Murder on Embassy Row (29 page)

Lake took note of their location. It was about two hundred yards from Inga Lindstrom’s office building. “What now?” she asked Rosner.

“What do you mean?”

“Is it like an auction, highest bidder and all?”

He shook his head. “It used to be. I was lucky because, thanks to my friend from Paris, I was here early in the game. He had the European market sewed up and I had the U.S., but the word got around and the vultures descended. It got pretty cutthroat until Inga set up the system.”

“Inga?”

He looked at her strangely. “Yeah, you knew that, didn’t you?”

“She told me a little about it,” said Lake. She’d have to be careful, she realized. She’d led Rosner to believe that she was closer to Lindstrom than was the case which, undoubtedly, contributed to his decision to bring her. That, and the prospect of an affair. She’d better be careful on both counts, she told herself.

Rosner evidently wasn’t about to dwell on her slip. He said, “It costs us more now to go through her but it’s worth it. We used to have to make the buy here on the docks, catch a chartered plane to Stockholm and connect there with an Icelandic 707 that made a three
A.M
. stop before continuing to New York. That’s one of the problems with caviar, it’s so damn perishable. Thank God those days are over.”

Lake took a chance. “Because of the setup with Inga.”

“That’s right. Now we can enjoy another night in Copenhagen and fly home in the morning, like civilized human beings.” He looked up the canal to one of two inlets from the Inderhavnen Canal, which separated the city from Christianshavn. “I think they’re here.”

Lake looked in the same direction and saw the bouncing beams of a searchlight mounted on a small power boat. A second boat followed. There was an instant electricity in the group. She smiled as she thought of a dozen well-to-do businessmen from around the globe, their pockets bulging with cash, waiting for a shipment of illicit goods. She looked up and down the dock for signs of police, or Customs officials. Nothing. Evidently, everything was tied up in a neat package, with Inga Lindstrom’s finger on the bow. Copenhagen, the
“free port,” she thought. Famous for “free love,” too. Free everything? Evidently.

The boats, eighteen-foot cabin cruisers, slid up to the dock. Their lean young pilots tossed lines to the Iranians on the dock, who secured them to pilings. They conversed in their native tongue, and there was a lot of laughter. Lake could see other people in the boats’ cabins but they were in shadow, and didn’t join the others on the dock.

She walked with Rosner to the first boat where the Iranians had formed a chain, a bucket brigade of caviar. Tins of the precious sturgeon roe had been packed in styrofoam freezer chests, which were being stacked on the dock. One thing was certain: the sturgeon were running in the Caspian; gourmands would not lack the top-quality Iranian caviar around the globe for the next three months.

Connie moved closer and saw that each chest had a label. The handwriting was crude and difficult to read. Most labels contained initials: M.R.—P.Y.—B.N.—L—J.K. About a third of the cases had the word
Meen
written on them. She tugged on Rosner’s coat sleeve and asked what it meant.

“Uncommitted,” he said hastily. “First to come, first to get. I think it’s an Arab word.”

“Who decides?”

He scowled at her. “Come on, who else? Inga.”

“I know
that
, but how does
she
decide?”

“Bucks. This is a light trip for me. I’ve got overstock back home. If I didn’t, I’d pick up some of the uncommitted at whatever price I can negotiate with her.”

Lake watched the rest of the unloading process. When all the chests were on the dock, the buyers inspected their shipments. Rosner removed a can from one of his
chests, opened it, and scooped caviar from it with his finger. He offered it to Connie, who declined. He tasted, grunted, nodded his approval, and replaced the can in the chest. One of the boat drivers, whom Lake had noticed was not as happy-go-lucky as the others, approached Rosner and stood passively in front of him. “
Kwiyis
,” Rosner said. “Here.” He pulled an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to the Iranian, who went to the next buyer, and the next. The older gentleman from Paris had taken a small spoon from his pocket and used it to taste from several cans. He, too, paid the Iranian collector, who hopped down onto one of the boats and disappeared inside the cabin.

“That’s it,” Rosner said. “It goes to the warehouse overnight, and we meet up with it again at the airport in the morning. “Well, what do you think? As exciting as you thought it would be?”

