The Shadow Box (41 page)

“Be honest, Michael.”

A sigh. ”I guess I wish you'd never seen those newspa
per stories. I was trying to leave this in New York.”

“Maybe now you can. When we dock, I'll show you a
way to do that.”

Megan thought that Bronwyn must have worn cosmetic
contact lenses. The tinted kind. One had simply slipped off under the impact of the blast. He didn't think so. He
told her he'd never seen Bronwyn take them out, nor had
he seen, among her toiletries, any of the paraphernalia that
goes with wearing contacts.

Megan said that doesn't mean much necessarily.
Women have their private vanities. She might have been
wondering when and how to tell him that those striking
eyes he fell for came from a color chart. After all, said
Megan, a man who's had a hair replacement or has had a
tattoo scraped off—such as one that says “Mary Beth
Forever”—might not rush to volunteer that information
either.

Mary Beth forever.

Had he mentioned that name out loud?

Cute, Megan. Very cute.

But her theory about contacts sounds reasonable enough,
he thought. Except that her heart did a drum roll as she
finished saying it. The same, come to think of it, as when
she saw that shirt Bronwyn gave him.

Michael . . . forget it.

You'll just make yourself crazy again.

Chapter 24

He
was
called the Baron. Sometimes the
Chairman.

Properly, he was the Baron Franz Gerhardt Rast von Scharnhorst. Baron Franz Rast would do. The Baron von
Scharnhorst was preferred. In dealing with Americans, he
knew that he must tolerate Herr Rast or even Mr. Rast.
But certainly not Franz.

He was chairman and chief executive officer of Adler-
Chemiker AG, headquartered in Munich and with subsidi
aries, wholly owned or controlled, in twenty countries
around the globe. All these were on the books. Off the
books were “understandings” with over one hundred dis
tributors, shipping companies, health ministries, and well-
placed executives of rival firms.

The Baron was a tall man, fashionably thin and grace
fully slow of movement.
His English had only the barest
trace of accent. Among his many vanities was a dueling
scar from his student days at Leipzig. It split his left eye
brow and ran, straight and deep, down across the corner of his eye.

The general manager of New York's Pierre Hotel, where the Baron kept an apartment, was aware that the fifth anni
versary of his stay at the Pierre fell on the day after tomor
row. But the Baron, alas, had let it be known that he
would be leaving in the morning for the White Mountains of Maine. A well-earned holiday before returning to Mu
nich. Do a bit of fly-casting. Outwit a few trout.

The manager had asked, therefore, whether he might honor the Pierre by partaking of an evening meal created
by Marcel, his favorite chef. For days now, Marcel had
been planning a special menu—it was to be a surprise—
and he was crushed to learn that his efforts were to be
for naught.

The Baron answered that it's he who would be honored.
He would have preferred to take the meal in the comfort
and security of his apartment but he knew that to suggest
such a thing would disappoint his host. The theatrics of presentation demand an audience of other diners. Further,
Marcel would sooner open a vein than permit his creation
to be trundled about on a room service cart.

The Baron would take it in the restaurant but he would dine alone. Such a meal deserves one's full attention. He
would post his bodyguards, all of them German, at the
entrance and at a table nearby in case that Fallon boy
should come calling prematurely.

The meal was indeed splendid. The leek soup caused
him to moan with pleasure. The milk-fed veal, flown in— smuggled in was more like it—nearly caused him to weep.
The wines
...
the desserts . . . were a fantasy. Perhaps two
other times in his memory had he enjoyed such a meal.

Trust Hobbs to ruin it.

“Well, we can forget about Maine,” said Hobbs, pull
ing out a chair unbidden. His breath smelled of alcohol.
“Would you care to see what's left of my chalet?”

From his pocket, Hobbs produced a group of photo
graphs. He spread them before Franz Rast. The chalet,
Playing Hobbs, was a pile of smoldering timbers. It would
not have been recognizable but for the three stone chim
neys rising out of the rubble. One of them showed the
letters ”BH” set in green ceramic tile.

