Rules of Deception

15

“Bastards! Espèce de salopards!” Simone Noiret banged the dashboard with every epithet. “He was trying to kill you! Why?”

“I don’t know,” replied Jonathan, in a faraway voice. The heater was blasting him with a torrent of warm air, yet he couldn’t keep from shivering. The image of the policeman lamely grasping at the antenna protruding from his skull played front and center in his mind.

“But you must,” Simone insisted.

“They wanted the bags. That’s all I can think of. The guy lost his cool when I fought back.”

“The bags? That’s all? There must be more to it than that. Surely-”

“What do you want me to say?” Jonathan protested, turning toward her. “I’ve never seen those men before in my life. I’m just as frightened as you are. Arguing about it won’t help. We have to figure out what to do.”

Simone recoiled at the outburst. “Pardon me,” she said, settling into her seat. “You’re right. We’re both frightened. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“I know you didn’t. Let’s just sit here a few minutes, chill out, and figure out what we’re going to do.”

They had parked in a pine glade high on the mountain overlooking the city. Below them, no more than two miles’ distance, a swarm of flashing lights had converged on the train station. He counted ten police cars and two ambulances.

He poked his index finger into the neat round hole that the bullet had drilled into the dashboard. “Those men back there…one of them is dead, the other’s gravely injured at the least. I can’t just sit here. I’ve got to explain what happened. I’ve got to tell them that this whole thing is some kind of mistake. They went after the wrong person…”

“Look at the bullet hole, Jon. It’s your police who made it. And now you want to turn yourself in?” Simone threw up her hands in exasperation.

“What other choice is there? By now, every cop in this canton, and probably the whole country, has a description of us. Tall American with gray hair accompanied by a dark-haired woman traveling in a silver BMW 5 Series. In an hour, they’ll have our names…or at least mine. We won’t be hard to find.”

“And then what are you going to say? Are you going to tell them it was all in self-defense? They won’t believe a word.” Simone fished in her bag for a cigarette. “Pourris, Jon. You know what that means? Rotten. Bent. These policemen, they were no good.” She needed two hands to steady her lighter.

Jonathan opened the ID case. The identification belonged to Oskar Studer. Wachtmeister. Graubünden Kantonspolizei. It was then that he noticed that the car wasn’t equipped like other police cars. There was no two-way radio. No inboard computer. No gun rack. It was remarkably clean. Not a speck of dirt on the carpets. No empty coffee cups. The odometer read two thousand kilometers. There were some papers in the side compartment. Car rental documents made out to one Oskar Studer. The car had been taken out that morning at ten and was due back in twenty-four hours.

Pourris. He knew precisely what the word meant.

All thoughts of going to the police vanished.

He put the papers back. “They knew I was an American,” he said. “They were waiting for me.”

Simone nodded, her eyes meeting his, sharing his distress.

He glanced at the leather bag and the neatly wrapped package.

“Open them,” she said. “Let’s find out what this is about.”

He chose the package first. Using his Swiss Army knife, he sawed through the twine. The paper peeled away easily, revealing a glossy black box. A golden sticker embossed with a designer name decorated the upper right-hand corner.

“Bogner,” said Simone. “It must be a present.”

“Looks like it,” said Jonathan, unconvinced, as he cut the ribbon encircling the box.

Bogner made high-end clothing designed to keep jet-setters warm and chic on their trips to the Alps. On a lark, he and Emma had ducked into one of their shops while on a getaway to Chamonix last October. It was a sunny day, he remembered, a weekend between fall and winter when the nip in the air sharpens to a bite.

“Which one do you fancy?” Emma had asked, under her breath as they prowled the aisles. They were raiders operating behind enemy lines. The “enemy” being the vain and wealthy. Those who ignored their “duty to interfere.”

Jonathan pointed to a charcoal crewneck sweater. “I’ll take this one.”

“Consider it yours.”

“Really?” he said, playing along.

“It suits you. We’ll take it,” she said to the hovering salesgirl.

“We will?” said Jonathan, loud enough to risk blowing their cover.

Emma nodded, threading an arm through his. “I have hidden resources,” she whispered in his ear, though not before giving it a nibble.

“Does Madam have some Monopoly money hidden in a shoe box?”

Emma didn’t answer. Instead, she continued speaking to the salesgirl as if he weren’t there. “An extra large. And wrap it, please. It’s a present for my husband.” Her tone was no longer subdued or surreptitious. And neither was the look in her eye.

“Emma, come on,” he said. “Enough’s enough. Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” she insisted. “You’ve earned it. Back pay.”

