Numbered Account Page 27

“Who might this old friend be who was so kind as to bring to you such an outstanding automobile?”

  “He’s a close friend of yours. Not that I put my ear to the ground, but I believe he may be one of your associates. It’s only because you two know each other that I can tell you. After all, partners shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “Ah, Max. As usual, you are a man of reason.”

  Mevlevi leaned forward and listened as Max Rothstein whispered the name of the man who had brought Lina to Little Maxim’s. When he heard the name, he closed his eyes and willed his tears to fire. He had found his traitor.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Nick arrived at the entrance to Sylvia Schon’s apartment precisely at 7:30. He had traveled the same route only six nights before, yet since boarding the tram at the Paradeplatz he had felt as if he were making the journey for the first time.

  Sylvia lived in a modern apartment building on top of the Zurichberg. An open field fronted the building, and a dark forest lay in back of it. It had taken him ten minutes to walk up the steep hill from the tram stop on Universitatstrasse. Do that twice a day and he’d live to be a hundred.

  He pressed the button next to her name and waited for her to ring him inside. He had come directly from the office and carried his briefcase in one hand and a bouquet of colorful flowers in the other. He hadn’t planned on the flowers. The idea had popped into his head as he passed a florist on the way to the tram. Even now, he felt foolish holding them, like a teenager on a first date. Suddenly, his anticipation turned sour. He wondered who’d be standing in front of Anna’s door tonight with a bouquet of flowers. None of your business, he told himself, and after a moment his jealousy left him.

  The door buzzed and Sylvia’s voice told him to come downstairs. Sylvia opened it immediately. She was wearing faded blue jeans and a green Pendleton shirt. She had her hair parted in the center. He thought she was trying to dress like an American. Her eyes passed from him to the flowers, then back again. “They’re beautiful. What a lovely idea.”

  Nick fumbled for an excuse. He could feel himself blushing. “I saw them in a window. It’s not polite to arrive empty-handed.”Not twice, that’s for sure.

  “Come in. Come in.” She kissed him on the cheek and relieved him of the flowers, then led the way to the living room. “Take a seat while I put these in some water. Dinner will be a few minutes. I hope you like peasant fare. I’ve madeSpatzele mit Kase uberbacken.”

  “That sounds great.” Nick ambled to the bookshelves and looked at a few pictures before sitting down. In several of them, Sylvia stood with her arm around a tall athletic blond man.

  “My brothers,” she said, coming into the room with a vase full of flowers. “Rolf and Eric. They’re identical twins.”

  “Oh, really,” said Nick. He was surprised to feel relief at her words. He’d been thinking more about her than he liked to admit. He strolled to the sofa and sat down. “Where do they live? In Zurich?”

  “Rolf is a ski instructor in Davos. Eric’s a lawyer in Bern.” Her words were clipped and he guessed she didn’t want to talk about them. She set the flowers on the table. “Like a drink?”

  “A beer would be great.”

  Sylvia walked to the terrace and opened the sliding glass door. She leaned down and took a bottle from the six-pack. “Lowenbrau okay? Our own from Zurich.”

  “Yeah, great.” Nick placed his arms on the cushions and settled into the sofa. She had a very nice apartment. The floor was polished wood, covered by two Persian carpets. A small dining nook led off the living room. Two place settings and a bottle of white wine adorned the table. He felt he was seeing her real side and he liked what he saw. He turned his head and looked down a short hallway. A door was closed at the end of it. Her bedroom. If it ever came to it, he wondered which Sylvia would show up in bed: the calculating professional he knew from the office or the casual country girl who had greeted him at the door with a kiss and a smile. The thought of either one excited him.

  Sylvia came into the living room carrying two beers. She handed one to Nick, then sat down on the far end of the couch. “So are you enjoying yourself so far in Switzerland?”

  Nick laughed, almost spilling the beer.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That’s exactly what Martin Maeder asked me on Friday.”

  “Well, are you?”

