The Swede: A Novel

by Robert Karjel

  “So you went after him.”

  “Someone sent an envelope with the address.” She nodded approvingly. “In the end, we found his fucking hole—a big house, I swear to you, all in old-plantation style. It was a raid with God’s good grace.”

  Grip sat silent. Light off the water and murmurs from the pool washed over them.

  “You have no idea what we found, do you?” said Shauna then.

  “No. What? Adderloy himself?”

  “Adderloy.” She snorted. “Adderloy, yes, we got him. Doesn’t say a word, but we have him. We found a lot of stolen art, those sculptures by Jean Arp, among others. Sooner or later we would have nailed him for it, but how long would he have stayed in? A battery of lawyers, and he’d have escaped with a few years, if that. But then . . .” Shauna looked in wonder at Grip. “No, you really have no idea. The freezer. What does someone like Adderloy have in his freezer? Something that took him all the way back to Topeka. You remember, the bank, N. said they’d poured the blood all over the floor of the bank. Turnbull’s blood. They stole two bags in the hospital, but used only one at the bank. The second bag, there it lay, fat and red as frozen cranberry sauce, right in Adderloy’s home freezer. Couldn’t be better—the hand completely buried in the cookie jar. Fuck knows why he saved it. Complicity, half a dozen prosecutions attached to that—bank robbery, murder, kidnapping, you name it. Anything less than life would surprise me. His lawyers argue that there had very recently been a burglary at his house, that anyone could have gone inside to plant the blood. . . . But unfortunately the burglary was never reported to the police. Do you know anything about a burglary?”

  Grip shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  “No, exactly.”

  He sat with his eyes closed, thinking of Vladislav. So Vladislav had taken the second bag they’d left with the Lebanese. Grip sank farther, so that the hot water came up over his chin.

  “Turnbull?” he said then. “Is he still awaiting death?”

  “Not for long.” Shauna raised her hand so that the water flowed between her fingers. “The Kansas governor has been informed. A little paperwork, and Charles-Ray Turnbull will get pardoned within a few days. His wife has already divorced him, but still.”

  “And Reza,” said Grip, closing his eyes again.

  “Would this change his situation?”

  “He’s innocent.”

  “According to whose goddamn yardstick?”

  “Mine.”

  “He was in the bank,” said Shauna.

  “He was just a pawn, you know that.”

  “Reza Khan sits where he sits. The CIA’s prestige, the train of prosecutors, the police chief in Topeka, yes, the whole fucking state of Kansas, demands it—of course he must die. Especially once that bizarre connection is gone—terrorists and Baptists. Everyone down there was deceived, and Charles-Ray was such an easy person to hate. Now he’s free, but the debt is there, the air must be cleared. And they only have Reza left.”

  “Not even a new investigation?”

  “No.”

  Grip didn’t move, and Shauna grabbed his arm under the water so he looked up again.

  “It’s just you and me here now, remember that,” she said. “Those who haven’t been deceived in this are few and far between.”

  “And you let them take Reza, because you have Adderloy?”

  “Someone poked out Romeo Lupone’s eyes last night,” she replied.

  Grip sat silent for a second. “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Am I? Adderloy—art—Lupone. Lupone lay screaming bloody murder at the Wyckoff Heights emergency room. The nurses complained that they couldn’t even stand to look in his direction. A well-built man was seen standing and washing himself off down the river about the same time. While you were . . . in Gettysburg.”

  “Lupone, remind me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “The driver.”

  “Yes, the driver who said there’d been a Swede involved in Central Park. Why don’t you ask me how he’s doing?”

  “Who?”

  “Lupone.”

  “How is the poor fellow?”

  “Thank you, he’s going to make it. But my agents wanted to show him pictures of N. again, and now his eyesight . . .

