City of Dreams (67 page)

They were standing in a ratty little front room in a lonely flat in a lonely building near the corner of Grand and Clinton.

Henry had forced the door.

The flat was empty. Not only was it empty, the dresser in the corner had been pulled apart. Drawers lay on the floor. Old clothes were scattered all about. Somebody had cleared out . . . and fast.

Evangeline noticed a little dog’s bed in the corner. She crouched and picked up a chew toy.

“Look at this.” Peter found two wigs in the top drawer, one all dreadlocks, the other a silken blond.

Henry picked up a blue hat from under the bed. “Mets fan anyway.”

Evangeline looked at Peter, “Do you really think she was orchestrating everything from here?”

He shook his head. “Looks like she was just surviving.”

Henry gave a little shiver. “This the kind of place where you kill a rat, the roaches carry him off for you. Let’s get on out of here.”

“Wait a minute.” Evangeline sniffed at the air. “Do you . . . do you notice that?”

“Notice what?” said Peter.

“Chanel.”

“Chanel
what
?” said Henry. “Chanel Number
Ass
?”

Evangeline ignored him and followed her nose toward the little windowless bathroom off the kitchen. “A lady splashed perfume here.”

Henry looked over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t take a leak here. Let’s go.”

Back on the street, Henry looked around at the sea of empty lots. “Like the E Ticket says, now what?”

Peter hailed a cab and told the others to get in.

“This better be good,” said Henry, “’cause I’m thinkin’ we do ourselves a favor by sittin’ down with my friends on the NYPD and givin’ out with a few explanations just about now.”

“This show isn’t over yet.” Peter told the driver, “Forty-eight Wall Street.”

“From the fryin’ pan into the green money fire,” said Henry.

W
ALL
S
TREET WAS
one way heading east. You couldn’t access it in a car from Broadway, and since 9/11, there were barriers, posts, pillars, hard solutions, soft solutions, security guards, and security cams just about everywhere. So the driver dropped them at the corner of Pine and William streets.

They walked a block down William and turned west. On the left was the famous Morgan Bank. And at the head of the street, staring down on American commerce like the benevolent eye of God, was Trinity Church. On the right, at the head of Broad Street, were the steps of the Federal Hall Museum, leading to the statue of George Washington.

Peter stopped for a moment and took it all in.

“Like I asked the E Ticket,” said Henry, “y’all think this is the street of dreams, or the street of schemes?”

“I’d have to say that it’s both,” answered Peter. “Come on.”

At the polished brass doors of 48 Wall, a green banner proclaimed,
THE MONEY, THE POWER, THE HISTORY.

Henry read the banner and said, “That’s what it’s all about, baby.”

“They could be talking about us this week,” said Evangeline.

Peter pulled open the door. “Welcome to the Museum of American Finance. Former home of the Bank of New York.”

A small sign in the vestibule announced,
PRIVATE EVENT. MUSEUM REOPENS AT NOON
.

The ticket booth was to the right, the coatroom to the left, and directly ahead, a half-story entrance rotunda, with marble and bronze staircases curling right and left around a marble and bronze floor medallion. Somewhere above the rotunda, the amplified voice of Austin Arsenault was echoing. The meeting had already begun.

As they entered, a guy in a chauffeur’s uniform stepped out of the coat-room: Vitaly, scowling.

Henry flipped open the coat, and whispered, “No matter what you carryin’, mine’s bigger, baby. So be cool.”

The woman at the ticket booth did not notice this little exchange. She was speaking to Peter. “Yes, sir, the Paul Revere Foundation Meeting is up the stairs. Are you members, sir. Sir?”

But Peter and Evangeline were already heading into the little rotunda and taking the staircase to the right. Henry was going up on the other side.

Peter read the medallion as they went. “‘On this spot, Alexander Hamilton founded the Bank of New York.’”

“The Plymouth Rock of American financial history,” said Evangeline. “And there’s nothing we can do here except look at it.”

“Look and be seen. Antonov will know we did our due diligence. Then maybe he’ll leave us alone. He might even thank us for wiping out his opposition.”

“He gonna have some opposition from the FBI, I think,” said Henry from the other side.

