Lindstrom's Progress
Page 17
“Now then, Harry,” said Sakarov, “I think all of us could do with a good night’s sleep. You go along with the boys. They’ll see to it you’re taken care of. Good night.”
The Russian dismissed Harry with a peremptory wave of his hand, which brought the two goons to Harry’s side. He rose and walked with them down the steep path to the boathouse. Neither man touched him, but he might as well have been caught in the jaws of an ineluctable vice. The vague scent of body odour pressed from either side.
Whatever Harry had hoped to do by confronting Sakarov, there was no catharsis at hand.
What did you expect?
Nothing, he thought, as they entered the boathouse.
13 THE MESSAGE
When Harry woke up for an early morning pee over the rail at the front of the boathouse loft, he discovered one of the goons sitting in a chair reading Tolstoy by lamplight. Anna Karenina.
“You read English?” said Harry, cringing a little as he heard pee splatter on the deck below.
Now that was boorish.
“Is good,” said Gregor.
Harry sat on the edge of his bed.
“Of course,” said Gregor. “Is better in English. In Russian, too much words.”
Harry smiled, uncertain what he meant.
“Bullshit,” said Oswaldo, rising out of his sleep and bracing on one elbow. “You read lazy in Russian. No more words, longer words. Is better. In English, best is Stieg Larsson, better than Tolstoy.”
“Idiot,” said Gregor. “I read in Swedish Stieg Larsson. In English, is not so good. I read both. But he is like Tolstoy, yes. Great social vision. Strong character. Story move fast. Very complex. You agree, Mr. Lindstrom?”
Harry looked from one Russian to the other. Had he followed Alice down the rabbit hole? Had they slipped him acid? Was he still asleep?
“Mister, he ask you,” said Oswaldo.
“I hadn’t thought about Larsson as the new Tolstoy,” said Harry. “Maybe the new Dashiell Hammett or Agatha Christie.”
“Ha!” Gregor exclaimed. “You read like sissy.”
What on earth does that mean?
“Now you get dressed,” said Oswaldo. “Mr. Fearman, he will call soon to see you.”
Harry had slept in his clothes. He stood up, slipped on his shoes, and waited, warily curious about what would happen next. Perhaps a lecture on Renaissance art over breakfast.
With his wardens beside him, he descended to the boat level of the dock. He avoided the Rorschach splotch on the darkened cedar and splashed lake water on his face, while Gregor and Oswaldo attended to more conventional ablutions using the small bathroom. Then the three of them climbed the hillside path to the verandah. Fearman was sitting in his Muskoka chair, smoking a cigar. He had changed his clothes, so it seemed he had not spent the entire night there. He appeared older in the cruel light of day. He waved at Harry to sit down in the chair beside him that had been occupied by Dimitri Sakarov the night before.
“Mr. Sakarov had to leave early. He sent his regards. He will be in touch.”
“He has a habit of sending his regards,” said Harry. “And of staying in touch.”
So, Oswaldo and Gregor were employed by his host, not by the repulsive Russian.
Harry rose to his feet. “I think I’ll grab some breakfast in Port Carling. Thank you for the use of the bed and my charming companions to watch over me.”
“I do not think you will leave just yet,” said Fearman, nodding to Gregor, who placed both huge hands on Harry’s shoulders from behind and pushed him down with excruciating force.
“Would you like coffee? Yes, Oswaldo, please bring coffee for our guest. Thank you. Now Harry, we need to talk.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” said Harry. “And I don’t much care. I came for the fat man.”
“You do not like Mr. Sakarov.”
“Do you?”
“I have never thought about it. No, I suppose I do not. But it makes no difference. We are business associates. We do not play golf together.”
Oswaldo drew up a small table beside the arm of Harry’s chair and set down a tray with a bone china cup, a silver pot of coffee, a silver bowl of white and brown sugar cubes with silver tongs, and a silver pitcher of thick cream.
Harry passed on the sugar and cream. The coffee by itself was superb.
“Could you clear something up for me?” said Harry, blowing steam across the top of his cup.
“Of course?”
“Am I a prisoner or a guest?”
