Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [96]
“Telephone call for you, sir,” he said in German.
Falkoner placed the snifter on the small table. “Unless it’s Herr Fischer calling, I do not wish to be disturbed.” Herr Fischer. Now there was a truly frightening man.
“It is the gentleman from Savannah, sir.” Ruger held the phone at a discreet distance.
“Verlucht,” Falkoner muttered under his breath as he took the proffered phone. “Yes?” he spoke into the mouthpiece. Irritation at having his ritual interrupted added an uncharacteristic harshness to his tone. This fellow was evolving from a nuisance into a problem.
“You asked me to deal with Pendergast decisively,” came the voice on the other end of the phone. “I’m about to do just that.”
“I don’t want to hear what you’re going to do. I want to hear what you’ve done.”
“You offered me assistance. The Vergeltung.”
“And?”
“I’m planning to bring a visitor on board.”
“A visitor?”
“An unwilling visitor. Someone close to Pendergast.”
“Am I to assume this is bait?”
“Yes. It will lure Pendergast on board, where he can be dealt with once and for all.”
“This sounds risky.”
“I’ve worked everything out to the last degree.”
Falkoner expelled a thin stream of air. “I look forward to discussing this with you further. Not on the phone.”
“Very well. But meanwhile, I’ll need restraints—plastic cuffs, gags, rope, duct tape, the works.”
“We keep that sort of thing at the safe house. I’ll have to retrieve it. Come by this evening and we shall go over the details.”
Falkoner hung up, handed the phone to the waiting crew member, and watched as the man receded out of sight. Then he once again picked up the tulip snifter, the look of contentment slowly settling back over his face.
CHAPTER 52
NED BETTERTON DROVE UP THE FDR DRIVE in his rented Chevy Aero, feeling more than a little disconsolate. He was due to return the rental car at the airport in about an hour, and that night he was flying back to Mississippi.
His little reportorial adventure was over.
It was hard to believe that—just a few days earlier—he had been on a roll. He’d gotten a bead on the “foreign fella.” Using the social engineering strategy known as pretexting, he’d called Dixie Airlines and, posing as a cop, gotten the address of the Klaus Falkoner who’d flown to Mississippi almost two weeks before: 702 East End Avenue.
Easy. But then he’d hit a wall. First, there was no 702 East End Avenue. The street was barely ten blocks long, perched right on the edge of the East River, and the street numbers didn’t go that high.
Next, he’d tracked Special Agent Pendergast to an apartment building called the Dakota. But it was a damn fortress, and gaining access proved impossible. There was always a doorman stationed in a pillbox outside the entrance, and more doormen and elevator men massed inside, politely but firmly rebuffing his every attempt and stratagem to enter the building or gain information.
Then he’d tried to get information on the NYPD captain. But there were several female captains and he couldn’t seem to find out, no matter who he asked, which one had partnered with Pendergast or gone down to New Orleans—only that it must have been done off duty.
The basic problem was New York Freaking City. People were tight as shit with information and paranoid of their so-called privacy. He was a long way from the Deep South. He didn’t know how things were done here, didn’t even know the right way to approach people and ask questions. Even his accent was a problem, putting people off.
He had then returned his attention to Falkoner, and almost had a breakthrough. On the chance that Falkoner had used a fake house number on his real street—after all, East End Avenue was an odd choice for a false address—Betterton had canvassed the avenue from end to end, knocking on doors, stopping people in the street, asking if anyone knew of a tall, blond man living in the vicinity, with an ugly mole on his face, and who spoke with a German accent. Most people—typical