by Singer, Ron
“Shall we forward this to Warfield? It might shake things up. I should probably c.c. Scott Peters, too.”
Peter yawned and stretched his long arms, palms upraised. “Forwarding it to Warfield might do us some good. That was the idea, wasn’t it? But Peters will go ballistic. And Geistmann may decide to violate his ‘no collateral damage’ rule.”
“I doubt that. But, for now, I won’t feed him –Robinson—any more information. Oh, yes, cut him a check for … $8000. Memo line: Consultancy, 40 hours @ $200 per. Take it from the Miscellaneous Fund.”
“Done.”
Geistmann: Episode Five
GEISTMANN, Episode Five.
Saturday, March 1, 2008. Washington, D.C.
When the AMTRAK Northeast Corridor-1 arrived at Union Station, Washington, D.C. at 4:05 on Saturday afternoon, Geistmann emerged once again in the physical person of M. Tomaz Goncalves of Lisbon, Portugal, via Bonneyville, Alberta. But he now carried a Maryland driver’s license and other identification in the name of Mr. Jeffrey Thomaston. He walked half a block west on E Street to a boutique hotel, a foursquare seven-story brick building with two bellmen at the curb. Smiling at them, but not relinquishing his bags, he strode through the automatic glass doors into the lobby.
This was his first trip to D.C. and, hence, to this hotel, other than virtually. It was a decidedly odd place, a vanity of vanities. First, he encountered his reversed double in a huge oval mirror that, like the doors, was immaculate. The lobby was done in marble, some white, some herse d’orient, the type of marble that looks marked by urine stains. To his surprise, the red rugs and off-royal blue couches were aging poorly. On one wall hung a huge digital blow-up of Napoleon and another of a dollar bill. In a glass case was a book the cover of which offered “Spiritual Leadership.” Since the advertised motto on the hotel website was “Leading by Example,” Geistmann assumed he had wandered into a den of greedy Christians. Oh, well, he thought, I, too, lead by example –or, at least, by making examples of those who are unfit to lead.
At the highly polished front desk, Mr. Thomaston pre-paid the astronomical rate that had been quoted on the hotel website and provided all the (false) information they required. He proceeded to his room, which, as requested, was on the third floor, the lowest floor with guest rooms. Before carding his door, he checked the stairs on either end of the hall. The room, which faced traffic, and with windows that had been designed never to open, was about what the lobby had led him to expect, fancy, but without character. Above each of the two vast beds hung another big dollar. He washed up, put on fresh, touristy clothes, and left his attache’ case and big, ugly, green hard-shelled suitcase on a bed. This new piece of luggage he had stolen as he was leaving the train, from an overhead rack above a sleeping business type. In a toilet stall at the station, he had transferred the contents of the duffel bag, which he left in the stall: more bread crumbs for Weatherbee.
On the way back to Union Station, he was struck by the fact that the environs were dotted with homeless beggars, some of whom visibly suffered from mental illness. The D.C. poor were like tickbirds on the backs of the political and bureaucratic rhinoceri. An enormous black woman sat at a table covered with medical pamphlets and paraphernalia. A placard offered “FREE BLOOD PRESSURE.” America, the land of the cheap and the free.
He re-entered the train station, and purchasing a Metro Card from a polite machine, took the Red Line toward the bucolic-sounding “Shady Grove.” Four stops later, he exited at Farragut North, which he had read was identical to every other Metro station in the city. Even so, he had a weakness for the vaulted ceilings, which evoked another favorite, the Cite’ Station on Line 4 in Paris.
Two blocks south, Geistmann came to Lafayette Square (a park, actually). Ahead of him sat that surprisingly rather low-slung epicenter of global power, The White House, occupied at the moment by a bad mistake. (Americans must be the most gullible people on Earth.) Behind it and slightly to the north, the famous pencil made an obscene gesture toward the crepuscular sky. In the southeast corner of the park stood the statue he had come to see.