“Whichever you think. I would like to have a conversation with you. Since you might not want to have a conversation with me, then I suppose you are my guest until I am finished.”
“It’s always good to know where you stand.”
“Now, then, to business. You have access to certain files.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Please do not swear. We do not swear in this house. My girls, you know.”
“Fuck you,” said Harry.
He momentarily lost consciousness. His cup shattered on the floor. He wasn’t aware of letting it slip from his hands, but he heard it break into pieces. He blinked trying to clear his head. Gregor had walloped him across the back of the skull. So much for Tolstoy.
“The files, Harry.” Fearman spoke as if nothing had happened. “Some of them might incriminate me. You will find them and you will delete them before doing whatever you must do with the rest.”
“And what must I do?”
“Whatever you think best, of course.”
Muskoka chairs are designed to relinquish their grip on your buttocks only with a great deal of effort, but Harry eased slowly forward. He had no interest in alarming Oswaldo or Gregor. When he was seated upright on the front edge of the chair, he felt more in control.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can, Mr. Fearman. I do not have in my possession files of any sort that could possibly be of interest to you. Or to Dimitri Sakarov. If I did, I would not be able to release them. My problem with Sakarov is that he tortured and raped my friend in Vienna and probably had her murdered.”
“Ah, well, whatever your quarrel with Sakarov, it is no concern of mine. But he assures me, you have access to incriminating information of the worst sort. If you do not have it now, he assures me you will. Before you do with it whatever you have to do, you will see there is nothing left that can be traced back to me. Do you know, the Fearmans have had this cottage for five generations? We are an old family and we are fiercely proud. We do not take kindly to scandal. Am I clear?”
“And what sort of scandalous material should I be looking for?”
“Oh, Harry,” he chuckled. “I’m sure you know the sort of thing I mean. Start with my granddaughters. Leave them out of this. My interest in trying to help childless couples with adoption procedures, leave that out of this. My own travels to Thailand for personal reasons, leave that out as well. The investments I have in companies employing children, I know nothing about them. I am old-school Church of England, Harry. In business, however, I do not discriminate. I would not like my support, let us say, of Imams in this country who encourage female circumcision to be known. I protect them, they pay me. It is a growing industry in our larger cities. Experts are brought in from Saudi Arabia. A moral cesspool, Saudi Arabia. But a strong economy. Most of the countries I deal with are Muslim. Did you know rape is a punishment in Pakistan? A curious situation. It is purely a business necessity, I assure you—dealing with Muslims, not rape. But you get the idea, Harry. In Somalia a couple of years ago, a thirteen-year-old girl was stoned to death in a football stadium for reporting she’d been raped. Now what kind of people do that, I ask you? But deal with them I must. So, Harry, if you find anything that might prove an embarrassment to me by old-fashioned Canadian standards, in one word, delete. As for anyone else, I don’t give a good God damn. Am I clear?”
“You really are a nasty son of a bitch.” Harry steeled himself for a
brutal blow to the head, but a smile broke across Fearman’s face as the two little girls he called his granddaughters came through the French doors and trundled in their thin cotton nighties over to the old man and crawled up on his lap. He cuddled them then pulled away and addressed Harry.
“You see, Mr. Sakarov and I are not exactly on the same side, Harry. I would prefer you proceed with the Viennese files. It would be good for business. Dimitri, of course, wishes to protect himself and many others your files will embarrass. It is not for me to say, but I suggest it might be to your advantage to eliminate him.”
So much for honour among the degenerate.
“I will do my best to arrange protection for you, if you’d like.” Fearman snuggled his girls. “I have many friends.”
“I’m sure you are legion,” said Harry. “I’ll manage on my own.”
“Good. As you wish. I think we understand each other. The boys will look after you now.”
Gregor and Oswaldo walked Harry up to the parking space. When they reached the Explorer, each placed a hand on one of his shoulders. They squeezed in what could have been taken as an amiable gesture but was clearly meant to intimidate.
“Goodbye, Harry. It was nice meeting you,” said Gregor as they walked away. Oswaldo said nothing.
