north of O’Hare, fluttered down like a dove long accustomed to the miracle of flight. The wheels screeched on 19 R and the 727 lumbered across the tarmac to the central terminal building. He had not been in the city for more than twenty years. Not since he left the University of Chicago for the teaching job at Columbia University in Manhattan. A life ago, when he thought he had begun another life.

  1962. The new professor emerging from the library at Columbia, down the steps, books in hand, tieless, his sport coat flapping unbuttoned in the light autumn breeze. And a small man with a bowtie waited for him at the bottom of the steps. Wilson. Mr. Wilson wanted to buy him a beer; Mr. Wilson was from the government; Mr. Wilson was interested in his record, his familiarity with Asian studies and the languages of that continent. Had he ever intended to do fieldwork there? Yes, Devereaux had replied; when there was time enough and money enough. Perhaps, said Wilson, that could be arranged.

  During all those years Devereaux spoke three times to Melvina, always at her insistence.

  What are you doing now, Red, now that you’ve left Columbia? Up to no good again? In the business of heroin? Are you a dope dealer? Why do you go to Vietnam and Laos? How can you afford to go? I’m just an old woman, Red. I’ve made you the project of my life.

  Did she understand what he was now, what he had become after that meeting with the man in a bow tie on an autumn afternoon in New York?

  Perhaps. It was her favorite word for saying nothing. Devereaux unconsciously mimicked it all the times he had nothing to say. Which was nearly all the time.

  Melvina, at least, was truly part of the past, unlike Rita Macklin. Melvina had remained untouched by all he had become. Until the letter on blue paper.

  He walked stiffly along the corridor under indiscriminate bright lights, with throngs of cowboys in Stetsons and Indians in saris and California girls in white jeans and silk blouses and drug dealers in maroon hats with feathers in the bands: flotsam of the jet stream. It was like an Eastern bazaar selling escape, movement.

  Five minutes later, he passed through the arrival door to the covered street and waved to a yellow cab first in the line, parked fifty feet away. The cab bolted forward like a horse through a fence opening. He grabbed the door; it was stuck. He pulled and the thin driver reached over, smacked the door with his hand, and it opened.

  “Forty-six oh one Ellis Avenue,” Devereaux said, sliding into the back seat of the elderly Checker Corporation car.

  He remembered the address so easily. He hadn’t said it for twenty years. Engraved in memory along with all the other bits of the past that were useless to him and to the Section and were not in danger of being erased.

  The Pakistani driver turned in his seat and stared at Devereaux. After a moment, he spoke, his shining brown eyes unblinking. “No, I cannot.” His voice twittered like a bird. “Bad. Very bad, sir. It is a neighborhood for the blacks. Perhaps you have the wrong address, sir.”

  Devereaux stared through him. “No.”

  “Then I cannot go there,” said the Pakistani. “I do not go to the South Side at night. Very bad, sir.”

  “You’ll be safe,” Devereaux said in a slow voice, still staring through the Pakistani. He did not feel part of the conversation. He was thinking of the house, thinking of the old woman still, of the strange message she had sent to him. “I’m not black.”

  “No, sir, you are not. All the more danger.”

  “There’s no danger from me,” Devereaux said.

  The Pakistani smiled then. Logic. In the half-darkness of the cab, his face was illuminated by the brightness of his smile. His eyes glittered. “Sir, if I may? What do you want there, sir? It is a very bad place if you do not know it. Should I wait for you? You cannot get a taxi from that place at this late hour.”

  “You can’t get back here from there,” Devereaux said.

  The Pakistani nodded as though he understood and then thought better of it. He smiled. “I do not understand, sir.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Sir? Are you a police officer?”

  “Yes,” Devereaux agreed. The driver wanted an explanation that soothed him.

  “Oh, sir. I see, sir. I do not want to be robbed, sir. Or hurt.”

  “No.” Gently.

  “Then, sir, as you say, I will take you.” The Pakistani banged down the meter arm. “I cannot wait for you there, sir, do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will there be any trouble?”

  “No. Nothing at all.”

  The Pakistani pulled away from the curb as suddenly as a thought. The old heavy cab bucked into the light stream of traffic, the driver leaning on his horn around a Continental bus, pushing past the last terminal building and onto the Kennedy Expressway heading southeast to the heart of the city. Bungalows along the expressway embankments, overpasses—the urban sprawl continued from Queens. Devereaux closed his eyes but saw the old house too clearly. He blinked them open and felt tired. The Hancock Center with its blinding ribbon of white neon on the 101st floor poked over the urban horizon and then the full crown of downtown all the way to the Sears building at the south end of the Loop. The expressway skirted the edge of downtown and then plunged south into the Dan Ryan. Through the heart of the South Side ghetto, brightened by orange anticrime lights and crowned by high-rise colonies of housing projects.

  Why rush a reluctant homecoming? He could stay downtown, see Melvina tomorrow. Not even see her. He could have called. He could have called from Manhattan in the first place.

  Perhaps it pleased him to return so late at night, wake the old woman from a sound sleep, bang on the door…

  The taxi pulled off the Dan Ryan at 47th Street and plunged east through the still glittering ghetto heart. The cold streets were alive with hookers and cops and pimps and drunks and, in vacant lots, with winos congregated around fire barrels. Dirty snow waited in bundles of ice at the curbs, like garbage that wouldn’t be picked up until spring.

  “Do you know where Ellis Avenue is, sir? All the street signs are gone.”

  Did he know? “Turn here.” St. Ambrose Church on the corner, dark as a forgotten faith. Did he know?

  “Down there.
By the corner.”

  The Pakistani hit the brakes too hard on the dark side street. Even the orange lamps failed to penetrate this darkness. Devereaux pulled a bill out of his pocket and dropped it on the front seat. “Keep the change.” He reached for the bag beside him. The door was stuck again. He hit it with the heel of his palm. It squeaked open.

  He climbed out. His knees ached stiffly. He stood for a moment, bag in hand, on the silent, cold street. He stared up at the house of his childhood, his reluctant refuge.

  “Sir?”

  Devereaux glanced in at the driver.

  “I have changed my mind, sir. I will wait for you if you wish, sir. I can take you downtown when you are finished.”

  “No,” Devereaux said.

  “Is this a place of prostitution?”

  Devereaux stared.

  “This is no place for white men such as us.”

  “Then go away.” Quietly.

  “It is very bad here, sir. There are murders waiting here.”

  “Yes,” he said. He saw it then, as he had lived it, some thirty years ago, his shirt covered with bloodstains. Unrepentant. Silent in the back of the squad car. Ya killed him, ya little fucker, ya killed him and he mighta had it comin’, but you know what you done, kid? You even care what you done? Ya killed him.

  No. He didn’t care.

  Devereaux opened the iron gate that led to the broken concrete walk to the three-story redstone house. The Pakistani decided: The cab ground into gear, pitched forward. Gone.

  This had been an elegant house, an elegant neighborhood of homes. But that was in a time before even his time. Decayed now, locked into the grid of the ghetto, broken. The remains of one stone lion next to the broken cement stairs. There had been two lions guarding these stairs.

  He rang the bell and then, when there was no answer, knocked at the oak door at the top of the stairs. He felt afraid, he realized, but not of physical danger. What he feared was more terrible. The lights of the cab winked away down the street, around a corner. He rang the bell again. He rang it a third time.