Numbered Account

Nick walked past him, concerned that he might lose sight of Caspar Burki. He asked himself what he was doing here. What could he expect to learn from a junkie? He inched by a teenage girl squatting on her haunches at the top of the far steps. She held a syringe in her hand and had just found a vein to slide the needle into. Drops of blood fell from her arm, spattering the cement. He descended the steps at the far side of the bridge and took his first look at the abandoned station.

It was a picture as foreign as the surface of the moon.

A restless tide of shabby men and women ambled back and forth across a wide cement platform. There were around a hundred of them, maybe more, and they were arranged into small encampments of five or six persons. Here and there, fires burned from rusted oil barrels. A swamplike haze hovered between platform and ceiling. Above his head, spray painted in cheap black Krylon, were the words "Welcome to Babylon."

The place was squalor. It was death.

Nick saw that Burki had reached his destination- a circle of doddering addicts his own age at the far end of the station. A scrawny hen of a woman was preparing a dose of heroin for a man who didn't look much different from Burki. Shorter maybe, but just as thin and with that same starved look to his eyes. The "nurse" rolled up the man's sleeve and laid his bony arm across a slapdash wooden table. She tied a short length of rubber tubing around his arm, snapping at his veins to make them stand out more prominently. Satisfied, she popped the needle into his arm. She pulled back the syringe to allow his blood to mix with the opiate, then patiently pumped the drug into his arm. With maybe an eighth of the bloody payload remaining, she withdrew the syringe from the addict's arm, balled her fist, then jabbed the needle into her own arm. A second later, she pressed the plunger, mixing the addict's opiated blood with her own. Finished, she tossed the used needle into a white plastic bag with a Red Cross decal on it. The "nurse" raised her forearm to her bicep, as if she had just received her annual flu shot, said a few words to the addict, then leaned over and gave him a polite peck on each cheek. Decorum. The addict lurched away from the makeshift table, and Caspar Burki stepped forward to take his place.

Nick hung back for a long second. He realized that it wouldn't be any good talking to Burki after he'd gotten his dose and fixed. His only hope was to move quickly and get ahold of the old man before he shot up. He wasn't sure how to intervene. He'd figure it out when he got there.

Nick crossed the platform as quickly as he could. He tried hard not to look at the hollow-eyed men and women combing their bodies for veins firm enough to fix in. Still, with a fascination he could only label macabre, he was unable to shut his eyes. A teenager had tapped out a vein on his lower neck and was showing his buddy where to put the needle. A middle-aged woman had lowered her pants and sat legs splayed on the cement floor while she shot up in the crook of her thigh. A waifish girl of five or six sat next to her. Helluva place to bring your kid on a Sunday afternoon.

A squad of policemen loitered at the far end of the station- Sondercommandos, by the blue riot gear they sported. They smoked, arms resting easily on the butts of their submachine guns, backs turned to their charges. This wasn't their battle. The city preferred to gather its addicts in one place where it could keep an eye on them. Containment without confrontation: the Swiss way.

Nick reached the unsteady table just as Burki was taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeve. He took a hundred francs from his wallet and handed it to the wrinkled woman administering the shots. "This is for my friend Caspar. That should be good for two fixes, right?"

Burki looked at him and said, "Who the hell are you?"

The woman snatched the bill from Nick's hand and said, "Are you crazy, Cappy? The boy wants to buy you a present. Take it."

Nick said, "I need to talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Burki. About some mutual friends. It won't take long, but I'd prefer to speak with you before-" his hands searched the air for the right words, "before you do this. If you don't mind."

Burki hesitated for a moment. His eyes shifted between Nick and the scraggly woman. "Mutual friends? Like who?"

"Yogi Bauer, for one. I had a few drinks with him last night."

"Poor Yogi. Pity what alcohol will do to you." Burki squinted his eyes. "You're Neumann's boy. He warned me about you."

Nick said yes, he was Alex Neumann's son, and in a calm voice introduced himself. "I work at the United Swiss Bank. I have a few questions about Allen Soufi."

Burki grunted. "Don't know the man. Now run along and get out of here. Be a good boy and go home to your mommy. It's nap time."