Full Circle (5 page)

“Ah.” Paula was nodding appreciatively over the rim of her cup. She was into the story now, hooked. “He was making up his mind about you, whether you could be of use to him.”

He nodded decisively. “That’s it exactly. After the question-and-answer session about me, he asked about Betty, about her plans. I said that Betty’s plans—her future—depended on him. What he’d like, he said—his best-case scenario—was for Betty to come back to him, everything forgiven. After all, her only sin was telling Nick Ames about the paintings. Of course, he knew it would never happen. Even if Betty believed that he’d tried to call off the hit man assigned to kill her, the fact remained that, originally, DuBois had given the order. I told him he was absolutely right, Betty would never—ever—go back to him. So then he made the proposal that I’m sure he’d intended to make all along. He said that he wanted Betty to go to Europe and disappear. He’d send her money—all the money she’d need. But she had to stay in Europe.”

“Mmm.” Intrigued, calculating the variables, she looked thoughtfully away as she sipped her espresso.

“His whole left side is paralyzed,” Bernhardt said, “including the left side of his face, so that his mouth sags on the left side, and I don’t think he can close his left eye. And, yes, he drools. He’s very frail. There was a blanket covering his legs. With his right hand he took a small electronic black box out from under the blanket. He showed it to me, and the right side of his face smiled. It was a scrambler, in case I was wearing a wire. Then he took out a large envelope, which he handed to me.”

“Money. To disappear.”

He nodded. “Lots of money. Take ten percent,’ he said. ‘Send the rest to Betty.’”

“So he made you the middleman. The cutout.” Awed at the thought, she spoke solemnly. Then, incredulously: “Jesus, Alan. You’re on his payroll. You’re a goddamn accomplice.”

“What else could I do, if I wanted her out of harm’s way?”

“You could’ve told him to get someone else. Her mother, maybe.”

Decisively he shook his head. “No. I talked to Betty’s mother. It wouldn’t work. Ever.”

“But look what’s happened. It’s only been—what—four months, something like that? And already the FBI’s on you.”

Glumly he finished his espresso, slowly replaced the cup in its saucer, wiped his mouth—and sighed.

“So did you give Betty the money you got at the Huntington?”

He nodded. “Fifty thousand.”

“Less five thousand for you.”

“That’s right, Paula.” He spoke in a hard, flat voice, challenging her now: “You don’t approve?”

“Jesus …” She reached across the table, covered his long, bony hand with hers. She’d always liked his hands, the way they moved, so expressively, so intelligently. “I’m not judging you, Alan. But I’m
worried.
And
you’re
worried, too. I can see it in your face.”

He smiled bleakly, shrugged.

“You’re a soft touch, sweetie.” She patted his hand, a gesture of reassurance, of support. “That’s why I love you, I guess.” She gave his hand a final pat, smiled, took back her hand. The tension between them had passed. And Paula wasn’t given to holding hands in public.

“A week after I saw DuBois at the Huntington,” he said, “Betty was on her way to Europe. She’s in Spain now—she’s rented a stone house with a vineyard. Every quarter—three months—DuBois sends me a cashier’s check. The first one came last week, for twenty-five thousand. I put the check in my account, then sent a different cashier’s check to Betty, at a small-town post office in Spain. There’s no phone in her house, but she’s made arrangements with a local restaurant to take phone messages for her. She’s only called me twice in four months. The first time she sounded terrible. The second time, though, she sounded better. She’d met a guy—a schoolteacher. It sounds like he might be married. Still…” He shrugged.

“Another wrong man in her life, it sounds like.”

He shrugged again, picked up the dinner check, began counting out money. Bernardo’s didn’t take credit cards.

“So what’re you thinking, Alan? What’s the plan?”

He looked at his watch. “It’s eight-thirty. There’s nine hours’ difference between here and Spain. I plan to rent a tape, go home, and watch a movie. Around midnight I’ll call the restaurant in Spain. I’ll leave an urgent message for Betty to call me. When she calls, I’ll tell her the FBI’s looking for her. I’ll tell her to pack a couple of bags and take a trip, drop out of sight for a month or two, no forwarding address. Then, tomorrow, I’ll call the FBI. I’ll tell them that the last I heard, Betty was in Spain. If they sweat me for the name of the town, I’ll give it to them. Then I’ll tell Betty to relocate.”