Harry stood heavily on the pine needles, feeling their pungent aroma sing through his veins. As he looked through the towering trees past the cottage, he was overwhelmed by the beauty of Lake Rosseau shimmering in the morning light. He felt strangely disoriented; the tranquility of the scene was thrown askew by the atrocities it obscured. The image of a woman’s face hovered on the edge of his mind. He tried to focus. Karen, Lena, other women in his life, lovers, friends, passing strangers, all morphed into the image of a diminutive, indomitable Joan DeBrusk.
Intuition, Harry?
She’s not one of the bad guys.
She’s not necessarily one of the good guys either. You’re taken by her resonant beauty and worried by what it conceals.
Resonant beauty?
It echoes Madalena and reminds you of Klimt.
The two Russian goons who read widely and practised a modified version of Tolstoy’s pacifism disappeared around the corner of the verandah. He’d have to ask them about Dostoevsky some time, especially Crime and Punishment.
Or The Idiot, Karen whispered. Forget about those guys, Harry.
Duly forgotten.
Fearman might be right about eliminating Sakarov. Harry’s life was precarious as long as the fat man was alive, but at least with Sakarov the enemy had a face. Terminated—Harry let the words roll through his mind; the enemy would be anonymous, amorphous, ubiquitous, assiduous, inexorable—
Karen interrupted. You’re being pedantic, Harry, and missing the point. You’re not a killer.
He didn’t try to respond. He had been hiding behind words. Of course, he wasn’t a killer. Of course. He slid behind the wheel, started the SUV and backed out the long drive, swinging onto the gravel road that led out to the route to Toronto.
Driving down Highway 11 onto the 400, he tried to keep from thinking. He needed to let the myriad feelings and thoughts crowding his mind sort themselves out, find their own levels of significance. Sometimes the most logical behaviour was to keep logic at bay. By the time he got home, he was exhausted. It was only midafternoon, but after a cooling shower he crawled between the sheets and fell into a deep sleep.
He woke up with fingers digging into his shoulder. Without opening his eyes, he knew who it was—by the slight but talon-like grip and because, who else? An assailant would have already assailed him. No one besides Harry had a key. That left Simon Wales.
“Good morning, Simon,” he said, rolling away and pulling a pillow over his head. He felt like he had a wretched hangover but he hadn’t had a drink.
“It’s eight o’clock, Harry.”
“Go away. It’s too early.”
“In the evening.”
“Oh,” said Harry, rolling back and opening his eyes. “And you’re here why?”
“Well, I checked out Joan DeBrusk. She’s straight as they come.”
“How the hell do you know about Joan DeBrusk?” Harry sat upright. He couldn’t remember mentioning her name.
“I was sitting behind you at Starbucks yesterday.”
“No, you were not.”
“You had a latte and a carrot-bran muffin.”
“Corn meal.”
Actually, Harry recalled he had traded muffins with Miranda. He had ordered corn meal but eaten carrot-bran.
“I think Dimitri Sakarov has a spy working at the Zylberman Children’s Centre,” Simon continued. “It’s not her.”
“You’re sure?”
“I interviewed her.”
“Did she know you were working for me?”
“Of course not. She’s very attractive for a redhead.”
“Don’t you like redheads?”
“I do, actually. My expression was to indicate I personally am not interested in Miss Joan DeBrusk. It was a form of self-definition, not meant as an insult. I think she’s having an affair with your detective friend.”
“Morgan?”
“Not Miranda. She’s your other friend.”
“You’re making me sound pathetic.”
“Friends are not all they’re cracked up to be.”
“How old are you? Never mind? You can wait for me out there.” Harry got up and put on some casual clothes. When he walked into the living room, Simon Wales was sitting in the armchair. Harry lowered himself carefully onto the sofa.
“What else have you been up to?”
“Well, the room on one side of yours at the Kressler was occupied by an American businessman. Middle-aged, gay, a recluse. From Oklahoma, in textiles. The room on the other side was registered to Dimitri Sakarov.”
“Not Melvin and Doris Findlay.”
“Apparently not. The curious thing is that Sakarov phoned from Saint Petersburg the day before your friends died to say he would not be coming to Vienna.”
