Christopher Reich - Rules of Deception

“Bastards! Espèce de salopards!”Simone Noiret banged the dashboard with every epithet. “He was trying to kill you! Why?”

“I don’t know,” replied Jonathan, in a faraway voice. The heater was blasting him with a torrent of warm air, yet he couldn’t keep from shivering. The image of the policeman lamely grasping at the antenna protruding from his skull played front and center in his mind.

“But you must,” Simone insisted.

“They wanted the bags. That’s all I can think of. The guy lost his cool when I fought back.”

“The bags? That’s all? There must be more to it than that. Surely-”

“What do you want me to say?” Jonathan protested, turning toward her. “I’ve never seen those men before in my life. I’m just as frightened as you are. Arguing about it won’t help. We have to figure out what to do.”

Simone recoiled at the outburst. “Pardon me,” she said, settling into her seat. “You’re right. We’re both frightened. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“I know you didn’t. Let’s just sit here a few minutes, chill out, and figure out what we’re going to do.”

They had parked in a pine glade high on the mountain overlooking the city. Below them, no more than two miles’ distance, a swarm of flashing lights had converged on the train station. He counted ten police cars and two ambulances.

He poked his index finger into the neat round hole that the bullet had drilled into the dashboard. “Those men back there…one of them is dead, the other’s gravely injured at the least. I can’t just sit here. I’ve got to explain what happened. I’ve got to tell them that this whole thing is some kind of mistake. They went after the wrong person…”

“Look at the bullet hole, Jon. It’s your police who made it. And now you want to turn yourself in?” Simone threw up her hands in exasperation.

“What other choice is there? By now, every cop in this canton, and probably the whole country, has a description of us. Tall American with gray hair accompanied by a dark-haired woman traveling in a silver BMW 5 Series. In an hour, they’ll have our names…or at least mine. We won’t be hard to find.”

“And then what are you going to say? Are you going to tell them it was all in self-defense? They won’t believe a word.” Simone fished in her bag for a cigarette. “ Pourris, Jon. You know what that means? Rotten. Bent. These policemen, they were no good.” She needed two hands to steady her lighter.

Jonathan opened the ID case. The identification belonged to Oskar Studer. Wachtmeister. Graubünden Kantonspolizei. It was then that he noticed that the car wasn’t equipped like other police cars. There was no two-way radio. No inboard computer. No gun rack. It was remarkably clean. Not a speck of dirt on the carpets. No empty coffee cups. The odometer read two thousand kilometers. There were some papers in the side compartment. Car rental documents made out to one Oskar Studer. The car had been taken out that morning at ten and was due back in twenty-four hours.

Pourris. He knew precisely what the word meant.

All thoughts of going to the police vanished.

He put the papers back. “They knew I was an American,” he said. “They were waiting for me.”

Simone nodded, her eyes meeting his, sharing his distress.

He glanced at the leather bag and the neatly wrapped package.

“Open them,” she said. “Let’s find out what this is about.”

He chose the package first. Using his Swiss Army knife, he sawed through the twine. The paper peeled away easily, revealing a glossy black box. A golden sticker embossed with a designer name decorated the upper right-hand corner.

“Bogner,” said Simone. “It must be a present.”

“Looks like it,” said Jonathan, unconvinced, as he cut the ribbon encircling the box.

Bogner made high-end clothing designed to keep jet-setters warm and chic on their trips to the Alps. On a lark, he and Emma had ducked into one of their shops while on a getaway to Chamonix last October. It was a sunny day, he remembered, a weekend between fall and winter when the nip in the air sharpens to a bite.

“Which one do you fancy?” Emma had asked, under her breath as they prowled the aisles. They were raiders operating behind enemy lines. The “enemy” being the vain and wealthy. Those who ignored their “duty to interfere.”

Jonathan pointed to a charcoal crewneck sweater. “I’ll take this one.”

“Consider it yours.”

“Really?” he said, playing along.

“It suits you. We’ll take it,” she said to the hovering salesgirl.

“We will?” said Jonathan, loud enough to risk blowing their cover.

Emma nodded, threading an arm through his. “I have hidden resources,” she whispered in his ear, though not before giving it a nibble.

“Does Madam have some Monopoly money hidden in a shoe box?”

Emma didn’t answer. Instead, she continued speaking to the salesgirl as if he weren’t there. “An extra large. And wrap it, please. It’s a present for my husband.” Her tone was no longer subdued or surreptitious. And neither was the look in her eye.

“Emma, come on,” he said. “Enough’s enough. Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” she insisted. “You’ve earned it. Back pay.”

“For what?”

“I’m not telling.”

At which point, Jonathan had seen the price tag, and after practically fainting, yanked her out of the store. Outside, they’d laughed at her impetuous behavior. But even then, she’d shot him a chilly look that said he’d committed a sin and was exiled to her bad graces until further notice.

Jonathan recalled her expression as he removed the box cover. Gauze paper concealed a dark garment. Parting the wrapping, he lifted it partially out of the box. He’d forgotten how soft it was.

“Lovely,” said Simone.

It was the sweater from Chamonix. A simple charcoal crewneck. Well made and elegant, but at first sight, nothing out of the ordinary, which was precisely his style. He passed his fingers over the collar. Fourply cashmere. There was nothing softer on earth. It had cost sixteen hundred dollars. Half a month’s salary.

“I have hidden resources.”

Was this the birthday present she’d mentioned to the manager of the Bellevue?

Jonathan laid the sweater back in the box. The balance of Dr. and Mrs. Ransom’s checking account presently stood at fifteen thousand some-odd Swiss francs. Roughly twelve thousand dollars. And that was before paying the hotel bill.

Setting aside the box, he pulled the calfskin bag onto his lap. He had the unsettling feeling that he was never meant to see its contents, just as he was never supposed to have opened Emma’s letter. “Those who listen at closed doors rarely hear good of themselves,” his mother had warned him as an adolescent. But to Jonathan, there was no longer good or bad. There was only truth and deception. He could no sooner discard the bag than he could ignore the baggage receipts. He had an image of himself opening a colorful Russian matryoshka stacking doll, each shell containing its smaller twin.

A sturdy gold lock held the zipper closed. He looked at Simone. She nodded. With that, he slipped the blade of his knife into the calfskin and guided it the length of the bag.

The first thing he saw was a ziplock bag containing a set of Mercedes-Benz car keys and a hand-drawn map with a square labeled “Bahnhof,” and a rectangle next to it labeled “Parking” with an “X” inked at its far end. Was it referring to the Landquart station? There were a lot of Bahnhofs in Switzerland.

A navy crepe blazer lay beneath the keys, along with a pair of matching slacks and an ivory blouse. It was the kind of stylish outfit worn by young executives in Frankfurt and London. Women you saw charging through airports on four-inch heels, cell phone clapped to their ear, and laptop bag over their shoulder. Then came a black lace brassiere and panties. There was nothing businesslike about these, he mused, lifting them by a finger. These were designed to impress an entirely different clientele.