  “Listen,” she said then, “we found more interesting things at Adderloy’s.” She paused, watching an air bubble rise up through the water. “Can you believe that in the middle of one room was one of Christo’s orange arches? Arch, gate, whatever you call them. Among all the oils and sculptures, it looked like something from outer space. In the middle of the room, like a religious object. You know, all the gates were supposed to be destroyed, every single one. And none had been reported missing. But I checked the documentation, the locations of all the gates, and where the murder took place . . .”

  “I think I understand where you’re heading.”

  “A gate disappeared unnoticed. And in that very place—nobody thought it was anything more than an ordinary robbery. The poor woman must have surprised them.”

  “The fact that people want to steal art, I can understand that,” said Grip. “They want to possess what’s beautiful, and for someone like Adderloy, there’s the added challenge of obtaining it. But then we have Topeka.”

  “You mean that something about Topeka would change because we have Adderloy?”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  “Well, in Topeka they like thinking about terrorists, and they even got to catch one. Jihadists in Kansas. Turnbull now being free just confirms that image. The police chief in Topeka thinks he has managed to uncover a diabolical conspiracy against good Christians.”

  “But Adderloy is American and white,” said Grip.

  “Adderloy doesn’t say a word.”

  “He had a bag of blood in his freezer, it connects him to Reza.”

  “Yes, but nobody is particularly happy to hear that. Adderloy had friends in high places in Washington before. Now they’re deadly to him. Nobody is going to let themselves get caught up in Adderloy’s case, neither the Southern Baptists nor the shadowy figures in Washington. And right now, Adderloy himself isn’t saying a word. My guess”—Shauna nodded a few times—“my guess is that someone shot a little message under the door of Adderloy’s cell. He understands that silence is his ticket to a life sentence—if he divulges even the slightest bit of information, he’ll get a last meal, a priest, and a needle in the arm. That’s the hand he’s been dealt, because we’ve got him. Reza has identified him—that was the only thing the man ever uttered of legal value. The evidence would be pretty thin if the bag with Turnbull’s blood hadn’t been saved.”

  “Have you seen Reza lately?”

  “Just a few days ago.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Shauna smiled. “A conscience white as snow, and half his brain somewhere else. He’s trying to gain time, says he remembers more and more. He talks a lot about the big birds flying in a line. Pelicans. More and more details are coming out about the others who were with him. Agency psychologists say they need at least a few months to build a case that would hold up. But that time doesn’t exist.”

  “Is it soon?”

  “They give him the injection in three weeks.”

  “America is wonderful.”

  “Better than that,” she countered. “America is for real.”

  “Is that the answer to all questions?”

  “As much or as little as Gettysburg is the answer to mine.”

  “Lupone . . .”

  “Lupone,” interrupted Shauna, “is the one who ensures that Adderloy gets locked up for eternity. If I can’t manage to tie him to Topeka, I’ll compensate by nailing him for art theft and murder in Central Park, and various other mysterious dealings.”

  “I would just say that—”

  “Even without his eyes, Lupone has given me Adderloy?”

  “Pretty much. As you already know, on the flight from Garcia, I read thro
ugh the interview where Lupone implicated Adderloy.”

  Shauna looked unashamedly at Grip. “Look, I have every reason to question who you are. The passport, N., and all trips we both know you have made to New York.”

  “Unfortunate circumstances, accidental coincidences.”

  “The bag of blood in Adderloy’s freezer.”

  “Not a coincidence.” Grip sat silent for a moment and then added, “And you would never have gotten Adderloy if it weren’t for me.”

  “And you want something in exchange. Your lost innocence, perhaps? For Lupone’s eyes?”

  “I was looking at rusty bayonets in Gettysburg.”

  “For a cardiac arrest, in a cell on Diego Garcia?”

  “A word of advice. Don’t fire all your ammunition before the war is over.”

  Shauna stopped with a smile. “Advice, for me?”

  “Yes. You fire and fire away, and yet you need me.”

  “What is this, a guessing game?”

  “It was you who wanted me to come here, right?”

  “So why are we here?”

