“Ah, yes, I think I know what you mean. A man of about fifty years?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Can you please ask him to come to the phone. As
I said, it’s urgent. An emergency.”
“Yes, at once, sir,” the waiter said, responding to the tension Ben had
put in his voice. He set the phone down.
Leaving the line open, Ben slipped his phone into the breast pocket of
his sport coat, left the rest room, and returned to the dining room.
Ponytail was no longer sitting at his booth. The telephone was at the
bar, which was situated in such a way that it couldn’t be seen from the
entrance to the restaurant–Ben hadn’t seen it until he was seated at
his table–and no one standing or sitting at it could see either the
entrance or the area of the restaurant roughly between the rest room and
the entrance. Ben moved quickly to the entrance and out the door. He
had bought himself maybe fifteen seconds during which he could leave,
unseen by Ponytail, who was at the moment talking into the telephone’s
handset, hearing nothing but silence, wondering what had happened to the
caller who had identified him so carefully.
Ben grabbed his bags from the ruined sedan and raced to the green Audi;
a key was in the ignition, as if the driver had made preparations for a
rapid getaway. Theft was probably unknown in this sleepy village, but
there had to be a first time. Besides, Ben had a strong suspicion that
Ponytail wasn’t in a position to notify the police about his vehicle’s
disappearance. This way, he gained a working vehicle while depriving
his pursuer of one. Ben leaped in and started it up. There was no
sense in trying to be quiet now; Ponytail would hear the ignition of the
engine. He threw the car into reverse, then, with a squeal of rubber,
barreled over the cobblestoned expanse and, at top speed, out of the
Rathausplatz.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up near a half-timbered stone building
in a remote, wooded area off the small country road. A small sign in
front read langasthof.
He tucked the car away discreetly behind a dense stand of pine trees and
walked back to the front door of the guest house, where a small sign
said empfang, reception.
He rang the bell, and waited a few minutes before a light came on. It
was midnight, and obviously he had awakened the proprietor.
An old man with a deeply lined face opened the door and, with a put upon
air, led Ben down a long, dark hall, switching on little wall sconce
lights as he went, until he came to an oak-plank doorway marked 7. With
an old skeleton key, he unlocked the door and switched on a small bulb,
illuminating a snug room dominated by a double bed on which a white
duvet was neatly folded. The diamond-patterned wallpaper was peeling.
“This is all we have,” the proprietor said gruffly.
“It’ll do.”
“I’ll put the heat on. It will take a good ten minutes.”
A few minutes later, after he’d unpacked only what he needed for the
night, Ben went into the bathroom to run the shower. The setup looked
so alien, so complicated four or five knobs and dials, a telephone-style
hand-shower hanging on a hook that Ben decided it wasn’t worth it. He
splashed cold water on his face, unwilling to wait for hot water to find
its way through the pipes, brushed his teeth, and undressed.
The duvet was luxurious and lofty with goose down. He fell asleep
almost immediately.
Some time later hours, it seemed, though he couldn’t be sure, since his
travel alarm clock was still in his suitcase he heard a noise.
He sat upright, his heart racing.
He heard it again. It was a soft but audible squeak, floorboards
beneath the carpet. It came from near the doorway.
He reached over to the end table and grabbed the brass lamp at its base.
With the other hand, he slowly yanked the cord out of its wall socket,
freeing the lamp to be swung.
He swallowed hard. His heart hammered. He quietly swung his feet free
of the duvet an dover to the floor.
He lifted the lamp slowly, careful not to disturb anything else on the
end table. When he had a good grip on it, he quietly, quietly, hoisted
it up above his head.
And sprang suddenly off the bed.
A powerful arm reached out, grabbed at the lamp, wrenched it from his
hands. Ben lunged toward the dark shape, turned his shoulder, and
jammed it into the intruder’s chest.
But in the same instant a foot swung out, catching Ben at the ankles,
knocking him down. With all his strength, Ben tried to rear up and
pummel his attacker with his elbows, but a knee rammed into his chest
and his solar plexus, and the wind was knocked out of him. Before he
had the chance to attempt another move, the intruder’s hands shot
forward, slamming Ben’s shoulders down, pinning him to the floor. As
soon as his breath came back, Ben let out a great bellow, but then a
large hand clapped his mouth shut and Ben found himself looking into the
haunted face of his brother.
“You’re good,” Peter said, “but I’m still better.”
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Asuncion, Paraguay
The rich Corsican was dying.
He had been dying for three or four years, however, and probably had a
good two years or more left in him.
He lived in a grand Spanish Mission-style villa in a wealthy suburb of
Asuncion, at the end of a long drive lined with palm trees, surrounded
by acres of beautifully landscaped property.
Senor Prosperi’s bedroom was on the second floor, and though it was
flooded with light, it was so choked with medical equipment that it
looked like an emergency room. His much younger wife, Consuela, had
slept in her own bedroom for years.
When he opened his eyes this morning, he did not recognize the nurse.
“You’re not the regular girl,” he said, his voice a phlegm-laden croak.
“Your regular nurse is ill this morning,” said the pleasant-looking
blond young woman. She was standing at the side of his bed, doing
something to his IV drip.
“Who sent you?” Marcel Prosperi demanded.
“The nursing agency,” she replied. “Please calm down. It will do you
no good to be upset.” She turned the valve on the drip fully open.
“You people are always pumping me full of things,” Senor Prosperi
grumbled, but this was all he was able to get out before his eyes closed
and he lost consciousness.
A few minutes later the substitute nurse checked his pulse at the wrist
and found there was none. Casually she turned the IV valve back to its
usual setting.
Then, her face suddenly contorted by grief, she ran to break the
terrible news to the old man’s widow.
Ben sat up on the carpeted floor, felt the blood drain from his head,
then fell forward onto his knees.
He was overcome by vertigo, felt as if his head were spinning while his
body was frozen, as if his head were disconnected from his body.
He was overcome by memories, of the funeral, of the burial ceremony at
the small cemetery in Bedford. Of the rabbi chanting the Kaddish, the
prayer for the dead: Yisgadal v’yiskadash shmay rabbo … Of the small
wooden casket that held the remains, his father’s composure suddenly
cracking as the casket was lowered into the hole, crumpling to the
ground, fists clenched, his hoarse wail.
Ben squeezed his eyes shut. The memories kept flooding his overloaded
mind. The call in the middle of the night. Driving out to Westchester
County to break the news to his parents. He couldn’t do it over the
phone. Mom, Dad, I have some bad news about Peter. A beat of silence;
do I really have to go through this, what else is there to say? His
father had been asleep in the immense bed, of course: it was four
o’clock in the morning, an hour or so before the old man normally awoke.
His mother in her mechanized hospital bed in the adjoining room, the
night nurse dozing on the couch.
Mom first. It seemed the right thing. Her love for her boys was
uncomplicated, unconditional.
She whispered simply, “What is it?” and stared at Ben uncomprehending.
She seemed to have been yanked from deep in a dream: disoriented, still
half in the dream world. / just got a call from Switzerland, Mom, and
Ben, kneeling, put a gentle hand on her soft cheek as if to cushion the
blow.
Her long hoarse scream awakened Max, who lurched in, one hand
outstretched. Ben wanted to hug him, but Dad had never encouraged such
intimacy. His father’s breath was fetid. His few strands of gray hair
were matted, in wild disarray. There’s been an accident Peter… At