I shove the passport and an SD card into my jacket beside the pistol, slide a second card into my shoe for the sake of redundancy, then thumb through the money—300,000 francs—and put it in the gym bag.
Max is, of course, gone when I return to the lobby. But the clerk is there, waiting for me behind a podium, typing on a computer.
“My friend,” I say. “Did he…?”
“Left a moment ago.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
* * *
But there’s a surprise waiting for me on the steps of Feldman Capital Services: Max, leaning against the railing, one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding a bottle of beer. He looks up as I come toward him, just slightly curious, but not too much.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“Needed a drink. Figured, why not?” He clears his throat, studies his shoes. “Can you even drink on the street here?”
It’s Switzerland, so either emphatically no or emphatically yes. “No idea.”
“Well then, I’ll live dangerously,” he says. “How’d it go, in the bank?”
“Alles ist in Ordnung,” I say.
“One thing they do well here, it’s Ordnung.” He raises his bottle in a mock toast and takes a long drink. “So how do we work this?”
“Work this?”
“I expected you to do it last night, when I was sleeping. Then this morning.” He looks around, wipes his nose with his sleeve. “Now what? You can’t just shoot me in the street.”
My eyes narrow. Can’t I? I slide my hand into my jacket pocket, brushing against the gun. “I just, you know. Changed my mind.”
“Well,” he says, taking another drink. “That’s nice.”
My hand comes back out, holding a fat packet of francs folded in half. “Here. Your cut. One hundred thousand.”
Max looks at my hand. “So, not a million.”
“I lied about that.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I figured.”
“Take it,” I say. “You’ll need it.”
“Oh, that’s right. Australian passport. Grow my hair out.” Max takes the money indifferently, puts it in his pocket. “Feel like getting breakfast somewhere?”
I shake my head.
“All right, then,” he says, pushing himself off the railing. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” I call out after him. “Have a nice life.”
He raises a hand in a casual wave as he walks away. “All five minutes of it,” he calls back.
Part Four
MARIKE
Thirty-Three
A mistake. Obviously. Or maybe not. But it leaves my stomach ebullient to see him disappear, alive. My breath soars; my heart beats evenly and without guilt. A part of me—most of me—is furious and calling the rest of me a sentimental idiot. But I just couldn’t do it. Not another one. Not today. Not tomorrow, either. I walk for a while, two hundred grand in my pocket, along with a clean passport and a gym bag full of justice. As for the gun, it’ll go in the river. Not now. But soon.
I stroll for a time, crossing and recrossing the river on different bridges, nearly getting hit by a streetcar and laughing about it, buying a pretzel from a street vendor and thinking it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. By lunch, I find myself in the Old Town, strolling like a tourist past shops for millionaires that line the streets. Then I remember my suit, the one I’d paid for months ago. Can I find the shop again?
Of course, Lorber’s Haberdashery is right where I’d left it. Marcel, the man who’d helped me, recognizes me instantly. “We were afraid you’d … Well, in any case, welcome back.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Good to be back.”
I try it on, the midnight-colored suit that isn’t blue or black but both and neither.
Marcel smiles. “One feels—sublime. Does one not?”
I turn in front of the mirror, tugging at the jacket button, cinching the waist. It’s sleek and close-cut, shimmering just a touch as it follows the curves of my shoulders and back. “Yes,” I say. “One does.”
“A little loose. We can take it in, of course,” Marcel says.
“Don’t bother,” I say. “Room to grow.”
Marcel helps me find a blouse and stockings and shoes, and I leave wearing all of it.
From an old woman on the street, I buy a 10-franc umbrella for twenty and whistle as I cross the river yet again.
I head into the less bougie quarter east of the Old Town, to the little antiquities shop where Miriam Sonnenfeld sells novelty collectibles that look remarkably like the real thing.
She greets me with unambiguous distaste, even curling her lip. “Are you on drugs? You look like an addict who stole a suit.”
With my gaunt, sallow face and ratty hair, I don’t blame her. “Just had—some trouble come up.”
