“You can tell the lady what you told me.”
“Okay, okay.”
They walked down the corridor toward the elevator, and as they approached the fire-escape door Kuznetsky brought the Walther down on the back of the detective’s head. He opened the door and looked down into the alley six stories below. There were no lighted windows, no sign of life at all. He pulled Duncarry out and levered him over the railing and down into darkness. There was a distant thud as the body hit the ground.
Closing the door behind him, he descended the steps. At the bottom he made sure that the detective was dead, then walked back to his car. He lit a cigarette and stared out through the windshield. The world lies heaped up on itself. He started the engine and headed back downtown.
It was past midnight when he reached Amy’s apartment. There was no light showing. It was several minutes before she responded to his soft rapping on the door, and when she did he walked straight in, holding his finger against his mouth to signal the need for silence.
She closed the door and stood with her back against it, her arms crossed over her breasts, a half-questioning, half-accusatory look on her face. One part of Kuznetsky’s mind took note of how desirable she looked, sleepy-eyed, her dark hair falling across her face. The other part took charge.
“It’s all right, I’m not here for your body,” he said with a thin smile.
“What is it then?” she asked, inadvertently acknowledging her suspicions.
“Do you know a Richard Lee?”
She felt as if she’d just taken off in a high-speed elevator, leaving her stomach behind. “What about him?”
“Who is he?”
She shrugged. “My boyfriend, I suppose. Or I’m his mistress. Call it what you like. He knows nothing—”
“I’d call it incompetence,” he said flatly, sitting down on the sofa.
Her eyes flared. “I’ve been working ten years in this city. You’ve been here less than a week. How the hell—”
“You were followed this evening,” he interrupted without raising his voice.
“I thought that was the idea.”
“By someone other than me.”
“What?” She was astonished. “But Richard’s in New Hampshire…”
“He hired a private detective to make sure you weren’t cheating on him.”
“Oh Christ,” she muttered, sitting down and pulling the dressing gown across her legs.
Kuznetsky offered her a cigarette and lit one himself. Would she accept the obvious? For some reason, he wanted to share this decision. She looked at him silently, a bleak expression etched on her face.
“When is he coming back from New Hampshire?” he asked.
“Friday, probably. He calls me up most evenings. To check up on me, I suppose,” she added bitterly. “But the detective may call him there.”
“He won’t.”
She looked at him again, an expression on her face that he couldn’t read. “Faulkner said you’d be thorough.”
“I do what has to be done,” he said calmly. “There’s no pride in it. No shame either.” In his mind’s eye he saw Duncarry’s body plummeting down into the dark.
She didn’t seem to hear. “So Richard will come back, go to collect his report, and find out the detective’s been killed.”
“There’s a chance the police will think it’s suicide. A thin chance.”
“Is that a chance we can take?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye. Her voice was hard, her eyes bewildered.
“No,” he said gently, replying to the eyes rather than the voice. “How long have you and he…?”
“Two years, more…”
“A long time.” He’d known Nadezhda for half that.
“He’s married. We met only once a week. He’s not…”
“Ah.” He lit another cigarette, wishing it was Russian. These American ones were like smoking thin air.
“He might not go to the police,” she said. “I don’t think his pride would let him admit that he’d had a woman followed. And there’s his wife as well — she might find out.”
“Can he risk not going? He won’t know what the police have found in the detective’s office.”
“And Richard is suspicious,” she said, almost as if she were talking to herself. “I’ve been away so often recently. He kept thinking it was another man, but this will make him consider other things. He’s not a fool.” She looked down at her bare feet. “There’s no alternative, is there?” she whispered.
“If he’s eliminated” — the word seemed curiously out of place here — “will the police come to you? How secret is your…?”
“Probably,” she said. She seemed calmer now that the issue was out in the open. “No one really knows, but people at work, they guessed long ago.” She gave him a wintry smile. “This is the point in the movie where someone says it’ll have to look like an accident,” she said, taking another cigarette from his package, her hand visibly shaking. “I’m sorry,” she said between puffs, “but I’ve never killed anyone. I think I should tell you that.”
“I will do it. Do you accept that it has to be done?”
“Yes.” She did. It surprised her how easy it was.
“I’ll need his address. A photograph if you have one. And you’ll have to find out the details of his return trip. He’ll be flying, I suppose?”
“No, he hates flying. He’s taking the train. He was going to call me from Union Station.” She rummaged through a pile of books. “Here’s a photograph. That’s him,” she said, pointing out a tall man in his late thirties standing at the back of the group.
“Who are the others?”
“Colleagues. It was a State Department picnic, last summer. He gave me the picture.” She was businesslike now, her hands steady, her eyes devoid of expression.
He got up, feeling sorry for her, wondering why. She stood by the door, hugging herself tightly while he let himself out.
Rafael Soto threw the remains of his lunch into the water and started to make his way along the dockside to the empty berth. He’d spent the last hour watching the Swedish freighter inch its way through the San Carlos narrows toward Maracaibo; now it was so close that he could make out the captain’s face on the bridge. Gustav Torstensson. Soto’s comrade at the post office had let him see the cable, and Torstensson would soon be learning that he had an extra week for loading the mountains of coffee beans. Doubtless the Swedish crew would be pleased to discover that a fresh consignment of virgins from the interior had just been delivered to the whorehouses on the Ramblas.
Soto took up position some fifty yards from the gangplank and waited for his quarry. He’d been given a description of Sjoberg, but it seemed to fit every seaman he could see. It didn’t matter though. There wasn’t a customs official in Maracaibo who wasn’t willing to help for an extra peso or two.
It was several hours before the crew came ashore, and as they went through the customs shed Soto received the nod he needed. His Swedish comrade was in a group of four men, and he followed them into the town, to a restaurant in the Cathedral Square. After an hour of drinking, the visits to the lavatory began, and Soto introduced himself to Sjoberg as they stood side by side above the stagnant trough. A proper meeting was arranged for the next day.
Kuznetsky watched the passengers from the Boston train stream out into the Penn Station concourse, recognized Richard Lee, and followed him into one of the bars. Richard ordered a whiskey, and from his gestures and the slight slur in his voice, Kuznetsky knew that it wasn’t his first drink of the evening. He ordered one himself but didn’t touch it, smoking a cigarette and taking occasional glances in the bar mirror at his intended victim. He had as yet no idea of how he was going to do it, but that didn’t worry him. It’s for nothing that I seek something more sure than the throw of the dice. That was one thing he hadn’t needed Joszef to teach him.