Collar Robber (15 page)

“No!” Alarm washed over her face. “Nothing with computers! Hacking into computers is child's play for Halkani.”

“All right, then. Would you prefer that I talk to the Transoxana guy for you?”

“Yes. That would be very kind.”

“Fair enough.”

I opened the reconciliation room's door. Sister Bettina jumped up from a nearby pew and hustled over to join us.

“Back to St. Scholastica, Ms. von Leuthen?” she asked.

“Thank you, but no. If it would not be too much trouble, please take me to the airport.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Jay Davidovich

“Do you think Jakubek is right about von Leuthen telling the truth?”

Proxy asked this as I shifted the phone to my left ear. I'd gotten off the phone with Jakubek less than two minutes before I'd called Proxy to tell her what Jakubek had told me. By now, both ears were sore.

“I do think she's right, but it doesn't really make any difference.”

“Why not?”

“Because what Jakubek told me is a hundred percent of what we're going to get from von Leuthen. My plan smoked her out, she got her story together, and she told it—except to Jakubek instead of me. Ain't gonna change. If I managed to surprise her in the sack with the French prime minister in a hotel room in Strasbourg and interrogated her, I'd get the same stuff she just fed Jakubek.”

“The Catholic Church must not hold grudges over corrupting seminarians,” Proxy said. “Why do you think she rates the shelter and chauffeur service?”

“I've been giving that some thought. Trying to come up with some link to the seminary in New Mexico getting hacked. Don't see it. Jakubek said that giving shelter to people who need it is one of the things Benedictine monks and nuns have been doing for, like, fifteen-hundred years. It's at the core of their tradition—von Leuthen contacts a Benedictine abbot in Austria, he calls a mother superior near Pittsburgh or whatever, bingo. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.”

“Maybe. I can barely tell a rosary from a pyx, but I'm thinking the abbot would need a better reason than pious tradition to make that call.”

“Proxy, what in the
hell
is a ‘pyx'?”

“One of the greatest Scrabble words ever. Now, focus: better reason.”

“How about that her life really is in danger? There's probably a rule about that somewhere in all those books the Church has.”

“Fair point.” She sounded surprised. “We know independently that she was plugged in with some important people. That theory even adds credibility to her story, because it means that someone else who probably isn't an idiot believed her.”

“Damn. I'm even smarter than I thought I was.”

“Look, Davidovich, I'm sorry, but I missed lunch. I don't usually do this, but I'm going to nibble on some rabbit food while we talk.”

“Go ahead. It's the kind of thing I'd do, except with real food.”

While Proxy worked on her celery stalk or whatever, I wondered whether ‘plugged in with' was an intentional
double
entendre
. I hadn't decided by the time she spoke again.

“So what do I tell Quindel about selling the policy?”

“If it's up to me, tell him if he even thinks about selling that policy he's a fucking idiot, because there's at least one chance in five of some major shit going down between the time
Eros Rising
leaves the Pitt MCM and its return.”

“Right.” Nibble nibble. “You mean, of course, that in your judgment there is a material prospect of an insured event taking place, resulting in a risk-quotient that, even after discounting optimistically for likelihood of occurrence, would substantially exceed any plausible premium.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“I'm trying to imagine Quindel reading that in a memo and then walking away from three hundred thousand dollars a year for three years.”

“Not likely, huh?”

“Hard to say. He's a smart guy, and he knows how to run numbers. But nine hundred thousand dollars is real, and your qualitative judgment is—well, not so much.”

That sounded right to me. To a numbers guy, anything you say after “in my opinion” is just making stuff up.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Nesselrode is in New York, I assume on some fund-raising boondoggle. He wants to see me tomorrow so he can talk me into leaving von Leuthen alone. Why don't I go ahead with the meeting, tell him that I've called off the dogs, and feel him out about some of this stuff? Not exactly a regression analysis, but at least we'd have one more piece of solid data for Quindel.”

“Are you confirmed for that meeting? When and where is it supposed to happen?”

