The Deal (44 page)

There I was. The news. Not just one story but what seemed to be the entire fucking broadcast, from one story to the next. First was the lead story, the fact that authorities were still stumped over the disappearance of Danish Jubilee Egg. The prime suspect, the former chief of security Lawrence Hart, was nowhere to be found, and neither was the prize. From here they went into an update on the real estate magnate murdered in front of his home, “old-world mobster-style” as they put it. Authorities were following a number of leads, the anchor said, but were yet to make any arrests. As they showed some video footage of the crime scene—Pop’s townhouse—I straightened my posture. It was footage from Saturday when the property was still buzzing.

The next story, the “breaking news” piece, was the one that stopped me cold. It was footage of heavy activity along the banks of a body of water. In the top left-hand corner were the words
recorded earlier
.

“Earlier this evening,” the anchor led in, “what was believed to be the body of Randall Davis was found in the East River, where authorities have been searching for over a week. Davis, a two-time-Emmy-nominated veteran actor who disappeared eight days ago in what is said to be a drug-related crime, is believed to have been dumped in this particular body of water—”

The camera then zoomed in to the nucleus of what was happening. A body was being retrieved from the water. Only it wasn’t exactly a body. It was a duffel bag.

“You can imagine the recovery team’s shock when they learned the discovered body was someone else—”

I rose to my feet. My hands went directly to my head. Fuck, I thought to myself. H-o-l-y-f-u-c-k. I had seen something about the actor in the news, but because of everything going on hadn’t paid any attention.

“It appears the Caucasian male, believed to be one of NYPD’s own, was the victim of a homicide. The city will not confirm nor deny his name until all relevant identity tests can be properly performed and completed. Little else in terms of information has been made available. As a call for further information linked to the crime, the police have released this sketch of the victim.”

Mattheau apparently hadn’t followed the actor story either. Two rivers, he drops the body in the wrong one. I turned to CNN. A drawing of Pangaea-Man filled the entire screen. Because we now live in the worldwide information age, and a murdered NYPD cop is a huge story, he had gone global in the blink of an eye. Just like that, larger than life, Pangaea-Man had sprung back into my world.

Chapter 45

Three a.m.

Jeans, Nike ‘Shox’, black T-shirt. I slid sideways between two fences separating the rear courtyards of homes backed up to the townhouse. A spiny wood plank faced me. A rusted wall of wire threatened from behind, its oxidized steel teeth finding my scalp twice. The city hummed quietly. I deftly sidestepped over the twigs and dry dirt beneath my feet, careful not to make noise. Up ahead, two feet beyond the vertical crawl space, but crossing it like the top of a “T,” I could see the high, white cedar fence enclosing my father’s propert
y.

My feet landed flush on the patio’s basketweave-pattern bricks. I looked up at my childhood home. It was pitch black. I looked at the backs of the houses to the left and right. Each showed strategic specks of nighttime illumination. A warm breeze rolled across the back of my neck. Ten-foot shrubs surrounding me, barely rustling, I was safe from eyes on any side but still vulnerable to those above.

I moved through the solid, wrought-iron-framed Kettler chairs and teak-topped table, past the white-cushioned Ralph Lauren loveseat, up close to the building. I tried the door leading into the kitchen. It was locked, as I figured it would be. Using my leather-gloved hands I slid open the 10"

10" window situated only a couple feet to the door’s left. On the inside it had a copper latch that had been broken my whole life. It had never been fixed for the same reason it was the only window in the house not connected to the alarm. It was too small, according to some genius, for anyone to get through. The same genius who didn’t realize someone with long arms could reach in and flip the door’s lock.

I closed the door behind me until it clicked, silencing the sounds of the night. Just inside I looked at the numeric keypad on the wall, expecting it to beep, only to remember the security system had been temporarily shut down once the police got involved. Crumbs of light helped outline the room as I acclimated. The omnipresent, syrupy smell filled my nose. In the center of the kitchen table, across the room, was a vase full of wilting lilies.

