The Nameless Ones by John Connolly
Chapter LXIII
Louis sipped a coffee at Kaffee Alt Wien on Bäckerstrasse while he waited for Angel to join him. The café was less grand than some of the city’s more famous nineteenth-century coffeehouses such as the Café Central or the Café Schwarzenberg, but Louis liked that about it. The walls were decorated with posters for bands of which Louis had never heard and recitals that he had no intention of attending, but the coffee was very good and the ambience was better still. Using his iPad, he accessed the Vienna Times, the online English-language newspaper, and read the report on the discovery of Hendricksen’s body. A police spokesman claimed that a number of definite lines of inquiry were being followed, which was probably true, and some progress had already been made, which was almost certainly untrue.
Angel had endured another awkward conversation with detectives that morning, but so far, his story appeared to be holding up. He’d also been asked to look at security footage of two people from the hotel’s cameras, but it was apparent to Angel from first glance that the male party was wearing a cheap but effective disguise. As for the girl with him, she kept her sweatshirt hood raised throughout, like a recalcitrant teenager. For the purposes of identifying culprits, the footage was worth exactly nothing.
Still, Louis did not like the idea of the Bundespolizei nosing around his partner’s affairs, because what affected Angel also affected him. If the Austrians persisted, Louis might have to call in a favor from Ross. The FBI man wouldn’t be happy about it, but since Ross never seemed happy about anything, the request wouldn’t significantly impact his quality of life.
Louis was in a state of combined anticipation and frustration, the two being intimately connected. Unless the Vuksans made an error that revealed their whereabouts, he was now reliant on Frend succumbing to pressure via his daughter. It was only Harris’s opinion that Frend cared enough about Pia Lackner possibly to betray the Vuksans, but the Judas kiss was just one of the options available to the lawyer. He could always turn to the police or private operatives, or even to the Vuksans themselves should he decide his fortunes were irrevocably tied up with theirs. Those actions would be unhelpful to Louis.
He also blamed himself for Hendricksen’s death. The Dutchman shouldn’t have been left to work alone in Vienna and Belgrade, but Louis’s contacts in those cities were nil. Still, they should have had better eyes and ears on Frend, both electronic and human. Harris and his fellow Langley spooks could have stepped up to the plate, but Harris had gone dark since the events at Gare de Lyon. Louis wasn’t too surprised, given that Harris had now obtained most, if not all, of what he wanted. The operation might not have gone entirely according to plan, the French, thanks to their mole, having intercepted and killed the two Syrians before Harris and his people could lay hands on them, but a clear message had been sent out nonetheless. In the aftermath, carefully placed and anonymously sourced reports had appeared in a number of the better newspapers in Europe detailing the involvement of Serbian criminals in people smuggling, including the kind of individuals who masterminded attacks on Western civilians. Belgrade had been embarrassed into acting, closing down the access routes through Serbia from the Middle East, however temporarily.
But by involving Louis in their affairs, both Harris and Ross had offered hostages to fortune. They might not have cared to admit it, but Louis had a hold over them, just as they had over him. Ignoring his calls wouldn’t negate it.
‘A terrible business,’ said the man who was seating himself at the next table. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt. A black overcoat was folded neatly on the red banquette opposite. His skin was sallow, and his beard neatly trimmed. He had the kind of face that smiled easily, which caused Louis to form an instant dislike for him. Sometimes Louis worried that he had more in common with SAC Edgar Ross than he was prepared to admit.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Louis.
‘I couldn’t help noticing the story on your device. Very unfortunate for the gentleman involved, not to mention the hotel.’
The stranger positioned with his back against the wall, so that Louis had to pivot slightly to watch him. A second man, burlier and less well dressed than the first, but also bearded and Middle Eastern, had taken a table near the door, and was scrupulously failing to pay them any attention.
A waiter arrived. The stranger ordered an espresso.
‘What about your friend,’ said Louis, ‘doesn’t he want something, too?’
That too-easy smile spread wider in response.
‘He also will have an espresso,’ he told the waiter, before folding his hands in his lap and regarding Louis with a semblance of amicability. Louis’s jacket remained buttoned, and he could feel the presence of the gun concealed beneath it – not that he anticipated having to use it in Kaffee Alt Wien, or not because of this man and his associate. Only a dialogue would be conducted here. Whatever might follow would unfold elsewhere.
Louis continued to watch without speaking. Louis was very good at remaining silent. The concept of awkwardness was alien to him. From the corner of his left eye he saw the second man take delivery of his espresso, his attention all the while fixed on the entrance to the café and the street beyond. Here, thought Louis, were individuals with enemies.
‘My name is Mr Rafi,’ said the stranger finally, after his own coffee had been brought to the table. He pronounced every syllable slowly and with care, like a man reading unfamiliar words from a card.
‘If you say so.’
Had the smile widened any further, Mr Rafi’s lips would have split at the corners.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘It’s not that,’ said Louis. ‘I just don’t care.’
