'He's no fool.'
'From what we figure, he got hold of a boat in Croatia and was going to wait in the Adriatic until 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. Then he could slip in, make the trade, and slip out again before he'd have to register with the harbormaster.'
'I see,' Charles said, because despite his returning stomach cramps he finally had enough information to picture the various players and the ways they connected.
'Want me to take care of the room?'
'Let's check the dock first.'
Portoroz's main harbor lay at the midpoint of the bay; behind it sat the sixties architecture of the Hotel Slovenia, its name written in light blue against white concrete, a surf motif. They parked off the main road and wandered around shops selling model sailboats and T-shirts with PORTOROZ and I LOVE SLOVENIA and MY PARENTS WENT TO SLOVENIA AND ALL I GOT… scribbled across them. Sandaled families sucking ice cream cones and cigarettes wandered leisurely past. Behind the shops lay a row of small piers full of vacation boats.
'Which one?' asked Charles.
'Forty-seven.'
He led the way, hands in his pockets, as if he and his lady-friend were enjoying the view and the hot sun. The crews and captains on the motor- and sailboats paid them no attention. It was nearly noon, time for siestas and drink. Germans and Slovenes dozed on their hot decks, and the only voices they heard were from children who couldn't fall asleep.
Forty-seven was empty, but at forty-nine a humble yacht with an Italian flag was tied up. On its deck, a heavy woman was trying to peel a sausage.
'Buon giorno!' said Charles.
The woman inclined her head politely.
Charles's Italian was only passable, so he asked Angela to find out when the woman had arrived in Portoroz. Angela launched into a machine-gun Roman-Italian that sounded like a blast of insults, but the sausage woman smiled and waved her hands as she threw the insults back. It ended with Angela waving a 'Grazie mille.'
Charles waved, too, then leaned close to Angela as they walked away. 'Well?'
'She got here Saturday night. There was a motorboat beside theirs-dirty, she tells me-but it left soon after they arrived. She guesses around seven thirty, eight.'
After a couple more steps, Angela realized Charles had stopped somewhere behind her. His hands were on his hips as he stared at the empty spot with a small placard marked '47.”
“How clean do you think that water is?'
'I've seen worse.'
Charles handed over his jacket, then unbuttoned his shirt as he kicked off his shoes.
'You're not,' said Angela.
'If the trade happened at all, then it probably didn't go well. If it led to a fight, something might have dropped in here.'
'Or,' said Angela, 'if Dusan's smart, he took Frank's body out into the Adriatic and dropped him overboard.'
Charles wanted to tell her that he'd already ruled Dusan Maskovic out as a murderer-there was nothing for Dusan to gain by killing a man who was going to give him money for a simple address with no questions asked-but changed his mind. He didn't have time for a fight.
He stripped to his boxers, hiding the pangs in his stomach as he bent to pull off the slacks. He wore no undershirt, and his chest was pale from a week spent under Amsterdam 's gray skies. 'If I don't come up…'
'Don't look at me,' said Angela. 'I can't swim.'
'Then get Signora Sausage to come for me.'
Before she could think of a reply, Charles had jumped feet-first into the shallow bay. It was a shock to his drug-bubbly nerves, and there was an instant when he almost breathed in; he had to force himself not to. He paddled back to the surface and wiped his face. Angela, on the edge of the pier, smiled down at him. 'Done already?'
'Don't wrinkle my shirt.' He submerged again, then opened his eyes.
With the sun almost directly above, the shadows beneath the water were stark. He saw the dirty white hulls of boats, then the blackness where their undersides curved into darkness. He ran his hands along the Italian boat at number forty-nine, following its lines toward the bow, where a thick cord ran up to the piles, holding the boat secure. He let go of the line and sank into the heavy darkness under the pier, using hands for sight. He touched living things- a rough shell, slime, the scales of a paddling fish-but as he prepared to return to the surface, he found something else. A heavy work boot, hard-soled. It was attached to a foot, jeans, a body. Again, he fought to keep himself from inhaling. He tugged, but the stiff, cold corpse was hard to move.
He came up for air, ignored Angela's taunts, then submerged again. He used the pilings for leverage. Once he'd dragged the body into the partial light around the Italian boat, through the cloud of kicked sand, he saw why it had been such a struggle. The bloated body-a dark-bearded man-was rope-bound at the waist to a length of heavy metal tubing: a piece of an engine, he guessed.
He broke the surface gasping. This water, which had seemed so clean a minute before, was now filthy. He spat out leakage, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. Above him, hands on her knees, Angela said, 'I can hold my breath longer than that. Watch.'
'Help me up.'
She set his clothes in a pile, kneeled on the pier, and reached down to him. Soon he was over the edge, sitting with his knees up, dripping. A breeze set him shivering.
'Well?' said Angela.
'What does Frank look like?'
She reached into her blazer and tugged out a small photograph she'd brought to show to strangers. A frontal portrait, morose but efficiently lit, so that all Frank Dawdle's features were visible. A clean-shaven man, bald on top, white hair over the ears, sixty or so.
'He didn't grow a beard since this, did he?'
Angela shook her head, then looked worried. 'But the last known photo of Maskovic…'
He got to his feet. 'Unless the Portoroz murder rate has gone wild, that's your Serb down there.'
'I don't-'
Charles cut her off before she could argue: 'We'll talk with the SOVA, but you need to call Vienna. Now. Check Frank's office. See what's missing. Find out what was on his computer before he left.'
He slipped into his shirt, his wet body bleeding the white cotton gray. Angela started fooling with her phone, but her fingers had trouble with the buttons. Charles took her hands in his and looked into her eyes.
'This is serious. Okay? But don't freak out until we know everything. And let's not tell the Slovenes about the body. We don't want them holding us for questioning.'
Again, she nodded.
Charles let go of her and grabbed his jacket, pants, and shoes, then began walking back up the pier, toward the shore. From her boat, her chubby knees to her chin, the Italian woman let out a low whistle. ' Bello,' she said.
4
An hour and a half later, they were preparing to leave again. Charles wanted to drive, but Angela put up a fight. It was the shock-without him having to say a word, she'd put it together herself. Frank Dawdle, her beloved boss, had killed Leo Bernard, killed Dusan Maskovic, and walked off with three million dollars of the U.S. government's money.
The most damning piece of evidence came from her call to Vienna. The hard drive of Dawdle's computer was missing. Based on power usage, the in-house computer expert believed it had been removed sometime Friday morning, just before Frank and Leo departed for Slovenia.
Despite this, she clung to a new, hopeful theory: The Slovenes were responsible. Frank might have taken his
