2–3 Oct 90—SANTA MARIA–SOLVANG, CALIFORNIA
He waited for her for two hours at the airport, meeting every plane. He pictured her in mind but he picked through the faces of arriving passengers and she never fit the picture. And then she was there, her face haunted with that peculiar weariness all air travelers eventually carry as proof of their flights, no matter how pleasant. But he was still startled to see her, the face of his lover picked out in a crowd of strangers. Their intimate past only heightened the meeting in a drab airport in the company of indifferent strangers.
She had thought to carry the package in a cheap suitcase she bought at the airport in Los Angeles.
She had covered her head with a babushka and wore sunglasses and a T-shirt that said she was a Beach Boys baby.
It was a pretty good disguise because Devereaux had really frightened her. That and calling Funo again and getting the voice of a policeman who wanted to know who the hell she was. That was when she thought Ernie Funo was dead and somehow it was her fault for involving him in this bad business.
They did not kiss or speak to each other. They shared their common weariness in that moment. He took the bag from her and led her out of the airport to his car.
When they got in the car, they kissed for a long moment, hungry for each other as they always were after any separation. But now the strain of everything seemed to make the need for comfort that much greater.
“Will you always rescue me?” she said finally, her lips apart, her eyes closed behind her sunglasses, thinking of him making love to her and wishing they were together in some dark place where it could happen right now. “I always need it.”
“You made it simpler. You have the machine. Now I just need the bodies.”
The word chilled her. She shivered in the heat of the closed car.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Nothing,” she said. She looked out the side window. “I think Ernest Funo is dead. I called again before I left L.A. and a policeman answered the phone.”
“Everyone is going to be dead who was in on taking the machine. And a few along the trail. They’re not playing. I just hope they give me enough time to pull it off.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Give the machine back to Denisov.”
She blinked. She took off her sunglasses. He started the motor and a sweet chill wave of cool air came from the dash. The sun had set quickly behind Santa Maria. She said nothing until they were on Highway 101 back down toward Santa Barbara.
“Why?” she said. “Why give it to him? He put you in this mess from the beginning.”
“He was working a deal. It had nothing to do with me.”
“Yes it did.”
“It’s his trail. Because he was the man who stole it. From setting up the plans on the Fujitsu all the way through. Because someone has to hold the bag on this. Just so I can open the bag again later.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“A German named Kurt Heinemann is going to buy the machine. He’s an ex-Stasi and a terrorist and he tried to kill me once and almost pulled it off. And he’s working somehow for a man who can control him the same way he controls me.”
“Pendleton.”
“Pendleton. Kurt and his sister, the well-known whore, the three of them,” Devereaux said. The words were personal and there was an edge to the way he said them that he rarely used. Devereaux had been cold, distant, gray with contempt once, and he had isolated himself and his emotions from the world he practiced his trade in. Rita had been able to give him love but the coldness remained when Devereaux was in the trade. Now this was something else. She saw it and it frightened her because Devereaux angry was even more terrible than Devereaux as the detached agent of a shadow business.
They pulled off the highway at Solvang because she was asleep and he saw how tired she had become.
The town was as small as a crossroads twenty years ago with Danish settlers and a bakery. Now it had marketed its Danishness into a grotesque collection of vaguely European buildings that housed hotels, restaurants, and curio shops, as unlike any place in Denmark as it was any place in California.
He booked a room in a quiet hotel and she went up to take a shower. He used a pay telephone in the lobby.
The telephone rang for a long time and when Denisov came on the line, he said, “What?”
“Mr. Dennis. I have a package that belongs to you.”
Silence.
“What do you expect me to say?”
“I expect you to say thank you,” Devereaux said.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want the money or the code machine. I want Kurt Heinemann and that loony sister.”
Silence again.
“That can be arranged. But why do I trust you?”
“Because I have an honest face. Because I have the machine.”
“There is a dead Japanese in the building on De La Vina.”
“Good. Just one? There’s more than one.”