“And we owe it to ourselves to be with Arsenault when the decision comes down in”—Peter glanced at his watch—“about fifteen minutes.”

“He headed for trouble, too,” added Henry.

In a short climb, the stairs ended in one of the most magnificent spaces in New York, the grand mezzanine banking hall.

Evangeline said, “I feel like I’ve died and gone to marble heaven.”

After the Bank of New York moved, this columned, coffered space had been protected as a national landmark. Now it was filled with exhibits that Peter thought were among the best that he had ever seen. He had been here before, and as a trustee at a few New England museums, he knew good work when he saw it.

Hard to go wrong when you started with the all that marble, and architecture designed to impress well-heeled customers, and the 1928 Hewlett murals depicting commerce and trade in New York. An exhibit under an archway showed the history of money. Others explored the effect of the Civil War on finance, the reasons for the crashes of ’29 and ’87, the workings of the bond market. And on the right was a time line of the 2008 credit crisis, a marvel of clarity for all its complexity, explaining how we had come close to a financial meltdown long after we thought we had safeguarded such things out of the system.

One of the three video kiosks—dedicated to explaining stocks, bonds, and futures—had been removed so that the main exhibit floor could accommodate two hundred chairs for the annual meeting of the Paul Revere Foundation.

And this was Austin Arsenault’s show. Not only was he standing at the podium. He was on every video screen in the place—screens that usually ran interviews with modern entrepreneurs, or old archive film, or clips from
It’s a Wonderful Life
that explained in simple terms how money flowed from individuals into the credit and capital system and back again to individuals.

“In some fifteen minutes,” Arsenault was saying, “we expect one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in our history, and by ‘our’ I mean the nation
and
the Paul Revere Foundation and—”

Arsenault saw Peter and Evangeline, and he hesitated, then he stumbled over a few words, and then he scowled, perhaps at himself because he never stumbled in front of an audience. Then he caught Owen T. Magee’s eye and nodded toward the top of the stairs—go talk to them. Then he got back to his speech.

The room was almost full. Lots of gray heads and gray suits. Some younger people, too. No one looked as if they were worried about their next meal or their next trip to Europe. And no one even bothered to look at Magee as he scuttled along the outer rim of chairs and back to the stairwell at the top of the rotunda.

Evangeline whispered to Peter, “You should hand out business cards. Probably some money collectors here.”

“Scripophilists, you mean?”

“No. The kind of people who collect the money in banks.”

“So?” Magee came right up to them and whispered, “Did you find the bonds?”

“We think so,” said Peter.

“You
think
so?” Magee twitched his eyes toward Evangeline. “Where are they?”

“We lost them,” said Evangeline.

“You lost them?”

“As you said, there are a lot of dangerous people after them. In fact, one of them is sitting right there.” Peter gestured to Antonov, who was watching from his aisle seat.

Antonov gave Peter a look and a small gesture—do you have something for me?

Peter shook his head and opened his palms—afraid not.

“And one of the dangerous people won,” said Evangeline. “He killed a man right in front of me.”

“Great,” said Owen T. Magee. “Just great . . . great fucking news.”

“Way to show sympathy for what I’ve just been through,” said Evangeline.

Now heads were turning, because it was a room where voices echoed. And while Arsenault was talking into a microphone, even a whisper rose to the ceiling and reverberated.

Magee wiped a line of perspiration from his upper lip. “This means it’s over.” He looked back at the podium, then he pulled out his phone and turned for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” asked Peter.

“To save myself.”

Peter watched him go down into the little rotunda and heard him say, “Agent Sullivan, please. This is Owen T. Magee returning his call.”

Peter whispered to Evangeline, “The little weasel is calling the FBI. He’s—”

At that moment, Vitaly appeared from somewhere under the staircase and ripped the phone from Magee’s hands, opened the door, and threw it out onto Wall Street.

Owen T. Magee went chasing after it.

Vitaly looked up at Peter and Evangeline and grinned, flashing that tooth.

At the podium, Arsenault was fumbling, distracted by the noise from below. “We . . . ah . . . we believe that we have two bonds that will soon be redeemable. And . . . ah . . . the New Emission Money, ladies and gentlemen, will . . . unh . . .”

