The Broker

by Grisham, John

  In self-defense, he pretended to nod off. She ignored him for a few minutes, then said loudly, “You speak Polish?” She was looking at his book of poetry.

  He jerked his head as if he'd just been awakened. “No, not exactly. I'm trying to learn it, though. My family is Polish.” He held his breath as he finished, half expecting her to unleash a torrent of proper Polish and bury him with it.

  “I see,” she said, not really approving.

  At exactly 6:15, an unseen conductor blew a whistle and the train started to move. Fortunately, there were no other passengers assigned to Madame's car. Several had walked down the aisle and stopped, glanced in, seen the congestion, then moved on to another cabin where there was more room.

  Marco watched the platform intensely as they began moving. The man from the bus was nowhere to be seen.

  Madame worked the brandy until she began snoring. She was awakened by the conductor who punched their tickets. A porter came through with a pushcart loaded with drinks. Marco bought a beer and offered one to his cabinmate. His offer was greeted with another mammoth wrinkle of the nose, as if she'd rather drink urine.

  Their first stop was Como/San Giovanni, a two-minute break during which no one got on. Five minutes later they stopped at Chiasso. It was almost dark now, and Marco was pondering a quick exit. He studied the itinerary; there were four more stops before Zurich, one in Italy and three in Switzerland. Which country would work best?

  He couldn't risk being followed now. If they were on the train, then they had stuck to him from Bologna, through Modena and Milano, through various disguises. They were professionals, and he was no match for them. Sipping his beer, Marco felt like a miserable amateur.

  Madame was staring at the butchered hems of his slacks. Then he caught her glancing down at the modified bowling shoes, and for that he didn't blame her at all. Then the bright red watchband caught her attention. Her face conveyed the obvious-she did not approve of his low sense of fashion. Typical American, or Canadian, or whatever he was.

  He caught a glimpse of lights shimmering off Lake Lugano. They were snaking through the lake region, gaining altitude. Switzerland was not far away.

  An occasional drifter moved down the darkened aisle outside their cabin. They would look in, through the glass door, then move along toward the rear, where there was a restroom. Madame had plopped her large feet in the seat opposite her, not too far from Marco. An hour into the trip, and she had managed to spread her boxes and magazines and clothing throughout the entire cabin. Marco was afraid to leave his seat.

  Fatigue finally set in, and Marco fell asleep. He was awakened by the racket at the Bellinzona station, the first stop in Switzerland. A passenger entered the first-class car and couldn't find the right seat. He opened the door to Madame's cabin, looked around, didn't like what he saw, then went off to yell at the conductor. They found him a spot elsewhere. Madame hardly looked up from her fashion magazines.

  The next stretch was an hour and forty minutes, and when Madame went back to her flask Marco said, “I'll try some of that.” She smiled for the first time in hours. Though she certainly didn't mind drinking alone, it was always more pleasant with a friend. A couple of shots, though, and Marco was nodding off again.

  The train jerked as it slowed for the stop at ArthGoldau. Marco's head jerked too, and his hat fell off. Madame was watching him closely. When he opened his eyes for good, she said, “A strange man has been looking at you.”

  "Where?''

  “Where? Here, of course, on this train. He's been by at least three times. He stops at the door, looks closely at you, then sneaks away.”

  Maybe it's my shoes, thought Marco. Or my slacks. Watchband? He rubbed his eyes and tried to act as though it happened all the time.

  “What does he look like?”

  “Blond hair, about thirty-five, cute, brown jacket. Do you know him?”

  “No, I have no idea.” The man on the bus at Modena had neither blond hair nor a brown jacket, but those minor points were irrelevant now. Marco was frightened enough to switch plans.

  Zug was twenty-five minutes away, the last stop before Zurich. He could not run the risk of leading them to Zurich. Ten minutes out, he announced he needed to use the restroom. Between his seat and the door was Madame's obstacle course. As he began stepping through it, he placed his briefcase and cane in his seat.