Connie laughed. “No,” she said. “I’d love to see the next step, though, the warehouse.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Just curious.”

“Call Inga. She’ll give you a tour.”

“I know she will but… I’m curious, Mark. Why bother even coming here at all? You could pay Inga for the shipment and have it sent to you.”

He laughed. “And miss another excuse to come to Copenhagen? Not on your life. Besides, it’s not that simple. The money has to be paid directly to the Iranians.”

“Why?”

“Beats me, but that’s the way it’s set up. Inga bills us her fees through normal channels and gets paid like every other purveyor. There’d be a problem with shipping documents, too. The papers that accompany the shipment identify us by name, and we’re the only ones
who can accompany it through Customs. That’s the way it is, and who’s to argue?”

“I understand.”

“Good. Let’s go back to the hotel and make sense.”

“Make sense?”

“Carry things to their logical and human conclusion.”

“Logical and… Look, Mark, I have a big problem.”

“What is it?”

“A very jealous fiancé.”

He grinned. “You should meet my wife.”

“I’d rather not, but you’ll meet my fiancé. He’s at the d’Angleterre. We’ve been traveling together, but he had business in London.”

“He’s there now?”

“Yes.”

He chewed on his lip and looked around. Everyone from the buyer group was gone. The last van had started its engine and was pulling away for its short run to Lindstrom’s warehouse. The soft sound of the street corner accordionist melded with laughter from a bar across the canal. “You know what you are?” Rosner said.

“What?”

“A very beautiful woman who’s also a…”

She put her index finger to her lips. “Don’t be crude.”

He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You’ve never been in Copenhagen before, have you?”

“I told you at dinner I hadn’t.”

“Beautiful women are a dime a dozen here.”

“So?”

“So, they all have the same equipment. Understand?”

“I’m well aware of that. I’m glad. It gets me off the hook.” She smiled and touched his arm. “Thanks for the tour, and for dinner. I loved both.”

“That’s wonderful.” His sarcasm was not to be missed.

“Look, you go on back and enjoy the evening. I have to stop in and see a friend before I meet up with…
him
.”

“What’s his name?”

“Sal. What’s your wife’s name?”

“Linda.”

“Thanks again.”

“Sure you won’t come back with me?”

“Positive.”

“Don’t wander around Christianshavn too long. It’s quaint, but can be rough.”

“I’ll be careful.”

She walked with him to Torvegade where he hailed a cab, shook her hand, and winked as the taxi pulled away.

She looked back up the dock to where they’d been, and beyond. The vans had stopped in front of the warehouse attached to Lindstrom’s office building. Their lights were on, their motors running. A large metal overhead door lifted and the vans drove inside, the door slamming shut behind them.

Lake started walking toward the warehouse, then stopped. She looked across the canal, which although only fifty yards wide seemed, at least at that moment, to divide two different worlds that were miles apart. The world on the other side was lively and carefree. There was life there. On her side, there was only stillness, and menace. The warehouse seemed to have grown into massive, threatening black shapes against a light sky.

She resumed walking, her footsteps kicking back at her from the pavement. She glanced into the shadows on her left and imagined there were eyes trained upon
her. She looked over the edge of the dock into oil-slicked water and shuddered at the thought of falling.

There was a scraping noise to her left. She turned and saw the blazing copper eyes of a greasy gray cat. It was gone in an instant.

This was the point of no return, she told herself as she continued walking, not daring to stop. Up until then she’d considered returning to the hotel, meeting up with Morizio and coming back together. But, the caviar would be gone by morning. She thought of Berge Nordkild and his recent drug arrest, and of Inga Lindstrom. Could there be a connection between her caviar and his narcotics? She wondered, too, whether the Lindstrom caviar setup was linked, in even a tangential way, with the murders of Geoffrey James and Paul Pringle. Pringle had been accused of dealing with drugs. And, there was Nuri Hafez. Was he really dead? Had his involvement with the Iranian pipeline contributed to the events that had caused her and Morizio so much personal grief? She kept walking because what she wanted more than anything was to arrive back at the d’Angleterre with answers to all their questions. It would be good to see Morizio’s face if she could make that happen.

