by Louis Begley
—
Back at the locanda, I stowed my precious bundle in the desk drawer, took a shower, dressed, and went down to breakfast. I was ravenous. By the time I’d finished, it was almost half past nine. Three-thirty in the morning, Scott’s time. Never mind. If he was awake at that hour—as he often was because of calls he had to make to operatives in Europe and the Middle East—he’d answer. I went into the garden and called him. It was as though he’d been expecting me. The first words he uttered were to tell me that, as we had both expected, the examination of the two drop-dead messages I’d FedExed to him yielded nothing.
I’ve got bigger and worse news, I replied, and related the morning’s activities.
You’re out of your fucking mind, he exclaimed when I got to the part where I cut off the guy’s finger.
Let’s say that I was on edge, I replied. Having steel arrows shot at you from a crossbow can have that effect. To be quite serious, though, I wanted to provide the best material for getting this guy identified. I’d really like to know who he is. Another serious question. What do I do now? Go to the Italian police? I don’t particularly want to. I’ve got a flight booked for Tuesday. Do I take it? Part of me wants to stay here, to give whoever it is who sent the guy I killed another go at me. Perhaps I could get the next candidate to talk.
Scott was silent long enough for me to wonder once again whether the call had been dropped. But he was right there, thinking.
Jack, old buddy, he said. You really are nuts. Please understand that you’re in a fix. If you go to the Italian police, I’m almost certain they’ll lock you up while they consider the situation. In fact, your friend’s bosses may have sufficient connections to get you hauled in even now on suspicion of murder. In a couple of hours, they’ll have put two and two together. You know, the guy hasn’t come back, and so forth. The consulate would try to spring you, but I’m not sure they’d succeed, and I’d rather not think of you in an Italian jail, where the people who sent the hit man probably have associates. So that idea is out, and I’m glad you didn’t act on some crazy desire to turn yourself in. Second, the notion that you’d wait for the replacement killer in the hope you’d get him to talk is truly bonkers. How do you know they’d give you a fighting chance? Having botched it on this try, they’d make sure the job was done. Most probably they’d get someone to shoot you. Using a high-powered rifle and a scope. You literally wouldn’t know what hit you. Third, the sequence of events—day one you get the black spot, day two you get the note saying you’re next in line, and day three they send a killer—tells me that Abner, if it really is he, and I’m coming to believe it is, doesn’t plan to fool around. As you and I know, he has ample means to do what he wants.
Yes, I said, I think you’re right.
All right, then, here is what I want you to do. Put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on your door and pack your bags. I don’t want the chambermaid to walk in and see that you are about to fly the coop. When you’ve finished, stay put, in your room, doing whatever you want to do. Knowing you, I suppose you’ll work on your book.
I guess so.
You won’t have much time for it, because one of our people, an operations guy, happens to be in Venice. His name is Blaine. Not exactly an Italian name, but his mother was Italian, and he has spent years working in Italy. He’ll come to get you in a launch. When he arrives at the locanda he’ll ask for you, and when reception calls to announce him you should have him come up. He’ll help you with your bags, and you’ll go downstairs together, check out, get in the launch, which will be tied up right outside, and go to a hotel in Venice. The Gritti, I suppose, since we have a suite there. I suggest you tell the people at the locanda that you’ve changed your plans because of a family problem and are taking the train to Rome. I’m sure they are good people, but whoever is after you probably has an informant in the hotel. Blaine will get you a flight to New York, I hope tomorrow, and in the meantime you can hang out at the hotel. Take your meals in your room, unless Blaine thinks you can go to eat somewhere nearby, for instance Harry’s Bar. In that case, he or one of his colleagues will go with you. And please, don’t call friends. I don’t want anyone except our people to know which flight you’re taking. Information gets out, and I want to get you home safe and sound. Let’s not take chances.
I thanked him. He was the best friend a man could have.
What shall I do with the package? I asked. You know, the money and the finger.
Give it to Blaine. He’ll get it to me.
All right. By the way, I also took pictures of the guy. I’ll email them to you. And I still have the question that bugs me. What’s behind the timing? What’s the rush? Why kill Kerry just then? Why is Brown in such a hurry to get me? You see what I mean.
I do. It’s what we’ve already talked about. We don’t know the reason, but we’ll sure do our best to figure it out. When we do, you’ll probably be on your way to having Abner locked up.
III
You have to give credit where credit is due. The CIA may have fucked up 9/11 and may be royally fucking up the drone program, so that we won’t have one friend left in Afghanistan, on the Arabian Peninsula, or in Southeast Asia, but as a travel agent and concierge it can’t be beat. Blaine got me checked out of the locanda, into the launch, across the lagoon to the Gritti landing on the Grand Canal, and into the Agency’s suite with a celerity and smoothness the likes of which I had never experienced. So far as he was concerned, there was no reason we couldn’t have dinner together at Harry’s Bar. On the late side, if I didn’t mind. My flight the next day was at noon; there’d be no need to pass security or passport control, so it would be sufficient if we left for the airport at a quarter of eleven.
