The Aquitaine Progression (31 page)

Fitzpatrick nodded. “Exclusive, clubby, German business-oriented. Every large city has hotels like that, and they’re always twenty times my per diem for breakfast.”

“That’s okay, I’ve got money here in Bonn. I might as well try to get it out.”

“You’re full of surprises,” said Connal. “I mean
real
surprises.”

“Do you think you can handle it? Find a hotel like that?”

“I can explain what I want to a cabdriver; he’ll probably know. Bonn’s small, nothing like New York or London or Paris.… There’s a taxi letting people out.” The two men hurried to the curb, where the cab was discharging a quartet of passengers balancing camera equipment and outsized Louis Vuitton handbags.

“How will you do it?” asked Converse as they nodded to the tourists, two couples in the midst of an argument, male versus female, Nikon versus Vuitton.

“A combination of what we both said,” answered Fitzpatrick. “A quiet, nice hotel away from the
Ausländerlärm
.”

“What?”

“The clamor of tourists—and worse. I’ll tell him we’re calling on some very important German businessmen—bankers, say—and we’d like a place they’d be most comfortable in for confidential meetings. He’ll get the drift.”

“He’ll see we don’t have any luggage,” objected Joel.

“He’ll see the money in my hand first,” said the naval officer, holding the door for Converse.

Lieutenant Commander Connal Fitzpatrick, USN, member of the military bar and limited thereby, impressed Joel Converse, vaunted international attorney, to the point where the latter felt foolish. Effortlessly the Navy lawyer got them in a two-bedroom suite at an inn on the banks of the Rhine called Das Rektorat. It was one of those converted prewar estates where most of the guests seemed to have at least a nodding acquaintance with several others and the clerks rarely looked anyone in the eye, as if tacitly confirming their subservience—or the fact that they would certainly not acknowledge having seen Herr So-and-So should someone ask them.

Fitzpatrick had begun his campaign with the taxi driver by leaning forward in the seat and speaking rapidly and quietly.
Their exchanges seemed to grow more confidential as the cab sped toward the heart of the city; then it abruptly veered away, crossing the railroad tracks that intersected the capital, and entered a smooth road paralleling the river north. Joel had started to speak, to ask what was happening, but the Navy lawyer had held up his hand, telling Converse to be quiet.

Once they had stopped at the entrance of an inn, reached by an interminably long, manicured drive, Fitzpatrick got out.

“Stay here,” he said to Joel. “I’ll see if I can get us a couple of rooms. And don’t say anything.”

Twelve minutes later Connal returned, his demeanor stern, his eyes, however, lively. “Come on, Chairman of the Board, we’re going straight up.” He paid the driver handsomely and once again held the door for Converse—now a touch more deferentially, thought Joel.

The lobby of Das Rektorat was unmistakably German, with oddly delicate Victorian overtones; thick heavy wood and sturdy leather chairs were beside and below filigrees of brass ornamentation forming arches over doorways, elegant borders for large mirrors, and valances above thick bay windows where none were required. One’s first impression was of a quiet, expensive spa from decades ago, its solemnity lightened by flashes of reflecting metal and glass. It was a strange mixture of the old and the very old. It smelled of money.

Fitzpatrick led Converse to a paneled elevator recessed in the paneled corridor; no bellboy or manservant was in attendance. It was a small enclosure, room for no more than four people, the walls of tinted, marbled glass, which vibrated as the elevator ascended two stories.

“I think you’ll approve of the accommodations,” said Connal. “I checked them out; that’s why it took me so long.”

“We’re back in the nineteenth century, you know,” countered Joel. “I trust they have telephones and not just the Hessian express.”

“All the most modern communications, I made sure of that, too.” The elevator door opened. “This way,” said Fitzpatrick, gesturing to the right. “The suite’s at the end of the hall.”

“The suite?”

“You said you had money in Bonn.”

Two bedrooms flanked a tastefully furnished sitting room, with French doors that opened onto a small balcony overlooking
the Rhine. The rooms were sunlit and airy, the décor of the walls again an odd mixture: a reproduction of an Impressionist floral arrangement was beside dramatic prints of past champion horses from the leading German tracks and breeding farms.

