Bristol House (30 page)

Geoff shrugged. “Enlightened self-interest.” He picked up the Dewar’s and tipped a shot into one of the cups of coffee. “I’m thinking café royale or a reasonable facsimile. If you want a proper whiskey, I’ll get you a glass.”

Clary stood up. “I’ll get it. How come you left your notes hanging around like that, man? Right there in your desk drawer.”

“Didn’t seem important. I’ve got copies of everything here at home.”

“It is definitely important. He was pawing through your stuff and telling the Nubian he could get her most of the same interviews, and he’d—whoa, what’s this?”

Colbert’s route to the kitchen had taken him past Geoff’s desk. He was staring at something on it.

“What?” Annie and Geoff asked the question simultaneously.

“Who drew this picture of Franklin? Why?”

The chill started at Annie’s toes. She knew what Clary was looking at even though she wasn’t close enough to see it. “I did the drawing,” she said, getting up and going toward him. “Sketching is part of my job. Sometimes I do it to help me remember things.”

Geoff remained where he was, staring at her intently but waiting until she reached Clary’s side and picked up the drawing to say, “I’m guessing it’s the picture of the intruder.”

“Yes.” She’d sketched him the morning after the break-in, on a single piece of paper because it was back before Geoff had laid in a supply of sketchbooks.

Clary shook his head, impatient with their talk, certainly not understanding it. “How come you drew a picture of Franklin?” he demanded again, looking at Annie as if she had somehow crossed into the camp of the enemy.

“How do you know it’s Franklin?” she asked. “I didn’t do a face. I couldn’t remember what he looked like. I only saw him for a second or two.”

“It’s Franklin,” Clary insisted. “I work with the guy every day. That’s how he stands. When he’s at the door of the edit suite, watching what I’m doing, that’s the way he tilts his head. Besides, that’s his jacket. His fleece. The one with the
z
-shape thing on the zipper. He wears it all the time. I’d know it anywhere.”

***

“You’re saying it was Rob Franklin who busted into Annie’s place and downloaded all the crap on her hard drive?” Clary asked.

He was sprawled in a chair. Geoff and Annie were on the couch. Geoff had his arm around her. She could smell the scotch he’d poured into his coffee, or maybe the glass Clary was sipping from. Her thirst was visceral. She knew she could drink enough other stuff to float the
Titanic
and still not quench it. Annie slid a little to her left, a bit farther from the alcohol-scented fumes. The drawing was on the coffee table. “If that’s a picture of Rob Franklin,” she said, nodding toward it, “then yes, he’s the one who broke in.”

Geoff picked up the drawing and gazed at it intently for a few seconds. “It’s Franklin. No doubt at all, now that Clary’s pointed it out. I think I said the first time there was something familiar I couldn’t put my finger on.”

“Sounds just like him, to fuck up at the end and yank the stick so the notice got logged,” Clary said. “But why should he care what’s on Annie’s laptop?”

“The million-pound question,” Geoff said. “And no lifelines remain.”

“Crap show.” Clary dismissed the quiz program with a wave of his hand. “But Franklin—there has to be an answer. He’s a bastard, not an idiot. He wouldn’t do something like that for no reason.”

“Bringing us,” Annie said, “back to the important question. Why would Rob Franklin want what was on my laptop?” She turned and looked at Geoff. He looked back.

“You two know something,” Clary said. “C’mon, cut me in. I’m the one who recognized your burglar.”

“Shut up a minute,” Geoff said. He turned to Annie. “Clary’s all right. I’d trust him with anything.”

“Hold it,” Clary said. “How did my trustworthiness get to be the issue?”

Annie took a deep breath. “When you came to Bristol House to look at my laptop, we didn’t tell you everything.”

“No lies,” Geoff said. “Just not the whole truth.”

“Your turn to shut up,” Clary said. “The lady has the floor.”

Probably, if they hadn’t spent the afternoon with Rabbi Hazan, Annie would have told only the Weinraub part of the story. As it was, with the simile of the river bends fresh in her mind, she told it all.

***

“Holy fucking shit.” Clary’s first words—he’d been silent throughout her recitation—spoken while he was bent over the drawings on the coffee table. Annie had produced the full set, all the sketchbook records of the search for the treasure of the Jew of Holborn—which they now thought might be simply the search for a particular mezuzah—as well as the Bristol House phenomena. And of course the drawing of the grocery shop and the man in the striped apron. Everything she’d brought to Rabbi Hazan’s earlier in the day. “This is some fucking story. You’re sure you didn’t just mess up about what street you were in? So there’s really no mystery about the place with the quail eggs.”