I walked toward the front of the townhouse. Before turning up the stairs I kept straight and stopped next to one of the windows. I peeked out. A black-and-white, front windows half-cracked, was in the usual spot. An officer was hard at work inside. I felt for the gun in my waist. I checked my left pocket for my cell phone then my right for my flashlight. Low, I headed upstairs.

I stepped in front of the first drawing. Just as I had mentally rehearsed, I lifted it off the wall and headed back in the direction I came from. The plan was simple. Get all four drawings into the kitchen for a side-by-side examination. The table was smaller than the one in the dining room but outside the officer’s vision. One by one I brought them downstairs, grabbing the magnifying glass from the study before returning with the fourth.

I bent forward. I positioned the glass and switched on the flashlight. Each drawing was different from the next in size and frame. I started at the left. It was a tiger. He was captured in time lying in a field. There were mountains far in the distance. It was incredibly three-dimensional, not just the animal, but the entire scene. I could feel the clouds’ movement.

I traced the tiger. Nothing, just as I figured.

Look closer.

I moved to the periphery. I started at the bottom, in the field. Careful to be thorough, I went slow. It was obvious to me quickly the ground wouldn’t offer much. Too light, I thought. Nowhere to hide the letters.

I moved to the mountains, more particularly their edges, which were ripe for letters a touch bolder than their background or vice versa. The portion of the picture that filled the concave observation deck seemed to be protruding from the paper. I followed the peaks and valleys. It wasn’t long until I found something. I moved in even closer. It was along the earth’s crust going up toward the next peak. It looked like the word “We.”

I moved the magnifying glass and kept the light on the paper. No letters or words whatsoever were noticeable to my naked eye. I returned the glass and let it take the lead. Along the fringe of the distant range, the same fluid writing a la the sterling silver rattle’s “ours” spun into the shading, a message unfolded. “Miles apart. Answer lies in Omega. A could only be you.”

I checked the rest of the painting. Nothing else. Three quick sentences. That was it.

I was confused as hell. I was blown away.

Why would someone go to such trouble?

I stood up. Shadows of the shimmying shrubs danced on the wall in front of me. An expanding floorboard or wall whined across the room interrupting the silence. I looked down and shined the light on the bottom right-hand corner. 1974.

“Answer lies in Omega,” I repeated.

Omega. I racked my brain for any and everything I knew about or associated with the word. There was the obvious, the twenty-fourth and last letter of the Greek alphabet. There was the not so obvious, like the term or actual Greek letter being used to symbolize the phrase “the end” or the use of the word “omega” in the financial world as it relates to option pricing.

“The end,” I whispered to myself. “The end of what?”

It didn’t make sense. I stepped back from the table. I looked out the window. In the darkness I saw the light. In the light I saw the source of my trembling.

Omega.

As in Omega Seamaster, circa 1960.

Pop’s untouchable watch.

Crouched, I entered the master bedroom, which was upstairs but at the front of the house. I stopped at the foot of the bed. The morning Pop was shot he was going to play golf. This meant no Omega. My father, a six handicap, never wore a watch when he played; he said the uneven weight distribution threw him off. I looked at the rosewood nightstands. He never kept the watch in the safe. But it had to be close by.

I began with the nightstand to my left. I sat on the edge of the bed and scanned the top. Alarm clock, leather business card case, ceramic dish filled with change and collar stays, a letter opener, a pair of reading glasses, a pair of scissors, and a remote. I pulled out the one drawer. There were financial magazines, Fortune and Forbes. There were Clancy novels. Between the two small piles was a single, black calfskin watch box. I lifted it out and opened it. Inside was the Seamaster.

A couple of the room’s windows faced the street so I stepped into the bathroom. I closed the door and turned on the flashlight. The watch, once removed from the box, was lighter than I expected. It was thin stainless steel from the bezel all the way down to the clasped bracelet. The hands looked like long, slim daggers. Ten of the hours were marked with a single stainless bar instead of a number. Hour twelve had two bars. Hour three was a window for the date.

I turned it over and looked at the back of the face. Just as I expected there was an engraving.

“Oceans apart. One soul together.”

I leaned back against the wall. Under closed lids my eyes rolled back into my head. My theory about the watch had been right. What I was wrong about was the woman who gave it to him. I pinched the bridge of my nose, mashed my eyes, and sequestered some air. I held my breath for three seconds then exhaled loudly.

