And suddenly we didn’t just suspect, we knew that Hancock had a lot of money. Over six million. At least that much. Which was the best news we’d had in a long while.
So off to Zurich we went, at least for a day or two. I didn’t expect to find the Wolf there. But you never know. And I’d never been to Switzerland. Jannie begged me to bring back chocolate, a suitcase full of the stuff, and I promised I would. A whole suitcase full of Swiss chocolate, sweetheart. Least I can do for missing most of your ninth year.
Chapter 103
IF I WERE the Wolf, this would be a good place to live. Zurich is a beautiful, amazingly clean city on the lake—the Zürichsee—with lovely fragrant shade trees and wide, winding sidewalks along the water, and fresh mountain air meant to be breathed in deeply. When I arrived, a storm was imminent and the air smelled like brass. The exterior of a majority of the buildings were in light shades, sand and white, and several were adorned with Swiss flags twisting in the blustery wind off the lake.
As I drove into the city I noticed trolley tracks everywhere with heavy-looking wires hanging overhead. The power of the old. Also several life-size fiberglass cows painted with Alpine scenes, which reminded me of Little Alex’s favorite toy, Moo. What was I going to do about Alex? What could I do?
The Zurich Bank was a sixties-looking building, glass-and-steel front, situated very close to the lake. Sandy Greenberg met me outside. She was wearing a gray suit, had a black handbag slung over her shoulder, and looked as though maybe she worked inside the bank instead of for Interpol.
“You ever been to Zurich, Alex?” Sandy asked as she gave me a hug and kiss on both cheeks.
“Never. Had one of their multipurpose knives once when I was ten or eleven.”
“Alex, we have to eat a meal here. Promise me. Let’s go inside now. They’re waiting for us, and they don’t like to wait in Zurich. Especially the bankers.”
The inside of the Zurich Bank was expensive-looking, highly polished, wood paneling everywhere, as spotless as a hospital operating room. The teller area was natural stone, with more wood paneling. The tellers were efficient and professional-looking, and they whispered to one another. The bank’s branding was understated, but there was a great deal of modern art on the wall. I thought that I understood: the art was the bank’s branding.
“Zurich has always been a haven for avant-garde intellectuals, cultured types,” Sandy said, and didn’t whisper. “The Dada movement was born here. Wagner, Strauss, Jung all lived here.”
“James Joyce wrote Ulysses in Zurich,” I said, and winked at her.
Sandy laughed. “I forgot, you’re a closet intellectual.”
We were escorted to the bank president’s office, which had a serious look. Neat as a pin, too. Only one transaction on the desk blotter, everything else filed away.
/> Sandy handed Mr. Delmar Pomeroy an envelope. “A signed warrant,” she said. “The account number is 616479Q.”
“Everything has been promptly arranged,” Herr Pomeroy said to us. That was all. Then his warrant officer took us to look at the transactions in and out of account number 616479Q. So much for the secrecy and security of Swiss banks. Everything has been promptly arranged.
Chapter 104
THIS WAS FEELING more like an efficient, orderly police investigation now. Even though I knew it really wasn’t. Sandy, two of her agents from Interpol, and I got to look through all of Corky Hancock’s transactions in a small, windowless room somewhere deep in the basement of the Zurich Bank. The former CIA agent’s account had grown from two hundred thousand U.S. dollars to slightly over six million. Youza.
The latest, and largest, deposits totaled three and a half million and had come in four installments this year.
The source of the payment was an account in the name of Y. Jikhomirov. It took us a couple of hours to track down all of the records. There were more than a hundred pages going all the way back to ’91. The year the Wolf had been brought out of Russia. Coincidence? I didn’t believe in them. Not anymore.
We carefully examined withdrawals from the Jikhomirov account. They included payments to a company that leased private jets; regular air travel with British Airways and Air France; hotels: Claridge’s, the Bel-Air in L.A., the Sherry-Netherland in New York, the Four Seasons in Chicago and Maui. There were wire transfers to America, South Africa, Australia, Paris, Tel Aviv. The trail of a Wolf?
And an entry that particularly caught my interest—the purchase of four expensive sports cars in France, all from a dealership in Nice, Riviera Motors. A Lotus, a special-edition Jaguar, and two Aston Martins.
“The Wolf is supposed to be a sports car enthusiast,” I said to Sandy. “Maybe the cars mean something. Maybe we’re closer than we suspect. What do you think?”
She nodded agreement. “Yes, I think we should visit Riviera Motors in Nice. Nice is nice. But first, Alex, lunch in Zurich. I made you a promise.”
“No, I think you made me promise. After my bad Swiss Army knife joke.”
I was hungry anyway, so it seemed a good idea. Sandy chose the Veltliner Keller, one of her favorites—a restaurant she thought I would appreciate.
As we entered, she explained that Veltliner Keller had been a restaurant since 1551, a long time for any business to survive. So we forgot about police work for an hour and a half. We dined on barley soup, zuppe engadinese; a casserole, veltliner topf; and very good wine. Everything was just so: crisp white linens and napkins, roses in sterling vases, crystal salt and pepper shakers.
“This is one of your better ideas,” I told Sandy near the end of the meal. “A nice break in the action.”
“It’s called lunch, Alex. You have to try it more. You should come to Europe with your friend, Jamilla. You’re working too hard.”
“It shows, I guess.”