Montaro Caine (22 page)

The landline was ringing as he entered his living room. That phone rarely rang; he hoped there wasn’t an emergency at the office; his plan was to nap for an hour before venturing across town for his weekly poker game. He snatched the receiver from its cradle.

“Curly Bennett here.”

The voice on the other end of the phone startled him. “Hi there, Curly Bennett. Gina Lao here. Remember me?”

How could he forget? “Gina. Of course I remember you.”

She had caught his eye the first time he’d seen her at Fitzer accompanied by Michen Borceau. He had wanted to talk to her then, but though they had crossed paths several times at company headquarters, no graceful opportunity had presented itself. The nature of his business had taught him to proceed cautiously in such matters with a fellow employee. He wasn’t able to talk to Gina until six months later at a company party at the Hilton, where they were formally introduced.

At the party, Gina picked up his scent almost immediately, and with mild flirtatious glances, she let him know. Encouraged, he began to close in gently as the evening wore on. But soon he noticed that, with each step he took toward her, she drifted farther away. Finally, Curly labeled her a high-end tease and dismissed any thoughts of her. Now, rumor had it that she was dating Alan Rothman, a slick creep who made Curly even more dubious of Gina’s character.

“Curly, I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time,” Gina said now.

“Oh no, not at all.”

“I’m so glad. I need your advice on something.”

“Advice on what?”

“Well, the phone’s so impersonal; I wonder if we could meet for a drink.”

“Depends on when and where,” Curly said. “I’ve got a poker game tonight.”

“Oh my goodness. Curly, it won’t take long—a half hour, forty-five minutes at the most. Would you mind coming to my apartment? I would really appreciate it.”

Despite his cautious instincts, Curly felt an instant response in his groin, as if some involuntary message had been reflexively dispatched to his testicles.

“Do you still live in the Village?” he asked as he swallowed hard.

“I do,” she said. And after she had given Curly the address and hung up her phone, she placed a call to Alan Rothman.

A
LITTLE MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS EARLIER, DURING ONE
long, tedious train ride home from her grandmother’s house in Omaha, Nebraska, to her mother’s apartment in Lincoln, seven-year-old Cordiss Krinkle had counted telephone poles as the flat, gray landscape streaked past her window seat. Then, when the telephone poles no longer interested her, she reached across to the seatback pocket in front of her and picked up a copy of a giveaway travel magazine. Browsing through it, Cordiss was quickly captivated by eight pages of color photographs of laughing children who were about the same age that she was—they were splashing each other on the beach, playing in parks, reaching out to a grinning ice cream vendor who was teasingly holding a bouquet of Popsicles before them. Cordiss studied the pictures enviously.

The article was entitled “San Remo, Jewel of the Mediterranean,” and the city did appear to be a jewel; it seemed to contain everything that was missing from the world Cordiss knew—laughter, friendship, beauty, love. That moment, that day, on that train, her life was transformed forever. The children from those magazine pages became the friends Cordiss didn’t have. One face in particular, that of a saucer-eyed boy with a turned-up nose and a mischievous half smile, drew her attention like a magnet. He became her secret friend in her faraway
world. She confided in him, shared with him her innermost dreams. Even as a teenager, whenever she felt lonely or sad, her thoughts would return to that boy with the big, round, wondrous eyes.

Now, as she gazed out at the sun-drenched Mediterranean coast from the balcony of her San Remo apartment, Cordiss thought of that boy. Where was he now, she wondered, and how could he still hold such a special place in her heart? During the course of their relationship, Victor had never quite believed Cordiss when she told him that she was first attracted to him because of his eyes, which resembled those of an Italian boy she had once seen in a magazine. He didn’t realize that she had been telling the truth until they arrived here in San Remo and Cordiss had said, “Finally, I’m home.”

As Cordiss stood on the balcony, a buzzing sound snapped her head around. She looked first at the door, then over to Victor, who was watching a soccer match between AC Milan and Palermo on TV. Victor didn’t know much about the teams or the players or even the sport itself, but he was a competitive man and he could relate to the players’ vigor and their tenacity. He had gotten so involved in the action on the TV screen that he didn’t notice the door buzzer the first time it sounded. Victor was still on the couch, hooting in approval as Milan’s striker rammed a header past the Palermo goalie, when the buzzer sounded again. This time, Victor grudgingly got up from the couch, walked to the front door, and yanked it open. Two unfamiliar men, one slightly taller than the other, were standing shoulder to shoulder in the hallway, glaring at Victor from behind tinted sunglasses.