I recalled the message in the tiger drawing. “Miles apart.” But the next line was “Answer lies in Omega,” which, ultimately, just reiterated their connection. It didn’t add up. Unless—

I took my hand from my face and opened my eyes. “Miles apart” was not about my father. It was about Alexander, her husband. The third line of the message told me so.

“A could only be you.”

A. As in Andreu.

The year of this particular drawing was 1974. The year both Andreu and I were born.

She was validating the pregnancy. Which meant at some point, to her face or not I can’t be sure, my father must have questioned it. Maybe even after receiving the initial drawing of newborn Andreu. I thought, why couldn’t she just answer him? Better question, why could she only answer him like this?

I craved more time to process, but the circumstances wouldn’t allow it. I still had work to do. Theories spinning; some compelling, some absurd, I replaced the watch, returned to the kitchen, and moved to the next drawing. 1977. It was a shot of a sprinting puma, all four legs off the ground mid-stride. The streamlined animal was consumed with purpose. Each blood-filled vein in his neck told me so.

The ground, like the previous picture, was light. A few birds scattered from the onslaught. My attention swung to the top of the paper. Some overhead trees edged the image on both sides.

The dense leaf clusters were the perfect camouflage for the rolled up message I found. “Union of necessity is my shame. Must stay true to my own. Darkness for A and J. Or ruin.”

A and J. Andreu and Jonah.

The unfolding reality was a crushing one. My brain wanted to scramble, but I couldn’t let it. Not yet. I moved to number three. 1998. It was a lion, facing forward, with a mane and expression daring you to taunt him. He stood on muddy ground. A few antelope scattered in the foreground. A marbled sky threatened from above.

I started straight away at the top. There it was, fused brilliantly within the heavy clouds. “Brutus 3. 2.1. Common goals no longer common. No matter—4 of 6 confirmed your way.”

My shoulders dropped. My right knee nearly buckled.

Brutus.

The conspiring villain from Julius Caesar.

What a soulless bastard. Same as the Omega. My whole life, no matter which of the two I asked about, my father made me think the connection was to my mother without ever saying her name. Subconsciously he must have thought this tactic made him a better man. Or, consciously, just less of a bad one.

My left hand balled in a fist, a tear welling in each eye, again I left the kitchen. Brutus 3. 2.1. The 2,1, in Shakespearean lingo, definitely meant act two, scene one. The 3 after Brutus, I deduced, meant Brutus’s third time speaking in that particular scene. While I knew the play inside and out, I couldn’t recall the exact passage. I had to refresh my memory.

As I turned into the living room, crouching, I could see the officer was still working. I went straight for Pop’s Shakespeare collection and plucked Julius Caesar, written in 1599, from the middle of the row. Kneeling on one knee, I parked myself under one of the room’s side, or east, windows. I opened the book. The parting of the browned pages emitted an aged scent. There was just enough nighttime light to read the text.

I traced down the page with the tip of my index finger. Brutus, Lucius, Brutus, Lucius, Brutus. “It must be by his death,” the paragraph began. I read all twenty-five lines. It was Brutus explaining his desire to kill Julius Caesar. He felt the young militant’s views were about to shift, the result of his ascension to greater power. He felt their common goals, once in sync, were about to change.

Four of six. The common goal that was no longer common.

Nineteen ninety-eight. The year Alexander Zhamovsky was murdered.

My hands started shaking. Deep down I knew why. As I hurried to replace the book in its central slot, I inadvertently set off what looked like two sets of dominos. Half the books fell left, the other half right. More than a few, along with the bronze bookends, went tumbling to the floor. The porcelain lamp went also, crashing in a heap.

Before I did anything, still ducking, I took a few steps toward the street. The cop was still in his car. Only he had stopped writing. He was looking at the house.

“Oh, fuck!”

As I placed the books, in no particular order, back on the chest and fastened the upright row with the bookends, a car door shut. I dashed to the room’s exit, catching another look outside. The officer was walking toward the front door. I looked back at the pile of lamp.