The Color of Night

CHAPTER 31

BERLIN, SCHWANENWERDER

The villa sat on the island like a stone outcropping emerging from the deep emerald of the German woods. A nineteenth-century residence in the neoclassical style, it was made of gray limestone. From its high elevation it commanded a panoramic view that took in the exclusive villa district of Nikolassee on the opposite shore as well as the broad waist of the Havel River. In the distance the river narrowed as it neared Pichelsdorf, the densely wooded banks closing in and gradually swallowing the water in a throat of green.

A Mercedes motored slowly across the bridge from the mainland and proceeded to make its way along the narrow drive to the gates below the villa. Here the Mercedes stopped while Bill Howard presented his identification at the gatehouse, then continued up a serpentine lane to a motor court in front of the villa.

The view from here was stunning in the summer sunshine, but Howard did not bother to stop and look at it. He was welcomed by a young man dressed in a business suit and carrying a clipboard who led him into the villa and up several flights of wide stone stairways whose steps were so shallow that the climb was hardly noticeable at all. At every turn Howard caught sight of the Havel from windows that perfectly framed different views and brought him to the top of the stairs and an anteroom.

If he had known what he was looking at, which he did not, he would have found himself surrounded by works of art by some of the finest French, German, and Flemish artists of the late Gothic period: van Eyck, da Fabriano, Bosch, Fouquet, and Wiertz. Careful thought had gone into the manner in which the works were displayed, their sequence, their visual impact, their dominant color schemes, subtleties completely lost on Bill Howard. In fact, he had mused privately that the overall effect of this curious collection of paintings was rather grim and severe. He also assumed that the art in the anteroom had cost a fortune. This time he was closer to the mark.

Though several doorways exited off this anteroom, he was ushered toward the one straight in front of him. The room he entered was perhaps four times as long as its width and terminated at the far end with a huge window that once again provided a spectacular view of the heavily bowered Havel. More paintings and drawings hung along the high walls of the room, and down the center of its entire length was a series of waist-high lime wood cabinets with narrow horizontal shelves that contained scores of leather-bound portfolio boxes. Each box had gilt stamping on its face and spine, identifying a specific collection of drawings. One portfolio lay open on the slanted top of each cabinet, its contents ready for perusal. Farther toward the windows was a sitting area, and beyond that, just in front of the window itself, was a massive antique desk at which sat Wolfram Schrade.

Howard had been here many times before, and he knew the routine. Schrade was busy at his desk, so Howard did not speak to him but took a seat in one of the armchairs in the sitting area. Schrade ignored him. Howard let his eyes wander around the room. The place was a goddamn museum. It gave him the creeps.

After about ten minutes Howard heard some shuffling at the desk. He looked around to see Schrade standing, taking off his reading glasses as he came round the side of his desk. He was buttoning a double-breasted navy blue suit, which he wore over a tailor-made white shirt with medium-width crimson stripes. No tie. He was tall and lean, his face angular with a straight nose. His hair was thick, the color of sun-bleached flax.

“What about the woman?” Schrade asked, as if they were picking up a conversation of a few minutes earlier. His accent was not subtle, but neither was it distracting. His voice was unconcerned, his manner relaxed. Howard had never seen him otherwise.

Howard explained that the hunch he had had about her from the beginning was proving to be right. He thought she had become sympathetic with Strand. He no longer considered her reliable.

“Have you told this to Payton?”

“No.”

“I see. Well, I am finished fucking with them, then,” Schrade said. “I want her put away.”

There it was, Schrade’s peculiar phrase that Howard always found so jarring. In his own experience the phrase was veterinary, and he wondered how Schrade had come by it in English. Howard, who did not consider himself squeamish, found it a particularly brutal expression.

He whistled softly under his breath. “You’re talking about an FIS agent now. That’s going to get a response…”

“They are not going to respond to anything,” Schrade said with indifferent disdain. “Strand knows the thing is finished. Besides that, she obviously means something to him. Where are they?”

“Bellagio. My tech people said this morning the signal hadn’t moved…”

“Oh, your ‘tech people.’” Despite his languid manner, Schrade was expert at conveying frigid sarcasm. He was standing in front of Howard in his distinctive manner, erect posture, though not rigid, with his unoccupied arms hanging straight down by his sides. He appeared to be very comfortable that way, feeling no need to cross his arms or put his hands in his pockets or otherwise engage himself in some type of self-conscious body language that most other people could hardly avoid.

“You ought to reconsider what you’re doing to Strand,” Howard said.

“No.”