  “Actually, I am. It’s a lot different than I remembered it. Better, really. I appreciate how everything runs according to schedule, how everyone has pride in their work—from the garbage hauler all the way up to—”

  “Wolfgang Kaiser.”

  “Exactly. We could do with more of that back home.” He took a sip of beer. Discussing his point of view made him uncomfortable. He wanted to hear about her. “Tell me whyyou came to the bank. Do you like it as much as you seem?”

  Sylvia appeared taken aback by his question, at least the second part of it. “I answered an ad posted at the university, originally. At first, I didn’t think I wanted anything to do with a stodgy old bank. I was aiming more for advertising or public relations. You know, something glamorous. Then I was invited for a second interview, this time at the bank. I got a tour of the building, the trading floor, the vault. I never knew so much went on behind the teller’s windows. Look at what we in the finance department are doing. We manage over a hundred billion dollars in investments. We underwrite bonds that help companies grow and countries develop. It’s so dynamic. I love it.”

  “Whoa, horsie! Remember, Sylvia, I already work there. You’re preaching to the converted.” He found her enthusiasm contagious and remembered that those were exactly the reasons he had gone to work for an investment bank on Wall Street.

  Sylvia covered her mouth, embarrassed. “I guess I got ahead of myself. I suppose another reason is that there just aren’t many women in banking, even today. Not high up at least.” She leaned over the coffee table and picked up a sheaf of papers that Nick hadn’t noticed. “I got my itinerary for the States today. I’ll have to wait until after the general assembly to go, which will make my job harder. Still, it’s better than nothing.”

  She handed Nick the sheet. He read it, and all the worries of business school recruiting came back to him. She would travel to New York, see grads from NYU, Wharton, and Columbia. Then she was off to Harvard and MIT. Finally she’d fly to Chicago to visit Northwestern. “That’s a lot of travel just to hire one or two graduates.”

  Sylvia took back the itinerary. “We take finding the right personnel very seriously. That’s why you better stay. You Americans have to start setting a better example.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m staying. Do you think I’d do anything to mess up your employee retention rate?”

  “Devil!” She slapped his leg playfully, then stood up and announced that she had to finish preparing dinner.

  Ten minutes later, their meals were on the table. Golden brown bite-size dumplings covered with melted Swiss cheese and sprinkled with paprika. Nick ate heartily, thinking he hadn’t tasted anything so good since he’d arrived over six weeks ago. He prodded Sylvia to tell him about her childhood. At first she was a little shy, but once she got started her reticence vanished. She had grown up in Sargans, a small town eighty kilometers southeast of Zurich. Her father ran the local railway station. He was a prominent member of the community. A pillar of civic virtue, she called him. He had never remarried after his wife’s death. Sylvia had taken care of the household, assuming complete responsibility for the raising of her younger brothers.

  “Sounds like you were close,” said Nick. “You were lucky.”

  “We were miserable,” she blurted, then laughed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Why were you so miserable?”

  Sylvia put her hands in her lap, bunching up her napkin, and stared at Nick as if deciding whether his interest was earnest or just flattery. She looked away from him, then said, “My father was a difficult man. He spent his whole life work
ing for the railway, so everything had to be perfectly organized—just like a train schedule—or he wasn’t happy. I think that’s why he never got over losing my mother. He hadn’t approved it. God hadn’t asked whether he could take her from him. You can imagine who bore the brunt of his discontent. Me. Mostly it was because he didn’t know how to handle a little girl.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Oh, he wasn’t a bad man. He was just very demanding. I had to get up at five to fix his breakfast and prepare a sack lunch. Then, of course, there were the twins, who were four years younger than me. I had to get them up and out the door in time for school. That’s a tall order when you’re nine years old. When I look back on it, I don’t know how I did it.”

  “You were strong. You still are.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

  Nick smiled. “I was the same way. After my dad died, I always felt like I had to catch up. I worked hard in school. I tried to be the best at everything I did. Sometimes at night, I’d get out of bed, take out my books, and check if my homework was where I had put it earlier. I was scared someone had stolen it. Crazy, huh?”

