The Deal (41 page)

“Perry, I need to have my head in this game right now. So please, tell me.”

“A lawsuit, Jonah. A thirty-something couple and their two-year-old daughter. The parents died last summer when one of the elevators dropped thirty-three stories with them. Somehow the child survived.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Why then...how...why didn’t we—”

“They didn’t come from much, so the surviving family agreed to keep it quiet if they were compensated fairly. Cantrol didn’t want to get dragged into court and into the news, so they agreed. The settlement is still being negotiated.”

At the exact moment I entered my office and closed the door behind me, Carolyn came through on the intercom.

“Line two, Jonah.”

“Who is it?” I asked as I put my briefcase down on the floor behind my desk.

“Andreu Zhamovsky.”

Never before had one name stirred so many emotions. I wanted to blast him. I wanted to reach through the phone and choke him. I couldn’t, not if I was going to win and come out of this unscathed. Plus, the best chance I had for keeping my partners out of trouble was to keep Andreu happy and thinking he was still in control.

“Put him through.”

“Jonah?”

It was a voice I had heard so many times in the past. That morning, sodden with deception, it sounded different. Or perhaps I was just hearing it different, gauging it with the bias of someone who’d been had.

Almost.

“Good afternoon, Andreu.”

I looked at the platinum Lange 1 strapped to my wrist.

“Or is it good evening?”

“I’m so sorry to hear about Stan,” he jumped in. “What happened? Why didn’t you accept any of my calls this weekend?”

I heard ice cubes clash through the phone as he took a sip of a drink.

“I’ve had a lot to deal with. Thank God for your new real estate endeavors. It’s been the perfect excuse to keep my mind occupied.”

“How can I help?”

“By letting me stay focused on what we’re trying to achieve. I have enough shoulders to cry on.”

“It’s okay to take a step back, Jonah.”

The “buddy-buddy” thing had become very old, very fast. Business as usual, I told myself.

React.

“I appreciate the concern Andreu, but my focus is on the deal. Not just for you, for me. If a step back was what I needed I would have taken it. What I need is to forge ahead.”

“Whatever you say, old friend. If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” I shot back.

“Then forge ahead it is. Please, the details.”

Like he gave a fuck. I could have told him the details involved one of the buildings being a lair for some priests and young boys. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he still thought I was in the dark. Which, on the contrary, was exactly where he now was.

“The inspection teams are all rolling along smoothly with even less obstacles than expected.”

“And this surprises you?”

“Actually, it does. Things always come up like sloppy or inaccurate property management record keeping, environmental issues, unforeseen building system problems, undisclosed tenant and leasing issues, etcetera. Here we’ve been quite fortunate. Each potential deal only has minor hurdles.”

“How minor?”

“For example, the Park Avenue Slevin portfolio seems to be showing some signs of, how would I describe it, trace asbestos in certain areas.”

“And this is minor?”

“It is, happens all the time in buildings this old. So what we’ll do is work the cost of the asbestos abatement, or removal, into the overall purchase price, which will simply decrease the total value on a per square foot basis by a couple of cents. Then we’ll use these savings to handle the problem ourselves instead of tying up the transfer of ownership by having them deal with it. Piece of cake. After all, the goal here is to have all of them thinking we are ready to buy, even if it means handling some little, minimal risk annoyances on our own, is it not?”

“It is, of course.”

“At the Cantrol building one of the leases turns over, expires, earlier than we were initially told it would. Nothing more than shoddy record keeping. Are the differences in dates glaring enough that they could jeopardize the deal? Absolutely not. Again it is something that needs a bit more attention so we can account for it correctly in the final purchase price.”

“But you’re not concerned. Correct?”

“Correct. So I need you to give your friend Igor Larionov a call in the morning.”

As far as I knew, Andreu still had no way of understanding I was completely dialed in. Therefore he had to continue playing the deal out on my terms until he had what he needed.

“He needs to be aware that I may contact him shortly with regard to placing some more funds in escrow here in the States. For timing purposes.”

“Not a problem.”