Geoff sighed. “Who the hell knows?”

I do, Annie thought, and so do you
,
but she didn’t comment.

“These exact quail eggs?” Clary asked. Geoff had brought them to the coffee table while Annie described what had happened. One of the small indentations meant to hold the eggs was empty. “How come there’re only eleven?”

“These exact quail eggs,” Geoff confirmed. “And we cracked one to see if they were as real as they looked.”

“You eat it?”

“No, we did not. You want to try, be my guest.”

“Hell, no.” Clary recoiled. “Some fucking story,” he repeated.

“With a few missing chapters,” Geoff said. “Such as why, going back to what you said earlier, Franklin would get mixed up in it.”

Clary shrugged. “Maybe that’s getting to sound less crazy. Your Shalom Foundation is a Jewish outfit. Franklin’s half Jewish. Could be that’s the tie. Could be he’s working for Weinraub.”

“It could be,” Annie said. “Certainly the Shalom Foundation is the common denominator. They were the ones who first directed me to Jennifer Franklin, Rob’s wife. Granted, she’s a recognized expert in Tudor history, but she’s not the only one in town. I might have looked elsewhere, except they sent me to Jennifer. And the flat I’m using belongs to the aunt of Weinraub’s secretary, Sheila MacPherson. She mentioned she’d stayed with her aunt from time to time. She could easily have had a key and given it to Weinraub. He gave it to Rob Franklin, and that’s how he got in.”

“MacPherson doesn’t sound Jewish,” Clary said. “Why would she be mixed up with this Weinraub character?”

“I think,” Geoff said, “she may belong to one of those Protestant sects that are so interested in seeing all the Jews return to Israel. So the Second Coming of Jesus can occur and the Jews can go straight to hell because they don’t accept him as the Messiah.”

Just then Geoff’s computer pinged some kind of alert. They all heard it. Three heads swiveled in unison. Geoff got up and went to the desk. “File coming”—he clicked his mouse rapidly as he spoke—“from my bloke in New York.”

Annie watched him, not saying anything, taking the opportunity to tuck into one of the sketchbooks the drawing that she now knew to be an image of Jennifer Franklin’s husband. Never mind that she’d never met him.

The download was apparently complete. Geoff punched a couple of keys, then whistled softly. “New info on Weinraub,” he said. “Hang on, I’ll print it.” The printer whirred to life, spitting out pages with astonishing speed. Geoff carried them back to the couch, reading while he walked. “What New York calls the pay dirt’s on page three.”

“What pay dirt?” Annie asked.

Geoff was reading as he walked toward them. “Weinraub’s a naturalized American citizen. Not born in the United States.” He fanned the printouts on the coffee table. “These are copies of the documentation.”

Annie leaned forward. “Naturalization papers for a couple named Louis and Marianne Wein who became U.S. citizens in 1958.” She looked up. “You think these are Weinraub’s parents?”

“Apparently.” Geoff thumbed through a few more papers, found the summary, and read aloud: “‘One son, Philippe Jérémie, born in France. Age five at the time the parents became American citizens, which under U.S. law meant their son automatically got citizenship at the same time.’ That’s why the more cursory investigation I put together earlier didn’t turn up the information that Weinraub wasn’t born in America, or that his name was originally Wein.”

“Okay,” Annie said, “Philip Jeremiah’s obviously the American equivalent, and it’s not a common name. But Wein to Weinraub? Isn’t that sort of counterintuitive? The less Jewish-sounding name to the one that’s more identifiable. Why?”

“I imagine because they didn’t want it to look as if they were denying their Jewish heritage.” Geoff held up a hand to forestall another question. “Hang on.” He shuffled through the papers. “Before they emigrated, Louis Wein was a partner in something called Wein Frères et Cie., a family-controlled private equity group based in Strasbourg.”

“Why am I not getting any of this?” Clary demanded. “What year are we in now? When did Wein become Weinraub?”

“In 1966,” Geoff said, reading the report as he spoke. “For the first eight years after emigrating to New York, the father, Louis Wein, kept his name and worked for various Wall Street firms. Looks like he became Weinraub in ’66. That’s when he founded the Weinraub International Group, an open-ended mutual fund, from which grew the hedge funds and such that made our boy Philip a billionaire.”

