Vanishing Point

by Morris West

  It was a moment of unexpected danger. I found myself so angered by his air of disdainful power that I was tempted to abort the whole event and challenge him to tell me about Larry Lucas. Somehow, I managed to act myself through the moment. I closed my eyes and palmed them with my hands in a simulation of weariness. Finally, I answered him.

  “Mr. Falco, I am not good enough with words. I am not clear enough in mind to answer those questions immediately. Let me see the picture show; let me read the material. I’ll be back to you in a couple of days.”

  “Where are you staying in Milan, Mr. Benson?”

  “With an Italian friend of mine.”

  “Address?”

  “It’s his address, not mine. Occasionally he entertains a lady there.”

  “I understand. One has to protect one’s friends. Talking of friends, I shouldn’t give up too easily on Liliane. She’s a very interesting young woman. She’s new in this city and feeling quite lonely. She might appreciate a telephone call, and it might be useful if, in the future, you find yourselves working together on your new life project.”

  “And you don’t object to your staff associating with clients?”

  “On the contrary. The members of our staff are trained as essential elements in our client support system.”

  And there, behind the gentleman with the white hair and the patrician face and the bland good manners, was the image that had lurked for a long time in my head: the gangster, the trader in warm bodies, the perennial pimp.

  I acknowledged his offer with a smile and a word of thanks. I told him I would think about it. What I was really smiling at was the fact that I had just loaded a heap of garbage into his information system. What I was thinking about was a sudden villainous inspiration. What would happen if I brought Liliane Prévost and Sergio Carlino together for a demonstration of his skills as an interrogator?

  With that happy thought in mind, I settled down with Francesco Falco while he displayed the wealth and beauty of his travel empire.

  “That’s really what they’re doing.” Sergio Carlino made the emphatic announcement. “They’re building a tourist empire. Rubens is at its financial core. Falco is what he has always been, the hustler, drumming up business. This”—he tapped the brightly colored map which was spread out on his desk—“this is a big enterprise with a hell of a risk factor, but a huge potential. Cheap land and cheap labor in third world and marginal countries. Low-cost resort development for a high-income clientele. Backing from trustee funds of long standing run by Rubens and, subject to minimal scrutiny, big potential profits at sell-off time. It’s a fast, high-rolling game. So their bid for Strassberger, or any similar institution, is a normal element in the pattern. Rubens himself is another such element. Their special clients, like Larry Lucas, are subsidizing the enterprise by a system of double and triple mulcting.”

  He tapped the Simonetta contract which lay beside the map. “This is basically a slave contract. Once you sign it, once you appoint Rubens as trustee with power of attorney, you’re set in concrete. You can’t get out without a huge financial penalty. If your brother-in-law has signed that—as he probably has—then everything he owns is in trusteeship with Rubens. If he ever recovers, he’ll find himself impoverished. If the bid for Strassberger shares is even halfway successful, your father—your whole family, for that matter—will be partners with a bunch of scoundrels.”

  “So how do we break the chain?”

  “At its weakest link: the young woman with the ambivalent love life, Liliane Prévost. Certainly you should call her. Invite her out tomorrow night. Promise her a special evening. Your Italian friends are arranging a mystery party for you—talented people, very chic.”

  “And where will this party be held?”

  “At a country villa between here and Como. It’s a thirty-minute drive, no more. Tell her you’ll meet her at the party. You’ll send a car and driver to pick her up and deliver her safely home.”

  “What time?”

  “Pickup at seven-thirty. Get the address and telephone number of her apartment. Go ahead, do it now!”

  I made the call. Sergio switched on the recorder and listened attentively to every word of the conversation. Liliane Prévost was surprised but interested. She asked me to hold the line a moment. It was a courtesy to check with the Director to see if he had any social assignments for that evening. She was back inside a minute. She would be happy to join me. Where? I told her this was a mystery party; even I didn’t know where it would be held. She would be picked up at seven-thirty. Dress? I guessed that it would be informal-smart. She gave me her address and telephone number. I asked if I had embarrassed her with Mr. Falco. On the contrary, he had urged her to accept. He had found me—why should he not? —an interesting man. Also, parties with the chic and talented were an excellent recruiting ground for Simonetta clients.

  Sergio was pleased. He thought I was a very good liar. I asked him how he proposed to stage the evening. He smiled and shook his head.

  “Better you don’t ask. You act better in ignorance. Now, I should like you to call your Paris office and see if you can get some information from Mlle. Parmentier.”

  “On what?”

  “The circumstances of Liliane Prévost’s transfer from Paris to Milan.”

  “Dammit, Sergio, that’s too dangerous. One phone call from Claudine to Milan and all we’ve done is down the drain!”

  “Not necessarily. You told me, did you not, that she had written you a letter before you left Paris? She wanted you to know she had not broken faith with the company?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you ever answer the letter?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re calling now to respond to it. You’ve been feeling very guilty. You inquire tactfully about how the job’s going and, in the most natural way, how her love life is proceeding. As I remember, that too was mentioned in the letter. Do it now, please. I’m arranging a party. I need your help.”