Chapter 42

My eyes observing from behind my sunglasses, my gun, once again, inside my jacket, I headed into the sun-drenched city. As much as I wanted to accept that I was as alone as I believed, the fact I had originally been onto Pangaea-Man tailing me, and rightly so, still had me freaked. I headed uptown on foot.

I took out my cell phone. I had a laundry list of client calls to return from the previous three days, some relating to my father and others regarding the fact that, whether it was the point in their respective deal where Tommy’s expertise was needed or not, they were starting to feel as if I had disappeared. Just as I was about to return the first call, I stopped. Paranoia returned. I felt as if somewhere, just around a corner, trouble was waiting. Once I got to Madison Avenue an uptown bus pulled alongside of me. I reached into my pocket, grabbed my wallet and pulled out my Metrocard. Then I jumped on.

The giant steel tube used for shuttling city types around the five boroughs like cattle began to move. I’ve always hated public transportation, but subways had often been my saving grace for making meetings. Midday traffic in Manhattan is nothing short of brutal. Because of this fact, coupled with my schedule, cabs or car services were often out of the question. That said, I had minimal experience with city buses.

Very few people were speaking. All I could hear was the whirring of the engine. The huge vehicle bobbed slightly up and down like a boat moving along the water. The floor was dirty. The blue plastic seat under my ass felt hard, unforgiving. Again, just as I was about to start dialing, I stopped. The faces all around, paying no attention to me, had me captured. Behind each one, I thought, there was a different story from the next. I wondered if any of those stories were as fucked up as the one behind my own.

In the rear was a pretty, young mother with her little boy. As I looked at them I remembered the day a couple of weeks earlier in Au Bon Pain with Perry. She was so enamored with the innocence of the beautiful little girl in the store that day. How had things gotten so crazy? So out of control? I wanted to reach for the little boy in the back of the bus. I wanted to tell him so many things he was too young to understand.

I looked down at my cell phone. As I thought about the calls I needed to make I started laughing. A few faces turned towards me. Who the fuck was I kidding, I thought. Like any of it even mattered anymore.

Pop’s townhouse was still technically a crime scene, but by this point most of the evidence had been either gathered or examined. Still, there was a uniformed officer in a squad car out front keeping an eye on the place. Because I was on foot, and since I had already used the 911 scheme, my choices were minimal. I was already walking down the street, which meant he may have already seen me. Time was ticking. I couldn’t rewind. I couldn’t duck around back like high school and sneak in the kitchen door. Confidently, as if I had nothing to hide, I walked up to the black-and-white and knocked on the window. I told him who I was and that I needed something from the house. He said he needed one second then he rolled up the car window.

He picked up his cell and made a call never once taking his eyes off me. I acted as if I didn’t notice. I opened my own phone and pretended to be listening to my voice mail, and even went as far as to pretend I was speaking with someone. After a few minutes his window went back down.

“That’s fine,” I said to no one. “Just have Carolyn put it on my desk. I’ll have a look at it when I get back to the office.”

I hung up.

“Sorry about that,” I continued.

“What was it you said you needed to get?”

“Just some paperwork I left here last week.”

Surprised by my easy access I closed the front door behind me. All of the lights were off. The house felt so empty. Not just devoid of life but stripped of its soul as well.

Keenly aware of my mission, and the Ia originals hanging on the walls, I steeled myself and headed upstairs. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of Pop. Through the years we had had so many important conversations. With each room I passed, and each piece of furniture I looked at, I could remember a different discussion and could remember his eyes as they responded to the nature of our words. I could hear his voice, his snarl as well as his laugh. I reached the study and planted myself in the chair behind Pop’s desk. I grabbed one of the brass handles and pulled it hard, sliding the file drawer all the way out. There had to be more, I thought. There had to be. Aside from his connection to Galina, Pop was somehow, between the note and the stock certificates, tied to the missing eggs that were connected to Andreu Zhamovsky and Pavel Derbyshev. There had to be more. If there wasn’t, why was my father writing me what promised to be some sort of explanation in the midst of all this?

I started rifling through the files. Each time I heard a car come down the street I stopped moving, breathing, until I was satisfied it wasn’t slowing down. When it passed, I jumped back in with the same fervor I had started.

