Chapter 31
In principle I know how to turn off a cell phone. I have seen it done, and I have done it myself on more than one occasion. On most models you hold down the red button for two long seconds. But the phone was in my pocket. No room to open it, and no chance of finding the red button by feel alone. Too suspicious to take it out and turn it off in full view of everyone.
Lila Hoth hit nine for a line and dialed.
I put my hand in my pocket and used my thumbnail and found the catch and unlatched the battery. Separated it from the phone and turned it sideways to avoid any chance of accidental electrical contact.
Lila Hoth waited, and then she sighed and hung up.
“He’s hopeless,” she said. “But very loyal.”
I tried to track Leonid’s likely progress in my head. Cops, paramedics, probably an obligatory trip to the Saint Vincent’s emergency room, no ID, possibly no English, maybe worries and questions and detention. Then the trip back uptown.
How long of a detention, I didn’t know.
How fast of a trip, I couldn’t predict.
I said, “The local crew mentioned John Sansom’s name.”
Lila Hoth sighed again and shook her head in a tiny display of exasperation. She said, “I briefed them when we arrived, obviously. I told them the story. And we all got along quite well. I think all of us felt that we were wasting our time, humoring my mother. We shared jokes about it, frankly. One of the men was reading the newspaper about Sansom. He said, here’s an American soldier called John, of roughly the right vintage. He said, maybe Sansom is the guy you’re looking for. For a day or two it became a kind of catchphrase. An in-joke, I suppose. We would say, let’s just call John Sansom and have done with it. I was really only joking, of course, because what are the chances? A million to one, perhaps. And they were joking too, really, but later they became somehow quite earnest about it. Perhaps because of the impact it would have, because he is such a famous politician.”
“What impact? What did your mother do with this guy called John?”
Svetlana Hoth stared on into space, uncomprehending. Lila Hoth sat down again. She said, “My mother has never spoken in detail about it. Certainly it can’t have been espionage. My mother was not a traitor. I say that not as a loyal daughter, but as a realist. She is still alive. Therefore she was never suspected. And her American friend was not a traitor, either. Liaising with foreign traitors was a KGB function, not army. And personally I doubt that her interest was romantic. It was more likely aid of some sort, personal help, either financial or political. Possibly covert. Those were bad times for the Soviet Union. But possibly it was romantic. All she has ever said is that the man was very kind to her. She plays her cards close to her chest.”
“Ask her again, now.”
“I have asked her many times, as you can imagine. She’s reluctant to say.”
“But you think Sansom isn’t actually involved?”
“No, not at all. That was a joke that got out of hand. That’s all. Unless, of course, it really is a million-to-one thing. Which would be extraordinary, don’t you think? To joke about something and have it turn out to be true?”
I said nothing.
Lila Hoth said, “Now may I ask you a question? Did Susan Mark give you the information intended for my mother?”
Svetlana Hoth smiled and nodded again. I began to suspect she recognized the words my mother. Like a dog that wags its tail when it hears its name. I said, “Why would you think Susan Mark gave me information?”
“Because the people I hired here told me you told them that she had. Computerized, on a USB memory stick. They gave me that message, and transmitted your photograph, and resigned their commission. I’m not sure why. I was paying them very well.”
I moved in my chair and stuck my hand in my pocket. Scrabbled down past the disassembled phone and found the Radio Shack stick. I felt the soft pink neoprene sleeve against my fingernails. I pulled it out and held it up and watched Lila Hoth’s eyes very carefully.
She looked at the stick the way a cat looks at a bird.
She asked, “Is that really it?”
Theresa Lee moved in her chair and looked at me. Like she was asking, Are you going to say it, or am I? Lila Hoth caught the glance and asked, “What?”
I said, “The whole thing looked very different to me, I’m afraid. Susan Mark was terrified on the train. She was in big trouble. She didn’t look like a person coming to town to meet a friend for dinner and a show.”
Lila Hoth said, “I told you at the beginning, I can’t explain that.”
I put the memory stick back in my pocket. Said, “Susan didn’t bring an overnight bag.”
“I can’t explain it.”
“And she dumped her car and approached by subway. Which is weird. If you were prepared to book a room for her, I’m sure you would have sprung for valet parking.”
“Sprung?”
“Paid for.”
“Of course.”
“And she was carrying a loaded gun.”
“She lived in Virginia. I heard it’s compulsory there.”
“It’s legal there,” I said. “Not compulsory.”
“I can’t explain it. I’m sorry.”
“And her son is missing. Last seen leaving a bar, with a woman of your age and roughly your description.”
“Missing?”
“Disappeared.”
“A woman of my description?”
“A total babe.”
“What does that mean?”
“A good-looking young woman.”
“What bar?”
“Somewhere in LA.”
“Los Angeles?”
“In California.”
“I haven’t been to Los Angeles. Never in my life. I have only been in New York.”
I said nothing.
She said, “Look around you. I have been here in New York three days on a tourist visa and I occupy three rooms in a commercial hotel. I have no crew, as you call it. I have never been to California.”
I said nothing.
She said, “Looks are subjective. And I’m not the only woman my age. There are six billion people in the world. Trending young, for sure. Half of them are fifteen or younger. Which means there are still three billion people sixteen or older. Following the curve, perhaps twelve percent of them are in their middle twenties. That’s three hundred and sixty million people. About half are women. That’s a hundred and eighty million. Even if only one in a hundred of them might be judged good-looking, in a bar in California, then it’s still ten times more likely that John Sansom was my mother’s friend than I had anything to do with Susan Mark’s son.”
