quick answer.”
A little later, Cardinal went into the meeting room to check on Mendelsohn.
“Oh, hey,” Mendelsohn said. “This fur auction stuff is interesting. I could read all day about this. And this protester-this Pocklington-what a piece of work he is. I hope someone’s keeping an eye on him.”
“I gave you missing persons stuff to read.”
“Yeah, yeah, I went through all that.”
They were interrupted by Delorme. “They’ve located the Bastov car. The Belvedere Motel.”
–
The Belvedere was a grand name for a motel that was little more than a block of red brick offering views of a Petrocan gas station and a discount electronics store. Delorme and the ident team swarmed over the Grand Marquis the moment they arrived. Cardinal and Mendelsohn went in to talk to the manager, a tubby man in his sixties who was aromatic of pipe tobacco. “We get people helping themselves to our parking spaces all the time,” he told them. “This time of year we have a lot of vacancies, so we don’t call in the tow trucks like we might in summer.”
Cardinal asked to see the register, and the manager swivelled a battered and smudged PC monitor so Cardinal could see.
“Only three guests?”
“Yeah. Rushed off our feet.”
Two had checked in too late for the fur auction. “This third one,” Cardinal said, “the one who checked in a week ago last Wednesday. What can you tell me about him?”
“Not a thing. He signed in and I haven’t seen him since. Hasn’t given me any reason to worry.”
“He have any visitors?”
“I wouldn’t know. They don’t come through the office.”
“Was there anything unusual about him?”
The manager thought about it for a minute, chewing a plump knuckle. “One thing, maybe. He had an accent. He gave his name as Ted Nelson, but he didn’t sound like a Nelson. I didn’t question it-I mean, lots of people change their names when they immigrate. But to me he sounded more like a Sergei or an Igor.”
Cardinal turned to Mendelsohn. “You have any questions?”
Mendelsohn shook his head. “Your show, Detective.”
Cardinal made a note of the Chevy Aveo the man had registered, and the licence plate number. “His car’s not in your lot at the moment. You mind if we sit in here and wait for him to come back?”
“Why, has he done something?”
“We certainly plan to ask him.”
–
Cardinal asked Delorme and the ident team to leave the Mercury and come back later. He moved his own car farther up the street and came back to the motel office. He and Mendelsohn set a couple of chairs to face the windows, and rearranged some plastic plants so they could keep an eye on the parking area.
Cardinal was a little worried about manning a stakeout with Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn was a talker-not just a talker, an italicizer and a gesticulator-and Cardinal didn’t like a lot of chit-chat on a stakeout. He preferred to think about the case, to try to develop ideas for new avenues of investigation. But the FBI man sat in his chair, watching a parking lot utterly devoid of activity, and didn’t say a word. He had his notepad out and occasionally flipped a page, made a note. Mostly he sat there, slouched at an angle, twirling his ballpoint in silence.
They sat that way for a good hour and a half. The manager, unasked, brought them coffee and muffins. It was the only time Mendelsohn spoke. He thanked the manager and bit into one of the muffins and called after him, “Hey, these are good. You’re very kind to share them.” Cardinal made a mental note to practise better manners himself.
“I have a colleague or two could take lessons from you,” Cardinal said.
“From me? What in? My tuba playing is not so hot, and my driving is a constant concern to the Bureau. Yiddish maybe? You have someone dying to learn Yiddish?”
“Not exactly,” Cardinal said.
“Can’t be much demand for it up here. Jews don’t respond well to cold. Deserts. We like deserts. Especially if they belong to someone else. I got a Palestinian colleague, we call him Zippy because his family name is a little like Doodah. One day I told Zippy, I said, ‘Doodah… Doodah… That’s so familiar. I got it! I think my cousin moved into your family house in Jerusalem!’ Oh boy, did I catch hell from him. Such bad jokes I make. I think I could take lessons from that McLeod guy. Now he’s funny.”
“McLeod, yeah. Very dry.”
“Dry, no. Funny, yes. Okay, I’ll shut up now. I hate people who gas on when you’re on a stakeout. The perfect opportunity for reflection and they have to launch this spielkreig. So dismayed I get. So disheartened.”
They settled once more into their separate quiets. Half an hour later, the Chevy Aveo pulled into the lot and parked in front of room eight.
“Let’s wait till he gets to the door,” Cardinal said.
“Long as he doesn’t get inside the door. That would be a negative thing.”
The man got out of the car and shut the driver’s-side door and immediately opened it again. He reached in and pulled out a paper bag with the KFC logo. He shut the car door again and locked it and carried his dinner to his room door.
Cardinal got up and drew his Beretta. He opened the office door slowly so it wouldn’t squeak, and he and Mendelsohn were behind the man before he had his key out of his pocket.
“Ted Nelson?”
The man turned and looked at them both and said, “Fuck.”
“I need to see some ID.”
“ID why? I have done nothing.”
“Just show me.”
The man reached into his inside coat pocket. Mendelsohn was behind Cardinal with his weapon drawn. The man dropped the wallet and Cardinal kept his Beretta trained on him while he picked it up. There was a credit card and a New York driver’s licence in the name of Nelson, but everything else was in the name Yevgeny Divyris.
“Yevgeny Divyris,” Cardinal said. “You’re related to Irena Divyris? You’re Russian?”
“Ukrainian,” Mendelsohn said, his Glock aimed at the man’s head.
The man turned and looked Mendelsohn up and down and spat on the ground. “Jew.”
“Yes. And please let me personally apologize. I’m so sorry you people had to work so hard herding us into the showers. Nice job your people did as camp guards.”
“Fucking scum. How many in my country you starve to death? Millions.”
“Hands behind your back,” Cardinal said.
“Millions dead from starving while landlords ate like pigs, and nobody talks about this millions. Only the fucking Jews.”
“Both hands,” Cardinal said. “Now.” He snapped the handcuffs on the man and turned him around. “That Mercury is your sister’s rental. You have any explanation why it’s at your hotel?”
“I don’t have to explain nothing. To you or your fucking Jew friend.”
“I’m sure you mean that in a positive sense,” Mendelsohn said.
They put Divyris into the back of the car and drove to the station, where he was booked on a charge of credit card fraud. They sat him in an interview room and left him there to stew for half an hour while they dug up all the background they could on him.
“Explain to me one thing,” Mendelsohn said, “and then I’ll just observe. Explain to me how it is that the Jews, who are supposed to be behind every international plot, who are supposedly manipulating the world’s banking system through a worldwide network of conspirators-explain to me how these Machiavellian geniuses ended up as lampshades and other handy household items.”
“Right now I’d rather ask him about his relationship with his sister.”
“Good point. Focus, Detective. I like that. See, I could learn from you.”
–
Cardinal sat himself down opposite Yevgeny Divyris and silently filled out a form. Divyris sat back with one
