Blood Makes Noise (31 page)

The drinks tapped louder than expected; he wanted to sit down but not in front of these clowns and so went into the safety deposit vault, took a bench under the eyes of guards that wore the suspicious gaze of their real boss in the nicest office. He sat there ignoring them, letting the tapping pass.

And, looking up, realized he’d forgotten just how big hers was.

Even here, among a thousand oversized safety deposit boxes stuffed with a century’s trespasses and unburied skeletons, hers was a standout. Two enormous separate boxes, cut and joined as one mammoth unit.

Over the years he had never told anyone of that night, when, as a young man, he made the midnight arrangements for the acquired fortunes of Eva Perón. No one at the bank knew the unnamed owner would never return for it personally, and nineteen years after her death, clearly no one who knew her would either. He’d toyed with the idea of raiding the box, saving himself with it, but he didn’t control the guards or seals or laws, and so the fortune would sit and rot until the Swiss government—which had, after all, not grown fat on chocolate and cuckoo clocks—finally claimed the absentee funds for itself.

The city had shirked the warmth of only a week ago and embraced its true nature: gray. Otto turned up his collar, stepped from the bank onto the walking street. Lampposts were already ticking on and in the glow he could see the faces, streaked with freezing drizzle, thinking,
Jesus Christ, it’s only September
.

The conversation on the other end of that phone number had been short and unconvincing. But he was a man with the alloy taste of a Luger still in his mouth and required less convincing than usual.

The Limmat was high, rain swollen, and dark as asphalt. They had suggested meeting nearby at the McDonald’s, a three-story monstrosity on Banhofstrasse. He disliked immediately the din
inside, the music, the burble of school kids wearing fluorescent backpacks.

He found them on the third floor, against the large window overlooking the colorless street, looking so obviously American, even here. The seat was cold plastic, bolted to the table, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat on plastic—maybe never.

“Herr Spoerri,” the old one said. He was drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup, and it must have been a rare moment, for the alcohol devastation on his face was absolute. A younger man sat beside him, forty maybe, severely parted dark hair and steady, powerful hands. He stirred a hot chocolate.

The older one saw Otto’s annoyance at the surroundings and smiled. “Nobody watches McDonald’s, Herr Spoerri.” His nose looked like melted plastic. The younger one pushed forward a coffee and a cheeseburger. Otto let it pass.

“So I’m here.”

“Yes.”

They seemed in no hurry, and he wondered if that was technique, wondered if they could sense the cognac’s havoc in his veins.

“You’re a man with problems, Herr Spoerri. Big problems.”

Against his will, Otto found himself tearing off a corner of burger. “Who are you?”

“People who know of your difficulties.”

“Which people?”

“Just people.”

“You’re misinformed.”

The two concentrated on their dissected breakfasts, and he wondered if they’d heard him. Then the young one lifted a stack of papers from his coat pocket and dropped them unceremoniously into Otto’s lap. “SEC records on a commodities collapse five days ago.” His voice was more clenched than the older one’s. Impatient. They both wore haircuts unfashionably short. Government short.
“Your name is on it, hidden but not very well hidden, honestly. The money’s all gone, zip, and it couldn’t have been yours—not that amount—so yeah, I, we, think you have a problem.”

Otto crossed his legs, toyed with his cashmere sock. “The bank invested in some commodities. We lost but we’re a large institution, as you must know, and my name is on the building. There’s no problem.”

And they just stared at him, as though he were a sad, arrogant child.

Down below were families window-shopping—simple people with simple, uncomplicated lives.

“Is this blackmail?”

The older one smiled. “We’re here to make your life less complicated, Otto, not more.”

The three of them joined the simple people on the street, storm clouds hurrying night, the city washing through a spectrum of slate grays. They arched their collars, threw puffy breaths over their shoulders. It was September.

The older one with the melting face was running through the bank’s safety deposit policies with Otto. “And if I want access to a box?”

“If you are on the authorization list, you present your secret account number and the box is removed in the presence of the bank manager and a security detail, who must both code the locks.”

“Impressive.”

“These are special boxes not often accessed and our clients appreciate the trouble taken to protect them.”

It was the young one who spoke now, his eyes window-shopping an appliance store. “What if I just had a key?”

“A key?”

“Just a key.”

“We don’t do that.”

And now the older one joined his friend, gazing at displays of Krups coffeemakers, as if Otto had suddenly vaporized.

“…Not normally.”

Both Americans looked up from the shop window and smiled. They walked on. “So if a certain box turned out not to have an authorization list,” the older one mused, crouching to cluck the chin of a small child abandoned in his pram, “and just a key, the matter would be more simple?”

“You’d just walk in and open it. If you had the key.”

“Even if the box’s owner were, say, dead? Dead for years?”

“In the case of abandoned safety deposit boxes, the Swiss banking commission would freeze access and begin a search for claimants.”

“How would the bank or Swiss government determine the box was ‘abandoned’?”

“If the person is famous or notorious, then through news reports of their death. In other cases, it’s usually when the annual box fee stops being paid.” Both of them walked along silently, encouraging Otto to connect the dots. “Then the key is no longer enough. The account is frozen.”

The two Americans nodded proudly at Otto. “Particularly, I would imagine, in the case of famous, even notorious, clients,” the older one prodded.

“The law was mostly created for such clients. To allow governments or individuals to make claims against deposits illegally acquired.”

“But I’m guessing, Herr Spoerri, that it’s possible a bank manager might, just once, when he was very young—at the time the account was established, you understand—not actually enter a famous person’s real identity on the forms.”

