The Lie (16 page)

“Let me finally be of some use,” said the old man. “Take me back to Germany with you.”

“Be reasonable, Grandfather. You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“I don’t have to know. You’re betting your life on this, aren’t you? That’s enough for me. I want to make the same bet.”

Klaus shook his head. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing for you to do in this.”

“You listen to me, boy!” The old man’s voice rose. “I’m not a useless piece of shit. I can still do things. Even with one
eye, I can outshoot you. I can lob a grenade fifty yards and make it land on the money. And I can put together a bomb in the
dark with my one goddamn hand and no help from anyone.”

The major breathed deeply. “And if nothing else works, I can always scare hell out of any bugger alive with my fucking face.”

Klaus looked at his grandfather and believed him.

I
T WAS LATE EVENING
and just growing dark when Paulie saw Kate leave her place high above the Bay of Naples. He was parked about a hundred meters
up the block, and he watched as she got into her little red Fiat and drove off. A moment later, he started his own car and
followed.

Paulie drove with his stomach in knots and his knuckles white on the wheel. He hated what he was doing about as much as he
had ever hated anything. For the better part of two days and nights, he had been keeping Kate under long stretches of surveillance.
If and when he ever learned the truth about what she had or had not done to his parents and what sort of game she was playing
with her alleged feelings for him, he would decide what action to take.

Where was Kate leading her fool tonight?

At the moment, she was taking him south on the coast road edging the Bay of Naples.

Half an hour later, Paulie saw Kate turn off the coast road near the outskirts of Sorrento.

He set a longer interval between them and followed the Fiat as it climbed a winding, two-lane blacktop that crested high above
the sea. When Kate entered the floodlit grounds of an imposing villa perched upon a grassy knoll, Paulie continued on past
the gates and parked in a patch of woods a few hundred meters down the road.

He waited for about fifteen minutes before leaving the
car, lifted himself over a high wall surrounding the estate Kate had entered, and dropped softly to the grass on the other
side. There were three separate buildings on the grounds: a big garage with servants’ quarters above it, a storage shed for
gardening and grass-cutting equipment, and the villa itself, a two-story, stucco mansion built in the classic Mediterranean
style.

Approaching the complex, Paulie saw that the upper story of the villa was totally dark; lights showed only for several ground-floor
rooms. A few lights also were on in the servants’ quarters over the garage.

Paulie crouched below the first lit window he reached and peered inside. It was the kitchen, and it was empty. As were the
living room and the entrance foyer. The last of the lit rooms was on the far side of the house and appeared to be a combination
study and library. This one was not empty.

Paulie saw Kate first. She sat alone on a dark leather couch a lit cigarette in one hand and a snifter of brandy in the other.
Her head was turned to the far side of the room, where a man whose face Paulie could not see was fixing a drink. She was talking,
but the windows were closed and Paulie could not hear a word.

Then the man finished preparing his drink and turned. Paulie recognized him as the celebrated political scientist Nicko Vorelli.

That probably meant that Kate was here to interview Vorelli for some sort of current affairs article. Paulie had seen the
man a few times over the years at his mother’s Sorrento gallery and he knew him by reputation, but they had never met.

Paulie Walters looked at Kate as Nicko Vorelli sat down beside her on the couch. She seemed relaxed, comfortable, as if she
had spent time with the man in this room many times before. Perhaps she was working on an extended piece, maybe even a memoir
of Vorelli’s life and career.

Paulie saw her talking brightly, animatedly. Nicko Vorelli leaned against the back of the couch and sipped his drink as he
listened. Occasionally he nodded, and Paulie
again had the feeling the two had been working together for a long time.

When she appeared to have finished her story, they laughed together and Nicko Vorelli touched her hair where the lamplight
caught it. He put down his drink, drew Kate close, and kissed her.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” whispered Paulie. Punishing himself, as if he needed to atone for every sin, real or imagined, he had
ever committed, Paulie stayed and saw it all.

