The Color of Night

CHAPTER 41

Harry Strand sat on one of the wooden benches in Mount Street Gardens, a small, cloistered common of irregular shape enclosed on its various sides by the Gothic Revival Church of the Immaculate Conception, St. Georges Primary School, Grosvenor Chapel, and the rear entrances to the elegant row houses that faced Mount Street.

The afternoon air was fresh as the sun filtered down through the bowers of the ponderous plane trees that dominated the gardens, their hand-size leaves rustling in the light breeze like rushing water. Pigeons sailed into the quiet close, skittering through the dappled light to land on the grass, where they strutted about in addled curiosity before finally settling into a meditative squat to warm themselves in the random puddles of sun.

Strand listened to the intermittent echoes of the voices of children playing behind the tall windows of St. Georges and to the occasional quick step of a solitary pedestrian taking a shortcut through the gardens. He liked the feel of the air on his face and the distant rumble of London traffic that was all but dampened into silence by the surrounding walls of brick and stone.

Bill Howard came into the gardens from the Mount Street entrance, walking through the opened wrought iron gates at a slow, deliberate pace. He stopped at the intersection of the main path and lighted a cigarette, the gesture giving him time to scan the benches along the pathways to find Strand. Without indicating that he had seen him, he turned onto the main footpath. He was wearing a suit that seemed particularly stylish for him, a double-breasted one of chocolate summer wool. He passed through several shafts of sunlight as he approached Strand’s bench. He sat down without saying a word.

They watched the pigeons in silence for a few moments and then Strand said, “Bill, I want to make a deal.”

“A deal.”

“That’s right.”

Howard shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Harry, you may have gone too far. I don’t know if they want to deal anymore.”

Silence.

“I sent Mara away,” Strand said.

Howard just looked at him. He was trying to decide how to react.

“She told me everything,” Strand said.

Howard smoked, then, slowly, a sarcastic grin twisted his mouth, and he shook his head, looking away.

“She was pretty good,” Strand said.

“No, she wasn’t any good at all.” Howard looked around. “I knew damned well…”

“I know. She told me.”

Howard snorted. “It may be too late for her, too. I don’t think they’re going to-”

“I don’t want to make a deal with the FIS, Bill. I want to make a deal with Schrade.”

Howard managed to hide his surprise. He frowned and leaned back into the corner against the arm of the bench. Like Strand, he crossed one leg over the other and pulled once more on the cigarette.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Two women pushing baby carriages entered from Archibald Mews together and sat on a bench just inside the entrance. They turned their carriages a little to take best advantage of the warming sun. One of them produced a thermos, the other a packet of biscuits.

“I’ve had it,” Strand said. “I’m not up to this anymore.”

“You’ve thought it through?” Howard’s voice was flat, his face sober with restrained emotion, like a physician whose terminally ill patient had just told him he wanted to pull the plug.

“Yeah. I’ve thought it through. I’ve pushed it as far as it’s going to go.”

Howard didn’t move. He took another drag on his cigarette and tossed the butt onto the path. It smoldered there, burning the last bit of tobacco.

“What made you change your mind?”

Strand hesitated a moment. “It’s just the accumulative toll. I don’t want to lose what little I’ve got left.”

“Why are you coming to me? I told you before, it’s all over with the FIS and this guy. There’s no communication channel.”

“I’ve been out of the business for a while, Bill, and I may be a bit rusty. But I’m willing to bet that you still have access to Schrade, some kind of access.”

Howard looked at him blankly, his best poker face. His “no comment” facade.

“I don’t give a damn how,” Strand added. “I don’t care. I just think you’re my best bet for getting this to him.”

“This what?”

“My offer. A deal.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll give it all back. The principal. The interest. Everything.”

“Bullshit. You can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Hell, it’s tied up in charities and all that.”

“Where did you get that information?”

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Harry. Look, even if the FIS didn’t have the best goddamn intelligence in the world, you know damn well Schrade’s looked into it with a microscope-right up through the ass of all those foundations you set up. He came to us stomping mad, before he left us with our mouths open and our pants down. He showed us what you’d done with the money.” Howard’s neck was swelling in anger.

“He couldn’t have.”

“Okay, he showed us how it was done… the system, the way.”

Strand wanted desperately to know how Schrade had discovered their scheme, but he wouldn’t give Howard the satisfaction of asking. Apparently Schrade’s accountants really hadn’t found the actual charities.

“Somehow nobody really believes that money is out of their reach, do they, Bill?” Strand retorted. “I mean, why is everybody still hanging around? Why’d the FIS go to the trouble-the considerable trouble-of training Mara? Because you still think you can get the money. Why hasn’t Schrade killed me? Because, despite what he ‘showed’ you, he, too, thinks he can still get his hands on the money-through me. It hasn’t stopped him from cutting me off from everything but my arms. But I’m still alive. Everybody thinks they can still get their hands on the money somehow, some way, eventually.”

“Christ, Harry.” Howard didn’t know what to believe.