  “We’re sitting in this Jacuzzi because you want to make sure that I’m caught on all your hooks. N., Lupone, and whatever else. Imaginary bargaining within silent walls.”

  “Watch it,” said Shauna, “investigations are ongoing.”

  “And out of pure gratitude, I should maintain polite silence.”

  Down in the swimming pool, no more voices were heard.

  Grip moved his hand through the water. “I’m deadly curious about one thing. What is it you don’t want me to see?”

  A door slammed. The light and the silence of the swimming pool gave a sense of the surrounding night.

  “You Swedes can still afford to play dollhouse with the world.”

  “Said by a harmless woman from the Justice Department. For most in the FBI, no more than two gorgeous tits and tail.”

  “Most people can at least handle not saying it out loud.”

  “In a bathing suit, you can seduce a Swede.”

  “Around here, you get fired for saying stuff like that in the service.”

  “I think we’ve both qualified ourselves for suspension of service, but on completely different grounds.”

  “That’s enough.” Shauna stood up. “And so . . . shall we go?”

  “Surely there’s someone we haven’t touched on?”

  Shauna turned around with the water at her waist. “Must you really?”

  “Mary,” said Grip firmly. “She’s missing.”

  “And Vladislav, by all means.” Shauna ran her hand across the rippled surface of the water. She didn’t seem surprised by the turnaround.

  “Mary first.”

  “Yes, it’s simple.” Shauna blew in her hand and then opened it, as if something had gone up in smoke. “Mary got away. Mary as we know, through, yes, what do we know of her? We know her only through N.”

  “But she was . . .” Grip closed his eyes thoughtfully.

  “She was not on the surveillance tapes from the bank,” Shauna filled in.

  “She waited in the car.”

  “Exactly—according to N. And when they were in Toronto, before they crossed the border. They gathered at a bar, but according to the receipt, they paid for only four drinks.”

  “Mary drank water,” recalled Grip.

  “N. said that, yes. He wasn’t stupid. He wove it together well, he had explanations for everything we could verify.”

  “That she’ll be erased, turned to smoke? Is that what I should believe?”

  “N.’s history is essentially correct. But Mary, she was entirely his own invention.”

  “How many people have been working on this? Checked up? The police in Kansas, FBI?”

  “Hundreds of police officers and agents. Take the factory hall. N. said she’d lived there for several years, right? But the rent was only paid a couple of weeks before they got there. The transactions can be traced to Adderloy. And at the hospital, where they took the blood.” Shauna shook her head. “No one that fits her description has ever worked there. It’s a dead end. They stole the blood from there, but Mary, N.’s Mary, never set foot in the place. That Turnbull was a blood donor, anyone could find that out.”

  Grip looked long at her. “So all of it was but the mirage of a mangled soul?”

  Shauna gestured that it was obvious. “Everything, the whole story works without her. Who knows, maybe on Weejay’s, while at the beach, there was someone, Jane Smith. But not since. When they came into the States, they were only four. Four men.”

  Grip sank completely beneath the surface, blew air out for a few short bursts, and rose again. When the water had run off his face, he said, “But you forget one thing—the pelicans. You’ve heard of them—Reza spoke clearly about them pretty recently, and so did N. They flew in a line, until someone started shooting at them.”

  “I know.”

  “And it’s still just you and me here in the bathhouse. The walls here are old and deaf.”

  “Do you mind if we go down and swim in the pool?” suggested Shauna.

  “Not at all.”

  They walked with their towels around them through the covered arcade. The stairs to the pool were at the far end. All the little echoes off the tiles were their own.

  First, only quiet, wet steps, then Shauna said, “Do you remember Chung Ling Soo?”

  “Mm, your father’s posters.”

  “Exactly, the posters. Actually Soo was an American named Robinson. As a magician, he never had much success until he put on a pigtail, made himself up to look Chinese, and went off to Europe as Chung Ling Soo. From that moment on, he became Chinese, both on and off the stage. Never spoke with journalists except through an interpreter, and during performances, he said not a word, just waddled around like an old man. Enthralled, amazed, fooled everyone. The trick was greater than anything he did on stage. He lived it.”