“All right, wonder boy,” said Converse, looking out the open French doors, then turning back to Connal Fitzpatrick, who stood in the middle of the room, the key still in his hand. “How did you do it?”

“It wasn’t hard,” replied the Navy lawyer, smiling. “You’d be surprised what a set of military papers will do for a person in this country. The older guys sort of stiffen up and look like boxer puppies smelling a pot roast, and there aren’t that many people here much under sixty.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything unless you’re enlisting us.”

“It does when I combine it with the fact that I’m an aide assigned by the U.S. Navy to accompany an important American financier over here to hold confidential meetings with his German counterparts. While in Bonn, naturally, incognito is the best means for my eccentric financier to travel. Everything’s in
my
name.”

“What about reservations?”

“I told the manager that you’d rejected the hotel reserved for us as having too many people you might know. I also hinted that those countrymen of his you’re going to meet might be most appreciative of his cooperation. He agreed that I might have a point there.”

“How did we hear about this place?” asked Joel, still suspicious.

“Simple. I remembered it from several conversations I had at the International Economic Conference in Düsseldorf last year.”

“You were
there
?”

“I didn’t know there was one,” said Fitzpatrick, heading for the door on the left. “I’ll take this bedroom, okay? It’s not as large as the other one and that’s the way it should be, since I’m an aide—which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph all know is the truth.”

“
Wait
a minute,” Converse broke in, stepping forward. “What about our luggage? Since we don’t have any, didn’t that strike your friend downstairs as a little odd for such important characters?”

“Not at all,” said Connal, turning. “It’s still in the city at
that unnamed hotel you rejected so emphatically after twenty minutes. But only I can pick it up.”

“Why?”

Fitzpatrick brought his index finger to his lips. “You also have a compulsion for secrecy. Remember, you’re eccentric.”

“The manager
bought
all that swill?”

“He calls me
Kommandant
.”

“You’re quite a bullshitter, sailor.”

“I remind you, sir, that in the land of
Erin go bragh
it’s called good healthy blarney. And although you lack certain qualifications, Press said you were a master of it in negotiations.” Connal’s expression became serious. “He meant it in the best way, counselor, and that’s not bullshit.”

As the Navy lawyer began walking to the bedroom, Joel felt an odd sense of recognition but could not define it. What was it about the younger man that struck a chord in him? Fitzpatrick had that boldness that came with the untried, that lack of fear in small things that caution would later teach him often led to larger things. He tested waters bravely; he had never come close to drowning.

Suddenly Converse understood the recognition. What he saw in Connal Fitzpatrick was himself—before things had happened. Before he had learned the meaning of fear, raw fear. And finally of loneliness.

It was agreed that Connal would return to the Cologne-Bonn airport, not for Joel’s luggage but for his own, which was stored in a locker in the baggage-claim area. He would then go into Bonn proper, buy an expensive suitcase and fill it with a half-dozen shirts, underwear, socks and best off-the-rack clothing he could find in Joel’s sizes—namely, three pairs of trousers, a jacket or two and a raincoat. It was further agreed that casual clothes were the most appropriate; an eccentric financier was permitted such lapses of sartorial taste, and also such attire more successfully concealed their non-custom-made origins. Finally, the last stop he would make before returning to Das Rektorat was at a second locker in the railroad station where Converse had left his attaché case. Once the case was in the Navy lawyer’s possession and the taxi waiting outside had picked up its passenger, there were to be no further stops. The cab was to drive directly to the countryside inn.

“I wanted to ask you something,” said Fitzpatrick just before
leaving. “Back at the Alter Zoll you said something about how ‘they’ would spread the word that you couldn’t talk your way through the five boroughs of New York. I gathered that referred to the fact that you don’t speak German.”

“That’s right. Or any other language, adequate English excepted. I tried but it never took. I was married to a girl who spoke fluent French and German, and even she gave up. I don’t have the ear, I guess.”

“Who did ‘
they
’ refer to?” asked Connal, barely listening to Converse’s explanation. “The embassy men?”