  “I didn’t have that problem. What I hated was having to be this perfect little family. Sargans was a small town. Everyone knew my father. Naturally we had to be on our best behavior. We couldn’t show that our life was any harder without having a wife or a mother around. Maybe I was the only one who wasn’t happy. My brothers had it great. I tidied their rooms, washed their clothes, helped them with their homework. They had a full-time servant.”

  “They must love you for that.”

  “As Rudy Ott said to me a few days ago, “in the best of all possible worlds, of course.”’ She gave Nick a sardonic smile. “Unfortunately, they followed their father’s example and took me absolutely for granted. They thought I didn’t go out on Friday nights because I didn’t want to, not because I was too tired. I think they even believed I enjoyed changing their beds every week.”

  “You’re not close to them?”

  “Oh, I make the usual efforts, birthday cards, Christmas presents. But I haven’t seen Rolf or Eric in three years. It’s easier that way.”

  “And your father?”

  Sylvia raised a finger. “Him, I still see.”

  Nick nodded his head, reading in her expression that she had gone as far as she would on that subject. He looked away and spotted his briefcase in the hallway. Inside was the faded yellow binder she had given him earlier in the day. He had become so enraptured in his discussion with Sylvia that he had forgotten he’d brought it with him. He smiled inwardly, feeling warm and content. He had forgotten the pleasure of spending time with an interesting, attractive woman. He had missed it.

  After dinner, Nick laid the binder on Sylvia’s dining room table and threw open its cover. Inside, filed in chronological order, were monthly activity reports submitted by his father for the period January through June 1975.

  The monthly activity report for January 1975 was divided into four sections. First, a summary of fee-producing business; second, an evaluation of new business opportunities; third, a request for additional personnel and office supplies; and last, a section entitled “Miscellaneous Items of Interest.”

  Nick read the report.

  I. Business Activity Summary for the period 1/1/75-1/31/75

  A. Deposits of $2.5 million received, of which $1.8 from new clients (see attached client profile sheets).

  1. Fee Services: Trade Financing fees of $217,000 accrued.

  2. Pro forma Financial Statements for fiscal 1975.

  B. New Business: Swiss Graphite Manufacturing, Inc.; CalSwiss Ballbearing Company; Atlantic Maritime Freight

  C. Proposal to increase staff from seven (7) to nine (9) persons.

  1. Request for new IBM Selectric Typewriters (4).

  D. Miscellaneous: Dinner at Swiss Consulate (see report).

  Nick lifted his head from the binder. Nothing in the contents hinted at anything untoward, but he hadn’t expected to find anything of interest in reports written five years prior to Alex Neumann’s death. Still, he was determined to read each and every page of the report. This particular set might not hold the information he needed, but he was on the right trail. More important, he had a willing guide.

  The patter of footsteps approached from the hallway.

  Sylvia placed her hand on Nick’s shoulder. “What are you looking for?”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You really want to get involved in this?”

  “You promised that you’d fill me in on what you were looking for. I mean, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  Nick laughed, but behind the smile a tightness gripped his throat. The time for truth had arrived. The time for trust. He knew he couldn’t go any further without Sylvia’s help and deep down, he wanted it. Maybe because with every passing minute he was growing fonder of her golden hair and more dependent on her crooked smile. Maybe because he saw so much of himself in Sylvia: the child forced to grow up too quickly, the tireless striver never satisfied with his accomplishment. Or maybe just because Anna hadn’t given a damn.

  “I’m looking for two things,” Nick said. “Mention of a client named Allen Soufi—a shady character who did some business with the bank in Los Angeles. And, any reference to Goldluxe, Incorporated.”

  “Who’s Goldluxe?”

  “I don’t know the first thing about them. Just that my father’s decision to end a commercial relationship with them caused a small uproar at the head office in Zurich.”

  “So they were clients of the bank?”

  “For a while, at least.”

  “What drew your attention to Mr. Soufi and to Goldluxe?”

  “Some things my father said about them. Wait here and I’ll show you.”

