The Color of Night

by David Lindsey

  Bill Howard came into the gardens from the Mount Street entrance, walking through the opened wrought iron gates at a slow, deliberate pace. He stopped at the intersection of the main path and lighted a cigarette, the gesture giving him time to scan the benches along the pathways to find Strand. Without indicating that he had seen him, he turned onto the main footpath. He was wearing a suit that seemed particularly stylish for him, a double-breasted one of chocolate summer wool. He passed through several shafts of sunlight as he approached Strand’s bench. He sat down without saying a word.

  They watched the pigeons in silence for a few moments and then Strand said, “Bill, I want to make a deal.”

  “A deal.”

  “That’s right.”

  Howard shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Harry, you may have gone too far. I don’t know if they want to deal anymore.”

  Silence.

  “I sent Mara away,” Strand said.

  Howard just looked at him. He was trying to decide how to react.

  “She told me everything,” Strand said.

  Howard smoked, then, slowly, a sarcastic grin twisted his mouth, and he shook his head, looking away.

  “She was pretty good,” Strand said.

  “No, she wasn’t any good at all.” Howard looked around. “I knew damned well . . .”

  “I know. She told me.”

  Howard snorted. “It may be too late for her, too. I don’t think they’re going to—”

  “I don’t want to make a deal with the FIS, Bill. I want to make a deal with Schrade.”

  Howard managed to hide his surprise. He frowned and leaned back into the corner against the arm of the bench. Like Strand, he crossed one leg over the other and pulled once more on the cigarette.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Two women pushing baby carriages entered from Archibald Mews together and sat on a bench just inside the entrance. They turned their carriages a little to take best advantage of the warming sun. One of them produced a thermos, the other a packet of biscuits.

  “I’ve had it,” Strand said. “I’m not up to this anymore.”

  “You’ve thought it through?” Howard’s voice was flat, his face sober with restrained emotion, like a physician whose terminally ill patient had just told him he wanted to pull the plug.

  “Yeah. I’ve thought it through. I’ve pushed it as far as it’s going to go.”

  Howard didn’t move. He took another drag on his cigarette and tossed the butt onto the path. It smoldered there, burning the last bit of tobacco.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  Strand hesitated a moment. “It’s just the accumulative toll. I don’t want to lose what little I’ve got left.”

  “Why are you coming to me? I told you before, it’s all over with the FIS and this guy. There’s no communication channel.”

  “I’ve been out of the business for a while, Bill, and I may be a bit rusty. But I’m willing to bet that you still have access to Schrade, some kind of access.”

  Howard looked at him blankly, his best poker face. His “no comment” facade.

  “I don’t give a damn how,” Strand added. “I don’t care. I just think you’re my best bet for getting this to him.”

  “This what?”

  “My offer. A deal.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ll give it all back. The principal. The interest. Everything.”

  “Bullshit. You can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Hell, it’s tied up in charities and all that.”

  “Where did you get that information?”

  “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Harry. Look, even if the FIS didn’t have the best goddamn intelligence in the world, you know damn well Schrade’s looked into it with a microscope—right up through the ass of all those foundations you set up. He came to us stomping mad, before he left us with our mouths open and our pants down. He showed us what you’d done with the money.” Howard’s neck was swelling in anger.

  “He couldn’t have.”

  “Okay, he showed us how it was done . . . the system, the way.”

  Strand wanted desperately to know how Schrade had discovered their scheme, but he wouldn’t give Howard the satisfaction of asking. Apparently Schrade’s accountants really hadn’t found the actual charities.

  “Somehow nobody really believes that money is out of their reach, do they, Bill?” Strand retorted. “I mean, why is everybody still hanging around? Why’d the FIS go to the trouble—the considerable trouble—of training Mara? Because you still think you can get the money. Why hasn’t Schrade killed me? Because, despite what he ‘showed’ you, he, too, thinks he can still get his hands on the money—through me. It hasn’t stopped him from cutting me off from everything but my arms. But I’m still alive. Everybody thinks they can still get their hands on the money somehow, some way, eventually.”

  “Christ, Harry.” Howard didn’t know what to believe.

  “I hid that money behind a lot of doors, Bill, but not all of them were locked. No one’s found them because they weren’t supposed to. There wouldn’t have been any point if people could find them. I think you know that already.”

  Howard gave him a sour look. He was thinking. Finally he asked, “What’s the ‘deal’ you’re talking about?”

  “We just want a life.”

  “You want to turn back the clock.”

  “No.” Strand handed Howard a piece of paper. “I just don’t want Schrade to stop it.”

  “What’s this?”

  “An Internet address. This is where you can get me.”

  Howard looked at the address. “This is the way you want to work this out?”

  “No. This is the way I want you to arrange the meeting.”

  “What meeting?”

  “It’s part of the deal. I want to talk with Wolf face to face.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake . . .”

  “It’s a deal breaker, Bill. It’s got to be this way.”

