The Innocents Club

by Taylor Smith

  “My father,” Mariah said, chilled. “Are you sure?”

  Frank nodded. “It’s what’s in the one file I saved and brought to show you. Ben’s death probably did look like hepatitis to the French authorities, mind you. There are at least a half a dozen toxins that cause liver damage. Zakharov knows them all.”

  “And they would’ve been harder to detect thirty years ago,” Mariah said, sounding more calmly analytical than she felt. Why was this lump forming in her throat? Why should she mourn the murder of a man who’d wreaked so much damage in his brief, selfish life? “I doubt the French even probed very hard,” she added. “What would they care about a down-on-his-luck American found dead in some fleabag garret?”

  Frank’s fingers began to beat a nervous tattoo on the starched linen tablecloth. “All this time, I thought this business was better kept buried. I should have known it would come out sooner or later.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean, ‘all this time,’ Frank? How long have you known about it?”

  “The fact that your father had flirted with the Soviet propaganda machine popped up once before, during your initial security clearance,” he told her. “I only found out about the Orlov part when I got the Navigator’s files.”

  “But how is it I was hired? Agency rules should have barred me on the grounds of my father’s associations.”

  “Should have,” he agreed, “but the Writers for Peace conference was ancient history, by then, an unimportant skirmish in the long history of the cold war. Even the undercover operative who’d noted your father’s name on the list of attendees was long since dead. At that point, it was just one line in an old file.”

  “Still, it must have sent up a red flag.”

  “It would have, except I was on the recruiting committee that year, remember? I deleted the information before the final hiring cut.”

  “You did what?” she cried. One or two breakfast diners raised their heads at her outburst, but as she glanced around self-consciously, they returned to their own conversations. She leaned forward toward Frank, whispering, “You mean you’ve always been this crazy, going around destroying classified files?”

  “Your father had been out of your life for years. He’d obviously had no influence on your politics or your loyalty,” Frank said stubbornly. “Why should his irresponsible behavior keep you from the career you wanted? Sometimes bureaucratic rules need to be bent in favor of common sense, you know.”

  “I don’t think everyone in the agency would agree with you.”

  “I know that,” he said, looking glum. “There are brainless fools even now who’ll start second-guessing every opinion you utter, every assessment you’ve ever written. Seems I’ve screwed up your career, after all.”

  “My career, Frank? What does that matter? What about justice?”

  “Justice?” He snorted. “Now there’s an elusive commodity. Anyway, you’re going to have to watch your back from here on in.”

  “Seems to me you’ve been doing a pretty good job of watching it for me,” she said quietly.

  His big shoulders hefted in a shrug. “I may not be around to do it much longer. Geist is looking for me. He knows I shredded the Navigator’s files. For all I know, he may think I killed the guy, too.”

  “Why did you shred them?”

  “I told you, I don’t want to be cleaning up Deriabin’s messes for him. The Dzerzhinsky Borgia was his creature. He made use of Zakharov’s skills for years. It wasn’t just external KGB targets, but Deriabin’s internal opponents, too, who mysteriously kept getting sick and dying, one after the other over the years. The Navigator thought Zakharov was his trained pit bull. In the end, I suspect, the pit bull turned on the master.”

  “You think Zakharov murdered Deriabin?”

  Tucker shrugged. “It makes sense, the more I think about it. Zakharov is powerful enough in his own right now, with black-arts operatives of his own. He didn’t need the old man anymore. Who says the doctors who diagnosed Deriabin’s liver cancer weren’t Zakharov’s minions? When I saw Deriabin, he knew he was a dead man, and from the way he spoke of his doctors, I think he had his doubts about them. Leaking that information to us was his way of getting revenge. Of course, if he thought we’d deliver it to Zakharov’s opponents, he got it all wrong. What he handed over was leverage over the man who might be the next Russian president. An operator like Jack Geist would love to be in a position to blackmail somebody like that. Would he give up that kind of control so some unknown could rise to the top of the pile over there?”

  “Not a chance,” Mariah agreed.

