Downstairs in Derivatives, Cliff Halek’s chair sat empty. A small crowd huddled around his computer, some gawking in silence and some babbling at what they saw. Inevitably, gallows commentary consumed the group.
“Ten dollars,” a tall, rangy trader proclaimed, “somebody throws a punch.” Disheveled, he could use a nap, a haircut or a comb, and a meal.
“Even odds?” the trader to his right asked. He was negotiating. He knew the drill.
“Even odds,” the rangy one confirmed.
“You’re done on ten dollars,” said the second, sealing the deal.
The rowdy crowd of onlookers heard something about “Boar Shit Breath.” And seconds later, the screen went dark.
“We’ll never know about that punch,” the rangy trader lamented.
“Oh, we’ll know,” the second trader disagreed, “That’s O’Rourke. Don’t
you recognize his Southern accent?” He paused and added, “Y’all,” gratuitously.
“Where the hell is Halek, anyway?” someone asked in the crowd. With that, the Derivatives team succumbed to their nature. The bitching and kvetching began. It was the only way to trade.
At precisely 12:30 Mandy Maris saw the cover of a restaurant menu on her screen. Somebody had written the address in bold, black Sharpie letters. She knew the Red Flame. She wrote down the location anyway.
Rising from her desk, Maris exhaled and said, “I owe you, Grove.”
Over at the Midtown North Precinct, Fitzsimmons and Mummert watched a computer screen in astonishment. Like Maris they jotted down the address, seconds before the Web transmission went black. They froze.
Fitzsimmons was the first to speak. “That chowdahhead will get himself killed.”
Ordinarily, Mummert would have echoed the sentiment. But the phone rang. He snatched the receiver from its cradle. As he listened, his eyes grew wider and wider from what he heard. “Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Got it . . . See ya.”
“What?” Fitzsimmons demanded.
“That was a guy named Halek. He arranged the webcast we just saw. He stopped transmitting because all hell’s about to break loose.”
“Let’s go,” Fitzsimmons roared.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Everything was proceeding to plan. Cliff, the executive with the laptop, had given me the thumbs-up. Our secret webcast from the Red Flame would bring the police soon. No doubt, Halek had already called them.
Did he see the gun?
Bullshit. Nothing was right. Sam and Romanov had not confessed to anything on camera. Nor had I anticipated the two big men, who confirmed my suspicions. Romanov, Yuri, Viktor, and even Sam had played a role in Charlie’s death. But confirmation was no consolation. Yuri jacked his piece halfway through my hip. And Viktor hovered over me, ready to mop up the mess.
“Alex, tell your goon to put the gun away,” I said, doing my best to sound tough. Inside, my heart beat like a drummer with the hiccups. Confronting Romanov belonged in the hall of fame for stupid ideas.
“Yeah, right,” Romanov snorted. “You and your lunch are going for a ride.”
“Don’t bet on it,” I bluffed with fake conviction. “I’ll make a scene and the cops will come.”
“Be my guest. Viktor and Yuri know how to handle messy situations.” Romanov smiled broadly, and I finally realized just how prescient his nickname,
the Mad Russian, was. Charlie had been right about everything. Romanov gestured to Sam, who was feigning disinterest. They started to leave.
“Sam, what the hell have you become?” I asked. Her answer made no difference. I was stalling until the cavalry arrived.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she replied. Sam’s growing discomfort was palpable. Her eyelids drooped to half mast. Her jaw slackened. Her head quivered with a side-to-side motion. It looked as if she were stifling a sneeze, but I knew better. Sam was struggling inside. What they had done to Charlie. What they would do to me. She deliberated for a second or two, before her eyes narrowed into slits. She made her decision—the wrong one.
I pressed anyway, attacking because there were no alternatives. “How many bodies do you need, Sam? Charlie? Me? Who’s next?”
“Charlie screwed my parents,” she announced, her voice flat and unfeeling.
“I was the one who told you, remember?”
“All we ever wanted, Grove, was for you to find bank accounts. That’s it,” she snapped. “But you couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
“What the hell does that mean? I wired you seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“Nobody asked you for money.” Sam squeezed Romanov’s shoulder ever so slightly.
