Dollar Down (3 page)

Her hair fell softly across my chest. Her head rose and
fell with my breathing. "Are you going to find him, Mick?"

"Ask me again next week. I had expected to make more
progress."

"It's only been a day."

"Usually finding people isn't that hard, unless they
don't want to be found and have the resources to hide. Or, if
they..."

Sabine touched her fingers to my lips. She didn't want
to hear the more dire possibility.

"I'll keep in touch with his brother," I said. "Trevor still
might contact him. I asked his secretary to send a bulletin
throughout the firm. That's a worldwide resource. I also hired
an investigator in Caracas to check Diego Cervantes' status in
Petroleos de Venezuela. There might not be a connection, but
Trevor apparently thought the guy was important."

"I feel that Trevor is alive and well, but maybe scared. I
also think you'll figure all this out and bring him back."

I traced the length of her spine and pressed her against
me. In the comfort of her warmth, I let myself relax and believe
her. "Do you like vineyards?"

"I adore vineyards, stamping about in the country,
stealing grapes."

"I have a friend who has a few cottages on his vineyard
in Bordeaux. We could spend the weekend if you're free."

Sabine slid on top of me, kissed my lips and ran her
fingers along my temples. "Thank you Mick, but I can't. I keep
my weekends free for my husband."

"Your husband? You're separated?"

"Not at all, at least not in that sense. We have a home
outside the city. I stay here during the week."

My breathing suddenly grew shallow. I should have
asked. I should have known. It probably wouldn't have made
any difference in what just happened, but at least I could have
put a leash on my rampaging emotions.

"He knows." Sabine kissed me again. "He's an
extraordinary man, whom I love with the same fervor as when
we wed. He is in bed what Blake is on paper—a genius of
mystical refinement. And you Mick are—"

"Robert Service?"

Sabine brushed her hand along my chest, down my
stomach, between my legs and squeezed.

"A Dangerous Dan McGrew."

I grunted and hoped I met a better demise.

Before going into the office, I went with Sabine to file a
missing-person report with the police. The man who
interviewed us was efficient and polite, but he seemed to
harbor some expectation that Trevor might come back from a
woozy tryst today or tomorrow.

Sabine told him that was highly unlikely considering
the nature of his work. A sudden absence could wreck any
chance for his being elected to a director's post.

The policeman nodded sagely. "There's much pressure
at work, no? A little escape to refresh is understandable."

"It is
not
understandable. That's why I'm
here." Sabine said.

"There's been no word from family, and it's been only
one day."

"He has no family in Paris. He missed a client meeting.
You
do not understand. That's disastrous for him, for
his career."

"Disaster?"

The policeman's voice hardened and revealed what he
saw as disaster—lives wasted to drugs, beatings, murder. The
career of a wealthy consultant seemed not to make the
list.

"If he is still missing in a day or two, come back. It
would be better to hear from his family."

"I just told you he doesn't—."

"Have family in Paris. He must have family somewhere.
If you'll excuse me..."

On the way back to Winchell, Sabine did a lot of
muttering about bureaucratic inefficiency. By the time we got
there she was refocused on work. She briefed me on the firm's
structure while we waited in her office for Alexandra Roussel,
the associate assigned to the Orimulsion study.

As a director, Sabine was working on four other
studies. Trevor was a partner and worked on two others.
Associate consultants and business analysts worked only one
study at a time. They handled the drudgery—staying up late
writing reports, drawing charts, and doing legwork, including
interviews and on-site research. Industry specialists, where I'd
been slotted, helped out as necessary. Directors were left
pretty much to run their studies as they saw fit. That's how
Sabine got me temporarily on the payroll with no hassle.

Alexandra knocked twice and opened the door without
waiting for a response. She had a sculptured beauty that
exuded all the warmth of chiseled marble, and she moved with
physical economy. Her attire was a simple skirt, blouse and
pumps that needed polish.

"Mr. Sanchez," she nodded slightly in my direction. I
stood to greet her at the same time as she sat down without
waiting for a handshake or a nod. I plopped back like a
jack-in-the-box. I had a lot to learn about economy of motion.

