The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [207]
In the last hours things had changed dramatically. Perhaps for the better. Berlin sector had tapped the two supposedly “secure” telephone lines in Room 6132 at the Hotel Palace using a prototype microwave receiver located in a building across the street. Calls to and from the room had been recorded and delivered to the apartment on Sophie-Charlottenstrasse, where they were transcribed and given to Von Holden. The equipment had not been set up until nearly eleven o’clock the night before and so they had missed most of the early transmissions. But what they had recorded afterward was enough for Von Holden to request an immediate meeting with Scholl.
Passing the Hotel Metropole, Von Holden crossed Unter den Linden and pulled up sharply in front of the Grand Hotel. Clutching the plastic case, he got out and went inside, taking an elevator directly to Scholl’s suite.
A male secretary announced him and then showed him in. Scholl was on the phone at his desk when Von Holden entered. Across from him was a man he disliked immensely and hadn’t seen in some time, Scholl’s American attorney, H. Louis Goetz.
“Mr. Goetz.”
“Von Holden.”
Slick and crude, Goetz was fifty, too fit and too studied. He looked as if he spent half the day getting to look like he looked. Nails manicured and polished, deeply tanned and dressed in a blue pinstripe Armani suit, his dark, blow-dried hair showed just the toniest touch of white at the temples, as if it had been bleached that way on purpose. He carried an air of having just flown in from a tennis match in Palm Springs. Or a funeral in Palm Beach. There were rumors he was connected to the mob, but all Von Holden knew for certain was that at the moment he was a key figure in helping Scholl and Margarete Peiper buy into a top Hollywood talent agency where the Organization could more effectively influence the recording, movie and television industries. And, not so coincidentally, the audiences they served. Cold was a lacking description of Goetz’s demeanor. Ice, with a mouth, was more like it.
Von Holden waited for Scholl to hang up, then set the plastic case in front of him and opened it. Inside was a small playback machine and the tapes of the conversations the Berlin sector had recorded.
“They have the complete guest list and a detailed dossier on Lybarger. They know about Salettl. Furthermore, McVey has arranged to have the cardinal of Los Angeles call you sometime this morning to request you meet with him at Charlottenburg this evening, one hour prior to when the guests will arrive. He knows you will be distracted and is counting on that for purposes of interrogation.”
Ignoring the others, Scholl took the transcripts and studied them. When he finished, he handed them to Goetz, then pulled on the headset and listened to the tapes, fast-forwarding through them just enough to pick up excerpts. Finally, he clicked off the machine and removed the headset.
“All they have done, Pascal, is precisely what I anticipated. Using their resources and predictable pathways to gather information about my business here in Berlin and then arranging a way to meet with me. That they know about Mr. Lybarger and Doctor Salettl, that they have the guest list even, is meaningless. However, now that we know for certain they are coming, we shall do what we want.”
Goetz looked up from the transcripts. He didn’t like what he was reading or hearing. “Erwin, you’re not gonna whack’ em? Three detectives and a doctor?”
“Something like that, Mr. Goetz. Why, is it a problem?”
“Problem? For Chrissakes, Bad Godesberg has the guest list. You knock these guys off, you get the whole goddamn federal police involved, what the fuck is that? You want them to start sticking