The Searcher (9 page)

S
he was a tough proposition, Mrs. Toreli, and he had played her all wrong. The offer of money had been genuine, but he should have thought harder about how it would look. As he walked to his next unmade appointment, he toyed with various ideas to win her over, and none seemed good.

The
Sakartvelos Tribuna
occupied the second and third floors of a grand, shabby building not far from the parliament. A single arch led from the street to a courtyard lined with cars and weeds, and from there steps rose up to a grand lobby, all art-nouveau moldings and finely wrought balustrades, where an old laminate table and plastic chair suggested that sometimes there might be a guard, or a janitor, or some person of authority to negotiate. Today there was no one.

Nor was it obvious who to speak to in the office itself, where desks and papers and screens started abruptly and sprawled across the entire floor, and between them journalists sat shouting into phones or at each other. It was a familiar and comforting sight to Hammer: somehow newsrooms and journalists everywhere had the same air of beleaguered concentration. The place rattled with the noise of a big story. He approached the first desk, asked for the editor, and, receiving only confusion in response, tried the next. This time he was understood, and directed irritably to a screened-off glass box in the corner of the room.

For some reason Hammer had been expecting a seasoned old hack, but this one was young, with a neat suit and a technocratic air; he gave the impression of having recently finished a course of some kind. There was an
empty desk by his door that Hammer imagined was usually policed by his secretary. Taking the opportunity, he knocked on the glass and the editor looked up frowning, annoyed at the interruption.

“Diakh?”

“Mr. Jeladze? My name's Isaac Hammer.” Hammer came into the room and offered his hand. It takes a lot to refuse a handshake, and Jeladze didn't have it. While he shook, his eyes went to Hammer's nose.

Hammer brought his hand up to it. “I got on the wrong end of some Georgian hospitality.”

Jeladze stayed seated and took the card that Hammer now gave him. “We are busy, Mr. Hammer.”

“Of course you are. Shouldn't think you've ever been busier. You don't know me but I just wanted to say you run a great newspaper. Really, first-rate. Great stories, great journalists.” Hammer sat down, unasked. “I wanted to speak to you about one of them. Karlo Toreli.”

Jeladze stiffened, looked down, then turned over the papers he had been reading and slid them to one side of the desk. His movements were neat and disciplined, his expression conscientious. He had the soft face of a boy; Hammer guessed that he needed to shave only every third day.

“I don't have anything to say.”

“Really?”

“It is only ten days since he died.”

“All the more reason to talk,” smiled Hammer. “While it's fresh.”

Jeladze looked up and watched him warily, wondering what he had done to deserve this irritation, perhaps, and what he might do to get rid of it. He pushed his chair back, so that Hammer thought he was about to stand and leave; but for a moment he just sat, and thought, and looked again at Hammer's business card.

“You are a spy, Mr. Hammer?”

Hammer laughed, determined after his last encounter to keep this light. “I get that a lot here. No. I'm an investigator.”

“Someone pays you to investigate a suicide?”

“That's not my interest.”

“No?”

“No. A friend of mine has disappeared, in your fine country. I've come to find him.”

“But you want to talk to me about Karlo.”

“I do. And because I know I'm imposing here, and you have no reason to help me, if you have a minute I'll explain.”

“I don't have a minute.”

“Mr. Jeladze, I was never an editor but I was a journalist. For many years. And I always had a minute to hear a story.”

Jeladze nodded faintly, without enthusiasm.

“My friend, he's not the kind to disappear. A family man, very responsible. Too responsible. Something, if I'm honest, of a pain in the ass in that respect. The last thing he would do is cause his dear wife concern, and right now she's very concerned. He went missing a few days ago, and I'm here on her behalf trying to find out what's happened. And at the moment, in the absence of any information at all, I'm entertaining two theories. One is he got unlucky and someone robbed him of his winnings on his way home from the casino, or slipped him a pill and harvested his kidneys, or some such business that might happen to anyone anywhere. But I did a little checking on Georgia and this is a nice country you have here and not so much of that nonsense seems to take place. Riots, yes; killing tourists, not your thing. So—and because I don't believe in chance—I wonder if his falling off the face of the earth has something to do with why he came to Georgia. Which was to pay his respects to your friend. To Karlo.”

Hammer paused and took in a deep breath, giving the editor a look that said: I'm giving you everything here; we're together on this.

