Money for Nothing (6 page)

"But you can tell them the truth!"

"What's the truth?" he asked her. "I cashed the checks for seven years. Are they going to believe I never found out who was paying me, never worried about it, just cashed the checks?"

"It really wasn't very smart," she said.

"It was the easiest thing to do," he said. "For seven years, it was easy. Money for nothing."

She shook her head. "But why
you
? Why did they pick you?"

"I have no idea," he said, because the one thing he couldn't tell her was his early history as a loudmouth barroom radical. "Just the luck of the draw," he said.

She thought about it Now she, too, studied the white clapboard across the way, while Josh studied her face, realizing how important that face was to him, how important their life together was, how little he'd really needed that thousand dollars a month over the years, and how abruptly and unexpectedly he'd put everything from their life at risk. Including life itself.

"All right," she said at last, and looked at him. "Here's what I think you should do."

"Just tell me."

"Well, you're part of the decision-making, too," she said. "Don't put it
all
on me."

"Tell."

"All right. What I think you should do is open a file in the laptop here, and put in it everything you told me, and put the date. The people's names, and what you did, and what they told you. And say in there, you're afraid for your life—"

"I am."

"And I think you're right," she said. "So you say in there, you're afraid, and that's why you'll go along with those people unless they ask you to do something really illegal or wicked, and you'll keep that file as a diary, and tell it everything that happens.
Then
, if the time comes that you have to go to the police, or they come to you—"

"Oh, God."

"You can show them the file. So they can see for themselves the fix you were in. That should count for
something
."

"So I should write it all down," he said, "and I should go along with those people unless they want me to do something really bad."

"And," she said, "we should have a glass of wine before we go to the Welshes. To calm us down." Gesturing at the glass in front of herself, she said, "This is no time for tea."

"I'll bring it out," he said, rising.

"Take your bankbook," she said, extending it toward him.

He took it, reluctantly. "For the first time in my life," he said, "I don't really want money."

In the kitchen, he got the wine bottle from the refrigerator and glasses from the shelf, and was pouring the wine when it occurred to him he hadn't told her about the "matériel" he was allegedly going to be storing next week.

Well, enough for today. He could tell her about the matériel later, when he knew what it was.

GUNS. UNDER THE BED WERE four long wooden boxes, about the right size to carry a pair of ski poles each. Numbers and letters were stenciled in black on the boxes, and when he pulled one out from under the bed it had a square of paper glued to the top, containing several lines of words or numbers, the most important of which were AUTOMAT-KALASHNIKOVA and AK-47.

Josh sat heavily on the floor in front of the box he'd pulled out Assault rifles. He was storing in his bedroom, under his bed, the favorite weapon of terrorists and guerillas and revolutionaries all around the world. Four of them.

And what else? No bombs, Levrin had assured him; but AK-47s? What else?

Under Jeremy's crib, four cardboard boxes, heavily taped, which had markings and words on them Josh couldn't understand, but also one drawing he understood completely: The curved metal magazine that would contain the AK-47's bullets. Many of the consumers of these products around the world would be illiterate, of course, or would only speak some obscure local language, so the picture was meant to be helpful to the customer, and Josh was sure it was appreciated.

And what else? In the closet in his bedroom, hanging in black plastic garment bags, four uniforms, a very dark green-brown, with black-and-red boards on the shoulders and silver lightning-bolt pins on the lapels and red chevrons on the sleeves. On the floor in the closet, a box of tall black lace-up boots. On the shelf in the closet, four white cardboard boxes, each containing an officer-type military hat, with a longer hard brim and higher front peak than usual, so that the hats all by themselves, without uniforms or people or anything underneath them, already looked evil.

He couldn't have this. He still hadn't actually
done
anything, hadn't participated in anything bad, but these things were not here for the staff picnic. He couldn't let this go on.

But what to do? Make a run for the FBI, downtown? Or maybe even phone them from here.

No. Even if
they
weren't watching him every second, they were surely tapping his phone and no doubt had people around Foley Square, looking to see who approached the FBI offices.