That was just fine with me. We walked the two hundred yards or so to the restaurant followed by the man who had driven the launch. He took a seat at the bar, while we were shown to a table in the unfashionable back room.
I hope you don’t mind, Blaine said very seriously. If you’re in the front room, you’re an easy target for a shooter positioned in the calle. If you’re here, he has to fire from the bar. My friend Heinz would get him first.
I laughed in reply and was relieved when, after a moment of hesitation, Blaine laughed too. He looked all-American, but he sounded all-Italian, the latter due to the Italian mother Scott had mentioned and to four years he had spent in Rome, first at the American Academy and then, still in Rome, at the Sapienza University, studying Etruscan art. Scott had recruited him. He was unmarried and had not regretted for a minute having succumbed to Scott’s blandishments.
Why was he in Venice?
The Adriatic, he said, the Adriatic, just think of it. Venice because of the cruise ships, Mestre and Bari because of the freighters, have become the prime transit points for drugs—a huge wholesale business—for valises packed with cash leaving Italy for destinations in the Balkans, and for arms going in both directions. Normally, this is not our concern, but this traffic is eighty percent or more tied to financing and provisioning international terrorism, and that is where we come in. Some of the time we help the cops catch the smugglers and impound the loot. In more interesting cases we do our own thing. These fellows are even less attractive than the guys we delivered to Guantánamo and Bagram, so you almost never hear about them. Serb, Croat, and Albanian rackets guys and gunmen belonging to Balkan crime families are all over Venice and Mestre like lice. From what Scott has told me, the fellow who tried to kill you may have come from one of those gangs. I don’t think we’ll be able to identify him. These guys are two-bit killers, part-time drug dealers, pimps. Small-time thugs or not, the concept of avenging one of theirs is very strong. That’s why Scott wanted me to take all these precautions, and by the way I agree with him one hundred percent.
I nodded and said I understood and was very grateful.
Hey, he replied, I’ve read your books. You’re really good.
Perhaps he wanted to change the subject; perhaps he was sincere. The fact is I’ve never me
t a novelist who wouldn’t rather talk about his books than anything else. We were still on my most recent published work, the portraits of four of my marine brothers, when Blaine looked at his watch and said I’d better get back to the hotel if I wanted to get a night’s sleep before the trip home.
—
The CIA proved itself just as efficient at JFK as at Marco Polo. I was whisked off the plane and through passport control, where it turned out I didn’t need to show my passport. Apparently my two suitcases hadn’t traveled in the hold with the rest of the luggage.
They’re already in the car, I was told by the large young man in a brown suit who’d been guiding me. I’ll need you to identify them all the same. As soon as you’ve done that, we’ll get going.
The plane had been more than half an hour early, and our exit from JFK must have set some sort of speed record: twenty-seven minutes. I’d be home almost two hours earlier than I had predicted. My housekeeper Jeanette was at the apartment. Having allowed myself to disregard in this one case Scott’s instructions, I’d called her from the Gritti to give her a heads-up that unexpectedly I’d be coming home tomorrow. She was not, however, to plan on working on that account. I’d manage very well, and she should be sure to take her Saturday.
It was a mistake to tell her I was returning and at what time I expected to be home. Of course, she was at the apartment.
Thank the Lord, Captain Jack, she said, hugging me. I’ve been waiting for you and waiting.
She had tea and tea sandwiches and cookies ready and insisted that I sit down and eat. I don’t know what happened to you in that Torcello, she kept repeating, you’re a shadow of yourself, you must have lost twenty pounds! You just don’t know how to take care of yourself, Captain Jack!
My damaged pelvis craved a long immersion in hot water. I assured her that I felt well and that we’d have a big talk once I’d taken a bath and changed my clothes. But she shook her head, and said, Captain Jack, you just have to listen to me now. I’m so scared!
Then let’s talk right now. I led her into the library and had her sit down on the sofa with me.
Captain Jack, she continued, I haven’t been so scared since my Walter was sent to Fallujah in Iraq and I’d watch TV and see all the killing and destruction over there. I’m so scared I’m sick.
Walter was her husband, a master sergeant, whose Humvee was blown sky-high by an IED.
What happened, I asked, taking her hands into mine.
First, Miss Kerry died of an overdose. I didn’t think she was doing drugs. What did she need that shit for?
She covered her mouth and said, Excuse me. Such a sweet young lady, so beautiful, and she loved you so much!
Yes, I said, it’s horrible. I didn’t know about the drugs either.
And now…Do you remember, Captain Jack, maybe four months after Mr. Harry died, just about the time you flew to Texas, a man called and said to tell you how you were dead meat?