He saw them cut the lights and undress, leaving just a single lamp burning.

He saw the lovely body he knew as well as his own respond to the touch of flesh that had absolutely nothing to do with everything
he had believed they shared.

What he finally felt was a total extinction.

K
ATE DROVE HOME
from Nicko Vorelli’s place through pale, early-morning light, opened the door to her apartment, and found Paulie Walters
staring at her.

“Paulie!”

Kate started toward him, arms open, reaching.

Then she had her first good look at his face and stopped.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

The next thing she saw was the gun. It lay on the small end table to the right of his chair, a blue-steel, 9-millimeter automatic
with an attached silencer. It frightened her less than Paulie’s face.

“Sit down,” he said.

Even his voice sounded different, as if it were coming out of a tomb, Kate thought.

“Whore,” Paulie said in his new, sepulchral voice. “How long have you been fucking Nicko Vorelli?”

For an instant, Kate felt overwhelming relief.
This
was all it had to do with?

She shook her head. “I love you. No one else. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

“I saw how much last night. Through Vorelli’s window.”

Kate stared at Paulie apprehensively. “I’ve known Nicko since I was seventeen. He’s helped me. He’s taught me things that—”

“I saw what he taught you—all of it.”

“That had nothing to do with us. In a way, he’s never really touched me.”

“Liar!”

Instead of calming Paulie, her words just seemed to ignite him. “Slut! You don’t know what love means.”

“Why did you have to follow me to Nicko’s?” Kate asked tonelessly. “I don’t understand why you were following me at all.”

“To learn about you. To find out what you wanted from me.”

“There was no mystery there. I just wanted to love you and have you love me.”

Paulie looked at Kate. “When did you decide that? Before or after you killed my mother and father?”

He said it without change of expression. Kate saw that the automatic was no longer on the table beside him: it was in his
hand.

Now I have it all
, thought Kate, and wondered which of the two acts, her shooting of Paulie’s parents or her sexual betrayal, she might finally
have to die for.

“Who told you I killed your mother and father?”

“Nobody told me. I’ve learned enough to know it had to be you.”

Kate grabbed onto the
had to be
. It implied no hard evidence, no smoking gun. “What have you learned?”

“That you’re the Falangas’ daughter. That since you were seven, you’ve been obsessed with the idea of shooting the killer
of your parents.”

Kate realized there was no room for the truth here. Never mind mitigating circumstances, or love, or the possibility of forgiveness.
To admit her guilt at this moment would mean the end of her; if not literally, then in every other way that mattered.

“If that were true,” Kate said quietly, “why would I have waited eighteen years?”

“Because until now you never knew my father shot your parents.”

“How am I supposed to have finally found that out?”

“From your friend Klaus Logefeld.”

This one hit Kate squarely in the stomach. Still, she held on.

“Did Klaus say he told me your father was the shooter?” Kate asked.

“I haven’t been able to find the sonofabitch, but I did find the man who told Logefeld it was my father.”

“Did
this
man say he told
me
?”

Paulie shook his head. He glanced at the automatic in his hand, then at Kate. “All this talk isn’t going to do you any good.
I know you killed them, Kate.”

“Then why are you just sitting there with that gun in your hand? Why haven’t you shot me?”

When Paulie finally spoke, he seemed drained of all emotion. “How could you have done it?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t mean your
shooting them. When I’m not totally crazy inside, I can almost understand your need. What I mean is, how could you have knocked
on my door afterward and started on
me
? Did you expect to find a special thrill in making me love you after you’d just shot my mother and father?”

Kate said nothing.

“Or was it your way of atoning?” Paulie asked. “Of trying to give me back some of the love you’d just blown away with your
gun?”

Kate looked straight at him. “Why do you suddenly believe that I am the killer?”

“It’s not sudden. I’ve known you were the Falangas’ daughter for almost three days.”

