The Searcher (16 page)

B
y guesswork, and by keeping the castle in sight wherever possible, and with a deal of Georgian cursing and reversing out of dead ends, they finally found the uneven square that Iosava had made his own. It wasn't yet noon; almost a full day ahead. As the Toyota approached, rocking through the countless puddles, two sentries left their station under the long balcony of the house and came toward them, opening their raincoats over the guns at their hips.

“Nice friends, Isaac.”

The guards separated and went to each side of the car, standing straight in defiance of the rain. Koba lowered his window, and his guard shouted something at him in Georgian. What do you want? Get the fuck out of here.

“Gamarjobat,” said Hammer, leaning across Koba. “I'm here to see Iosava. Isaac Hammer. He'll want to see me.”

Koba looked at Hammer with a frown.

“This is Iosava? Otar? You know him?”

“Not well.”

“Nice friends, Isaac. Very nice.” Koba shook his head.

“I know. Just tell him.”

Raising his eyebrows in resignation Koba translated, and the guard replied with some more Georgian and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder back toward town.

“This guy is gangster, Isaac. Real motherfucker. We go.”

“We're not going anywhere. Tell him I have something important to tell
his boss and if he doesn't let him know I'm here chances are he won't be in his job for long.”

Koba enjoyed that. He translated with relish, and after a little more posturing and a final mean look the guard gestured to his friend to go into the house and deliver the message. The three men waited, the guard with his arms crossed, wet through and staring at Koba, until the second guard reappeared and beckoned to them.

“Stay here,” said Hammer. “Play nicely.”

“You will be careful, Isaac. Rich men in Georgia, they think they own all of us.”

Iosava was at the far end of the great balconied room, at a glass table, hunched over what appeared to be a bowl of soup. Sitting beside him, facing away from Hammer, was a woman in a scarlet dress with a deep V cut out of the back. Through the windows the city was misty and sodden.

Iosava looked up and rested his spoon in the bowl.

“You have news?”

“Something like that.”

“Sit. Here, sit.”

“I need to speak alone.”

“She speak no English.”

“Alone. No company.”

Iosava glanced at the woman and back to Hammer.

“More brain in this.” He lifted his spoon from the bowl and let some of the soup slop back in from a height.

Hammer told himself that he wasn't here to like the man, and taking a moment to overcome his acute repugnance moved round the table, sitting opposite the woman and at Iosava's left hand. She was young, and beautiful, Hammer supposed, in an unreal way that he had seldom encountered and struck him as somehow strange. Blond, for a Georgian, and pale-skinned, and red-lipped, and pushed tightly into her dress, which had a rubbery shine to it and was a little overwhelming for lunch. She smiled as he sat, but didn't speak. The perplexing thing was that she had no flaws. No blemish, no irregularity, nothing to disrupt the perfect symmetry. She seemed to
have come from somewhere else, somewhere he had never been and was unlikely ever to be invited.

Iosava raised a hand to summon a servant and muttered something to him in Georgian. He was dressed more casually than before, in a pale blue sweater whose soft perfection only served to emphasize the pits and cracks of his face.

“You will eat.”

“I don't have time to eat.”

Iosava looked at him with his black eyes. “You are rude, Americans, always. You eat this, with her,” he said, gesturing with his spoon over the table, which was spread with dishes of smoked salmon, mushrooms, salads, potatoes, bread. “I eat this.” He rapped his spoon against the bowl. “All I can. And even this I cannot.”

He went back to his soup, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a napkin when some of the liquid trickled back out.

“My cook, he make best soup in Georgia. He must.”

This was a joke, or at least Hammer thought so. Without the usual signs there was no way of telling what Iosava really meant. Even the slightest turn of the mouth, the smallest narrowing of the eye was denied him, and the effect, curiously, was to give him a sort of power. It wasn't his job to communicate; you had to make the effort to understand him.

A plate came for Hammer, and the servant piled it with food that, despite his hunger, Hammer didn't want. Then he took a bottle of wine and made to pour it, stopping as Hammer put a hand over his glass.

“No, thank you.”

