The Almighty Part 25

Having paid the driver, standing by while the doorman removed her suitcase, typewriter, and briefcase from the trunk of the taxi, she could see the rise of the six-story hotel with its rolled-out yellow awnings shading ornate wrought-iron balconies and, across from the hotel, a wide promenade area with flower beds and green benches and, beyond that under a dazzling golden sun, a smooth blue carpet of water stretching across the river. She had never been in Geneva before. She had expected something more austere, but what she could see was soft and lovely.

She went inside.

She crossed the tasteful lobby past pink marble pillars to the reception desk. Armstead had, indeed, taken care of everything.

Five minutes later she was in her deluxe single room, patterned blue carpeting, light blue bedspread on the wide bed, blue window drapes drawn apart so that she could see a magnificent mountain - probably Mount Blanc - in the distance. Fresh chrysanthemums stood in a porcelain vase on a gla.s.s-topped table between two brown armchairs, and on the bureau rested a silver bowl of ripe fruit with plates, a fruit knife and napkins beside it. In front of the bowl an oversized manila envelope, bulging, and written across it in red crayon: For Ms. Victoria Weston, Personal, Hold for Arrival.

Ridding herself of her coat, Victoria carried the parcel to the bed, untied it, and carefully extracted the contents. There were a number of cardboard folders, each labeled, one containing material on the Palais des Nations, another with brochures on the Hotel Intercontinental, another with Xeroxed papers listing the nations and delegates attending the conference, another holding a biography of the secretary-general of the United Nations, Anton Bauer, another offering maps of Geneva and 117 environs, as well as a typed telephone list of personnel in the city who might be useful. Armstead had left nothing to chance.

Eager to announce her presence before her lunch break, Victoria moved along the side of the bed to a cabinet that held a telephone on its top and a built-in radio below. She lifted the receiver and asked for the protocol officer's secretary at the Palais des Nations.

Efficiently, she was advised to appear promptly at two o'clock if she wanted to take the first of several afternoon tours of the Palais.

Satisfied, on schedule, Victoria began to undress. There would be time for a bath and a leisurely lunch in the terrace restaurant overlooking the blue water. There would be time enough during the meal to read the material in several of her background folders.

Stripped of all her clothing, she posed naked to catch herself fully in the mirror above the bureau.

She inspected her long blond hair, pouting lips, bony broad shoulders, straight full b.r.e.a.s.t.s with nipples centered in pink areolas the size of half dollars, the indentation of her navel, the slender hips and fleshy thighs encasing the triangular mound of light pubic hair.

Surely Nick Ramsey could not think her a child.

Surely he had no idea of what he was missing.

Wrenching her mind back to the work that awaited her, she went into the tiled bathroom and ran the water in the short, square tub.

Where was the story here in this neutral clean enclave of plenty? A handful of nations, each with the technology to produce nuclear weapons, about to be admonished by the head of the United Nations that they must promise restraint in an era of disarmament. Yes, a story, but one that was old hat. What she wanted was a new explosive story, something that would make everyone in New York sit up.

Where was a king of Spain?

Where a terrorist group?

Did anything ever happen in Switzerland?

Before lunch, Victoria had arranged for the rental of an auto, and after lunch the Jaguar was ready along with explicit instructions from the concierge on how to reach the Palais des Nations.

Once she was on the curving Avenue de la Paix, she watched for the building set well above the street that would have two red crosses on the sign topping its sloping roof. The CICR or Comite International de la Croix Rouge, the headquarters of the International Red Cross. Immediately past it and across from it, she had been told, was the visitor's entrance to the Palais des Nations. The instructions were excellent. She identified the CICR building, and past it she spotted the booth that sold tickets for the Palais tours. She drove past the rambling modernistic Palais structure and then turned off the Avenue de la Paix.

Victoria had no trouble finding a parking place on a nearby side street. She hurried back to the ticket booth, where she showed the attendant her press pa.s.s. Immediately she fell in behind a stream of tourists walking toward the door of the reception room, where she had been advised to meet up with her press tour.

