Elsinore (11 page)

He could hear the motorbikes converge from different streets. Holden braced the carbine against his window and arrived at Bibo's palace before any of the boys. Bibo stood inside the palace gate. He had a blue bandanna and an ancient army shirt.

“I could have cut your throat last night,” the general said. “But I brought you to the Carlos Marx and dressed you in pajamas.”

“Why were you so charitable with me?”

“Because I didn't think you were such a fool. The viejo would buy you and sell you if he could. He has. no friends. And you are a gunman without a gun.”

“But I have this carbine, Bibo.”

“A toy,” the general said.

The bikers descended upon the palace. The general dismissed them with a growl that started so deep in his throat, half his body seemed to rise up from the gate. And now Holden understood where the siren had learned his songs. Bibo was the best tutor in town.

“Come inside, El Presidente. But without the toy.”

Holden left the carbine against the gate and followed Bibo into the palace.

They had their coffee in Bibo's kitchen. They had pale cherries in ice water. They had a thick golden cream.

“She is a beautiful woman, your first wife.”

“I was only married once,” Holden said. “But who told you about Andrushka?”

“Señor, she was in this house. More than once.”

“You met the twig and Bruno Schatz?”

“I've known Bruno since I was a boy.”

“General, you were never a boy. But you had German connections. That's what Phippsy said.”

“El Presidente, we all worked for Phipps.”

“Then why are you keeping him here?”

“Because he wants to rob me of everything I have. And I thought a few hours of solitary confinement might make him more reasonable.”

“Is it something to do with bearer bonds?” Holden asked, biting into a pale cherry.

“The bonds are a guarantee for my old age. I have no other guarantees.”

“General, you have a whole damned town.”

“We have no industries, señor. And the upkeep is tremendous. I have to feed the mayor, his bodyguards, and mine. I have three hundred widows to support, sixteen imbeciles, a horse doctor, two pharmacists, three unmarried sisters, and ten cows. I need the bonds.”

“But the old man needs them more. All his assets are leaking. And he has to plug the holes. If he starts to drown, General, Pescadores might fall into the sea.”

“Then we are at an impasse.”

“I don't think so,” Frog said. “General, if you don't come up with Phippsy and the bonds in five minutes, I will have to pull off the front part of your face.”

“I have the army, señor. You don't.”

“But your army is blowing wind on a bunch of motorbikes. And my hands are inches from your head.”

“You're a hired assassin,” the general said. “Do you know how many corpses I've pissed on, bodies I have burnt?”

“It's one-on-one, General. Just you and me.”

Bibo looked into Holden's eyes. “All right,” he said. “I'll give you the old man.”

9

“You're lucky to be alive.”

They'd returned to Bilbao, and Holden had gotten the old man on board the plane with his sack of bearer bonds.

“I said you're lucky to be alive.”

“And I could strangle you, Phippsy, right in your seat, and cash in those bonds of yours.”

The old man contemplated Frog's proposal. It seemed to calm him. “You don't have the nerve. You'd wilt without me. You'd wander inside your head.”

“But I wouldn't have to rescue you from some boy general.”

“You didn't rescue me. I was having a long talk with Bibo. He was about to cave in.”

“Phippsy, he would have stolen your pants.”

“Big deal. He let you fall asleep on a shitload of Spanish cider. He drugged you, Sid. And he could have cut your throat.”

“Then why didn't he?”

“Bibo's fond of you. You're his baby brother.”

“I'm not his brother. I had paella with him once.”

“But he sensed that you're an exile, like him.”

“He sensed more than that, Phippsy. He knew my whole career. Tell me about your dealings with Bruno Schatz.”

“Swiss? I hardly know the man.”

“Stop it,” Holden said. “You bought Aladdin right out from under him.”

“That's his misfortune. He didn't have the hard cash.”

“You used him, didn't you? During the war. He traded with the Germans for you. And Bibo ran your errands. You made money off Allied blood. Schatz was your point man with Göring and Goebbels.”

“Göring was an addict. And an art collector. I fed him dollars and drugs. We took some of the art.”

“My hero,” Holden said.

“I promised you Aladdin, and you got it.”

“With Goring as my silent partner.”

“Göring's dead.”

“Well, no more errands. I'm not chasing down bonds or cash for you. You'll have to fix that hole in your pocket.”

“After Paris.”

“We're not going to Paris,” Holden said. Schatz lived there with the twig. Frog married her when she was seventeen, and one more mannequin in the fur market, a skinny girl who'd never gone to high school, who'd cultivated herself in Frog's house and then eloped to Paris with Bruno Schatz before she was twenty.

“You'll have to go there,” Phipps growled from his blanket. “You're still my collector.”

“Didn't you hear me, Phippsy? No more errands.”

“Sooner or later, Sid. You'll have to go,” Phippsy said before burying himself under the blanket.

A hot, dry wind rose off the roofs of the fur market. The air turned metallic. Frog sat in his bedroom office at Aladdin. He was with Benjamin Rudin, a wildcat accountant who'd been stripped of all his licenses. Rudin's business doubled while he sat in Attica. He'd attached himself to a family of burglars, and now his fees were astronomical. But he was the one accountant with a “menu” large enough for Holden.

“I want his books, Ben. All of them.”

