‘That’s significant money.’
‘He’s a heavy contributor and never misses a super bash at the White House. You know the type, wavy white hair and a big gut with lots of shiny teeth in a tuxedo; they always get their pictures taken dancing. If he could read a whole book through in English, they’d probably make him the ambassador to the Court of St James’s—I take it back. With his money, half a book.’
Varak studied the Secret Service guard. The man was obviously relieved at being asked such innocuous questions. His answers were more complete than they had to be, bordering on the false confidentiality of gossip. ‘I wonder why someone like that would send his wife out to work, even if it is for the Vice President.’
‘I don’t think he has anything to say about it. You don’t send a sharp item like her anywhere she doesn’t want to go. Besides, one of the maids told us she’s wife number three or four, so maybe Vanvlanderen learned to let ’em hang loose and do their thing.’
‘And you say she does it well?’
‘Like I said, very sharp, very pro. Viper doesn’t make a move without her.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Viper?’ Suddenly another jet took off from the Naval Air Station, the roar of the engines thunderous. ‘Viper’s Viper,’ said the Mafia plant when the earth-shaking noise had vanished. ‘Orson Bollinger’s a party glad hander with an insider’s grasp of every fucking thing that goes on, and nothing goes on that doesn’t serve the boys in the back rooms of California because they take care of him.’
‘You’re very astute.’
‘I observe.’
‘You do a great deal more than that. Only I’d suggest you be more cautious in the future. If I can find you, others might, too.’
‘How? Goddamn you, how?’
‘Diligence. And over the weeks watching for a mistake someone had to make. It could have been one of the others in your detail or something else—we’re all human; none of us lives in a freezer—but it turned out to be you. You were tired, or perhaps you had that extra drink, or simply felt you were too secure. Whatever the reason, you made a phone call to Brooklyn, New York, obviously not the way you were supposed to make it, not from an untraceable pay telephone.’
‘Frangie!’ whispered the capo supremo.’
‘Your cousin, Joseph “Fingers” Frangiani, second under-boss of the Ricci family in Brooklyn, inheritors of the Genovese interests. It was all I needed, amico.’
‘You foreign low-life son of a bitch!’
‘Don’t waste obscenities on me… One last question, and why not be civil?’
‘What?” cried the furious man from the Mafia, his black eyebrows arched, his right hand instinctively reaching behind his jacket.
‘Stop!’ roared the Czech. ‘One inch more and you’re dead.’
‘Where’s your gun?’ choked the agent, without a breath.
‘I don’t need it,’ replied Varak, his eyes boring in on his would-be killer. ‘And I’m sure you know that.’
Slowly, the Secret Service man brought his right hand in front of him. ‘One question, that’s all!’ he said, his animus with himself reflected in his face. ‘You’ve got one last question.’
‘This Ardis Vanvlanderen. How was her appointment as the Vice President’s chief of staff explained to you? Words must have been said, reasons given. After all, you’re Bollinger’s personal security and you worked well with her predecessor.’
‘We’re his security, not corporate executives. Explanations weren’t required.’
‘Nothing was said? It’s an unusual position for a woman.’
‘Plenty was said so we wouldn’t miss the point, but no explanation. Bollinger called everybody together and told us how pleased he was to announce the appointment of one of the most talented executives in the country, someone who was assuming the job at such personal sacrifice that we should all thank the powers that be for her patriotism. The “her” was the first inkling we had that it was a woman.’
‘Interesting phrase “powers that be”.’
‘He talks that way.’
‘And he doesn’t make a move without her.’
‘I don’t think he’d dare. She’s heavy metal and she keeps the house in order.’
‘Whose order?’
‘What?’
‘Never mind… That’s all for now, amico. Please be so kind as to leave first, will you? I’ll call you if I need you.’
The Mafioso, the hot, ancestral blood of the Mediterranean rushing to his head, jabbed his index finger at the Czech and spoke in a hoarse voice. ‘You’ll stay out of my fucking life if you know what’s good for you.’
