newscaster-Spanish-and more of the same. And more: childhood shots of Adriana, swimming with her parents, a young birthday. Now Dutch. Then Italian. French. Moldovan. British. German. American. Polish.
It went on, in languages he couldn’t even identify, with scenes of the mother breaking down on camera, screaming, her stoic husband hollow-eyed behind her. The occasional angry person-on-the-street giving an opinion. It lasted for over an hour until it faded to black and the mustached man pressed STOP and then REWIND. As it whirred loudly, he said, “Heinrich,” and another board struck Milo’s temple.
“Jesus! Cut it out!”
He started to rise, but Heinrich pushed him down again. The mustached man retrieved one of the rolls of duct tape and tossed it smoothly to Heinrich, who began to strap Milo in the chair.
There was nothing to be done. This had all been planned ahead of time-the hard hand, the video, and even his eventual outburst. They knew what they were doing.
The VCR clicked loudly. Then they all looked up as their missing member trotted down the stairs holding a tray with large, steaming coffee cups. Milo wondered why it had taken so long to make them, then realized it hadn’t. The man simply knew he wasn’t to interrupt the videotape.
“Excellent!” The mustached one got to his feet. “What kind?”
The wiry one began passing out cups. “There was a bag of Starbucks grounds. Ethiopian.”
“Starbucks?” He seemed confused. “How about that? You know their coffee, Mr. Weaver?”
“Intimately.”
“Delicious,” he said and sipped from his cup, then leaned back. “Too hot for me. Heinrich?”
Heinrich was holding two cups-one for him, one for Milo. “Very hot,” he said, then looked over at the mustached man. Heinrich seemed to interpret his superior’s silence as an order. He poured a little of the steaming coffee onto Milo’s chest. It burned straight through his shirt, but he didn’t shout out this time, only grunted. Heinrich set down the cup and began to drink from his own.
The mustached man took his coffee to the stairs. “I think Mr. Weaver would like some more television.”
The one who’d brought the coffees used the remote to start the VCR playing again. Newscaster. Adriana. Barren trees.
“Let’s make sure we remember every image on that tape, yes? There’ll be a quiz later.”
The man with the remote laughed lightly, and Heinrich smiled. The mustached man left them alone as Adriana’s mother wept uncontrollably on-screen.
None of this, really, was a surprise. Just as he tried to keep himself grounded, his interrogators would only be interested in keeping him off balance, and for the next five minutes he felt himself slipping. Then the man with the mustache made his first mistake. As a Dutch newscaster with dour features discussed Adriana’s murder, he quietly came down the stairs, holding a crumpled slip of paper that had come from Milo’s pockets. It wasn’t a receipt. Heinrich paused the video.
“Excuse me,” he said as he unfolded the paper. It was hotel stationery. “I was just curious-who wrote this?”
Honestly, Milo said, “I’ve never seen it before.”
Heinrich’s open hand crashed against the side of his face. Milo took a labored breath.
“I’m telling the truth.”
“I know,” the man said, then brought the paper over for him to read.
The world was too blurry for him to read a thing. “Closer, please.” The man obliged, and he could now see that it was from the Cavendish, London. Below the name, in sweeping letters, he read:
Tourism, like Virginia,
is for lovers.
Turn that frown upside down, man.
It was followed by a smiley face.
Despite himself, Milo began to laugh. James Einner had a wonderfully idiotic sense of humor.
“Well?” said the man.
“I wish I knew,” he said. “It’s kind of lovely, isn’t it?”
Heinrich struck him again, but he hardly felt it.
“Who’s it from?”
“A secret admirer, I guess.”
12
She made sure to follow her routine and visit Herr al-Akir’s shop for her Riesling and Snickers. She’d noticed a change in his demeanor the previous evening, and it had taken her a moment to realize that it was the result of Friday’s irregularity. That idiot who had run in to collect her, foolishly calling her Director Schwartz. That was the only explanation for the heavy stare that flickered away nervously when she turned to meet it. Tonight was the same. The Guten Abend, Frau, then nervous silence as she trudged to the back to collect her wine. She placed her ten sixty-five on the counter and watched him tap at the register. “Herr al-Akir,” she said, “did the gentleman give you the five cents last week?”
He blinked three times, then nodded. “Yes. Your account is settled.” He handed over her receipt.
“Is there anything wrong?”
He shook his head eagerly. “Everything is very fine.”
“Perhaps you have a question for me.”
He seemed stunned by the suggestion. “No. No questions.”
She tried for a smile, even though she knew the effect her smiles had on strangers. “Good evening to you, then.”
Back in the car, she put Herr al-Akir out of her mind and focused on the road. It had been a quiet day. She had waited for a visitor from the second floor-not Wartmuller himself, of course, but perhaps some intermediary-to wonder to her face how she’d gotten Dieter Reich to keep her on the Stanescu case. But no one said a thing to her; in fact, she got the pleasant feeling that the second floor had been abandoned.
Though they’d exchanged no significant words since that three o’clock phone call, she had seen Oskar at the office. He came in after four looking exhausted and worked on his computer, filing nondescript vetting reports and running some of Erika’s errands. They had decided beforehand that nothing about Milo Weaver would pass between them in the office, no matter how safe they considered themselves. Which was why he stayed behind briefly when she left at seven thirty. While Erika visited Herr al-Akir, Oskar drove his own car into the Perlacher Forest and waited for her to pick him up.
He looked frigid by the side of the road, his Volkswagen parked out of sight, and once inside he fooled with the heater until it blew loudly. “You took your time,” he said.
“Had to pick up my Riesling.”
“I think you have a drinking problem, Erika.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Watching videos.”
“Nothing broken, I hope,” she said, because she had noticed the underlying hatred in Oskar once he had learned of Adriana Stanescu’s past. He was looking for someone to blame, and Milo Weaver was as good as anyone.
“Not yet. But we’ve still got time.”
Image
He knew something was happening when Heinrich, after receiving a call, got up and turned off the television. Milo had watched and listened to Adriana Stanescu’s multilingual story for, he estimated, four hours. Four hours duct-taped to a chair facing the video loop. Even now, with the television black, he kept seeing the grainy family photos, the stunned father and screaming mother, and the bare branches that led to her final resting spot in the mountains of France.
Of course, with repetition everything dulls, and the panic he’d felt during the first and second viewing had waned so that by this fourth (or was it fifth?) viewing he was more interested in his ability to predict the actual