“You drink with me,” said Iosava. He took the bottle from the servant's hand and filled Hammer's glass. This, apparently, was Iosava in a good mood.

“It is good. Khaketi. Only good thing I can have. And cigars. And her.”

Iosava raised his glass and drank, tipping his head back to let the wine pour safely down his throat. With an effort, for the good of the case, Hammer took a sip. Let this man think he had submitted; his best hope lay not in confronting him but in catching him out. The woman smiled at him, a practiced, distant, empty smile.

“After tonight, she go. New one come,” said Iosava. Had he been able to, thought Hammer, he would have grinned. “Russian import.”

He drank his wine down, wiped his mouth, and pushed back his chair.

“So. Tell me. What information?”

“I'm going home.”

Iosava leaned forward to put his glass on the table, waiting for an explanation.

“I'm getting out of here. Leaving. Tell me where to pay the hundred grand.”

“Bullshit. This is not job.”

Hammer shook his head. “There never was a job. OK? Our agreement was, I find information you need, I share it. What I found you don't need.”

“Tell me.”

“It's personal. It doesn't concern you. Turns out Ben's got some problems in his life.”

“I pay for job, job is done. Where is he?”

“He's not even in Georgia anymore. He's gone.” He glanced at Iosava's Russian friend. “He's happy enough.”

The black eyes stayed on him. Hammer would have given another hundred thousand to know what was going on inside that brutish head. Whether somewhere he was registering relief.

“Then job is yours now.”

“I'm going home.”

Iosava took the wine bottle, filled his glass, and drained it, this time wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Hammer waited to see which way he would go, and when he spoke, his voice was like acid.

“Your friend, he steal from me. Understand? My money. He come here, he lie, he steal. In my home. Like he put his hand here and take it.” He slapped his chest and left his hand on his heart in a gesture of pride and rage. “You want save your friend, you must save him from me. You finish job. Or bad for you.”

“He never even started your job. There's nothing to investigate.”

“Bullshit. He talk to people. He talk to Jeladze, he talk to Karlo's wife.”

Hammer breathed deeply and tried in vain to read the shell of a face.

“He talked to her?”

“Of course.”

“You're sure?”

“He called me, first day.”

“She never said.”

“She lies. That woman, all she say is poison. Like poison that gave me this face.”

Hammer stood to leave, suppressing the urge to belt the guy.

“Mr. Iosava, you have the face you deserve, and I think you know it.”

He took his wallet from his back pocket and from it handed Iosava one of his business cards.

“E-mail me your bank details. Otherwise I'll pay the hundred to charity. Any event, we're all square. Yes? This thing is over.”

N
atela's apartment was in an old Soviet block on Gudauri Street, a quiet street near the university. Hammer had Koba drive him to within a few streets, and after much resistance persuaded him to go and eat while he walked and thought. They would meet later when he'd figured a few things out. Vekua could wait.

“But you will be wet,” said Koba. “Too wet.”

“I'll be fine,” said Hammer.

“Take this.” Koba reached behind him and scrabbling around in the footwell produced a ragged red umbrella, hanging open.

“Thanks, Koba.”

“Where you go?”

“I just need some time.”

“Why you see Otar Iosava? He is bad man. Bad, bad.”

“It's OK. I'm done with him.”

“What are you not saying to me, Isaac?”

“Koba, if I could explain it to you, I would.”

A confidant would be no bad thing—someone to share his theories with, and some of his growing loathing of Iosava—but Koba wasn't the man. He ran too hot.

In the rain it was impossible to tell whether anyone had followed them from Iosava's, and probably as difficult to be doing the following. But Hammer had to be sure, because Natela must know that no one had seen him come. So when Koba dropped him he took the most tangled route, doubling back several times as if lost, until he was certain he was clear.

The sky had darkened further, and thunder now rolled lazily
somewhere in the distance. Her building was painted a tired pink, five stories high, six windows across, and on its own small block, bounded on each side by narrower streets. Four apartments on each floor, Hammer guessed, with a central stairwell. Half the third floor, where Natela lived, was lit up behind half-closed blinds.