“Why did you wait this long to rush in here with a gun in your hand? Why didn’t you come three days ago? Maybe it had more
to do with your seeing me with Nicko last night,” said Kate, “than your actually believing I killed your mother and father.”

Before Kate’s eyes, Paulie seemed to shrink.

“Ah, Kate,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I admit I have no hard evidence, but I am absolutely certain that you shot
my mother and father. The worst of it is, you’re still burning inside me.”

Slowly, he lifted the automatic until it was pointing at her head. Using his thumb, he released the safety.

“Did you care anything at all about me?” he asked.

Unable to trust her voice, Kate nodded.

“Don’t lie,” Paulie said. “If you lie just before dying, your soul will never be at rest.”

“I’m not lying. I loved you as I’ve never loved anyone.”

“Not anymore?” Paulie’s voice was faintly mocking. “You don’t love me now?”

“You’re frightening me too much.”

“You’ve made such a pathetic fool of me. How can a fool be so frightening?”

Kate did not dare to speak.

“You’re not even crying,” he said, still keeping the automatic aimed at her head. “At the final moment of your life, why don’t
you at least cry?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can’t. You haven’t enough feeling in you for tears.”

“My God, how you hate me.”

Paulie stared at her for a long moment. “I don’t hate you, Kate. I even weep for you. I listened to what happened to you as
a little girl and it broke my heart. I just can’t quite see myself letting you walk away from this.”

Kate raised her hand.

“Close your eyes,” said Paulie.

“No. You want to shoot me? Look at me.”

Kate saw him bring up his other hand to steady his aim, saw the dark hole of the silencer pointed directly between her eyes,
saw Paulie’s finger tighten against the trigger.

She heard the soft, whooshing sound of the silenced explosion and felt death brush the hair on the left side of her head.

“That’s for my mother, who deserved better,” he said.

The second shot breezed through her hair on the right.

“And that’s for poppa,” said Paulie, “who would have loved you as much as I… given the chance.”

He rose and put away his gun.

“I don’t want to see or speak to you again,” he said softly. “Not ever. Not in this world.”

“Paulie…”

Paul Walters crossed the room. When he reached the door, he stopped and turned.

“I can forgive an awful lot,” he said. “Maybe even your relationship with Vorelli. But you deliberately set out to make me
love the killer of my mother and father. And you did it.
That
, I can never forgive.”

Paulie left, quietly closing the door behind him.

T
OMMY
C
ORTLANDT LOATHED
the sprawling, diplomatic circus on the White House lawn, and he was just edging toward an early escape when the First Lady
appeared in his path.

“Not yet, Tommy. Not until you give me at least ten minutes.”

Maggie Dunster had her best politically correct smile in place, but her eyes were serious.

A tall, gracefully aging woman, the president’s wife led Cortlandt past a string quartet gently playing Brahms, then guided
him as far as possible from where her husband was holding court.

“I guess Jimmy told you I know about his secret plan for Wannsee,” she said, “and that I’m going with him.”

“He told me.”

“I’m sure the news didn’t add to your day’s level of joy.”

Cortlandt shrugged. “It’s just that in something like this, I’m afraid you become one more high-risk security complication.”

As they walked, Cortlandt was aware of the First Lady studying his face.

“I don’t suppose my husband told you
why
I insisted on going along.”

“No.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you now. I need your word that it won’t go any further.”

The CIA director nodded.

“That includes not letting Jimmy know I told you.”

“I should be able to handle that too.”

Maggie took a moment. She evidently needed to compose herself. Cortlandt could feel her tension from a foot away.

“All right,” she said. “Jimmy has been having some angina attacks. Chest pains. A few of them have been pretty severe.”

Cortlandt’s face froze.

“Only I and his personal physician know. He should be having bypass surgery, but he refuses. He’s afraid it would blow the
rest of his term to bits.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“Almost two months. Sometimes he gets an attack in the middle of the night and I have to put a nitro pill under his tongue.
It’s terrible. Every time we go through it, I’m afraid he won’t last till morning.”