  He walked past four cabins, each with at least three passengers, none of whom looked suspicious. He went to the restroom, locked the door, and waited until the train began to slow. Then it stopped. Zug was a two-minute layover, and the train so far had been ridiculously on time. He waited one minute, then walked quickly back to his cabin, opened the door, said nothing to Madame, grabbed his briefcase and his cane, which he was perfectly prepared to use as a weapon, and raced to the rear of the train where he jumped onto the platform.

  It was a small station, elevated with a street below. Marco flew down the steps to the sidewalk where a lone taxi sat with a driver unconscious behind the wheel. “Hotel, please,” he said, startling the driver, who instinctively grabbed the ignition key. He asked something in German and Marco tried Italian. “I need a small hotel. I don't have a reservation.”

  “No problem,” the driver said. As they pulled away, Marco

  looked up and saw the train moving. He looked behind him, and saw no one giving chase.

  The ride took all of four blocks, and when they stopped in front of an A-frame building on a quiet side street the driver said in Italian, “This hotel is very good.”

  “Looks fine. Thanks. How far away is Zurich by car?”

  “Two hours, more or less. Depends on the traffic.”

  “Tomorrow morning, I need to be in downtown Zurich at nine o'clock. Can you drive me there?”

  The driver hesitated for a second, his mind thinking of cold cash. “Perhaps,” he said.

  “How much will it cost?”

  The driver rubbed his chin, then shrugged and said, “Two hundred euros.”

  “Good. Let's leave here at six.”

  “Six, yes, I'll be here.”

  Marco thanked him again and watched as he drove away. A bell rang when he entered the front door of the hotel. The small counter was deserted, but a television was chattering away somewhere close by. A sleepy-eyed teenager finally appeared and offered a smile. “Guten abend,” he said.

  “Park inglese?” Marco asked.

  He shook his head, no.

  “Italiano?”

  “A little.”

  “I speak a little too,” Marco said in Italian. “I'd like a room for one night.”

  The clerk pushed over a registration form, and from memory Marco filled in the name on his passport, and its number. He scribbled in a fictional address in Bologna, and a bogus phone number as well. The passport was in his coat pocket, close to his heart, and he was prepared to reluctantly pull it out.

  But it was late and the clerk was missing his television show. With atypical Swiss inefficiency, he said, also in Italian, “Forty-two euros,” and didn't mention the passport.

  Giovanni laid the cash on the counter, and the clerk gave him a key to room number 26. In surprisingly good Italian, he arranged a

  wake-up call for 5:00 a.m. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “I lost my toothbrush. Would you have an extra?”

  The clerk reached into a drawer and pulled out a box full of assorted necessities-toothbrushes, toothpaste, disposable razors, shaving cream, aspirin, tampons, hand cream, combs, even condoms. Giovanni selected a few items and handed over ten euros.

  A luxury suite at the Ritz could not have been more welcome than room 26. Small, clean, warm, with a firm mattress, and a door that bolted twice to keep away the faces that had been haunting him since early morning. He took a long, hot shower, then shaved and brushed his teeth forever.

  Much to his relief, he found a minibar in a cabinet under the television. He ate a packet of cookies, washed them down with two small bottles of whiskey, and
when he crawled under the covers he was mentally drained and physically exhausted. The cane was on the bed, nearby. Silly, but he couldn't help it.

  In the depths of prison he'd dreamed of Zurich, with its

  blue rivers and clean shaded streets and modern shops and handsome people, all proud to be Swiss, all going about their business with a pleasant seriousness. In another life he'd ridden the quiet electric streetcars with them as they headed into the financial district. Back then he'd been too busy to travel much, too important to leave the fragile workings of Washington, but Zurich was one of the few places he'd seen. It was his kind of city: unburdened by tourists and traffic, unwilling to spend its time gawking at cathedrals and museums and worshiping the last two thousand years. Not at all. Zurich was about money, the refined management of it as opposed to the naked cash grab Backman had once perfected.

