The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [137]
McVey glanced around the lobby. He hated paranoia. It crippled a man and made him see things that weren’t. But he had to face the reality that anyone, in uniform or not, could be working for this group, whoever or whatever they were. The tall man would have had no compunction about shooting him right there in the lobby and he had to assume his replacement would do the same. Or if not right then, at least report where he was. By lingering, he was pressing his luck on either account.
“McVey, are you there?”
He turned back to the phone. “What’d you find out about Klass?”
“M16 could find nothing but an exemplary record. Wife, two children. Born in Munich. Grew up in Frankfurt. Captain in the German Air Force. Recruited out of it by West German Intelligence, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, where he developed his skills and reputation as a fingerprint expert. After that, went to work for Interpol at Lyon headquarters.”
“No. No good,” McVey reacted. “They missed something. Go deeper. Look into people he associates with, outside his daily routine. Hold on—” McVey thought back, trying to remember Lebrun’s office the day they had first received Merriman’s fingerprint from Interpol, Lyon. Somebody else had been working with Klass—Hal, Hall, Hald—Halder!
“Halder—first name Rudolf. Interpol, Vienna. He worked with Klass on the Merriman print. Look, Ian, do you know Manny Remmer?”
“With the German Federal Police.”
“He’s an old friend, works out of headquarters in Bad Godesberg. Lives in an area called Rungsdorf. It’s not too late. Get him at home. Tell him I said for you to call. Tell him you want anything he can find on both Klass and Halder. If it’s there, he’ll get it. Trust him.”
“McVey—” There was concern in Noble’s voice. “I think you’ve managed to open a rather large can of very disagreeable worms. And, frankly, I think you should get out of Paris damn quick.”
“How? In a box or a limo?”
“Where can I reach you in ninety minutes?”
“You can’t. I’ll reach you.”
It was past 9:30 before McVey knocked on the door to Osborn’s room. Osborn opened the door to the chain and Peered out.
“Hope you like chicken salad.”
In one hand McVey balanced a tray with chicken salad in white plastic bowls with Stretch-Tight across the top, in tie other he juggled a pot of coffee along with two cups, everything purchased from an irritable counter clerk at the hotel coffee shop as he was trying to close for the night.
By ten o’clock the coffee and chicken salad were gone and Osborn was pacing up and down, absently working the fingers of his injured hand, while McVey sat hunched over the bed, using it for a worktable, staring at what he’d written in his notebook.
“Merriman told you that an Erwin Scholl—Erwin spelled with an E—of Westhampton Beach, New York, paid him to kill your father and three other people sometime around 1966.”
“That’s right,” Osborn said.
“Of the other three, one was in Wyoming, one in California, and one in New Jersey. He’d done the work and been paid. Then Scholl’s people tried to kill him.”
“Yes.”
“That’s all he said, just the names Of states. No victims’ names, no cities?”
“Just the states.”
McVey got up and went into the bathroom. “Almost thirty years ago a Mr. Erwin Scholl hires Merriman to do some contract killing. Then Scholl orders him knocked off. The game of kill the killer. Make certain whatever’s been taken care of is permanent, with no loose ends that might talk.”
McVey tore the sanitary wrapper off a water glass, filled it, then came back into the room and sat down. “But Merriman outsmarted Scholl’s people, faked his own death, and got away. And Scholl, assuming Merriman was dead, forgot about him. That was, until you came along and hired Jean Packard to find him.” McVey took a drink of the water, stopping short of mentioning Dr. Klass and Interpol, Lyon. There was only so much Osborn needed to know.
“You think Scholl is behind what’s happened here in Paris?” Osborn asked.
“And Marseilles, and Lyon, thirty years later? I don’t know who Mr. Scholl is yet. Maybe he’s dead, or