No different than a computer search, I decided to go with key words. The first was “Andreu.” My fingers went to work but quickly came up empty. Next was “Prevkos,” and while there was a hell of a lot of information in this file, from annual reports to news clippings, there was nothing relevant in terms of my search. I scratched my head. “Eggs,” “Fabergé,” “Zhamovsky,” “Galina” again, nothing.

Fuck.

“Derbyshev,” “Pavel,” “Baltimore,” still nothing.

As the pit in my stomach grew at an unsettling rate, it became all too clear I wasn’t getting anywhere. I started to broaden the search. “Missing,” as in missing eggs. “Other,” like other son. “Mystery,” for mystery man in Baltimore. “House,” as in House of Fabergé.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

I slammed my fists on the desktop and looked at my watch. I was supposed to be grabbing some papers. Time was running thin.

“Screw it,” I said out loud.

I started at “A” and flew through the entire alphabet as if someone had hit the fast-forward button. When I reached the end, having gained nothing, I angrily slammed the drawer back into its slot. I jumped from the seat and raced to the window. The cop was still in his squad car writing on a metal clipboard.

I desperately hit the floor in front of the safe. I swung back the book door and immediately began to twist the black, numbered dial, turning it so fast the intermittent clicks all ran together. Marbury, Thomas, and Sweetney, so quick it was like they were on a fast break. The door swung open.

Everything was exactly as I had last seen it. I opened my briefcase, which was on the ground to my right, and placed inside all the cash from the safe. I looked at the watches and Roddick ball, but didn’t really pay either much attention. I went right for the rear wall and lowered it. When I did, it only took a few moments of searching to see I was still cold.

Before resealing the back compartment my eyes settled on Pop’s watches. I thought about how much he loved them. How amazed he was by their tight, miniscule craftsmanship. Then I thought about how much I had learned to love watches.

And my stomach went sour.

He always told me you can tell a lot about a man from three things: his shoes, tie, and watch. I looked at my wrist. If only it was really that easy, I thought.

I stripped off my own piece and switched it with one of his, the Audemars given to him by my mother. I assumed she must have touched it at some point. I wanted her close. Especially since my father was slipping farther and farther away.

I headed back downstairs. As I passed through the main foyer, just before reaching the front door, the mid-nineteenth century Lomax of Blackburn grandfather clock in the living room sounded, signaling the turn of the hour. My feet stopped. I listened to the chimes, savored them. They had been ringing every hour since my youth though it seemed like years since I had heard them.

I moved to the parlor’s doorway for one more look at the towering timepiece. When it finished singing my eyes began drifting. The couches, Persian rugs, end tables, piano, humidors, vases, flowers, coffee table.

My neck jerked.

Pop’s antique cigar humidor collection.

“Don’t go near the fucking piano,” he’d growl. “I mean it. I find out you touched it, or any of the humidors on top, I’ll break your fucking hand.”

The same line came out of his mouth almost every time I entered the room. It became so commonplace that, like the clock’s chimes, after a while I stopped hearing it. As I stood there looking at the mammoth instrument something occurred to me. When it did, my heart began racing.

Humidors lock.

I pulled out the key ring I’d found in the Ia file and started across the room. I had never once, from the time I was a baby until the day I left for college, expressed any sort of interest in playing the piano or any other instrument for that matter. Which meant I had never given him any reason to think I’d ever go near the Steinway. So why then, I asked myself as I crossed over one of the vintage carpets, was he so nuts about keeping me from the piano and humidors? Especially when he had never made mention of my staying away from anything else?

When I reached the piano I put my briefcase down and just stared, like I was twelve and taking the risk of a lifetime by disobeying my father. As I began to study the smooth ivory of the keys, it dawned on me while I felt I knew every inch of this house I had never really seen this up close. Having a new experience like this in the one place I considered most familiar was not only unexpected, it was eerie. From a distance the slick, black finish of the body had always seemed flawless. Up close it was dotted with nicks, marked with streaks. It had as much wear and tear as, I imagined, history.