The Infant of Prague

by Bill Granger

  “Yes. Almost like a miracle in itself. I mean, a miracle for you. Not for Stephanie.”

  “You’re all the way here from Zurich because of the miracle.”

  “Yes. There’s interest. Particularly in Switzerland.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a country without faith, divided by a number of religions. It has to believe in something.”

  Kay Davis smiled at him. He was a good-looking man, she thought. Not television, of course. Devereaux had showed her his Swiss passport and the all-purpose little plastic card that identified him as a correspondent for Central News Associates, Zurich. In fact, if you looked in the Zurich telephone directory, you would find a number for the news service, as well as an address. If you went to the building off the Paradeplatz in Zurich and went to the right floor, you would find a news agency office, filled with clippings for scores of papers, dust and dirt, and an old man trying to make a living by providing news items for parsimonious newspapers in a half-dozen countries. Yes, Monsieur Devereaux was a correspondent, he would answer.

  “Are you going to be in Chicago long?” she said.

  “Perhaps.”

  She gave him a smile from her eyes to her mouth. She turned toward him in a certain way. Her knee bumped his knee and he saw what it was. He smiled at her. “You’re a good-looking girl,” he said.

  “Woman.”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you like to go out to dinner some night? After the ten o’clock show?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Aren’t you offended that I asked you?”

  “Flattered,” he said.

  “You should be,” she said.

  He smiled again. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about your part in this. Weren’t the police interested in the coincidence? Your getting fired and that man attacking you?”

  “The police were interested in my getting fired and that man… that man… knowing I was fired. But it was in the early edition of the papers, someone in PR had dropped it into one of the gossip columns.”

  “Really?”

  “I was hot news myself for a few days. The police think it was just one of those crazy things. They still don’t have a name for the guy.”

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  Kay Davis shivered. It was the cold of the cocktail lounge and it was something else, something in his voice. That was it. He was cold, his eyes were cold; he feigned interest in her but it was all cold.

  “Odd,” she said.

  “And the little girl was kidnapped. What did the police say about that?”

  “They said it might have been connected. The detective said there was a connection, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t figure out what the connection was. And there was the FBI then, after the kidnapping and Stephanie’s… death. It’s so horrible, all of it, and I feel…”

  “Responsible,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He said nothing. Did she expect him to say something? She waited for some note of comfort in his voice but there was none.

  “Did it happen? Actually?”

  “What?” she said.

  “Did the statue of the Infant cry?”

  Kay Davis stared at him with wide eyes. She almost had forgotten. She saw the statue, not as it was but through the television eye. Through the lens. On the monitor. The tape for her voiceover. The reason for everything that happened, that had seemed to happen.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I saw it. I mean, I was there in St. Margaret’s. But I don’t know. I can show you the tape.” She was making her voice smile. “I’ve got a VCR at home. We could watch it. Other things.”

  “Yes.” His voice was absent. “Sometime I would like to see the tape. But the child believed it.”

  “Anna saw the tears.”

  “What about her mother?”

  “Her mother? She didn’t believe it. I showed her the tape and she said it was a trick. She didn’t believe it.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s living in the Czech embassy in Washington. She’s waiting for word. The FBI said it would be best to wait to see if she were contacted by the kidnappers.”

  “I wonder what the FBI thinks.”

  “It’s a kidnapping for ransom. Except. There’s been no word for all this time. And they think—well, I know they don’t say it outright, but they think the little girl was killed. That something went wrong and the kidnappers have just dumped her body somewhere. It’s a matter of time.”

  “Yes.” He stared suddenly into Kay. She felt startled and even afraid and she shivered again. “What do you think, Miss Davis?”

  “Is this all connected to the story of the weeping statue?”

  “Perhaps.” He picked up his drink and tasted it. The lounge was dark, there was background music, and the peanuts on the bar were roasted in honey. “Perhaps the statue wept for all that would follow. Both the cause and the effect.”

  Kay Davis finished her glass of white wine.

  “Another?”

  “No. I’ve still got a ten o’clock show. Where are you staying?”

  “The Drake,” he said.

  “That’s such an old-fashioned place.”

  “I know but I don’t know Chicago. You ask at American Express in Zurich and they give you a name and that’s it. We only know the clichés of other cities.” He smiled. It was a sad little smile, she thought, and she felt touched by it. The coldness of his face, she thought, was earned and had turned inward. It was not directed at her. She felt an instinct about him.

  “You don’t think she’s dead,” Kay Davis said.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there must be miracles.”

  “Do you believe in statues that weep?”

  “Yes. I believe what I see. If I stop believing what I see, then there’s no point to having sight.”

  “Who took her?” She asked as though he might know. He might know everything.