He couldn't go back to Fair Harbor to discuss this with Eve. She'd be horrified, and she'd have to blame him for this mess, and besides, he'd just come to town. He was supposed to have lunch now and after that go into the office. He was supposed to be thinking about Cloudbank toilet paper, not AK-47s.

Well, he couldn't go to toe office today, he was sure of that much. He'd have a hysterical fit in the elevator, he'd faint at his desk, he'd blurt out his problems to everybody in the place.

He did have to go out now, but it wouldn't have anything to do with lunch. Food would lie like cannonballs in his stomach, he couldn't even think about it.

But before he left here, he had to deal with the office. He phoned, and Martha the receptionist answered, and he said, "Martha, hi, it's Josh. Listen, I can't come in today, I think I got food poisoning or something."

"You're still out on the island?" If there was an accusation in that, she hid it well, with a flat delivery.

"No, I came back to town this morning," he told her, "but I just keep feeling worse. Maybe it's the clams I had."

"Seafood," she said. "That can be the worst."

"I'm gonna nap, and maybe see a doctor. I'm sure I'll be all right tomorrow."

"You don't sound good," she admitted.

"I'm not good."

"I'll tell Mr. Grimsby," she said.

"Thanks," he said, and left the arsenal his apartment had become.

Riverside Drive was still windy, as he crossed the sidewalk from the departing cab to the doorman opening the entrance. "Hi," he said, being unable to ignore people as totally as Mr. Nimrin could.

"Sir," the doorman said.

Josh crossed to that inner door, with the marble steps and the wrought iron railing. If the door's locked, he thought, if she isn't there, I won't know what to do. I don't know her name, I don't know anything.

The door wasn't locked. He opened it, and heard that distant bell sound, and again when he shut the door. He walked over to stand beside the coffee table and look at the interior door, through which, as Mr. Nimrin had pointed out last time, she would come.

She did. She looked at Josh in mild surprise, without recognition. "Yes?"

"I was here with Mr. Nimrin. I need to see him again."

"I am with a patient," she said. "Do sit down, it won't be long."

She nodded, maybe to encourage him, and withdrew, shutting her door. He sat, fidgeting, on the same sofa as last time, and looked over at the magazines on the coffee table. But he couldn't read, he couldn't do anything but sit and feel his nerves unstring.

It was nearly half an hour before a stunning redhead of about thirty came out, gave him a cool look she might have offered to a caged parakeet, and left, her little pink summer skirt twitching around her thighs.

"You wanted to see
me
?"

Oh — he'd been staring at the redhead. He turned and the older woman was in the interior doorway, giving him a somewhat skeptical smile. "Sorry," he said, and stood.

"That's all right," she assured him. "Even matters of life and death must take a back seat to sex. Come in."

The next room was like an antique shop, crowded with armoires, desks, hutches, sofas, armchairs. Two windows would look out on Riverside Drive through vertical iron bars, except that they were so heavily swathed in drapes.

The woman gestured to a maroon empire settee, saying, "Sit there," while she sat in a bulky black leather armchair at right angles to it Handy to her right hand, he noticed, was a round table with notepad and pen. And handy to his own settee was a small table with a box of tissues on it.

He said, "I have to get in touch with Mr. Nimrin. Right away."

"Yes, I understand," she said. "I don't know your name."

"Josh Redmont. I don't know yours, either."

She smiled at that. "I am Harriet Linde," she said. "Elwah didn't tell you much about me, I see."

Elwah? Then he remembered, from the
Washington Post
, that Mr. Nimrin's first name was Ellois; so that's how it was pronounced. He said, "I think there's a lot Mr. Nimrin doesn't tell people."

"I have never asked him his business," she said, "and he has never volunteered. But he is something sub rosa, that much is obvious."

"Can you help me talk to him?"

"Perhaps." She studied him, and he struggled to contain his impatience. "You are not," she decided, "the sort of person I usually see with Ellois."

Probably not. Josh said, "If he doesn't tell you his business, maybe I shouldn't tell you his business, either."

She laughed at that, and said, "No, I wouldn't ask. But let me tell you how we met."