  He was on a streetcar again, one hed caught near the train station, and was now moving steadily along Bahnhofstrasse, the main avenue of downtown Zurich, if in fact it had one. It was almost 9:00 a.m. He was among the last wave of the sharply dressed young bankers headed for UBS and Credit Suisse and a thousand lesser-known but equally rich institutions. Dark suits, shirts of various colors but not many white ones, expensive ties with thicker knots and fewer designs, dark brown shoes with laces, never tassels. The styles had changed

  slightly in the past six years. Always conservative, but with some dash. Not quite as stylish as the young professionals in his native Bologna, but quite attractive.

  Everyone was reading something as they moved along. Streetcars passed from the other direction. Marco pretended to be engrossed in a copy ofNewsweek, but he was really watching everyone else.

  No one was watching him. No one seemed offended by his bowling shoes. In fact, he'd seen another pair on a casually dressed young man near the train station. His straw hat was getting no attention. The hems of his slacks had been repaired slightly after he'd purchased a cheap sewing kit from the hotel desk, then spent half an hour trying to tailor his pants without drawing blood. His outfit cost a fraction of those around him, but what did he care? He'd made it to Zurich without Luigi and all those others, and with a little more luck he'd make it out.

  At Paradeplatz the streetcars wheeled in from east and west and stopped. They emptied quickly as the young bankers scattered in droves and headed for the buildings. Marco moved with the crowd, his hat now left behind under the seat in the streetcar.

  Nothing had changed in seven years. The Paradeplatz was still the same-an open plaza lined with small shops and cafes. The banks around it had been there for a hundred years; some announced their names from neon signs, others were hidden so well they couldn't be found. From behind his sunglasses he soaked in as much of the surroundings as he could while sticking close to three young men with gym bags slung over their shoulders. They appeared to be headed for Rhineland Bank, on the east side. He followed them inside, into the lobby, where the fun began.

  The information desk hadn't moved in seven years; in fact, the well-groomed lady sitting behind it looked vaguely familiar. “I'd like to see Mr. Mikel Van Thiessen,” he said as softly as possible.

  'And your name?"

  “Marco Lazzeri.” He would use “Joel Backman” later, upstairs, but he was hesitant to use it here. Hopefully, Neal's e-mails to Van Thiessen had alerted him to the alias. The banker had been asked to remain in town, if at all possible, for the next week or so.

  She was on the phone and also pecking at a keyboard. “It will be just a moment, Mr. Lazzeri,” she said. “Would you mind waiting?”

  “No,” he said. Waiting? He'd been dreaming of this for years. He took a chair, crossed his legs, saw the shoes, then put his feet under the chair. He was certain that he was being watched from a dozen different camera angles now, and that was fine. Maybe they would recognize Backman sitting in the lobby, maybe they wouldn't. He could almost see them up there, gawking at the monitors, scratching their heads, saying, “Don't know, he's much thinner, gaunt, even.”

  “And the hair. It's obviously a bad coloring job.”

  To help them Joel removed Giovanni's tortoiseshell glasses.

  Five minutes later, a stern-faced security type in a much lesser suit approached him from nowhere and said, “Mr. Lazzeri, would you follow me?”

  They rode a private elevator up to the third floor where Marco was led into a small room with thick walls. All the walls seemed to be thick at Rhineland Bank. Two other security agents were waiting. One actually smiled, the other did not. They asked him to place both hands on a biometric fingerprint scanner. It would compare his fingerprints to the ones he left behind almost seven years ago, at this same place, and when the perfect match was made there would be more smiles, then a nicer room, a nicer lobby, the offer of coffee or juice. Anything, Mr. Backman.

  He asked for orange juice because he'd had no breakfast. The security agents were back in their cave. Mr. Backman was now being serviced by Elke, one of Mr. Van Thiessen's shapely assistants. “He'll be out in just a minute,” she explained. “He wasn't expecting you this morning.”

  Kinda hard to make appointments when you're hiding in toilet stalls. Joel smiled at her. Ol' Marco was history now. Finally laid to rest after a good two-month run. Marco had served him well, kept him alive, taught him the basics of Italian, walked him around Treviso and Bologna, and introduced him to Francesca, a woman he would not soon forget.

