The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  9:17 A.M.

  59

  BEVERLY HILLS. 10:10 A.M.

  Once again Raymond checked the computer screen for Bertrand’s follow-up message. There was still nothing. What had happened? Why no reply?

  Had Bertrand simply no new information to pass on? Had there been a problem getting a plane and pilot? Or maybe there had been trouble getting the passport and a delay in getting it to the pilot. Had something else come up? God only knew.

  Angrily Raymond turned from the screen. How long could he stay like this? By now the street outside was becoming busier. There were gardeners, repairmen, delivery people, people parking on the street and walking back the short distance to Wilshire Boulevard and the shops and offices nearby.

  He looked back to the screen.

  Still nothing.

  He went into the hallway and then into the kitchen and then came back, his anxiety level rising with each passing minute. He knew the longer he stayed there the more his chances of being found amplified. As a precaution, he had looked for a way out if something happened before Bertrand got back to him. He’d found it in the form of keys to Alfred Neuss’s dark blue, five-year-old Mercedes, which he’d discovered locked and parked in a carport in the alley at the back of the building. In an emergency it was a means of escape, but that was all. The real truth was he had no other place to go.

  10:12 A.M.

  Once more he turned back to check the computer, certain he would find nothing and curse Bertrand even more. But this time, and to his amazement, a message waited. Again it was coded. Decoded it read:

  West Charter Air, Nassau, Bahamas. Gulfstream IV to pick up Mexican businessman, Jorge Luis Ventana, at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, 1300 hours, today. Necessary identification papers will be on board.

  That was it, all he needed.

  Abruptly, he went to the Web browser and clicked on Tools. Then he went to Internet Options. In the Temporary Internet Files section he clicked on Delete Files and then deleted Off-line Content and clicked Clear History. Those actions combined with the labyrinth of multiple IP hosts he had used to contact Bertrand would make tracing either the sending or receiving of their correspondence all but impossible.

  Next, he shut down the computer and went to Neuss’s closet, where he took out the tan linen suit he had tried on earlier. The trousers were a little short and the waist too large, but with a tightened belt, the jacket would hide the excess material. From Neuss’s bureau he pulled a starched white shirt and an expensive green-and-red-striped tie.

  Within minutes he was dressed, knotting the tie and pulling on a straw Panama hat to cover his close-shaven head. Done, he picked up Barron’s 9 mm Beretta from the bed and stuck it in his belt, then looked at himself in Alfred Neuss’s full-length mirror. He looked more than presentable and smiled in satisfaction.

  “Bueno,” he said, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he relaxed. There was no inspection of passports or other identification papers when one left a country on a private aircraft. Those would be needed when he landed, and he was certain they would be on board as Bertrand had promised. All he had to do was get to the airport in Santa Monica, and he already had the instrument of transportation, Alfred Neuss’s Mercedes. “Bueno,” he said again. Finally things were going his way.

  One last glance in the mirror, an adjustment of hat and tie, and he turned for the door. Suddenly he stopped, deciding it would be prudent to take one last look out the window. When he did, his entire being froze. A car was double-parked in the street outside, and John Barron was stepping from it. With him were two of the LAPD detectives who had been at the airport and in the garage when Donlan was shot. Accompanying them, leading them toward the building, was the arrogant saleswoman from Alfred Neuss’s store.

  10:19 A.M.

  60

  The four disappeared from sight below. Obviously the saleswoman had a key to Neuss’s apartment or she would not be with them. That meant it was only a matter of minutes, even seconds, before they reached the front door. There was no time to replace things to try to cover up his being there. Hurriedly Raymond went into the bathroom and peered out the tiny window to the alley in the back, wondering if they had police stationed at the rear of the building. As far as he could tell, the answer was no.