“Look. No one has more respect for what you do. Really. Especially in a place like this, where it isn't easy to write a story that people don't want to see written. Especially the bomb story. They don't get bigger than that. So the question I was asking myself, is there something going on here that my friend has blundered into? Because he has some form in that area as well, by the way. He blunders into things.” His smile was sympathetic, and he paused to let it take effect. “People like this can be difficult to control, no?”

Jeladze nodded again, without engaging. “I don't know what you're asking me.”

“Ah. Forgive me.” Hammer leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “Two questions. That's all. Where did Karlo get the story, and who benefited from his death? He publishes the most incendiary article in the history of your country and then kills himself? No journalist I've ever known would do that. They'd be high for months.”

Jeladze nodded slowly as if now, finally, he got the point. All the while he held Hammer's eye, but it didn't come naturally. He was willing himself to do it. After a moment of this he spoke.

“I don't know you. That story . . . I can't talk to you about that story.”

“I understand. Really, I do. But first, you should know I'm a good guy to know. I get a lot of stories and I know a lot of things and, if I can, I'm always ready to talk. Plus, I'm grateful. I'm a grateful guy, OK? I employ a lot of former journalists, and count many among my friends. Anything you share with me, I'll remember it. I have a good memory for good people.” He gave a little ceremonial nod to show that he had made a solemn promise. “As for the story? One of your best journalists died on you. You've got to have theories.”

Jeladze breathed deeply, steeling himself, and Hammer could tell from this little act of preparation that any theories he might have would remain private.

“Mr. Hammer. Karlo was a good man, and once he was a great journalist. But he was . . . How do you say this? He had big passions. For stories, for women, for drink. For gambling. He was full of life and then next minute in a black place. Always one to the other. But recently it was all black. This is why he killed himself.”

Hammer tried to read the editor's face. There was something callow about it, something untested, something too young for his position. He hadn't lived enough to make judgments about a man like Karlo, and his certainty was either mistaken or feigned. Perhaps the latter: behind the smooth presentation Hammer thought he glimpsed a wavering thread of fear.

Nodding, Hammer considered. “So you have no doubt?”

The editor shook his head.

“Had you published everything? Was there more to come?”

“On the bomb story? Everything.” He shrugged. “Think about it. That was his greatest achievement, and then nothing. It makes sense.”

“So not all black, then.”

Jeladze took in a sharp, executive breath.

“Mr. Hammer, I must work now. This is a busy time.”

“Did you go to his funeral?”

“Of course.”

“Did you happen to see my friend? English, tall, short gray hair?”

“There were many people there. Karlo was still loved.”

“But many foreigners?”

Jeladze picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, looked at it, and moved it to another pile. He was beginning to fidget. “I wasn't . . . I wasn't there to report, Mr. Hammer.”

“I know. You're not a reporter. You're an editor. But you notice things, of course. You'd have noticed if he'd been here, for instance? Ben Webster. Another fellow journalist.”

Jeladze stood, like a man who has finally made up his mind. “Mr. Hammer, I have to ask you to leave now.”

“It's important that I find him, Mr. Jeladze. It's worth a great deal to me.” It felt strange, trying to corrupt a man with a statement of such truth.

“I can't help.”

“What if I was to make a donation to your retired journalists' fund?”

Jeladze seemed genuinely confused. “What fund?”

“Never mind,” said Hammer. The man wasn't about to be corrupted. At least not by him.

O
utside, with the sun high and strong, the wind blew dust along the street, and in the doorway of the building whirled a little eddy of leaves and dead cigarettes.

Hammer crossed the street to a corner café, took a seat under its black awning, and ordered coffee and something to eat. It was early for lunch but he might be here for a while. To be a good investigator you had to know when to press and when to wait. And when to persevere, especially when your two primary sources had rejected you.

Further up the pavement men in fluorescent jackets were taking away the scattered pieces of a bus stop that looked as if it had been destroyed the night before. Two of them flung metal and glass onto the back of a flat-bed truck while another swept. He watched them at their work, keeping an eye on the door of the newspaper building and trying to imagine what the editor knew and why he wouldn't part with it.

That too was interesting. Instinct told him that Jeladze had only let him talk to find out what he might have to fear from this bold stranger who had marched straight into his office to discuss the most delicate subject in the land. And there was fear there, no question. Had he refused to talk about Ben because he knew something, or from a general unwillingness to stray into dangerous territory? Hammer couldn't tell, but if Ben had been here—and it was an obvious place for him to start—others would have seen him, no question.