He walked past just once, under the trees across the road, keeping the umbrella low over his head and checking each of the two rows of parked cars. They were all empty, but thirty yards beyond her door, facing Hammer, was a blue Toyota with a solid-looking man sitting in the driver's seat. The end of a cigarette glowed through the windshield, and as Hammer drew level the man flicked his ash through the small gap he had left at the top of the window. Hammer kept his pace even and carried on to the end of the street.

Turning left three times he approached the building from the back, hoping to find another entrance and looking for anyone who might be watching it. He saw neither.

Out of the line of sight of the sentry, if that's what he was, looking up at this unlikely stronghold, Hammer stopped to weigh his options. The most direct, sadly, were the worst. He could simply ring Natela's buzzer and hope to be invited up, and if he had better Georgian he could buzz someone else and try the old forgot-my-keys trick. But there was a light above the doorway and in both cases the guy in the car might sit up and take greater notice. At least if he was any good.

No, the front door was out. Nor could he call her and ask her to meet him somewhere because he had to assume now that her phone wasn't safe, and that she'd be followed. Also, she'd say no. Somehow he needed to get in there without being seen.

There was always a distraction, something to get that guy out of his car. As he discounted various unconvincing ideas Hammer paid closer attention to the building itself. At the back a narrow strip, perhaps three feet wide and too unintentional to be called an alleyway, separated it from the building behind. Closing his umbrella and hunching his shoulders against the rain, Hammer walked along it, treading down the high weeds. He was now a prowler, and his heart beat a little faster. The windows began at chest
height for him, but all were shut. Some were lit up, and through net curtains he made out a bathroom, a bedroom full of boxes. Directly above the bathroom, perhaps twelve feet above the ground, a window was open an inch or two.

He stopped and thought. He was just beyond the midpoint of the building and so long as he was quiet, no one who passed by the narrow gap would think to look his way. Anyone foolish enough to be out in this weather would be walking fast with their eyes down.

The window was hung on vertical hinges and held open by a metal arm. It looked wide enough for him. Koba might have struggled but he would fit. If every floor was laid out the same way, it would lead into a bathroom, and if the light was off, as it was, there was almost certainly no one in it. The windows next to it were all dark, too.

All this was good, but the window remained frustratingly high, the walls sheer, and there was nothing to grasp to help. A leg up from Koba would probably have done it.

The two buildings were close enough, though, for him to brace his back against the one and with his legs straight out slowly walk, or shuffle, up the other. He had seen it done. Presumably it could be done. He failed on his first two attempts to lock himself into position, but soon enough started moving, his feet by the window on the ground floor and walking slowly up to the next. Someone walked by in the street and he stopped, rigid, with his head down, as if that would make any difference, making a note to himself to buy Koba a new umbrella when this was done. His coat was wet through against his back. After a moment, listening to the rain and his own breathing and wondering how he might explain himself to Vekua, he started again.

In another minute more he was there, with his feet alongside the sill and no notion at all how to get himself through the window. It wasn't obvious. The room beyond was wholly dark, and below him the ground a surprisingly long way away. A fall would break something. He leaned forward and unhooked the arm that held the window open; shuffled down a little and then across, so that his toes were touching the frame; and with a lunge grabbed the two uprights with his hands, loosening the lock in his legs as he did so. In that instant he felt his weight again, and the balance getting away
from him. His hands slid on the wet frame, and the fall began, but as he went he clawed at the sill and caught it, scraping his forearms against the wood.

“Fuck,” he said, as he hung in space. Using the frame of the window below, he gained some purchase with his feet and dragged himself up and through, slithering headfirst onto the floor with his hands stretched out in front of him. His legs noisily followed.

Lying with his face next to what seemed to be the porcelain bowl of a toilet, conscious of his wet clothes, Hammer stayed still and listened. The floor was tiled and cold on his cheek. In a room nearby, voices and laughter were coming from a television or a radio, and to his left a warm light showed along the frame of the door.

Moving lightly and with care, he stood up and walked across the room and listened once more. Music started playing, but he sensed no movement. If he was right about the layout of the apartments, the stairwell was now on his left, and if he was lucky he would find the front door right there. He turned the handle and opened the door a crack. The music continued playing, a Georgian song. If someone came he had no idea what he would say.