  As a precautionary courtesy, I called Vianney first. He was out of the office. I asked to be transferred to Claudine Parmentier. She, fortunately, was at her desk and, to my surprise, sounded glad to hear from me.

  “Carl! What a pleasure! I thought you had written me off altogether. M. Vianney gave me to understand he would be reporting directly to you.”

  “That’s true. But this isn’t a business call. It’s an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “Before I left Paris, you wrote me a note, assuring me that you had never leaked any company secrets.”

  “That was true.”

  “I believe you. That’s the reason for this call. I didn’t acknowledge the note. I’ve been traveling and I’ve been very busy, but that’s no excuse. I’m calling now to thank you for writing and to ask you to pardon me.”

  “Please! This is very touching. I never felt badly toward you. Considering my last performance, you let me down very lightly. Where are you now, by the way?”

  “I’m just about to leave Verona. This is a very romantic town. Last night I stood under Juliet’s balcony. Would you believe I was reminded of you and Liliane? How is that big love story?”

  “Deader than Romeo and Juliet! Liliane was transferred to Milan almost overnight. She hated to leave, but she was told she’d lose her job if she didn’t accept the transfer.”

  “What brought that on?”

  “I suppose you could say I brought it on myself. We were at dinner one night with one of the seniors from the Simonetta staff who is also one of the sisterhood. I got a little drunk and Larry’s name slipped out. There was a silence; then I was peppered with questions. Finally it came out that I worked for Strassberger. Either the senior made the report or forced Liliane to make it herself, but next day—whoosh!—the fire was under the pot. I had a very short phone call from Liliane, who was obviously frightened for her job and for herself. Now I’m back with my former partner and doing a daily penance for my sins. I’m not sure how long
I can stand that; but we’ll see. Have you anyone with you?”

  “Not at the moment. Tomorrow, who knows? Look after yourself.”

  “Do you want me to tell Vianney you called?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be calling him tomorrow.”

  “Carl, what’s the meaning of all this activity in Strassberger shares?”

  “There are various opinions. It certainly looks like a raid, but we’re prepared for it. What does Vianney say?”

  “What he always says: ‘On the one hand and on the other.’ He’s a funambule, that one! A real tightrope walker. Does it have anything to do with Larry’s disappearance?”

  “Indirectly, I suppose it does.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “We think we know, but his wife and my father are coming to the view that probably we should call off the pursuit and let him go his own way.”

  “That’s what Vianney thinks too. He says, ‘Let the poor bastard go! Let him be happy in his misery.’”

  “And what do you think, Claudine?”

  “I try not to think about it at all now. I don’t understand it. I can’t do anything about it, but I find the whole affair quite frightening. Liliane’s last words to me were, ‘Keep your head down and your mouth shut, Claudine. Falco lives up to his name. He’s a predator with a sharp beak and claws that never let go.’ I must go now. My client has just arrived. Travel safely, Carl.”

  Sergio was as near to jubilant as I had seen him.

  “That was splendid. That gives me exactly what I want for tomorrow’s party pieces, a clear complicity between Liliane and her employer.”

  “Complicity in what?”

  “Oh, there’s no problem finding a name for the charge. Our problem is to find hard evidence to prove it. That little conversation will be very useful in dialogues with the young lady.”

  “What sort of dialogues?”

  “Well, they’ll be more in the nature of conversation pieces.”

  “Let’s be clear on something, Sergio. I won’t be party to any violence!”

  “Violence? My dear man, you musn’t fret. This will be as pleasant for her as a massage. Trust me! Now, a few more phone calls and you are free.”

  “Who’s next?”

  “It’s your choice, really. I confess I would feel much more comfortable if we could arrange some adequate cover for Larry Lucas at the Burgholzli.”

  “You said he was safe for the moment.”

  “I did; but I like to cover all contingencies.”

  “What sort of contingencies?”

  “Lucas was admitted to the Burgholzli on the recommendation of a Swiss physician, Dr. Langer, and obviously with the consent not of his family, as would be usual, but of the person who holds his power of attorney, Dr. Hubert Rubens. That’s guesswork, but I believe it’s right. So, in effect, Lucas is a voluntary patient who may be moved elsewhere by the same people who committed him. I’d hate to find he’d been discharged from the Burgholzli and whisked off to a private clinic in Germany or Hungary. So you’d better work out with Lucas’s wife and your father what family intervention is possible with the Swiss medical authorities and possibly the police.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was four in the afternoon. My father would be in his office, watching the opening market in New York. Alma Levy would be working with her morning patients. I was undecided which one to call first, the doctor or the money man. I decided on the money man because of a little story he had told me in my salad days. The burden of the story was very simple: ‘Switzerland,’ said my father, ‘is run by the Swiss Army!’ I was immediately embroiled in an argument—which was exactly what he had intended. I was less than well versed in the workings of Swiss democracy. In the end my father forced me to listen to his thesis. “Every able-bodied male in Switzerland is trained to bear arms and, while he is of service age, is required to do a period of service at stated intervals. Result, every Swiss executive in the state or in civilian life carries a military rank. So,” urged my father with a grin of triumph, “the senior bankers and the senior company officials are generally of high field rank in the reserves. That creates a kind of relationship—of comrades in arms—very hard for the outsider to penetrate. On the other hand, it lends a special power to those special friendships, which certain outsiders are privileged to enjoy.”

