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“A character reference from a colleague whose judgment I trust.”
“Who?”
“Pauline.”
“She’s yours?”
“She’s Van Dorn’s.”
Fern covered her face. “Oh, do I feel like a fool.”
“You aren’t the first. Pauline is the sharpest detective you will ever meet. She sees a possibility of something worthwhile in you, and what Pauline sees is good enough for me.”
“What is the second reason?”
“The second reason is far more important. You can give me Marat Zolner. Which is why I ask you about the Stormses’ investments financing the Comintern attack.”
Fern smirked the smirk that said she knew more than Bell did. “Actually, most of it comes straight from the bootlegging. Storms hasn’t made him as much as he hoped.”
“Oh yes he has,” said Bell. “Storms is good at what he does, and the market has been kind.”
“That’s not what Marat said.”
“That’s because Marat siphons off most of his stock earnings. He has secret, personal accounts with Storms & Storms. He stashed money in London and Paris and Berlin and Switzerland. He has made himself a very wealthy Bolshevik.”
Fern Hawley flushed. She took a deep breath. “Do you remember I told you he’s an optimist? That’s the least of it. He is a brilliant, natural-born liar. That dirty son of a—”
“I was hoping you would say that,” said Isaac Bell.
37
WITH HIS MUTED ENGINES turning just enough revolutions to make headway through the deepening chop, Marat Zolner kept Maya between him and the town as he eased Black Bird alongside the big yacht in the dead of the night. He tossed a canvas-wrapped grappling hook over the teak rail, pulled himself up, and went to Fern’s cabin.
She was rubbing her beautiful face with a night cream and saw him in the mirror.
“Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Sadly, the cat has only a moment. What did you tell Isaac Bell?”
“No more than I had to to make him go away.”
“What did he ask?”
“He asked about the tanker. He knew the Comintern bought it. I confirmed that to keep him from asking more questions.”
“Did you tell him where it is?”
“No. That was the point of answering his previous question.”
“You’re good at this.”
“I was taught by a master . . . What are you doing here, Marat?”
Zolner gave her a strange smile. For as long as she had known him, she could rarely tell what he was really thinking. He looked sad, but she couldn’t swear to it, even when he asked, “Is the bank open tonight?”
Fern Hawley hoped that she was not a fool to wish that somehow what Isaac Bell had told her was not true. She opened her arms, saying, “All night.”
• • •