“What about the money—the check you sent? Will you tell the FBI about that?”

“I’d be implicating DuBois if I told them about the check. I’d also be implicating myself.”

“Jesus, Alan.” She shook her head. Her eyes were dark with concern. “This is dangerous. This is very high-risk behavior.”

He dropped his eyes, a mute admission that, yes, he knew.

W
AITING FOR THE CONNECTION
, Bernhardt spread out the sheet of paper beside the phone. Moving his lips—learning his lines—he mouthed the words he would say until he heard a man’s voice on the line:

“Si? Cafe Tosca.”

Bernhardt read the message from the sheet of paper, repeated it slowly, waited for an acknowledgment, in Spanish. He conveyed his thanks, returned the phone to its cradle, checked the time: twelve-fifteen. In Marbella, the time was nine-fifteen; a new day had already begun.

“If she doesn’t get the message until noon,” Paula said, “it could be three a.m. when she calls.”

They were in Bernhardt’s office, originally the flat’s front bedroom. Bernhardt sat behind his desk, Paula on the small sofa they’d just bought at a garage sale for a hundred dollars. Crusher, Bernhardt’s Airedale, lay with his muzzle resting on Paula’s foot. Bernhardt rose, went to Paula, sat beside her, put his arm around her shoulders, leaned his head against hers.

“All the more reason,” he said, “to go to bed.”

“Mmmm …” She put her hand on his thigh. It began as a companionable gesture, but promised an erotic conclusion.

Was it thunder, racking the building? Cannons at Gettysburg? The warbling of countless ravens, sitting on a fence that bordered the battlefield? Or robins in chorus?

Or the phone, chirping in his office, down the hallway? Betty, calling from Spain.

He threw back the blankets, tripped over his bedroom slippers, snatched his robe from its hook on the door, went barefooted down the hallway, pulling on his robe as the telephone warbled again. From the bedroom he heard Paula’s voice, sleep-blurred. From behind him he heard the click of Crusher’s toenails following him down the hallway.

He was standing beside his desk now, finally with the phone to his ear.

“Yes. Hello?”

“Alan. This is Betty.”

“Ah.” Conscious of a surging sense of relief, he riffled his hair with his free hand as he yawned. “Yeah, I figured. How’s it going?”

“Is something wrong, Alan?”

“It’s a complication. I didn’t want to wait for the mails. I wanted to talk to you.”

“A complication?”

“It’s the FBI, Betty. They’re apparently gathering information on DuBois. They talked to me today. And they want to talk to you.”

“Is it—” She let the question fade into an awed silence. Then: “The art? Is that it?”

“I think so. But that’s just a guess. All I know—all they really told me—is that they want to talk to you.”

“Do they—can they—?” Defeated, she couldn’t finish it.

“Do they have some kind of jurisdiction in Spain? Is that the question?”

“Yes.”

“They don’t, and they can’t extradite someone just on suspicion. So I don’t think you have anything to seriously worry about. But if I don’t tell them where to find you, they can sure as hell make my life miserable. They can put me out of business. Overnight.”

“Alan—I trusted you.” In her voice he could plainly hear a quaver. He could visualize her face, pinched by uncertainty, tremulous with sudden fear.

“I know. But these guys—the FBI—they’ve got all the cards. The best I could do was stall them. You’ll have a day, probably more. Pack a bag and take off. Become a tourist for a month. Don’t give up your house, have someone look after it for you. Don’t leave a forwarding address, obviously. And call me once a week, without fail.”

“Are you sure they’re the FBI? Or someone who wants to find me so they can—” She couldn’t finish it.

So they can kill me
would have been the rest of it.

“They’re the FBI. I went to their office. There’s no question. Absolutely none.”

Silence.

“Betty. Please. There’s nothing to worry about. They don’t want you. They want DuBois. So just do what I told you to do. And call me.”

“There could be just the three of us that know about the art. You know that.”

“Betty. Let’s stop talking. Let’s hang up.”

“I trusted you, Alan.”

