Going for the Gold

by Emma Lathen

  “Just watch it with the refrigerator,” Hathaway advised. “I think that’s where the tellers keep their beer.”

  Gabler was impatient with these jocular preliminaries. “I am not altogether clear about your system,” he said, leaving no uncertainty as to whose fault that was.

  But he had fallen into the hands of a man who reserved his real enthusiasm for work. Domestic jokes were a concession by Wes Milliken to the social niceties. He asked nothing better than to elaborate his methods.

  “Of course, we start with general questions. You have to. But on a real slick job, that never helps. Take this situation here in Lake Placid. Most of the depositors begin by saying they can’t remember a thing. This is the busiest two weeks they’re going to have in their whole lives. It’s standing room only and waiting in line and temporary help everywhere. All they know is the amount they deposited. They don’t have a record of denominations or currencies, let alone the names of customers.”

  His audience nodded gloomily. They had all been in Lake Placid long enough to know what the gift shops looked like during business hours.

  “So,” said Milliken with unimpaired gusto, “we really get down to cases. We’ve got an index card for every piece of counterfeit, every depositor, and every name appearing as a payee on a Eurocheck. We start working on every single item, with as much cross-referencing as we need. When you ask specific questions, you’re more likely to get answers. Now, I’m not claiming most of it isn’t junk but, if you keep at it long enough, the anomalies start popping up. And that’s the way you break these setups every time, with the itsy-bitsy little pieces that don’t quite jibe.”

  He had ground to a halt, breathless with the excitement he himself was generating. Thatcher reminded himself to thank the unlucky Quarles back on Wall Street. Quarles might resent having his department raided, but he had given of his best.

  “And you’ve found one of these anomalies?” Thatcher suggested.

  “Two of them.” Milliken beamed at them. “Tell me how this sounds to you. There’s this little restaurant, way to hell and gone. Why in God’s name they should be fussier than all the places where you can really run up a tab, I’ll never understand. But the Pepper Pot is absolutely certain about its routine. They never accepted one Eurocheck without passport identification. Now, what do you make of that?”

  He had hurled the challenge at Hathaway, and Hathaway, after a moment’s frowning thought, responded. “It means we’ve got a lot of innocent people passing phonies. But we already knew that. There was never any guarantee that Bisson’s bunch were the only charters who were sold pups right from the start.”

  “Ah ha!” Milliken cried in triumph. “I knew you’d say that. But listen to what else we’ve come up with. And that’s without getting to the problem of how you persuade a lot of innocents to pass on the same day. We’ve started talking to the only payees we can identify, the athletes. Well, a German kid hit the roof when one of my boys told him he’d passed a hundred-mark fake. Seems when you talked to him you didn’t tell him the denomination. This kid swears he wasn’t carrying anything but 200-mark checks. How’s that for confusion?”

  Hathaway shook his head as if it were buzzing. “That one’s harder,” he admitted. “I can only think of one explanation. We’ve got proof that Bisson was careless, and we know he was switching checks in Olympic Village. If he’d make a mistake with his own money, I suppose it’s conceivable he didn’t match denominations.”

  “We thought of that one, too,” Milliken said approvingly, “but it gets better as it goes on. The kid remembered where he spent money that day and we got hold of the place. There’s a clerk who’s almost sure she remembers him.”

  Thatcher did not normally stop the train when it was going where he wanted, but this was so implausible he had to question it. “A clerk in a Lake Placid store says she remembers a transaction five days later? Surely that is suspect. Are you sure she isn’t lying?”

  Milliken was smug. “She says she doesn’t often sell an American Indian headdress to a German.”

  Even Gabler, constitutionally more suspicious than Thatcher, was silenced by this reasoning.

  “Mind you, she won’t swear to anything until she gets a chance to see the guy,” Milliken cautioned, “but this is the way she tells it. If this is the customer she remembers, he bought a headdress for $85. What’s more, and this is the point she’s convinced on, he paid with only one Eurocheck.”

  Three bankers who had the foreign exchange quotes at their fingertips did rapid sums. It was left for Everett to state the obvious.

