“I’m playing fairly loose as it is.”
“I know you are.” Mikhail’s mouth became small and mean until he no longer seemed to have lips. It was anger not so much against Lime as against his own superiors. “One has one’s orders.” It was almost an epithet.
You could picture them in the Kremlin, uniforms buttoned to the choke collars, refusing to take compromise for an answer. They held the ace and they knew it, and if Mikhail didn’t take the trick they’d throw him in the Lubianka.
Lime really had no option. “Julius Sturka. He’s got a little crew of amateurs. Raoul Riva may be in on it, maybe not.”
“Sturka.” The Russian’s thin nostrils flared. “That one. We should have taken him out years ago. He’s an anarchist. But he calls himself a Communist. You know he’s probably done more harm to us than to you, over the years.”
“I know. He doesn’t exactly contribute to your good name.”
“And you have no idea where to look for him?”
“No.”
“That’s a pity.” Mikhail drained his glass. “Mezetti has taken lodgings in the railway hotel in Heinola. We have three cars covering him. Two or three men in the lobby at the moment. They’re expecting you—they won’t interfere.”
“Tell them to pull out when I arrive.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t suppose you people have a decent photo of Sturka in your files.”
“I doubt it.”
Lime had one—the snapshot Barbara Norris had taken with her Minolta. But it was a 16mm negative, grainy and not in sharp focus.
When they parted they didn’t shake hands; they never did.
Snow came up onto the windshield in lumps of gray slush and the wipers flicked it away. It was falling hard on a slant, lashing the windows. Chad Hill leaned forward over the wheel trying to see; they were crawling. It was a convoy, four cars and a police van.
Lime had watched the teletype operator word his message before they got in the cars and set out for Heinola.
FROM: LIME
TO: SATTERTHWAITE
IGNORE PREVIOUS SIGNALS X HAVE
CORNERED MM IN DEAD END X IN VIEW
OF TIME FACTOR AM TAKING MM INTO
CUSTODY FOR INTERROGATION X
It would be an open transmission for part of the way so he hadn’t said anything about the Russians.
Only six o’clock but the world seemed adrift in the formless subartic night. The darkness had the viscosity of syrup.
Chad Hill drew in at the curb; the lights of the railway hotel flickered in the falling snow.
A man in knee boots and fur hat was shoveling snow clear of the exhaust pipe of his Volkswagen; another man was scraping frost off its windshield. Lime walked over and spoke to the man at the windshield.
“Tovarich?”
“Lime?”
“Da.”
The Russian nodded. Turned, tipped his head back until snow-flakes hit his face, pointed to a window on the second floor. Light shone through the drawn drapes.
Chad Hill came up from the car. Lime said, “You know the drill now.”
“Yes sir.”
Lime was making vague arm signals to the procession of vehicles that had drawn up; men got out of them without slamming the doors and fanned out to cover every side of the hotel.
The ice sheet on the porch splintered under Lime’s heels like eggshells. He tucked his face toward his shoulder against the frozen wind and peered inside through the misty windows. A few indistinct shapes in the lobby. It wasn’t a setup, they weren’t posted for it. Anyhow there would have been no reason for it; it was just that he always suspected the worst.
He went along to the door with Chad Hill in tow; batted inside with matted hair and ruined shoes.
Three of the men in the lobby got up and converged on the door. Lime and Chad Hill stood aside until they were gone.
It left two old men in chairs reading magazines. The clerk behind the desk watched Lime with fascination but made no protest when Lime headed directly for the stair.
Chad Hill stuck close. Lime said, “Got the tools?”
“Yes sir.”
“Keep it quiet,” he adjured. They climbed the stairs with the predatory silence of prowlers. Lime made a quick scrutiny of the hallway and went toward the front of the building.
A ceiling light burned above the door of the front room. He reached up and unscrewed the bulb until it went out. He didn’t want the light behind him; no one knew whether Mezetti was armed.
He considered the door. Got down on one knee and looked into the keyhole. It was blocked by the key inside.
Chad Hill held the lock-pick case open and Lime selected a slim pair of needlenose pliers.
Behind them four men came up to the head of the stairs and deployed themselves along the corridor.
It would have been easiest to knock, use some ruse or other. But they couldn’t tell how nervous Mezetti might be; why risk alerting him? Lime pictured bullets chugging through the door panels.…
It was an old lock with a sloppy big keyhole and there was room for the pliers. He got a grip on the stub of the key and with his right hand dragged the .38 out of its armpit rig.
Chad Hill was biting his lip. His knuckles were white on his revolver.
Lime nodded. Squeezed the pliers and turned.
Nothing; he’d turned it the wrong way. You always did, somehow. He turned it the other way and when the lock clacked over with a rusty scrape he twisted the knob and burst into the room.
Mezetti had no time to register alarm.
“Turn around and hit the wall.”
The six of them crowded around Mezetti. Lime frisked him, felt the heavy padding around his torso and made a face. “He’s had the money on him all the time. Strip his shirt off.”
He put his gun away and did a quick wash of the apartment. In the bathroom a faucet dripped relentlessly; there was an old-fashioned bathtub standing on clawed feet. Trust Mezetti—it was probably the only room with private bath in the entire hotel. Revolutions were fine as long as you could conduct them in luxury.
The agents had the money piled up on the floor and Mezetti was blinking rapidly, trying to watch everybody at once. Lime waved them all back and stood close in front of Mezetti. “Who’s supposed to meet you?”
“Nobody.”
“Where’s the note they left for you in the car?”
Mezetti was startled and showed it. Lime said over his shoulder, “A couple of you look for it. He won’t have thrown it away.”
Mezetti stood in his drawers trembling, not from the chill. Lime went to the little desk and pulled the chair out. It had one wobbly leg, or perhaps the floor was out of kilter. He lit a cigarette. “Stand still.”
“What the fuck do you pigs think you’re doing? Do you know who I——”
“Shut up. You’ll speak only when spoken to.”
“That money belongs to Mezetti Industries. If you think you can steal——”
“Shut up.”
Lime sat and smoked and stared at Mezetti.
One of the agents had been going through Mezetti’s coat pockets in the wardrobe. “Here it is.” Chad Hill took it from him and carried it across the room to Lime.
Lime glanced at it. Mario, Wait for us at the railway hotel in Heinola. Hill had it in tweezers and Lime nodded; Hill put it in an envelope.
“Come over here.”
Mezetti didn’t move until one of the agents gave him a brutal shove.
Lime made hand signals and the agents brought the straight wooden chair over from the window. They set it by the desk and Lime said, “Sit down.”
Mezetti moved cautiously into the chair.
Lime reached across the desk, put his hand on top of Mezetti’s head and shoved his face down onto the desk top. Mezetti’s teeth clicked, his jaw sagged, his eyes rolled up.
Lime sat back and watched. Mezetti gathered himself sluggishly, showing his distress. He worked his jaw back and forth experimentally.
Lime waited.
“You fascist filth,” Mezetti breathed.