  In an instant Raymond was through the kitchen, out the back door, and down the stairs. At the bottom he slid the Beretta from his belt, then opened the door. A large municipal garbage collection truck blocked the alley partway down as two city workers collected trash from the apartment buildings. At the other end the alley was clear to the street. Beretta held to his side, Raymond opened the door and went directly to the carport. Coolly, he pushed the remote control button on the ignition key, disabling the alarm and unlocking the doors, and got in. A moment later the Mercedes came to life, and he backed out into the alley. The trash truck was closer now, but he still had room to maneuver.

  He backed up as far as he could, then shoved the gearshift into DRIVE and touched the accelerator. The car jumped forward—immediately he slammed on the brake. A second garbage truck had come in from the other end, trapping him in between.

  10:23 A.M.

  Greta Adler was the woman who ran Alfred Neuss Jewelers when neither Neuss or his wife was there, and it was she who unlocked the front door to his apartment.

  “Thank you,” Barron said. “Now please wait out here.” He glanced at Lee and Polchak, then pulled the Colt Double Eagle from the holster at his waist and went in. Lee and Polchak were right behind him.

  Hallway. Small computer room. Living room. Bedroom. Kitchen. Doors opened, closets checked. There was no one there.

  “Let’s take a closer look.” Lee went into the kitchen, Polchak the bedroom.

  Barron holstered the Colt and went back to the front door. “Come in, Mrs. Adler,” he said.

  “Miss Adler.” She corrected him as she came in.

  Greta Adler had recognized Raymond’s photograph the moment Barron had shown it to her at the store. He had been there yesterday afternoon, she told them.

  “He said he was looking for Mr. Neuss and seemed amazed, even astonished, to learn he was not there but in London.”

  “Does Mr. Neuss know Raymond Thorne?” Barron asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Had you ever seen Raymond Thorne before?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear Mr. or Mrs. Neuss use his name?”

  “No.”

  “Did he give any reason for wanting to see Mr. Neuss?”

  “I didn’t give him the opportunity.” Greta’s eyes hardened. “The way he was dressed I wanted him out of the shop as quickly as possible, so I simply told him Mr. and Mrs. Neuss had gone to London. Which they had.”

  “Raymond’s picture has been all over television and on the front page of the L.A. Times.” Barron was incredulous. “You didn’t see it?”

  “I do not watch television.” Greta’s nose lifted toward the ceiling. “And I do not read the Los Angeles Times.”

  10:27 A.M.

  Anxiety carved into his face, Beretta in hand, Raymond kept his eyes locked on the rear entrance to the apartment building, certain Barron and the others would crash through it at any moment. But there was nothing he could do. The trash trucks still had the Mercedes blocked between them, their drivers standing nose to nose arguing with each other in Spanish over money one owed the other.

  10:28 A.M.

  Lee suddenly came out of the kitchen looking at Greta Adler. “When did Mr. and Mrs. Neuss leave for London?”

  “Tuesday evening.”

  “Do they have children, or would anyone else have stayed here?”

  “The Neusses have no children, and no one else would have stayed here. They are not that kind of people.”

  “They travel a lot? Maybe they had a regular apartment sitter?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Neuss do not travel often, in fact hardly ever. They would not have had an apartment sitter. And if
they had I would have been the first to know about it.”

  Lee looked to Barron. “Someone’s been here and not very long ago. There’s water on the countertop, and a glass in the sink has fresh droplets on it.”

  Polchak came out of the bedroom. “It was Raymond.”

  “What?” Barron looked up; so did Lee.

  “The same kind of jeans he was wearing in the airport when he shot Red are on the floor in the closet. Along with a Disneyland cap and jacket.”

  Lee looked at Polchak. “What makes you think they’re Raymond’s and don’t belong to Neuss?”

  “Mr. Neuss would be put over hot coals before he would wear blue jeans,” Greta Adler snapped. “The same could be said for the Disneyland things.”

  “That doesn’t mean they were Raymond’s.”

  “They weren’t,” Polchak said. “I’ll bet a year’s pay they originally belonged to Josef Speer. Little tag says they were bought in a department store in Germany.”

  Raymond threw open the Mercedes door, slid the Beretta into his belt under his jacket, and walked up to the arguing men.