  He shook his head. “Why is more important. The FBI says it was for ransom and no one asks for ransom. Was it for perversion? That seems unlikely. The pervert doesn’t go to so much trouble when it is easier to take children off the streets. Perhaps a religious dispute? It couldn’t be a jealous sect. Religion doesn’t have much zeal left in it, does it? So what is the reason?”

  She stared at him and felt a strange warmth grow in her that suppressed the shivers.

  “Why?”

  “To use in a bargain. To make a deal,” he said. His voice was so quiet that the background music almost overwhelmed it.

  “By whom? For what?”

  Devereaux shook his head. His eyes were staring at something beyond her. She turned and looked and there was nothing in the darkness. She looked back at him.

  “What do you see?”

  “Something,” he said. “Are you all right now, then? Do you have protection? The police?”

  “For a while. But I’m all right. No one understands how he got into my apartment. The security staff was given lie-detector tests and a couple of them were fired and everyone in the building is really upset. But I’m all right. I really am.”

  “Good,” he said. There was the cold thing in his voice again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think you should take a few days off,” he said.

  “Who are you?”

  “The name on the passport.”

  “Should I report you to the police?”

  “If you want,” he said. His eyes were sad, she thought. Maybe he pitied her. The warmth she had felt a moment before began to wane. She got up from the barstool.

  “It doesn’t matter about the police,” he said. “I could tell you a story about myself and it would be good enough to convince you. I could even tell you the truth and it would just frustrate you because no one could believe it. So I’ll tell you this: In a little while, you are going to face some danger and then, if it turns out all right, you’ll be all right.” />
  “Danger? Are you threatening me?”

  “No. But I’m guessing and I’m a good guesser.”

  “What are you guessing?”

  He couldn’t tell her now. He gave her a telephone number instead. In case she needed it.

  26

  DAMME

  The bicyclist could be seen for a long time, pedaling down the bike path that ran between the road and the canal. He crossed the canal at the edge of Bruges and the busy auto route and then started down the long, straight path that led to Damme and beyond. But he was going to Damme.

  Damme was old and small, just a crossroads village with a few overpriced restaurants that suggested a Flemish painting of the last century. The people in Bruges went to Damme on the weekend to dine and pretend they were from a great metropolis. The bicyclist bent his head as he rode the upright three-speed. It was raining a light mist and the morning light was gray and reflected the color of the North Sea fifteen kilometers away.

  The bicyclist reached the crossroads of Damme and put his bicycle against a tree and waited. He was dressed in black and wore a black sailor’s cap on his head. He wore a black pea jacket and black trousers and a black sweater. His face was flushed with exertion and there was a long scar that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear. His eyes were blue and cold and they saw everything.

  David Mason stepped from the doorway of the shuttered restaurant across the road and stood on the sidewalk. The man with the scar grinned at him and walked across the road to him.

  “The pistol is wrapped in the newspaper and I shoot well. Not the highest rating but good enough to kill you,” Mason said.

  “I’ll certainly remember that,” Colonel Ready said. He smiled at Mason. “Have you killed anyone yet? Or will this be the first time?”

  “Not the first time.”

  “You enjoy fag bashing? You did a nice job on Philip. I think you’ve almost convinced him to get out of the business. You didn’t have to beat him up to get my attention,” Ready said.

  “It was a matter of getting Philip’s attention.”

  “So what are you?”

  “Section.”

  “You coming after me?”

  “If I have to.”

  “I see.” The grin faded a moment and then reappeared. “It’s out of my hands now in any case.”

  “Is it?”

  “Sold them both. A matching pair, you might say.”

  “Who?”

  “Miki. And Devereaux.”

  “What about Rita Macklin? What about a red-haired woman?”

  The older man looked puzzled. “I haven’t gotten around to her.”

  “She disappeared. She came down that path you were on and disappeared.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He looked at Mason. “You want to know about Devereaux? It worked nicely with him. He didn’t know what hit him. The only screwup was the driver. He panicked at the last minute, almost killed my brother. Brother Devereaux, brother in arms.” He smiled. “Old Miki wanted to go west, put out his feelers and couldn’t get any bites. Until Section came along. I think there must be parts to Miki but I’m not interested. I wanted Devereaux. Maybe that’s why they used him, because they knew Miki had parts and they wanted an old hand. We were in Asia together, going back, you know that?”

  Mason stared at him and didn’t let the gun hand waver. Ready was talking fast, like a salesman edging around him.

  “That’s right, turn when I move, keep the piece pointed right at me.”

  “You sold Devereaux East?”

  “Now you’ve got it,” Ready said.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  The smile was infuriating. He thought he could get away with it. He pulled the trigger. The silencer thumped and the bullet whistled past his face.

  Ready blinked.

  “You might have hit me.”

  “I might have,” Mason agreed.

  “Well, maybe I could figure out how to get in touch. With his new keeper, I mean.”

  “They’re in the country.”