  Nick walked into the hallway to retrieve something from his briefcase. He returned carrying a slim black book. He set it down on the table and said, “This is my father’s agenda for 1978. It came from his office at USB in Los Angeles.”

  Sylvia eyed it warily, sniffing at it as if its contents were as suspect as its odor. “It doesn’t smell like it came from an office.”

  “Floodwater,” said Nick, matter-of-factly. He’d gotten used to the smell of mildewy leather a long time ago. “Believe it or not, I found it in a U-Rent-It storage facility. It was on top of a pile of old junk my mother had kept for years. The place flooded twice during the time she rented it. Everything stacked below three feet was completely destroyed. When she passed away, I flew back to take care of her effects and to make the necessary arrangements. That’s when I found this book. There’s one for 1979, too.”

  He opened the first agenda and leafed through the pages, stopping to point out several of the entries that had merited his attention.“Oct 12. Dinner with Allen Soufi. Undesirable.” “November 10—Soufi in office.” And beneath it,“Credit check” followed by an incredulous“Nothing?!” And finally, the infamous notation of September 3,“Bastard threatened me”— florid commentary to a twelve o’clock lunch engagement at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel with the oft-appearing Allen Soufi.

  “There’s more like this in the next agenda. You’ll see.”

  “You only have the two of them?”

  “They were the only ones I could find. Luckily, they were the last two he kept. My father was killed on January 31, 1980.”

  Sylvia drew her arms around herself, as if suddenly chilled. Nick stared into her warm brown eyes. Once he had found them remote and selfish. Now he found them caring and sympathetic. He leaned back in the stiff wooden chair and stretched his arms. He knew what he had to say, knew that he had to tell the whole story. He was suddenly struck by how few people he had actually told about his father’s murder: a few kids from school after it had happened, Gunny Ortiga, and, of course, Anna. Normally the prospect of sharing the story left him antsy and uncomfortable. But tonight, sitting close to Sylvia, he felt calm and at peace. The words came easily.

&nbs
p; “The worst part of it was the ride over,” he began softly. “We knew something had happened to him. The police had called. They said there had been an accident. They sent a squad car for us. My father wasn’t living at our house at the time. I think he knew someone was after him.”

  Sylvia sat as steady as a rock, listening.

  “It was raining that night,” he went on, speaking slowly as the images came back to him. “We drove up Stone Canyon. My mother was holding on to me so tightly. It was late and she was crying. She must have known he was dead. Her intuition, whatever. But I didn’t. The police hadn’t wanted me along, but she’d insisted. Even then she wasn’t very strong. I looked out the police car’s window, watching the rain fall, wondering what had happened. The radio was squelching all the time, that clipped police jargon. Somewhere in there I heard the wordhomicide and the address where my father had been staying. The policemen up front didn’t say a word to us. I expected them to say, “Don’t worry,’ or “Everything’s going to be fine.’ But they didn’t say anything.”

  Nick leaned forward and laced his hands in Sylvia’s, bringing them to his chest. He saw that tears had formed in her eyes, and for a few seconds he was mad at her. Seeing another person cry prompted in him a disdain for that person’s weakness. He knew his anger was bred out of a fear of confronting his own emotions and that he was wrong to have it. Still, it sat there for a minute and he had to wait until it played itself out before going on.

  “You know what I felt sitting there? That everything was going to be different. I knewright then that my world was going to turn upside down and nothing would be the same.”

  “What happened?” Sylvia whispered.

  “The police figured that someone came to the door of the house at around nine o’clock that night. My dad knew whoever it was. There was no sign of forced entry. No sign of a scuffle. He opened the door, led the killer inside the house a few steps, probably talked to him for a while. He was shot in the chest. Three times from close range, just two or three feet. Someone looked my father straight in the eye and killed him. You’d never know a man has so much blood in him. I mean, that whole entryway was red. The police hadn’t covered him up yet. They hadn’t even closed his eyes.” Nick allowed his own eyes to wander to the broad picture window and stared outside, seeing nothing but darkness. He blew out a breath of air and let go of the memory. “Boy, it was raining that night.”