Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [102]
“I hate staying by a desk.”
“You don’t have a desk. I went by the consulate and talked to Federov. I pried him away from some singers. He doesn’t know anything about your investigation, he never heard of any Boris Benz and I think it’s fair to say he wishes he never heard of you.”
“We never did develop a rapport,” Arkady conceded.
When he tried to turn, Peter pushed his face against the roof of the car. “He told me where to find the pension. Your lights were out. I waited and thought about how to deal most effectively with you. It was obvious you picked Bayern-Franconia out of the blue to run a protection racket on. It’s also clear you were doing it alone, to make a few Deutsche marks during your holiday. A little Russian free enterprise. I considered the usual protests to different ministries and Interpol until I remembered how sensitive my grandfather is to any publicity attached to the bank. It’s a merchant bank, not for the public, and it doesn’t need publicity, least of all the kind you’d give it. So then I considered just taking you out someplace and beating you until you were a bloody pulp.”
“Isn’t that against the law?”
“Beating you so badly you’d be afraid to tell anyone what happened.”
“Well, you can always try,” Arkady said.
Arkady didn’t have a gun and Peter had a pistol, a Walther from the glimpse he’d had at the bank. He was pretty sure that Peter Christian Schiller wouldn’t shoot, at least not until he ordered Arkady away from the BMW, because a bullet could go right through soft tissue and spread glass and gore all over the interior of his handsome car. If Peter wanted to hit him, Arkady didn’t know whether he would resist. At this point what would a little blood or loose teeth matter? He straightened up and turned around.
Peter’s yellow jacket was whipping around him in a breeze that came off the field. He held his pistol low. “Then who should show up but your friend in the Trabi. I thought, here’s a poor bastard from East Germany. No one drives a Trabi anymore if they can avoid it. Sometimes you see them near the old border, but not here. Ten minutes later he comes out of the pension with you. It made more sense that you had an Ossie as an accomplice.”
“An ‘Ossie’?”
“East German. He picks the victim, you show up with a phony letter from the consulate. I called in the plate number, but the car belongs to a Thomas Hall, American national, Munich resident. Why would an American drive a Trabi?”
“He says it’s an investment. You followed us?”
“It wasn’t difficult. Nothing else was as slow.”
“So what are you going to do?” Arkady asked.
The wonderful thing about a German face was that the agony of thought played so clearly on it. Even in the dim light from the highway, Peter looked torn by fury on one side and by curiosity on the other. “You’re a good friend of Hall’s?”
“I never met Tommy before last night. I was surprised to see him tonight.”
“You and Hall went to a sex club together. That sounds friendly.”
“Tommy said he’d seen Benz there. The women at the club said we should look here.”
“You never talked to Hall before last night?”
“No.”
“You never communicated with him before last night?”
“No. What are you getting at?” Arkady asked.
“Renko, this morning you gave me a fax number to find. I did. The machine belongs to Radio Liberty. It’s in the office of Thomas Hall.”
There were surprises left in life after all, Arkady thought. Here he had spent the evening with an apparent innocent, only to discover his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he checked the Liberty numbers himself? How many other pieces of information had he brushed off his lap?
“Do you think you can catch up with Tommy?” Arkady asked.
Peter wavered, and Arkady watched with interest to see which way he would go. The German stared back so intently that Arkady thought of the