The Baron was not greatly surprised. “When did this
happen?’'

“Last night. Right under the noses of two armed
guards.”

Hobbs produced a second and thicker group of photo
graphs. “Look,” he said bitterly. “Just look at what the
son of a bitch has done.”

He slapped them down, one by one, as if they were
playing cards.

“Dink Bellows's Rolls-Royce,” Hobbs said of the first.
“Taken from his garage as his family slept. Set ablaze in
the middle of his street.”

The Baron scowled, more at the use of that insipid schoolboy nickname than at the sight of this charred pile
of scrap.
Avery
Bellows is the managing partner of their
Washington law firm. A
Dink
Bellows is a boy who sits
in malt shops strumming on a ukelele.

Hobbs pushed another toward him. This one a photo of
a residence.

“Gardner Lowell's Scarsdale home. The firemen man
aged to save most of it but the whole west wing is in
ruins. Fram Childress wasn't so lucky.”

Lowell was a partner at Lehman-Stone.
Frampton
Childress was
executive VP/sales for AdChem, North America. His
house in Glen Cove, a fine old Victorian, was a total loss.

“Victor Turkel's house was spared. But now we can't
find Victor. He seems to have gone into hiding.”

The Baron could only sigh. “Mr. Hobbs . . . please put
those away.”

“How could Michael have known about Victor? He's
never laid eyes on Victor. He didn't torture it out of the
taxi driver. That man knew none of our names, least of
all Victor's.”

Hobbs pushed two more forward.

Finally, Hobbs laid out the oldest of the set. Those of
his home in Palm Beach. Another grimace from the
older man.

Truth be told, thought the Baron, he was genuinely sad
dened by the destruction of the Palm Beach house. It had
been a showplace, really, even by Palm Beach standards.
Italian Renaissance style, patterned after Vizcaya. At least
a million dollars' worth of art on the walls. Now it was
a blackened shell. Only the pool house was spared.

Nor could he resist lingering on the photo of the man
in the  melted lounge  chair.   What  remained  of him.
Smashed into pulp with a baseball bat and then baked to
a turn by the heat that radiated from the house. The bat,
broken in two, had been washed clean in the swimming
pool and left on his chest. As if that were not symbolism enough, his pistol had been left in his hand to demonstrate, one must imagine, the impotence of weaponry against an
avenging angel.

“He knew,” Hobbs repeated. His eyes returned to the
photo of the house in Maine. He seemed about to cry.

The Baron sniffed. He was far less sympathetic to the
loss of Hobbs's mountain retreat. The builder, some local
rustic, thought that if he did enough doodling with a jig
saw, he could call that
barracks
a chalet.

It did have one advantage, however. Michael Fallon,
clearly, was working his way north and this house had
seemed the best place to trap him. It sits in its own private
valley and is reached by a single dirt road. Two men at
each end could easily seal it. Two more, chosen for their
resemblance to him and Hobbs, dressed in fishing gear,
would serve as bait while he and Hobbs concealed
themselves.

This was Parker's idea. Mr. Fallon, however, had un-
sportingly jumped the gun. No great surprise in that. The Baron had never thought much of the plan. Fallon did not
know
that they were laying a trap. He is simply not stupid.

“Suggestions, Mr. Hobbs?”

Hobbs, his eyes on the photo, could only shake his head.

“We could always try this again in France,” said the
Baron, dryly. “You have one house left, don't you? In
Cap d'Antibes?”

”I don't own that one. I lease it.”

“He'll take that into account,
I'm
sure.”

Hobbs smiled unpleasantly. “If Fallon makes it to Eu
rope, the von Scharnhorsts have a lot more to burn than
I do.”

The Baron sucked his cheek. ”I suppose you have a
point.”

Several drinks had emboldened Hobbs. “He might even
decide to drop in on the Countess,” he added. “He might
tell her it's time she paid attention to business.”

For an instant, Hobbs thought that the Baron might
strike him. His knuckles became white. A tic began at his
temple. But the older man only closed his eyes. “How
will we end this, Mr. Hobbs?” he asked quietly.