The Shadow Box (77 page)

“Look at his right hand.”

Fallon did. Johnny G., no mistake, was giving him the
finger.

“Say you're sorry,” said Doyle.

They had walked back to Michael's room.

Michael knew this was coming. “We should give Julie
a call. Tell him what Johnny just did.”

“After you say you're sorry.”

He took a breath.
“
‘Brendan, I am. I thought the worst
of you, I was wrong. I won't ever doubt you again.”

“Let's not go crazy here, Michael.”

Doyle said nothing more as Michael, using his one good
arm, gathered up his belongings. Doyle stood at the win
dow, staring out.

“Something else on your mind?” asked Michael.

”I got a phone call. I've been deciding whether to tell
you.”

A knot tightened in his stomach. “Megan?”

Doyle shook his head. “It's Rast's wife. The
Countess.”

He could breathe again. “What about her?”

“She asked to see you. She wants you to come to
Munich.”

Chapter 47

M
oon was
on the telephone when Michael ar
rived at the Taylor House. He was asking for flight infor
mation. Doyle had told him.

Lena Mayfield stood in the doorway, her arms folded.

“You'll go,” she said to Moon, “over my dead body.”

The Countess had sent a driver. He met them at the
Munich-Reim airport.

He was an older man. He said his name was Manfred. He came alone.

“That's so we let down our guard,” whispered Lena.

Moon doubted that there was much danger for now. He
saw no loitering muscle at the airport, no pursuit cars
waiting outside. All the same, he checked the front seat
before letting Manfred climb back behind the wheel. He
found no hidden weapons. Nor did the chauffeur seem to
care whether Moon or Michael might be armed. He did
call ahead, however, as the limousine reached the gates of Schloss Scharnhorst.

Schloss Scharnhorst was not what Michael had ex
pected. There wasn't any moat. Just a big house of stucco
and stone. The style was German Baroque. The stucco
was painted in a soft rose color. It seemed a woman's sort
of house.

“This place have a dungeon?” asked a sour Lena
Mayfield.

  
He didn't answer. He was scanning the curtained win
dows, half expecting to see Rast peering out from behind
the folds. Old man or not, he knew what he would do if he got close to him.

“This is dumb, Michael,” said Lena. “This is major
league dumb.”

 
Moon grumbled quietly. She had hardly let up since
they drove out of Edgartown. On the plane coming over,
he tried pretending to sleep. That did no good either. Every
ten minutes, Lena would nudge him just to make sure he
wasn't dead.

The Countess, alerted by Manfred, stood waiting on the
steps of her home. Michael recognized her at once. Doyle
had given him a copy of her profile. She was tall, quite
thin, about seventy years old, but her face was largely unlined. She was dressed in a business suit and wore a
choker of pearls. She offered no greeting. Only a look of
mild surprise on seeing Lena and a small nod of accep
tance. She turned and walked up toward her door, which
opened to admit her by an unseen hand. Moon and Mi
chael exchanged glances but they followed.

The room off to the left was a library. Several men,
mostly older, sat staring at the visitors through doors that
had been left fully open.

“Our board of directors,” said the Countess. Michael recognized all of them. Most of them were family. The
Countess made no move to enter.

“My family is an old one, Mr. Fallon,” she said. “It
has known defeat. It has never known disgrace. On my
honor, no person in that room was aware of my hus
band's activities.”

Fallon only looked at her.

“Up these stairs,” said the Countess. “Follow me, if
you will.”

She paused near a room at the top. A man was stand
ing guard.

“This is Heinrich, my nephew,” said the Countess.
“The Baron has been ill. Heinrich has been attending to
him. It is time, in fact, for the Baron's medication.”

Heinrich reached to open the door. Fallon saw the Baron
at once. He was seated in a chair, a blanket wrapped
around him, his chin against his chest. Both hands were
visible. They were trembling as with palsy. One cheek
bore a large fading bruise. His lower lip had been split
although that too was healing. He seemed unaware of
their presence.

“My husband has given an account of himself,” said
the Countess. “It was not well received. You speak Ger
man, I believe, Mr. Fallon?”

“My friends do not.”

She made a gesture with her hand. It said that convers
ing in German was not her intention! “Do you know the
word
Verrater
?

“It's . . . one who betrays.”

“And of course you know the word for ‘bigamy.’ It is
exactly the same in English.”

Michael did not understand the reference. Moon cleared
his throat.

“Rasmussen had an American wife,” Moon told him.
”I don't think he ever divorced her.”

“Just so,” said the Countess. “Heinrich? His medi
cine, please?”

Heinrich reached into his pocket. He produced a velvet
box of the type used for bracelets. The Countess opened
it. It contained a syringe. She approached her husband.
She knelt before his chair and spoke over her shoulder
to Fallon.

”I do hope I have the right medication. He's been tak
ing so many, you know.”

She shook the Baron's leg.

“Herr Baron? Franzy? Mr. Fallon is here to see you.”

The words penetrated, but slowly.

“And Mr. Moon as well. And a Mrs. . . .”

“Mayfield. Don't mind me.”

Rast's chin came up. His eyes began to widen. He now
seemed so terribly old to Michael. That this man could have defeated Jake Fallon
...

The Countess waited until she saw recognition in her
husband's eyes. Now, satisfied that she did, and that she
saw the beginnings of terror, she slid the needle into his
thigh. She pressed the plunger with her thumb.

The Baron's mouth, and eyes, opened wide. One leg
went into spasm, then the other. And now his whole body
went rigid as if struck by an electrical charge. He slid to
the floor. His body relaxed, slightly, then went rigid again.
His lips peeled back from his teeth. His mouth formed a
frozen grin. He made mewing sounds.

“What's German for ‘strychnine’?” Moon asked the
Countess.

“One word for it is
Scheidung,
Mr. Moon.”

The Baron began to squeal. It took him ten minutes
to die.

“Will you be staying for lunch?” asked the Countess.

Michael had declined. The Countess had walked with
them back to the car. Only then, and only slightly, had
her composure begun to abandon her. She reached to touch
his arm. Her lower lip quivered. But she said not a word.
Manfred drove them back to the airport.

”I think that was an apology,” said Moon.

Lena Mayfield shook her head.

“Then what was it?” he asked.

“It was more like . . . she wanted to say why she
married him. She just couldn't.”

“Why did she?”

“Rich folks get lonely too,” said Lena.

As they waited for their flight, Lena found a German-
English dictionary.

”
Scheidung
doesn't mean ‘strychnine,’ ” she said to
Moon. “It means
'divorce.'
”

”I think that was the lady's point,” said Moon.

AdChem would be divided seven ways. Some compa
nies bought more of it than others. It would be some
months before a deal of this magnitude could be com
pleted in all particulars but the management change was
immediate.

The new owners agreed, at Michael's suggestion, on the
need for a common security system. He knew just the firm to handle it. A contract was signed with Giordano Security
Services, Inc. Fat Julie Giordano was chairman of the
board. Mohammed Yahya was senior vice president for
intelligence. He was terribly proud of his new business
cards.

The presidency would remain vacant until such time as
Mr. John Anthony Giordano was well enough to assume
that office. Brendan Doyle, Esquire, was named executive, vice president for legal affairs.

In the long run the firm would be funded by the seven.
The source of immediate funding, however, would be
through fines to be levied against a list of executives who
were formerly in the employ of both AdChem and Leh
man-Stone. The fines were in the amount of their total net
worth. Fat Julie was charged with collecting.