“Tell me about this job.”
“There’s this thing, she called it a document. She said that Harry Levine has it. She wants it.”
“And your job?”
“Get it.”
Sean Dooley was not the brightest light shining from the Emerald Isle. It went on this way-Walter asking a question and Sean giving a short, simple answer-for what seemed to Harry to be a half-hour. Actually it was only a few minutes. Finally, Walter said, “Pull your shirt down.” The Irishman did and for the first time Harry saw his face. Sean Dooley may have been only thirty-one, but he looked like fifty. His Irish mug was both puffy and deeply lined at the same time. Probably the result of a lot of time spent outside, Harry concluded, and a lot of beer drinking when he was indoors.
“Put your pants on. Go ahead, it’s all right.” Dooley pulled his pants up from around his ankles, tucked his shirt halfway in and buckled his belt. He was breathing easier now. Walter thought the vision of his balls ground into the hardwood floor was still very much in Sean Dooley’s mind. “I want you to do two things for me, Sean, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. First, I want you to give Miss O’Malley this number.” He handed the Irishman a small slip of paper. On it was written a telephone number. “You won’t lose it, right?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I won’t lose it.”
“And second-and Sean, listen very carefully because your life depends on this-I want you to leave Holland, right now, and never come back. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Leave right now. When you walk out of here go straight to the airport. Sleep at Schiphol, if you have to wait before you can get a flight back home.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dooley.
“Here’s the part where you have to listen carefully.” Dooley looked up at Walter from the floor and nodded in a manner that showed Walter he wanted to comply completely and he was eager for Walter to know it. Walter said, “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Tell Miss O’Malley that if I see anyone else she sends, I will kill them and then, Sean, I’ll come back and kill you too. Even if you’ve done everything I’ve said, I’ll come back for you. Miss O’Malley sent you. If she sends anyone else, you’ll pay too. You have good reason, a powerful incentive to convince Miss O’Malley of my bad intentions.” He waved Dooley’s driver’s license in his face and then tossed it over to Harry. The rest of the wallet he gave back. “I won’t have any trouble finding you, you know that don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” said Walter. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Pack,” said Walter as Harry poured himself a glass of milk.
“What? I beg your pardon. What do you mean?”
“We have to leave. It’s too dangerous here.”
“But you let him go. You threw him out.”
“It’s not him I’m concerned about. Our boy Sean hasn’t been killing anybody. Sir Anthony Wells, and your Ambassador Brown, they were killed by pros, mean ones at that. They were beaten for information. Can you imagine a hundred-year-old man taking that sort of abuse?” Walter stopped for a moment and shook his head. He didn’t have to ask what kind of man would do such a thing. He knew. “We need to get out of here,” he said, looking at the little clock next to the couch. It said 3:20 am.
Ten minutes later, after Walter made two phone calls, a taxi pulled to a halt in front of the building. Walter and Harry walked quickly down the stone steps and into the waiting cab. As they drove off, Walter looked in all directions. He saw no one. He gave the driver specific instructions-“turn here… turn there”-taking them through the empty residential neighborhoods in the Jordan section and then, quickly and unexpectedly, in the opposite direction toward the newly developed part of Amsterdam where clusters of gleaming glass skyscrapers surrounded the Heineken Music Hall. The streets were empty. Nobody followed them. Finally, no longer visibly on edge, Walter leaned forward and said to the cab driver, “Rotterdam.”
Louis Devereaux was angry. Tucker Poesy was pissed. He was talking mostly to himself, but she held the phone to her ear anyway.
“Twice? Jesus fucking Christ! Twice?”
“I…”
“You lost him, again? First you lost him when he was in your apartment?-in your apartment! And now you lose him-again!”
“Look,” she said.
“No! You look…”
“I am not a fucking babysitter!” She was shouting at him. “Do you hear me? I don’t find people. I kill people. You tell me where to go, I go. You tell me who to shoot, I shoot. All the rest of this is bullshit! Now if you have nothing more to say, I’ve got better things to do than chase around Europe after Harry Levine and some psycho named Walter Sherman.”
“They’re not in Europe anymore,” said Devereaux, his boil having quickly receded to little more than a simmer. The total transformation from furious to… calm took Tucker Poesy by surprise.
“What?”
“When I know exactly where he is, I’ll call you.” With that Devereaux hung up.
Years ago, while getting his doctorate in European History at Yale, Devereaux took a Greek History course with an offbeat professor named Yataka Andrews. He remembered him now, after hanging up on Tucker Poesy. Yataka Andrews was a flamboyant character on the New Haven campus. He seemed so old at the time, so grown- up, but he was probably no more than forty, if that. Tall and thin, smooth skinned and handsome, his straight black hair flew about as he shook his head this way and that, all hands and arms, gesturing wildly while he paced about the classroom in jeans and a turtleneck sweater. His mother was Japanese; his father English, rumored to be a Duke or Earl or something like that. Dr. Andrews spoke with a distinct, clipped upper-class British accent. Close your eyes and you heard a Shakespearean actor, English, Irish or Welsh. Open them and you saw a towering Asian. Devereaux recalled a spirited discussion, one afternoon. It centered on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War .
The thirty-year truce, agreed upon at the conclusion of the conquest of Euboea, was broken in less than half that time when the Thebans invaded Plataea. They massed their forces at the gates to the city, approaching in secret, in the dark of night. The assault was an inside job, facilitated by a Plataean traitor named Naucleides who, thinking he would gain a political advantage after a Theban victory, quite stupidly opened the gate and practically invited them in. Professor Andrews posed the question: “What do you do when the wolf is at your door?” Obviously, this had implications well beyond the Greeks. The discussion was wide-ranging, covering wars, and threats of wars, from ancient Greece to Vietnam. Agreement within the class was hard to come by. Plataea was pushed to the background, forgotten in the heat of the moment by some. Finally, one student said, “When the wolf is at your door, it’s best to have a big gun.” A funny comment, of course, since, as Dr. Andrews was quick to point out, neither the Thebans nor the Plataeans had explosives of any kind. But the point was made. In the face of a threat, mighty force was the best defense. “No,” said Yataka Andrews, dashing up the aisle of sitting students, jumping, standing like a colossus on an empty desk in the back row. They all turned to see him. “That is not the answer,” he said. “Nor is it the meaning of the lesson. It was not for the Greeks to answer this question. Hardly. It was-” He paused momentarily for effect, then nearly leaped to the front of the class, turned to look at his students and announced, “It was Joseph Stalin who said, ‘When the wolf is at your door, you need a better place to hide.’ ”
Breaking through his anger with The Bambino, decades later, Devereaux heard it all again, the sonorous tones of Yataka Andrews reciting the words of the Soviet tyrant. It rang in his ears- “a better place to hide.” Of course. That’s where Walter Sherman was headed, to a better place to hide. Devereaux smiled. He couldn’t help but also remember that the Plataeans, despite the surprise advantage of their attackers, had routed the Thebans in their pre-dawn battle. They fought furiously with wild abandon, men, women and children. Even the slaves fought against the invaders. Better the master you know than the one you don’t.
Devereaux knew what lay ahead for Harry Levine, for the Lacey Confession, for The Locator. He just didn’t know the fine details. No matter, he was sure of the outcome. He poured himself a cup of tea, tore off a chunk of