Peter led Evangeline over to the back row. Henry positioned himself at the place where the staircases met, where he had a view of the entrance below.

Arsenault gave Henry a long look, then he fumbled on for a few minutes more about the New Emission Money, the role of the Paul Revere Foundation, the importance of membership in the organization.

Then there was a commotion down at the rotunda entrance. It echoed up. Heads turned. And Henry disappeared down the stairs.

Peter heard the sounds of struggle, of voices, of someone hitting the floor.

Then Henry reappeared to the increasingly nervous and distracted audience of big players and Wall Street rollers. He tugged at his tie and grinned at Peter.

Arsenault fumbled again. “As I was . . . unh . . . saying . . .”

Then came a new sound, the distinct
tick-tick-tick
of high heels on marble.

And Evangeline thought that she smelled Chanel no. 5.

Then a woman appeared at the top of the staircase. She was wearing a suit of light brown silk over a tan blouse, accented by a yellow Hermès scarf. Her hair, cut short and spiky, was brown graying fast.

She was also holding a mahogany box . . .
the
mahogany box.

“My God,” whispered Evangeline. “That’s the bag lady.”

A moment later, Joey Berra appeared at the top of the other staircase. He was wearing a blue pin-striped suit and a gray tie that picked up the color of the pinstripe.

Henry leaned over to Joey. “This your show, baby.”

Joey said, “It’s hers.” Then he made a gesture to the woman.

By now, everyone was watching. The woman hesitated a moment, then she started down the aisle between the two hundred members of the Paul Revere Foundation.

Her heels
tick-tick-ticked
over the black-and-white marble floor.

And once she started moving, Joey stepped in behind her.

Arsenault went to say a few more words, but the smooth had completely deserted him. He fumbled and fell silent.

The woman carried the box in front of her as though it contained jewels, and depending on the court decision, its contents might be worth more than the Hope diamond.

Peter whispered to Evangeline, “This is going to be good.”

Evangeline said, “What do you mean ‘going to be’? It’s good already.”

Her shoes—Jimmy Choo? Versace?—
tick-tick-ticked
past all those rich men and women of finance, so many of them running feeder funds for Avid Investments, past Will Wedge and a dozen other Harvard-educated brokers who did business with Arsenault because he was a Harvard man and had to be trustworthy, past the empty seat of Owen T. Magee, and up to the podium where Arsenault stood, watching this high-heeled advance.

Tick-tick-tick
.

Finally, Arsenault said, “What is this about, miss? What is in that box?”

Joey Berra moved his bulk close to Arsenault, put his hand over the microphone, and said, “Please sit down, sir.”

“Sit down?” said Arsenault. “At my own meeting? I don’t think so.”

Joey whispered through clenched teeth, though everyone could hear, “Sit down. Now.”

Several of the ladies and gentlemen in the audience, who weren’t used to such scenes and certainly weren’t used to seeing one of their own talked to like that, murmured, grumbled, stood. A few of the males made moves to the podium.

But from the back of the room, came Henry Baxter’s big, deep voice. “The man said sit down and listen. He meant y’all. So sit the fuck
down
.”

After another moment of snapping heads, reddened faces, confusion, Henry Baxter said to the podium, “Proceed, ma’am, if you please.”

The woman put the box in front of her.

“My name”—she cleared her throat—“my name is Jennifer Wilson.”

“What?” Austin Arsenault, who had not gone far, stepped forward again. “That’s a damned lie. Jennifer Wilson is dead.”

That brought a murmur in the room. A few of them probably remembered the Magee & Magee associate who had gone on to fame and ignominy with Intermetro.

Joey put a finger to his lips.

Arsenault said, “I won’t have you besmirching—”

And from the back came Henry’s voice. “Don’t make me come up there, Mr. Avid Austin. I ain’t as polite as Joey B.”

Arsenault gave Henry another look, then stepped back.

Peter had to chuckle. He knew that Henry was having a helluva time.

Evangeline wasn’t chuckling. She was watching wide-eyed with a lump in her throat. From the moment she met her on the Bowling Green, she knew that the bag lady was more than she appeared. Most people were.