The Day After Tomorrow

up.

Dale Washburn stepped out of Raymond Chandler. She was thirty-five, a genuine platinum blonde, with a terrific body and a brain to match. She’d been an LAPD undercover cop for five years before her cover was blown during a screwed-up midnight drug raid in upscale Brentwood. With a bullet inoperably lodged in her lower back, she took a disability pension to Palm Springs, played cards with a few rich divorces, male and female, and hung out a quiet shingle as a very private investigator. McVey had called her as soon as he’d checked into his Knightsbridge hotel. He wanted everything she could dig up about Mr. Harald Erwin Scholl in two hours.

“Nothing.”

“Come on—nothing . . .” McVey heard the anger in his own voice. He wasn’t handling Benny Grossman’s murder as well as he thought.

“Nothing, baby. I’m sorry. Erwin Scholl’s who he’s supposed to be. A richer-than-hell publisher, art collector, and chum-chum with the ultras, as in presidents and prime ministers. In capital letters, my love. If there’s more, it’s dug deep in the sandbox where only the really big kids play. And little girls and boys like you and me aren’t going to find it.”

“What about a history—” McVey said.

“Poor immigrant comes here from Germany just before World War Two, works his keester off and the rest is what I already told you.”

“Married?”

“Never, babe. Not as far as I could find out in a coupla hours. And if you’re thinking gay, honey, the queens he plays with are the kind with emeralds and sable and armies. Ladies who have coronations and used to rule empires and probably still sit on jeweled heads.”

“Angel, you’re not giving me much.”

“One fact I can give you, and you can do with it what you want—your man is in Berlin until Sunday. Big commemoration or something at a place called—wait’ll I look at my notes—they’re here somewhere—Yeah, here we go—the place, a palace or something called Charlotten-burg.”

“Charlottenburg Palace?” McVey looked to Noble.

“A museum in Berlin.”

“Go back to your game, angel. I’ll take you to dinner when I get back.”

McVey, for you, anytime.”

McVey clicked off. Noble was staring at him.

“Angel?” Noble grinned.

“Yeah, angel—” McVey said flatly. “What about Osborn?”

Noble’s smile faded and he shook his head. “Nothing.”

83

“VERA—”

“Oh God, Paul!”

Osborn could hear the relief and excitement in her voice. Despite everything, Vera hadn’t been out of his mind for more than a moment. Somehow he’d had to get hold of her, talk to her, hear her tell him she was all right.

He couldn’t use the phone in his room and knew it. So he’d gone down to the lobby. McVey wouldn’t like it if he found out, but as far as he was concerned he had no other choice.

Once he reached the lobby, he’d found the phones near the entrance in use. Taking a chance, he’d gone to the desk and asked if there were others. A clerk had directed him to a corridor just off the bar where he’d found a bank of old-style private phone booths.

Entering, he closed the door and took out a small address book where he’d written the number of Vera’s grandmother in Calais. For some reason the old burnished wood and the closed door seemed reassuring. He heard someone in the booth next to him finish a call, then hang up and leave. Looking out through the glass, he saw a young couple pass, going toward the elevators. After that the hallway was empty. Turning back, he picked up the phone, dialed the number and charged the call to his office credit card.

He heard the phone start to ring through on the other end. It rang for some time and he was about to hang up when the old woman surprised him and answered. Finally, the best he could garner was that Vera was not there and hadn’t been. He felt his emotions begin to run away and he knew he’d go crazy if he didn’t get a grip on them. Then it crossed his mind that she was still at the hospital, that she’d never left. Using his credit card, he dialed her direct line. The number rang through and he heard her voice.

“Vera—” he said, his heart leaping at the sound of it. But she kept on talking and in French and he realized it was her voice mail. Then he heard a click and a recorded voice tell him to dial “O.” A moment later a woman answered. “Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked. Yes, the woman spoke a little English. Vera, she said, had been called away two days earlier on a family emergency; it was not known when she would return. Would he like to speak with another doctor? “No. No, thank you,” he said, and hung up. For a long moment he stared at the wall. There was only one place left. Maybe, for some reason, she’d gone back to her apartment.

For the third time he used his credit card, this time wondering if he shouldn’t go to another phone, one outside the building. Before he could hang up, the number rang through and on just the second ring a man answered.

“Monneray residence, bonsoir.”

It was Philippe picking up the call from the switchboard. Osborn was silent. Why was Philippe monitoring Vera’s calls without giving them a chance to ring long enough for her to pick them up herself? Maybe McVey had been right and it had been Philippe who’d alerted this “group” to who Vera was and where she lived, then later helped him escape from under the noses of the police, but not until he’d notified the tall man.

“Monneray residence,” Philippe said again. This time his voice was hollow, as if he were suddenly suspect of the call. Osborn waited a half beat, then decided to take the chance.

“Philippe, it’s Doctor Osborn.”

Philippe’s reaction was anything but cautious. He was excited, delighted to hear from him. He made it sound as if he’d been worrying himself to death about him.

“Oh, monsieur. The shooting at La Coupole. It was all over the television. Two Americans, they said. You are all right? Where are you?”

Uh uh, Osborn told himself. Don’t tell him.

“Where is Vera, Philippe? Have you heard from her?”

“Oui, oui!” Vera had telephoned earlier in the day and left a number. It was to be given only to him if he called, and to no one else.

A noise outside the phone booth made Osborn look around. A small black woman in a hotel uniform was vacuuming the hallway. She was old, and her hair twisted up under a bright blue scarf made her look Haitian. The hum of the vacuum grew louder as she worked closer.

“The number, Philippe,” he said, turning his back to the hallway.

Fumbling a pen from his pocket, Osborn looked for something to write on. There was nothing, so he wrote the number on the palm of his hand, then repeated it just to make sure.

“Merci, Philippe.” Without giving the doorman a chance for another question, he hung up.

Against the sound of the old woman’s vacuum, Osborn picked up the phone, again debated moving to another telephone, then said the hell with it, dialed the number written on his hand and waited for it to ring through.

“Oui?” He started as a man’s voice came on, tough and forceful.

“Mademoiselle Monneray, please,” Osborn said.

Then he heard Vera say something in French and add the name Jean Claude. The first line clicked off and he heard Vera say his name.