What We Become (51 page)

It was still dark and raining in Nice when Max stopped the Peugeot next to Gesù church and crossed the square in his raincoat and hat, walking carelessly through the rain-splashed puddles. There was no one about. The rain seemed to appear in misty, yellow swirls around the street lamp on the corner of Rue Droite next to the closed bar. Max reached the second doorway, which was open, and walked across the interior patio, leaving behind the patter of rain outside.

In the hallway, a dusty, bare bulb provided just enough light for him to see where he was putting his feet. On the upper landing, another light was switched on. As he mounted the stairs, the steps creaked beneath his sodden shoes, which still bore traces of mud from his recent sortie. He felt dirty, drenched, and exhausted, and wanted this to be over so that he could lie down and sleep for a while, before packing his suitcase and leaving. So that he could reflect calmly about his future. When he reached the landing, he unbuttoned his raincoat and shook the water from his hat. Then he pulled the brass doorbell and waited, with no result. This made him a little uneasy. He pulled the bell again and heard it chime inside. Nothing. The Italians should have been waiting on tenterhooks for him. Yet no one came.

“I'm glad to see you,” said a voice behind him. Max started, dropping his hat on the ground. Fito Mostaza was sitting on the stairs leading to the next floor, looking relaxed. He was dressed in a dark, pin-striped suit with padded shoulders, and his customary bow tie. He wore neither a raincoat nor a hat.

“It turns out you're a responsible fellow,” he added. “Reliable.”

He spoke with a pensive, distracted air, as though concerned about something else. Oblivious to Max's unease.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Max stood gazing at him for a while, without replying. He was trying to figure out Mostaza's part in all this, and where he himself stood.

“Where are they?” he said at last.

“Who?”

“The Italians. Barbaresco and Tignanello?”

“Oh, them.”

Mostaza rubbed his chin with one hand, smiling almost imperceptibly.

“There's been a change of plan,” he said.

“I know nothing about that. I'm supposed to see them. That's what we agreed.”

The lenses in Mostaza's spectacles glinted as he bobbed his head with a pensive gesture then raised it again.

“Of course . . . plans and agreements. Naturally.”

He rose to his feet almost reluctantly, brushing off the seat of his trousers. Then he straightened his tie and walked down to where Max was standing. In his right hand was a shiny key.

“Naturally,” he repeated, unlocking the door.

Mostaza stood aside, politely, letting Max through. He entered, and the first thing he saw was blood.

He has them. It was so easy finding Mikhail Sokolov's chess notebooks, that for a moment Max wasn't sure if they were what he'd been looking for. But now he is. A careful examination by flashlight with his reading glasses on has dispelled any doubt. Everything fits with the description Mecha gave him: four thick volumes bound in cardboard and cloth, resembling big, tattered accounts books, filled with handwritten annotations in small, compact Cyrillic script, diagrams of games, notes, references. The professional secrets of a world chess champion. The four notebooks were in full view, piled one on top of the other, among the papers and books on the desk. Max doesn't read Russian, but he easily identified the last entry in the fourth volume: half a dozen lines in obscure figures (Q4R, P3RQ, B4R, KxPQ) jotted down next to a recent clipping from
Pravda
about one of the Sokolov-Keller games in Sorrento.

With the notebooks (the book, as Mecha called them) in his rucksack, which is once more on his back, Max goes out onto the balcony and looks up. The rope is still safely in place. He gives it a tug to make sure it's secure, before preparing his ascent. But no sooner has he made a first attempt, than he realizes he isn't going to make it. He might have enough energy to reach the roof, but he will have difficulty climbing over the gutter and the cornice where, on his way down, he grazed his knees and elbows. He overestimated his capability. Or his strength. If he faltered, he would plunge to his death. Not to mention the effort of going back the way he came, descending the iron ladder set in the wall, fumbling in the dark, unable to see where he was putting his feet. And only his hands to cling on with.

The realization hits him with a jolt of panic that leaves his mouth dry. He stays like that for a moment, motionless, clutching the rope. Unable to decide. Then he releases his grip, defeated. Accepting that he has fallen into his own trap. Overconfident, refusing to accept the reality of old age and exhaustion. He will never reach the roof that way, and he knows it.

Think, he tells himself anxiously. Think carefully and quickly, or you won't get out of here. He leaves the rope dangling (it's not possible to pull it down from below) and goes back into the room. There is only one way out, and knowing that helps him focus on what steps to take next. Everything, he concludes, will depend on stealth. And on luck: how many people are in the building and where. Whether the guard the Russians usually leave on the ground floor also does the rounds between Sokolov's room and the door to the garden. And so, careful not to make any noise, treading heel first in his rubber-soled shoes, Max walks across the room, steps out in to the corridor, and closes the door quietly behind him. There is a light outside, and a carpet extending to the elevator and the stairs, which helps him advance noiselessly. When he reaches the stair landing, he stops to listen, leaning over the stairwell. Everything is calm. He descends taking the same precautions, peering over the
banister to make sure his way is still clear. He can no longer hear properly, because his heart is racing again, and the throbbing in his ears is deafening. It's been a long time since he broke out in a sweat, he thinks. His skin was never prone to perspiring, but beneath his black trousers and sweater, he feels his undergarments soaking wet.

He pauses before the last stretch, making a renewed effort to calm himself.