Any other time, Josh would have been happy to hear how Harriet Linde and Ellois Nimrin met, but not now. "It's kind of urgent," he said.

"No, I don't believe it is," she told him. "I can see that you are in deep distress, but if your problem were
urgent
you wouldn't be here, going all 'round Robin Hood's barn. You are here because you want to maintain secrecy, not because your problem is urgent."

"All right," he said, and tried to calm himself.

'Take deep breaths," she suggested, "and I will tell you the story. This was, oh, almost thirty-five years ago. I was in Vienna for the first time, at a conference. It was very cold, but beautifully sunny, and I was walking by myself in the park, because I was very young and knew no one at the conference. Then suddenly a man was beside me, grasping my arm, and very urgently —
this
was urgency — he said, 'Pretend you know me.'"

"No," Josh said.

Again she laughed. "Exactly," she said. "My reaction exactly. I thought, immediately, has any man ever in the whole long history of the world actually used that as a pickup line? Impossible."

"It wasn't a pickup line," Josh said.

"Well, it was," she said, and he could see that all at once she was very nearly blushing. "Not primarily, no, but yes, it was that, too."

"And I guess it worked."

"He said he would buy me a torte. We went to a cafe, and he wanted to sit inside, of course. He asked me where I was from, and when I said New York he said he was often in New York and asked for my phone number, which of course I gave him. I asked where
he
was from, and he said, 'I am a man of the world.'"

Now Josh laughed. "He gets all the good lines," he said.

"But spoken with such conviction," she said, "that they lose their absurdity. I believe Ellois
is
a man of the world, if that is another way to say no fixed abode."

"Okay," Josh said.

"We spent a little while in the cafe," she went on, "and slowly he relaxed. Then he paid our bill, and said he'd no doubt call me in New York, and asked me to stay at the table a little longer, and he went away to the back of the cafe. I took it for granted I'd never see him again."

"But you did."

"The next day," she said, "at my hotel. And from time to time, over the years. Sometimes here in New York, sometimes places where I'd be at a conference, San Francisco, for instance, or once Sao Paulo. Once, years ago, he asked if he might use my waiting room on occasion, if he had a private conversation he needed to keep private, and I said of course. Over the years, I would guess he's done that fewer than half a dozen times, and I must say, you were the first reputable-looking person I've seen him with."

Josh said, "Aren't you curious?"

"Of course," she said. "But curiosity would kill more than the cat in this case. Whatever Ellois is involved in must have some sordid elements I wouldn't want to know about. And if he found me expressing curiosity about him, I
know
I would never see him again. For instance, something changed with him seven or eight years ago—"

"Seven," Josh said.

She paused to give him a bright-eyed look. "Thank you," she said. "But do not tell me things I don't want to know."

"Sorry."

"Seven years ago, as you say," she said, "something changed in Ellois's life. He doesn't travel the way he used to. His spirit is not broken, but is more… defensive. May I ask what your trade is?"

"I'm an advertising copywriter."

"Ah." She nodded. "There's a great deal of self-hatred in that occupation, I understand."

"I don't hate myself," Josh told her.

"Good. To be associated with Ellois suggests self-destructive behavior."

"I'm trying to save myself," he promised her. "That's why I need to talk to Mr. Nimrin."

"Good," she said. "I can reach him, but indirectly, and not at once. I will let him know that you feel the need to meet with him, and then it's up to him."

"Oh," Josh said.

"I'm sorry, that's all I can do."

"Okay." He looked around, at the overstuffed but somehow comforting room. "So I guess I should… go home."

"Or to your work. Work can be a great solace."

"If it doesn't make us self-destructive," Josh suggested.

Laughing, she said, "I'm glad Ellois's grade of associates has risen. Nice to meet you, Mr. Redmont."

"And you, Ms. Linde," Josh said, all at once realizing she'd told him that story because he'd come in here hysterical, and it was the way to calm him down. He hadn't known he was hysterical, but he could feel the difference in himself. Maybe he
would
go to work this afternoon. Food poisoning all gone.