  “And what do you suppose the odds are of any real democratic reform if both the old KGB players and the CIA back a thug like Zakharov?”

  “Zip,” Mariah said. “So you shredded the leverage?”

  Tucker nodded. “All but the one file that might really make a difference, if it fell into the right hands. The proof that Zakharov murdered Anatoly Orlov. Ben’s betrayal set the wheels in motion, Mariah, but it was Zakharov’s show all the way. That’s what’s got him running scared now.”

  And why Chap Korman and Louis Urquhart had had to die, Mariah thought angrily. Damage control. Anatoly Orlov had been the best-loved son Russia had produced in the twentieth century, a literary hero who’d inspired his people to resist and defeat Hitler’s Nazi invasion. The idea of his killer running for president there was about as ludicrous as Lee Harvey Oswald seeking office in America.

  The resurfacing of Orlov’s manuscript posed a problem, but by eliminating witnesses and the paper trail, Zakharov probably thought he was home-free. Korman’s and Urquhart’s deaths might have been put down to a couple of old guys succumbing to natural causes if the office cleaner hadn’t seen the killer running away. Zakharov’s burly bodyguard, Mariah thought suddenly, the one Yuri Belenko had termed a steroid-damaged Olympic wrestler?

  “Renata was right, after all,” she said. “Ben Bolt’s stock is about to crash. The truth has to come out, Frank. At least some kind of justice will be served—not just for Anatoly Orlov, but for Chap and Urquhart, too. Even for Ben. He made some horrible choices in his life. This had to be about the worst of them, but I’m his daughter, and he didn’t deserve to be murdered. If Zakharov’s diplomatic immunity means he can’t be prosecuted here, then let him be held to account in the one place where it really matters to him. That file you saved has to be kept away from Geist and the agency, and sent instead to every national and international media outlet we can contact.”

  Tucker nodded. “We don’t have much time, though. Geist is going to catch up with me sooner rather than later.” His expression darkened. “And you’ll get caught up in a media tidal wave, you know.”

  “I know,” she said glumly, “but it’s the right thing to do.” She pushed back her chair. “Come on. We’d better go and wake Lindsay. She needs to know what’s going on. And if you’re going to meet the press,” she added, running the back of her fingers over his sandpaper cheek, “you’d better come on up and have a shower and a shave, bub. You look like you just stepped out of solitary confinement at Alcatraz.”

  “No,” Frank said ruefully. “That’s probably my next stop.”

  While he collected his things from the parking lot, Mariah headed to her room to wake Lindsay, passing a linen cart in the hallway outside the door next to hers. Her own suite was gleaming and bright, the curtains flung wide—bed made, bathroom cleaned, carpet vacuumed. Inside the big closet, Lindsay’s suitcase had been moved to a luggage rack, and the clothes she’d just dropped the night before had been hung neatly on hangers. On the closet floor, her clunky Doc Martens oxfords stood neatly at attention next to Mariah’s black suede pumps, looking like wide-mouthed twin hippos getting ready to devour a couple of kittens. This was not Lindsay’s doing, Mariah knew. Like most fifteen-year-olds, her daughter’s preferred wardrobe-storage option was the floor—any old floor would do.

  But if Lindsay’s things were accounted for, she herself was nowhere
to be seen.

  Mariah went back out into the hall and found the chambermaid stuffing wet towels from next door into her canvas bin. “Excuse me? I noticed you’ve cleaned my room.”

  “Yes, madam. Is there a problem?”

  “No, the room is fine, but I left my daughter sleeping and the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob. She got in very late last night, and—”

  “There was no tag on the door.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I would not have gone in if the sign was saying no.” The woman was gray-haired and wiry under her starched, peach-colored uniform, with a brusque manner that suggested she did not appreciate having her professionalism questioned.

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Mariah reassured her, “but did you happen to see my daughter? A teenager, fairly tall, long red hair—I mean, short red hair. She just got it cut, and I’m not used to it yet.”

  “I saw no one, madam.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess she just woke up sooner than I thought she would.”

