by John Case
‘I see.’
‘So there’s an outstanding balance.’
‘I think we can help with that. But what I wanted to ask was: How long was Mr. Gutierrez there?’ The long silence at the other end told him that he’d crossed the line, that he’d asked one too many questions.
‘I think it might be best if you spoke with the manager. I can have him call you –’
‘That’s okay,’ Lassiter said. ‘I’ve got to run, anyway. Thanks very much.’ And he hung up.
It took him less than five minutes to pack an overnight bag with his running gear and a change of clothes. Leaving the house, he crunched across the snow toward his car, the suitcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in another.
There was a Kinko’s Copies in Georgetown, just across the Key Bridge, and he headed for it. He took the parkway down to Rosslyn, looped around, and crossed the Potomac to M Street. He left his car in the parking lot at Eagle Liquors and crossed the alley to Kinko’s. Ten minutes later he came out with a sheet of micro-perforated business cards printed on fairly heavy, charcoal-flecked gray stock. The cards read:
Victor Oliver, V.P.
Muebles Gutierrez
2113 52nd Pl., SW
Miami, FL 33134
305-234-2421
He had no idea if there was a 2113 52nd Place, but the zip code was right and the telephone number would be fine. It was a hello phone at the DEA, which meant that someone at the other end would take messages for anyone from anyone. Of course if anybody did call for Victor Oliver, someone at DEA was going to waste quite a bit of time trying to figure out who he was.
It was a bad weekend to be traveling without reservations. One of the runways was closed at National, and even the flights out of Dulles were backed up for deicing. Still, by three o’clock Lassiter sat in seat 2B, in the First Class section of a Northwest flight to O’Hare. He considered First Class a waste of money, except on very long flights, but it was all he could get. The seat next to him was occupied by a brown-eyed blonde who was showing more cleavage than seemed comfortable on such a chilly day. Her perfume was powerful, and every time she spoke to him, she leaned into his body and clasped his sleeve. Her fingernails were an inch long and bright red.
Her name was Amanda, and her husband was a real estate developer who traveled a lot. (‘In fact, he’s traveling right now.’) She raised shelties and was on her way back to Chicago from a show in Maryland. Lassiter listened to all this, nodding politely as he turned the pages of the in-flight magazine. Despite this lack of encouragement, she talked all the way to O’Hare, discoursing on the inside politics of competitive dog shows and the ‘tricks of the trade’ – which, as it happened, had a lot to do with hair spray, clear nail polish, and vitamin E. (‘A little dab of the oil, right on the nose, and it will shine! Now, that’s a small thing, but in the shows I go to, it’s the small things that count.’)
They touched down and the reverse thrust of the engines drowned her out, but not for long. As they taxied toward the terminal she leaned against him, pressing her breast against his shoulder and clasping his hand.
‘If you feel like company,’ she said, handing him her card, ‘I’m just north of town.’
The card was pink, the calligraphic printing elaborate and curlicued. A tiny drawing of a dog was in one corner. There was something vulnerable about the woman, and he found that he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. So he slipped the card in the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘I’m going to be busy as hell,’ he said, ‘but we’ll see what happens. You never know.’
He telephoned the hotel from the TWA Ambassadors Club.
‘Embassy Suites. How may I direct your call?’ It was a man’s voice this time.
‘Well, I am not sure,’ Lassiter said. He was a natural mimic and affected a slight Spanish accent, remembering to avoid contractions – which always makes a voice seem ‘foreign,’ even if a listener can’t place the accent. ‘I was a guest at your hotel a few weeks ago, and I am afraid I left prematurely. A family emergency.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, well, she was a very old woman.’
‘Ahhh . . .’
‘But – this is life! And now I would like to settle my bill.’
‘Oh! I see – so you didn’t check out?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, of course. Emergencies occur. May I have your name? I’ll just pull up the records –’
‘Juan Gutierrez.’ He spelled it.