  But Marco would also get him killed, so he ditched him there on the third floor of the Rhineland Bank, while looking at Elke's black stiletto heels and waiting on her boss. Marco was gone, never to return.

  Mikel Van Thiessen's office was designed to smack his visitors with a powerful right hook. Power in the massive Persian rug. Power in the leather sofa and chairs. Power in the ancient mahogany desk

  that wouldn't have fit in the cell at Rudley. Power in the array of electronic gadgets at his disposal. He met Joel at the powerful oak door and they shook hands properly, but not like old friends. They had met exactly once before.

  If Joel had lost sixty pounds since their last visit, Van Thiessen had found most of it. He was much grayer too, not nearly as crisp and sharp as the younger bankers Joel had seen on the streetcar. Van Thiessen directed his client to the leather chairs while Elke and another assistant scurried around to fetch coffee and pastries.

  When they were alone, with the door shut, Van Thiessen said, “I've been reading about you.”

  “Oh really. And what have you read?”

  “Bribing a president for a pardon, come on, Mr. Backman. Is it really that easy over there?”

  Joel couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Joel was in an upbeat mood, but he didn't exactly feel like swapping one-liners.

  “I didn't bribe anyone, if that's what you're suggesting.”

  “Yes, well, the newspapers are certainly filled with speculation.” His tone was more accusatory than jovial, and Joel decided not to waste time. “Do you believe everything you read in the newspapers?”

  “Of course not, Mr. Backman.”

  “I'm here for three reasons. I want access to my security box. I want to review my account. I want to withdraw ten thousand dollars in cash. After that, I may have another favor or two.”

  Van Thiessen shoved a small cookie in his mouth and chewed rapidly. “Yes, of course. I don't think we'll have a problem with any of that.”

  “Why should you have a problem?”

  “Not a problem, sir. I'll just need a few minutes.”

  “For what?”

  “I'll need to consult with a colleague.”

  “Can you do so quickly?”

  Van Thiessen practically bolted from the room and slammed the door behind him. The pain in Joel's stomach was not from hunger. If the wheels came off now, he had no plan B. He'd walk out of the bank with nothing, hopefully make it across the Paradeplatz to a streetcar, and once on board he would have no place to go. The escape would be

  over. Marco would be ba
ck, and Marco would eventually get him killed.

  As time came to an abrupt halt, he kept thinking about the pardon. With it, his slate was wiped clean. The US. government was in no position to pressure the Swiss to freeze his account. The Swiss didn't freeze accounts! The Swiss were immune from pressure! That's why their banks were rilled with loot from around the world.

  They were the Swiss!

  Elke retrieved him and asked if he would follow her downstairs. In other days, he would've followed Elke anywhere, but now it was only downstairs.

  He'd been to the vault during his prior visit. It was in the basement, several levels below ground, though the clients never knew how deep into Swiss soil they were descending. Every door was a foot thick, every wall appeared to be made of lead, every ceiling had surveillance cameras. Elke handed him off to Van Thiessen again.

  Both thumbs were scanned for matching prints. An optical scanner took his photo. “Number seven,” Van Thiessen said, pointing. “I'll meet you there,” he said, and left through a door.

  Joel walked down a short hallway, passing six windowless steel doors until he came to the seventh. He pushed a button, all sorts of things tumbled and clicked inside, and the door finally opened. He stepped inside, where Van Thiessen was waiting.

  The room was a twelve-foot square, with three walls lined with individual vaults, most about the size of a large shoe box.

  “Your vault number?” he asked.

  “L2270.”

  “Correct.”

  Van Thiessen stepped to his right, bent slightly to face L2270. On the vault's small keypad he punched some numbers, then straightened himself and said, “If you wish.”

  Under Van Thiessen's watchful eyes, Joel stepped to his vault and entered the code. As he did so, he softly whispered the numbers, forever seared in his memory: “Eighty-one, fifty-five, ninety-four, ninety- three, twenty-three.” A small green light began blinking on the keypad. Van Thiessen smiled and said, “I'll be waiting at the front. Just ring when you're finished.”