Dead Anyway (33 page)

In the absence of contradictory orders from Little Boy, they would have stayed on duty forever, so we all knew that thanking them was meaningless, though they appreciated it anyway. I shook their hands, and their formal little nods were worth a million words on the subject of valor and forbearance.

I
GOT
the call the next day.

“This is not the way I conduct business,” said the voice.

“Your man started it,” I said. “It wasn’t about us. It was about your money.”

“I have plenty of other men,” he said.

“Good. I see no reason to allow such foolishness to interfere with commerce.”

“We need to test out the distribution. We’ll be in touch.”

“Got it.”

N
ATSUMI AND
I spent the next week buying guitars. I didn’t think it would be possible to soak up all the cash, but we got close. The effort involved a lot of travel, including a few days on the West Coast. Along the way, the two of us ascended to the upper ranks of guitar aficionados, learning more about the resonance of tropical hardwoods, glue chemistry, pickups, frets, machine heads and the hand manufacture of musical instruments than we’d ever hoped to know.

We always had a few Bosniaks along during local forays, one of whom, a fellow named Kresimir, was a pretty good finger-picker. This came as a welcome relief to Natsumi, who was beginning to tire of my distinctive rendition of “Stairway to Heaven.”

I arranged to have everything sent to the storage facility in Danbury. I wrote a beefy check to the guy who ran the place for helping to catalog and organize the inventory. He sent me photos taken with his phone of guitar-filled shelving units, all carefully identified by laminated hangtags.

Since this vastly expanded collection was officially owned by my sister Evelyn, I thought I ought to let her know. And since we were getting accustomed to a lot of travel, I decided the time was right for a personal visit.

“You want me to do what?” she asked.

I gave her the name of the restaurant in Norwalk where I’d met with Henry Eichenbach.

“Park on the street. Go into the restaurant, then out the back door to where a white Toyota will be waiting for you. The key will be under the mat on the driver’s side. When you leave the lot, head away from the main road and make your way to Route One. Head over to Westport.” I gave her the name and address of another restaurant. “We’ll meet you there. Around seven. The food’s on me.”

“You don’t honestly think anyone’s following me around,” she said.

“No. But the last time I didn’t listen to my inner paranoid, I could have been killed.”

“Okay.”

“Look for the preppy guy with the Asian woman.”

I booked two tables, ten feet apart. One for us and the other for Kresimir and one of his buddies, who arrived a half hour ahead. If the person who took the reservations noticed we never spoke to one another, she didn’t say.

I was pleased to see that Evelyn looked pretty good, and just the way I remembered her. She couldn’t have said the same about me.

“Arthur?” she asked, when she approached our table.

“Better not to use that name,” I said.

“That must be his inner paranoid speaking,” said Natsumi, standing and offering her hand. “By the same token, call me Charlene.”

Evelyn took her hand, but then sat down and stared at me.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Mostly okay,” I said. “Physically. I’ve adjusted to the sensory distortions, I’ve worked my math skills back up to a sixth grade level. I’ve got a slight limp, but no longer need the cane. I’ve stayed pretty busy. I think that’s the key.”

She looked over at Natsumi. I knew she wanted to ask the other half of the question. How was I emotionally, psychologically? I spared her the awkward question.

“I’m me, Evelyn,” I said. “Just a different version. We’re all born with more potentials than we use. It’s up to life’s circumstances to make the selection. My circumstances changed.”

Natsumi asked her to describe the prior me. After some more awkwardness, Evelyn took a stab at it. And though her perspective differed from mine, there was nothing for me to argue with.

Natsumi listened carefully, then said, “He’s right. Same guy, different version. Same with me, I think. I like this version plenty well.”

I gave Evelyn a general idea of what I’d been up to, using a lot of euphemism and imprecision when describing the illegalities. I didn’t know what made a person an accomplice after the fact, but I’d already made her more of one than I wanted. She didn’t press me, on that or anything else, probably so I wouldn’t have to say I couldn’t tell her.

