Line of Succession (37 page)

“Tovarich?
”

“Lime?”

“Da.
”

The Russian nodded. Turned, tipped his head back until snow-flakes hit his face, pointed to a window on the second floor. Light shone through the drawn drapes.

Chad Hill came up from the car. Lime said, “You know the drill now.”

“Yes sir.”

Lime was making vague arm signals to the procession of vehicles that had drawn up; men got out of them without slamming the doors and fanned out to cover every side of the hotel.

The ice sheet on the porch splintered under Lime's heels like eggshells. He tucked his face toward his shoulder against the frozen wind and peered inside through the misty windows. A few indistinct shapes in the lobby. It wasn't a setup, they weren't posted for it. Anyhow there would have been no reason for it; it was just that he always suspected the worst.

He went along to the door with Chad Hill in tow; batted inside with matted hair and ruined shoes.

Three of the men in the lobby got up and converged on the door. Lime and Chad Hill stood aside until they were gone.

It left two old men in chairs reading magazines. The clerk behind the desk watched Lime with fascination but made no protest when Lime headed directly for the stair.

Chad Hill stuck close. Lime said, “Got the tools?”

“Yes sir.”

“Keep it quiet,” he adjured. They climbed the stairs with the predatory silence of prowlers. Lime made a quick scrutiny of the hallway and went toward the front of the building.

A ceiling light burned above the door of the front room. He reached up and unscrewed the bulb until it went out. He didn't want the light behind him; no one knew whether Mezetti was armed.

He considered the door. Got down on one knee and looked into the keyhole. It was blocked by the key inside.

Chad Hill held the lock-pick case open and Lime selected a slim pair of needlenose pliers.

Behind them four men came up to the head of the stairs and deployed themselves along the corridor.

It would have been easiest to knock, use some ruse or other. But they couldn't tell how nervous Mezetti might be; why risk alerting him? Lime pictured bullets chugging through the door panels.…

It was an old lock with a sloppy big keyhole and there was room for the pliers. He got a grip on the stub of the key and with his right hand dragged the .38 out of its armpit rig.

Chad Hill was biting his lip. His knuckles were white on his revolver.

Lime nodded. Squeezed the pliers and turned.

Nothing; he'd turned it the wrong way. You always did, somehow. He turned it the other way and when the lock clacked over with a rusty scrape he twisted the knob and burst into the room.

Mezetti had no time to register alarm.

“Turn around and hit the wall.
”

The six of them crowded around Mezetti. Lime frisked him, felt the heavy padding around his torso and made a face. “He's had the money on him all the time. Strip his shirt off.”

He put his gun away and did a quick wash of the apartment. In the bathroom a faucet dripped relentlessly; there was an old-fashioned bathtub standing on clawed feet. Trust Mezetti—it was probably the only room with private bath in the entire hotel. Revolutions were fine as long as you could conduct them in luxury.

The agents had the money piled up on the floor and Mezetti was blinking rapidly, trying to watch everybody at once. Lime waved them all back and stood close in front of Mezetti. “Who's supposed to meet you?”

“Nobody.”

“Where's the note they left for you in the car?”

Mezetti was startled and showed it. Lime said over his shoulder, “A couple of you look for it. He won't have thrown it away.”

Mezetti stood in his drawers trembling, not from the chill. Lime went to the little desk and pulled the chair out. It had one wobbly leg, or perhaps the floor was out of kilter. He lit a cigarette. “Stand still.”

“What the fuck do you pigs think you're doing? Do you know who I——”

“Shut up. You'll speak only when spoken to.”

“That money belongs to Mezetti Industries. If you think you can steal——”

“Shut up.
”

Lime sat and smoked and stared at Mezetti.

One of the agents had been going through Mezetti's coat pockets in the wardrobe. “Here it is.” Chad Hill took it from him and carried it across the room to Lime.

Lime glanced at it.
Mario, Wait for us at the railway hotel in Heinola.
Hill had it in tweezers and Lime nodded; Hill put it in an envelope.

“Come over here.”

Mezetti didn't move until one of the agents gave him a brutal shove.

