Book of Nathan (35 page)

“Before we take this any further, there are a couple of
other issues we have to talk about,” I said.

Even when he wasn’t angry, Arcontius looked like a
constipated Jiminy Cricket with a skin condition. Now that he was irate, his
pointed head turned fuchsia—I could practically see steam blowing out his
elongated ears. “Let me be clear about something. You’re a nauseating thief.
You’d be making a mistake if you didn’t settle this now.”
 

I straightened my bow tie, turned my back on the Statue of
Liberty, and looked Arcontius right in his ball bearing-like eyes. “This isn’t
about more money. Just a couple of questions that need answers.”

Arcontius gave me a look that could melt steel. “What
questions?”

“Questions about Arita Almiras and the Almiras Society.”

What followed was a long interlude of silence. Arcontius
pushed back from the
Resolution
’s
deck rail. Then he gave a slight finger
wave to Thaddeus Dong. The Asian giant was still parked by Silverstein’s cabin.
It took him only a few steps to make his way across the deck.
 

Arcontius tilted his head toward the Asian. “You remember my
associate, Mr. Dong.”

“He’s hard to forget.”

“Do you know what the Chinese word, Dong, means?”

“Not a clue.”

“Historian,” replied Arcontius. “And it fits Mr. Dong
perfectly. He has a long memory when it comes to people who cross us. He helps
us remember to even the score if people don’t live up to their commitments. Do
you get what I’m telling you?”
 

“Sort of. But with all due respect to Mr. Dong, we still
need to chat about Arita Almiras.”

“Your inquiring mind has a way of pulling you into a tar
pit, Mr. Bullock.”

I nodded. “It’s a curse.”

“You’d be advised to take your money and walk away.”

“Not until you tell me what you know about the Almiras
Society.”

The onboard band was finishing “New York, New York”
when Arcontius resumed the discussion.
“Tell me—does your line of questioning have something to do with Mr.
Zeusenoerdorf?”

“It does.”

“I’m surprised. I thought your quest for justice would
evaporate once you turned millionaire.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to see that,” Arcontius said. “Very
well. We’ll talk. But this is a conversation that has to be private.”

My alarm bell sounded. “Okay.”

Arcontius pointed to a door. “The lower deck.” A moment
later, we were walking down a steep stairway that led to a section of the yacht
that was all engine and storage. Apparently, Arcontius knew the
Resolution
from
bow to stern. I recalled Doug telling me that the anal Arcontius always paved
the way for Silverstein, which meant he probably conducted an on-site
inspection of the yacht days ago.

“Dong!” Arcontius looked up to the giant who was still at
the top of the stairs. “Make sure we’re not interrupted.” The Asian shut the
metal door at the top of the stairway. I pictured Dong standing outside,
looking like Mr. Clean on a bad day. No one would be getting past Arcontius’s
henchman until the guard dog was told to stand down.

Arcontius led the way through a door that put us in an
open-air area tucked under the main deck. A pair of Yamaha WaveRunners and
other small watercraft were stowed and locked in place behind a complicated launch-and-retrieval
system. Arcontius waltzed me around until I was standing with my back against
two thick cables that passed as a railing. Aside from those strands of twisted
metal, there was nothing between me and the brackish water of New York Harbor.

“What do you know about Arita Almiras?” Arcontius asked.

I raised my voice so I could be heard over the rumble of the
ship’s engines. “I’m the one with the questions. Let’s start over. What do you
know about Arita Almiras?”

“Enough to assure you that it’s a name you would be better
off forgetting.”

“There’s a man named Conway Kyzwoski who did his share of
remembering before he died.”

It was as if Arcontius knew what I was going to say before I
said it. “Kyzwoski,” he whispered, “and what did he tell you?”

“According to Conway, I’m looking at Arita Almiras,” I lied.
“Apparently, you’re the major domo for an organization called the Almiras
Society. Given different circumstances, what Kyzwoski had to say wouldn’t mean
a thing to me. But then Conway added that the society was connected to the
Benjamin Kurios murder. He also said your organization had attached itself to
me like a tick to a dog.”

“I’ve heard of Mr. Kyzwoski,” Arcontius conceded. “And I
know something about the Almiras Society. But that’s as far as it goes.”

“Really? Because according to Judith Russet, you know a lot
about the society.” I was getting
accustomed to stretching the truth.

This
Arcontius
had not expected. He looked like he had just been hit by the
Resolution
’s
anchor. The possibility that the head
of
Quia Vita
had openly linked Arcontius with the Almiras Society caught him off guard.
“What did Russet tell you?”
 

I dodged the question. “How long have you been a pro-life
fox in Silverstein’s pro-choice chicken coop?”

Arcontius did his best to hold himself together. Difficult
to do when the verbal bullets were finding their target. “A very serious
accusation, Mr. Bullock.”

“It is,” I agreed. “And one you don’t want Silverstein to
hear. Which is why you’ve kept me away from him.”

“Keeping rubbish away from Silverstein’s door is my job.”

“
Occasio aegre
offertur, facile amittitur.”

Arcontius winced. “Excuse me?”

