An Absence of Light

“Good. Okay,” Kalatis said. “Now, for my part: I guarantee you a three hundred percent return. In sixty days you will receive a telephone message telling you where and when to meet my representative in Luxembourg. You will open an account there in your name for fifteen million American dollars. My representative will provide the documentation that will satisfy the bankers about the deposit. They want that now. Things have gotten a little more difficult in that regard, but it is only a matter of paperwork. Formalities.”

Kalatis’s cold cigar lay in the ashtray between them, and the ice cubes-all that was left of their Cuba Libres-had turned to less than half an inch of warm water in the bottom of each glass.

“Any questions?”

“You’ll pick me up again?”

“One of my people, yes.”

“At the same place?”

Kalatis nodded.

“Okay. I’m satisfied.”

Kalatis stood. “So am I.”

The other man stood too, and suddenly one of Kalatis’s guards appeared at the edge of the veranda.

“He’ll take you back to the States,” Kalatis said “It will be a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Sir,” the guard said, stepping up and touching the businessman’s arm. The businessman started to shake Kalatis’s hand, but the Greek turned away to light another Cohiba.

“Good-bye,” Kalatis said through a haze of blue smoke, “and bonne chance.”

The businessman stood still while he was once again blindfolded. Then he was led down the steps and across the lawn to the seaplane moored at the dock below.

WEDNESDAY Chapter 37

The Fourth Day

Anticipating he would have a difficult time getting to sleep, Graver set his alarm late, allowing himself just enough time to shower and shave and drive to Arnette’s. No time for breakfast. Within half an hour of waking, he was walking out the front door of the house. Avoiding the expressways, he negotiated the slower city streets and tried not to acknowledge his growling stomach. He would have given five dollars for a cup of coffee, but did not stop to get one. He already was cutting it close. When he pulled up in front of Arnette’s house he was five minutes late.

He got out of the car, pushed the door closed softly and walked up to the front gate. The morning sun broke through the high overstory of water oaks and loblolly pines only intermittently, falling here and there on the leaves of the plantains and the palmetto fronds in brassy, molten splashes. Already the birds were clamoring high overhead.

Mona met Graver at the front door, smiling and barefoot and holding a mug of steaming coffee.

“Good God, Mona, I love you,” Graver said, gratefully taking the mug from her and following her into the perpetual twilight of Arnette’s living room.

“I love you too, bah-bee.” Mona laughed. “The Lady is waiting for you next door,” she said, and then hopefully, “Have you had something to eat?”

“Oh, I’m doing all right,” he lied, wishing he had the time to sit down and indulge himself with one of Mona’s incomparable breakfasts.

“Okay.” She shrugged philosophically, as if it was Graver’s loss.

He left her in the kitchen and continued out the side door to the grape arbor and over to the next house, entering through the screened patio.

The big room was empty except for a hard-looking woman with a mat of roan hair sitting at the big library table beside the radio. She was wearing the same headset the blond girl had worn the night before and was taking notes from one of the fat ring binders with which the table was still piled.

She looked up at him. “Graver?”

He nodded.

She pushed a button and returned to her writing, occasionally, like the blonde, reaching out to fine-tune the dials without looking at them.

Graver looked around. The computers were all quiet, each of them in a hectic limbo with different patterned screen savers, swimming and jigging and rippling in brilliantly colored silence. He stepped over to the doorway that he knew led to an adjacent room that housed Arnette’s library. Looking in, he saw that she had significantly expanded her inventory with a larger section of publications that originated within the federal government’s twenty-seven oversight intelligence services and their plethora of subordinate branches that comprised the United States intelligence community. Graver knew that most of these documents were classified. Apparently Arnette had lost none of her connections within the service. The country maps section also had been expanded, especially in those areas of the globe where the U.S. had its greatest vested interests.

“Good morning,” Arnette said, coming into the main room from yet another doorway carrying a mug of coffee and a large packet which she took to the library table. The woman with the headset began clearing aside the ring binders. “Get some sleep?”

“Some,” Graver said, coming back to the table.

Arnette pulled the photographs out of the large envelope and slapped them on the table.

“The photographer stayed up late last night,” she said. “Let’s see if it was worth it.”