Outside the bathroom was a short dark corridor, at the end of which were two other rooms, the light on in one and not the other. But the noise came from the far end, where the corridor turned toward what he hoped was the front door. He slipped off his shoes and inched forward until he could look around the corner with one eye. There was the door, past a row of hooks hung with coats and a mess of shoes on the wooden floor, and just before it, on the right, was the room from which the music came, its own door open. Hammer heard a man's voice over the singing, and knew that it wasn't from any television. Some of the shoes were children's shoes, he noticed, looking closely, boys' and girls'.

Keeping close to the wall, he moved ahead and stopped by the open door. The music turned to talking. He considered the odds. They were watching some show or other. Chances were the television was in a far corner, because most televisions were. And if anyone was facing this way he was done for in any case.

He crossed the gap in one swift, silent movement and stopped on the
other side, not breathing. On the television the song finished, and there was applause. He took the five steps to the front door, turned the latch, and slowly opened it an inch, wincing at the harsh creak it gave. But still no one stirred behind him, and after listening for footsteps outside with his ear to the crack he slipped out.

He was in a fluorescent-lit stairwell, roughly painted in a drab blue, its steps worn concrete. On the landing there were three other doors. With his hand on the handle, he closed the door as softly as he could and in a few long strides was on the floor above, waiting motionless. He heard the click of a handle below and a man's voice saying something indistinct, and then a final click. Putting on his shoes, he went up one more flight.

 • • • 

N
atela was in 3C. Taking a moment to compose himself, brushing water off his coat, Hammer knocked. Now that he had come to a stop he realized that his heart was beating hard, from exertion and nerves.

For half a minute there was silence, and he thought with a sinking sense that his elaborate entrance had been for nothing. But then there were footsteps inside, and a hand on the handle, and Natela opened the door the four inches that the chain would allow.

Her eyes showed not surprise but a sort of weary expectation, and the first thing she said was in Georgian, to herself. But she kept the door open.

“You saw Ben.”

Hammer watched her closely, looking for signs of admission and seeing nothing but resolve. Dark rings underscored her eyes, and he smelled tobacco and alcohol on her breath.

“You cannot be here.”

“No one saw me. There's a guy in a car outside, but I came in the back door.”

“There is no back door,” she said, meeting his look for the first time.

“I found one,” he said, smiling. “It's OK.”

But the smile was wrong, and her eyes hardened on him.

“I have no time, for this. For you. I have appointment now.”

“Natela, I need to know what you said. This is serious.”

“You must go. Now you must go.”

“It's OK.”

“It is not OK. It is not OK to come to this, my house, like it was public place. And you bring them. Understand, I want them to forget me. I want you to forget me.”

“They were here already.”

Hammer reached out but the door was already shut.

He would have done well to see more clearly the fear behind her anger. He knew it was there, so why badger the poor woman? Because you have to, he told himself; you've been careful, and no one else knows what she knows. If it wasn't necessary you wouldn't be here.

No answer came when he knocked on the door. He tried again, and a third time, but inside was silence, not even the footsteps he had expected to hear. Carpet, perhaps—or perhaps she was standing by the door, torn about closing it in his face or simply waiting to know that he had gone.

Leaning against the door, he spoke as loudly as he dared, his voice echoing brightly round the stairwell.

“I think Ben has been kidnapped. If he hasn't been killed. I don't know how much time I have.”

Still no answer came.

“Natela, please. He was a good friend to Karlo. A good friend to me.”

Possibly that was a mistake. The silence continued, and with a shake of his head Hammer started down the stairs. On the third step he stopped, shook his head again, and went back up to Natela's door, knocking a final time.

“Natela, I need a hat. Or an umbrella. The only way out is out the front and the guy in the car may get a look at me.”

For a moment he stood by the door, not knowing if she'd heard.

“Something I can hide behind.”

As he knocked again, the door opened on the chain for only a moment and Natela pushed something purple at him. Then he was on the landing again, holding a woman's raincoat in a vivid shade of mauve. It was too big for Natela, and for him, but it had a hood and did the job. And it would keep out the rain.