  The elevator dinged at the end of the hall. “Will you be needing anything else?” the maid asked her.

  “Maybe a couple of extra towels?” Mariah asked, watching as Frank stepped off the elevator carrying a briefcase and a small duffel bag. The chambermaid followed the line of her gaze, then turned back to her cart and handed Mariah a couple of big fluffy bath sheets. Her expression was blank, except for the tiny muscle above one eyebrow that seemed itching to lift in an arch of disapproval. She moved down the hall as Mariah waited.

  “What’s up?” Frank asked.

  “Lindsay’s not here,” Mariah said. “She’s probably hanging out by the pool. Why don’t you go in and use the shower while I have a talk with her, bring her up to speed on what’s happened?”

  “Are you going to be all right?” he asked, switching his briefcase under one arm so he could take the towels from her.

  Mariah sighed. “I’ll be fine. We need to have a long talk, anyway—although I’m not looking forward to telling her about Chap. She was really fond of him.”

  “That poor kid’s been through a lot at her age.”

  “She’s been through a lot for someone of any age. I hate having to give her more bad news.” Mariah smoothed her linen dress, already creased. It was only midmorning, but it felt like days ago that she’d left Lindsay sleeping to go downstairs for a swim and a quiet breakfast. This was supposed to be the first day of their vacation, she thought grimly. They should have been slathering sunscreen on themselves right about now, getting ready for Lindsay’s first run into the Pacific Ocean. “We’ll meet you back up here,” she told Frank resignedly.

  But twenty-five minutes later, after doing the rounds of all the public spaces in the grand old hotel and talking to lifeguards, gym staff and waiters in all three restaurants, Mariah was back at the room. She found Frank in the steamy bathroom, shirtless, but freshly showered and shaved—including his head, she noted, smiling to herself in spite of her rising anxiety. He seemed tired still, but much refreshed. In fact, she thought, he was looking pretty damn good—broad-chested, slimmed down, ready for action.

  When he caught sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror, he whipped a clean navy polo shirt off the towel rack. “Where’s Lindsay?” he asked, looking past her as he wrestled it over his head.

  “I can’t find her. I looked everywhere. Nobody seems to have seen her.”

  “Maybe she walked out to have a look at the shops on Rodeo Drive?”

  “She has no business doing that. I left her a note, told her to have breakfast here or meet me downstairs. Even if she couldn’t find me, she knows better than to go wandering around a strange city by herself.” Mariah checked her watch. “Ten-thirty. Where could she be?” She moved around the room, searching the dressing table, the bed, the side tables, the sofa area in the suite’s outer room.

  “What are you looking for?” Frank asked.

  “I left the note stuck in the frame of the mirror over there. It’s not there now. I’m just looking for some sign she actually saw it. For all I know, she thinks I’ve abandoned her. After some of the stupid things I’ve done lately, she probably wouldn’t put it past me.”

  Frank just shook his head and started poking around the dressing table. It was an antique-looking affair, French, Louis-something-or-other. Heavy, with a solid back and a keyhole opening at the front into which a tapestry-upholstered stool fit neatly. “Is this it?” he called. Mariah turned to find him with his shoulder pressed against the mirror on the wall, one big arm squeezed behind the table. “I think it slipped down here,” he grunted. “Got it!” His arm came up, and Mariah recognized her handwriting on the slip of hotel notepaper caught between two of his fingers.

  “Shoot! She probably never even saw it,” she said.

  But Frank’s face darkened as he examined the note. “Oh, she saw it all right,” he said. He handed it to her, and when Mariah turned it over, she found her daughter’s scrawled reply on the other side.

  Mom:

  Couldn’t find you downstairs, but I did find out how to get to Newport. I know you changed your mind about staying at the beach, but I came all this way, and I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind, even if just for a few hours. Anyway, you weren’t going to leave without visiting Chap, were you!! I’ll meet you at his house. And don’t panic, all right? I know exactly how to get there. I managed the Paris metro just fine, didn’t I?

