Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

Nick hung back for a long second. He realized that it wouldn’t be any good talking to Burki after he’d gotten his dose and fixed. His only hope was to move quickly and get ahold of the old man before he shot up. He wasn’t sure how to intervene. He’d figure it out when he got there.

Nick crossed the platform as quickly as he could. He tried hard not to look at the hollow-eyed men and women combing their bodies for veins firm enough to fix in. Still, with a fascination he could only label macabre, he was unable to shut his eyes. A teenager had tapped out a vein on his lower neck and was showing his buddy where to put the needle. A middle-aged woman had lowered her pants and sat legs splayed on the cement floor while she shot up in the crook of her thigh. A waifish girl of five or six sat next to her. Helluva place to bring your kid on a Sunday afternoon.

A squad of policemen loitered at the far end of the station—Sondercommandos, by the blue riot gear they sported. They smoked, arms resting easily on the butts of their submachine guns, backs turned to their charges. This wasn’t their battle. The city preferred to gather its addicts in one place where it could keep an eye on them. Containment without confrontation: the Swiss way.

Nick reached the unsteady table just as Burki was taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeve. He took a hundred francs from his wallet and handed it to the wrinkled woman administering the shots. “This is for my friend Caspar. That should be good for two fixes, right?”

Burki looked at him and said, “Who the hell are you?”

The woman snatched the bill from Nick’s hand and said, “Are you crazy, Cappy? The boy wants to buy you a present. Take it.”

Nick said, “I need to talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Burki. About some mutual friends. It won’t take long, but I’d prefer to speak with you before-” his hands searched the air for the right words, “before you do this. If you don’t mind.”

Burki hesitated for a moment. His eyes shifted between Nick and the scraggly woman. “Mutual friends? Like who?”

“Yogi Bauer, for one. I had a few drinks with him last night.”

“Poor Yogi. Pity what alcohol will do to you.” Burki squinted his eyes. “You’re Neumann’s boy. He warned me about you.”

Nick said yes, he was Alex Neumann’s son, and in a calm voice introduced himself. “I work at the United Swiss Bank. I have a few questions about Allen Soufi.”

Burki grunted. “Don’t know the man. Now run along and get out of here. Be a good boy and go home to your mommy. It’s nap time.”

The “nurse” laughed hysterically. Nick told her to give him his money back and when he had it, grabbed Burki by the arm and backed him up a few steps. “Listen, you either talk to me now and take advantage of my goodwill, or I’m going to drag you over to the boys in the blue and tell them you’re a thief.” Nick crumpled up the hundred-franc note and stuffed it into Burki’s hand. “Understand me?”

Burki spat in his face. “You’re a bastard. Like your father.”

“Believe it,” said Nick, and wiping the saliva from his cheek, he took his first close look at Burki. The man’s skin was a decaying parchment, dotted with open sores and stretched tight across his skull. His eyes were sunken blue orbs. His upper lip was split, and a tooth black with rot shone beneath it. He was a long way down the track.

Suddenly, Burki relaxed and shrugged his shoulders. “Give me a little taste now and I’ll talk to you. I’m afraid I can’t wait much longer. Wouldn’t be any good to you then, would I?”

“You’ve got your hundred. You can wait. Maybe I’ll throw in a little extra because I appreciate what a good memory you have. Deal?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure, go home, take a hot shower, and curl up with a good book. I’ll walk you back to make sure you get there safely.”

Burki swore under his breath, then grabbed his coat from the wooden trestle and put it on. He motioned for Nick to follow him and led the way to the back wall of the station. He cleared away a spot with his feet and sat down. Stifling his every survivor’s instinct, Nick cleared his own small patch and sat down.

“Allen Soufi,” Nick repeated. “Tell me about him.”

“Why do you want to know about Soufi?” Burki asked. “What brought you to me for God’s sake?”

“I’ve been checking some of the papers my father wrote just before he was murdered. Soufi figures prominently in them. I saw that you recommended him as a client to the Los Angeles branch of USB. I thought that you might have known him pretty well.”

“Mr. Allen Soufi. That goes back a ways.” He reached into his jacket and took out a pack of cigarettes. His hand shook as he lit one. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

Burki inhaled for a full five seconds. “You’re a man of your word, are you? You’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

Nick took out another hundred-franc note, folded it, and slipped it into his own breast pocket. “Your reward.”

Burki hesitated, eyeing the bill, then began talking.

“Soufi was one of my clients,” said Burki. “Kept a good-size chunk of his fortune with us. Around thirty million francs, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What do you mean he was one of your clients?”

“I was Allen Soufi’s portfolio manager. Of course, he held a numbered account—but I knew his name.”

Nick thought back to the list of portfolio managers attached to Mevlevi’s file. He could not recall having seen the name Burki, or the more distinctive Caspar.

Burki said, “One day my old boss comes in and asks me to recommend Soufi to your father. Told me Soufi wanted to do business with the Los Angeles branch.”

“Who was your boss?”

“He still works at the bank. His name is Armin Schweitzer.”

“Schweitzer told you to recommend Soufi to my father?”

Burki nodded. “Right away I knew not to ask why. I mean, there could only be one reason for Armin to call me.” He spread his hands in a great arc. “Distance. Separating the old man from the client.”

“The old man?”

“Kaiser. I mean, who else got him out of the mess back in London town? Schweitzer was Kaiser’s boy. He got all the nasty jobs.”

“You’re saying Schweitzer asked you to recommend Allen Soufi to my father just to distance Wolfgang Kaiser from the entire affair?”

“Benefit of my superb hindsight. At the time I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I just found it a little strange that Soufi hadn’t asked me for the introduction. He never said a word about Los Angeles.”

Of course, he didn’t, thought Nick. The big plans went through Kaiser.

“Well, I didn’t make a stink of things. I did what I was told and forgot about it. Wrote a letter: ‘Dear Alex, following individual is a client of mine, someone who has worked with the bank in the past, please extend your full services to him. Any questions or references please revert back. Sincerely, Cap.’ End of letter. I was happy to be of service. Loyal soldier, that’s me.”

“And that was the end of it?” Nick asked, knowing full well it wasn’t.

Burki didn’t answer. His eyelids closed and his breathing slowed. Suddenly, he jerked violently and his eyes opened. He brought his cigarette to his mouth and inhaled desperately.

Nick looked away, seized by a profound sense of the absurd. His entire world was off-kilter. Sitting in a decrepit shooting gallery, freezing his ass off, talking to an aging junkie, and actually entertaining hopes that he might get a measure of truth from him. Anna had been right, hadn’t she? He was obsessed. How else could he explain bringing himself to this place?

“If only,” Burki snorted, unaware of his lapse. “Six or seven months passed. One day your father rings me up directly. He was curious if I knew more about Allen Soufi than I had mentioned in my introductory letter. ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked. ‘He’s doing too much business,’ said your father. I wondered, ‘How could anybody do too much business?’ “