I picked up the most expensive two and a half by six and a half-inch piece of stiff paper I've ever held in my life and ran my thumb greedily over its slick surface. A Post-It on the thing read “B4BP.”

“I got a FedEx package this morning from the organization that I assume he's coming to see. The only thing in it was a ticket for Tuesday night's game between the Yankees and the Orioles. Luxury suite three twenty-eight. I think he plans on seeing me there just before batting practice.”

“Not bad.” Proxy whistled. “Luxury suite tickets at Yankee Stadium cost more than Kim Kardashian spends on shoes in a month. No guarantee you get any real information, but it might be worth a shot.”

“Not only that, you could probably put the plane ticket and hotel room on Quindel's budget.”

“I love this plan. Take no prisoners.”

She hung up. I sat there at the kitchen table that passes for my home office. I rehashed our conversation.
Yep. Proxy's double entendre was
definitely
intentional
.

Chapter Thirty-six

Cynthia Jakubek

I was polishing off a discovery request in Clarence Washington's case—all City of Pittsburgh Police Department loitering-or-prowling arrest records in the last three years—when Willy finally returned my call. I gave him the von Leuthen rundown.

“No kidding. Wow. Sonofagun. Maybe you coulda called me on your way to see her, huh?”

“I didn't know where we were going until we were almost there. Plus, I didn't think of it. Sorry. Probably would have just scared her off if I had, though.”

“Yeah, you're prob'ly right.”

“Besides, I'm betting you haven't been in church too often since your baptism. You probably don't even know what a reconciliation room is. Might have taken you all afternoon just to find it.”

“You got that right. Speaking of that, what
is
a reconciliation room, anyway—basically a squeal room with nicer furniture?”

“Close enough. Bottom line, whatever you want from von Leuthen, my guess is that the only way to get it is not to go after it any more. The stunt Transoxana pulled has the lady seriously spooked, and for all I know she may still be blaming you for it.”

That's when it happened. The little hesitation, the moment of calculation. I'd done it myself a dozen times with mom. Normal pre-dinner conversation, then just a hint of a pause:
Casually work the detention into our chat, or let it go and hope for the best? Who knows, maybe my getting home an hour later than usual won't come up
.

“Hey, I'm not the CIA,” Willy said. “I can't track this round-heeled broad down if she doesn't wanna be found.” Short but clearly perceptible pause. “By the way, where is that reconciliation whatever at St. Ben's?”

“If you're facing the altar, it's along the wall to your left, directly opposite the ends of the last six or seven pews. Why? You thinking of going to confession?”

“Who knows? Never can tell about me. When do they hear confessions these days?”

I am NOT buying this. Not for a second.
But what was I going to do? Threaten to drop him as a client unless he stopped bullshitting me? Yeah, sure. This is Pittsburgh, not Hollywood. I played along.

“Saturday mornings right after eight o'clock Mass. And Monday through Friday at various times. I don't know what they are, but you could find them in the bulletin.”

“So, basically, every day except Sunday.”

“Yep. They lock the church up right after everyone clears out following ten-fifteen Mass.”

“Okay.” Note of finality. “I think you're right about not pushing her anymore. If she decides to come across for me, she'll prob'ly do it through you.”

“And then I'll know what this is all about. That's a hint, by the way.”

“Tell ya what,” he said. “Next Monday. Week from today. How about that?”

“Is that a promise?”

“More like a hope, but I'd call it a pretty good bet. See ya.”

Click
. Why would Willy want to know when confessions were heard at St. Ben's? Of course, he didn't want to know that. What he wanted to know was when they
weren't
being heard. I should have seen that. Thigh-high fastball on the inside corner—a pitch like that shouldn't have gotten by me. But it did. I didn't see the obvious until it was damn near too late.

The Third Tuesday in April

Chapter Thirty-seven

Jay Davidovich

I hate to sound like my dad, but why would anyone watch a baseball game from a luxury suite? Swordfights to the death in the arena—yeah, I could see that.
Hey, nifty throat-slash—which reminds me: how about some of that steak tartare from the warming pan?
To enjoy baseball, though, you have to concentrate—and a luxury suite is basically a thousand cubic yards of distraction.