  L

  “That’s it,” Mariah fumed. “I am going to kill her. And then, I’m going to ground her for the rest of her natural life. She’s going to have to finish high school and college by correspondence, and then knit socks for soldiers for the rest of her days, because I am never letting her out of my sight again. How could she do this? Never mind, I know exactly. To prove how independent and—” Mariah froze. “Oh, hell, Frank,” she cried, “she’s going to Chap’s!”

  He was already gathering up his keys and wallet, stuffing them into his pants pockets. “Come on,” he said. “She can’t have that much of a head start. Maybe we can track her down before she gets too far.”

  “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Mariah wadded up the note and lobbed it at the wastepaper basket. It missed and tumbled along the baseboard. Typical, she thought, grabbing her purse and the room key card. She couldn’t do anything right. “The concierge,” she said as they rushed toward the elevator. “That must be who gave her directions.”

  When they roared up to his desk and elbowed their way apologetically past a couple of Japanese tourists looking for directions to Frederick’s of Hollywood, the concierge admitted that he had, indeed, given out directions to Newport Beach that morning. “Why, yes, I did talk to a young lady about how to get down there, but I didn’t think she was planning to go by herself.”

  “Well, she has,” Mariah said angrily. “She’s only fif-teen years old!”

  “Really?” He looked to be pushing sixty himself, with a neatly trimmed goatee and three points of a red silk handkerchief standing at strict attention in the pocket of his double-breasted suit. “My goodness, she’s very well spoken for her age, isn’t she? I thought she was eighteen or nineteen. But then, it’s often hard to tell with young women these days, don’t you—”

  “How would she get there?” Frank interrupted.

  He started pulling out Amtrak brochures. “Let’s see…I told her which bus to take over to Union Station to pick up the nine-thirty San Diegan to Orange County. You get off at Santa Ana, and then it’s a bus or cab ride from there to Newport.”

  “Nine-thirty?” Mariah repeated, incredulous. “She was up in time to catch a nine-thirty train?”

  “She would have had plenty of time. It must have been only a little after eight when I spoke to her. In fact, she’s probably almost there by now,” the concierge added, glancing at the crystal-cased clock on his desk.

  “Wouldn’t you just know this would be the one time she decides to get up before noon,” Mariah muttered. She and Frank
exchanged worried looks, then simultaneously voiced the same thought. “Scheiber!” She rummaged in her pocket until she found the Newport detective’s card. But when she borrowed the phone to call him, she got voice mail. “I’m on my way down there,” she said in her message, after giving a brief rundown on her daughter’s ill-advised plan to visit Chap Korman. “Frank Tucker and I have more information on your case, Detective. I’ll call you when I get to Newport, but in the meantime, I’d be grateful if you’d have your people keep an eye out for my daughter.”

  As Mariah hung up, she noticed that another woman, blond, wearing a dark business suit, had appeared at the concierge’s desk. “I’m Barbara Latham, assistant manager of the hotel,” she said, looking askance at Frank as she added to Mariah, “Is this gentleman giving you any trouble?”

  “Who? Frank?” Mariah said.

  “Ms. Latham and I met last night,” he explained. “In your room.”

  “Oh,” Mariah said, nodding. “I heard about that. No, it’s my daughter,” she added to the other woman. “She took it in her head to visit a friend in Newport Beach this morning. Your concierge, unfortunately, lived up to the hotel’s reputation for personal service and advised her how to get there. She’s only fifteen and she went on her own. She’s never been in Los Angeles before.”

  “Oh dear,” Latham said, shifting her critical regard to the concierge.

  “She seemed older,” he said. “A very self-assured fif-teen, believe me.”

  “Look, I’m not blaming anyone,” Mariah said. “She’s my responsibility, no one else’s. I just need to find her. Aside from anything else, the friend she was going to see in Newport has died suddenly, but she doesn’t know that.”

  “Oh dear,” the assistant manager said again, more strenuously.

  “I’m heading out after her right now,” Mariah added, “but I’m worried about what happens if she calls here while I’m out.”