  “A 100 mark check would only have been north about $54 dollars. He would have had to present two. Therefore the German boy is accurate.”

  It took more than simple arithmetic to rouse Thatcher. “Good God, that means the substitution took place after the check was at the store. That introduces a whole new dimension to the problem.”

  As the implications came home to Gabler, he automatically became censorious. “And you haven’t arranged a personal meeting between this German and the girl. Good heavens, why not?”

  Milliken, too sure of himself to be intimidated, grinned broadly. “Because she hasn’t been plowed out. But we’ll get to her tomorrow. We’ve got to. She’s beading back to Squaw Valley the minute the Games are over.”

  “Don’t worry, Everett, we’ll pin this one down if we have to resort to your snowmobile,” Thatcher reassured his subordinate before returning to Milliken. “You certainly seem to be stirring the coals to some purpose. Has anything else come to light?”

  “Not yet, but I like the way things are going. I’ve got my boys doing this by currency. They’re finishing up German marks today. Then they’ll go on to French francs, then Swiss francs. If that doesn’t flush anything, I’ll have them—”

  His comprehensive plans were interrupted by the entrance of a subordinate.

  “Sorry to butt in, Wes, but the IOC is on the phone. They’re trying to locate Mr. Withers.”

  Thatcher’s head came up. “So they still haven’t found him,” he mused. “I’m afraid we can’t help.”

  “They say it’s very important.”

  “I’ll bet they do,” caroled a new voice. Another shirt-sleeved tabulator had appeared. “I just caught the news. It seems the Swiss team has kidnapped the head of the IOC, and they’ve got him hanging in a cable car.”

  “Good God, so that’s what he had in mind,” exclaimed Thatcher, unconsciously reverting to his last sight of Bernard Heise.

  “These crazy kids,” marveled Milliken. “There’s no telling what they’ll be up to next.” He was a man of infinite tolerance, except when it came to counterfeiting.

  The man who had delivered the telephone message was one of the world’s worriers. “I guess the IOC wants Mr. Withers to go over there and take charge, but they’ll just have to get along without him.”

  Thatcher and Everett glanced at each other. Before junior members of the Sloan, Gabler’s discipline held firm.

  John Thatcher was made of weaker stuff.

  “Thank God,” he said, “that whatever Brad’s up to, he’s not doing it in front of television cameras.”

  Chapter 16

  Venus Rising

  BUT while the IOC and the Sloan straggled along without his guidance, Bradford Withers had been overtaken, not to say overwhelmed, by stirring events that were to make their own headlines. Fate had planted him at the skating arena and, for the first hour, he was innocently occupied watching the women’s finals.

  Vera Darskaya, in red, skated off the ice with an impressive score and an armful of roses. Suzanne Deladier, in white, skated on. Chopin replaced the rock beat that had reminded Brad of happy hours at the disco. But always the gentleman and sportsman, he applauded Suzanne’s classic perfection as warmly as he had applauded Vera’s vibrant fire. Then, like the rest of the audience, he puzzled over the elaborate scoring system until the computer’s decision.

  The gold medal was awarded
to Vera Darskaya of the Soviet Union.

  Suffused in satisfaction, Brad rose. The thrill of individual triumph, the electric response of the gallery, even the poignant droop of Suzanne Deladier’s shoulders, all combined to produce that intoxicating distillate of Olympic victory which was a pleasure to inhale. And then . . .

  “Mr. Wither-r-r-s! Br-r-adfor-r-d!”

  Vera Darskaya, after descending from the platform, had not gone to the dressing room or withdrawn to the sidelines to hold court. She was standing beneath the IOC box, looking up at Withers expectantly.

  Puzzled, he reached into his social armory. “Let me be among the first to wish you—”

  She interrupted him ruthlessly. “I have considered what you spoke of last night. And now I am acclaimed as a gold medalist, I have decided to go forward!”

  Withers, with only the foggiest memory of the previous evening, laboriously dredged up a pertinent detail. “I said you’d be wonderful with the Ice Follies. And if you come over for an engagement, I’m sure you’ll be a great success,” he added kindly.