Thus it wasn’t the easiest dinner conversation, but I was glad to see her, and glad she could meet Natsumi, who wasn’t the most comfortable person in the restaurant, either, but it barely showed. At the end of the night, before parting company, Evelyn gave us each a hug, which might have been a first for me. I’d never seen her hug anyone.

“I’d prefer driving my own car the next time we go out for dinner,” she said, heading for the white Toyota. “Don’t disappoint me.”

W
HEN WE
got back to the house, Little Boy was down in the family room, watching TV with his crew. He moved a little stiffly when he got up from the sofa, but otherwise looked no worse for having been recently shot.

“It really was just a flesh wound,” he said. “Nothing important got hit. Just the rib nicked a little. That’s what hurts like the son of a bitch.”

I brought him up to the study so I could tell him about the call from Three Sticks. Not to hide it from his boys, but I knew he liked to control important information. A leader’s prerogative.

“So he don’t want to go to war,” said Little Boy.

“I don’t know that,” I said. “Though probably not for now. That doesn’t mean we don’t double up on precautions the next time.”

“Hard to believe Jenkins acted on his own.”

“Impossible, in my opinion. I think it was an intimidation tactic gone wrong.”

“Intimidate
us
?” said Little Boy, incredulous.

“He knows now what you guys are made of. Next time, expect the real thing.”

B
EFORE
I went to bed, I checked in on my electronic moles at Florencia’s agency and CMT&M. Nothing of any note. I also looked at all my email accounts, and saw nothing of importance there either. Though eager to get some sleep, I felt compelled to visit one other site—one I checked usually every other day—the online reporting for the lockbox at the Blue Hen National Bank in Delaware.

For the first time since Florencia’s death, there was a new deposit. Fifty thousand dollars.

I looked away and then looked back at the number, as if it were an hallucination that would disappear. The fifty grand was still there, having been deposited that morning.

I opened the spyware at Florencia’s agency and searched all the computers for the password, actually a series of letters and numbers, used to take any action on the Blue Hen account, limiting the search to an hour before the deposit was made.

In seconds it was there. Florencia’s.

I searched her computer for any entry or action made from that deposit back to the time of her death. The logs showed where I’d gone in weeks before, when I’d stumbled on the skimming activities. But the computer hadn’t been touched again until that morning when someone turned it on, used Florencia’s username and password to get on the network, made a ten-second visit to the lockbox account, then logged off.

I switched over to the premium trust account. A distribution had been made the day before to Deer Park Underwriters.

Fifty thousand dollars.

T
HE NEXT
morning, a tall, white man with long brown hair tied in a ponytail walked down the driveway with his hands on his head. He wore only a T-shirt and a pair of long underwear in the frigid weather, the cold being less of a concern than the possibility of getting shot.

The Bosniaks on watch got the idea and let him get all the way to the front door. We waited inside until one of them came up behind the man and pressed a pistol into his back. Then we opened the door. Despite the impossibility of concealment, Little Boy frisked him anyway. Then we let him drop his hands.

“What’d you do to get this gig?” Little Boy asked the man.

“What I’m told is what I did. I’m only delivering a message.”

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

“The boss likes your products. He wants to go another round. Only no stupid stuff this time.”

He gave a date, time and another venue for making the transaction—a gazebo in the middle of a large open area in Easton, Connecticut. Once one of Fairfield County’s last dairy farms, it was now a park committed to summer concerts and readings. That time of year, it was virtually abandoned and as private a location as one could come up with.

The gazebo was accessible from opposite directions. He said they’d come in from the east, we could take the west.

“I have a proposition of my own,” I said.

The guy shrugged, as if to say, knock yourself out.

“Just him and me this time. Pretty much eliminates the stupid stuff.”

The guy shook his head.

“Not gonna happen,” he said. “Nobody sees him. Ever.”