"Mick," I said.

Sabine interrupted our banter. "Alexandra, take thirty
minutes to brief Mick on the study. Charge his time to the firm
as client development, and yours as well, if you need to."

"It won't be necessary. I'll easily have seven hours that
are billable to client."

"Good. For now, I think all of Mick's time should be
billed in-house as development. Show him how to fill out a time
sheet. As far as his contribution to the study, he will be
working on a special project for me. Keep him current.
Cooperate if he has questions, but he won't be of any help to
you just yet. None of the Paris partners can spare time for this
study. I've started looking outside for a partner to replace
Trevor. It looks like we'll get someone from the UK. I'll know
by tomorrow."

I smiled at my new colleague. Lose a key player; win
Mick the albatross.

Alexandra had an office a third the size of Sabine's and
four times larger than my cubicle. She pulled an armful of
folders from a cabinet and asked her secretary to secure a
conference room immediately. It was 11:03 a.m. when we got
settled in. Alexandra turned her watch back to eleven on the
dot to make it easier to time our thirty-minute session.

"What is your project with Sabine?"

"Security contingencies. There have been
demonstrations against Orimulsion in Florida and other
places." I'd been modestly proud of my creativity in coming up
with a suitable job description for myself, but Alexandra
squinted at me as though I had tried to sell her a vial of snake
oil.

"It's a new field for the firm" I said. "With increased
political dangers around the world, they're giving it a test. I
used to work for Global Risk Management, what you would call
a boutique consultancy, highly specialized. Some of Winchell's
directors, forward thinking directors, believe security issues to
be vital enough to integrate into selected studies."

Alexandra didn't exactly clap me on the shoulder, but
she did ease up on the squint. "I had not heard, but I suppose I
can see how it works here."

Note to myself: prepare a proposal to the directors for
a full-time job when this is over.

"As I'm sure you know," she said, "the U.S. has been
shifting its reliance on oil to domestic production and imports
from the Western hemisphere. Only about twenty-five percent
is imported. Of that only twenty percent comes from Persian
Gulf states, compared with more than fifty percent from
Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. However, PDVSA, Petroleos de
Venezuela, is losing market share. It was once the second
largest exporter to the U.S. After Chavez was elected president
and now under Maduro, that has declined, and in 2013 U.S.
imports fell to the lowest since 1985. Now, Venezuela is
focused on China. It exports hundreds of thousands of barrels
daily, just to repay loans from that country.

"Chinese President Xi and Maduro recently signed five
billion dollars worth of financial deals from communications
satellites to oil-field development. China's the main player now,
not the U.S."

Alexandra had been pointing to charts too fast for me
to follow. She stuffed them all into a folder then broke out a
new set.

"Venezuela has seventy-seven billion barrels of proven
oil reserves and more than one point two trillion barrels of
extra-heavy oil or bitumen, mostly in the Orinoco belt. The
country has more hydrocarbons than the entire Persian Gulf
region. By some estimates, it has the largest reserves in the
world, or at least comparable to Canada. Of the country's total
bitumen, two hundred seventy billion barrels are considered
commercially recoverable with current prices and technology.
That compares with Saudi Arabia's estimated two hundred
fifty billion barrels of mostly light crude. Venezuela also has an
interest in undeveloped fields in the Gulf of Paria and the
Serpent's Mouth Channel between Venezuela and Trinidad.
Our study is to extend markets in the EU for Venezuela's extra
heavy crude, specifically Orimulsion."

She paused and stared at me long enough to see
through my facade.

I wondered what element produced a hazel-hued
laser.

"Why are you really here, Mick?"

There are some things I do well. Working out logical
sequences in investigations is one. Combative confrontation is
another. I hadn't known it before, but facing hazel eyes in
sculptured beauty was something I'm not good at. "You should
ask Sabine."

"I'm asking you. Is it about Trevor? If it is, I have a right
to know."

"Between you and me. No one else."

