Numbered Account

"Keep your nose clean after I'm gone. I can see that look in your eyes sometimes. Been here a month and every morning you come in like it was your first day all over again. You've got something going. Can't fool Uncle Peter."

Nick looked at Sprecher as if what he'd said were absurd. "Believe it or not, I like it here. There's nothing going on."

Sprecher shrugged resignedly. "If you say so. Just do as you're told and keep Schweitzer off your back. You know his story?"

"Schweitzer's?"

Sprecher nodded, his eyes opened widely in mock terror. "The London Ladykiller."

"No, I don't." And after thinking about Becker and Cerruti, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Schweitzer made his name with the bank trading Eurobonds in London during the late seventies," said Sprecher. "Eurodollars, Europetrol, Euroyen- they were halcyon days. Everyone was making a fortune. From dawn till dusk, Schweitzer leaned on his staff to package a maximum of offerings. From dusk till dawn, he prowled London 's poshest clubs, dragging an entourage of once and future clients from Annabel's to Tramp. If you couldn't syndicate a double A deutsche mark offering at three A.M., two bottles of Tullamore Dew down the hatch and a quiver of tarts at the by, you shouldn't be in this business: the Schweitzer credo. And it put USB at the top of the rankings."

Sprecher laughed at the thought, then finished off the dregs of his mug.

"One fine spring afternoon," he continued, "Schweitzer arrived a little late to his suite at the Savoy Hotel. The board of directors had reserved it permanently on his behalf. Convinced them he needed a refined setting in which to meet his clients, he had. The office was too small, too busy. So in walks Armin only to find his most recent mistress, a young minx from Cincinnati, Ohio, and his wife arguing like wildcats."

Nick thought the whole thing sounded like a bad soap opera. "So what happened?"

Sprecher ordered another beer, then went on. "What happened next is still foggy. The official version put forth by the bank stated that at some point during the ensuing altercation, the good Frau Schweitzer, mother of two daughters, treasurer of the Zollikon curling club, and wife of fifteen-odd years to a philanderer of notorious repute, removed a handgun from her purse and shot Armin's mistress dead. A single round through the heart. Appalled at her actions, she put the revolver to her own head and fired a bullet into her right temporal lobe. Death was instantaneous. As was the transfer of her dearly beloved back to the Zurich head office, where he was assigned to a post of comparative importance though, I dare say, reduced visibility. Got himself a broom closet in the basement. Compliance."

"And the unofficial version?" Nick demanded.

"The unofficial version found its champion in Yogi Bauer, Schweitzer's deputy at the tragic moment. He's been retired awhile, but you can find him in some of Zurich 's seedier watering holes, of which the Gottfried Keller Stubli, I am proud to say, is one. Lives here day and night."

Sprecher looked over his left shoulder and whistled loudly. "Hey, Yogi," he yelled, hoisting a full glass above his head. "Here's to Frau Schweitzer!"

A black-haired figure bent over a table in the darkest corner of the bar raised a glass in return. "Fucking unbelievable," Yogi Bauer yelled. "Only housewife in Europe who could smuggle a loaded handgun through two international airports. My kind of girl! Prosit!"

"Prosit," answered Sprecher, before taking a long pull from his beer. "Yogi's the bank's unofficial historian. Earns his keep regaling us with tales from our illustrious past."

"How much of that one is true?" Nick asked.

"April 19, 1978. Look it up in the papers. Made big news over here. The point is steer clear of Schweitzer. He has a hard-on for Americans. Half of the reason Ott's recruits don't last is because Schweitzer is all over them from day one. Yogi claims the American mistress had called Schweitzer's wife and told her that he was going to ask for a divorce so he could marry her. Ever since, Armin hasn't been a big fan of the Stars and Stripes."

Nick placed both hands in front of him and patted the air gently, as if telling his colleague to slow down. "We're talking about the same Armin Schweitzer. Big guy, nice gut hanging over his belt. You're telling me this guy was a real Casanova?"

"The prick who told you yesterday morning that he'd rather drive a 'Trabi' than a Ford. That's him. The one and only."

Nick tried to smile, to slough off all he had heard, but he couldn't. Somehow being party to Sprecher's inchoate suspicions had altered his perception of the bank. Becker murdered; Cerruti, a basket case unable to cope; and now Schweitzer, a gun-toting maniac. Who else was there he didn't know about?