“If he shows, I’ll drop the price another half.”

“He won’t care.”

“Just ask.”

He shrugged again, in the same way as before. I told him I’d be there at the designated time, either way. He put his hands back on his head.

“That’s not necessary,” I said.

“Oh, yes it is,” he called back as he walked down the driveway, followed by the Bosniak sniper.

“What’s their maximum range?” I asked Little Boy.

“The snipers? With our weapons, less than two thousand meters. Give them a better gun, they shoot farther.”

“Hm.”

B
RUCE
F
INGER
called me that evening. He said the meeting was set for five o’clock the next day. He was going to catch a plane first thing in the morning to be sure he got there in time.

“We’ll use the conference room at the agency, as you requested.”

“The Brandts?” I asked.

“They’ll be there. It took some persuading.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth, based on what you said to me,” he said. “That a private investigator from one of the big carriers had uncovered a serious issue with the books that existed prior to the sale. That it was in everyone’s interests to deal with the situation promptly and quietly. But it had to be in person. That’s still true, isn’t it?”

I told him it was. Then I hung up.

I placed one more call before leaving my computer room to join up with Natsumi for tea in front of the fire.

I told her about the first call, but not the second.

C
HAPTER
24

I
had a busy afternoon planned. First exchange my last million dollars’ worth of stolen gold and precious metals for $250,000 in cash. Then rush home to change my disguise for a business meeting at Florencia’s insurance agency. Further proof that scheduling is often the biggest challenge for the modern multi-tasker.

Natsumi, as with other stay-at-home domestic partners, felt a little left out.

“Couldn’t I come along as your administrative assistant? I can take notes.”

I told her I needed to know she was safe. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.

“So why is that any different for me? I
know
you’re not safe.”

“I’m bringing Little Boy along to both meetings. He’s worth ten other men, even with a hole in his chest.”

“Just come home. Okay?”

When I told her that was guaranteed, 100 percent, I almost convinced myself.

T
HE PLAN
was for the two best Bosniak snipers to set up well in advance, taking advantage of the trees that surrounded the field. That should have put them well outside of range, but we knew better. Three Sticks was a wily American gangster, but he hadn’t fought in the Balkans War.

All of us wore Bluetooth earphones connected to our cells, and on the way to the park, we were conferenced in through AT&T.

Once everyone had announced their presence on the line, Little Boy said, “Don’t forget I can hear everything you say. No bitchin’ about the boss.”

Somebody said something in Bosnian which drew a lot of laughs, including from Little Boy. I knew not to ask for a translation.

I had some time in the car with Little Boy, which I tried to fill with small talk. Not being involved day-to-day in larceny, prostitution and illegal drugs, I was at a disadvantage. I knew almost nothing about sports, least of all soccer, which was another impediment. I didn’t have children, or even know any. I never watched TV, nor been even close to the Balkans. So I asked him about his home country.

What followed was a rhapsody of description, of the beauty of the countryside, the perfection of the food and warmth of family and friends. He talked about weddings and holy days, some festive, others meant for fasting and prayer. He also spoke of life under Tito when he was a young boy, social tensions that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, and then the inexorable slide into ethnic war. When we reached this part of the narrative, the joy in the telling died away, and the story dwindled into one simple sentence: “It was very, very bad, leave it at that.”

We rode in silence after that, until it was broken by my cell phone. I looked at the screen. It was Shelly Gross.

I put the conference call on hold and took his call.

“I got a match,” said Shelly.

I gave him the name before he had a chance to say it. It was quiet for a moment.

“How did you know?” he asked, with a tinge of suspicion.

“Been a working hypothesis for a while. But the confirmation means a lot.”

“The office in New Haven is processing warrants. We got a lot of them. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to testify,” he said.

“The only thing I’m doing is laying low until you got that bastard locked up.”

“That’s smart. And don’t worry. Nobody knows my source, and they never will.”

“I know. You’re an honorable man,” I said.