  “What the fuck do you mean it’s a deal breaker? ‘Deal breaker.’ You’re in no goddamn position to talk ‘deal breaker,’ Harry. What’re you talking about? Shit. You don’t do the deal, he kills you. There’s no deal here. I mean, even if you give him the money, all of it. The interest. The whole shitload. How’re you going to get him to hold up his end of the ‘deal’?” Howard shook his head, looking at the e-mail address. “This is insanity.”

  Strand was surprised. He had thought that Howard would take his offer and run to Schrade as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Instead he was pointing out that the offer was absurd, an act of desperation. A deal in which the “deal” would surely be violated. In Howard’s mind, Strand was already a dead man.

  “I’ll make sure he holds up his end of the arrangement,” Strand said.

  “What, ‘anything happens to me and the New York Times will get an envelope’? Harry, you poor fucking stump.”

  “I wouldn’t have come to you with this if I didn’t have it covered.”

  “Sure, that’s good.” Howard rolled his head. “You’ve got it covered. Great.”

  From the Audley gates an elderly couple entered the gardens with a short-haired dog, an animal of no discernible breed, on a leash. The three of them ambled along the main walk as the dog snuffled busily at the grassy margins, ferreting excitedly among the green clumps. Entrusted with the leash, the woman watched the dog with critical attention, while the man, hands behind his back, gazed about the close with a mild, bifocaled curiosity.

  “Why should I do this for you, Harry?”

  “Two reasons. First, I can keep the FIS from getting it. I can tie it up for decades. This was not a shoddy operation, Bill. Some very intelligent people put a lot of thought and sweat into this before we even started. Dennis Clymer was a genius. We ran it for six months, fine-tuning it as we went along, addressing potential problem areas that might crop up farther down the road. We shut it down and took
another six months to stabilize what we’d done. So if the FIS wants to try to get it, fine, but my guess is, if they’re going to try to get it through the legal system, the Justice Department’s going to take a closer look at this and tell them to forget it. Everyone you know in the FIS will have retired by the time they finally realize it’s a goose hunt.

  “Second, you’d want to do it for the three million dollars I’m going to put in a Belgium account for you. It’s properly sheltered, safe to access.”

  “That’s goddamn blunt,” Howard said.

  “If I remember, you’re impatient with finesse.”

  “Yeah.”

  It was a crucial moment, but Strand never doubted how it would end.

  “Three million dollars . . .” Howard’s eyes were fixed on the bit of paper, which he had now folded and unfolded so many times that it was getting limp. Then, to Strand’s surprise, Bill Howard seemed to grow angry. Strand could actually see him trying to control his temper, tucking in his chin, tightening his nostrils, his face flushing.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Howard said abruptly after a little thinking. “So, when I have something, if I have something, I contact you?” He raised the piece of paper and waggled it.

  “Yeah. One other thing. I’m leaving London tonight. If you want to talk to me personally after tonight, it won’t be easy. It’ll take a little time to arrange.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not staying anywhere very long,” Strand said.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Shit.”

  “It’s not something he really has to ponder, Bill.”

  “Harry, for Christ’s sake . . . Okay, look, how complicated is the money end of this situation?”

  “Not too complicated.”

  “Well, shit, that clarifies it.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What do I tell him? A week? Days?”

  “Hours.”

  Howard perked up. “Hours?”

  “Yeah.”

  Howard studied him. “Where do you want to meet him?”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  “When?”

  “When I see how he reacts to the offer.”

  Howard folded the paper one last time and put it in the side pocket of his suit coat. As the elderly couple passed by he held his next comment, watching the dog disapprovingly. When they were out of earshot he went on.

  “What’s the time frame here?”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “The sooner the better?”

  “That’s right.”

  Howard was feeling better. He was trying to cover all the bases.

  “What if he turns you down, Harry? What then?”

  “Eventually he’ll get me. I know that.” He paused. “But I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing half a billion dollars of his laundered cash do some good for a change.”

  “But you’d cough it all up to save your ass.”

  Strand looked at him. “I tried to do what I thought would be a good thing,” he said. “I guess I’ve found out that I don’t have the guts to give my life for it. Or Mara’s. I’ve already lost everything but her. That’s what I was telling you at the beginning, Bill. None of this is very pretty, any way you slice it.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Howard walked away toward the Audley gates. From years of experience, Strand knew that he wouldn’t look back. The meeting had left Strand drained and anxious. He couldn’t decide whether Howard had been entirely satisfied with Strand’s story or whether he harbored a lingering suspicion that Strand was setting him up.

  Leaving Mount Street Gardens, Strand made his way through Mayfair to Piccadilly, emerging on Berkeley Street just down from the Green Park underground station.

  He rode the underground all the way to Knightsbridge and then all the way back to Piccadilly Circus. He spent some time milling in the crowds there and then walked up the Burlington Arcade, where he drifted in and out of the shops. He worked his way back to Half Moon Street, which he followed to Curzon, stopping in at George Trumper to buy a tube of sandalwood shaving cream.

