She realized she was crying. The tears warmed her cheeks and then froze in the stinging wind.
Damn, she thought. I don’t want to remember him. But now the memory was dominant. Devereaux had been an Intelligence man; she never really understood everything about him, but she had known at last that she had loved him. And he had denied it. “Nothing is what it seems,” he had said and he had turned away from her. “Even intelligence agents get married, you know, or have women, live-in,” she had said, half in jest and half in anger on that last day together. And he had looked at her so sadly: “What do you see, Rita? A lover? Protector? Kindness incarnate? Do you see a good life?”
She was running now in the howling wind, crossing the Crescent, fleeing the thoughts that still unreeled slowly in her mind.
“I see you, that’s all.”
“No. Not me. You see what you want to see,” he had replied and he could not explain it anymore. He had left her alone in that place in the mountains and she had waited for him for six days and she realized he was not coming back and she had driven back to Washington and picked up threads of her life that she had been willing to sever for him.
She saw the taxi turning the corner at Baggot Street and she waved and the cab came down the lane toward her. She threw open the back door and slid inside, out of breath and out of tears. Damn, she thought again, damn the thoughts of Kaiser and the dead priest and him.
“Buswell Hotel,” she said and the driver turned.
He was a middle-aged man with bright blue eyes and a fierce ginger mustache like a Guardsman. “Very well,” he said and started the engine and Rita could have sworn he had an English accent.
12
Devereaux sat quietly on the chair next to the window. It was snowing again and flakes clung to the glass like survivors until they melted to nothing.
The policeman sat in a straight chair next to the built-in walnut desk. He stared at Devereaux again. Periodically, during the long interrogation, the policeman had lapsed into a moody silence, as though he were contemplating thoughts that began far from this hotel room.
“A commercial traveler who has spent two months in Helsinki and has done no business.”
“Times are hard,” Devereaux said.
“You discover a dead man in the sauna. Everything about you is very mysterious, Mr. Dixon and Mr. Devereaux or whatever your name is.”
“I hate to be a mystery.”
“No telephone calls. You never make phone calls. But two days ago, you send a telegram to someone named Derr… derr—”
“Dougherty,” Devereaux said.
The policeman named Kulak merely stared again. “Yes. You mention Arabia glassware.”
“This is where they make it, isn’t it?”
“This is a murder, not a joke. Why did it take you so long to make a business arrangement? And when we check with the glassware people, they will not have heard of you, do you know that? I am certain of it.”
“I don’t have the authorization yet to make an offer.”
“Why do you not make any telephone calls? I know you are lonely. You brought a prostitute up to your room. I know all about you.”
“Were you peeking?”
“Don’t make jokes, Mr. Devereaux. I think I will call you that. I think that is what your name really is.”
“All right.”
“Two murders.”
“Two?”
“Come on, Mr. Devereaux. You killed that prostitute. Natali.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You cut her open like a butcher. You left her body down in the construction pit across the street.”
“When did I do this?”
“You know, Devereaux. And now you killed this man in a sauna. This Mr. Sims, another man I do not understand. Are you a maniac?”
“Are you a fool?”
Kulak clenched his fists and his neck seemed to swell. His hard eyes went flat and hot, like rocks in a desert sun.
“I arrange to enter the sauna, see Ulla at the desk and kill Sims. Then, without getting a drop of blood on my clothes, I come back and inform Ulla that there is a dead man in the sauna. I do this because two days before, I have killed a prostitute named Natali in exactly the same way and I know that everyone in the hotel will tell you that Natali had dated an American named Dixon who has been in the hotel for seven weeks.”
Kulak slowly subsided but he still clenched his fists. “You are not what you seem,” he said at last.
“Nothing is,” Devereaux agreed.
“You might be mad.”
“Anything is possible.”
“I searched your room.”
“I suppose you did.”
“You have a weapon. This is not permitted in Suomi,” Kulak said, pronouncing the Finnish name for his country. “Why do you have a pistol?”
“Enemies.”
“Enemies?”
“A businessman always has enemies. He can be robbed. You have already pointed out to me that Helsinki is a dangerous place.”
“I don’t take this lightly, not murder,” Kulak said slowly. “I think I will have to arrest you for a while and see what you are made of. I think perhaps you can tell me more things when you have been in prison for a while.”
“I think you are making a mistake,” Devereaux said. “I think I want to speak to Mr. Cleaver at the American Embassy.”
“Oh, you know someone at the American Embassy? How nice.”
“I think you will want to call Mr. Cleaver.”
“And who is he?”
“Third assistant.”
“Well, what would you say if I told you I knew exactly what Mr. Cleaver really was? What would you say? Would you say that a dumb Helsinki policeman is a little smarter than I gave him credit for?”
“He’s a third assistant in the embassy,” Devereaux said, watching the words carefully, watching the box that Kulak was opening for him.
“He is a goddamn spy,” Kulak said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“I think you might be a goddamn spy, too,” Kulak said.
“First I’m a double murderer and now I’m an agent.”
“You could be both things. I don’t understand this business, not about you, not about Sims, not about poor Natali.”
Devereaux did not blink, did not show emotion. She had been a prostitute who had felt warm against him in the night, who had reminded him of a time when there was no death and cold and bleakness. He could love a whore because he could not love anyone else.
“The long winter nights have addled you,” Devereaux said calmly.
“I could lose you for a long time in prison,” Kulak said.
“My embassy would protest.”
“We have heard protests. What is a protest? We fought two wars against the Soviet Union and we won them. So don’t tell me about protests, like pieces of paper.”
“Are you certain you won?”
“Damn you, Mr. Devereaux. I think you are coming with me.”
“I want to call the embassy.”
“Maybe in a few days. Or a few weeks. Maybe when I have talked to you some more—”
“Now.”
“No, not now. I don’t want murders, I don’t want spies thinking they can defile my city.”
“Now,” Devereaux said.
“No, Mr. Devereaux. Now you are the prisoner, now you are not the keeper of time. I am the keeper, Mr. Devereaux, when I found this gun in your room. Do you think your protest would mean very much when I show them this gun?”
“I don’t own that gun.”
“You said you did. I found it in the room.”
“I said nothing,” Devereaux lied evenly. “You planted that gun. You are going to cause yourself harm.”