118.

Several groups were already gathered inside, and in one, many of the persons seemed to be armed with notepaper and pens or pencils. Victoria approached it, certain it must be the a.s.sembled press tour, and she was right. After a five-minute wait, when two others joined the group, the guide in charge, a tall, young Frenchwoman, was satisfied that everyone expected was on hand. To make sure, she read the roll aloud from the clipboard she held. In English, she read the person's name, the newspaper or magazine or television station the person represented, and the country each came from. Victoria was surprised by the variety of nations that had sent special reporters - reporters from Israel, j.a.pan, Italy, Sweden, Pakistan, Romania, Turkey, two from Austria and, nearly at the bottom of the roll call, 'Victoria Weston, New York Record, United States.'

The guide tucked her clipboard under an arm. 'We are all here so we can begin,' she announced in French. 'This is unusual, but I will give my descriptions in French, English, and German, so please be understanding. We wish to serve everyone reporting on the Non-Nuclear Nations Conference.'

She cleared her throat and continued. 'We are now in the new wing of the old League of Nations Building, officially the Palais des Nations. This new wing, added in the year 1973, enlarged our facade length from 400 meters to 575 meters, and gave to this European headquarters of the United Nations an additional ten conference rooms and seven hundred offices. If you will come with me, we will proceed,'

Victoria and the others followed their guide through a maze of corridors until they reached a long hallway, one wall lined with plastic-covered brown sofas set between the marble pillars. 'Over five thousand international meetings take place here annually,' the guide explained as they walked. 'It is by far the busiest meeting place in the world.'

Now they were led into the gallery of an attractive and stately council chamber. Looking down, they could see rows of black seats, similar to bucket seats, facing the speaker's table where the secretary-general would be addressing the conference. Victoria learned that the gla.s.sed-in section at the rear of the room, above the delegates' seats, would hold members of the simultaneous-translation staff. Above that was the balcony where they were sitting, the press and visitors' gallery, which was surrounded by powerful wall murals of gold leaf on sepia painted by Spanish artist Jose Maria Sert. The murals, Victoria realized, depicted the end of wars and the birth of peace.

The guide encouraged them to ask any questions that they might have about the Non-Nuclear Nations Conference that would start in three days. Victoria had one question: What is the purpose of the conference? The guide had a prepared answer: To persuade those countries most advanced in nuclear technology to limit its application to domestic energy needs. Anton Bauer was lending his personal prestige to the meeting to bring about a treaty to supplement the nuclear weapons freeze already agreed upon by the United States and the Soviet Union.

When the questions had ended, the group was led through more corridors and down various flights of steps until they reached the souvenir shop. After browsing for a while, most of the group emerged from the building and strolled across a path toward a flagpole flying the blue United Nations flag. Victoria was instandy entranced by the landscape - a rolling green lawn, in the center of the lawn what appeared to be a giant bronze or gold sphere set above a reflecting pond, and behind the monument an array of h.o.a.ry cedar and cypress trees backed by the shining waters of the Lake Geneva.

Victoria pointed. 'That gold ball - I can't figure out what it stands for?'

119.

'I was just reading about that,' said the young woman next to her. 'What you see in the center is the Woodrow Wilson armillary sphere - an ancient astronomical instrument; the rings represent the positions of the planets. This was a gift from the United States, dedicated to the memory of President Wilson and his efforts on behalf of permanent peace.'

Victoria gazed at the globe in wonder. Fifteen minutes later, she was walking back to her car with her notes.

One contradiction was clear to Victoria and it bewildered her.

The a.s.signment was dull, dull, dull.

Yet, Armstead was shrewd.

It didn't make sense at all.

Once in her car, starting back to the Beau-Rivage, she made up her mind not to resist or be difficult.

It was a job to be done, and she would dutifully phone New York and report what she had seen. Tomorrow's a.s.signment, she hoped, would be better.

As it turned out the following morning, tomorrow's a.s.signment proved to be worse.