I nodded. Arithmetically, Lila Hoth was right on the money. She said, “And it’s probably true that Peter is away somewhere with a girl, anyway. Yes, I know his name. In fact I know all about him. Susan told me. On the phone. We talked about all our problems. She hated her son. She despised what he is. He is everything she disliked. He is just a shallow fraternity boy with immature attitudes. He rejected her in favor of his father. And do you know why? Because he was obsessed with his ancestry. And Susan was adopted. Did you even know that? Her son thought of her only as a person conceived out of wedlock. He hated her for it. I know more about Susan than anybody. I talked to her many times. I listened to her. She was a lonely, isolated woman. I was her friend. She was excited to come here and meet me.”
At that point I sensed that Theresa Lee needed to get going and I certainly wanted to be out of there before young Leonid showed up again. So I nodded and shrugged as if I had nothing more to say and no further issues to pursue. Lila Hoth asked if I would give her the stick that Susan Mark had given to me. I didn’t say yes and I didn’t say no. I didn’t answer at all. We just shook hands all around once more, and then we made an exit. The door closed behind us and we walked through the silent corridor and the elevator chimed open. We stepped in and we looked at each other in the mirrored walls and Lee said, “Well, what did you think?”
“I thought she was beautiful,” I said. “One of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.”
“Apart from that.”
“Amazing eyes.”
“Apart from her eyes.”
“I thought she was lonely too. Lonely and isolated. She was talking about Susan, but she could have been talking about herself.”
“What about her story?”
“Do good-looking people automatically get more credibility?”
“Not from me, pal. And get over it, anyway. Thirty years from now she’ll look just like her mother. Did you believe her?”
“Did you?”
Lee nodded. “I believed her. Because a story like that is ridiculously easy to check. Only a fool would give us so many chances to prove her wrong. Like, does the army really have press officers?”
“So all we have to do is find the one she spoke to, and ask. We could even track the phone calls from London. I could liaise with Scotland Yard. I’d love to do that. Can you imagine? Docherty interrupts me, I say, Butt out, pal, I’m on the phone with Scotland Yard here. It’s every detective’s dream.”
“NSA will have the calls,” I said. “A foreign number into the DoD? They’re already part of an intelligence analysis somewhere.”
“And we could track Susan Mark’s calls out of the Pentagon. If they talked as often as Lila claimed, we’d see them easily. International to the U.K., they’re probably flagged up separately.”
“So go for it. Check.”
“I guess I will,” she said. “And she must know I could. She struck me as an intelligent woman. She knows British Airways and Homeland Security can track her in and out of the country. She knows we can tell if she ever flew to LA. She knows we can just go ahead and ask Jacob Mark whether his sister was adopted. It’s all so easy to confirm. It would be crazy to lie about stuff like that. Plus she came in to the precinct house and involved herself voluntarily. And she just showed me her passport. Which is the exact opposite of suspicious behavior. Those are big points in her favor.”
I took the cell phone from my pocket and reassembled the battery. I hit the on switch and the screen lit up. It was showing a missed call. Lila Hoth, presumably, from her room, ten minutes ago. I saw Lee looking at the phone and I said, “It’s Leonid’s. I took it from him.”
“He actually found you?”
“I found him. Which is why I had gotten as far as this hotel.”
“Where is he now?”
“Walking home from Saint Vincent’s Hospital, probably.”
“Is this something you really want to be telling to an NYPD detective?”
“He fainted. I helped. That’s all. Talk to the witnesses.”
“Whatever, it’s going to put the cat among the pigeons with Lila.”
“She thinks gun ownership is compulsory in Virginia. She probably thinks mugging is compulsory in New York. She grew up with propaganda.”
We got out of the elevator in the lobby and headed for the street door. Lee asked, “But if all of this is so innocent, why are there feds involved?”
“If the story is true, then an American soldier met with a Red Army political commissar back during the Cold War. The feds want to be absolutely sure it’s innocent. That’s why HRC’s response was delayed by weeks. They were taking policy decisions and putting surveillance in place.”
We got into Lee’s car. She said, “You aren’t agreeing with me all the way, are you?”
I said, “If the Hoth family business is innocent, so be it. But something wasn’t innocent. That’s for damn sure. And we’re saying that other something brought Susan Mark to the exact same place at the exact same time. Which is a hell of a coincidence.”
“And?”
“How many times have you known a million-to-one chance turn out a winner?”
“Never.”
“Me either. But I think it’s happening here. John Sansom is a million-to-one against, but I think he’s involved.”
“Why?”
“I spoke to him.”
“In Washington?”
“Actually I had to follow him to North Carolina.”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“That’s what he said. Then I asked him if he had heard the name Lila Hoth. He said no. I was watching his face. I believed him, and I thought he was lying, too. Both at the same time. And maybe he was.”
“How?”
“Maybe he had heard the name Hoth, but not Lila. So technically, no, he hadn’t heard the name Lila Hoth. But maybe he had heard the name Svetlana Hoth. Maybe he was very familiar with it.”
“What would that mean?”
“Maybe more than we think. Because if Lila Hoth is telling the truth, then there’s a kind of weird logic working here. Why would Susan Mark bust a gut on a case like this?”
“She had sympathy.”
“Why would she in particular?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because she was adopted. Born out of wedlock, presumably wondering about her real folks from time to time. Sympathetic to other people in the same situation. Like Lila Hoth, maybe. Some guy was very kind to her mother before she was born? There are a lot of ways to interpret a phrase like that.”
“For example?”
“Best case, he gave her a warm coat in winter.”
“And worst case?”
“Maybe John Sansom is Lila Hoth’s father.”