The Color of Night

CHAPTER 58

Strand watched them, tantalized by their facial expressions, their gestures, the angle of their bodies, the cant of their shoulders. Bill Howard seemed quite comfortable with Schrade, as much as anyone could be. Their conversation was constant and apparently to the point, since neither of them ever took the time to look around the restaurant, either out of idle curiosity or out of concern for surveillance. Strand took that as a good sign, an indication that he had successfully convinced Howard that he had departed London the previous night.

He watched carefully as they progressed through their meal. He guessed that both men would have dessert. When the time came, they did, accompanied by coffee for Howard and espresso for Schrade. Strand asked for his bill. He wanted to leave just in front of them. They lingered over their drinks. Strand’s bill came promptly, too promptly. He perused it. They called for their bill also. Strand caught the eye of the young woman in the black dress, who took his credit card. Schrade did the same. Strand felt as though he were engaged in an intricate dance in which the partners never touched.

His young woman returned. Schrade’s returned. Bill Howard now looked around idly for the first time. He looked straight at Strand, who had glanced up from signing his credit card slip. Their eyes met, and Howard’s eyes moved on. That was bad luck. Howard did not recognize him, but ideally Strand should never have allowed himself to be noticed at all, not even in passing. Strand tore off his copy of the credit slip and got up from his table. Neither Schrade nor Howard noticed he was leaving.

He had to wait in the reception foyer for his raincoat and umbrella. If they separated here, at the restaurant, Strand had a chance at Claridge’s as Schrade went inside. Or in the lobby, if it was still busy. Or in the elevator, if he could get him alone.

Just as his coat and umbrella arrived, Schrade and Howard appeared at the desk, asking for theirs. One of the blue-eyed women helped Strand on with his raincoat while Schrade and Howard chatted a moment, waiting for their coats to be retrieved from the cloakroom. Strand could hear their voices clearly, but he understood nothing. The blood was driving through his head so violently, his ears heard only the rushing.

As Strand was buttoning his coat he realized the foyer was full of people. Two couples had arrived. There was the noise of conversation. Three young women in black were now among them. The one who had helped Strand turned to the arriving couples to ask their names. A second one was approaching with Schrade’s and Howard’s raincoats, and a third was talking to the maitre d’ about something happening in the dining room. Howard turned away, momentarily distracted. Schrade was being helped with his coat.

This was it. Strand thrust his hand into his pocket and gripped the pistol. He put his finger into the trigger guard and took one step toward Schrade as Howard turned around and looked at him, their faces an arm’s length away.

What in the hell was he doing? Hadn’t he just told himself at the table that it wouldn’t work as long as Howard was with him? The pistol felt like a brick in his hand.

“How are you?” Howard said reflexively in his American drawl, with his American familiarity, like saying “Excuse me” when one found oneself face-to-face with someone in a sudden crowded situation, shoulders touching, hips brushing. Did Howard’s eyes linger a moment? Did something catch his notice?

Strand grunted, nodded, turned, the small crowd shifting naturally, never maintaining the same configuration, the new arrivals moving up.

Strand made it to the door and was suddenly outside. He was perspiring profusely and was suddenly worried about the latex. He took the first cab available, got inside, and leaned forward.

“Just pull up a little way and wait, please.”

Schrade and Howard emerged and talked on the sidewalk. They were not interested in a cab, and Howard showed no signs of leaving. A dark Mercedes turned on its lights down the street and moved toward them slowly. As it approached the restaurant’s awning, the doorman stepped out and opened the door. Schrade and Howard got inside.

“Christ,” Strand said. He leaned forward and told the cabdriver, “I need you to follow this Mercedes coming around us here. I think it’s going to Claridge’s, but if it’s not, I just need to know where it’s going.” He took two fifty-pound notes out of his wallet and handed one through the window. “The Mercedes driver is trained to spot a tail.”

“Right, sir. I understand.”

He may have understood, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He glommed on to the Mercedes, which luckily went straight up the street and around Grosvenor Square to Claridge’s. If he had been going anywhere else, the Mercedes driver would have spotted him in five minutes.