“For what?”

“I’m not telling.”

At which point, Jonathan had seen the price tag, and after practically fainting, yanked her out of the store. Outside, they’d laughed at her impetuous behavior. But even then, she’d shot him a chilly look that said he’d committed a sin and was exiled to her bad graces until further notice.

Jonathan recalled her expression as he removed the box cover. Gauze paper concealed a dark garment. Parting the wrapping, he lifted it partially out of the box. He’d forgotten how soft it was.

“Lovely,” said Simone.

It was the sweater from Chamonix. A simple charcoal crewneck. Well made and elegant, but at first sight, nothing out of the ordinary, which was precisely his style. He passed his fingers over the collar. Fourply cashmere. There was nothing softer on earth. It had cost sixteen hundred dollars. Half a month’s salary.

“I have hidden resources.”

Was this the birthday present she’d mentioned to the manager of the Bellevue?

Jonathan laid the sweater back in the box. The balance of Dr. and Mrs. Ransom’s checking account presently stood at fifteen thousand some-odd Swiss francs. Roughly twelve thousand dollars. And that was before paying the hotel bill.

Setting aside the box, he pulled the calfskin bag onto his lap. He had the unsettling feeling that he was never meant to see its contents, just as he was never supposed to have opened Emma’s letter. “Those who listen at closed doors rarely hear good of themselves,” his mother had warned him as an adolescent. But to Jonathan, there was no longer good or bad. There was only truth and deception. He could no sooner discard the bag than he could ignore the baggage receipts. He had an image of himself opening a colorful Russian matryoshka stacking doll, each shell containing its smaller twin.

A sturdy gold lock held the zipper closed. He looked at Simone. She nodded. With that, he slipped the blade of his knife into the calfskin and guided it the length of the bag.

The first thing he saw was a ziplock bag containing a set of Mercedes-Benz car keys and a hand-drawn map with a square labeled “Bahnhof,” and a rectangle next to it labeled “Parking” with an “X” inked at its far end. Was it referring to the Landquart station? There were a lot of Bahnhofs in Switzerland.

A navy crepe blazer lay beneath the keys, along with a pair of matching slacks and an ivory blouse. It was the kind of stylish outfit worn by young executives in Frankfurt and London. Women you saw charging through airports on four-inch heels, cell phone clapped to their ear, and laptop bag over their shoulder. Then came a black lace brassiere and panties. There was nothing businesslike about these, he mused, lifting them by a finger. These were designed to impress an entirely different clientele.

A makeup kit presented itself next. Jonathan dug around inside it. Mascara. Eyeliner. Lipstick. Foundation, blush, moisturizer, and God help him, a set of false eyelashes. There was perfume, too. Tender Poison by Dior.

“And Emma?” he asked himself. She swore by Burberry’s Tender Touch. An English Rose by name and virtue.

Beneath the tubes and jars and compacts, he found a satin pouch bound by an elegant golden rope. With an inelegant yank, he unknotted it. A pirate’s booty lay inside: a Cartier slave bracelet and an emerald baguette; diamond earrings and a gold mesh necklace. He had no experience with jewelry, but he knew quality, and this was it.

He glanced up to find Simone staring at him. Jonathan felt an eerie communion between them. Their Emma did not wear power suits. Their Emma did not sport flaming red lipstick. She did not put on false eyelashes or dab Tender Poison behind her ear; and she most certainly did not possess an heiress’s jewelry. He had the impression that he was looking through another woman’s belongings.

Simone was examining a ring she’d taken from the pouch. “E.A.K.,” she said. “Know anyone by those initials?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Take a look on the inside.” It was a gold wedding band engraved “E.A.K. 2-8-01.” “That’s who the bag belongs to,” she said. “Mrs. E.A.K., who was married February 8, 2001. It must be one of Emma’s friends.”

Jonathan ran through the E’s he knew. He came up with an Ed, an Ernie, and an Étienne, but he didn’t think the thong was their size. The female list was shorter and ran to one name: Evangeline Larsen, a Danish doctor with whom he’d worked four years earlier.

There was a last item in the jewelry pouch. A stainless and gold ladies’ Rolex wristwatch with a diamond-crusted bezel. To Jonathan, it was the surest proof yet that his wife had no claim on the bag. A Rolex was the symbol of everything they found wrong with the world. Status for sale at five thousand bucks a shot. And Emma’s timepiece of choice? A Casio G-Force favored by hockey players, U.S. Marines, and aid professionals with a duty to interfere.