The accountant whistled through his broken teeth. “He could have me killed.”

“He'll never know you've been washing around in his waters. I trust you, Ben.”

And the bargain was sealed without a “kiss.” The accountant was there with Holden, and then he wasn't. He lived like a burglar, moved like a burglar. Holden never left his office. He had sandwiches brought in. He'd stopped visiting the Copenhagen. He paid his monthly charges and never thought about his rooms over Central Park. He was a president without his own proper palace. He still had a closet with cutouts from the Duke of Windsor's clothes. Windsor reminded him of his dad. They'd both been wanderers. They'd both given up the kingdom of their very own names. But Windsor hadn't been a thief.

Benjamin returned in two days. Holden liked that kind of miracle. The accountant had no pencil or pad. He kept an inventory of Phipps' ruin in his head. He could have been humming a musical composition, not the holdings of Howard Phipps.

“Phipps Steel and Tungsten, Phipps Bauxite, Phipps Aromatics … he's losing book value in everything he owns.”

“Talk my language,” Holden said.

The accountant stared at him with all the shrewdness of a man who'd been to Attica. “You're president of Aladdin, aren't you? Then you ought to learn, my friend … Someone close to Phipps is taking from the till.”

“Someone like his daughter.”

“I never met his daughter. But whatever accountant he has ought to be shot. It's highway robbery, Holden. Nothing short of that. They're moving paper around, and every time the paper moves, the old man drops a million. He's so fucking deep into debt, he has to keep borrowing so he can afford to borrow. I know a lot of billionaires like that. They just keep putting leverage on the banks. But they have armies behind them … and I think Phipps' first and last soldier is you.”

He was in Paris that night. He'd taken the Concorde because he didn't want to meet Bruno Schatz while he had a woolly head. He got off the plane and took a cab to the piano bar at the Plaza-Athénée. It was close to midnight on the avenue Montaigne, not one of Holden's favorite streets. It was a country of couturiers. The highest-paid mannequins in the world liked to have lunch at the Plaza-Athénée. But the piano bar was dead at midnight. And Schatz, who was near eighty-two, wore a polo shirt and a jacket with exquisite elbow patches.

“Where are all the mannequins?”

“Holden, they never come here at night.”

Holden would stop at the Plaza-Athénée whenever he visited Paris with his bride, Andrushka the twig, a mannequin who'd grown buxom in Bruno's arms.

“You're fond of this place, aren't you, Swiss?”

“It's quiet,” Bruno said. “And it reminds me of a paquebot.”

“Paquebot?”

“Sorry,” Bruno said. “An ocean liner.”

The furnishings could have come out of some Atlantic liner between the two world wars. Holden imagined Windsor and his wife on a liner like that. A paquebot with a piano bar. But the Swisser wasn't at ease, and he was in his own territory tonight. He ate nothing but half a melon and a few boiled potatoes.

“Did you lose your appetite?”

“Shouldn't toy with me, Holden. Not when you're working for Howard Phipps. Did he arrange this interview?”

“It was my idea. I'm president of Aladdin.”

“I didn't have to sell, Holden. Remember that. I gave up the presidency as a favor to Howard.”

“You're scared of him, aren't you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why did you visit Bibo in Pescadores?”

“The boy? With his little gang of brats? It was a sentimental journey.”

“You're not that sentimental, Swiss.”

“But Andrushka loves the Costa Verde. It was a holiday, I swear.”

“I know the woman, Swiss. She was my bride, remember? Bibo's town isn't picturesque. And she loves paella, like me.”

“Bibo is still a boy.”

“And an anarchist general who runs that town like a prince. He has a scar on his face that frightens people. He must have bumped for you, Swiss, long before my dad ever did.”

“Go on. He was neutral during the war.”

“That would make him a perfect courier. He was your boy in Berlin.… Why did you go to Pescadores?”

Bruno Schatz looked up at the maître d' and ordered another dish of potatoes. He winked at the piano player, who smiled at him and returned to Cole Porter.

“I was doing a deal,” Bruno said. “Bibo smuggles diamonds for me from time to time.”

“But he's retired. He never leaves Pescadores.”

“He leaves when he has to.… I didn't have a choice. Howard stole you and the company. I was shorthanded.”

“I thought you gave him Aladdin. Isn't that what you said?”

“But it wasn't your usual gift. I was Howard's protégé. He discovered me, Holden … on a paquebot. I was selling lemonade between Rotterdam and New York, romancing the ladies. Howard backed me in a couple of ventures, and here I am, yours truly, the Swiss. I was born in Aleppo. It was Howard who made me the Swiss. Owe my life to that man.”

“Then tell me, what's happening to him?”

“He's going insane. We had a marvelous deal. Aladdin was his conduit.”

“Did I bump for him, Swiss, and not for you?”

“No, no, he never needed me for that. Mind, he was aware of your talents. And your dad drove him around once in a while. But then he makes you president and leaves me in the dirt … and it's not senility. He's sharp. He always was.”

“Then why is his empire falling apart?”

“Because he's a wild man. Something must be biting his ass.”

“Mrs. Vanderwelle.”

“Ah, the little woman with the bow in her hair. She shields him from the public eye. You can only get to Howard these days through Mrs. Vanderwelle. Isn't she his tart?”