  “Yo soy el doctór,” he said hurriedly in Spanish. “Esta es una emergencia. Por favor mueve tu troca.” I am a doctor. This is an emergency. Please move the truck.

  They paid him no attention, just kept arguing.

  “Emergencia, por favor,” he said forcefully.

  Finally the driver of the truck blocking the exit to the street looked at him. “Sí,” he said grudgingly. “Sí.” With a hard glance at the man he’d been arguing with, he got in the truck and put it in reverse. A dozen steps and Raymond was back in the Mercedes, putting it in gear and impatiently edging it forward, waiting for the alley to clear.

  Barron and Polchak came down the back stairs fast. Lee was behind them on the radio calling for Beverly Hills Police backup. Both men stopped at the bottom of the stairs and drew their guns. Barron looked at Polchak, Polchak nodded, and they burst through the door.

  As quickly they stopped. The alley was empty except for two city trash trucks, nose to nose, their drivers standing in between, arguing.

  61

  12:05 P.M.

  Trigger Ray Escapes Again! Internet newsgroups flashed to the world. Alfred Neuss’s Mercedes had been found, and once more Beverly Hills was in a state of near-lockdown as uniformed police and plainclothes detectives, aided by dogs and helicopters, swarmed an area nearly three miles square.

  The media were loving it. The homeowners, business community, and politicians had had enough. To all the result was the same—the Beverly Hills Police Department had just joined the LAPD and the 5-2 Squad as top candidates for “buffoons of the decade.”

  Standing in Alfred Neuss’s front hallway watching the Beverly Hills PD’s Scientific Investigations people going over the jeweler’s apartment inch by inch, Barron didn’t care what the media said or what the politicians thought. The police were not buffoons. The problem was that Raymond was incredibly bold and almost maniacally cunning. He had gone to Alfred Neuss’s apartment because he knew no one was there. It was the one place he could count on for rest and refuge, and trust he would not be found. And if he had come to L.A. to encounter Neuss, possibly even to murder him, which they were all but certain he had, what better place to hide and wait than in the victim’s own lair? Then they had surprised him and he’d fled, wearing Neuss’s clothes and driving his car and leaving the major questions unchanged.

  Who was Raymond Oliver Thorne? And what was he doing?

  They had all heard him speak English with a perfect American accent, yet he had spoken fluent Spanish to the trash collectors and blurted “Dasvedanya” to Barron on the baggage ramp at the airport as he’d been about to kill him. Dasvedanya meant “good-bye” in Russian, which meant he knew at least one word, and perhaps many more, of Russian. A midlevel employee at the Bonaventure hotel had told them he’d heard him converse with Josef Speer in German. The Lufthansa ticket agent, too, had told them “Speer” had spoken fluent German.

  Moreover, the men he had killed in Chicago had been Russian, and Alfred Neuss’s name had been found in their address book among a listing of Russian-Americans. Questioned about it, Greta Adler had simply said she didn’t know why his name had been listed as it had. As far as she knew his only dealings with the tailors had been that he had once used their services in Chicago and had the bill sent to his store. As for his own heritage, Mr. Neuss had never discussed it. So whatever his connection to Neuss or the men in Chicago might have been, so far none of it helped answer the question of who this multilingual gunman was. An international hitman? Russian mafia? Some kind of lone terrorist with unknown links to others? And still there was no way to know for certain that he hadn’t somehow been involved with Donlan.

  These were complications that not only angered but frustrated Barron, and opened up even more questions. Why had he killed the men in Chicago? What about the tortured, disfigured dead men in San Francisco and Mexico City? Investigators there had asked for ballistics tests from Raymond’s Ruger automatic, which were in the process of being done and forwarded. Why had Raymond come to Los Angeles? What was the significance of the safe deposit keys? Was there any importance to the names, places, and dates he had marked in his calendar?

  Monday, March 11. London.

  Tuesday, March 12. London.

  Wednesday, March 13. London, France, London.