Lime made hand signals and the agents brought the straight wooden chair over from the window. They set it by the desk and Lime said, “Sit down.”

Mezetti moved cautiously into the chair.

Lime reached across the desk, put his hand on top of Mezetti's head and shoved his face down onto the desk top. Mezetti's teeth clicked, his jaw sagged, his eyes rolled up.

Lime sat back and watched. Mezetti gathered himself sluggishly, showing his distress. He worked his jaw back and forth experimentally.

Lime waited.

“You fascist filth,” Mezetti breathed.

Lime allowed no reaction to show; he puffed on his cigarette. After a moment he slammed the rim of his shoe into Mezetti's shin.

Mezetti doubled up holding his leg against his chest and Lime stiff-armed him in the face. It tipped Mezetti backward, the chair went over and Mezetti rolled on the floor.

The agents picked up Mezetti and the chair and positioned him where he had been before. Mezetti was about to snarl when Lime took the needlenose pliers out of his pocket and used them on the top of Mezetti's right ear. Squeezed. Pulled upward, and Mezetti strained to come along but the agents held him down on the chair.

Lime let the ear go and prodded the points of the pliers up into the hollow under Mezetti's chin. Mezetti's head strained back like a dental patient's.

Chad Hill was watching it all with alarm and disapproval.

Lime kept digging with the pliers until Mezetti began to bleed small droplets under the jaw. When Lime withdrew the pliers Mezetti felt his chin and saw the blood on his fingers. The last of the bravado drained out of him as if a plug had been pulled.

“All right. Which one was supposed to meet you here? Sturka? Alvin Corby? Cesar Renaldo?”

Mezetti licked his lips.

Lime said, “Put it this way. You can tell me or you can try to hold out. You'll get pretty bloody and the pain will be a lot more than you can stand, but you can try. But even if you don't tell me anything I'll let them understand that you did tell me. On the other hand if you're realistic we'll keep your name out of it until we've nailed them all.”

Abruptly he japped the pliers into the back of Mezetti's hand. Blood started to flow freely; Mezetti clutched his hand.

Lime turned to Chad Hill. “It might be a good idea to let word out that he's cooperating anyway. It may force Sturka to move.”

It was strictly for Mezetti's benefit; Lime was certain Mezetti didn't know where Sturka was. Of course Sturka knew that too; a news release wouldn't force Sturka's hand.

“I don't know where they are. That's the truth.” Mezetti's voice was a defeated monotone. He was looking at the desk, keeping his eyes down.

Lime said, “I want you to be very, very careful of your answer to this question. How many of them are there?”

It was a calculated way of putting it. It didn't sound like a fishing expedition; it sounded as if he already knew the right answer. He drummed the pliers against the desk.

It came out slow, reluctantly. “Four of them. The ones you named and Peggy Astin.”

“It's a bad idea lying to me,” Lime said. He lifted the plier points against the pit of Mezetti's chest and began to twist and grind.

“That's the truth for God's sake.”

Lime kept grinding.

“Look if you—Christ get that fucking thing off me!” Mezetti was trying to squirm away from the pliers but the two agents held him pinned in the chair. He began to reek with the sweat of fear.

Abruptly Lime withdrew the pliers. “Now.”

“If you know so much you know I'm telling the truth. Shit.”

“But there's outside help isn't there?”

“Well Sturka knows people all over the place. He's got contacts you know.”

“Name them.”

“I don't——”

“Raoul Riva,” Lime said, and watched.

It puzzled Mario. Lime dropped it. “When you left that boat on the shoals you killed the skipper. Then what did you do?”

He made it sound like another test. Mezetti said, “It wasn't me. I didn't kill him.”

“You're as guilty as the rest, you know that.”

“For God's sake I didn't kill anybody.”

“You threatened to kill the pilot who flew you up here from Gibraltar.”

“That was just to get him to cooperate. I didn't kill him, did I?”

“What did you do after you killed the boat owner?”

Lime was toying with the pliers and Mezetti slumped in the chair. “We had another boat waiting.”

“You still had Fairlie in the coffin?”