“Keep going,” Strand said quickly. They passed the Mercedes, which had pulled up to the Claridge’s awning, and turned into Avery Row, which turned quickly into Brook’s Mews, which brought them around to Davies Street.

“Okay,” Strand said, unable to hide his frustration and anger. “Back to Claridge’s.”

When the cab approached the awning, he gave the second fifty-pound note to the driver and hurried through the vestibule to the front hall. He was just in time to see Schrade’s back rounding the corner to the elevators. Where was Howard? Was he ahead of him? Was he now behind Strand, watching Schrade’s back? Strand had no time to speculate further. He hurried to follow and got to the elevators just in time to wait a moment with Schrade. Howard was not there, nor was anyone else other than Schrade. Perfect. Strand’s heart was slamming against his chest. One hand was holding the umbrella, the other was in his raincoat pocket, gripping the pistol.

The elevator opened, three men got off, and he and Schrade stepped inside. Schrade punched the button for the fifth floor. Strand reached across and punched the button for the sixth. He stepped back. He rehearsed the coming moments. When the doors closed he would shoot Schrade immediately. When they stopped on the fifth floor and the doors opened, he would grab Schrade and pretend to be ministering to him. If someone was waiting there, he would call for help. If no one was waiting, he would shove Schrade out into the hall and go on up to the next floor, then down and out of the hotel.

All of this burst into his mind as an instant template for the next three minutes. He felt for the safety on the pistol. The doors were closing. He flicked off the safety.

Then a bell chimed and the doors jerked back. A man and a woman were waiting apologetically.

“Sorry,” the man said. The two of them stepped in, between Schrade and Strand, and the man punched the seventh floor. The woman was wearing a gardenia fragrance that instantly permeated the elevator, a saccharine epitaph for the demise of another opportunity.

Strand was trembling inside when Schrade stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor. That was the end of it for the evening. He got off the elevator on the sixth and then waited in the hall until he could descend again to his own room on the fourth floor.

Once inside, he stood still a moment, panting as if he had run the whole distance from Ma Micheline. Jesus Christ, how could he have been that close without… He stopped. He reminded himself again of the reality of what he was doing. It was no different from surveillance work, until the last moment. Up to then it required the same patience, was subject to the same frustrations, required the same instantaneous adjustments in plan to accommodate unforeseen intrusions. One always expected the inevitable unexpected event. Changing course was routine. Adapting to sudden reversals was the norm.

Back in his suite, he pulled off his raincoat and hung it in the closet, then his suit coat. He laid the pistol on the coffee table. He kicked off his shoes and slumped down on the sofa, looking out toward the Italian embassy. He stared out to the London night for a moment and then picked up the telephone.

“It’s me,” he said when Mara answered.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Drained. No luck.” He told her about the events of the evening. She listened without comment.

“So that leaves the morning,” he said.

She waited a second. “Listen, Harry. Don’t… don’t…”

“Don’t get desperate. Don’t do anything rash,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

They both seemed to realize how bizarre that sounded, in light of what he was trying to do.

“I was, uh, surprised at how I felt, seeing him after all this time,” Strand said. He was speaking softly, as though the telephone were the walls of a confessional. “I was very surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

He hesitated. “I wanted to kill him. It wasn’t dispassionate.”

“Did you think it would be?”

“I’d imagined it would be.”

They did not speak for a moment, and then she said, “Harry…” The tone of her voice hinted at a conversation he did not want to have. “Maybe… maybe…”

“Don’t say it.”

“Harry, neither of us is sure we’re doing the right thing here.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not. Where’s the wisdom in being blind about this?”

“I’m not looking for wisdom, Mara.”

She said nothing else. They stayed on the telephone together, but neither of them spoke for a long time. Then Mara said:

“It’s raining again here. And it’s lonely.”

Strand struggled a moment with the lump in his throat. He thought she must know what was happening.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I love you, Harry Strand.”