She appraises me, tapping the pungent red nails against a wrinkled chin. “The raid at the Obelisk Grande, was that you?”
“Yes.”
“So that identity I created—what was her name, Kereti?”
“Still alive, for the moment. But I need another. The best you have.”
Miriam gestures with her head to the back room. I follow her down the stairs, careful of the third, broken one, and into her studio. She moves a stack of papers from the middle of her desk so she can see me across it. “The best I have,” she repeats. “Best at what? Crossing borders? Want to be a Yale graduate?”
“I need—something permanent,” I say. “I don’t care where I’m born or where I went to school. I just want to be normal. Get a job. Rent an apartment.”
“So what’s wrong with Lila Kereti?”
“She has a history. I want to be new. Clean.”
“So see a priest,” Miriam says.
“What I need is paper,” I say. “Can you help me or not?”
She looks off at something in the distance, the artist lost in thought. “Birth certificate. School transcripts.”
“If possible,” I say.
“Expensive, all this,” she says, leaning forward.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.” She holds up a battered old Swiss passport. “When everything was, as you said, paper, it was a question of skill. Now, it’s biometric chips and databases. Skill is just the beginning.”
I swallow. “How much?”
“Full identity—as you said, clean—fifty thousand.”
She’s screwing me. Or maybe not. I close my eyes, then nod. “I’ll pay in full now, and contact you where to send it.”
“Work like this, it’s a giant pain in the ass,” Miriam says. “But you have my word, when it’s done, you won’t need to come to me ever again.”
* * *
She won’t give me a time estimate and says only that it will be done when it’s done. I leave her shop an hour later, after more questions are answered, after she takes my fingerprints and photo. Between Miriam and Max, I’ve spent half of my money, and it isn’t even night yet.
But my day isn’t done, not by a long shot.
I’m outside Naz Sadik’s office a half hour later and take up position across the street. At 4:45, I get a coffee and come back. At 5:00, the door to her building opens and Naz steps out.
Bright pink hijab today. Goes nicely with her sky-blue umbrella and sky-blue trench coat. Even in the rain, Naz shines among the Zurich crowd in their drab grays, which makes her all the easier to follow. She climbs aboard a streetcar, using the middle door; I climb aboard in the back. I peer through the canyons between shoulders and catch slices of her checking her phone, unwrapping a piece of gum, checking her phone again, smiling this time, as if reading good news.
Eight or nine commuters get off at her stop, so I blend in with them, hanging back as I follow. I see her pull out her keys, and I close the distance. I’m nearly beside her as she slides a key into a door lock.
“Naz,” I say quietly, neither a whisper nor a hiss.
She jumps a little anyway, flicks her head aro
und. When she sees me, she inhales sharply, touches her chest. “Lila Kereti,” she says. “My God—how did you…”
“I followed you from your office.”
“Ah. Well. Of course.” She fumbles with her keys, wondering whether to go inside or keep the trouble confined to the front stoop. “Look, what happened. With the money. I told you, I had no control over it.”
“I know. That’s not why I’m here.” I look around, making sure the street is empty. “I need your help.”
“If you call my secretary, I’m sure we…”
“The last thing you need is me showing up at your office,” I say, reaching a hand into my jacket pocket. “It has to be now. Tonight.” I pull out the small pistol, holding it by the muzzle, and push it toward her butt first.
She looks at it. “What’s this?”
“Your insurance policy. That I won’t hurt you.”
Naz takes the pistol, unlocks the door.
* * *
Dim yellow light rolls sleepily over a pair of butter-colored love seats and a curved maple table loaded neatly with a Sotheby’s art auction catalog, a copy of Vogue, and a vase of white lilies. They look expensive and fresh, like everything in Naz’s living room. I run my finger along the spines on her bookshelf. Arabic and Turkish titles, German, French, and English, too. On a lighted pedestal sits a silver teapot in a glass display cube, like at a museum. I study the teapot—nice enough, weirdly squared off—but whatever makes it so valuable is beyond my comprehension.