“No, shit. I’m going to tell you, you kill that woman he’s with now, and he’ll never let go of a single goddamn Deutsche mark of what he took from you. Hell, he’s got to think he can save her life by giving it up.” He paused. “Most people, Wolf, respond to pressure when they have some reason to. You take away a man’s reason to live-”

“Nothing is going to save her life.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Howard glared at him. Vicious fucker. Howard always walked a narrow line with Schrade. He had to exhibit a certain amount of brazen aggression. Schrade understood and appreciated that. But he couldn’t push it too far. Fear and fortune were closely aligned in Schrade’s orbit. Right now the guy was as serene as a nun. Howard couldn’t figure it out. He always looked as though he were wearing new clothes. His shirts and suits were unfailingly fresh and crisp. His damn pants were never even wrinkled at the crotch after he had been sitting behind his desk all day. Did he have some kind of fetish about putting on new clothes every day? That would be weird, even for Schrade.

“I have to tell you…” Howard started out carefully; he didn’t want to provoke the goose until he’d put one more golden egg in his own Liechtenstein account, but he had to conduct some business here. “The FIS is pretty damn hot about the way you handled the Houston hit. That was over the top.”

“The man responsible for that fiasco has been put away,” Schrade said. “That was regrettable.”

“They’re trying to contain the investigation, but, Jesus…” Howard hesitated, again wanting to be careful. “It’s thrown us into an emergency situation back in the States.”

Schrade’s clear eyes picked up the faintest hint of a pale glacial blue from his navy suit.

“Yes, I imagine it has. You realize, of course, I don’t give a damn. If the FIS had not been so feeble, this would not be happening. You understand, if it had not been for the very”-here his voice allowed a tonal change of nearly imperceptible difference-“ thinnest margin of chance, I would never have known about this disaster in the first place. If Dennis Clymer had not made the mistake of using the same tactics to embezzle for one of Lodato’s clients, if that client’s accountant hadn’t bungled the plan, if I hadn’t agreed to launder a certain sum for Lodato, and if my accountants hadn’t seen a curious familiar pattern in Clymer’s Lodato scheme…” Schrade paused and approached to the very edge of Howard’s chair. “If all of that had not happened, none of this would have been discovered at all.”

Howard was looking up at him, a perspective he didn’t like. These had become Schrade’s mantras: the thinnest margin, the stupidity of the FIS, his terrible financial losses.

“That, Mr. Howard, is too many ifs,” Schrade concluded. “The FIS should not have sent you with this little complaint.” Pause. “Considering our relationship, you should not have even passed it on to me.”

“I still have to work for them.”

“That is no concern of mine.” Schrade turned away and walked to the nearest of the lime wood cabinets, where he began idly paging through the drawings displayed there.

Finally he was doing something with his hands, Howard thought.

“It ought to be,” Howard said. “You’re making a fortune off the intelligence I’m still passing along to you.”

“No, it ought not to be,” Schrade disagreed with a mild finality, still studying the drawings. “My only concern regarding you is whether you are useful to me.” He looked at Howard. “Everyone is always ‘making a fortune’ off of something or someone. I hear that hyperbole all the time.”

The starched young man who had escorted Howard into the house entered the room. Schrade turned his head.

“The two representatives from Christie’s and the woman from the Galerie Severine are here.”

Schrade gave a dismissive nod to the young man, then looked back at Howard.

“I want to see you again tomorrow. Same time. There are some additional concerns on this issue. Aside from that, I have several client requests for intelligence. Very important. Lucrative. For both of us.”

Howard began to get up out of the overstuffed armchair, but Schrade was through and had already turned toward his desk, unfolding his reading glasses as he went. By the time Howard had gained his feet, Schrade was sitting in his chair, already absorbed in his reading. Howard paused and looked at him a moment. The impertinent son of a bitch. Never said hello, never said good-bye. Those were transitional niceties of human communication that, over the years, Schrade had gradually abridged, and then completely eliminated, from his dealings with people. At the exact moment he was through with you, you ceased to exist. The man had no soul; he really had no need for one. The only time Howard had ever seen him behave with anything resembling an actual human emotion was when he encountered new pieces of art that he wanted to buy. Only then, in the presence of oil and canvas, when his pale, pellucid eyes fell on sheets of paper scrabbled and scratched with pen or pencil or chalk, did he appear to want to interact with something outside his own intellect. Such an absence of human needs was frightening.

Howard turned and walked out of the long museum of Schrade’s mind, accompanied only by the sound of his own footsteps and a sour taste in his mouth.