‘I hope to stay as far away from you as possible, Signore Mezzano—’
‘Don’t you call me a pimp!’
‘I’ll call you anything I like, but as to what’s good for me, I’ll be the judge of that. Now fila! Capisce?’
Milos Varak watched his reluctant informer walk over the sand in silent fury until the mezzano disappeared into the maze of beach accesses towards the hotel. The Czech let his mind wander… she came on board about a year ago; he’s a heavy contributor; Viper doesn’t make a move without her. It was thirteen months ago that Inver Brass had begun the search for a new Vice President of the United States, the incumbent considered a pawn of the President’s unseen contributors—men who intended to run the country.
It was past four o’clock in the morning and Khalehla would not stop. She kept pressing Evan, changing cassettes on the recorder and repeating names over and over again, insisting that wherever he recognized anything at all he describe in detail everything he could remember. The computer printout from Mitchell Payton’s office at the Central Intelligence Agency included 127 selected names with corresponding occupations, marriages, divorces and deaths. In each case the individual listed had either spent considerable time with Kendrick or had been present during a period of high activity and could conceivably have been instrumental in his academic or career decisions.
‘Where the hell did he get these people?’ asked Evan, pacing the study. ‘I swear I don’t remember half of them, and most of the other half are blurs except for old friends I’ll always remember and none of them could be remotely connected with what’s happening. Christ, I had three roommates in college, two others in graduate school and a sixth shared an apartment with me in Detroit when I worked in a lousy job over here. Later there were at least two dozen others I tried unsuccessfully to raise backing from for the Middle East and some of them are on that list—why, I don’t know, but I do know all those lives are being lived in the suburbs with green lawns and country clubs and colleges they can barely afford for their kids. They have nothing to do with now.’
‘Then let’s go over the Kendrick Group again—’
‘There is no Kendrick Group,’ broke in Evan angrily. ‘They were killed, blown away, drowned in concrete!… Manny and I are all that’s left, you know that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Khalehla gently, sitting on the couch drinking tea. The printout was on the coffee table in front of her. ‘I meant the dealings you had over here in the States while there was the Kendrick Group.’
‘We’ve gone over them. There weren’t that many—mostly in high-tech equipment.’
‘Let’s go over them again.’
‘It’s a waste of time but go ahead.’
‘”Sonar Electronics, Palo Alto, California”,’ read Khalehla, her hand on the printout. ‘The representative was a man named Carew—’
‘”Screw Carew”,’ said Kendrick, chuckling. ‘That was Manny’s comment. We bought some sounding devices that didn’t work, and they still wanted payment after we sent them back.’
‘Drucker Graphics, Boston, the representative a G. R. Shulman. Anything?’
‘Gerry Shulman, good man, good service; we worked with them for years. Never a problem.’
‘Morseland Oil, Tulsa. The rep was someone named Arnold Stanhope.’
‘I told you about him—them.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘We did preliminary surveying for them in the Emirates. They kept wanting more than they were willing to pay for, and since we were growing, we could afford to drop them.’
‘Was there acrimony?’
‘Sure, there always is when chisellers find out they can’t do business as usual. But there wasn’t anything silence couldn’t cure. Besides they found some other jokers, a Greek outfit who caught on to them and delivered a survey that must have been made on the floor of the Oman Gulf.’
‘Freebooters, every one of you,’ said Khalehla, smiling and lowering her hand on the printout. ‘Off Shore Investments, Limited, headquarters Nassau, the Bahamas, contact Ardis Montreaux, New York City. They funnelled a lot of capital to you—’
‘Which we never touched because it was a sham,’ interrupted Evan sharply. ‘It better damn well say that there.’
‘It says here, “Skip it”.’
‘What?’
‘I wrote it. It’s what you said before, “Skip it”. What’s Off Shore Investments, Limited?’
‘Was,’ corrected Kendrick. ‘It was a high class boilerplate operation on the international scale—high class and international but still boilerplate. Build a company up with large Swiss accounts and hot air, then sell off and switch the assets, leaving the buyers with a balloon full of helium.’