“Especially, say, a young bank manager with his name on the building,” the younger one offered.

“That same bank manager, I would think, knowing the box of a certain famous person is anonymous—anonymous even to other executives of the bank itself—could have, quietly over the years, to avoid having the box declared abandoned, continued to pay the box fee himself. And, if provided with the key, could thus quickly access the account with a minimum of fuss or attention.”

They stopped there on the curb, the drizzle turned fairy light, and Otto Spoerri felt a tingling in his legs.

“Do you have the key?”

C
losing his eyes, he would empty his mind with a memory of the pampas. A bowl of freezing stars, and he would rise into them, focus on each glowing fragment, let it help him sift the Carabinieri radio traffic coming over the headphones.

Alejandro knew there were other interested ears somewhere, and though a lot happens in northern Italy in a day, it wasn’t hard to recognize Suslov’s footprint. A shot American, Gary Phillips, brought to a local clinic by a priest’s phone call. The priest’s town is mentioned, and Alejandro is instantly in motion, racing for the mountains.

Where once there had been indifference thick enough for an unnamed woman to simply drive both Suslov and the truck away, now a small army of Carabinieri crawled over the town, excited with the possible connection between a small-town accident and their fellow officer face-up on an autostrada.

Alejandro slipped past them and entered the church through the rear, following the puddled blood back to the sacristy. There, in the small anteroom, Michael had made his real mess. Chairs tipped over, an end table standing with one leg broken. Blood, in huge looping pools, dried on the floor. There were outlines in the blood, including a clean square of floor, four inches a side. Alejandro glanced at the telephone now sitting on the righted table. There was dried blood on its bottom metal plate. A plate four inches a side.

Low on blood, Michael Suslov must have pulled down the phone to make a call. To whom?

Alejandro stepped out to a pay phone and spoke to the operator, borrowing the name and badge number of a Carabinieri officer he’d seen inside. His accent was lousy but so was the connection and the operator did as asked, connecting him to her supervisor who read off the last number called on that line. It was, of course, the local hospital. The priest had picked the phone off the floor, called the hospital, righted the table, and set the phone upon it.

Alejandro doubted the priest would have called anyone before the hospital, so the second-to-last call would be Michael’s. It would take them longer to get an actual address, but the exchange was in a hill town not far from the church. Judging by his blood loss, Michael was there now. Alejandro was sure of it.

“—Getting a brainstorm, butch?”

Alejandro hung up the pay phone. It was the old American and his younger attachment, both in suits, both leaning against the wall beside him like they owned it.

“You asked me to find him.”

“We asked you to find
her
.”

“I’ll find Her, you asking or not.”

“Certainly. Our cooperation is testimony to our confidence of that. But we also have an…understanding, right?”

The American looked across the campo and shook his head. “Son of a bitch sure bleeds a lot.” A thought seemed to pass through the American, far and worn, and his voice changed slightly. “He’s not a bad kid, really. But he’s smart…”

“He’s committed.”

“Well, I suppose you know all about that.”

A Carabinieri marshal approached, and the younger American pushed off to deal with him. The older American smiled. “Little cross-jurisdiction discussion. Michael Suslov is wanted by the FBI. Now he’s wanted by the Italians. We’re here, in the spirit of international cooperation, to help in any way we can.”

The American stepped up close, and his breath was a riot of metabolic meltdown. “I know you’ll find him, Al. You’ve got the look. I just want her first. Understand?”

“To authenticate Her.”

“Yes, Al, to authenticate her.”

Alejandro held his gaze till the American turned and walked for the church.

Gina bought him new clothes and oversize slippers. She told him of a friend who did car repairs in a shed behind his house, and at sundown packed her vet bag in the truck, and together they drove the Bedford over. Michael gave the man a handful of lira, and if Gina’s friend ever wondered why the damage looked like bullet holes, he didn’t ask.

Michael considered moving Evita’s locked casket but decided it was as safe here as anywhere. He could limp now, painfully, and Gina lent him her shoulder as they walked from her car to a small café.

“Does it hurt?”

“Constantly.”

“You’re at your limit on painkillers. I’m figuring you two and a half times the weight of a German shepherd.”

“Comforting.”

“It’ll get better. When the swelling goes down.”

A waiter brought coffees.

“Where will you go?”

“It’s probably better if you didn’t know.”

“And in the trunk?”

“A woman’s casket.”

“Evita’s? You mentioned it in your sleep.”

“I should sleep less.”

Outside two men stepped up to a pay phone on the sidewalk. They were Italian—big, with short haircuts and dark, ribbed sweaters.

“I’ll give you some pills tonight. Barbiturates. The sleep is dreamless,” Gina said.

“Doggie downers?”

“No. They’re human. I have a bottle left.”

“From?”

“When I tried to kill myself.”

Michael spooned his coffee thoughtfully. “What happened to us, Gina?”

The dark sweaters finished their call as a sedan collected them and sped off. Big guys. Short haircuts.

“Know them?”

“No.”

Something stirred in Michael. “Let’s go back.”

Two blocks from her house the road was cut off by a pair of local police cars. Gina and Michael held back at the corner. “Are they there for you?” she asked.

“For both of us. They must have…they must have found me.” Michael craned his neck back down the dark road leading to town. “We have to get the truck.”

It was still in the shed, Gina’s friend still sanding Bondo by a hissing propane lantern. She spoke to him quietly, and he left with only a nod to Michael. “Where will you go?” she asked.

“Away.” He held open the driver’s-side door.

“They’ll catch you. Out on the road. They must be everywhere now.”

“They won’t be interested in you. Just say I was an old friend.”