“I was never a threat.”
“You’re one now,” she countered, “just like Charlie.”
It all made sense in that moment. Charlie was the first to discover Romanov’s scam. He could have exposed the Mad Russian—disgracing the hedgie and forever ending his ability to print money. Now I threatened Romanov’s fund and Sam’s love affair or financial support or whatever she saw in him. Charlie’s missing bank accounts, if they ever existed, had become irrelevant.
Who’s your sugar daddy, Sam?
“What about your baby?” I asked.
“
Our
baby,” she corrected, and caressed Romanov’s neck with the casual intimacy of lovers.
“Good luck arranging play dates from the cell block.”
“Won’t happen,” Romanov scoffed.
“You’re too convenient,” Sam said.
“Convenient?” Repeating key words had always been a sales technique. I never thought it would buy time and stave off an execution.
“When you disappear, investors will assume you stole their money and skipped New York City.” Sam spoke clinically, with no indication of inner turmoil now. “Do you really think anyone will sue a helpless widow?” She batted her eyes and pouted, externally the picture of innocence, internally all fangs. “There’s also that letter with your signature. It points to you. And SKC.”
“It’s not my letter.”
“You’ll never prove it, Grover.” She shooed my words with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I can sell all my belongings and nobody will say a thing. You’re my get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“How much is left?” I asked. “I thought your jewelry was missing. Or was that another lie?”
“With the exception of my wedding ring,” Sam said, “I can’t find any jewelry. But there’s the silver, the paintings, the Oriental rugs, and a few other things.” She smiled conspiratorially. “It’s a start to fixing things with my parents.” She squeezed Romanov and added, “Alex can help, too.”
“What? Support your folks and feed you Beluga caviar over in Brighton Beach?”
“Something like that.”
Romanov, growing tired of the conversation, interrupted, “Come on, Sam. Let’s go.”
“There’s one more thing,” I said, addressing all four captors.
“And that is?” Romanov asked.
“Do you see that guy with glasses by the cash register? The one who was sitting behind us?”
“Yes. So?”
“He runs Derivatives at SKC.”
Romanov instantly went on the defensive. “What’s this about?” Yuri jammed the gun into my side, harder. Viktor cracked his knuckles. “Don’t get his attention,” Romanov continued. “Don’t say a word.”
“Not a word,” I said hoarsely. With the barrel of the gun, Yuri rolled skin against bone. Excruciating pain.
“I’m glad you understand, Grover.”
“I don’t need to say anything, Alex. You already did.”
The Mad Russian’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed my shirt just under the collar and jerked me hard across the tabletop, his face just inches from mine. “What do you mean?”
“My friend is also a computer geek. Did you notice his laptop?” I asked. “It had one of those built-in cameras rolling the whole time. We also had an industrial-strength microphone. Alex, what did you say about Yuri and Viktor?”
Not enough for a life sentence.
I smirked anyway, and Romanov’s cool veneer vanished. He reached back, cocked his right arm, and threw a furious punch of scarred knuckles. His quickness surprised me. I barely slipped to the left, but his hand grazed hard against the right side of my head. The glancing blow stung like a flicked ear in subzero weather.
Forgetting the gun, I popped Romanov with a quick jab to the nose. The blow stunned him, blood immediately trickling from his left nostril. It stunned me, too. I hadn’t thrown a punch since eighth grade. The contact felt good.
Romanov recoiled to strike again, but a voice boomed through the room and arrested his movement. “Sam! Alex! Grove! Yoo-hoo!”
Crunch, all biceps in his black tank top, stood next to Viktor. The hairdresser looked like a gay David, either sizing up Goliath or asking him to dance. Crunch had emerged from his hiding place at the lunch counter previously undetected by Romanov and Sam.
It was Crunch’s turn to steal the show. He grabbed Viktor’s face with both hands and said, “My, but you’re a big boy.”
Before Viktor could react, Crunch kissed him full on the lips, head-butted the site of the kiss, and kneed him in the balls in one fluid motion. The big man collapsed under his own weight, gasping hard and sucking for oxygen. Crunch landed a second knee on Viktor’s face as the big man went down.