“I hid that money behind a lot of doors, Bill, but not all of them were locked. No one’s found them because they weren’t supposed to. There wouldn’t have been any point if people could find them. I think you know that already.”

Howard gave him a sour look. He was thinking. Finally he asked, “What’s the ‘deal’ you’re talking about?”

“We just want a life.”

“You want to turn back the clock.”

“No.” Strand handed Howard a piece of paper. “I just don’t want Schrade to stop it.”

“What’s this?”

“An Internet address. This is where you can get me.”

Howard looked at the address. “This is the way you want to work this out?”

“No. This is the way I want you to arrange the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“It’s part of the deal. I want to talk with Wolf face to face.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake…”

“It’s a deal breaker, Bill. It’s got to be this way.”

“What the fuck do you mean it’s a deal breaker? ‘Deal breaker.’ You’re in no goddamn position to talk ‘deal breaker,’ Harry. What’re you talking about? Shit. You don’t do the deal, he kills you. There’s no deal here. I mean, even if you give him the money, all of it. The interest. The whole shitload. How’re you going to get him to hold up his end of the ‘deal’?” Howard shook his head, looking at the e-mail address. “This is insanity.”

Strand was surprised. He had thought that Howard would take his offer and run to Schrade as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Instead he was pointing out that the offer was absurd, an act of desperation. A deal in which the “deal” would surely be violated. In Howard’s mind, Strand was already a dead man.

“I’ll make sure he holds up his end of the arrangement,” Strand said.

“What, ‘anything happens to me and the New York Times will get an envelope’? Harry, you poor fucking stump.”

“I wouldn’t have come to you with this if I didn’t have it covered.”

“Sure, that’s good.” Howard rolled his head. “You’ve got it covered. Great.”

From the Audley gates an elderly couple entered the gardens with a short-haired dog, an animal of no discernible breed, on a leash. The three of them ambled along the main walk as the dog snuffled busily at the grassy margins, ferreting excitedly among the green clumps. Entrusted with the leash, the woman watched the dog with critical attention, while the man, hands behind his back, gazed about the close with a mild, bifocaled curiosity.

“Why should I do this for you, Harry?”

“Two reasons. First, I can keep the FIS from getting it. I can tie it up for decades. This was not a shoddy operation, Bill. Some very intelligent people put a lot of thought and sweat into this before we even started. Dennis Clymer was a genius. We ran it for six months, fine-tuning it as we went along, addressing potential problem areas that might crop up farther down the road. We shut it down and took another six months to stabilize what we’d done. So if the FIS wants to try to get it, fine, but my guess is, if they’re going to try to get it through the legal system, the Justice Department’s going to take a closer look at this and tell them to forget it. Everyone you know in the FIS will have retired by the time they finally realize it’s a goose hunt.

“Second, you’d want to do it for the three million dollars I’m going to put in a Belgium account for you. It’s properly sheltered, safe to access.”

“That’s goddamn blunt,” Howard said.

“If I remember, you’re impatient with finesse.”

“Yeah.”

It was a crucial moment, but Strand never doubted how it would end.

“Three million dollars…” Howard’s eyes were fixed on the bit of paper, which he had now folded and unfolded so many times that it was getting limp. Then, to Strand’s surprise, Bill Howard seemed to grow angry. Strand could actually see him trying to control his temper, tucking in his chin, tightening his nostrils, his face flushing.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Howard said abruptly after a little thinking. “So, when I have something, if I have something, I contact you?” He raised the piece of paper and waggled it.

“Yeah. One other thing. I’m leaving London tonight. If you want to talk to me personally after tonight, it won’t be easy. It’ll take a little time to arrange.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not staying anywhere very long,” Strand said.

“I’ll see what I can do. Shit.”

“It’s not something he really has to ponder, Bill.”

“Harry, for Christ’s sake… Okay, look, how complicated is the money end of this situation?”

“Not too complicated.”

“Well, shit, that clarifies it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do I tell him? A week? Days?”

“Hours.”

Howard perked up. “Hours?”

“Yeah.”

Howard studied him. “Where do you want to meet him?”

“I’ll get to that.”

“When?”

“When I see how he reacts to the offer.”

Howard folded the paper one last time and put it in the side pocket of his suit coat. As the elderly couple passed by he held his next comment, watching the dog disapprovingly. When they were out of earshot he went on.

“What’s the time frame here?”

“We’ll work it out.”

“The sooner the better?”

“That’s right.”

Howard was feeling better. He was trying to cover all the bases.

“What if he turns you down, Harry? What then?”

“Eventually he’ll get me. I know that.” He paused. “But I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing half a billion dollars of his laundered cash do some good for a change.”

“But you’d cough it all up to save your ass.”

Strand looked at him. “I tried to do what I thought would be a good thing,” he said. “I guess I’ve found out that I don’t have the guts to give my life for it. Or Mara’s. I’ve already lost everything but her. That’s what I was telling you at the beginning, Bill. None of this is very pretty, any way you slice it.”