Numbered Account

"I'll be there at nine," said Sprecher. "But about those ideas, Nick? Leave them at home."

***

Yogi Bauer emerged from the Keller Stubli a few minutes after Peter Sprecher had left. He walked pretty well for a man who'd been drinking since noon that day. Occasionally, he teetered this way and lurched that, but his determined posture and forward motion combined to right his listing. Nick followed at a prudent distance, praying that Bauer was going directly to Caspar Burki's.

Bauer scuttled down the Niederdorf hugging the buildings that ran to his right. He turned left at the Brungasse and disappeared from view. Nick hurried to catch up and when he turned the corner, nearly stumbled onto him. The Brungasse was a steep alley paved with slick cobblestones. Even the soberest pedestrian would have trouble walking up it. Bauer kept one hand on the building to his left, the other flailing the air, and managed to climb the hill, step by painful step. Nick waited until he had disappeared over the crest, then entered the alley and walked briskly up the incline. He paused at the top of the hill and tucked his head around the corner. He was rewarded with a perfect view of Yogi Bauer jamming his finger into the doorbell of a building a little ways down the left-hand side of the street.

Nick held his position and kept watch. Bauer attacked the buzzer while muttering a string of obscenities. When no one answered, he turned his attentions to a shuttered window on the second or third floor. He leaned his shaggy head back and entreated Caspar Burki to come out this instant. It was important, he was saying. They're after you, Cappy. Sie sind endlich hier. They've finally come.

Suddenly, a window flew open and a gray head popped out. "Damn you, Bauer. It's midnight. You said you'd be here an hour ago." The door buzzed and the man in the window yelled, "Come in, then."

Bauer shuffled up the steps and into the apartment house.

Nick let a minute pass, then walked to the doorway. He studied the names of the tenants, each posted in perfect script next to a black doorbell. The name C. Burki was taped next to the button for apartment 3B. Gotcha, thought Nick. He acknowledged a tremor of genuine elation, then noted the street and the address. Seidlergasse 7. He would come back tomorrow. He would speak to the man who lived in apartment 3B. He would meet Caspar Burki and he would find out just who Allen Soufi really was.

CHAPTER 55

As the tempo of their lovemaking quickened, the bed began to rock in a steady rhythm. The wooden headboard slapped the wall. The Victorian mattress heaved and sighed. A man moaned, his throaty voice rising in counterpoint to the bed's increasingly violent motions. A woman cried out, her rhapsodic pleasures serenading them. The tempo grew more frenzied, less rhythmic. The man arched his back as the woman's hair cascaded onto his chest like a cool summer shower. He expelled a hot breath into the dark, listening room, then lay still.

A clock in a far part of the house tolled the midnight hour.

Sylvia Schon raised her head from Wolfgang Kaiser's heaving chest. "How can you sleep with that ringing all night long?"

"I've grown to like it. It reminds me I'm not alone."

She ran an ivory hand across his chest. "You're definitely not alone right now."

"Not tonight, at least." Kaiser placed his hand behind her head and guided her down to kiss him. "I haven't thanked you yet for the news about Armin Schweitzer."

"Did he confess?"

"Armin? Never. Denied everything. Held his ground to the end."

"Did you believe him?"

"How could I? Everything you told me made perfect sense. I fired him on the spot."

"He should count himself lucky to get away with such a light punishment. You could have had him thrown in jail."

Kaiser grunted. Doubtful, he thought, but let her be content with her victory. "We were together thirty years."

"You talk about him as if he were a woman," she said, teasing him.

"True, but then thirty years is a long time. You've been with us what, nine years? Your entire life is in front of you. I don't know what Armin has left." Kaiser pulled the sheet over his chest. For a moment he felt a pang of remorse.

"He brought it on himself," said Sylvia. "No one forced him to give our secrets to Klaus Konig. Nothing is lower than spying on your own."

Kaiser laughed. "Do you believe Neumann holds a similar view?"

She stared at him harshly, then turned away. "He arrived two months ago. That hardly makes him one of our own. Besides, I'm spying for you."

"You are spying for the bank." Kaiser fondled her buttocks while silently explaining to her that if she had known Nicholas's father, if she could see how alike the two were, in appearance and in manner, she'd know that Nicholas was definitely one of their own. "You haven't finished telling me what you've learned."