I got to Suite 328 about the time the grounds crew was hauling a portable batting cage into place behind and looming over home plate, signaling the official start of batting practice. The handful of souls in the stands ninety minutes before game time seemed lost in the stadium's vastness. Yankee-blue canvas hung slackly from the cage's framework of aluminum fence poles, to stop any batted ball that wasn't headed for the field of play. I love watching BP. It reminds me of getting to Red Sox games way early with dad so that we could catch the last ten or fifteen minutes. But nostalgia had nothing to do with tonight.

“How do you like it?”

Looking over my shoulder at the sound of the voice, I saw Nesselrode striding into the suite. He spread his arms expansively, as if the thing had been in his family for six generations.

“Magnificent.”

Nesselrode had already squatted in front of a mini-fridge to dig out two Guiness ales. He tossed one to me.

“Sorry.” He shrugged at me. “The only alternative is Budweiser.”

“I'm easy to please. Thanks for the ticket, by the way.”

“Trust me, you'll earn it. Hate to skimp on foreplay, but we'll be having lots of company in forty-five minutes or so. We need to discuss things while we still have some privacy.”

“It's your party.”

I followed him to the two rows of leather-cushioned, theater-type seats at the front of the suite, where you'd sit if you actually wanted to watch action on the field. He gestured toward the two seats at the far end of the first row. Didn't like it. Minimum visibility, zero mobility, maximum vulnerability. I sprawled into the end seat anyway. He sat down next to me, taking a long hit on his Guiness as he did.

“We need to make a deal.”

“I'm game.” I tried to look game. “What are the terms?”

“Terms. Yes.” He took another deep swallow. “Clause one: I will give Transoxana Insurance Company some extremely useful advice at no charge.”

“Sounds good so far.”

“Clause two: Alma von Leuthen is off the table for good. No gumshoes, no keyhole-peepers, no
et ceteras
.”

“Transoxana is already out of the Alma von Leuthen business.”

“I need it to stay out. Drink up, I feel conspicuous.”

I swallowed a respectable measure of crisp ale.

“I can take a no-Alma guarantee up the ladder, Dany, but I'm a very small cog in a very big machine. If Transoxana puts another loss-prevention specialist on this case tomorrow morning, he could reopen the von Leuthen can of worms without a by-your-leave from me. Or she could, if there were any shes in TO's Loss Prevention Department. Which there aren't, but anything can happen.”

“Ah, so you're not Transoxana's CEO. That disappoints me.” He drank some Guiness, and I felt weirdly compelled to do the same, as if I were sixteen years old again and we were down by the quarry after midnight. “I'm joking. What you can promise is that you will tell me whether Transoxana has rejected the policy the Museum wants to buy; and also whether you've picked up any hint that it's looking at von Leuthen again.”

“I suppose. That's not exactly in the employee manual, but I can play an angle here and there and try to stay in the loop.”

He grabbed my right bicep in a fierce, steely grip. Hard enough to smart. I snapped my head toward him and found myself looking into intense, burning eyes.

“No ‘suppose' about it, Judas Macabeus Davidovich. There is no ‘try.' There is only ‘will.' I need your word on your honor as a Jew that you
will
find a way to let me know if Transoxana goes back on von Leuthen's trail.”

“Dany, for starters, let go of my arm.”

He relaxed his grip and sheepishly dropped his hand.

“Sorry.”

“Now, I'll give you my word on whatever you want that I will do my damn level best to let you know about any developments on the von Leuthen front. But no guarantees. I'm not going to overpromise.”

“Thank you for that. Half-a-loaf is better than bullshit, as Americans say—or would say, if you had a little more imagination.”

“The best way to keep Transoxana on the sidelines as far as von Leuthen is concerned is for you to give me a bullet-proof reason for us not to issue the policy.”