The smile didn’t falter, but any residual warmth left Rafi’s eyes. He was someone, Louis recognized, who valued the trappings of politeness, if only for their usefulness in disguising whatever reality they, like his smile, were trying to conceal. Mr Rafi, whoever he might be, would be polite even as he was cutting out your tongue or puncturing your eyeballs. He would beam benignly as gasoline was sprayed over a purpose-built steel cage before you were set alight. He might even apologize before slitting your throat while a camera filmed your passing for the internet. Mr Rafi was a sociopath, and one who had found a black flag of convenience under which to operate. This, of course, was not to say that Louis considered every Arab to be a potential killer, only that he knew a killer when he saw one.
‘You should care,’ said Mr Rafi.
‘And why is that?’
‘Because I found you so easily. A man in your line of work ought to be more prudent.’
Louis was forced to admit that Mr Rafi had a point. Perhaps he was growing negligent in his old age. On the other hand, he was in the process of killing his way across Europe, so it was not so much a question of not drawing attention as the level of attention one might inevitably draw.
‘Maybe you’re just good at finding people,’ said Louis. ‘Like certain dogs.’
Mr Rafi added a great deal of sugar to his espresso and knocked it back in a single gulp before it had a chance to grow even slightly cool.
‘You appear intent on causing offense, Mr Louis,’ he said.
‘Well, I wouldn’t like to think the effort was being wasted. And it’s just Louis. Adding “Mister” makes me sound like a gentleman tailor.’
‘Just Louis, then,’ said Mr Rafi. ‘Well, Just Louis, it seems we have interests in common.’
‘I sure hope not,’ said Louis.
‘The Vuksans.’
‘Oh,’ said Louis, with relief. ‘I thought it might have been something important, or really anything at all. Unfortunately, I don’t know who, or what, the Vuksans are. You may have mistaken me for someone else.’
‘Are you worried about a wire? You shouldn’t be. You can search me if you wish, but it might prove awkward in such a public place.’
‘I’ll pass on touching you, but thanks for the offer.’
‘I’m hurt,’ said Mr Rafi. ‘I understood that you enjoyed touching men.’
‘I do, but I’m very particular, and I don’t like getting my hands oily.’
But Louis was unhappy at what he was hearing. Mr Rafi was disturbingly familiar with his background, and there were only two ways he could have become so: by paying people a lot of money or by hurting them.
‘We know you’re looking for the Vuksans,’ Mr Rafi resumed. ‘We know that the Vuksans killed your friends in Amsterdam, and you’ve killed two of their people in turn. We also have reason to be interested in the Vuksans.’
‘And why is that?’
‘We entrusted them with cargo. That cargo was lost. Someone has to pay.’
‘This cargo wouldn’t have been lost somewhere around the Gare de Lyon, would it?’ said Louis.
‘Somewhere around there, yes.’
‘That’s a shame. You know, we really don’t have anything in common. This conversation is coming to a welcome end.’
Louis signaled for the check.
‘The lawyer, Frend, has gone to ground,’ said Mr Rafi. ‘And please don’t tell me you have no idea who he is. That would be wearisome.’
Louis gave it three seconds, because comedy was all about timing.
‘I have no idea who he is,’ he said, and was pleased to see that Mr Rafi’s smile was by now under severe strain, like a rope bridge about to collapse.
‘We’re anxious to speak with the Vuksans,’ said Mr Rafi.
‘And I still don’t know who they are,’ said Louis. ‘But even if some misfortune were to befall these Vuksans – because who can say? – why should it matter if you have a hand in it or not? It’s all the will of God, and the end result is the same.’
The waiter brought the check. Louis reached for his wallet, but Mr Rafi beat him to it by placing ten euros and change on the plate.
‘For all of us,’ he told the waiter, before returning his attention to Louis. ‘And this is why it matters.’ In his hand, Mr Rafi held a small roll of bills.
‘Compensation,’ said Louis.
‘If you kill them, we get nothing.’
‘And if these Vuksans, whoever they are, pay you, then all will be forgiven?’
‘What do you think?’ said Mr Rafi. His pupils had grown larger, turning his brown eyes almost black, as though in anticipation of the suffering they might soon witness.
‘I think,’ said Louis, ‘that I may have to find somewhere else to drink my morning coffee in future, at least until something happens to you.’
Mr Rafi produced a card. It was blank, apart from a telephone number written by hand in blue ink. He slid the card toward Louis, who ignored it.
‘I’d advise you to take it,’ said Mr Rafi. ‘What harm can it do to leave open a channel of communication?’
Louis hesitated before, with studied indifference, taking the card and vanishing it into a pocket.
‘You have a good day,’ he said.
‘Ma salama,’ said Mr Rafi.
The smile was back with a vengeance. Louis decided that it would be an act of public service to wipe it permanently from Mr Rafi’s face, and erase Mr Rafi from the face of the earth immediately after.
Louis headed for the door, passing Mr Rafi’s companion. He bore a jagged scar that ran from above his right eye, and across his forehead, to behind his left ear. It looked as though someone had tried to unfasten his skull with a can opener.
Louis paused in front of him.
‘Yo,’ said Louis, ‘Harry Potter.’
The man glanced up.
‘Made you look,’ said Louis, and continued out the door. He patted the pocket containing Mr Rafi’s card. He now had a bargaining chip.
Perhaps Harris and Ross might be disposed to do him a favor after all.