working harder or reward them with an expensive holiday halfway around the world. More than once he’d walked out of critical labor negotiations at the eleventh hour and disappeared, going alone to a museum or even a movie, and not returning for hours. And when he did return, he expected the problem to have been resolved in his favor. Usually it was, because both sides knew that he would fire his entire negotiating staff if it were not. If that happened, a new staff would be brought in and negotiations would be started from scratch, a. process that would cost both Scholl and the opposition a fortune in new legal fees. The difference was that Scholl could afford it.
In both cases it was more than simply getting done what he wanted done, it was a control mechanism, the deliberate flaunting of a colossal ego. And Scholl not only knew it, he reveled in it.
Von Holden had been
The situation in Zurich, for example. The pleasuring of Joanna was a case of manipulation requiring skill and delicacy. Salettl believed Elton Lybarger wholly capable of complete recovery: emotionally, psychologically and physically. But early on, he had voiced concern that with no women in his life, when the time came to test Lybarger’s reproductive capacity, a woman he was unfamiliar with could make him uncomfortable, to the point where he might possibly refuse to perform, or at least, be stilted in his performance.
A female who had been his physical therapist for an extended period and who had accompanied him all the way to Switzerland, to look after him there would be someone he trusted and was comfortable with. He would know her touch, even her smell. And though he might never have looked upon her sexually, he would, at the time he was brought to have intercourse with her, be under the influence of a strong sexual stimulant. Fully aroused, yet not wholly aware of the circumstances, he would instinctively sense the familiar and in doing so relax and proceed.
Hence the choosing of Joanna. Far from home, with no immediate family, and not terribly attractive, she would be physically and emotionally vulnerable to a surrogate’s seduction. A seduction whose sole purpose was to ready her for copulation with Elton Lybarger. The need for the surrogate had been Salettl’s calculated judgment and he’d voiced it to Scholl, who had turned to his
Across from the street, a digital neon clock over the entrance to a disco read 22:55. Five minutes to eleven. They had been there for thirty minutes and still Scholl sat in silence, absorbed in the young crowds filling the street.
“The masses,” he said quietly. “The masses.”
Von Holden wasn’t sure if Scholl was talking to him or not. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t hear what you said.”
Scholl turned his head and his eyes found Von Holden’s. “Herr Oven is dead. What happened to him?”
Von Holden had been right in the first place. Bernhard Oven’s failure in Paris had been bothering Scholl all along, but it was only now that he’d chosen to discuss it.
“I would have to say he made an error in judgment,” Von Holden said.
Abruptly Scholl leaned forward and told the driver to move on, then turned to Von Holden.
“We had no problems for a very long time, until Albert Merriman surfaced. That he and the factors surrounding him were eliminated as quickly and efficiently as they were only proved that our system continues to work as designed. Now Oven is killed. Always a risk in his profession, but troubling in its implication that the system might not be as efficient as we presumed.”
“Herr Oven was working alone, operating on information provided him. The situation now is under control of the Paris sector,” Von Holden said.
“Oven was trained by you, not the Paris sector!” Scholl snapped angrily He was doing what he always did, making it personal. Bernhard Oven worked for Von Holden, therefore his failure was Von Holden’s.
“You are aware I have given Uta Baur the go-ahead.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you realize the mechanisms for Friday night are, by now, already in place. Stopping them would be difficult and embarrassing.” Scholl’s stare penetrated Von Holden the same way it had Salettl. “I’m sure you understand.”
“I understand. . . .”
Von Holden sat back. It would be a long night. He’d just been ordered to Paris.
73
A DAMP fog swirled around and it had started to mist. The yellow headlamps of the few cars still out cut an eerie swath as they moved up the boulevard St.-Jacques past the telephone kiosk.
“Oy, McVey!” Benny Grossman’s voice cut through three thousand miles of underwater fiber-optic cable like bright sunshine. Twelve fifteen, Tuesday morning in Paris, was seven fifteen, Monday evening in New York, and Benny had just come back into the office to check messages after a very long day in court.
Down the hill, through the drizzle and the trees that separated the two-lane street, McVey could just see the hotel. He hadn’t dared call from the room and didn’t want to chance the lobby if the police came back.
“Benny, I know, I’m driving you crazy—”
“No way, McVey!” Benny laughed. Benny always laughed. “Just send my Christmas bonus in hundreds. So go ahead, drive me crazy.”
Glancing out at the street, McVey felt the reassuring heft of the .38 under his jacket, then looked back to his notes.
“Benny. Nineteen sixty-six, Westhampton Beach. An Erwin Scholl—who is he? Is he still alive? If so, where is he? Also 1966—early, the spring, or even late fall of sixty-five, three unsolved murders, professional jobs. In the states of—”
McVey checked his notes again. “Wyoming, California, New Jersey.”
“A snap, boobalah. And while I’m at it why don’t I find out who the hell really killed Kennedy.”
“Benny, if I didn’t need it—” McVey looked out toward the hotel. Osborn was tucked in the room with the tall man’s Cz, the same as the first time, and with the same orders not to answer the phone or open the door for anyone but .him. This was the kind of business McVey heartily disliked, being in danger with no idea where it might come from or what it might look like. Most of his last years had been spent picking up the pieces and putting together evidence after drug dealers had concluded business transactions. Most of the time it was safe, because men who were dead usually didn’t try to kill you.
“Benny”—McVey turned back to the phone—'the victims would have been working in some kind of high-tech field. Inventors, precision tool designers, scientists maybe, even a college professor. Somebody experimenting with extreme cold—three, four, five hundred degrees below zero cold. Or maybe, the reverse—somebody exploring heat. Who were they? What were they working on when killed? Now, last: Microtab Corporation. Waltham, Massachusetts, 1966. Are they still in business? If so, who runs the shop, who owns them? If not, what happened to them and who owned them in 1966?”
“McVey—what am I, Wall Street? The IRS? The Department of Missing Persons? Just punch this into a computer and out comes your answers?—When the hell you want it, New Year’s 1995?”
“I’m going to call you in the morning.”
“What?”
“Benny, it’s very, very important. If you draw a blank, if yon need help, call Fred Hanley at the FBI in L.A. Tell him it’s for me, that I asked for the assistance.” McVey paused. “One other thing. If you haven’t heard from me by noon tomorrow, your time, call Ian Noble at Scotland Yard and give him everything you have.”
“McVey—” Benny Grossman’s voice lost its testy ebullience. “You in trouble?”
