A soft leather Herm6s attachd case lay on a heavy marble table between them. Over their heads a crystal chandelier provided adequate light, though filled with a blizzard of dust motes.
Rogin spoke English with a thick Gerrnan-Swiss accent with one bushy eyebrow curiously arched. 'You wish to withdraw all six hundred twenty-nine thousand?'
Carrie considered the question for a moment. 'Yes. All of it,' she then said Very businesslike.
'Very well, then. All right. How would you like your money?'
The American woman took out a blue pack of cigarettes-Gauloises. The banker produced a klunky silver lighter. As Rogin lit her cigarette, a strong smell of kerosene wafted up. Then the lighter clicked shut like an aspirin tin.
'What would you suggest?' Carrie asked.
The fat munchkin began to grin. 'What would I suggest? For starters, I would suggest we transfer the funds directly to your new bank. Tout de suite, Mrs. Chaplin. Easy as apple pie. No suitcases.'
'No. I'm afraid I must have the cash in hand, Heff Rogin. '
'Hmmm. Of course.' The redheaded man nodded. 'Will madame be needing a security guard, then? I will explain to you the simple procedure for-
'I'll be fine.' Carrie smiled, effectively cutting off the man. 'If you read in New Zurchen about someone murdered in the streets downtown,' she went on, 'you'll know that someone tried to take away my money.' The munchkin-an American and British detective fan-laughed with genuine good humor. 'No one is ever murdered in Zurich, madame. Not in that manner, anyway.' The banker laughed once again. Then he left to arrange for the six hundred twenty-nine thousand-one million five hundred thousand in Swiss francs.
As he walked through the elegant bank, S. 0. Rogin wondered if the pretty lady was running away from her husband. He viewed Mrs. Chaplin as a sort of... Faye Dunaway @. The fat man recalled Miss Dunaway in a scene from Win&nills of the Mind. No, no. From The Thomas Crown Affair. A wonderful escapist movie. All about robbing the banks of Boston.
Forty minutes later Carrie Rose walked out of the Kreditverein with the Henn6s briefcase full of Swiss francs. She was beginning to perspire now;
her skin was prickling. She was paranoid about strangers on the Zurich streets.
The tall, long-haired American woman went ust one block across the Stampfenbachstrasse, however. She entered the impressive Union Bank of Switzerland and redeposited the cash. All part of the master plan.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
Sooner or later, we were certain they would throw Macdonald to us. Harold Hill was an executive: good executives are executors. Predictable because they try to be so logical.... Damian never tries to figure out the mazes, just the mice....
The Rose Diary
Wahoo Cay, San Dominica
Friday afternoon.
At two in the hot, hot of the afternoon, Damian floated over an exquisite range of shallow barrier reefs.
Sunbathing in the twenty-five-foot Sportsman, watching mullets and snipe eels forage and dart through the bottle green waters, he was beginning to let his mind drift to thoughts of meeting Carrie. in Seedy Morocco. Casbahs. A perfect ending for this crime. The two who got away with it.
Damian was convinced that San Dominica represented the best freelance work done since John Kennedy was hit in Dallas. He knew it.
Just a few more hours to go now. All of it heading helter-skelter yet inevitably toward a small pinprick in time and space.
Actually, the end began in a most understated manner, a curious contrast to everything that had gone before it. At 3:15 Dr. Meral Johnson and Brooks Campbell escorted Peter out of the Dorcas Hotel.
The young American man was wearing gray cotton pants with a loose-fitting gray zipper jacket. Underneath the _jacket was a German semiautomatic pistol. The Walther was a neat, tough gun. Compliments of Great Western Air Transport, of Harold Hill in particular.
The three men got into a wide Dodge Charger idling in the hotel carport. Campbell looked around for rooftop snipers, and that seemed almost funny to Peter. 'Uh, that's our fort,' he finally had to say.
From the hotel they drove to a secluded villa owned by the Charles Forlenza Family. A big flamingo pink Hollywood-style house.
Both Campbell and Harold Hill had hopes now that the man staying at the villa-Duane Nichol spn-would either contact, or be contacted by, Dan-fian Rose. They'd put a five-car stakeout team on the house.
Officially, Peter was along to make any necessary identification. Officially, he didn't have a gun.
Unofficially, Harold Hill was beginning to troll bait for Rose.
In some ways he too was reminded of the November of 1963. Very messy stuff. A marvel how you could smooth out these things in the end-national security matters.
At six o'clock in Washington, a Mrs. C. Rose checked into the St. James Hotel. Some mail was waiting for her-letters from Damian. Very mushy and adolescent, Port-Smithe thought.
At seven o'clock in Zurich, Carrie waited in her hotel suite. She watched swans glide over the lake of Zurich, made casual notes for the diary, tried to take care of all the final details the way Damian would....
At a quarter to eight, a chip of bumt-orange sun sank without a trace behind the Forienza villa. His heart started to thump out strange warnings as Peter watched Isadore Goldman's expensive lackey walk outside the big