  “An engagement! Bah!” She dismissed this suggestion at once. “You said that I required creative amplitude, that I could never develop my talents in spiritual fetters.”

  A gentleman does not contradict a lady, but Withers was fairly confident that he had never used these phrases in his life. Furthermore, if her present performance was any guide, he had never gotten a word in edgewise. He stared at her in mounting horror.

  “I am defecting, Br-r-adfor-r-d! I place myself under your protection.”

  His senses reeled.

  “I cannot live without artistic freedom! I am . . .”

  Vera Darskaya’s voice, ringing with Slavic emotion, had attracted a cloud of bystanders—Olympic stewards, Russian coaches, scavenging journalists. Last, and most reluctant, was the IOC delegate from the U.S.S.R. His attempt to slink out of the building had been foiled by his countrymen.

  “Here is Boris Ivanov,” cried the coaches. “He will handle this matter.”

  “Oh, no I won’t,” he said instantly. “It is not within my jurisdiction.”

  Withers was quick to seize his cue. “Well, it isn’t in mine either,” he rejoined.

  They glared at each other.

  But not for long. As the final cap to their discomfiture, the public address system sprang to life. “Please! We must clear the ice for the pairs events. I must remind the gallery once more against obstructing the skating surface.”

  There was nothing for it but to move the whole roiling mess backstage, where Withers and Boris Ivanov joined forces in the decision to saddle Anthony Melville with the problem. The plan was splendid, but its implementation proved impossible. The IOC office, wrapped in total confusion, had not informed the girl on incoming calls that a search for missing delegates was in progress. She, under instructions, intoned repressively, “Mr. Melville is not available at the moment.”

  “Damn the fellow. You can never lay hands on him when you want him,” said Withers, blissfully unaware that the clever Swiss had just pulled off that feat.

  Boris Ivanov refused to admit defeat. “This is a matter for the civil authorities,” he announced. “Let us deliver her to them.”

  By now Brad was ready to clutch at any straw. Vera Darskaya was hanging heavily on his arm, in spite of all his efforts to detach her.

  “Town Hall!” he blurted. “It’s just across the street.”

  So, with Brad and his barnacle leading the way, the parade reformed. They were not received warmly at their destination.

  “Who do you people think you’re dealing with? Los Angeles?” raved a selectman. “We’re just a little town. Our whole Police Department and Fire Department is out at Whiteface because of your president. And that’s another thing. Why do you call out our one hook-and-ladder when somebody’s trapped hundreds of feet in the air? What good is that supposed to do?”

  “Do you mean that Melville is trapped somewhere?” Boris Ivanov asked with a passing flicker of interest.

  In Town Hall, Anthony Melville was the man who had exacerbated the ticket debacle. The selectman’s account of the Whiteface travail was short and pithy.

  “Well, that’s too bad,” said Brad dismissively. “No doubt they’ll get him down sometime. But right now we have to figure out what to do about Miss Darskaya.”

  “Not with us you don’t!”

  Vera Darskaya’s faith never flagged. She squeezed Withers’ arm warmly. “I rely on you completely, Bradford,” she trilled with a radiant smile.

  Withers turned into a pillar of stone.

  Fortunately, Boris Ivanov had been well grounded in the intricacies of American local government before takeoff. “The State of New York?” he suggested, escalating a notch. “Let us communicate with them.”

  The radiant smile had brought a reporter forward. “Miss Darskaya, will you tell our readers what made you decide to seek asylum?”

  “I would never have thought of it myself,” she began obligingly. “But last night—”

  “And we’ll call John Thatcher, too,” said Withers desperately.

  It had suddenly occurred to him how all this was going to look to his wife, Carrie.

  He was luckier than he deserved. Vera Darskaya was strictly a local sensation. Partly this was because the TV footage on Anthony Melville was already being processed, partly because of the weather. North America’s return to the Ice Age was a hard story to beat. Mostly, however, it was because of the law of diminishing returns. Russian poets, cellists, and intellectuals been flinging themselves at the waiting world at too heady a pace.