“It was your parting shot the last time we were together,” I
reminded him. “Opportunity is offered with difficulty but lost with ease. A
little more than coincidence that it’s also the Almira Society motto, don’t you
think?”

The pile of evidence had grown too high. Arcontius stopped
talking, pushed back his tuxedo jacket and dislodged a Colt .38 snub-nosed
pistol from its shoulder holster.

He waved the weapon at my midsection. “This is to make sure
I have your full attention.”

“I listen better without a muzzle stuck in my belly.”
 

“Apparently you think that you can blackmail me into
coughing up another five hundred thousand dollars for Le Campion’s disk. Well,
you’re a fool.”

“I told you, I’m not looking for money. I’m looking for a
guarantee you’re not going to send another Conway Kyzwoski my way with a video
camera or a bullet. And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Shoot me and you can forget about the
Book of Nathan
disk. You’ll never see it.”

The possibility of losing the disk outweighed what I knew
Arcontius longed to do. He reholstered his pistol but kept his jacket pulled
back.

“Interesting,” mused Arcontius. “It’s the first time you
admitted you have the disk.”

It wasn’t actually an admission
—
but I understood how Arcontius might
have come to the conclusion I was marketing Le Campion’s disk. I figured this
wasn’t the time to set him straight. “Since we’re into confessions, explain why
your society has had me in its crosshairs ever since Kurios was killed.”

“We put you under surveillance not long after your man
Zeusenoerdorf was picked up on a murder charge,” Arcontius acknowledged.

“Zeusenoerdorf’s not my man.”

Arcontius disregarded the correction. “No one was instructed
to take you out—just to follow you and recover the disk. We work hard to
minimize loss of life unless we feel it’s absolutely essential to our
cause.”
 

It was a roundabout confession, but good enough for me.
Arcontius had just admitted he was the Almiras Society’s alpha dog.

“Why was it absolutely essential
to kill Benjamin Kurios?”

“The society had nothing to do with Benjamin’s murder.”

“What does that mean? You didn’t beat Kurios to death
personally but hired someone to take care of it?”

Arcontius kept talking as if wanting to set the record
straight. “I’ll tell you what happened to Kurios.”

“I’m listening.”

“The society had been keeping an eye on Benjamin after we
learned Le Campion sent him the
Book
of Nathan
disk. We were waiting for the right opportunity to work
out—how should I put it?—a change in ownership.”

Arcontius stopped, possibly reconsidering his offer to give
me details about how Kurios died. “So, on a dark and rainy night, you pulled
Benjamin out of his hotel and beat the shit out of him,” I said.
 

His face reddened. “We had nothing to do with abducting
Benjamin. But one of our people saw him when he was forced into a van with a
little help from a tire iron. When the van took off, our man stayed on its
tail.”

“It was your boy who was driving the blue sedan
Zeusenoerdorf saw—the car that ran the van off the road.”

“Yes.”

“Juan Perez.”

Arcontius was unruffled. “Mr. Perez was an experienced
investigator.”

“He was a Venezuelan mercenary.”

Arcontius raised an eyebrow, telling me he was surprised
about how much information I had scraped together.

“We imported Perez because we needed someone with his skill
set.”

“Skill set?”

“Most of the members of our society are not trained to
handle high-risk situations. I suppose you already know we recruited Perez from
one of Silverstein’s security teams in Caracas.”

“Seems Silverstein’s employees like wearing two hats.” I
wondered how Silverstein could be so successful and yet be so myopic. The old
man had made billions, but couldn’t spot a double-cross if he tripped over one.

“Perez did so for many years,” Arcontius confirmed. “He
wasn’t just muscle, he was also observant. Perez spotted something important
the night Benjamin was beaten.”

“The
Book
of Nathan
disk,” I guessed.

“Yes. The van driver took the disk from Benjamin and put it
in his pocket just before he took off.”

“Then what?”

“It was early in the morning and there was no traffic. We
had no idea where the van was heading—where Benjamin and the disk might end up.
When Perez cell phoned to let me know what was going on, I ordered him to stop
the van.”
 

“Your guy uses his car to slam the van into the bridge
piling and out pops Benjamin Kurios.”

“I assume Mr. Zeusenoerdorf gave you those details. As he
also probably told you, Perez ran his car into an abutment. The two drivers
ended up in hand-to-hand combat, which is when the disk fell out of the van
driver’s pocket and landed not far from Benjamin, who by that time was nearly
dead.”

I knew Arcontius’s story could be bogus. But his description
of what happened the night Kurios died matched Zeus’s jailhouse testimony.
 

“During the fight, Perez’s neck chain and
Quia Vita
emblem got ripped off,” I said.

“Yes,” Arcontius grumbled, showing his distain for his man’s
carelessness. Or was it the way Perez wore his affiliation to Judith Russet’s
organization around his neck? From my talk with Ida Kyzwoski, I had learned
that most Almiras Society members were also connected to
Quia Vita
.
Maybe Arcontius resented Perez for not getting his organizational priorities
straight. After all, it was the Almiras Society that was paying the Venezuelan
to tail Kurios.