Victoria had always prided herself on her imaginative ability to turn anything, no matter how static, no matter how unpromising, into a readable story. But the notes for this second story that Armstead had ordered her to prepare - raw material for an advance feature on the luxurious Hotel Intercontinental in Geneva, and the accommodations that Anton Bauer would have here - baffled her. Bauer himself, from what she had read, might be a good story. This dynamic, athletic blond Austrian, from a poor family and with a background in music, had worked his way up until he became a leading international diplomat and currently head of the United Nations. He could be written about. But his hotel in Geneva? His accommodations in that hotel? Impossible.

Yet, led by an a.s.sistant manager with buck teeth and swallow tails into the hotel's presidential suite, prepared for Bauer's arrival the next day, Victoria doggedly determined to make the story possible.

Her notebook was already filled with scribblings about her drive on Route de Ferney to the Hotel Intercontinental, the doorman with black plug hat and emerald green coat and white trousers, the large ground-floor lobby with twin escalators connecting it to the mezzanine with its shops and reception desk (padded counter), and elevators.

Now, from the elevator, she had come to Bauer's suite. Slowly she wandered through the vast sitting room, the a.s.sistant manager beside her babbling away. An awesome room, a majestic one.

At the left was a great grouping of two four-cushioned sofas and four deep velour armchairs. To the right, a grand piano and bench, a bar, a table circled with straight-backed chairs, another table bearing an oversized basket heaped with fresh fruit.

When she had finished her inspection and was at the door ready to leave, she looked back once more.

In her mind's eye, she tried to infuse the suite with life, tried to animate it with Bauer and nuclear conference delegates in private consultations.

But it didn't happen. The rich living room remained what it was - a room.

120.

Disgusted, Victoria left the suite and the hotel, embarra.s.sed by what she would have to report to Armstead.

When her Jaguar was returned to her, she tipped the doorman for helping her in behind the wheel, snapped on her seatbelt, and considered the time on the clock dashboard. It was still morning, far too early to telephone Armstead in New York - he would not be in the office yet - and she knew that she had three or four hours of freedom ahead of her. She had planned tomorrow, her day off before the conference, to take a tour of the city. She had the choice of moving that up, doing that now, and then decided against it. She was in the mood for countryside. Her map of Switzerland lay folded on the pa.s.senger seat. She opened it. As she scanned it, her focus held on the Geneva-to-Lausanne highway along the lake, labeled Nl, and on instinct she felt that the drive gave promise of being colorful. She started the Jaguar and wheeled away from the Intercontinental to find the Nl.

The leisurely drive outside Geneva did indeed prove to be colorful. Victoria drove at a slackened pace, inhaling the fresh air, taking in the villas built along the lake, the placid small farms, the fruit orchards. After half an hour on the road she had covered only twenty kilometers and found herself in the ancient town of Nyon, which she decided to explore.

She had slowed to a stop at the intersection of the avenues Viollier and Perdtemps, idly casting about for sight of an outdoor cafe where she might pause to have tea, when she thought she saw something - someone - that made her blink.

What she saw was a man sauntering toward, and turning into, a building that might be a hotel - that was a hotel, she could see, a five-story building with a sign reading: hotel des alpes. She had blinked because she thought that she recognized the man, knew him from some other place, and because it was so surprising to see him here in this little-known Swiss town.

She'd had only a glimpse of him at the corner, turning away and entering into the hotel, disappearing from sight. She tried to recall who he was. Her glimpse of him had been of a slender, youngish man, around six feet, a brimmed hat sitting on a head of dark curly hair, close-set eyes, hooked nose, thick lips, maybe a blemished complexion.

Like a fugitive from an Edward G. Robinson gangster movie.

She had characterized him like that the first time she had met him, and instantly she made the a.s.sociation and had full recognition.

Gus Pagano.

Of course. Gus Pagano, the onetime petty thief and informant whom she had interviewed in New York as her first a.s.signment on the Record.

What was Pagano, of all people, doing in someplace called Nyon, Switzerland?

A horn was honking behind her, and immediately she wanted to park and have a reunion with Pagano. Out of curiosity. Out of a sudden need to talk to someone from faraway who was familiar.