  Even in Olympic Village, where athletes eddying home from Whiteface and the Arena were bringing the latest news, they were more interested in Vera’s performance on ice than off.

  “Suzanne skated beautifully,” said her youngest teammate with grave loyalty. “It was just that Darskaya was better. Her elevation was fantastic. And her turns—”

  Carlo Antonelli tried to curb his impatience. “Yes, I was there, Odette. I saw for myself. But what I want TO KNOW is, where is Suzanne now? I tried to find her at Arena.”

  “She slipped away early,” Odette piped. “And wasn’t “And wasn’t in exciting about Vera going off with that American?”

  Although he knew he was dealing with a child, Carlo could not help asking, “Was Suzanne very upset?”

  Odette turned large uncomprehending eyes on him. “Suzanne? She was all right. And even Mademoiselle Gautier says that the judges had no choice.”

  Carlo was fighting the temptation to shake her when an alternative presented itself. Katarina Maas, suitcase in hand, was sweeping by.

  “Thank you, Odette,” he said hurriedly. “If you see Suzanne, please tell her I am looking for her. Now, excuse me . . . Katarina!”

  Katarina paused. “Isn’t she a little young even for you, Carlo?” she said, with nothing at all uncomprehending about her eyes.

  He flushed angrily. “I am looking for Suzanne and I simply wanted to ask if you had seen her,” he said, regretting his impulse to hail her.

  “Oh?” she said. “I thought you might want to know why I am leaving, or where I am going.”

  Even amidst his own preoccupations, Antonelli could guess how much this defiance cost her. But criminal or not, Katarina Maas was not playing games in a make-believe world.

  “I am sorry, Katarina. I forgot you had your own difficulties,” he said quietly.

  She bit her lip. “No, I have not seen your precious Suzanne,” she snapped, leaving him behind.

  But at the doors she was stopped again, this time by brute force. Gunther Euler, storming in, nearly knocked her off her feet.

  “Katarina!” he said, grabbing her elbows to steady her. “I am sorry. But I’ve just come from Intervale. It will be clear tomorrow morning, so we’ll be able to jump.”

  “I am all right, Gunther,” she said, disentangling herself. Then, forcing a smile, she added: “I am glad your waiting will soon be over
.”

  He had the grace to look shamefaced. “Oh, I know it doesn’t seem like much. But winning this gold medal is important to me, Katarina. I’ve worked hard for it, and I need it badly. Without it, I have no future. Back to the foundry, that’s all. And I don’t want to go back to the foundry.”

  His frankness melted her. “I know,” she said. “You have done a lot to win your gold medal, Gunther. Tomorrow will be your lucky day. I am sure of it.”

  Euler liked admiration from women, but he wanted no part of Katarina—now. To emphasize the distance between them, he retreated into exaggerated boyishness. “But where are you going?” he cried with an ingenuous smile. “Here, give me your suitcase. I’ll take it wherever you want.”

  Without a tremor revealing that she recognized the rebuff, she said, “The Village has decided that I might sully the purity of Olympic athletes by my presence. So, since the police want me to stay, great effort has been expended to get me a hotel room.”

  As she spoke, Euler’s face darkened. “Crap,” he spat. “They’re hypocrites, every one of them. They point the finger at others-”

  He stopped short, as if she had trapped him into an admission. And before she could reply, their têe-à-tête was disrupted.

  “Say, has anybody seen where Tilly went?” Dick Noyes demanded. “She was just here.”

  “No,” said Katarina tartly, preparing to leave. “1 haven’t seen her, either. Gunther, good luck tomorrow morning!”

  In fact, Katarina had seen Suzanne Deladier and Tilly not five minutes earlier. They were disappearing into Suzanne’s room as she passed. The door had closed behind them with unnecessary speed.

  “That awful woman!” Suzanne had exclaimed. “She books and acts like an expensive call girl. I can’t imagine why they ever let her into Olympic Village in the first place.”

  To the best of her knowledge, Tilly had never encountered an expensive call girl. She had hurried along with Suzanne only to avoid having to talk to Katarina Maas. “I don’t know what to say to someone who’s out on bail,” she confessed.