On top towered the Marquis, himself, looking tall, straight, courageous, and visionary, but somehow also worried. Surprisingly slim, the hero might have been modeled after Geistmann at twenty. He seemed to point a forefinger proudly down in the direction of the White House, as if to say, “I made that possible.”
Below the Marquis, crouching on her own pedestal, was Liberty, holding his sword up to him. The pose lifted her lovely breasts, but not only were the couple frozen, like Keats’ lovers on the Urn, but even if they had not been, Liberty was so far below the Marquis that she would have needed a stepladder from which to hand him the sword. (And surely her Mother had told her never to mount ladders carrying sharp objects.)
The actual Marquis had been as solid as this bronze statue, as solid as the ties between the two nations that had been forged by the maverick nobleman and America’s founding fathers, way back then. It would take two hundred years for history to complete its arc, changing the dependent little weakling into the colossus it had become, and remained until the current decade, when it seemed poised to join post-colonial France in the League of Enfeebled Nations.
Geistmann’s mid-Atlantic itinerary was designed, in part, as homage to the historic and current relationship between the two nations. Of special interest was Lafayette’s work with the American founders, less his well-known partnership with Washington than his close friendship with Jefferson. To Geistmann, the Virginian, personal failings aside, was an even greater hero than Lafayette. (Washington was overrated.)
As he contemplated the statue, his mental calendar clicked away. Half a block west of the station, he knew, was a historic, ultra-private club that included an excellent squash facility. But this was neither the time nor the place for games. Only nineteen more days remained before he would embark upon the climactic stage of his Jeffersonian progress, nineteen days to enjoy --and to kill.
Thursday, March 6, 2008. New York, N.Y.
“Your order has arrived.”
“One moment, please.”
After a few clicks and beeps, Weatherbee came on. “Good evening, John,” he said. “Did you get the video?”
It was eleven p.m. Two hours earlier, when Weatherbee’s package was delivered, Robinson had been working on the dinner dishes.
“Well,” he said, “I’m no country music fan, but …was that really...?”
“It’s him, all right, doing what I’m told was a Willie Nelson-Merle Haggard composite.”
“A half-Nelson? Sorry. The guitar riffs were good, and the outfit was funny.”
The performer, a lanky man, had been wearing Mercurochrome-colored shoulder-length hair that was like a backdrop to the black ten-gallon hat. He also wore a sequined red “Elvis” shirt and tight jeans tucked into yellow rain boots.
“Dubbed,” Weatherbee said. “But Peter, who really can play, tells me Geistmann knows how to move his fingers over the frets in the right order. The voice was made with a synthesizer. Our engineers and linguists are trying to tease information out of it. And, yes, he does look funny.”
“But those tunes are baby work. I mean, ‘The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,’ segueing into ‘Oh, Shenandoah’? When and how did you get this video?”
“Today, at two p.m. He sent it to us as an IDVD file attached to a short, characteristic email from an untraceable address: ‘Toujours avec toi –L’Homme Fantasme.’ “
“Phew! He’s an Americanophile, isn’t he?”
Weatherbee audibly shrugged. “Like 90% of the human race. We wondered why there were two songs about the same place, until Peter found a resort in Shenandoah National Park called ‘The Blue Ridge Lodge.’ ”
“So he’s leading you on either a treasure hunt or a wild goose chase.”
“His little clues are usually reliable.”
“But nothing about when? He may not turn up for another year.”
“No, he operates with
in short time frames.“
Robinson had already guessed that Weatherbee had not sent him the tape just to amuse him or to add a few bits to his knowledge. “Arnold? Where is this conversation leading? Do you actually want me to go down there?”
There was a short silence, followed by a sigh. “Well, yes, John, I do. You might see things the rest of us would miss.”
“Hmm, if you say so. But wouldn’t I get in the way of the people who will be trying to apprehend him? And what about the danger?” Robinson was not a coward, but he was realistic.
