by Dick Rosano
Seeing the process completed, I raised the paper out of the sink and laid it gently onto a clean towel. With the hair dryer, I dried the paper and then appraised my work.
There were ghosts of writing on the sheet but, other than my name, nothing was legible. Perfect.
When it was fully dry, I folded the doctored paper into a standard business trifold, inserted it into an envelope from the front desk, and left the hotel in the direction of DFR.
It was afternoon and the sun was high. I didn’t need more than a light jacket and enjoyed walking the several blocks to the bank.
Once I arrived, I headed straight for Eichner’s office. Chinh saw me cross the lobby and I worried at first that he wouldn’t like me to return so quickly. But, again, I felt that time was of the essence and so I chose to move ahead.
Eichner stood when I rapped on his door. Approaching me with a smile, he pulled the door open and I entered.
“I have an important paper that I would like to secure in my box. It documents the transfer of the funds to your bank and I would rather not have it exposed, so I thought you wouldn’t mind that I brought it here.”
“Certainly,” he replied. As I expected, his face brightened when I spoke of the transfer, so he walked me out of the office and down the steps. I assumed that Eichner kept the keys in his pocket, so I wasn’t surprised that he did not have to retrieve them from some other place.
After getting through the gate in the anteroom to the vault and turning left toward the secure door, I waited while Eichner keyed the locks and pushed the door open. Once inside, I stepped toward the bank of drawers and wondered how I was going to decipher which four drawers belonged to Americans. Before arriving at the bank, I had taken Chinh’s four keys out of the envelope so that I didn’t have to juggle them in front of Eichner. I had scratched a cut in the top of my own key so that I could distinguish it by touch, allowing me to fish out the right key from my pocket and avoid raising suspicions.
I stared for a moment at the wall and hoped that Eichner would turn his attention away. When he didn’t, I resigned myself to only entering my own drawer. Fingering the small collection of keys in my pocket, I picked out the one that belonged to me and pulled it from my pocket – along with one other. If Eichner turned at all, or showed any inattention even for a few seconds, I wanted to be able to try the other key in a few drawers. But he stared straight ahead at me, standing slightly to my left side, so he could view all of my actions. I palmed the other key and lifted mine to my fingertips, unlocked the box, and slipped the envelope with my document into it. Closing the door, I heard the lock click, and looked over at Eichner.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s it.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
April 19
Barfly’s The Original
It was Friday night and I knew I couldn’t get anything done at this hour. So, I was surprised at the incoming call on my phone, the one with a blocked number, just as I was finishing up my dinner snack in the Marriott restaurant.
“Darren,” I heard a voice say. It was Alana. Nice surprise, I thought.
“Are you free?” she asked.
“Depends on whether you’re going to haul me into the station or take me out for a drink.
Gentle laughter on the other end.
“The drink idea sounds much better.”
“Okay, where?”
“Have you ever been to Barfly’s?”
“No, but I bet I can find it,” I said.
“Meet me there in half an hour.”
“Sure.”
I hailed a taxi outside the hotel and told him to take me to Barfly’s. It was obscure enough that the cabbie hadn’t heard of it, so I googled it on my phone and showed him the screen. He squinted at the display, then nodded, and pulled away from the curb.
Barfly’s, as it turns out, is properly called Barfly’s The Original. Some Viennese know it by the last two words, some by the first name. But once the cabbie saw the directions on the screen, he figured it out.
After negotiating the traffic for about fifteen minutes, he pulled to the left-hand curb on this one-way street, waving at the doorway of a hotel just a few feet back from the street. I paid him and hopped out to stare at the building.
The entrance and hallway of this classic old hotel set the tone for an intimate meeting. The Hotel Fürst Metternich has been around for more than a century, but like the elegant ladies of old, it retains its grace while clinging to pretensions of a youthful past. Barfly’s is a few steps off the lobby, hidden in a darkened corridor toward the back of the building; I made my way there by following the subtle glimmer of dimmed lights that led to that private space.
Alana sat at the bar, chatting amiably with the bartender. He looked up at me as I approached, and she paused halfway through her sentence to turn in my direction. She balanced a martini glass between the fingers of her left hand and smiled at me as I lowered myself onto the stool beside her.
“Lorenzo,” she said turning to the bartender and waving her glass at him. “I’ll take another, but this guy wants wine.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her faint attempt to cast aspersions on my preference for wine. Lorenzo looked like a guy who preferred the creative practice of mixing cocktails for regulars rather than just pouring wine for newcomers. But Alana came to my defense and assured me that Lorenzo would not treat me as an outsider.
“What are you having?” I asked her.
“A wet martini.”
“Never heard of it,” I replied as Lorenzo handed me a short bar list of the wine options. “Why wet?”
“A little more vermouth,” he interjected, “unlike Americans’ preference for very dry martinis.”