“Buon’ giorno
,
”
Victor said, smiling inquisitively.

“May we come in?” the taller of the two men asked.

Victor recognized the accent as American. His smile disappeared. “How can I help you?” he asked.

“We’re here to see Cordiss Krinkle,” the shorter man said politely.

“What about?” Victor asked.

“An important matter,” replied the taller man.

“Who are you, and what is this very important matter?” Victor’s tone was challenging and sarcastic.

“Something of great value to Miss Krinkle and to you, Victor.”

Victor started slightly at the sound of his name. “Do you guys have
names?” he asked, recovering his cool. Victor received no reply. He looked the two men up and down. Something about their conservative dress, dark shades, and quietly intimidating manner reminded him of the soldiers from the Carlino family whom he would see now and then in the Mafia-owned restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen where he had worked as dishwasher, busboy, and waiter.

“Why don’t you let us in?” the taller man asked.

Victor stood his ground. “First, tell me who you are and what you want.”

“Inside,” the shorter man said, nodding toward the living room.

“Bullshit, mister. Right here. And make it fast,” Victor said.

“Look, Victor,” the tall man began.

“Or fuck off,” Victor interrupted, his voice rising.

“Stolen property, Victor,” the shorter man said coldly. “That’s one of the things we’re here to discuss. Twenty years in prison is another.”

Victor felt a hot flush at the back of his neck; then, the nerve endings came alive in the pit of his stomach.

“Dr. Howard Mozelle,” continued the shorter man, “Anna Hilburn, Herman Freich, Colette Beekman, Montaro Caine, the coin or coins—you name it, we’re here to talk about all of it.”

Victor’s heart galloped. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so you may as well just get lost.” Whatever they wanted, Victor told himself, whatever had brought them here, he had faced far worse back in New York—some of his boyhood pals had served time on Rikers Island; he’d seen two mob hits in Hell’s Kitchen; once, when he had borrowed money from one of his mentors, a man named Johnny, and hadn’t paid it back on time, he’d wound up choking on a gun that Johnny shoved against the back of his throat. He comforted himself by noting that these men had not mentioned Franklyn and Whitney Walker—apparently, he and Cordiss had done a good job of hiding them away. Nevertheless, he could feel himself beginning to sweat.

Cordiss was the one pissing ice water now. She had drifted in from the balcony and was standing motionless in the center of the room. She was barefoot, wearing jeans, a white T-shirt with no bra underneath, and she hadn’t put on any makeup, but she seemed completely unconcerned with her appearance—as if she were truly at home here,
as if San Remo was where she had always belonged and the two men standing in her doorway were old friends.

“They’re cops, Victor, let them in,” she said. “We have nothing to hide.”

Still, Victor, his fears hidden behind his belligerent façade, continued to stare the two men down.

“Not until I see some I.D.,” he said.

The taller man gave a condescending smile, assessing Victor in his baggy Italian pants and sleeveless shirt as if he were some sort of gigolo or a Hollywood version of a blue-collar ladies’ man. “We’re not cops, Victor, but if you don’t talk to us, the next people you talk to will be cops.”

“Then who are you?”

The taller man spoke. His eyes were fierce and predatory. “My name is Alan Rothman. This gentleman is Carlos Wallace. We’re businessmen.”

“Come in, Mr. Rothman, Mr. Wallace,” Cordiss said. Victor stepped aside while Cordiss moved to the TV and switched it off. Victor glanced longingly at the black TV screen, peeved that he wouldn’t get to see the end of the game.

“Sit, gentlemen.” Cordiss pointed Rothman and Wallace to the couch and took a seat across from them in an overstuffed chair. Victor sat on the edge of the table that served as a TV stand.
Stay cool
, he told himself, just as he had told Cordiss many times before.
Whatever happens, stay cool
. He wondered why Cordiss had become so much better at following his advice than he was.

“How did you track us down?” Cordiss asked.