“We’ll arrange for you to arrive after he finishes whatever he’s planning to do, so he’ll be gone. And if we catch him first … well, then, we won’t need you, will we? We’ll call you off.”
“So you do know when he’s coming?”
“We have a good idea. Another consultant, a shrink named Pablo Markowitz, read the transcript of your report. I forwarded him the faxes and tape this afternoon, and picking up on your idea about tricksters, he sent me back a quick reply pointing out that the Johnson murder had occurred on Leap Year Day. For Virginia, he guessed April Fools’ Day or possibly Easter Sunday.”
Robinson was already thinking about the dates of Spring break, when many of the graduate students who used the Rare Book Library, and whose researches it was part of his job to facilitate, would be away.
Weatherbee apparently read his mind. “If it’s Easter, John, Ian Bostridge would probably let you…
“I’ve accumulated forty-three vacation days.”
“Good. By the way, your first check should arrive tomorrow, or Saturday. It will be for eight thousand dollars, forty hours at two hundred per. The check will be drawn on a bank in Delaware you’ve never heard of, so don’t throw it away.”
“Thanks. Very generous of you.”
“No, no. Any new thoughts before I let you go? I know it’s late.”
“No, but I do have a question.”
“Oh?”
“Arnold, why was the dossier you gave me censored?”
Weatherbee’s laugh sounded defensive. “Well, as you must realize, John, a lot of the information is ‘need to know.’ You’re still very new to us.. But don’t worry, if things keep going well, we’ll ratchet up your security clearance.”
“The forensics are completely missing. And haven’t your investigators discovered anything about his past history?”
“Yes, of course they have. The history and forensics are ‘need to know.’ Is that it?”
Robinson plowed ahead. “One more detail: is the Donduceni narrative complete and accurate?”
“Fairly complete, completely accurate. By the way, if you’re interested, you can find ‘Doncuceni, Stefan’ in the Interpol Red Notices. There’s one for Geistmann, too.”
“I’ve read the Notices already, thanks,” Robinson said, trying not to sound condescending. “Dunduceni was marked ‘Solved’ in 1999.”
“Of course. Very well, then, I’ll let you go now. We’ll get back to you with travel details in time for you to make your plans. Good night, John.”
The connection was abruptly broken. Robinson had found the conversation unsettling. He visualized Weatherbee from their first, and only, meeting, at the Centre Street office. In his tweed suit, he could have passed for a fellow academic, an Associate Professor, say, of English or History.
Weatherbee gently replaced the phone in its cradle. As usual, Peter was hunched over his computer, clicking away. Weatherbee spoke to the back of his head.
“Well, Piet, that’s that.”
“Out of the frying pan,” Peter replied, still not looking up. Then, he sang softly,
And here's to you, Mr. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know.
Wo, wo, wo.
And you may need it.”
Monday, March 10, 2008. Bethany Beach, Maryland.
The ghost was inside a new machine -plane, bus, train, and now, a third anonymous little rental car, this one blue. He was cruising slowly, with both front windows open, along Route 1, a.k.a. the Delaware Avenue Coastal Highway.
Geistmann loved the shrinking globe, both real and virtual, through which he perpetually moved. Once, he had imagined Atlas looking perplexed, as he held in his huge palm a baseball-sized world.
Geistmann was heading north through an ugly, overdeveloped resort called Bethany Beach, searching for a likely side street on which to find an unoccupied house. There! Simultaneously, he hit his left turn signal and gently swung away from the shore onto North 4th Street, where half a block on, he braked and made an abrupt right turn into an unlit carport that looked as if its owners had not recently been in residence.
“The banker, the broker, the Washington joker,” he sang, in his loud, mellifluous baritone, “three prominent bastards are we.” Resting the map on his lap in case he had to pretend to be lost, he killed the headlights and the engine, then sat very still and listened. Nothing. Most of the Washingtonians who owned or rented houses in this dreadful sprawl were probably creatures of the calendar, which meant they would not arrive for ten more days. Then, like lemmings, they would swarm toward the sea, in time for the Easter weekend.