“It’ll be all right, Betty. I promise.” He broke the connection, moved the phone console aside on the desk, sat on the edge, head bowed in thought, one bare foot swinging. In the darkened room, lit only by the nighttime glow from a streetlight, he let his eyes stray to his Rolodex. In the D’s, there was a phone number for
RDB
: Raymond DuBois’s private number. Tomorrow he would recopy the number. Then he would—

“Alan?” Wearing only one of his shirts, Paula stood in the doorway to the office. Her short dark hair was tousled, her voice was sleepy. His shirt draped down from the swell of her breasts to her midthigh. He slid off the desk, went to her, held her at the waist, drew her close. As his hands dropped to her flanks, then to her buttocks, he felt her hands inside his robe, pulling it apart. Her mouth, open on his, was urgent.

She knew, then.

She knew that here, in this shadowy hallway, he must lose himself in her.

Tomorrow, the unknown glowered.

Now, there was only the urgency of lust—and, yes, love.

T
ODAY THE TINY RED
light at the base of the microphone glowed as Bernhardt told his story. When he finished, Haigh added the date and time to the tape, identified himself, identified Bernhardt, identified himself again, then switched off the microphone. The two men were in the same conference room they’d occupied yesterday. As he’d done yesterday, Haigh sat at the head of the table. Before him on the table was a yellow legal pad, almost completely covered with writing. Predictably, Bernhardt thought, the writing was small and precise, meticulously organized.

Finally, as if he felt a reluctant regret for his victim, Haigh shook his head.

“What you’re doing, Bernhardt, is telling me only part of the story. I guess, in your position, I’d do the same. I’d tell the truth, but I wouldn’t tell the whole truth.”

Bernhardt decided not to reply. He’d decided to wear his only three-piece suit for today’s interrogation. And he’d had his hair trimmed. It had been the right decision. Facing off against Haigh, playing the part of the conscientious professional earnestly determined to protect his client while he cooperated with law enforcement, he felt sure he’d held his own.

“You tell me, for instance, that you know where Betty Giles is living—what town, in Spain—but you don’t have an address or a phone. I find that very strange.”

“Less than a week after Willis Dodge tried to kill her, I put Betty on a plane for Madrid. She was badly shaken. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was going.
Nobody
.”

“But she got in touch with you later.”

Bernhardt shrugged. “As far as I know, I’m the only one who knows where she is. I’m her go-between.”

“Who’d you contact on her behalf?”

“Her mother, for one.”

“Who else?”

Bernhardt made no reply.

“Raymond DuBois?”

“I told you yesterday that I don’t feel I can—”

Emphatically Haigh tapped the yellow legal pad. Suddenly his voice rose, roughened. “I’ve been reviewing the notes I took after we talked yesterday. And one thing stands out.”

“Oh?” Bernhardt tried for an urbane, aloof projection. “What’s that?”

“When I said that Nick Ames was killed because he was blackmailing Raymond DuBois, you seemed to agree.”

Bernhardt frowned. “I did?”

“You certainly didn’t disagree.”

Bernhardt considered, then decided to say, “It doesn’t follow that if I didn’t disagree then it means I agree. It could just mean that I—”

“Come on, Bernhardt. I don’t have time for word games.”

Keeping the frown in place but dropping his voice to a note of earnest appeal, Bernhardt said, “Betty Giles was almost killed a few months ago. She was terrified, and she ran. She knew she had to have someone here to act for her, and also to guard her privacy, for security reasons. She retained me, engaged me professionally. Meaning that I have the same rights of privacy conducting her affairs that she would have.” He was satisfied with his voice: firm and decisive, not strident, not whining.

“I believe that Raymond DuBois is retaining you.”

“Well, sir, you’re mistaken.” But as he said it he could feel himself losing focus. The lines were slipping away; he’d lost his place in the script. He’d never been good at lying; it was an occupational handicap.

Haigh sighed. “I don’t believe you, Bernhardt. I think you’re lying to me.” As if he were pained by the necessity of making the accusation, Haigh spoke gently, regretfully.

Bernhardt shrugged, said nothing.

“Yesterday when you were asked whether you’d ever talked directly to Raymond DuBois, you refused to answer the question. Is that still your position?”

“I said that until I knew the reasons for—”

“Cut the shit, Bernhardt.” It was a harsh bully-boy’s retort. “Just answer the fucking question.
Now
.”

The sudden shock of the obscenity produced a flare of anger. “You told me yesterday that if I told you where to find Betty, I could walk out the door and go about my business. And now you’re squeezing me. That’s bullshit. We had a deal.”

“When I say we’ve got a deal, then that’s when we’ve got a deal. Not before. Have you got that, Bernhardt?”