“You’re a fan of Dresser’s work,” Naz says, a statement rather than a question, as she enters from the kitchen carrying a tray.
“The teapot?” I say.
“Christopher Dresser. Looks modern, but he was designing these in Victorian England. Whole new aesthetic paradigm.” She sets the tray down on the table beside the Vogue and Sotheby’s catalog. A plate of artfully arranged crackers and cheese. A glass of water for me. Scotch for her. “That one there. A prototype. Never went into production. You sure you don’t want something—harder?”
I shake my head and sit down on the love seat. “I didn’t think a teapot could be, I don’t know. Important.”
“It isn’t. It’s a teapot.” Naz collapses in the love seat across from me, folds her legs under her. “Works the same as any other. For what that cost me, I could have put a kid through college.”
The unpretty idea hangs in the air for a moment, like the aftershock of an obscenity polite people should never say aloud. Then I sip my water, let out a little laugh.
“Fucked-up world,” she says, raising her glass as if toasting it. “But you know all about that, right, Lila? Or are you using something else?”
“That’s why I’m here,” I say. “I was … being held. Four months.”
“I heard,” Naz says. “When you didn’t show up again, I feared the worst.”
“It’s over now. I think. For a little while.” I make a sandwich for myself with two crackers and a piece of cheese. “Terrance. Have you seen him?”
“Damn.” Naz sighs, takes a sip of scotch. “Just when I thought we were going to pass the Bechdel test.”
I look at her.
“Bechdel test. In a movie, or book, whatever. When two female characters have a conversation that’s not about a man. You’d be surprised how rare that is.”
I close my eyes impatiently. “Do you know where he is or not?”
“Budapest. He came by, day after the raid. I made a connection for him, a new passport.”
“Budapest,” I repeat.
“That’s all I know. What name he’s using or whether that’s where he really went, who can say?” Naz sets down her drink and leans forward, hands folded. “Lila, may I give you some advice?”
I nod.
“Running. It’s hard enough on your own. But with two…” She cuts herself off, takes another drink. “Love. Attachments. These are privileges you don’t have.”
“Look, I get it. And thank you.” I run my hand over the leather on the armrest, look around the room, Naz’s home, comfortable, clean, very much hers. Everything permanent. “I’m here because I need—a plan. Also, a place to stay for a night or two, to get things sorted.”
“You can stay here,” she says. “Hourly rates apply, of course.”
I almost smile as if she’s making a joke, but she isn’t. “I have a hundred and fifty thousand francs. That’s it. That’s all that’s left.”
Naz leans back in the love seat, pushes her hair over her ear, and smiles.
“What?” I say.
“My favorite, this part. Broke client.” She gets up from her seat. “Let me show you something.”
She disappears into another room and, a moment later, comes back with a file folder. She rests it on her knees and starts paging through it. “The paperwork you gave me. The companies. Webb-Rosenthal. España Shipping. Fomax Optical. You remember?”
“Of course.”
“And the bank accounts.”
“Which are empty. Thanks to you.”
Naz eyes me in a way that means don’t push it. “Then there’s this,” she says.
A packet of papers slides across the table. I pick it up. It’s a lease from someplace called Ports Francs et Entrêpots de Genève SA, signed by none other than Lila Kereti. I remember it now, glancing over it in my room 33 at the Pension Alexandra. It was Lila’s signature that drew my attention, but I hadn’t given it more thought than that.
I look up at Naz. “A lease—but for what?”
“For a strong room, it’s called. At the Geneva free port. Used to be for grain, cotton, anything that was in transit. The merchant could keep it there, tax-free, no questions asked, until they shipped it to its final destination.”
“I don’t need grain, Naz,” I say. “Or cotton.”
“Used to be for that. Then the rich, the same ones who pay a fortune for teapots, figured out you could keep other things there. Artwork. Wine. Anything worth money. Dollars and yen go up and down, but a Picasso is always a Picasso.”
“So what’s in it?”
“I have no idea,” Naz says. “But whatever it is, it belongs to you.”