  I now decided to see what kind of special friendships he could invoke in the case of his own son-in-law.

  I caught him at a bad moment, when a buyer was scouting the market for a block of ten thousand Strassberger shares and our broker’s man on the floor seemed less than vigilant. However, I managed to command his attention, to explain Larry’s situation, and, with Carlino prompting me, to outline a plan of immediate action.

  All of it depended on securing immediate legal advice in Switzerland and then bringing enough power and patronage to bear on the Burgholzli institute itself that they would refuse to release Larry Lucas without a court decision. However, any such action would require the presence of the next of kin, his wife. It would call for the production of authentic documents of identity: Larry’s U.S. passport, social security card, certificates of birth and marriage. It would also help enormously if Dr. Levy could present herself in Zurich with her patient’s medical history. I impressed on my father that I had to depend on him to organize all this and, as a final requirement, to send with Madi my own real passport and credit cards.

  I suggested that they all stay at the Dolder Grand and I would meet them there as soon as I was free. My argument made him even more stubborn. Larry’s letters to him and to Madi were still a bad taste in his mouth. He hated the idea of asking favors from overseas colleagues. Any legal action would produce publicity. Larry’s flight and disappearance would make new headlines. We had spent all this time and money to avoid just that. If Madi came to Europe, who would look after the children? My mother was in no condition to do it. He had never met this Dr. Levy. She could refuse to talk with him at all.

  It was ten minutes before I could get a grumbling consent—and then only because I told him he should take a close personal look at his overseas offices, especially Paris, which, we knew, was where the trouble had started. It was time he began inspecting the house of Strassberger for wood rot and verminous infestation.

  As always, once he took a grip on an idea, he worried it like a terrier. He made me rehearse my suggestions. He talked through his possible contacts in Switzerland. He thought Madi should take the children and the nanny with her.

  He himself might consider accompanying her and then make his own visits to company offices. Finally, yes! He had all the briefing he needed. Now, what was my contribution to this part of the operation?

  I was tired and edgy and I snapped at him. I told him that Carlino and myself were trying to find conclusive evidence of criminal conspiracy on the part of Falco and Rubens. If we found it, we had a chance to hold off the share raid and limit the peripheral damage the publicity would cause. It might also show Larry in a different light from that in which we were now viewing him. My father did not for one moment accept that idea. He did, however, buy the rest of it and promised to make immediate phone calls to Madi and to Alma Levy. I reminded him that Dr. Levy might well provide her own medical contacts in Zurich, but I gave him a firm warning that she was just as tough as he was and he should not—repeat not—start an arm-wrestling contest with her. His answer was typical.

  “Thank you, Carl! A wise son makes a glad father!”

  Since it was he who had taught me the old game of capping one aphorism with another, I gave him one to taste with his morning coffee.

  “The problem with fathers is that they want their sons to be a credit to them.”

  “You stole that from Bertrand Russell,” said my father cheerfully. “He was a brilliant mathematician but he would have made a very poor banker—just like you, my son!”

  Carlino was vastly amused by this piece of family dialogue. He told me it reminded him of his
talks with his own father. I wanted to drop the subject. I had a more mundane problem. I had left Verona very early in the morning. I had a car full of gear. Where was I going to sleep tonight?

  Sergio Carlino had everything planned. My car, as he had promised, was on its way back to the rental agency. My gear was already stowed in a Corsec vehicle. The driver was standing by to take me to my destination. And where, pray, might that be?

  “The Villa Calpurnia, scene of tomorrow night’s revels. You will be safe from intrusion. You will have a good night’s rest, and tomorrow you can spend a relaxing day with your sketchbook and canvases. Michele will drive you wherever you want to go.”

  “And who is Michele?”

  “He and his wife, Elena, are custodians of the place. She’s a very good cook, and he is driver, gardener, and butler.”

  “How many guests are you expecting?”

  “We’ll be eight at table, including you and Liliane Prévost.”

  “Will your wife be there?”

  “No. We keep our married life quite separate from business. I’ll have another companion at dinner.”

  “And all I have to do is be there?”

  “That’s all. Of course, you’ll be witty and charming and perhaps even show some sketches to keep the talk rolling. And for God’s sake get rid of that beard. It makes you look like a vagabond!”

  10

  WHEN I LEFT CORSEC headquarters that afternoon, I felt weary, dispirited, and uneasy. I had been on the road since daylight. I had lost Ellie Milland, who deserved better than I had offered her. I had been through a series of critical encounters, with no clear idea where any of them might lead. Now, at day’s end, events were out of my control. I was sidelined from the game—to rusticate for twenty-four hours in a villa in the flat-lands of the Lombardy plain—while my father brusquely assumed command in New York and Sergio Carlino played his own secretive drama in Milan.