He stretched out on the bench seat, thinking of the story he would concoct for Anton Orsati. He reached up to his throat for his talisman. He felt naked without it. In the morning, when he was back on Corsica, he would visit the old signadora and she would give him a new one.
40
GERHARDT PETERSON’S OFFICE was in darkness except for the small halogen lamp that cast a disk of light over his desk. He had stayed late because he had been expecting a telephone call. He was not sure who would place the call-perhaps the Venice municipal police; perhaps the carabiniere -but he had been quite certain it would come. Sorry to bother you so late, Herr Peterson, but I’m afraid there’s been a terrible tragedy in Venice tonight concerning the violinist Anna Rolfe…
Peterson looked up from his files. Across the room, a television flickered silently. The late national newscast was nearly over. The important stories from Bern and Zurich had been covered, and the program had deteriorated into the mindless features and lighter fare that Peterson usually ignored. Tonight, though, he turned up the volume. As expected, there was a story about Anna Rolfe’s triumphant return to the stage that evening in Venice.
When it was over, Peterson switched off the television and locked his files away in his personal safe. Perhaps Anton Orsati’s assassin had been unable to carry out his assignment because Anna Rolfe was too heavily protected. Perhaps he’d gotten cold feet. Or perhaps they were dead and the bodies simply hadn’t been discovered yet. His instincts told him that this was not the case; that something had gone wrong in Venice. In the morning, he would contact Orsati through the usual channels and find out what had happened.
He slipped some papers into his briefcase, extinguished the desk lamp, and went out. Peterson’s seniority permitted him to park his Mercedes in the cobblestone courtyard instead of the distant staff lot adjacent to the rail yard. He had instructed the security staff to keep a special watch on his car. He had not told them why.
He drove south along the Sihl River. The streets were nearly deserted: here a lone taxi; here a trio of guest workers waiting for a streetcar to take them back to their crowded flats in Aussersihl or the Industrie-Quartier. It was the responsibility of Peterson’s staff to make certain they didn’t make trouble there. No plots against the despot back home. No protests against the Swiss government. Just do your job, collect your check, and keep your mouth shut. Peterson considered the guest workers a necessary evil. The economy couldn’t survive without them, but it sometimes seemed the Swiss were outnumbered in Zurich by the damned Portuguese and Pakistanis.
He glanced again into his rearview mirror. It seemed he was not being tailed, though he could not be certain. He knew how to follow a man, but his training in the detection and evasion of surveillance had been rudimentary.
He drove through the streets of Wiedikon for twenty minutes, then over to the Zürichsee to the garage of his apartment house. After passing through the metal security gate, he waited just on the other side to make certain no one came after him on foot. Down the twisting passage he drove to his reserved parking space. His flat number, 6C, was stenciled onto the wall. He pulled into the space and shut down the lights, then the motor. And there he sat for a long moment, hands choking the wheel, heart beating a little too quickly for a man of his age. A very large drink was in order.
He walked slowly across the garage, suddenly bone-weary. He passed through a doorway and entered the vestibule where a lift would carry him up to his flat. Standing before the closed stainless-steel doors, head craning to watch the progress of the glowing floor numbers, was a woman.
She pressed the call button several times and cursed loudly. Then, taking note of Peterson’s presence, she turned and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been waiting for the damned lift for five minutes. I think there must be something wrong with the fucking thing.”
Perfect Züridütsch, thought Peterson. She was no foreigner. Peterson quickly assessed her with his practiced eye. She was dark-haired and pale-skinned, a combination that he had always found terribly attractive. She wore a pair of blue jeans that accentuated her long legs. Beneath her leather jacket was a black blouse, unbuttoned just enough to reveal the lace of her brassiere. Attractive, fine-boned, but not the kind of beauty that would turn heads on the Bahnhofstrasse. Young but not inappropriately so. Early thirties. Thirty-five at the outside.
She seemed to sense Peterson’s careful appraisal, because she held his gaze with a pair of mischievous gray eyes. It had been six months since his last affair, and it was time for another. His last mistress had been the wife of a distant colleague, a man from the fraud division. Peterson had managed it well. It had been rewarding and pleasant for a time, and when it was time for it to end, it dissolved without rancor or remorse.
He managed a smile in spite of his fatigue. “I’m sure it’ll be along in a moment.”
“I don’t think so. I think we’re going to be trapped here all night.”
The suggestiveness of her remark could not be missed. Peterson decided to play along to see how far it would go. “Do you live in this building?”
“Boyfriend.”
“Surely your boyfriend will send help eventually, don’t you think?”
“He’s in Geneva tonight. I’m just staying at his flat.”
He wondered who her boyfriend was and which flat she was staying in. He allowed himself to picture a brief and all-too-hurried sexual encounter. Then his fatigue crept up on him and chased away all thoughts of conquest. This time it was Peterson who pressed the call button and Peterson who muttered a curse.
“It’s never going to come.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. Removing one, she placed it between her lips and flicked her lighter. When no flame appeared, she flicked it several more times, then said, “Shit. I guess this isn’t my night.”
“Here, let me.” Peterson’s lighter expelled a tongue of blue and yellow flame. He held it in place and allowed the woman to take it as she saw fit. As she inserted the end of her cigarette into the fire, her fingers lightly caressed the back of his hand. It was a deliberately intimate gesture, one that sent a charge of current up the length of his arm.
So powerful was the effect of her touch that Peterson failed to notice that she had raised her cigarette lighter very close to his face. Then she squeezed the hammer, and a cloud of sweet-smelling chemical filled his lungs. His head snapped back and he stared at the woman, eyes wide, barely comprehending. She tossed her cigarette to the floor and pulled a gun from her handbag.
The gun wasn’t necessary, because the chemical had its intended effect. Peterson’s legs turned to water, the room started to spin, and he could feel the floor rushing up to embrace him. He feared he was going to strike his head, but before his legs buckled completely, a man appeared in the vestibule and Peterson folded into his arms.
Peterson had a glimpse of his savior’s face as he was dragged from the vestibule and hurled into the back of a paneled van. It was rabbinical and studious and strangely gentle. Peterson tried to thank him, but when he opened his mouth to speak he blacked out.
41
GERHARDT PETERSON FELT as though he were rising from the depths of an Alpine lake. Upward he came, through layers of consciousness, pockets of warm water and cold, until his face broke the surface and he filled his lungs with air.