Strand was surprised. He had thought that Howard would take his offer and run to Schrade as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Instead he was pointing out that the offer was absurd, an act of desperation. A deal in which the “deal” would surely be violated. In Howard’s mind, Strand was already a dead man.
“I’ll make sure he holds up his end of the arrangement,” Strand said.
“What, ‘anything happens to me and the New York Times will get an envelope’? Harry, you poor fucking stump.”
“I wouldn’t have come to you with this if I didn’t have it covered.”
“Sure, that’s good.” Howard rolled his head. “You’ve got it covered. Great.”
From the Audley gates an elderly couple entered the gardens with a short-haired dog, an animal of no discernible breed, on a leash. The three of them ambled along the main walk as the dog snuffled busily at the grassy margins, ferreting excitedly among the green clumps. Entrusted with the leash, the woman watched the dog with critical attention, while the man, hands behind his back, gazed about the close with a mild, bifocaled curiosity.
“Why should I do this for you, Harry?”
“Two reasons. First, I can keep the FIS from getting it. I can tie it up for decades. This was not a shoddy operation, Bill. Some very intelligent people put a lot of thought and sweat into this before we even started. Dennis Clymer was a genius. We ran it for six months, fine-tuning it as we went along, addressing potential problem areas that might crop up farther down the road. We shut it down and took another six months to stabilize what we’d done. So if the FIS wants to try to get it, fine, but my guess is, if they’re going to try to get it through the legal system, the Justice Department’s going to take a closer look at this and tell them to forget it. Everyone you know in the FIS will have retired by the time they finally realize it’s a goose hunt.
“Second, you’d want to do it for the three million dollars I’m going to put in a Belgium account for you. It’s properly sheltered, safe to access.”
“That’s goddamn blunt,” Howard said.
“If I remember, you’re impatient with finesse.”
“Yeah.”
It was a crucial moment, but Strand never doubted how it would end.
“Three million dollars…” Howard’s eyes were fixed on the bit of paper, which he had now folded and unfolded so many times that it was getting limp. Then, to Strand’s surprise, Bill Howard seemed to grow angry. Strand could actually see him trying to control his temper, tucking in his chin, tightening his nostrils, his face flushing.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Howard said abruptly after a little thinking. “So, when I have something, if I have something, I contact you?” He raised the piece of paper and waggled it.
“Yeah. One other thing. I’m leaving London tonight. If you want to talk to me personally after tonight, it won’t be easy. It’ll take a little time to arrange.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not staying anywhere very long,” Strand said.
“I’ll see what I can do. Shit.”
“It’s not something he really has to ponder, Bill.”
“Harry, for Christ’s sake… Okay, look, how complicated is the money end of this situation?”
“Not too complicated.”
“Well, shit, that clarifies it.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do I tell him? A week? Days?”
“Hours.”
Howard perked up. “Hours?”
“Yeah.”
Howard studied him. “Where do you want to meet him?”
“I’ll get to that.”
“When?”
“When I see how he reacts to the offer.”
Howard folded the paper one last time and put it in the side pocket of his suit coat. As the elderly couple passed by he held his next comment, watching the dog disapprovingly. When they were out of earshot he went on.
“What’s the time frame here?”
“We’ll work it out.”
“The sooner the better?”
“That’s right.”
Howard was feeling better. He was trying to cover all the bases.
“What if he turns you down, Harry? What then?”
“Eventually he’ll get me. I know that.” He paused. “But I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing half a billion dollars of his laundered cash do some good for a change.”
“But you’d cough it all up to save your ass.”
Strand looked at him. “I tried to do what I thought would be a good thing,” he said. “I guess I’ve found out that I don’t have the guts to give my life for it. Or Mara’s. I’ve already lost everything but her. That’s what I was telling you at the beginning, Bill. None of this is very pretty, any way you slice it.”
CHAPTER 42
Howard walked away toward the Audley gates. From years of experience, Strand knew that he wouldn’t look back. The meeting had left Strand drained and anxious. He couldn’t decide whether Howard had been entirely satisfied with Strand’s story or whether he harbored a lingering suspicion that Strand was setting him up.
Leaving Mount Street Gardens, Strand made his way through Mayfair to Piccadilly, emerging on Berkeley Street just down from the Green Park underground station.
He rode the underground all the way to Knightsbridge and then all the way back to Piccadilly Circus. He spent some time milling in the crowds there and then walked up the Burlington Arcade, where he drifted in and out of the shops. He worked his way back to Half Moon Street, which he followed to Curzon, stopping in at George Trumper to buy a tube of sandalwood shaving cream.
He turned up Curzon, stopping to look at the film posters on the front of the Curzon Cinema before turning back and following Curzon to Fitzmaurice Place. Half a dozen telephone booths lined the sidewalk just at the Charles Street corner. He stepped into the second one from the right, closed the door, and checked his watch. For seven minutes he stared at the poster advertisements that prostitutes had stuck to the walls of the booth, exposing their wares in black-and-white photographs of steamy vamping.
At precisely five o’clock, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.
“You’re going to like this place, Harry,” Mara said, giving him the address. “I’ll leave the front door open.”
The town house was close. He turned into Charles Street and started up the hill. Just past Queen Street he turned into Chesterfield Hill, and there, nearly halfway up the first block and across the street, was the red-brick Edwardian town house, newly refurbished, that Mara had leased.
He crossed the street and was pleased to see the “Available” sign still attached to the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the front garden. Upon entering the gate, he walked up the steps and let himself in through the moss green front door, shiny with layers of paint.
When he closed the door behind him the hollow sound echoed through the unfurnished rooms, which smelled of fresh paint and wallpaper paste. On the second floor a large reception fronted the street. To the left was a broad bay window overlooking Chesterfield Hill. Centered between the arms of the windows was a box spring and mattress on the floor, scattered with plastic packets of new linen. Mara walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.
“Welcome home,” she said.
At the other end of the long room, on the wall opposite the bay window, were stacked painters’ supplies, five-gallon paint buckets and painters’ canvases and scaffolding boards and ladders.
“I convinced the estate agent to leave everything as it was,” Mara explained.
“The ‘Available’ sign is a good touch.”
“Yeah, I asked him to leave it for another week. He thought it was an odd request but shrugged it off.”
Mara had scavenged together the rough scaffolding boards and paint buckets to make a long table, which she covered with the paint-flecked canvas dropcloths. There was a telephone on the table and books stacked beside it, and a little farther over sat one of the laptops, the screen already lighted. A cobalt blue vase with fresh flowers in it sat on the far end of the table.