‘One moment, please.’ Lassiter heard the ghostly clatter of a keyboard, and was grateful to be spared the Muzak. ‘Here it is. You’d reserved the room until the twelfth, is that right?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Well, it looks as if we held it for as long as we could, but . . . oh, I see what happened: you reached the limit on your Visa Card!’
‘Inevitably.’
The clerk chuckled sympathetically. ‘I’m afraid there’s an outstanding balance of $637.18. If you’d like to speak with the manager . . .? I don’t know, he might knock a couple of days off.’
‘No, no. I have no time at all. In any case, this is not the hotel’s fault.’
‘We could send you the bill –’
‘Actually . . . one of my assistants, a Señor – excuse me, a Mister Victor Oliver, will be in Chicago tomorrow. I can have him stop by the hotel to settle with you. Would that be all right?’
‘Well, of course, Mr. Gutierrez. I’ll have the bill waiting for him at the front desk.’
Lassiter took a breath. ‘There is one other thing. I left a few things behind. Would you – would you have kept them somewhere?’ He managed a wistful tone.
‘Ordinarily, we send items that are left in the hotel to the address on the credit card, but when the bill is unpaid – I’m sure your things are in the storage room. I’ll see that your assistant gets them.’
‘Thank you. You have been very helpful. I will instruct Victor to see you personally.’
‘Well, I don’t come on until five, so –’
‘Perfect. He has meetings all day. I doubt that he will be able to get there until six at the earliest.’
‘Anybody at the desk could help him.’
‘I would prefer if he sees you. You are very sympathetic.’
‘Well, thanks,’ the man said. ‘Tell him to ask for Willis – Willis Whitestone.’
Lassiter liked Chicago. The high-rises beside the lake, the glitter and sophistication, always surprised him. He took a taxi from O’Hare to the Near North Side, where he checked into one of his favorite hotels, the Nikko. It was a crisply efficient place, elegant and very Japanese. The ikebana displays were as beautiful as they were simple, and there was an excellent restaurant on the ground floor. He took advantage of it, that same evening, washing down his sushi with two large bottles of Kirin. When he returned to his room he expected to find a chocolate on his pillow – but, of course, it was the Nikko, and what he found was an origami figure instead. A wolf, howling, or maybe it was a dog. Whatever it was, it reminded him of Blade Runner.
He spent most of the following morning wandering through the rooms of the Art Institute, then stopped by his company’s office to shake hands with the staff. The Chicago office was less than half the size of the one in Washington, but the people were just as good and their billings were up. He congratulated them. Afterward, he had a heavy but delicious lunch at Berghof’s – which he then walked off on the way back to his hotel. The streets were alive with Salvation Army bell ringers, Christmas lights, and shoppers.
He changed into a pair of sweats and running shoes at the hotel and set out for the waterfront. A stiff wind was blowing off the lake, but he lowered his head and kept at it, covering about three miles up to the Yacht Club and then turning around. By the time he got back to his hotel, it was dark and he was tired.
The shower rejuvenated him, and he dressed quickly. A slate-blue oxford cloth shirt that Monica used to like (‘It’s exactly the color of your eyes!’); a dark b
lue suit with nearly invisible pinstripes; a burgundy and black rep tie; wing tips and leather gloves. Everything came from Burberry’s except the shoes, which were Johnston & Murphy’s, and the overcoat – a single-breasted and somewhat worn black cashmere job he’d picked up in Zurich about eight years ago. Most of the time, he dressed casually, but not now. This was for Willis Whitestone.
The hotel was in the 600 block of State Street. He walked, had a drink in a nearby bar – and timed his arrival for six o’clock. He was a little apprehensive – because after all, he was working blind. What if John Doe had left a gun behind, or a kilo of coke? He took a deep breath and strode into the lobby, looking confident.
Willis Whitestone couldn’t have been nicer. Lassiter gave him one of the Victor Oliver business cards, glanced at the invoice, and counted out seven hundred-dollar bills. He waved off the change with the remark that ‘Mr. Gutierrez said you’d been very helpful.’ Willis thanked him profusely, stamped the bill paid, and handed him a leather bag. Lassiter slung the strap of the bag over his shoulder, waved good-bye, and stepped back out into the cold Chicago night.