  He turned up Curzon, stopping to look at the film posters on the front of the Curzon Cinema before turning back and following Curzon to Fitzmaurice Place. Half a dozen telephone booths lined the sidewalk just at the Charles Street corner. He stepped into the second one from the right, closed the door, and checked his watch. For seven minutes he stared at the poster advertisements that prostitutes had stuck to the walls of the booth, exposing their wares in black-and-white photographs of steamy vamping.

  At precisely five o’clock, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

  “You’re going to like this place, Harry,” Mara said, giving him the address. “I’ll leave the front door open.”

  The town house was close. He turned into Charles Street and started up the hill. Just past Queen Street he turned into Chesterfield Hill, and there, nearly halfway up the first block and across the street, was the red-brick Edwardian town house, newly refurbished, that Mara had leased.

  He crossed the street and was pleased to see the “Available” sign still attached to the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the front garden. Upon entering the gate, he walked up the steps and let himself in through the moss green front door, shiny with layers of paint.

  When he closed the door behind him the hollow sound echoed through the unfurnished rooms, which smelled of fresh paint and wallpaper paste. On the second floor a large reception fronted the street. To the left was a broad bay window overlooking Chesterfield Hill. Centered between the arms of the windows was a box spring and mattress on the floor, scattered with plastic packets of new linen. Mara walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “Welcome home,” she said.

  At the other end of the long room, on the wall opposite the bay window, were stacked painters’ supplies, five-gallon paint buckets and painters’ canvases and scaffolding boards and ladders.

  “I convinced the estate agent to leave everything as it was,” Mara explained.

  “The ‘Available’ sign is a good touch.”

  “Yeah, I asked him to leave it for another week. He thought it was an odd request but shrugged it off.”

  Mara had scavenged together the rough scaffolding boards and paint buckets to make a long table, which she covered with the paint-flecked canvas dropcloths. There was a telephone on the table and books stacked beside it, and a little farther over sat one of the laptops, the screen already lighted. A cobalt blue vase with fresh flowers in it sat on the far end of the table.

  “The telephone was a lucky stroke,” she said. “The estate agency had it installed to communicate with the workers who were doing the refurbishing work. We just transferred over the names.”

  Strand looked at her and smiled. “You’re right, this is perfect. It’s close to everything.”

  “I got it fairly early this morning,” she said, walking over to him, folding her arms, the dish towel dangling from her hands. “It was the third place they showed me. I really had to fork over the money to speed up the paperwork”—she turned and gestured to the bed—“paid extra to get the furniture store to have the bedding delivered within a few hours. It’s taken all day.”

  Strand walked over to the bed and tossed the shaving cream on the new mattress, then took off his coat and tossed it down, too.

  Mara waited, her arms folded, her weight shifted to one leg. “Well, how did it go?” she asked.

  “I think it’s going to work. He’s taking it to Schrade. He’s supposed to get back to me as soon as possible.”

  “Then you feel good about it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Mara thought a moment. “God, it’s just so hard to believe what Howard’s doing. You’d think the FIS would have some suspicions about him.”

  “I just hope he’s swallowing this, that they both swallow it. Of course, Schrade’s psychology is in our favor. He wants to believe. Gr
eed’s giving us a leg up here. None of them can stand the thought that the money’s really out of reach. The longer we can make them believe it isn’t, the longer Schrade’s going to put off coming after us.”

  Strand looked around. “We’re going to need something for the windows.” He rolled his head from side to side, trying to limber up his stiff neck as he unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie.

  “I’ve got extra sheets for that. Do you think Howard believed you when you told him you’d sent me away?”

  “I didn’t get a feeling that he was suspicious,” Strand said.

  Mara went over to the bed and began taking everything off it.

  “I was just as concerned that he not get the impression I was staying in London,” Strand said. “I tried to make him think this was just a stopover for me. But I don’t know. . . .”

  Mara opened the packets of new sheets and shook them out. Strand went over to help her.

  “While the estate agent was drawing up the papers for me to sign,” Mara said, putting down the first sheet, “I took a cab to a Grosvenor Square. The agent recommended a solicitor there. I got the papers authorized that the Houston bank wanted in order to release the drawings and faxed them to Houston. About an hour ago I called them and they said everything was in order. They’d already called in the fine arts museum conservator to do the packing. I gave them Léon Gautier’s name and address on the Rue des Saints-Pères. They’ll get the drawings on a flight tonight. I’m to call him tomorrow for the flight number and arrival time in Paris.”

  They tucked in the last sheet, and Mara threw a bedspread over the bed. Strand straightened it from his side and then sat on the bed while Mara put pillowcases on the pillows.

  “When is Bill going to get back to you?” she asked.

  Strand shook his head. “I don’t know. I told him I was leaving London tonight. After that it would be more difficult to arrange a meeting.”

  “So we just wait.”