Of course I remembered. That was a couple of days after I had visited Abner at his Houston office, accused him of killing both Harry and his secretary, and made him listen to the recording on Harry’s iPhone of the torture and execution of Harry and Harry’s cat by Abner’s hit man Slobo.
I was so scared then I couldn’t sleep until you came home, she continued. Yesterday and this morning another man called and asked for you. When I told him you’re away, he said, Tell him from Jovan: he’s a dead piece of shit.
Once again, she covered her mouth.
That’s all right, I told her. These are rough people, not like you and me.
Twice the same message, Captain Jack!
What does that guy sound like? I asked. Some kind of accent?
Yes sir, a foreigner.
Stop worrying about it, I told her. He doesn’t scare me. He’ll probably call again. If he does, just tell him: Captain Dana says he wants to meet you. That’s all. Once you’ve said that, hang up. Don’t get drawn into a conversation. And if he calls again after you’ve told him that, listen carefully to what he says and, after he’s finished, thank him, hang up, and write down exactly what he said. Don’t argue with the guy; don’t get involved. And if there is a number from which he called in the caller ID, write that down too. If there’s a message, don’t erase it.
There is something else, I continued. After I came back from Texas that time I asked you to be careful about whom you let into the apartment. Remember?
She nodded.
It’s the same deal now. Basically don’t let repairmen or anyone like that into the apartment unless I’m here. Second, don’t let deliverymen into the kitchen unless you recognize them as someone you know who’s been making deliveries regularly. If they’re new and I’m not at home, tell the elevator man you want the delivery held downstairs until I come back. All right? And now I’m going to take that bath.
Yes sir, she answered. I have a nice cold dinner set out for you on the kitchen counter, and if you want something hot there is some pea soup, just the way you like, ready to be heated up.
I soaked for a long time, fighting the desire to doze off, feeling the soreness recede. When I finally got out and dried myself, I decided I wasn’t going to shave or dress. Instead, I put on a sweatsuit and remained barefoot. It felt good to be home. Just as I imagined, Jeanette had unpacked my suitcases, taken the dirty laundry, and put away the rest of my clothes in the closet and chest of drawers far more neatly than I would have managed. She’d found my switchblade and set it down in the precise center of my night table. Seeing it there made me think that, what with Jovan sending those friendly greetings, it wouldn’t hurt to have the .45 handy. I took it and a package of twenty rounds out of the safe. I didn’t think I’d be dealing with Jovan or his colleagues in my bedroom. A more central location seemed indicated. I put the gun, the ammo, and the knife into the right-hand desk drawer in the library. Then I poured myself a triple shot of bourbon, added a couple of ice cubes, found a tin of cashews, and called Scott and thanked him for making Blaine’s travel agency available.
He treated you right? Scott laughed.
Like precious human cargo, I replied. He’s great.
That’s good. It’s wonderful to have you back, old buddy.
You bet, I replied, and asked, What about the finger and the photo, are they any use? Is there any progress on any front?
No progress at all, he replied. Fingerprint and DNA databases are great if you’re dealing with someone who has a record. The guy on Torcello hasn’t any. There is a one-in-a-million chance that the photo will lead us somewhere. But one never knows. Serendipity is a great operating principle.
And Abner Brown?
Apart from the political front where he’s riding high, you mean? No, his companies are defending a dozen or more lawsuits and enforcement actions by various state and federal regulatory authorities, spending tons of money—but what does he care—and they’ve lost some. Huge fines, loss of licenses, and so forth. But nothing close to what it would take to cripple him or his businesses. There is a federal grand jury that has been impaneled in secret right here in Alexandria, in my own backyard, that’s looking into Abner’s personal involvement in money laundering and violations of international sanctions. This is very serious stuff, and it does aim right at the jugular. The jury’s been at it for some time. The proceedings are secret, but we do our best to follow them for the obvious reason—a possible tie to terrorist organizations—but I’m not aware of anything new happening there. We need to get together all the same, not just because we love you, but because we need to figure out how you should cope with what seems a very serious threat against you, and whether and how that connects with Brown. Will you come to Alexandria tomorrow or the next day? Please stay with us. Susie would love it.
A sickening sense of frustration came over me.
Scott, I said, give me a couple of days. I realize that we know nothing about what had been happening to Kerry. What was going on in her head. The answer to the puzzle—anyway a part of the
puzzle—may be right there. I think that before I come to see you I should talk to some people here, especially Moses Cohen. He’s my lawyer, I got him through Kerry, and it turns out that he was her lawyer as well and is the executor of her estate. I’d like to know what he knows and thinks. I can’t bother him on Saturday—he’s Orthodox, for Christ’s sake—or on Sunday because he’s got small children, but I’ll try to get hold of him first thing Monday morning. There is also Simon Lathrop. Kerry was working full-time for the law firm. I’d like to see what information can be gathered there. And I’d like to give this guy Jovan an opportunity to show his face.
