Frameshift

He’d been wearing a watch cap when she’d last seen him, his ears pressed flat against his head, his baldness concealed, but that was him, no doubt about it—$

“Pierre, wait!” Her husband turned to look at her. Molly’s jaw was hanging open.

“I founded this company forty-eight years ago,” said Abraham Danielson, his reedy voice tinged by an Eastern European accent. “At that time—”

“It’s him,” said Molly in a low voice to Pierre, who was now lowering himself back into his seat. “It’s him — it’s the man I saw torturing the dying cat!”

“Are you sure?” whispered Pierre.

Molly nodded vigorously. “It’s him!”

Pierre squinted to see the guy better: thick necked, bald. Sure, all old geezers looked somewhat alike, but this guy bore more than a passing resemblance to Burian Klimus, although Klimus didn’t have flapping ears like that. In fact, who he really looked like was—$

Jesus, he was the spitting image of John Demjanjuk.

“Holy God,” said Pierre. He sagged back in his chair, as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Holy God,” he said again. “Molly — it’s Ivan Marchenko!”

“But — but when I saw him that morning in San Francisco, he swore at me in Russian, not Ukrainian.”

“Lots of people speak Russian in the Ukraine,” said Pierre. He shook his head back and forth. It all made sense. What better job for an out-of-work Nazi than being an actuary? He’d spent the war years dividing people into good and bad classes — Aryan, Jew; master, slave — and now he’d found a way to continue doing that. And the murders, conducted by neo-Nazis led by a man they called Grozny. How many people needed to be eliminated to ensure Condor’s obscene profits? Whatever the figure, it was chump change compared to the number Marchenko had killed half a century before.

If only he had a camera — if only he could show Avi Meyer what this fucking goddamned son-of-a-bitch asshole looked like—$

They got up to leave again, Pierre moving as fast as he possibly could.

They made it to the elevator lobby. Molly pressed the call button. As they waited, a large black man in a tweed jacket came out after them. “Wait!” he called. He had a big leather bag hanging from his shoulder.

Molly looked up at the row of illuminated digits above each of the four doors. The closest elevator was still eight floors away.

“Wait!” said the man again, jogging up to close the distance. “Dr. Tardivel, I want to have a word with you.”

Molly moved close to her husband. “He said everything he had to say back there.”

The black man shook his head. He was in his early forties, with a dusting of snow throughout his close-cropped hair. “I don’t think so. I think he’s got a hell of a lot more to say.” He looked directly at Pierre.

“Don’t you?”

Pierre’s legs were trying to walk out from underneath him. “Well…”

“What business is it of yours?” said Molly, cutting Pierre off. The elevator had arrived and the doors slid open.

The black man reached into his jacket. For a horrible moment, Pierre thought he was going for a gun. But all he pulled out was a slim, much-worn leather business-card case. He handed a card to Molly. “I’m Barnaby Lincoln,” he said. “I’m a business writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.”

“What do — ?” began Pierre.

“I’m covering the shareholders’ meeting. But there’s a better story in what you were saying.”

“They can’t see the future — can’t see where it’s all going,” said Pierre.

“Exactly,” said Lincoln. “I’ve been covering insurance stories for years; all these guys are out of control. There needs to be federal legislation preventing the use of genetic profiles in determining insurance eligibility everywhere.”

Pierre was intrigued. Ivan Marchenko had been free for fifty years now; a few minutes more wouldn’t matter. “D’accord,” said Pierre.

“Can we go somewhere for coffee?”

“All right,” said Pierre. “But before we do, I need you to do me a favor. I need a photo of Abraham Danielson.”

Lincoln frowned. “The old man doesn’t like having his picture taken. We don’t even have a file photo of him at the Chronicle.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Pierre. “Do you have a telephoto lens here?

Surely you could snap off a shot from the back of the room. I need a good, clean head-and-shoulders picture of him.”

“What for?”

Pierre was quiet for a moment. “I can’t tell you now, but if you take the photo, and get me some prints of it right away, I promise you’ll be the person I call first when” — he knew the appropriate metaphor in French, but had to rack his brain for a moment to come up with the English equivalent — “when the story breaks.”

Lincoln shrugged. “Wait here,” he said. He went back into the auditorium. As the door opened, Pierre recognized Craig Bullen’s voice coming over the speakers. So much the better: Abraham Danielson had clearly sat back down and would hardly be on guard against his picture being taken now. Lincoln returned a few minutes later. “Got it,” he said.

“Good,” said Pierre. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter 38