“I have… a business acquaintance in the house. If there are more, they will be… taken care of.”
“And where is the crazy woman?”
“Gone to signal her brother. The money is set, all is set. Except I don’t have the machine.”
“You know he’s going to kill you.”
“I expect that he thinks he will. I am careful, Devereaux, you know that. This is a bank transfer.”
“He’s going to kill you and steal your money and the machine.”
“He is involved with… a very large middle firm that will sell the machine to CIA. Why would he kill me?”
“For fifteen million and a machine he can use to generate more money. He’s going to double-cross you and CI both. Kurt Heinemann disappeared last year when the wall came down and Section thinks he disappeared to Moscow. Section is wrong. And one person in Section knows it.”
“Perhaps,” Denisov said.
“Time to bet, Denisov. On him or me. But I have the machine.”
“What do you want so badly that you give it to me?”
“I want Kurt Heinemann. I don’t really want his sister but I might have to take her anyway, she’s a loose cannon looking to go off in the wrong place.”
“She is an exquisite lover.”
“With fifteen million, you can buy a world of experience.”
“Perhaps,” Denisov said.
Another silence, exactly like the periods of inaction between chess moves.
“Who do you work for?”
“A man named Mickey Connors.”
“A second group. They will take the machine.”
“They will take the machine and allow you fifteen million of Consortium International money. A nice trade for them. And all I need is Kurt Heinemann to make it stand up. Kurt will disappear and all the Japanese gangsters and spies in the world won’t be able to bring him back.”
“You can do this?”
“You know,” Devereaux said.
“At three P.M. We meet first on Cabrillo. Do you know the bench across from the large hotel?”
“I know the bench.”
“We will meet and talk and transfer his funds. And then I will give him the code machine.”
“And he will kill you.”
“We will be in a public place. I will have the sister with me in the car. Believe me, I will have a hostage.”
“So he’ll follow you. You have to release her.”
“There might be a second car. Or a third. Getting away is easier if he must be distracted by the peril to his sister.”
“What peril?”
“I cannot say at the moment.”
“All right. You can have the machine,” Devereaux said. “And don’t double-cross me. There are more people than me in this.”
“I know the name of the Irish in New York. But he did not approach me in the beginning.”
“Because he didn’t know how to do it,” Devereaux said. “The machine will be there at the right time.”
“When?”
“At the right time,” Devereaux said. He replaced the receiver. He thought about it and then dialed the number in New York.
“Dougherty’s.”
“Tell Mick there’s a new number in California and to call it now.”
“Do I look like his answering machine?”
Devereaux repeated the number of the hotel in Solvang and hung up. He took the elevator to his room.
Rita was naked in bed under the covers. She was staring at the television set but the sound was muted and she was only staring at the pictures on the screen. It was supposed to help her to see something else but all she could see was Ernie Funo on the screen, in the faces of all the actors. The shock remained and she thought she might never sleep again.
He took a long shower before he joined her beneath the crisp sheets. He held her. For a moment, she could not respond to his holding her. She stared at the television screen full of muted actors.
And then she began to cry.
They talked about it for a long time before they made love. Making love was an overwhelming urge, all the more overwhelming because of the shared peril. They were in the middle of the act when the telephone rang.
He stopped.
“Jesus,” she said, “let it ring.”
He picked it up on the third ring.
“Why there, boy?”
“Making an arrangement,” Devereaux said. “How does it look from your end?”
“Close.”
Devereaux said, “Three tomorrow.”
“Jesus.” Soft, not a prayer or a curse but an expression of awe. And then silence. “All right, fella. It’s so close I’ll just have to do it myself. And Devereaux. Kevin’s there watching so don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
They broke the connection.
He looked at her. She was leaning on her right elbow and her breasts were bared and she had the strange and shivering look she sometimes got before she was satisfied. She stretched out her hand but he couldn’t, now he couldn’t do it at all. He could not explain he had just made the final arrangement for an assassination of a government official.