“Yes, yes, you're absolutely right.” He finished his Guiness, crushed the can in his right hand, and tossed it over his shoulder in the general direction of nothing in particular. “I promised you valuable advice, and I'll deliver. First, though, I need another libation—and perhaps one for our new arrival.”

As Dany sprang nimbly to his feet, I looked back into the interior of the suite. The new arrival, whom Dany must have heard even though I hadn't, was wearing a black coat, black trousers, black hat, white shirt, and black beard dominated by ringlets of hair. Standard Hassidic male outfit, except for a recently damaged nose that wasn't in any hurry to heal.

“Jay Davidovich, Aram Himmelfarb.” Nesselrode said this in a perfunctory voice as he cruised past “Himmelfarb” and headed for the mini-fridge. “Aram Himmelfarb, Jay Davidovich. The ‘J' stands for ‘Judas'. Jay's full given name is Judas Maccabeus. So don't give him any shit.”

I worked my way out of the seating rows to three leather sofas arranged in an open square around a glass-topped table to form a conversation space. “Himmelfarb” had parked himself on the couch at the bar side of the square.

“You're the loss-prevention specialist Dany has been telling me about?”

“On the nose, Reb Himmelfarb.” I touched my own nose as I spoke.

I would have spotted Halkani even without the injured nose. As disguises go, a fake beard falls somewhere between mediocre and pathetic for someone with any cop experience at all—and I'd had all I wanted of that. Halkani gave me the kind of hard look that Warner Brothers used to hand out from its prop box to actors in gangster flicks. It lasted a nano-second before he managed to smear a smile over it. Nesselrode slapped a beaded can of Guiness in Halkani's hand and remained standing while I sat down opposite the guy.

“Question,” Nesselrode said. “Suppose Transoxana refuses to insure
Eros Rising
on this Vienna boondoggle. Could the Museum find some other insurer?”

“Yep.”

“Suppose that insurer asked Transoxana why it had turned down the policy. What would Transoxana say?”

“‘Go to hell.' We'd put it a little more politely. ‘Company policy and concern for the privacy of the insured precludes us from making any comment except to confirm the fact and dates of past coverage.' But, basically, go to hell.”

Nesselrode nudged Halkani's shoulder with the back of his left hand.

“So you see, Himmelfarb,
someone
will insure the venture, and as long as the insurer isn't Transoxana, neither the amateurish bullshit up to now nor the sudden pursuit of von Leuthen should interfere with anyone's plans.”

“A master of subtlety—just what you'd expect from the son of a diplomat!” Halkani rolled his eyes theatrically and shook his head. “What are you going to do next—hand him ten thousand dollars in a white envelope?”

“Of course not. I'm going to hand him something else in a white envelope.”

Nesselrode drew a standard business envelope from inside his suede sport coat. I noted with considerable disappointment that it was way too thin to hold a hundred C-notes. Instead of tendering it to me he held it horizontally a couple of inches below his chin. No name on the outside.

“You know Willy Szulz?”

“I've met him.”

“The document inside this envelope is for him. It is very important to him. I am asking you to put that document into his hands. Not in his mailbox, not in his lawyer's hands or his girlfriend's hands: his hands.”

“This would be clause three of the deal you want to make?”

“Yes.”

“When do I get the bullet-proof reason for my employer to blow off a high six-figure premium?”

“You've already gotten that, you dumb goddamn yid,” Halkani said. “What have you been doing for the last ten minutes—watching batting practice?”

“Thanks for the hint. I was hoping for something a little more concrete.”

“Use your imagination.”

“I'm trying. I'm imagining that there's a coherent connection between giving a piece of paper to Willy Szulz and saving Transoxana a fifty million-dollar loss. I'm not getting anywhere.”

“There is no connection,” Nesselrode said. “That's the whole point.”

“Then the point is way too sophisticated for an American
putz
like me.”

Halkani sighed. He set his Guiness, still unopened, on the table. Leaning forward and resting his forearms on his thighs, he looked directly at me.