There was more in the bag. A pair of shoes. Size 5¹/₂. Emma’s size. He knew because she had small feet and often carped about how hard it was to find anything that fit. Stockings. A box of breath mints. An eyeglass case holding fashionable tortoiseshell spectacles.

Jonathan ran his hands along the inside of the bag. He felt something firm and rectangular tucked inside the wall. A wallet, he guessed. But even as he unzipped the compartment and removed the grosgrain crocodile billfold inside, something was nagging at him. It was the ring. A married woman didn’t take off her wedding band unless she was bathing or swimming, and even then, it was questionable. The thought of trusting it to a poorly secured overnight bag that had been placed on a common train was…well, it was unthinkable.

The billfold held a Eurocard, a Crédit Suisse ATM card, an American Express card, and a Rainbow Card entitling the bearer to use of Zug public transit for a year’s time.

“Eva Kruger,” he said, reading the cardholder’s name. E.A.K. “Ever heard of her?”

Simone shook her head. “She must be one of Emma’s contacts. I’m glad it will be you telephoning her to tell her what you did to her lovely bag and not me.”

But Jonathan didn’t respond. Not to the comment or its implicit humor. He had set about making an inventory of the wallet. There was cash in the amount of one thousand Swiss francs and five hundred euros. In the coin purse, he found four francs and fifty rappen.

Abruptly, he sat up. It came to him that there was one thing missing. Something Mrs. Eva Kruger, the law-abiding owner of a Mercedes-Benz, wouldn’t be caught dead without. Mind racing, he opened the crocodile wallet. It was a surgeon’s shockproof hands that defied his thumping heart and navigated through the credit cards and banknotes, delving into every possible nook and cranny.

He discovered Eva Kruger’s driver’s license, slipped into the space beneath the credit cards. He unfolded it and studied the color photograph affixed inside. An attractive woman with sleek brown hair pulled severely off her forehead, chic tortoiseshell spectacles hiding large amber eyes, and a full mouth gazed into the camera.

“What is it?” asked Simone. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

But Jonathan couldn’t speak. There was a great pressure on his chest, robbing him of air. He looked at the driver’s license again. Behind the diva’s mascara and the tart’s lipstick, Emma stared back at him.

Jonathan threw open the door and stepped outside. Walking a few paces, he stopped to lean against a tree. It was difficult to keep moving, to act as if the world hadn’t just shifted beneath his feet. He forced himself to regard the image of the severe woman with the slicked hair and the fashionable spectacles staring brazenly into the camera.

Eva Kruger.

One look at the photo and the idea of Emma having had an affair seemed an annoyance. No worse than a fly on a horse’s ass. But this-a false driver’s license, a false name, an entire double life-this was a black hole.

Simone came round the front of the car and stood next to him. “I’m sure there’s an explanation. Wait until we get back to Geneva. Then we’ll find out.”

“That watch costs ten thousand francs. And what about the other jewelry? The clothes? The makeup? Tell me, Simone, just what kind of explanation do you have in mind?”

She paused, thinking. “I don’t…I mean I can’t.”

He glanced down at his jacket and saw a patch of blood encrusted on it. He didn’t know if it was his or one of the policemen’s. Either way, the sight revolted him. He struggled out of the jacket and tossed it onto the hood of the car. The cold hit him immediately. “Hand me the sweater, would you?”

Simone retrieved the cashmere sweater from the car. “Here you are…”

An envelope dropped from the sweater’s folds into the snow. Jonathan traded glances with Simone, then picked it up. The envelope was unmarked, but heavy. He knew its contents immediately. It had the right heft, the right shape. He tore it open. Money. Lots of it. Thousand-franc notes. Newly minted and crisp as tracing paper.

“My God,” said Simone, eyes agog. “How much is it?”

“A hundred,” he said, after counting the stack.

“A hundred what?”

“One hundred thousand Swiss francs.”

I have hidden resources, Emma had said.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Simone was laughing, a high-pitched, hysterical laugh a hair’s breadth from out of control.

“Now we know,” said Jonathan, transfixed by the stack of banknotes.

“Know what?” asked Simone.

“Why the police wanted the bag.”

He slipped the bills back into the envelope and stuffed it into his pocket. It remained to be seen how they’d known the bags were in Landquart, and more important, at least to Jonathan’s mind, why Emma was meant to be the recipient of so much cash.

A breeze rustled the branches, wrestling flocks of snow to the ground. Shivering, he pulled the sweater over his head. The cashmere crewneck clung at his chest and his shoulders. The sleeves stopped three inches short of his wrist.

It was another man’s sweater.