Lorenzo had picked up a tall, straight-sided glass that he cradled in his left hand and he pointed a spray bottle at it with his right. I guessed that the sprayer contained vermouth, which he proceeded to spray on all the inner surfaces of the glass. After contenting himself that the glass was completely covered with a thin layer of vermouth, he poured the vodka in, added some ice, and swirled the cubes round and round to chill the drink. Then he fitted the strainer over the top of the glass and poured the icy cold liquid into a clean martini glass for Alana. Not needing instructions from her – she seemed to be quite the regular customer – Lorenzo speared an olive and laid it gently into the glass before sliding it over to Alana.
“Quite a production,” I said, drawing a grin from Lorenzo, and reminding me why a professional of his stature enjoyed a performance, and the opportunities for it came with cocktail mixing, not wine drinking.
“I’ll have the Château Lascombes,” I said, and Lorenzo retreated from the bar to get the bottle.
“What was it like?” Alana asked when we were alone.
“What do you mean?”
“Your work. In Afghanistan.”
I had to think for a moment before answering. She may have gleaned this from the records without necessarily finding out my real name. I had to be careful.
“Work in a war zone, in my kind of work, is always the same. Doesn’t matter if it’s Afghanistan, Vietnam, wherever.”
“What was your kind of work?” she asked.
Again, I had to pause before replying. My true identity is buried deep in the records, but somehow, she may have stumbled upon it. I could dissemble and deny, but that would distract the conversation; plus, she’d probably pick up on it. I had come to know over my years as Darren Priest that sometimes it was best not to protest in these situations. Instead, the conversation should carefully deflect and not add any more details.
I glanced over at Alana who was studying the glass in her hand, but her smile made it clear that she knew I was looking.
My work in Operation Best Guess was very unusual. Off the books, some would say, but not unethical or unpatriotic. I didn’t want to go into all the history of my career as an interrogator, so I changed the subject.
“I thought you invited me here to buy me a drink,” I p
rotested.
“Sorry, professional habit. I’ll stop. How was your day?”
That was a tricky one. My day had been eventful but filled with the same details that would lead us back to business. I had to find a way to avoid that and just enjoy an evening out with a pretty lady.
“Nothing special. If you want more details, just ask your guys who were following me.”
Fortunately, Lorenzo had just produced the wine and poured me a glass, so we could move on to other things.
“How did you get involved in police work?”
“My husband was police. I met him and fell in love with his work.”
“And fell in love with him?”
She huffed and smiled.
“Some loves last longer than others.”
I looked at her hand again, just in case I had missed something when I checked it out earlier. Nope, no ring there.
“You’re an inspector, right?” I asked.
“Yes. It seems that I have a knack for extracting information from people.”
I almost dropped the wine glass when she said that. Her comment – especially if based in truth – was too close to my background. I had to laugh, though. She couldn’t know about Best Guess. Could she? But it made me raise my guard a little.
“Why are you so interested in Gerhardt Eichner?” she asked.
“Not him, necessarily,” I replied. “Just the activities at DFR.”
“Do I have to remind you that we don’t like outsiders snooping around in our city? Particularly when it involves our financial sector?”
“Even if it involves non-Austrians?”
Alana sipped her martini and considered that question.
“Do you mean Americans, or just non-Austrians?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Just asking,” she replied.
The conversation wound around to other topics for a while, Vienna in the spring, the series of Mozart concerts, her favorite spot in the park – I had nice visuals of Alana relaxing on the grass of Stadtpark. But now and then, we returned to banking, Eichner, and the files on my computer.
“That was so disturbing,” she said after mentioning the snuff film.
I nodded.
“So, this guy – whom I might add – you already know. I’m going to get to that later. So, this guy has sex with the prostitute, then strangles her. Films it, then loads the video clip onto your computer.”
She didn’t trick me into responding to her “you already know” comment.
“To frame me,” was all I said.
I couldn’t miss Alana sneaking another peek at my left hand – for a tattoo, not a ring. She had already examined it, but the video was so alarming that she couldn’t avoid suspicion.
“Alright, let’s put this together,” she began, swinging around on the barstool to face me. “Why would this guy want to frame you. And, by the way, Darren, who is he?”
“It’s hard to say…”
“Stop it. Cut the bullshit,” she interrupted. “You know what that film shows is a violent crime, and that by not alerting the authorities about whom you suspect as having committed it, you are harboring a criminal.”
“From what set of laws?” I asked.
“From criminal law,” she said with raised voice. “Jesus, Darren, from natural law!”
“No, that’s not what I meant. How do you know that crime was committed in your city, or even your country? Under whose set of laws?”
Alana was quiet for a moment, then looked at me again.
“Let me put it this way. Regardless of where the crime was committed, if the person you suspect is in Vienna, you must tell me.”
“How would I know who did it? Believe me, I want to get my laptop back, too. But how would I know who took it?”
“You asked about a tattoo.”
“No, I didn’t.” Alana’s error in detail surprised me. “I asked about identifying characteristics.”