  They walked down the stairs.

  “Some people get away with everything,” Shauna said, picking up a lost thread again. “Vladislav is wanted in all fifty states, and the rest of the civilized world. Dozens of my agents, they say they’re on his tracks. That it’s only a matter of time. Vladislav can’t even order food in a restaurant without people noticing him.”

  Shauna stopped at the landing and turned around. “No, don’t say anything,” she said, and put a finger to Grip’s lips. “Nothing.” She eased her finger a quarter inch, but still kept it as an exclamation point in front of him. “I don’t believe them—they won’t get him. Vladislav is a human exception. He’s the one who enters the elevator at the last second, turns the corner, misses the train that gets stopped by the police. It’s unintentional, but a true talent. A kind of law of nature he became aware of only when he escaped from that bus, after the tsunami. He went his own way at the right moment after Topeka, and now he supports himself on contracts. Lives as a hit man. Fearless, unstoppable, starting to get a certain reputation. Four months ago in New Orleans, five bodies were found in a luxury suite at the top of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. A showdown, and someone down there seems to have hired our Vladislav. Apparently he checked into the same hotel days before, was a nuisance when he ordered food, talked back, everyone who worked in the restaurant recognized him. And then he disappeared from the picture, as only he can.”

  She touched Grips lips again, stroking them. “If I ever, if I could in the slightest way, say to myself that I was in contact with someone like Vladislav, then I would be very careful about him. You know, once you’ve lost your virginity . . . having the power to summon a demon, imagine being able to do that. Sooner or later it will come in handy.”

  The pool water was so still that it felt illicit to go in. Shauna shot out first from the ladder. Grip dove in silently behind her. On the far end stood a huge statue, a bare-breasted woman with a vacant marble gaze. In the stillness, with the pillars surrounding the arcades and the glow that filtered up from a few lights on the bottom of the pool, it wa
s like swimming in a temple, or an abandoned banker’s palace by night.

  They glided side by side.

  “The pelicans . . . ,” said Shauna. She swam first, didn’t look back.

  “Vladislav,” Grip filled in, “he asked me who said they should shoot the pelicans. You know what I replied. So if you found a bag of blood in Adderloy’s freezer, then once again Mary exists. She was much more than just N.’s imaginary creation.” That Shauna swam on without a word was answer enough. “All your officers, agents—”

  “They know nothing about N. His story is the concern of only a few people in Washington—Stackhouse and his group. And that circle has completely dismissed the idea of Mary. All the others, my officers and agents, as you call them, they haven’t even asked the question. For them there is no fifth person, no woman.”

  “Then here’s to Vladislav staying at large, and never getting interrogated.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Shauna pulled through her strokes, brushed against the tile, and turned under the statue. She glanced in Grip’s direction and stopped in the middle of the pool.

  “You want me to try some guesses?” said Grip.

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Mary was mine, she’s mine. She was there, and now she has been sent underground. She made herself unusable. It was Adderloy she was supposed to get—and now that has finally been accomplished, but she made herself a criminal in the process. Meant well, but pushed too far. Fortunately, I was her contact, the only one.”

  “Everyone has a boss. What about your superiors?”

  “They knew I had a source, but not who, not where. Adderloy is a sensitive subject. You remember I sent two agents after him, who then lay bloated in a morgue in Bangkok. It was impossible to move forward after that, to work with foreign police, to build trust among my own agents. Everything went at a snail’s pace. We had no chance of success, only kept up appearances. Mary was the opportunity that emerged. She didn’t belong to the agency, but she had what was necessary to do this. She moved freely like no other. So we put up lots of smokescreens for her sake, and so no one would know we’d gotten someone so close to Adderloy. My bosses got only short reports that didn’t disclose the source.”

  “No small stuff she got mixed up in—people killed at the bank, and then Turnbull’s death sentence.”