“The Findlays weren’t friends. I never met them.”
“But apparently Sakarov insisted on holding the room in case he came later in the week. He has an account there. He also has an account at the Imperial.”
“He was in Vienna the night they died. He paid me a visit. We had wiener schnitzel together near St. Stephen’s Cathedral. What else did you find out about him?”
“Nothing. And a great deal. He travels a lot. He has many business connections, apparently in relation to his hotel. His past remains inaccessible. It’s like he imagined himself into being as a fully formed, middle-aged adult. I’ll get to the bottom of it, find out who he is, but I need time.”
“What sort of business dealings? In relation to his hotel seems rather vague.”
“Of course. That’s what he intends. He lives in Toronto part of the year. He meets with major tycoons, establishment lawyers, and powerful gangsters. They talk behind closed doors. There’s no paper trail, and not much of a cyber trail. Mostly, whatever his business, it’s done person to person, over scotch and a handshake.”
“Do you know anything about Conrad Fearman? Anything come up in your prowlings?”
“Old manufacturing money, Upper Canada College, Queen’s University. Two years at King’s College, Cambridge. Home in Rosedale, cottage in Muskoka. Never married.”
“No grandchildren, then?” Harry felt a chill run down his spine. “Has he ever been convicted?”
“Investigated twice as a sex tourist to Thailand. Never indicted. He does business there. Electronic parts. Assembly needing small fingers. A major contributor to the Conservative Party of Canada, a benefactor of Princess Margaret Hospital, the Children’s Wish Foundation, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian Opera Company. Received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University two years ago.”
“You tracked him through Dimitri Sakarov.”
“No. I already knew about Conrad Fearman. But yes, there is
a connection.”
Simon Wales was turning out to be a very big mystery, himself. He seemed a genius at ferreting out connections, at violating personal and private space. Yet he was more elusive than Dimitri Sakarov. He had no history, but he knew about Fearman. Did he have a life, however secret? He was an invaluable asset but, Harry worried, with so much knowledge might he also be a liability?
Simon was staring at the picture of Madalena Strauss, The Forces of Evil. In The Kiss, her face was wrapped in the larger narrative, inseparable from Klimt’s design. But in the excerpt from the Beethoven frieze, she loomed large, her face was a portrait of wanton allure, tilted against her updrawn knee above the expanse of her naked thigh, her features framed by a whorl of burning red hair that flowed down over her breasts and coiled between her legs. A few stray tendrils were caught up with erotic abandon in fingers that clasped her ankles.
Simon Wales seemed to be mesmerized. What did he see that evoked such interest? Had he only guessed that the paintings were authentic? Had Simon himself become Harry’s link with Lena and her story? Was he like Faithful in Pilgrim’s Progress? He had clearly taken on Harry’s cause as his own, even if Harry’s cause was fraught with danger and confusion. He was neither a servant nor a friend but a companion and fellow traveller devoted to getting Harry through to wherever he was going. It was not Simon’s journey. He was vain and wore invisibility like a costume—he would be swallowed up in the Vanity Fair, even as he urged Harry through to the other side.
Oh for God’s sake, Harry. He’s just a weird kid who dresses too well and is paid too much.
How much is too much?
Depends what he turns up, I suppose. Get off the literary kick, Humphrey. You’re a philosopher, not a critic. And right now you’re a detective, so let’s get detecting.
Sailor, sail on. But thanks for the cautionary note.
Don’t lose yourself in abstractions, Slate. It’s too easy.
“Nothing’s easy,” Harry whispered.
“Pardon?” said Simon Wales.
“Nothing,” said Harry, resenting the intrusion.
“Sorry.”
“No, not at all. Can I get you some Perrier? Okay, I see you’ve already got one. Fine. What else have you found for me?” Harry squinted at Simon. Light from the falling sun glinting off the lake flickered across his features. For a brief moment, Harry thought he saw Madalena Strauss in his face, in his posture, poised in the big leather chair. He was both relaxed and ready to spring, like a cat resting in the evening light, relaxed, lethal, strangely content.