Out of desire to have a companion for tea or lunch.

The honking behind her was persisting, and Victoria tried to get her bearings. Then she saw that a parking lot was right at hand, the Place Perdtemps, a huge free parking lot for tourists who had come to visit the chateau that housed a museum down below.

121.

Victoria stepped on the gas pedal, wrenched her Jaguar off the street into the half-empty lot, and pulled into the nearest parking s.p.a.ce.

Jumping out of the car, she traversed the lot and the street and entered the Hotel des Alpes.

It was a confined lobby with only three lounge chairs, and a reception desk toward the back. There was no one in the lobby, not Gus Pagano or anyone else. Victoria strode quickly to the reception desk, but this was also empty, unattended. She saw a bell on the counter, obviously to be rung for service, and so she pushed it.

In seconds a swarthy young waiter, possibly Italian, popped out of the adjacent restaurant, sized Victoria up, determined that she was American, and spoke apologetically in English. 'Forgive me,'

he said. T am waiting on the restaurant tables but I am also the reception clerk today. You wish to register?'

'No,' said Victoria. 'You have a guest here who is a friend of mine. I'd like to see him. Can you tell me his room number?'

The waiter went behind the reception counter, and brought the guest register closer. 'His name, please?'

'Mr. Pagano. Gus Pagano. From New York.'

T will see.' The waiter-clerk went down the open page, turned to the previous page, then to the one before that. 'Will you spell the name for me, please?'

'P-a-g-a-n-o. Pagano.'

The young man ran his finger down each page again, shaking his head. 'Sorry, there is no name Pagano.'

'Let me see the register,' Victoria said. He handed it to her. She scanned both pages. No Pagano.

Puzzled, she said, T saw him come in here a few minutes ago.'

'Not registered.'

'Maybe he was just going to the restaurant?'

'No, not there. No one has come there for a half hour. Miss, maybe he is just visiting a friend who stays in the hotel. Then, of course, we would not know his name.'

This was a possibility that had not occurred to Victoria. More than a possibility, it was a likelihood.

She thanked the young man, and walked out of the Hotel des Alpes lobby. She felt vaguely disappointed. Which was ridiculous, she told herself, because she hardly knew Pagano and could not even remember if she had liked him.

Glancing at her watch as she left the hotel, she decided that it might be best to skip Lausanne and get back to Geneva. She would want a little while to review her notes before telephoning Armstead.

She still dreaded phoning her publisher - when the most exciting sight she had seen today was only another member of his staff, a part-time one at that, in Switzerland on a holiday.

By midafternodn Victoria had made her connection with New York City and was holding the receiver to her ear, waiting for Estelle to put Edward Armstead on the phone.

The loose pages torn from her notebook with their scribbled information on the Hotel Intercontinental were a.s.sembled on her lap, and she reviewed them a fourth time, helplessly.

122.

'This is Armstead. That you, Victoria?'

'Yes, Mr. Armstead. You wanted me to call you with my notes on the Intercontinental.'

'You're right on time, I see. Did you confirm that Anton Bauer is still going to be staying there?'

'He's checking in tomorrow.' She hesitated, and swallowed. 'Mr. Armstead, I must tell you, I did my very best at the hotel. They gave me every cooperation, a bright a.s.sistant manager to show me around -'

'I'd expect that. I used to stay there.'

'- so I'm not complaining about their part. But I must say, Mr. Armstead, despite seeing everything, there's very little to write about.'

'Let me be the judge of that, Victoria.'

'Yes, of course. I was simply trying to point out - true, it's a five-star hotel - but really nothing special -'

'No special preparations for the UN secretary-general?'

'Not that I could observe.'

'Well, you go ahead and dictate what you saw and heard.'

'Are you going to take down every word of it?'

'No, don't worry, young lady. I have Estelle on the line with me. She'll take what you dictate in shorthand. I'll stay on the line to listen in, in case I have some questions... Estelle, you ready?'

'Ready,' Victoria could hear his secretary say.