Rothman smirked, thinking of how easy it had been for Gina Lao to get the information they needed from Curly Bennett. “You should’ve used a pseudonym at the airport,” he said. “For a few bucks, people remember a name like Cordiss Krinkle.”

Cordiss let Rothman’s sarcasm wash over her. “Well,” she began. “Since stolen property tops the list of items you wish to discuss, suppose we start there.”

Rothman inched forward on the couch. “First, let me acquaint you with the underlying reason we are here. We represent a firm that may
have become involved, rightly or wrongly, in this matter of the coins. It is our job to make sure that the integrity of that firm has not been compromised.” Here, he paused to look at Victor, who hoisted his eyebrows and offered a cool, comical smile.

“What is the name of your firm?” asked Cordiss.

Rothman’s stern gaze swiveled back to her. “We’ll ask the questions,” he said.

“Oh, I see,” Cordiss said, letting the matter rest there for the moment.

“If we determine that the firm has not been compromised,” Rothman went on, “then you have nothing to fear and we will be on our way. If we find that it has been, through no fault of your own, we will likewise be on our way, with apologies for the intrusion.” He folded his arms across his chest as his ice-cold eyes slid back and forth between Cordiss and Victor.

Cordiss chewed her bottom lip, tilted her head upward in a manner suggesting serious contemplation, then stared at Rothman as sternly as he had stared at her. “Well, Mr. Rothman,” she said. “I’m not aware of anything that might have been stolen from your firm, whatever its name, or from anywhere else for that matter.” She turned to Victor. “Are you, Victor?”

“Sure as hell not.”

Cordiss spread her hands out, palms down, to indicate they were done discussing this particular subject. “So we can move on to your next point, which was something about twenty years in prison. A threat, I gather, related to this ‘stolen property,’ which, if I understand you correctly, is a coin or coins. Right?”

“Right,” said Rothman.

“Well, Mr. Rothman, let me be blunt. Whatever I may have sold either would have been mine to sell, and I would have the documents to prove it, or the rightful owner would have given me the legal authority to represent him or her. So your threat does not apply to me. None of the people you represent can make any legal claim of any kind against me that will stick. Therefore, neither they nor you can touch me. Legally”—she smiled confidently—“or otherwise.” She leaned back in her chair, then bounced back to an upright position.

“As to whether the integrity of your firm has been violated, it is impossible for me to say, as I don’t even know its name.”

Wallace pulled an iPhone from his jacket and used an index finger to scroll to a particular page in a document. “Before leaving New York,” he began, “you opened a secret account at a private bank in Liechtenstein,” he said. “Two substantial deposits have been made into that account via Mr. Peter Fourneaux, assistant manager of new accounts. The money arrived there through a maze of companies, corporations, trusts, and names of nonexistent individuals as payment for items you will have to prove were not stolen.”

Cordiss appeared unfazed, yet her mind was racing. How had they managed to pierce the secrecy of the banking system? Could they actually prove what he had just said? As if in answer to that unspoken question, Wallace opened his briefcase and pulled two copies of Cordiss’s deposit slips from it and laid them before her.

Wallace continued, “Your next burden of proof will have to do with fraud and forgery. If you have behaved like a good U.S. citizen, close to half the amount in your Liechtenstein account has been sent or will be sent to the I.R.S. If you’re thinking otherwise, that’s tax evasion. Long time in jail. Unless you skip to one of those few places in the world that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. In short, you talk to us, tell us what we want to know, and this visit never happened. Refuse and you’ll have more trouble than you can handle.”

Cordiss leaned closer to the men with a smile that suggested that they had gotten all they were going to get. Wallace tried to wait her out through a long silence.

“Bullshit,” Victor finally blurted out. “You guys are not here about the integrity of no fucking firm. Now spell it out. Specifics on the table. What the fuck is it you want?”

“We want to know everything you know about those coins,” Rothman said. “What are they? What can they do? Where did they come from? Who had them? For how long? When and how did you get them? How much did you sell them for, and to whom?”

Cordiss burst into laughter. Rothman watched her warily, not understanding why she was laughing. Victor, too, wondered what the hell was going on in her mind. Soon, Cordiss’s laughter subsided.