The sun was too hot to deal with. Milo got up and walked to the glass doors, where the extended roof protected him. He regulated his breaths.
'You all right, Milo Weaver?'
'I'm fine. Is that all?'
Ugrimov stretched out in his chair and brought the now-melted daiquiri to his lips. 'That's the whole thing. And now, it's time for reciprocation. I ask you any question I like?'
'If I know the answer, I'll tell you.'
'Fair enough,' said the Russian. His face turned bleakly serious: 'Where do you suggest I go?”
“What?'
'I'm going to have to leave Switzerland soon. Where to? Someplace with a good climate, of course, but someplace where I won't be hounded by German bankers. I thought about your country, but I'm not very positive about Americans these days.'
'How about the Sudan?'
'Ha!' Ugrimov seemed to find that funny, and Milo realized that there was nothing this man needed from him. He'd shared the story out of spite, nothing more.
'What about Lewis?' Milo asked. 'I imagine you tried to find out who he was, didn't you?'
'Of course I did. Years ago.'
'And?'
'And what? Guys like that, they cover their tracks. We came up with a couple names. Herbert Williams, for one, in Paris.'
'Was the other name Jan Klausner?' Milo asked.
Ugrimov frowned, then shook his head. 'No. It was Kevin Tripplehorn.'
'Tripplehorn?'
The Russian nodded. 'There's no telling how many aliases this guy has.'
Tripplehorn, Milo thought, and kept repeating it in his head. That's when he knew. Not everything, not yet, but enough. Kevin Tripplehorn, the Tourist. Tripplehorn, who was also Jan Klausner, Herbert Williams, Stephen Lewis. Tripplehorn, who had posed with Colonel Yi Lien in a photo and floated around Angela Yates in order to spy on her, or incriminate her. Tripplehorn.
He woke without knowing he'd passed out. Ugrimov, above him, was slapping his cheeks, then tried to feed him some daiquiri. It was too bitter. The back of his head throbbed.
'You need to take care of yourself, Milo. You can't depend on others to do it for you. My advice? Depend on your family, no one else.' Ugrimov stood and called, 'Nikolai!'
Nikolai kept a suspicious eye on Milo as he drove the sick man back to the gate. Milo, in the late stages of shock, kept thinking about Ugrimov's last words. Depend on your family, no one else. It was a curious thing to say.
Einner, at the gate, stood smoking one of Milo 's Davidoffs, and dropped it to the ground when he saw the Mercedes approaching. When Milo got out, his legs stronger now, Nikolai also got out and pointed at Einner. 'You,' he said in stiff, angry English. 'Don't you litter!'
38
On the drive back into town, Einner told him that Geneva was one of his favorite cities. 'Have you kept your eyes open? The girls here. I'm in a permanent state of erotic excitement.”
“Uh huh,' Milo said to passing trees.
'I'll show you. Unless you've got us housebreaking. You don't, do you?'
Milo shook his head.
'Fine. We'll get some nightlife, then.' The trees gave way to houses as they neared the lake. 'You know, you can tell me what happened back there. I'm working with you, after all.'
But Milo didn't speak. It was Tourism, which taught him to measure the number of facts he let loose, and the fact that Tourism had become the root of everything. He still hadn't reached that next level of understanding. So he lied, because that, too, was Tourism. 'Ugrimov was a dead end. Had to expect a few.'
'And Ugritech?'
'If someone's using his company to move money, he doesn't know about it.'
Einner frowned over this failure. 'But at least we're in Geneva, am I right? And you've got the best guide you could hope for. We on for tonight?'
'Sure,' said Milo. 'I'll need to catch a nap first.'
'Well, you're not a young man anymore.'
They reached the Beau-Rivage by four. Einner said that while Milo slept, he would get his own kind of rest at a whorehouse he never missed when visiting town. 'Very classy place. Clean. They treat you right. Sure you don't want a pop?'
Milo wished him happiness, picked up a complimentary Herald Tribune, and headed to the elevator. As he rose toward his room, he noticed at the bottom of the front page a photograph of a gentlelooking old man with a white comb-over and a soft smile. Datelined Frankfurt, it told of Herr Eduard Stillmann, ten-year board member of Deutsche Bank, found bludgeoned to death in his twentyeighth-floor office. Police had no leads as of yet. Milo knew, as he set the paper on his bed and began to undress, that they never would have any.
During his Tourism days, sleep sometimes happened this way. He'd run into a wall of information, and it would exhaust him physically and mentally. Not even Tourists can make so many connections in a snap. It takes time and reflection, like art. Milo was no better than the average Tourist, and when he woke and showered and dressed that evening, his mind was still ruptured by too much knowledge.
He wasn't even suspicious when Einner said, 'I've got to head out in the morning.”
“Oh?'
'Call came. New pastures for this one. Think you can handle it on your own?'
'I'll give it an honest try.'
He only lasted an hour at Platinum Glam Club, a throbbing pulse of slick nightclub on the Quai du Seujet, facing the Rhone where it flowed from Lake Geneva. Fifteen minutes in, he'd gone deaf from the techno music and the rich Swiss youth packed in around him, screaming to be heard. Lights flashed, lasers scribbled on the walls, and he soon lost track of Einner in the crowd that led to the dance floor. His entry fee entitled him to a free drink, but it was too much work trying to fight his way to the bar, where toned young men in spiky bleached hairdos flipped bottles to the agonizing rhythm of the music, as delivered by a certain DJ Jazzy Schwartz. He backed away, knocking into pretty girls with tall, multicolored drinks and short skirts who pretended he wasn't there, and tried to make it to the couches that lined the room. By the time he reached them, though, they were filled. He had no idea why he was here, so he worked his way to the entrance again.
With the door in sight, a girl with black, straight bangs and a silver lame one-piece blocked his path, holding a tall mojito between her breasts. She had a big smile as she shouted something he couldn't hear. He fooled with his ear to show the problem, so she took his neck with her free hand and brought his ear to her mouth. 'Want to dance?'
He touched her bare, moist shoulder to show she shouldn't be offended, but he didn't want to dance.
'Your friend says you do!' she growled, as if catching him in a lie.
In answer to his expression, she pointed behind him. Over a field of well-coiffed heads, he saw Einner with another young girl-a blende as tall as him-bouncing on the dance floor, waving a thumbs-up at Milo.
'He paid already!' the girl shouted.
It took Milo a moment too long to get it-he was slow, after all-and he leaned down, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and said, 'Another night.'
She caught him as he 'started to leave. 'What about the money?'
'Keep it.'
He broke loose and fought an incoming pack of young men in gray suits and ties and finally climbed the stairs to the cool street facing the Rhone. His ears hummed. The crowd out here was nearly as thick, a riot of revelers the