Joel hesitated. “A little wider, I’m afraid,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “You’ll have to know but not now, not yet. Later.”

“Why later? Why not now?”

“Because it wouldn’t do you a damned bit of good, and it might raise questions you wouldn’t want raised under, shall we say, adverse circumstances.”

“That’s elliptical.”

“It certainly is.”

“Is that it? Is that all you’ll say?”

“No. There’s one other thing. I want my briefcase.”

Fitzpatrick had assured him that the switchboard of Das Rektorat was capable of handling telephone calls in English—as well as at least six other languages, including Arabic—and he should have no qualms about placing a call to Lawrence Talbot in New York.

“Christ, where
are
you, Joel?” Talbot shouted into the phone.

“Amsterdam,” replied Converse, not wanting to say Bonn and having had the presence of mind to make the call station-to-station. “I want to know what happened to Judge Anstett, Larry. Can you tell me anything?”

“I want to know what’s happened to
you
! René called last night.…”

“Mattilon?”

“You told him you were flying to London.”

“I changed my mind.”

“What the hell
happened
? The police were with him; he had no choice. He had to tell them who you were.” Talbot suddenly paused, then spoke in a calmer voice, a false voice. “Are you all right, Joel? Is there something you want to tell me, something bothering you?”

“Something bothering me?”

“Listen to me, Joel. We all know what you went through, and we admire you,
respect
you. You’re the finest we’ve got in the international division—”

“I’m the
only
one you’ve got,” Converse broke in, trying to think, trying to buy time as well as information. “What did René say? Why did he call you?”

“You sound like your old self, fella.”

“I
am
my old self, Larry. What did René call you about? Why were the police with him?” Joel could feel the slippage; he was entering another sphere and he knew it, accepted it. The lies would follow, guile joining deceit, because time and freedom of movement were paramount. He had to stay free; there was so much to do, so little time.

“He called me back after the police left to fill me in—incidentally, they were from the Sûreté. As he understood it, the driver of a limousine was assaulted outside the George Cinq’s service entrance—”

“The driver of a limousine?” interrupted Converse involuntarily. “They said he was a
chauffeur
?”

“From one of those high-priced services that ferry around people who make odd stops at odd hours. Very posh and very confidential. Apparently the fellow was pretty well smashed up and they say you did it. No one knows why, but you were identified and they say the man may not live.”

“Larry, this is preposterous!” objected Joel, his protestation accompanied by feigned outrage. “Yes, I
was
there—in the area—but it had nothing to do with
me
! Two hotheads got into a fight, and since I couldn’t stop them, I wasn’t going to get my head handed to me. I got out of there, and before I found a taxi I yelled at the doorman to call for help. The last thing I saw he was blowing his whistle and running toward the alley.”

“You weren’t even involved, then,” said Talbot. The statement was a lawyer’s positive fact.

“Of course not! Why would I be?”

“That’s what we couldn’t understand. It didn’t make sense.”

“It
doesn’t
make sense. I’ll call René and fly back to Paris, if I have to.”

“Yes, do that,” agreed Talbot haltingly. “I should tell you I may have aggravated the situation.”

“You? How?”

“I told Mattilon that perhaps you were … well, not yourself. When I spoke with you in Geneva, you sounded awful, Joel. Just plain
awful
.”

“Good God, how did you think I’d feel? A man I was negotiating with dies in front of me bleeding from a dozen bullet wounds. How would
you
feel?”

“I understand,” said the lawyer in New York, “but then René thought he saw something in you—heard something—that disturbed him, too.”

“Oh, come on, will you people get off it!” Converse’s thoughts raced; every word he spoke had to be credible, his now diminished “outrage” rooted in believability. “Mattilon saw me after I’d been flying in and out of airports for damn near fourteen hours. Christ, I was exhausted!”

“Joel?” Talbot began, obviously not quite ready to get off it. “Why did you tell René you were in Paris for the firm?”

Converse paused, not for lack of a response but for effect. He was ready for the question; he had been ready when he first approached Mattilon. “A white lie, Larry, and no harm to anyone. I wanted some information, and it seemed the best way to get it.”