Yuri reacted like a load. Still wedged in the booth, he stood awkwardly. His fat and flesh flapped against the Formica. The back of Crunch’s left hand whipped hard against Yuri’s face before he could raise his gun. The big man’s nose exploded like Old Faithful upon impact. A red geyser of blood and snot sprayed everywhere. With a quick motion Crunch grabbed the
back of Yuri’s head. Crunch smashed Yuri’s face hard against the tabletop. One, two, three times. The dull thuds ended just as quickly as they had begun. The two men lay soaking in pools of their own blood. Crunch had taken less than four seconds to neutralize them.
All around us the diners scattered. A woman screamed, “Oh my God,” as others scrambled to exit the Red Flame.
Romanov blinked at Crunch and considered whether to throw a punch. Crunch sensed the deliberation. “Would you like to make it a trifecta, sweetie?” The hairdresser, with the storied military past, batted his eyes suggestively and cocked his hip provocatively. Romanov relaxed his fist, put both hands on the table, and capitulated.
We could already hear shrill sirens from the approach of police. A few brave souls outside the diner, sensing the imminent danger was over, stared into the Red Flame through the picture windows. I grabbed Yuri’s gun and gave it to Crunch. He ejected the clip of bullets like a pro, gently placed the gun on the ground, and stood on it as we waited.
“May I get out?” Sam asked. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“You can pee at the precinct,” Fitzsimmons bellowed from several yards back. He strode to our table like the cavalry to the rescue. “We need to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Kelemen.”
“A few questions,” Mummert said. For once I appreciated the officer’s echo. Crunch bent over and carefully handed the pistol to Mummert.
“Am I under arrest?” Sam asked.
“We’ll figure that out down at the station,” Fitzsimmons replied. He turned and called out, “A little help over here, fellows.” Four officers in blue uniforms started moving Yuri and Viktor. Another officer cuffed Romanov and led him outside.
Sam shrieked at Fitzsimmons, “Don’t even think about putting handcuffs on me.”
Crunch, surrounded by a sea of blue uniforms and his two clones from the salon, eyed one young patrolman. “Officer, do you need any help?”
Cliff Halek joined Fitzsimmons, Mummert, and me. “That was monumentally stupid,” Fitzsimmons scolded. “Who are you?” he barked at Halek.
“Cliff Halek. I sent you and dozens of people the link to the Web site,” he explained. “Grove and I work together.”
“How did you set up a webcast in here?”
“Did you ever hear of Foster Cam?”
“No.”
“Probably not,” Cliff acknowledged. “Let’s just say, I’ve had lots of practice.”
Fitzsimmons grunted, “Oh.”
His caustic response bugged me. “Whatever happened to ‘thank you’?” I asked.
“Listen, chowdahhead,” Fitzsimmons commanded. “We’ve been watching Alex Romanov for about a week now. So has the SEC. He’s been linked to a cleaning service that puts listening devices inside CEO offices. We’re onto him. And you didn’t sign that reference letter. Our experts said it was a Photoshop cut-and-paste deal.”
“Then why’d you grill me so hard on Monday?”
“We didn’t get the handwriting results until yesterday,” he replied.
“Just doing our job,” Mummert added.
Cliff and I walked outside the restaurant. The police had already cordoned off the restaurant and a crowd had gathered around the barriers. Onlookers craned their necks to look inside the Red Flame. “Let’s go back to the office,” he said.
“What about the leave of absence?”
“We can work things out.”
Outside and beyond the barricade surrounding the Red Flame, Annie ran into us. Literally. She barreled through the growing crowd and smacked into me, her body pressing against mine. I nearly fell over from the impact. Annie did not say a word. She just hugged me, long and hard. She hugged and hugged. Her sobs trembled against my chest.
Then she pulled back, balled her hand into a fist, and boxed my chest like a girl. The blow carried none of Romanov’s malevolence. Forget the knuckles of pain. Annie struck with her wrist bent, and it surprised me she did not hurt herself. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she cried as she pulled away.
