Numbered Account

Nick chuckled as expected of him. It was difficult keeping up an easy going front. His mind kept returning to Kaiser's office, to the moment when the Chairman had flogged his colleague of thirty years with the barbed accusations of being a spy for the Adler Bank. He asked himself for the hundredth time how Kaiser could have known about Schweitzer's treachery. For the hundredth time, he came up with the same answer, and he hated himself for it.

"Take off your jacket," said Sylvia, leading him by the hand into the living room. "Stay awhile."

Nick unfastened the belt of his jacket and slipped it from his shoulders. He tried to keep from looking at her, wanting to guard a distance between them, but she had never looked more beautiful. She wore a black cashmere turtleneck, and her wheat-colored hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed red. She looked radiant.

Sylvia took the jacket from him and put a hand to his cheek. "What's the matter? Is something wrong?"

Nick lowered her hand from his cheek and stared into her eyes. He had rehearsed the lines a hundred times, but suddenly his mouth was empty of words. This was more difficult than he'd expected. "Yesterday afternoon I was with the Chairman. There was a group of us: Ott, Maeder, Rita Sutter. There was a crisis atmosphere around the place- every problem magnified to three times its real size, everyone at each other's throats. Armin Schweitzer was brought in and questioned about the tips the Adler Bank had received. You know, the phony information about which of our shareholders were still undecided."

Sylvia nodded.

"Kaiser accused him of being the culprit, of secretly providing Klaus Konig with that information. He fired him. Practically kicked Schweitzer out of the office himself."

"Kaiser fired Armin Schweitzer?"

"On the spot."

Sylvia appeared stunned. "The creep deserved it. You told me so yourself. You were convinced he was stealing papers from your office."

"Sylvia, no one but you, me, and Peter Sprecher knew that the Adler Bank had a spy inside of USB. What we felt about Schweitzer, that he was the one responsible, that was only a suspicion, a guess."

"So? If Kaiser fired him, obviously we guessed right."

Nick shook his head in frustration. She wasn't making this any easier. "Did you tell Kaiser that it was Schweitzer who was passing shareholder information to Klaus Konig?"

Sylvia laughed, as if the suggestion were absurd. "I could never phone Herr Kaiser directly. I barely know the man."

"It's okay if you told him. I can understand why you'd feel motivated to protect the bank. All of us want to stop Konig."

"I told you. No, I did not."

"Come on, Sylvia. How else could the Chairman have found out?"

"I believe you're accusing me, Mr. Neumann." Her cheeks grew redder, though now with anger. " 'How else?' you ask. How else do you think? Schweitzer is guilty. Kaiser discovered it himself. Caught him red-handed. I don't know. Do you think Konig's the only one with spies? The Chairman doesn't need you to protect him. He doesn't need me. He's run that bank for as long as any of us can remember." Sylvia brushed by him. "And I sure as hell don't have to explain myself to you."

Nick followed her into the living room. He was certain she was lying. Sylvia and her devotion to the bank. Sylvia and her employee retention rate. She'd used the assumption of Schweitzer's guilt as a fulcrum with which to lever her career up a notch. Why did she have to lie about it?

"What about your answering machine?" he asked.

"What about it?" she shot back.

"On Friday night, when we were checking your messages, I heard Wolfgang Kaiser's voice. You know I heard it. I saw you. You were scared that I might have figured out who it was. Tell me the truth."

Sylvia recoiled from him. "The truth? Is that what this is all about?" She ran to the answering machine and rewound the tape, stopping every few seconds to listen to the voice speaking. She found the section she was looking for and pressed play. "You want the truth? I wasn't scared. I was embarrassed."

Peter Sprecher's voice rose from the machine. "Call me at the Adler Bank as soon as possible. We're very interested in meeting with you. Thank you." A pause. A beep. Then the next message. A rough voice spoke from the recorder. "Sylvia, are you there? Pick up, please. All right, then, just listen."

The voice was unsteady and, Nick suspected, drunk.

"I want you at home this weekend. You know what we like to eat on Saturdays. It was always the boys' favorite. On the table by seven, please. You're a good girl, Sylvia, but I'm afraid your mother would have been disappointed- you so far away, leaving your father to grow old by himself. Well, anyway, I'll manage. Be sure to tell your brothers. Get them here on time. Seven o'clock or we'll start without them."

Nick walked to the machine and turned it off. It was not Wolfgang Kaiser's voice.