“When will you be back …?” Füelm called, but McGarvey had spun on his heel and hurried to the back of the shop, into a tiny storeroom and book-repair area. He opened the alley door and looked outside. A delivery truck was parked near the east end, but in the opposite direction he was in time to see two young girls with the umbrella whom he had passed on the stairs below his apartment, coming up from the corner. They spotted him and immediately turned and disappeared back the way they had come.
There was more than one team! It meant they had been at his house. They had been watching him, without him detecting it. For how long? Long enough to have a handle on his routine.
He stepped out of the doorway and raced down the alley, the cobblestones slippery in the rain. He reached the narrow side street that led to the broad Avenue d’Ouchy. The girls were just crossing the street and he had to hurry not to lose them in the heavy traffic, nearly getting run over by a bus as he crossed.
He caught up with them as they waited for the light to change on the Avenue de la Gare across from the Victoria Hotel. He put his hand in his coat pocket, his fingers curling around the Walther’s grip.
At a distance the girls had seemed very young. Close up he could see that they were at least in their late twenties. For a moment or two they just looked at him without saying a word. He felt silly. He was on a fool’s errand. He was tired, hung over, and was still feeling a lot of guilt about what he had done last night to Marta. He was chasing after hobgoblins now.
He turned and looked the way he had come as the man in the tan mack came around the corner. The van came up behind him and slowed down.
McGarvey turned back, suddenly angry. It had not been his imagination. The girls were staring at him. Across the avenue the man with the dark coat was watching them. His right hand was in his pocket.
“We mean you no harm, Mr. McGarvey,” one of the girls said. Her face was round, her nose tiny, her eyes a pretty blue.
There were a lot of pedestrians around them, waiting for the light to change, indifferent to everything except the nasty weather and getting to where they were going.
“Please. We wanted contact with you, without alerting the Swiss authorities.”
“For what purpose?” McGarvey asked. His adrenaline was pumping, he could feel his heightened awareness, the tensing of his muscles. The tan mack was holding back. The van passed through the intersection, then pulled into a parking space in front of the hotel.
“There is someone who wishes to speak with you. We have gone through great effort,” the other girl said. The hair sticking out from beneath her scarf was red. Her eyes were wide, and there were freckles on her nose and cheeks. For some reason McGarvey thought of the German word for freckles … sommersprossen.
“I don’t understand,” he said. If they meant to harm him, he was cornered on three sides. But they had left him an escape route: east along the Avenue de la Gare. If they were driving him, the assassin would be waiting somewhere out ahead. The erratic behavior of a field man apparently on the run will tumble the best laid plans. Wasn’t that the drill? But it had been a lot of years.
He glanced again at the tan mack. That’d be the direction. Through the back door.
“Please, sir,” the blue-eyed girl said. “Just listen, that’s all. It’s Mr. Trotter. John Trotter. You were old friends.”
A bus rattled by, exhaust fumes rising up into the cold drizzle. The freckled girl was getting nervous. Trotter, here? Why?
“We can’t stand here like this,” Freckles said.
“Mr. Trotter is waiting in the van in front of the hotel,” the other girl said.
“Why didn’t he telephone?”
“Your girlfriend is Swiss police, didn’t you know?”
“He could have called at the store …” McGarvey started, but he had an idea what was coming next.
“Liese Fuelm is also Swiss police, assigned to watch you.”
Christ, he thought. He glanced across the avenue to where the van was parked. Someone in a light raincoat had gotten out. He was tall and very thin. He wore no hat. From here McGarvey could see the glasses, the very large nose. There was no mistaking who it was. But why here, like this? What did they want?
He was coming down, his anxiety that he was finally being flushed turning to anger. “I’m out of the business,” he snapped.
“He would just like to talk to you, sir,” the one with the freckles said.
The light was changing. McGarvey suddenly pivoted to the right and skipped across the street, traffic surging angrily behind him, momentarily cutting off the two girls and leaving the tan mack on the opposite side of the street.
Trotter raised his hand, as if in greeting, and McGarvey had the feeling he was back ten years. Trotter had been pretty good at what he did in operations, and although they had never worked directly with each other they had liaised from time to time.
McGarvey glanced back. The girls were gone, as were the tan mack and the man in the dark raincoat. He pulled up short.
“Hello, Kirk,” Trotter said.
“What do you want?”
“We’ll stop so that you can telephone the bookstore and Marta. I don’t want them looking for you,” Trotter said. He seemed somewhat agitated. “You’ll be back in time for dinner.”
Trotter had changed a lot. There was gray in his hair, and his glasses seemed thicker. He used to worry about losing his eyesight. But more than that was the change in his face. He was a different man. Older than his years. Worry. Stress. It was all there.
“Are you back with the Company?”
“The bureau. We need your help, Kirk.”
McGarvey shook his head. “I’m out of the business, you know that. Coming here was a waste of your time.”
“Just listen to us, it’s all we want. No strings attached. I absolutely promise it. You have my word. On my honor.”
“Who is the ‘we’?”
“Someone from Justice, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. He wasn’t much of a power when you were around. Name of Len Day. He’s a deputy attorney general.”
“Here in Switzerland to see me?”
Trotter nodded. “Honestly, Kirk, we do need your help. You can turn it down after you’ve listened, but at least give us that much.”
“Who suggested me?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
Trotter looked away, his eyes narrowed. He took off his glasses, which were dripping with rain, and rubbed his eyes. “It’s getting strange out there, Kirk,” he said, as if he were taking great care with his words. He put his glasses on and turned back. “I know you can be trusted. In fact, it’s why you got the ax. You were too damned honest.”
“That was then. How do you know what I’ve become in the meantime?” McGarvey asked. This was all so odd. He felt as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope at his life.
Trotter smiled. Shook his head. “Oh, no, Kirk, you haven’t changed. Of that, at least, I am certain.”
4
They had stopped at a gas station outside fashionable du Mont Blanc on the scenic route to Morges, so that McGarvey could telephone Füelm at the bookstore and Marta at the apartment. Fuelm was understanding, but Marta was hurt that he wanted to go off by himself for the day. He could tell from her voice that she thought he was still angry from last night. But in the end she accepted his explanation that he simply wanted to be alone with his own thoughts, to work out his problem his own way without the pressure of the shop and so that he wouldn’t be able to hurt her again. In any event, McGarvey thought, she was in no position to come after him. Short of turning out the federal police and issuing an all-points bulletin, what could she do? He and Trotter sat in the back of the van while the taciturn driver concentrated on traffic. Most of the others on Trotter’s team would make their way down to the airport in Geneva. Now that McGarvey was in the bag, they were done and could return home. Trotter couldn’t explain how he came to know Marta and Liese were Swiss police, and for a while McGarvey toyed with the idea that he was under arrest for the business in Chile. But something about his old friend didn’t seem to gel, and he began to get the feeling that something was about to happen that he wasn’t going to like.