On the flight over, reading a little about Georgia and imagining where Ben might be, Hammer had thought it a one-in-ten chance that he had been knocked down by a car or robbed and left in a ditch, but after seeing Natela
and this Jeladze character he put it at one percent, no better. Their eyes were strained with fear. It was in the air, at the rally, in the police station, all over the city. Ben would have been aware of it the moment he came here, and from that point unstoppably drawn to it, as he always was. And somehow, whatever was going on, he was involved.

Once, Hammer would have been the same—no less reckless, and wholly susceptible to the thrill of it. At a certain point, though, he had pulled back, like a drinker who comes to understand that the hangover isn't worth it, for himself or the people around him, and over the last twenty years he had lived his life by his own careful calculus of risk and benefit. Ikertu had been his way of controlling the variables. But here he had no control whatever, and no choice but to follow his former friend into the fire.

After half an hour, two men and a woman came down the three steps to the street and huddled together under the arch to light cigarettes off a single lighter. Hammer recognized the woman and one of the men from the newsroom. Slipping a banknote under his cup, he left the café and waited on the pavement to cross the busy street. Cars rushed endlessly by.

A hand on his shoulder caused him to turn and look up into the unshaven face of a great block of a man, with an unbreakable jaw and a powerful air of invulnerability. The muscles in his arms strained against the fabric of his cheap suit. He was more than a head taller than Hammer and his hand rested idly but with purpose, like a threat.

Without saying a word he passed Hammer a phone, and Hammer, barely thinking, put it to his ear, shrugging off the man's hand. “Yes?”

“Isaac Hammer.” A statement, not a question, in a dark, heavy voice that took its time.

“This is Ike Hammer.”

In vain Hammer looked up and down the street for some sort of explanation. He had been sure. He had lost the tail; known that sweet, unmistakable feeling of no longer being watched.

“My name is Iosava. I must speak with you.”

“You are speaking to me.”

“Face-to-face.”

“Then come and see me.”

“Now. You go in car.”

“Mr. Iosava, I'm too old for orders. You seem to know where I am. Come and find me. I'll be happy to talk.”

Hammer handed the phone back to the man in the suit and stepped again to the curb, scanning the street in each direction to see whether his latest new friend had friends. It was busy enough for them not to try anything, and there were no obvious goons in sight. With a glance back at the big man he willed the cars to clear so that he might cross.

From the mess of traffic a dark gray Audi separated and pulled up smartly in front of him. In a single moment he felt an arm wrap round him from behind and another pull him up from under the knees and together carry him forward like a child. The rear door opened and he was thrown inside. The engine revved and the door shut and the car drove off. Only an instant had passed.

Beside him on the seat was a second man the size of the first. He, too, wore a suit, and a tie that in the absence of a button kept the collar of his white shirt tight to his neck, and before Hammer could collect himself he was patting the pockets of his jacket and pulling out his phone.

“What the fuck was that? Who are you?” said Hammer, but neither the driver nor the man searching him said anything. “Give me that.”

He snatched at the phone but the man held it out of reach, calmly slid the casing off the back, removed the battery, and slid it into his top pocket. Then he handed Hammer the dead case.

“That's great. Thank you. You have nice manners.”

The car drove the way cars like this did in such places, with misjudged confidence and great surges of speed. These two men were special forces of some kind, almost certainly; they had that air of calm efficiency that might at any moment turn to violence. They were not the sort to listen, even when they understood, and for once Hammer didn't make the effort to talk.

At the first set of traffic lights Hammer tried the door, more from curiosity than any real desire to escape, found it locked, and for the rest of the journey sat back and didn't speak, fingers tapping angrily on his knee. For a full minute he breathed slowly and forced himself to calm down. This escapade might lead somewhere; in the absence of good leads it was at least a
lead. And they would hardly have returned his phone, even without its battery, if they were planning to kill him right away.

Every journey in Tbilisi seemed to cross or follow the river, but after running beside it for a short stretch they headed upward through the old town toward the castle, through a neighborhood that Hammer began to recognize. After ten minutes the car slowed in a triangle of sloping streets, where every other house was falling into itself, and the moment it stopped, Hammer's door opened. No one said anything, and as he got out he felt a hand on his upper arm start guiding him toward three well-kept houses in a row, pushed up against the hill directly under the castle. The last houses in Tbilisi.