* * *
The warehouse for the rich is a beige rectangle of prefab concrete next to the railroad tracks just south of downtown Geneva. There’s a McDonald’s a block away, and a pizzeria, and buildings that look like warehouses. But this is a deception, Naz tell me. Inside these buildings that look like warehouses are art galleries, insurance agents, lawyers—the professionals who set up shop like street hawkers wherever the rich are found. Money in this part of Geneva isn’t merely quiet; it’s hidden.
We’d left Naz’s house at exactly six o’clock this morning, driving her Mercedes south for three hours in dense but fast-moving traffic. I did my best to minimize my expectations, but I tapped my fingers on the armrest ceaselessly and my stomach cramped the whole way. We pull into the parking lot just as the clock on the dashboard turned from 8:59 to 9:00.
Thérèse, forty or close to it, with brown hair worn in a stylish mop and a gray peaked-lapel suit, steps into the lobby from a back office the moment we enter from the front, as if our arrival had been timed to the second. She greets us in English.
“This is, ah, your first time here?” asks Thérèse.
“Yes. The lease was—arranged,” I say.
“Then welcome. Would you care for coffee or tea…”
“Just show us to the room, please,” says Naz.
As Thérèse examines Lila Kereti’s identification in the back office, Naz grips my forearm. “A reminder. It may be empty. Be ready for disappointment,” she says, looking at me over the rims of her Audrey Hepburn sunglasses.
Thérèse reappears, a comically large key in her hand, and motions for us to follow. We ride a gleaming steel cube of an elevator to the fourth floor, then walk past polished concrete walls and heavy steel doors, three sets of heels clicking and echoing as we go.
“I’ll be exactly here,” Thérèse
says as she unlocks the last door on the end. “If you need anything, just call.”
With professional tact, Thérèse turns her back as we step inside and turn on the lights.
Thirty-Four
A single wooden crate, ESPAÑA SHIPPING stenciled on the side. I run my fingers over the rough wood and look at Naz.
“And me without my tool belt,” Naz says.
But the problem is soon remedied. Thérèse knocks politely at the door less than a minute after being dispatched and hands me a crowbar and hard rubber mallet. I decline Naz’s offer to help and am rewarded with a grateful smile. She alights to the hallway to wait with Thérèse while I go to work, pounding the crowbar beneath the lid and pushing on it with all my weight until the nails squeak free.
Clothing, carefully folded, makes up the first layer. Blue jeans, a puffy ski parka, a pretty scarf. Then bedsheets, good ones, and a red satin duvet cover, king-sized. It’s all very intimate, and no different, really, than any storage locker anywhere. Just like that, I’m back in New York, in Queens, in the storage locker my dad had rented there. I’d broken into it, looking for clues after he went missing, only to find my old life inside.
A toy racetrack, an enormous stuffed elephant, gray and well-loved, Disney DVDs, and a bundle of children’s clothes—sweaters and corduroy pants thin at the knees and beat-up, tiny sneakers. Then, photo albums.
I urge myself, just as I did in Queens, to set the albums aside, leave the memories unvisited, but of course I don’t. Inside, pictures of a little boy, three or four. At a park. At a swimming pool. On the seat of a rowboat. And in each one, the same woman is with him. Dark hair, brown eyes, dressed indifferently in jeans and sweatshirt. If I were seven or eight or ten years older, she could be me. The most striking thing about her is her evident love for the boy. Her son. I’m looking at Lila Kereti and her son.
I remind myself that this is not merely a storage locker. Not in the sense mine was. It’s a climate-controlled strong room in a vault for the rich, complete with a multilingual attendant quick to fetch you coffee or a crowbar. So I set my sentimentality aside with the photos and dig deeper.
A worn-out Oriental rug bundled around something. I spread it out on the floor—the rug old, worn, and to my eyes, meaningless—and find inside two objects. The first, a warrior’s mask, bronze and ancient, and the second, a figurine ten or twelve inches high, a goddess carved in marble and holding a bowl.
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