It is difficult to know if Hill was talking about life in general or life in one dark corner of the world. He may not know himself. “Thieves and gangsters all hate each other, they screw each other, they betray each other,” he insists. “That’s the world they live in. And if you suddenly appear in it and agree to everything they say and do everything they want, then you’re just not credible. If you act agreeable, it’s not a sign you’re close to a deal. It’s a sign they should push harder. They’ll take you for some complete asshole.”
Hill sat on his bed, certain his phone would ring again in a minute or two. He didn’t phone Butler because he wanted to keep the line free. The phone rang.
“I’m serious,” Ulving said. “We need to get this done now.” “I’ve talked to you and Johnsen all day, off and on,” Hill said. “What more can anyone say?”
“No. It’s something else.”
“Okay. Do you want to meet in the coffee bar? But it may be closed by now.”
“No, no, not there. Outside, in the car.”
“Listen, I’m in bed,” Hill said. “The light’s out. Just give me a minute to throw some water on my face and get dressed. I’ll be down in ten minutes.” Hill phoned Butler, waking him up. “They’re downstairs,” he said. “Don’t go down there!”
“I’ve got to. Don’t worry, I won’t go anywhere with them. I’ll just go down dressed as I am now”—Hill was in tan chinos and a blue button-down shirt, wearing loafers but no socks—”and if they want to drive me somewhere, I’ll say, ‘I don’t have my coat or my socks, I’m not going outdoors.’ “
“All right, but you can’t leave the hotel.” “Okay.”
“And that includes going outside the hotel to sit in the car.” “Fine.”
Hill went downstairs and walked outside. There it was, Ulving’s Mercedes, with Ulving and Johnsen inside. Hill climbed in the back.
PART V
31
A Stranger
MIDNIGHT, MAY 6, 1994
Hill climbed in the back seat of Ulving’s Mercedes, but he made a point of leaving his door open. “I’m happy to listen to what you’ve got to say,” he announced, “but I’m not going anywhere with you.” Ulving was in the driver’s seat, with Johnsen next to him. Hill sat behind Johnsen, half in the car and half out, with his right foot on the ground. Johnsen was in a foul mood, cursing Ulving and the Norwegian cops and life in general. Evidently he had been going on for a while. Ulving slumped meekly in his seat.
Johnsen gestured toward a black van parked nearby, its windows dark and its roof festooned with antennas. “I checked it out,” he snarled. “It’s police surveillance.”
“Did you speak to ‘em?” asked Hill. The Norwegians again, trying to help.
“No, there’s nobody in it. I rocked it back and forth, just to be sure. But I know it’s a surveillance van.”
“Then where the hell are they?” Hill asked. “Where’re the goddamned
cops?”
Johnsen pointed to a club next to the hotel. Blaring music poured into the night. The police were making a night of it.
Hill tried to calm Johnsen down. Flattery was usually a good bet. “The cops must be watching you because they know you’re a jailbird.” At least for a moment, Johnsen quit his bitching. “Ah, vanity,” Hill told himself. In any case, better for Johnsen to think that the cops were keeping an eye on him than to think they were in league with Roberts and Walker.
Suddenly someone yanked open the back door across from Hill. The stranger slid into the car and directed an angry stare at Hill, who braced for trouble. Something about the newcomer’s eyes was wrong, almost crazy. He was a big, physically imposing man, dressed entirely in black, with a cap pulled low on his forehead and a scarf and gloves. For Hill’s benefit he spoke in English. Hill couldn’t place the accent. Where was this hopped-up fuckhead from? France?
Johnsen seemed to know the new man, but Ulving didn’t. “We’ve got to go meet a friend of mine,” the stranger said. He gestured toward Hill. “You’ll be able to see the painting.”
Then he gave Ulving, in the driver’s seat, a shove. “Now!”
“Horseshit!” Hill said. “It can wait ‘til morning. I’m not going anywhere now.”
The newcomer turned toward Hill. “Why is that door open? Close it.” “I’m not closing the door.” The stranger again. “Close it!”
“Listen, if one of you guys pulls out a .38 and points it at me, I want to cause you some problems. If you’re going to get me, you’re going to have to be quick.”
It was a standoff, but the crooks seemed to like the tough-guy talk. The stranger was a thug and Johnsen was a bully, and Hill had responded in a way they understood. Rash though he could be, Hill had been serious about not going anywhere. A drive in the dark to a destination he didn’t know, on his own, in a foreign country—he’d have to be nuts. Hill looked at the black-clad, bug-eyed crook trying to cajole him into this dubious excursion, and an image of the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood flashed into his mind.
“I’m not going to sit here forever,” Hill said. “It’s cold, and I’ve got no socks on.” Johnsen and the stranger craned around for a look. This was Norway, in winter. The tension ratcheted down a notch.
“I’ll be happy to travel anywhere you want me to in the morning,” Hill said.
Ulving chimed in. “Let’s do it now.”
The others ignored him. Hill turned to Johnsen. “If you want to keep an eye on me, why don’t you stay in the hotel overnight? Let’s book you a room.”
Hill and Johnsen headed toward the hotel. Ulving stayed behind with the stranger with the manic eyes. Hill stepped up to the reception desk. “Do you have a room?” This could have been trouble. With hundreds of narcotics officers gathered for a convention, the hotel might be full. Hill hadn’t made a backup plan.
“Yes, Mr. Roberts, of course.”
Hill handed over his Getty credit card and signed for Johnsen’s room without asking the rate. Johnsen watched closely, noting the clerk’s obsequiousness and registering all the little flourishes that marked Hill as a man of the world. Hill was, Johnsen would say later, “a very elegant gentleman, a little too elegant, in my opinion, to be a police officer.”
With Johnsen safely assigned to a room well away from his own, Hill hurried off to Butler’s room, to brief him. Butler was irritated that Hill had gone out of the hotel, but Hill brushed the scolding aside. It was his ass on the line; he’d make his own calls.
But there was a problem with the next day’s plans. Ulving and Johnsen and the stranger had said something about driving out of the city.
“You say you’re going
“Yeah.”
The Scotland Yard detectives had permission to wander around Oslo as they pleased, but for reasons Hill didn’t quite follow, they had been warned to steer clear of the area south of the city.
“John, for fuck’s sake, what are you talking about?” Hill shouted. “Are we going to get this painting back or not? What is this police bureaucracy territorial-imperative jurisdictional-hassle shit? I mean, stop it!”
“No. You can’t do it.”
“John, if we don’t do it this way, there’s no chance we can keep our credibility with these assholes.”