Above the pounding in his head, he thinks he can hear a distant, muffled sound. Perhaps a radio or television is on. He peers down the stairwell again, descends the remaining steps, and creeps toward the corner of the lobby. There is a door on the far side, undoubtedly the one leading to the garden. On the left is a long, gloomy corridor and on the right, a set of frosted-glass doors, through which a light glimmers. That is where the sound of the radio or television is coming from, louder now. Max takes off the scarf still tied around his head, uses it to wipe the sweat from his face, then stuffs it into his pocket. His mouth is so dry that his tongue is almost stuck to the roof of his mouth. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, takes three deep breaths, crosses the foyer, opens the door silently, and goes outside. The cool night air, the scent of lushness beneath the trees in the garden, embraces him like a wave of optimism and vitality. Holding on to the rucksack, he begins to sprint between the shadows.

“Sorry about the mess,” Fito Mostaza said as he closed the door.

Max didn't reply. He was gazing with horror at Mauro Barbaresco's body. The Italian was lying sprawled on his back, in his shirtsleeves, in a pool of semicongealed blood. His face was the color of wax, his eyes two glassy slits, his lips parted, his throat slit from ear to ear.

“Go on through,” Mostaza prompted. “And careful where you put your feet. It's rather slippery.”

They advanced down the corridor, toward the end room where
Tignanello's body was blocking the doorway to the kitchen, one arm stretched out at a right angle, the other beneath his body. He was lying facedown in a pool of brownish-red blood that had trickled in a long stream under the table and chairs. There was an almost metallic odor in the room, subtle yet pervasive.

“Approximately five liters per body,” Mostaza remarked with distaste, as if he found this truly regrettable. “That makes ten in total. Quite a spillage.”

Max slumped onto the nearest chair. Mostaza stood watching him intently. Then he picked up a bottle of wine from the table, half filled a glass, and offered it to Max, who shook his head. The idea of drinking with all that just under his nose made him retch.

“At least take a sip,” Mostaza insisted. “It'll do you good.”

Eventually, Max obeyed, barely taking a sip before leaving the glass on the table. Mostaza, who was in the doorway (Tignanello's blood inches from his shoes) had taken his pipe out of one of his pockets and was calmly filling it with tobacco.

“What happened here?” Max stammered.

The other man shrugged.

“Occupational hazards,” he replied, pointing at the body with the stem of his pipe. “Theirs, in this instance.”

“Who did this?”

Mostaza looked at him with faint surprise.

“Why, I did, naturally.”

Max leapt to his feet, knocking over the chair, but froze instantly at the sight of the object Mostaza had just taken out of his jacket pocket. With his unlit pipe still in his left hand, his right held a small, shiny nickel-plated pistol. And yet the gesture wasn't threatening. He was simply showing the gun in the palm of his hand, almost apologetically. He wasn't pointing it at Max: his finger wasn't even on the trigger.

“Pick up the chair and sit down again, will you? . . . Let's not be melodramatic.”

Max did as Mostaza said. By the time he was seated once more, the pistol had disappeared into Mostaza's right pocket.

“Did you find what you went looking for?” he asked.

Max was gazing at Tignanello's body, facedown in a pool of semicongealed blood. One of his feet had lost a shoe, which lay on the floor, farther away. The exposed sock had a hole in the heel.

“You didn't shoot them,” Max said.

Mostaza, who was lighting his pipe, contemplated him through a puff of smoke, shaking the match until the flame went out.

“Of course not,” he said. “A pistol, even a small-caliber one like this, is noisy. No need to alert the neighbors.” He opened one flap of his jacket to reveal the handle of a knife tucked inside, next to his suspenders. “This is messier, of course. But more discreet.”

He glanced thoughtfully at the pool of blood at his feet. Apparently contemplating the appropriateness of the word
messier
.

“It wasn't pleasant, I assure you,” he added after a moment.

“Why?” Max insisted.

“We can discuss all that later, if you wish. Now tell me whether you managed to get hold of the letters. Have you got them with you?”

“No.”

Mostaza straightened his glasses with one finger and gave Max an appraising look.

“I see,” he said at last. “Foresight or failure?”

Max remained silent. At that moment he was busy calculating how much his life would be worth once he handed over the letters. Doubtless about as much as those poor wretches who had bled to death on the floor.

“Stand up and turn around,” Mostaza ordered.

His tone betrayed a hint of irritation, although he still didn't sound threatening. He was merely carrying out a tedious but necessary formality. Max obeyed, and Mostaza enveloped him in a puff of smoke when he approached from behind to frisk him, without
result, while Max secretly congratulated himself for having the precaution to leave the letters under one of the car seats.

“You can turn around now. . . . Where are they?” Mostaza's pipe was clenched between his teeth, distorting his voice, as he wiped his hands, moist from Max's raincoat, on his jacket. “At least tell me you have them in your possession.”

“I do.”

“Splendid. I'm glad to hear it. Now tell me where, and we can get this over with.”

“Get what over with?”

“Don't be so suspicious, it's a figure of speech. There's nothing to prevent us from parting on civilized terms.”

Max looked again at Tignanello's corpse. He remembered the man's sad, silent expression. A melancholy type. He was almost sorry to see him like that, facedown in his own blood. So still and defenseless.