“Okay, identifying characteristics. What about that tattoo we saw on the guy’s left wrist?”
“It was barely a tiny line. Should we round up all the people in Vienna who have some portion of a tattoo on their hands?”
“You know, Darren, sometimes you piss me off.”
I laughed.
“Well, I’m glad I can stir some emotion in you.”
Alana smacked me on the arm, but still smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
April 19
Bethesda
“Hold it!” Raul said, holding up his hand to get Pitch’s attention. Raul was standing at the edge of the trench that his backhoe operator was digging.
Pitch yanked on the handle with his right hand, tipping the bucket out of the dirt then pulling back on the other handle with his left hand to raise the boom and bucket up from the ground.
“Whatsa matter?” he shouted over the noise of the motor.
Raul’s hand remained in the air as he studied the freshly turned dirt just below the bucket.
“Swing that thing away for a sec,” he told Pitch, waving his hand away to make his point. Pitch pushed the left lever to the right and away from where Raul was standing.
The foreman stepped lightly into the shallow channel at his feet and reached down to retrieve a dirty, brown-covered book. He brushed off some dirt, flipped through some of the brittle pages, then stepped out of the hole. Raul once more raised his hand to make sure Pitch didn’t resume work yet, and walked over to his truck, tossing the book into the open bed behind the cabin among the detritus of other jobs. Anytime a construction crew found something in the ground that didn’t belong, they kept it. Might have something of archeological interest to the school where they were working. Otherwise, Raul thought, probably just a school notebook from some kid who was expressing his disgust for English Lit by throwing it away.
“Looks old,” he thought to himself with one last glance at the truck bed.
Walking back over to Pitch and his machine, he waved for work to resume, and he took up his position once more at the edge of the trench.
When the crew broke for lunch in the shade of the broad trees that covered this edge of the campus, conversation turned to the recent find.
“What is it?” Pitch asked.
“Just a book,” Raul said. “Some kinda notebook. Scribbling. You know.”
“Was it in English?”
“No, you jerk,” offered Haley, one of the laborers. “It was in ‘Rich Kid,’” she said with air quotes, and they all shared a laugh. This school was very private, and the doors to its hallowed halls only opened to the Washington area families who had money. Position and social status might be important too, but private schools like this one wouldn’t pass up its high tuition just to favor some senator’s son or daughter. The school bragged in retrospect about the high rank that its alumni achieved later in life, but the school would collect its pound of flesh first and let the little rich kids follow their egos on their own after high school.
So, ‘Rich Kid’ became a reference to the language these kids spoke. Not high rhetoric to be sure but riddled with inside jokes and code words.
“Don’t bust on these kids,” Faheem said, biting off a mouthful of his sandwich. He was another one of the laborers, a man who had managed to age in the construction trade with his dignity and personality intact. He worked hard every day of his life and, although he didn’t have one percent of the money these BMW-driving teenagers did, he wasn’t going to disparage them for their accident of birth either.
“Just some ol’ book,” he said, repeating Raul’s comment.
The contents of the lunch boxes were done before the thirty-minute break was, so the four crew members remained in the shade of the tree a while longer. Most of their conversation during these interludes turned to family events. Two of the three men were married, as was Haley, the only woman on their team. Faheem had been married but lost his wife to cancer two years before. His kids were spread all over the country; he had worked hard and ma
de sure they all went to college, so careers took them away from him and Rita. But as she slipped from good health to frailty, their daughter moved back home, and the two boys followed suit over the next twelve months. They gathered together as a family and remained together as a family after their mother passed away, buying homes near their dad’s in Prince Georges County. Losing Rita was the hardest thing that Faheem ever had to experience, but getting his kids back home made it a little easier on him.
Another few moments of idle talk and Raul zipped shut his insulated lunch box, a sign everyone took as the call to return to work. They were the front crew, the small team that pre-stages the construction project by outlining the site and – along with a micro-managing architect – laying out the general footprint of the building. The school’s administrators had chosen a wooded area just to the west of the main campus for the new wing despite arguments from benefactors and alumni who cherished this cluster of ancient trees. It was time for the art collection that had adorned the walls of the school library and administration offices to have a home of its own, and so the old trees would fall to allow Pitch to dig long trenches that slashed across the soft grass and fertile undergrowth of the forest. Later, an elegant stone path would guide wealthy families to the multi-million-dollar donors’ collection of American and European art and these families would guarantee the school’s future and its elite status by paying for their sons and daughters to attend classes here.
The rumbling sound of the backhoe’s diesel engine started quickly and drowned out the natural sounds of whistling birds and leaves rustling in the gentle breeze. Before long, the crew of four was back at work. Raul stepped to the edge of the trench Pitch was now lowering the bucket into as Haley and Faheem returned to the flatbed truck to carry poles, flags, and other materials to outline the building according to plan. The architect was not on the site, but he would likely stop by on his trip home that evening, so Raul wanted to show that they had made progress in his absence.