“So Wein senior was returning to the family business,” Annie said. “Why change the name?”

Geoff flipped the page. “Seems there was a stench attached to the old firm. Originally because they cozied up to the Nazis during the Occupation. Then—”

“Hold it,” Clary said. “Jews? Friendly with the Nazis?”

Geoff looked up. “You have no idea how frequently that happened. And rich Jews, mind. With a lot to protect. But according to this”—he returned to the documents—“
les frères
Wein appear to have been equal opportunity bastards. In the early sixties, one of them went to jail for laundering money for the French mafia. That coincided with Louis Wein going into business for himself in America. At that point changing his name must have seemed a good idea.”

“It’s also another layer of obfuscation.” Annie sighed.

“For such a pretty lady,” Clary said, “you sure do use some twenty-dollar, professor words.”

“C’mon, Clary,” Geoff said. “Cut the crap.” He turned to Annie. “Clary likes to pretend he’s a homeboy from some godforsaken Haitian slum. Actually, his father owned a large piece of the island, and Monsieur Colbert here”—he dropped the
t,
giving the name a French pronunciation—“was educated in Switzerland’s finest private schools and holds an advanced degree from the University of Tulane in New Orleans.”

“It’s Tulane University, you English prick. And in present company, not so advanced.” He turned to Annie. “I’ve got a master’s.”

“Tell her what you read,” Geoff said.

“Tell her what it’s in,” Clary corrected. “You are some goddamned stupid English motherfucker, you know that? I’ve been instructing you in the proper use of the English language for almost five years now, and you still can’t get it right. And I told you all that stuff in strict confidence. When I was drowning in your pissy English beer.”

“Tell her.”

“Medieval French literature,” Clary said. Softly. As if he were confessing something shameful.

“But all the computer expertise—” Annie said.

“Picked that up on my own. On the side, sort of. How the hell was I supposed to earn a living discussing the origins of the
chantefable
and the
chanson de geste
?” Then, turning to Geoff: “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because Strasbourg,” Annie said, leaning over the papers on the coffee table, “where Philip Weinraub’s family’s from, according to Geoff’s man in New York, is the northernmost of the cities where they have the gifts from the Jew of Holborn.”

“The stuff you were originally supposed to be looking for? Except now you’re after a mezuzah and quail eggs.”

“Sort of,” Annie said, her tone betraying her discouragement.

Geoff jumped in, his eyes lit with enthusiasm. “Consider, Clary my man, that in Strasbourg, they speak French. So you can go to Strasbourg and nose around. I know a bloke there, but he’s only worked for me once before. I’ll put you in touch, but you run the show. Given that proper French—not some Haitian patois from a poisonous Cité Soleil slum—is your mother tongue, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Father tongue,” Clary said. “My mama was from New Orleans. English is my mother tongue.”

“Which,” Geoff said, “does not change the point. You can function perfectly well in Strasbourg, and you definitely won’t stick out as a foreigner. Will you go?”

Clary narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying that if I uncover some interesting shit, I can maybe drop Franklin in it?”

“Up to his eyeballs,” Geoff said.

Clary stood up and performed an exaggerated courtly bow. “
À votre service, monsieur mon maître.
”

23

“I think,” Geoff said, “it’s time to take some serious precautions with all this.” He’d stayed downstairs to take a phone call. Now he’d brought his printouts and a stack of her sketchbooks up to the bedroom.

Annie had already agreed to spend the night. She was in his bed, wearing only her bracelet and the crystal heart necklace, the sheet clutched two-fisted under her neck. Her libido was, however, ebbing quickly. “Why now? Who was on the phone?”

“My contact at the Connaught. Weinraub had the concierge book him a ticket to Strasbourg. He said he’d be back in a few days and asked them to hold his suite.”

“That doesn’t sound particularly threatening.”

“I’m not sure it is. But last time I tried to trace his movements, I also found out he’d gone to Strasbourg, supposedly to a meeting of an organization that raises money for Israel. Which organization turned out to be entirely untraceable.” He paused for effect. “A couple of weeks later Rabin was shot.”

Then, as she made the connection between Strasbourg and assassination: “You just told Clary to go to Strasbourg. Did you tell him?”