By then, having caught up on his “paperwork” and having used the nearly empty beach to renew his insane personal fitness program, adapted from the one used by the U.S. Navy Seals, Geistmann would be well on his way across Virginia. He would have sped around the Beltway several days before the holiday congestion turned all the cars, buses, and trucks to insects in amber.
Sunday, March 16, 2008. New York, NY.
Robinson spent the next weeks working away at the Library while he waited for his marching orders for Virginia. But late at night, he would remember the photograph Weatherbee had sent him the previous week as an attachment to an email. It had presumably been sent to satisfy his request for more information. When he had looked at it the first time, his reaction was, be careful what you wish for!
Remembering the horrific photo made him shudder again now. It was a naked corpse, a hairy, overweight male whose unmarked facial features looked central Asian. With a heavy five o’clock shadow and straight, long, well cut black hair, the man could equally have been a ruthless business type, a successful gangster, or maybe a bent policeman. As Weatherbee had indicated, this was the human trafficker, Stefan Donduceni.
Several details gave the picture great shock effect. The corpse had been castrated, penis and testicles alike. There was a great deal of what looked like dried blood, and the facial expression suggested that the castration might have been a vivisection: the eyes were open so wide they looked about to pop, and the mouth was stretched into a Munch-like silent scream. The corpse was trussed, both arms and legs, to a long gray metal table, with several rounds of what looked like the wide quilted bands moving men use. In the lower left corner of the photograph was a date: 3 February 1999.
Just to the left of the big table was a smaller wooden one, on which he could make out, in a neat pile, the man’s neatly folded clothing: outer- and under-garments, socks (black), but no shoes. At the very top of the pile, on a pair of shiny, colorful jockey shorts (wide red and green stripes, two to one), there was a bulging brown billfold and, on top of that, also neatly arranged, the shriveled penis and testicles. These genitalia were still in one piece. Next to the bizarre display, on the smaller table, was a rectangular placard, another calling card. The writing was large and clear enough to read. Robinson thought it might be Ukrainian, or ukrayins'ka mova.
At a drunken party with some of his ex-wife Judy’s wilder immigrant cousins thirty years before, he had gleaned a smattering of Ukrainian, mostly just a few obscenities, plus the names of three or four drinks—which he still remembered. Thanks to two undergraduate Russian classes (taken so he could read The Masters), he also understood the Cyrillic alphabet. As it happened, one of the words on the placard, "nenic," was part of his small Ukrainian lexicon from the party: “penis.”
It occurred to Robinson that the photograph
raised a new question. He quickly dialed Weatherbee’s number, and they went through the ritual.
“John. What’s up?”
“The guy in the picture you sent me, Donduceni? Tell me more about him, things that aren’t in the Red Notice.”
A pause. “Okay. As you know, Stefan Donduceni was a Moldovan. The photo was taken inside the office of a deserted former Soviet arms factory in Tiraspol.”
“But that’s in Transniester, isn’t it?”
“Transniester, Moldova, what’s the difference?”
“Tell me more.”
“A human trafficker. One of the worst, and believe me, that’s saying a lot. A sadist, very dangerous. He killed one of our agents –you don’t want to know how. Sometimes, he bought the girls –boys, too-- from their own dysfunctional families, very poor families, lots of abuse, and then exported them to work as sex slaves in places like the Czech Republic, Scandinavia, and Dubai. But, when he had a chance, he preferred kidnapping. It wasn’t to save the cost of buying his victims, which to him was negligible. If he kidnapped them, there was no need to pretend even initially that they were going off to jobs as waitpersons or room cleaners. He could start terrorizing and torturing them immediately, and keep it up until they finally had to be delivered before they became so damaged the buyers might renege.”