When he got back to the Nikko, he took off his coat, but not the gloves. The bag was a scarred and battered carry-on, but very well made, its leather soft and expensive. It was an elegant but casual piece, stiff on the bottom, soft-sided, and with a thick leather shoulder strap. The label inside said Trussardi. It had a central compartment, accessed by a zipper, and large zippered pockets on either side. He opened all the zippers and spilled out the contents on the bed.
There were a couple of retro-looking shirts that were either very expensive or very cheap, a belt, socks, underwear, and a pair of tropical-weight slacks. More promising was a calfskin case that measured about five by nine inches. Looking inside, he found a canceled airline ticket, Miami-Chicago, a pamphlet from Alamo rent-a-car, and three twenty-dollar traveler’s checks countersigned by Juan Gutierrez.
His disappointment was visceral.
There must be something else, he told himself. He lifted the bag and hefted it. He went through each of the pockets with his hands, and felt the sides. He felt around inside the bag. He examined the bottom, inside and out. He did it all again. And again. He thought there might be a false bottom, but the floor of the bag didn’t move.
The third time around he found what he was looking for: a flat pocket that ran the length of the bag’s base. The leather piping that joined the bottom to the sides came free if you pulled it. Lassiter thought, in fact, that he was ripping a seam, but the piping adhered through the magic of Velcro. What he withdrew was a thick, rectangular piece of stiffened fiberboard – the actual floor of the suitcase itself. It opened like a book, revealing shallow compartments incised into foam. One of the compartments held a sheaf of currency, the other a passport. It was all so carefully done that neither protruded.
Lassiter removed the passport and turned it over in his hands. It was Italian, and he could feel his heart accelerate as he opened the stiff, red, pebbled cover. Inside was a photo of the man who’d killed Kathy and Brandon. Franco Grimaldi. The picture was a younger version of the computer-generated image that the police had created. He felt a jolt of delight and trepidation, like a hunter whose prey had just walked into the crosshairs of his scope. Which was strange, considering that the man was already in a hospital bed under armed guard. Still, Lassiter couldn’t repress his excitement.
John Doe had a name now, an identity – and Lassiter felt certain that whether or not the man ever spoke another word, he would be able to excavate the mystery of why Kathy and Brandon had been killed.
He’d never before understood this pressing need to know how and why someone you loved had died. He’d read about the families of MIAs, the friends and lovers of Lockerbie victims – and he’d been baffled by their passionate quest for knowledge, for justice, punishment, and details. Why couldn’t they let it go? Why couldn’t they get on with their lives and put it behind them?
Now he knew.
He took a miniature from the minibar, twisted its cap off and dumped a couple of ounces of scotch into a water glass. He sat down at the desk with the passport in front of him and stared at it. On the page opposite the photo were the particulars: Grimaldi, Franco. Born 17–3–55. There was a pasted-on square of white paper bearing an official-looking stamp, and what seemed to be a change of address: 114 Via Genova, Roma. Lassiter lifted the piece of paper and saw that there was, indeed, another address under it: something-or-other, Via Barberini. There was a passport number, and personal details. Height in centimeters, weight in kilograms. Lassiter did the conversion in his head. Six-one, 220. Hair: nero. Eyes: marrone. He flipped through the back pages, where the visas and border stamps were to be found, and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Lassiter picked it up.
It was a wire-transfer slip, recording a deposit of U.S.50,000 to Grimaldi’s account at the Bahnhofstrasse branch of the Crédit Suisse in Zurich. The transfer had taken place about four months ago.
Lassiter set the slip aside and returned his attention to the passport. He was thinking that he’d be able to follow Grimaldi’s travels by looking at the stamps in the back, but the pages were so crowded that he had to make a list. Turning the pages one by one, he deciphered as many of the stamps as he could, writing down each entry and exit on a yellow legal pad. When this was done, he tore out the page and made a second list from the first, this time in chronological order.