  Thursday, March 14. London. With the short entry written in Russian beneath it—Russian Embassy/London—and then, in English, Meet I.M. Penrith’s Bar, High Street. 8:00 P.M.

  Friday, March 15. 21 Uxbridge Street.

  Sunday, April 7. With the forward slash after the “7” and the word that had also been written in Russian, the translated entry read April 7/Moscow.

  And last, where and how did a wealthy, respected, longtime Beverly Hills jeweler like Alfred Neuss fit in?

  They certainly didn’t know, but maybe Neuss did. At that moment London Metropolitan Police were trying to locate him, and when they did he might well have an answer or at least shed some light on what was happening. Still, none of it helped in trying to determine where Raymond was now. Or what his plans were. Or who would be hurt, or even killed, when he struck next.

  12:25 P.M.

  Barron left the front hallway to walk through the kitchen and go back down to the alley where Polchak and Lee were working with Beverly Hills detectives. As he did, a sudden thought crossed his mind. Because of Greta Adler, Raymond knew where Neuss had gone. If he slipped them again and got out of L.A., the next they would hear of him would be in a call from Scotland Yard saying they’d found Alfred Neuss and he was dead.

  62

  12:35 P.M.

  Raymond sat quietly in the backseat of a taxi as it turned off Olympic Boulevard and onto Bundy Drive, nearing Santa Monica Airport.

  He had taken Alfred Neuss’s Mercedes to drive to the airport himself but was barely out of the alley when he realized the woman from Neuss’s store would know what kind of car Neuss had and what color it was. In no time they would find it missing from the carport and put out an alert. So any attempt to drive it more than a few blocks, let alone from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica through midday city traffic, would be the same as painting the doors in Day-Glo orange with the words WANTED FUGITIVE INSIDE.

  For that reason he’d parked it a quarter of a mile from Neuss’s apartment, locked it, and dropped the keys into a storm drain. Five minutes later, in Alfred Neuss’s tan linen suit and Panama hat, he’d crossed Rodeo Drive and entered the elegant lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Two minutes after that he stood at the rear motor entrance waiting as a doorman signaled a cab. Sixty seconds later he was in the backseat of a taxi as it drove off.

  “Shutters at the Beach Hotel in Santa Monica,” he told the driver in English but with a heavy French accent. “You know where it is?”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said without looking at him. “I know where it is.”

  Twenty minutes later h
e got out of the taxi at the luxury seaside hotel in Santa Monica and went into the lobby. Five minutes later he came out a side door and got into a taxi at the curb.

  “Santa Monica Airport,” he said with a Spanish accent.

  “¿Habla usted español?” the Hispanic taxi driver asked. Do you speak Spanish?

  “Sí,” Raymond said. “Sí.”

  12:40 P.M.

  The cab swung in from Bundy Drive and turned down a narrow street to drive alongside a chain-link fence with private aircraft parked behind it. They passed one turnoff, and then the cab driver took the next, heading in toward the Santa Monica Airport terminal.

  The cab slowed as they neared, and Raymond sat forward, looking toward the terminal and the planes parked on the tarmac beyond it. They seemed to be small, propeller-driven civilian aircraft, not a jet among them. Nor was there anything to indicate that even one of them might be a charter. He looked at his watch and wondered if the plane Jacques Bertrand sent was late or if there had been some miscommunication or even a mechanical problem with the plane itself.

  In the distance a twin-engine Cessna took off. And then nothing. Where was his plane? Raymond felt his pulse rise and, with it, a trickle of sweat on his upper lip. What should he do, get out and wait? Call Bertrand in Zurich? What?

  Calm down, he told himself. Calm down and wait.

  They were nearing the terminal, and the cab driver swung wide around another taxi, then slowed, waiting for traffic to clear in front of him. It was then that Raymond saw it, a big silver Gulfstream jet with WEST CHARTER AIR stenciled in bold red and black letters across its fuselage. It was parked on the tarmac on the far side of the terminal with its passenger door open. Two uniformed pilots stood on the ground beside it chatting with a maintenance worker.