  “There’s every possibility,” Ready agreed. He had flinched after the fact, when he heard the thump. Now he was smiling again. Happens every day, somebody shoots off a piece in your ear.

  “Stop fucking around,” David Mason said.

  “The problem is, you want to shoot me but there’s the chance that I can arrange you an introduction with Devereaux’s keeper. That’s a problem all right. On the other hand, my problem is you: I was curious about you. You banged up Philip pretty good. Maybe you’d just as soon shoot me.”

  “Maybe,” Mason said.

  “But Section teaches patience. Like the chaser in Brussels, sniffing around like a bloodhound. What’s he going to do with all his clues? Paper shufflers. You were direct, lad, I like that. You went to the source and beat the shit out of him. That’s the way to do it.” He grinned. “You were right behind Rita Macklin, weren’t you? How’d she give you the slip then?”

  Mason said nothing.

  “Come on, lad, cheer up. If she got lost and I didn’t get her, then it must be the party who already has Devereaux. Maybe he wants to put them in a glass cage together and watch them fuck.”

  “I could put it in your gut.”

  “No.” Ready was still grinning. “You got the gun and I got you by the balls. You pull the trigger, lad, and I’m liable to snap your balls right off.”

  “So what do we do?” Mason said.

  “Well, I was thinking of killing you. Right here. The more I think about it, I think I won’t right now.”

  “I’ve got the gun.”

  “I’ve got the balls,” Ready said. “No. I think the thing to do is find out where little Rita went. I had plans for her. Maybe Devereaux’s buyer has plans, too. We could find out together.”

  “What plans?”

  “I’ve got to break her, lad.” Ready smiled as if he were describing a prized possession. “I like her, I like the way she feels, I like the way she looks. I’m going to break her down and when she’s really broken, then everything will be just fine.”

  Mason said, “I really do want to kill you.”

  “I know, lad. I’ve been an inspiration to you, haven’t I? But learn a little patience and we’ll see what we can see.”

  Ready turned then and began to limp across the street to his bicycle standing against the tree.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Bruges,” he said over his shoulder. “Drop a dime and call a number.”

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll go back together.”

  “You going to ride on the handlebars?”

  “We’ll walk,” Mason said.

  “You walk out here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Looking for Rita.”

  “You must be in love,” Ready said. “That’s really something, that girl turns on a lot of men.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m riding my bike, I’m afraid. My leg,” Ready said.

  “We’ll walk,” Mason said again.

  For a moment, the lips turned into a snarl. He stared hard at Mason and Mason saw how death could be done so easily. He held the gun steady in the face of it. He tried his own smile. “It’ll hurt to walk all that way back,” Mason said.

  “He gave me the limp; I got him. Maybe I’ll get you.”

  Mason kept smiling.

  27

  OUT OF CONTROL

  The President had the flu and was in Bethesda Naval Hospital northwest of the District. He appeared at the window of his suite of rooms in the morning and waved at reporters below and shouted encouraging words to them in a hoarse voice. All for the evening news.

  Mrs. Neumann watched the President wave from three monitors set on three different channels in her office credenza.

  There was no sound in the room save the steady “on” hum from the computer terminal in the corner. The terminal screen was
blank. Ten minutes before, it had flashed the “eyes only” message to the director of operations and the Section chief that a certain Swiss passport with a certain number invented by R Section had been used seven hours earlier by someone passing through customs at Kennedy Airport.

  “Is he alive?”

  “If he is,” Hanley said, “why doesn’t he contact us?”

  “And assume it is him,” Mrs. Neumann said. She watched the mesmerizing monitors but saw nothing. “Assume it is and you have to assume what else?”

  “He was captured and escaped.”

  “He didn’t come back here because he had escaped,” she said.

  “Yes. But what could the reason be?”

  Mrs. Neumann looked very tired. She closed her eyes a moment to get rid of the television images. She rubbed a finger over her eyelids. She opened her eyes and the world remained. Hanley looked as tired as she did.

  “He was a captive. Somehow, Miki or his masters double-crossed the train. They took in Devereaux and then offered him as a trade for that girl in Chicago who sees weeping miracles,” Hanley said. His mouth was curled in Midwestern Protestant distaste, for Catholics and their icons. “Now the child has disappeared. And now Devereaux has reappeared. The conclusion—at least in logic—is that Devereaux has been let go. For only one reason.”

  “He wouldn’t work for them,” she said. She stared at the three monitors. There was war in Nicaragua on one and a fire on a train on another and a starved-looking African child with bloated belly on the third.

  Hanley tented his fingers and stared over them at her.

  “He hasn’t gone to work for them,” she said. She said the words in a very plain and sure way, to make Hanley understand she believed them.

  “He has come into this country and he has not made contact with Section,” Hanley said. His voice was soft, exceptionally so; it was nearly a whisper. “He is here and he was held by the Czechs.”