The lights at Z501 Tuttle Place were all on, blazing. Frank was entertaining. I walked past the house and turned down the side street, along the brick wall that surrounded the garden. You couldn't see it from the street, but I knew on the other side was the swimming pool, beyond the flagstone patio with the frolicking Henry Moore bronze. It was where Frank liked to eat when the weather was good. I could hear music coming from the patio. Patsy Cline.
I pushed through the rosebushes that ran against the wall, found a chipped brick for a foothold, and hoisted myself up until I could throw a leg over the wall. The closed-circuit camera was staring right at me, the red light blinking. I was counting on no one monitoring it. Everyone would be helping with dinner. They could watch the tape the next morning, after it was too late.
I paused on top of the wall to listen. Someone was telling a joke-a male voice I didn't recognize. A woman laughed. India.
The music was too loud for anyone to hear me drop down onto the other side of the wall into the azalea bushes. I paused again to listen. The granite pool gave off a muted, shimmering light. I could smell citronella torches.
I stepped out of the azaleas and heard a sound you can never mistake: the chambering of a shotgun shell.
"I wouldn't go any further."
I half turned to see Frank sitting in a wrought-iron pool chair with a short-barreled twelve-gauge riot gun across his knees. Going by what he was wearing-a black cashmere blazer, chinos, and a bow tie-I'd interrupted dinner. Someone had been monitoring the cameras after all.
"Don't you think you've gotten yourself in enough trouble without breaking and entering? If I cut you in half, the FBI would throw a party."
"I'm sure." I made one small step back, edging toward the wall.
"Far enough." I heard the safety click on and off. "Why don't you take a load off your feet, Max. Sorry there's no chair. Sit on the edge of the pool. The light's better."
Frank raised the riot gun at my head.
I went over and sat down on the edge of the pool. The underwater lights were enough to light me but not Frank. I couldn't see him now.
"You know, I thought you were a lot smarter," Frank said.
"Me, too. I misread you by a mile."
"Did you?" he snorted.
"Was this place worth it, the pool, the Modigliani?" I said.
"What did you find in Michelle's safe?"
I heard laughter from the patio, this time loud: India's voice again, then a man laughing at what she'd said. I wondered if she knew I was sitting there. Odds were she did.
"I asked what you found in Geneva."
"Enough to nail you."
"Have you been through the papers you stole?"
"Not yet. I will, though. They're perfectly safe."
"Any fool would keep it in a safe place. But frankly, you've been sloppy, Max. For a start, I can't believe you never wondered about the
coincidence of that Nicaraguan wiring money to the Nauru account every time you happened to show up in Geneva. Did you ask Webber to see the transfers? Just to put your mind at rest: There were transfers. Each time you came to Geneva, I managed to paper it with a fake transfer from Cabrillo's account to Nauru."
I was starting to lose my footing. Right now Frank should have been on the phone to the FBI to come get me, not confessing how he'd framed me.
"Cute," I said. "But I was never on Cabrillo's payroll. It was a dumb ploy."
"They served my purposes; they were enough for Webber to pry you out of the place."
Shit. He's going to shoot me, I thought. Why else the confession?
I tried swallowing, but my mouth felt like it had been swabbed with cotton. Frank would say it was self-defense. Not even a manslaughter charge. I looked at the water glimmering at my side and wondered if I could roll into it without getting shot, swim to the bottom of the pool, and then I don't know what. Lie there until I drowned? Never mind, I'd be dead before I hit the water.
"It was easy."
"What?"
"Framing you. Michelle knew Cabrillo's banker, who for a consideration ginned up the fake transfers. No money got sent anywhere, but it was good enough for DEA to call Webber."
I looked at Frank, still wondering why he was telling me all this. Wasting words, gloating over having beat me-this wasn't his style.
He started to laugh as if he was really enjoying himself. He stood up, keeping the riot gun on me, and moved his chair closer to where I was sitting. He was in the light of the pool now.
"Maxie, we haven't been at a cotillion dance all these years."
Frank flipped the safety back on and put the riot gun down at his side against the chair.
"Max, don't you see? The photo, Millis's brains on the wall of the
Breezeway Motel, my imminent fall, India's trip out to Lebanon-you fell for it, hook, line, and sinker."
"What are you talking about?" I stammered.
"The photo you carried around the world, obsessively believing it was the key to Buckley's murder. Ever wonder how you got it?"
"I dug it out of Archives."
"Did you ever see the 201 file that went with it?"
"Lost."
"Wrong. The 201 never existed. That was mistake two. You never checked around to confirm if it was a real 201. You wanted it to be Mur-taza Ali Mousavi's picture so bad, you never confirmed anything. All you cared about was moving an inch closer to your grail. You wore it on your sleeve."
"What are you saying?"
"It was me who found the photo and cut out the head. I had someone fiddle with the records and insert the photo into the system for you to find. Bait."
"I don't believe it."
"Wait a second," he said. He left the shotgun resting on the chair. He had more trust in me than I had in him.
Frank was back in five minutes. He handed me the Peshawar photo, but here the headless man in the salwar chemise had a face-Oliver Wendell Channing's.
Frank had sat back down. He was smiling, no doubt amused by my confusion.
"Why?"
"Because the only way to stop Channing was from the outside."
The shock of what Frank was saying must have drained the blood from my face, but suddenly it fell into place. I'd been manipulated, lied to, seduced, betrayed, and set up-the same thing I'd done day to day for the last twenty-five years.