She eased off on the lasers.

"I'm here because Trevor hired me."

By her watch, I had thirteen minutes to tell her all I
knew. When I finished, she said, "I see," and headed for
Sabine's office.

Whatever those two had to say to each other could get
said without my input. I asked Trevor's secretary to let me into
his office. This time I shooed her out and closed the door. I'd
made only a quick pass through before. There was a good
chance I'd missed some things. I hadn't looked in his computer
at all. I fired it up, entered the company password and started
going through files. The phone rang.

"A Mr. Gavizon," Trevor's secretary said. She punched
me through.

It was my Venezuelan investigator. "
Que paso
,
cabron
," I said. In other words, "cheers."

"Drop the home boy slang, Sanchez." Gavizon spoke
street English as well as every Spanish dialect in Latin America.
"I almost feel guilty taking your money."

"Why's that?"

"Your man, Diego Cervantes, he's not with PDVSA. He's
what you might call an enforcer for Maduro."

"Your president?"

"Last I heard, yeah. Easy trace, but I'll let you pay me
anyway. You said a week. I've spent a day. Do you want
anything else?"

"Stay on him. Anything you can find, let me know. If
you can tell me what he was doing in Paris with PDVSA people,
there's a ten percent bonus."

"Ten percent!
Pendejo.
Make it fifteen."

"Drop the home boy slang, Jorge." I hung up and went
back to browsing files.

Data on the Petroleos Venezuela study was well
organized, but Trevor had a weird habit of hiding some
personal files in system or application folders. It didn't provide
any kind of security. It just made it hard to locate things,
especially if you didn't know what you were looking for.

I ran searches on names from the list. I got several hits,
but nothing interesting until I got to Mumby, the jittery
investment banker. The one file in his folder contained a list of
dates with a percentage written next to each one. Maybe
Mumby made book on the side.

The secretary poked her head in and said that Sabine
wanted to see me. I passed Alexandra as she was leaving
Sabine's office. She didn't look happy.

"Sit down, Mick," Sabine said. "I made a mistake in the
way I brought you in, but it's one we will need to live with for a
while. As long as you're with us only a short time and you keep
a low profile, there's no reason for anyone outside the study to
challenge you. I suggest you move out of your hotel and into
my flat. You'll have better workspace and communications. I'll
set you up with a computer. The less time you spend here the
better."

"It's a deal." I looked for the imp in Sabine's eye, but I
only saw its shadow.

My hotel was on a back street near St. Lazare Station, a
working-class district close to central Paris. I packed my bag,
checked out and then headed for the station down a blue-collar
block of Rue de Lordes. Even this place testified to the city's
ageless beauty with buildings signed by their creators. Thus,
Monsieur A. Aldrophe won another fifteen seconds of
immortality each time a commuter or wandering tourist
glanced up and saw his name next to carvings of classic beauty
that spoke of anything but blue-collar.

Sabine's flat was in the Montmartre hills, amid quaint
cafes, tourist trails and a few urban vineyards. The first time I
was here, she said her husband knew. I didn't bring that
subject up again, but I didn't think she was talking only about
me. I didn't much care. Life came in daily doses. I'd let too
much of it slide by to worry about epic design.

Sabine met me at the door. She showed me where to
unpack—and how to undress.

I doubt they approved, but Grandmas Sanchez and
Fitzgerald emerged in my mind. The two women who'd taken
turns raising me granted me absolution, and faded away. Even
after a war, and decades of my bottom fishing the dregs of
humanity, they still showed up in my mind when I needed
them, but they closed their eyes on cue.

I wanted to know as much of Sabine as I could. The
painting that hung in her office had intrigued me. She traced
her finger across my stomach, as though she were drawing. It
was her own work, she said. The form was Nihon-ga, "Japanese
painting." In that style, the artist makes her own paints from
natural materials such as ground rock, shell, and vegetable
pigments. The paints are mixed with organic glue so that layers
can be built up like Western oil, but the texture is fluid and
more delicate than oil. She'd learned it during a stint in
Japan.