She’d turned off the tape recorder once Rosner got into the cab. Now, she turned it on again and talked as she walked, recounting her thoughts and observations. She stopped talking when she reached the warehouse. She listened, heard nothing. The large overhead door was closed, its seal tight; no light showed around or beneath it.

A narrow alleyway between the warehouse and the three-story glass office building was shielded from the street by a tall red board gate. It looked to be open a crack and Lake went to it. A slide latch hadn’t been
secured. She pushed on the gate and it swung open with a rusty moan. She tensed and waited for a reaction to the noise. Nothing. She looked into the alley and noticed a shaft of light coming from beneath a steel door at the far end. She went to it and turned the knob. It was locked. A few feet farther into the alley was another door half the height of the one she’d tried. It was more like an internal submarine hatch; a person of normal height would have to double over to get through it. Its handle was of the latch variety. She slowly turned it and pushed. The door swung open easily. She bent over and looked inside. It was difficult for her to know what was there because it was dark, except for moonlight that filtered through dirt-crusted windows high on a back wall. “What the hell,” she said in a whisper. She also said for the tape recorder, “In an alley next to a warehouse adjacent to Lindstrom’s office building. Time about nine-thirty. About to enter small door at rear of alley.”

Once inside, she was thankful for the moon. Without it the hallway would have been coal black. She moved slowly, her hand in front of her, eyes straining to see as much as moonlight would allow. She heard voices from a room to the right and looked for a door. There wasn’t one. She continued to the end of the hall where a steel ladder attached to the wall led to an open trap door in the ceiling. The voices were louder now as she climbed the first three rungs of the ladder and poked her head through the opening. It was a large empty attic. There were no windows, but light glowed from an opening in the floor a hundred feet to her right. She completed her climb and tested the floor. It seemed solid. She took a step toward the light and stopped. The boards didn’t creak. She took another step, then another until she was in a position to view the downstairs on an angle. Men
below were talking and laughing. She was about to move into a better position to observe when there was the dull thud of a heavy door being shut, then the harsh rattle of chains lifting the overhead door. A rush of cool air came up through the opening in the floor and it felt good. The attic was hot. There was more laughter, then vehicle doors closing and engines starting. She went to the edge and looked down. The vans that had transported the caviar from the dock drove from the warehouse and into the street. One of the young Iranians hopped out and activated a switch that caused the heavy metal door to descend.

Connie waited a few minutes, then tentatively tested a rickety wooden ladder. She reached the bottom and surveyed the area. The only illumination was from a work light in a far corner, just enough for her to see that she was in the middle of a large storage room. Steel cargo containers were piled at one end, hundreds of cardboard boxes at another. A hill of empty pallets and two forklifts were in the middle of the room.

The back wall, which butted up against the hallway through which she’d entered the building, contained a corner-to-corner and floor-to-ceiling bank of walk-in refrigerators. Above each set of doors was a tiny glowing red light. She opened one of the doors. Chilled darkness. She scanned the outside wall and noticed sets of rocker switches. She pushed the first one, which produced nothing, then pushed the second and a dim light came to life inside the refrigerator.

She entered and saw that the labeled freezer chests had been stacked on slatted wooden shelves. She opened the first case to her left and removed some of the caviar tins. The labels read:
Caviar—Product of the Soviet Union—Sevruga, Osetra, Beluga
, depending on the tin’s contents. Those processed with little salt said
Malossol
.

The chests were grouped according to whose shipment they comprised, and each group had a packet of papers with it. She opened one that was addressed to a food broker in Dallas, Texas. In it were bills-of-lading, Customs releases, port-of-origin forms, and tax declarations, all executed with fancy seals and scrawled signatures. She replaced those papers and went to Mark Rosner’s shipment. His envelope also contained the necessary official papers.

The next order was addressed to
Nordkild Importers and Catering, Washington, D.C
. Lake read it aloud for the tape, and included the question, “Why another shipment to Nordkild now that he’s been arrested?” She provided a possible answer as she removed the lid of one of the chests and took out a can—“The order was in before his arrest.” Then she asked, “Will it still be shipped to him, or will Lindstrom hang on to it?”