Mezetti's eyes grew round. He swallowed visibly. “Off and on. We didn't keep him in it when we were out at sea.”

“Where did you go from there?”

“Down the coast.”

“To Almería.”

“Well that was the other boat,” Mezetti said. “I mean we did a couple of hundred miles in a truck about half way down the coast. We didn't have time to do the whole thing in boats—it was too far.”

“All right, you used a truck. Who set it up?”

“Sturka did.”

“No. Sturka arranged for it but Sturka wasn't the one who put the truck there for you. Who delivered it?”

“I never saw the guy.”

“It was Riva wasn't it?”

“I never heard of any Riva.”

“Hold him,” Lime said. He stood up and posted himself beside Mezetti and gently pushed the points of the pliers into Mezetti's earhole. When he felt it strike the eardrum he put slow pressure on it; he held Mezetti's head against the pressure with his left hand. “Now who was it Mario?”

Mezetti started to cry.

Lime reduced the pressure but kept the pliers in Mezetti's ear and after a little while Mezetti hawked and snorted and spoke. “Look I never even met the guy.”

“But you've seen him.”

“… Yeah.”

“What's his name?”

“Sturka called him Binyoosef a couple of times.”

Chad Hill said, “Binyoosef?”

“Benyoussef,” Lime said absently, scowling on it. He withdrew the pliers. “A fat man with a bit of a limp.”

“Yeah,” Mezetti said dismally. “That's him.”

Lime sat down facing him across the desk. “Let's go back to that garage at Palamos where you made the tape recordings.”

“Jesus. You don't miss much.”

“Now you were packing things up. You had Fairlie in the coffin. The coffin went in the hearse. Corby drove the hearse. The rest of you cleaned up the place—wiped it for fingerprints, gathered up everything you'd brought with you. Now everybody gets into the hearse.

“But somebody had to switch off the light and close the garage door. You did that.”

“Yeah. Christ did you have the whole thing on television?”

“Sturka told you to go over and switch off the light.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you walked out and pulled the garage door shut. You wiped your fingerprints off the door and got in the hearse.”

“Yeah yeah.” Mezetti was nodding.

“Sturka watched you switch off the light didn't he.”

Mezetti frowned. “I guess he did, yeah.”

“Then maybe when you came to close the garage door he handed you a rag to wipe it with.”

“Yeah. Jesus Christ.”

Lime sat back brooding. It was what he'd had to know.

After a moment he changed the subject. “You went ashore at Almería. Did everybody go ashore?”

“Just me. I rowed in on the raft.”

“The rest of them stayed on the boat? What was the plan?”

Mezetti was looking at the pliers. “Jesus Christ. You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you?”

“We're going to take you back to Washington. You'll get killed but not by me.”

“Pig justice. A fascist gas chamber.”

“A gas chamber has no politics,” Lime said mildly. “Your friend Sturka gassed a whole village once.”

The mistake he'd made was stopping to think. It had given Mezetti time to reflect on the hopelessness of his position. It was going to be harder to get more out of him now; the pliers would open his mouth but he'd start trying lies. An extended interrogation would fix that; put pressure on and keep it up until they got the same answer every time.

But Lime didn't have that sort of time. He stood up and handed the pliers to one of the agents. “Take him down to Lahti.”

It was about nine o'clock. Chad Hill trailed him into the police office. Lime's coat was heavy and steamy with moisture; he got it off and threw it across the chair.

“I think Benyoussef Ben Krim is around here somewhere. We'd better have a net. Photo and description to the airports particularly—he's probably on his way out if he hasn't left already.”

Chad Hill said, “I thought Benyoussef was the guy who supplied the boat.”

“He was.”

“But that was in Spain. What makes you think he's up here?”

“Somebody left the car and the note for Mezetti.”

“Why Benyoussef?”

“He used to be Sturka's errand boy. It looks as if he still is.”

Chad Hill was still puzzled and Lime explained it. “Mezetti's fingerprint in the garage was deliberate—Sturka's idea. Sturka watched him switch off the light but didn't tell him to wipe it.”