“Let me tell you a parable.”

“Okay.”

“There was a
shiksa
who had a way with men—especially men who were powerful or famous.”

“You're missing an excellent opportunity to keep your goddamn mouth shut,” Nesselrode muttered.

“One day, she happened on a man who had no fame whatever but, in his own way, had a modest but impressive kind of power. This man happened to be a Jew.”

“Feel free to ignore him,” Nesselrode told me. “He's one of those Israelis who like to play ‘I'm a better Jew than you are.'”

Halkani continued unperturbed, as if Nesselrode hadn't said a word.

“Well, this thing went on as these things do, and by and by the woman got herself knocked up and discovered that she had conceived a son. Not an immaculate conception—apparently only Jewesses have those. The powerful Jew was the boy's father—with the catch, however, that he would stop being powerful very quickly if it got out that he had been whoring with the
goyim
.”

Nesselrode bristled. Halkani and I simultaneously flicked our eyes to see whether Nesselrode was about the throw a punch. No, as it turned out, but it struck me as a pretty close question.

“This
shiksa
, for some goddamn reason that I can't imagine, didn't abort her pregnancy. When the half-breed was born, she took him to a rabbi for a little knife-work on his tiny
schvance
. She managed to find a family that, for a reasonable price, would raise him as a good Jew. She arranged for his father to see him now and again when he wasn't too busy protecting the Temple Mount.”

I kept my mouth shut, with one eye on Nesselrode and one on Halkani. If I had been Nesselrode, either Halkani or I would have been on his way to the hospital five minutes ago. Or the morgue. Did Nesselrode's restraint come from cowardice or calculation? Or both? Or something else?

“As you would expect in light of this background, our boy has spent most of his life overcompensating for his mother's lack of Davidic genes.” Halkani raised his eyebrows and flicked his head toward Nesselrode. “Any second now he's going to say, ‘Fuck you.' That's his idea of snappy patter.”

“Very interesting.” I kept my eyes focused on Halkani. “Tell me something: Where were you Wednesday and Thursday of last week?”

Halkani threw his head back and laughed like I'd just told the knee-slapper of all time.

“Nowhere near Vienna, my friend. Since the World Trade Center attack, I've found it prudent not to leave the United States unless absolutely necessary. Getting back in can be an adventure.” He leaned forward and favored me with what I think was supposed to be an earnest expression. “Look. This is what we do. You and I. This is business. Our business. Take a punch, throw a punch. No hard feelings, right?”

My policy is actually
Throw a punch so you don't have to take one
, but I figured saying so might seem impolitic. So instead I nodded and said, “Sure.”

Nesselrode strolled a few feet away, then turned back to Halkani and me. Some random light penetrating the suite caught one of his onxy cufflinks just right and flashed a little starburst at us.

“You know what I find interesting about the completely fucked-up attempt to steal that bill of sale from you at the Museum? How could anyone possibly have imagined that it would work? And yet, it almost did. It's as if Caleb, the spy that Moses sent into Canaan, were a blithering
klutz
who made it back safe and sound anyway.”

I stood up. Halkani started to do the same, but apparently thought better of it. I held out my right hand toward Nesselrode.

“I'll take the envelope. I'll get the document to Szulz.”

Nesselrode gave me the thing. I folded the envelope in half and stuffed it into my rear trouser pocket, next to my comb and handkerchief. Then I headed for the door. I glanced over my shoulder on the way.

“Thanks again for the ticket. Enjoy the game.”

As I reached the door I heard feet moving rapidly toward me across the carpet. I pivoted, halfway expecting that I'd have to block a flying fist. Halkani, though, stopped just outside of effective range for either of us.

“Can I give you a ride back to your hotel, Judas Maccabeus Davidovich?”

“No, thanks, I'm in a hurry.” You can get almost anywhere in New York City faster on foot or on the subway than you can in a car.

“Fair enough. Before you leave, though, let me tell you a parable.”

“Okay.”

“Fuck with me I'll kill you.”