The passport covered a ten-year period, with the oldest stamps dating to 1986. These showed that Grimaldi traveled back and forth between Beirut and Rome. Lassiter thought about that: in ’86, Beirut was the closest thing on earth to the seventh circle of Hell. The only Europeans living in the city were chained to radiators, car bombs were going off in the streets, and assassinations were commonplace on both sides of the Green Line. What the fuck was Grimaldi doing in Beirut?
After Beirut, he cruised between Italy and Spain, entering the latter through San Sebastian and Bilbao. Basque country. There was a visit to Mozambique in 1989, with an entry at Maputo – and after that nothing for nearly three years. Finally, in June of ’92, Grimaldi started to travel again, this time to the Balkans. There was a series of trips to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, followed, a year later, by visits to its Croatian counterpart, Zagreb. And then nothing until 1995, when Grimaldi traveled to Prague, São Paulo, and New York. The last entry, at John F. Kennedy International Airport, was dated September 18, 1995.
Lassiter shook his head, uncertain what it meant. Grimaldi might have a second or even a third passport, perhaps in a different name – and not only that. Italy was a part of the European Union, which meant that his passport would not be stamped when he passed through Customs in most European countries. Grimaldi undoubtedly had taken any number of trips within Europe that no official had bothered to record.
Even so . . . still . . . the three-year travel gap, from 1990 to 1992, was suggestive. A stay in prison? Maybe. Or maybe he’d been traveling under another name. The time spent in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Beirut was also of interest: those were not the destinations of a tourist. And what about Grimaldi’s visits to Spain and Mozambique? Were they holidays, and if so, from what? What, exactly, did Grimaldi do when he wasn’t killing people? How did he make his living?
With a sense of frustration, Lassiter set the passport aside and fanned out the money on the desk. There was more than one currency, and though he didn’t count it, Lassiter could see that it was quite a lot – twenty grand or more. Maybe thirty.
Replacing the floor to the overnight bag, he stuffed the cash and the passport into one of its compartments and tossed the clothes in another. Then he zipped it up. He’d send the bag to Riordan in the morning – anonymously.
Meanwhile, the sooner he got back to Washington, the better. He got on the phone and finally found a seat on the red-eye to BWI. The flight was hardly ideal: it didn’t get in until one A.M., and Baltimore was eighty miles from Dulles, where his car was parked. But tha
t didn’t matter. There was someone in Washington he wanted to talk to as soon as possible, a very old pal in a very dark corner of the government. Nick Woodburn. Woody.
14
HE SAT IN the backseat of the taxi, on the way from BWI to his office, and thought about Nick Woodburn. As schoolboys, Joe and ‘Woody’ had been the best of friends. Growing up in Georgetown, not far from Dumbarton Oaks, they’d gone to the same camps as children and attended the same private schools. As freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, they’d run track for St. Alban’s – and if Woody had not lived up to his nickname, they’d have done so as seniors as well. The Incident (as it was later called) occurred some two weeks before the Penn Relays, when a parents’ tour stumbled (in one dad’s case, quite literally) upon Woody and a girl from the National Cathedral School, screwing in the herb garden of the cathedral proper. There were gasps, giggles, and bellows of outrage – a general tumult that, in the end, sent Nick Woodburn north to spend his senior year at the Hyde School in Bath, Maine.
It was generally agreed that Woody would not end well; or, as one chum put it, ‘He’ll never get in anywhere – he’s got pecker tracks all over his permanent record.’ And, in fact, his applications to Harvard and Yale were rejected, as were those to Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Cornell. (Brown might have taken him, but he didn’t apply to Brown, remarking that ‘Howard Hunt went there.’)
In the end Woody enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, where he lettered in track, majored in Arabic, and racked up a four-point on the way to a Rhodes scholarship.
After Oxford, he found his way to the State Department. For two years he worked as a special assistant in the Office of Political and Military Affairs, a liaison job that kept him shuttling between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. After eight years abroad – Damascus, Karachi, and Khartoum – he was brought back to Washington to work in the Intelligence Research Bureau (for inexplicable reasons, this was known as INR, not IRB). He’d been there four years, and was now the bureau’s chief.