Escape (24 page)

"V. T. Newbury, I'd like you to meet Prince Esra bin Afraan Al-Saud," Jaxon said in French. "And his administrative assistant and chief financial officer, Amir Al-Sistani."

Al-Sistani gave V. T. an odd, appraising look and then bowed slightly. He was a small, slightly built man, dressed modestly in an off-the-rack business suit and thick, black-rimmed glasses that gave him the air of an accountant. He wore a
ghutra,
the all-white version of the traditional Arabic
keffiyeh
headdress.

"Ah, Mr. V. T.," said the prince, crossing the room with his hand extended and a wide smile, the same one he probably employed at the net following the defeat of a tennis opponent. "I've heard so much about you from your uncle. I am pleased to make your acquaintance and trust that our time together will be mutually beneficial to myself and your law firm. I hope you do not mind that we speak French rather than English?"

"Not at all," V. T. responded. "I rather enjoy the language and get so little opportunity to practice it."

"Well, you speak it very well, and I'm afraid my English is poor. My associate, Mr. Al-Sistani, does not speak it at all," he said. "And unfortunately, I don't believe that any of you speak Arabic. Nor is our lovely translator, Marie Smith, able to be with us this morning."

V. T. got the impression that the prince was not at all happy that the "lovely translator" was absent. He came off as another oil-kingdom playboy who probably wasn't entirely happy unless young women were fawning around him.

"I'm afraid Mr. Al-Sistani also lacks some of the usual social graces," the prince added, nodding at his CFO. "However, he is an excellent money manager, and I couldn't do what I do without him."

Al-Sistani inclined his head at the compliment.
"Mera,"
he mumbled, looking back up at the prince like a dog hoping for a bit of praise.

"Social graces are fine, but this is a business meeting, so perhaps it's just as well," Dean Newbury said and invited the others to sit down at the large circular table.

This was the second time V. T. had been in the room—the first had been to meet a dozen or so of his uncle's "friends and trusted advisers"—and he noted again the unusual gold inlay work in the wooden table. The symbol matched the one on his ring, or more accurately, the ring Quilliam had once worn that his uncle had given to him as a "family heirloom."

After they were seated, Dean Newbury turned to his nephew. "Prince Esra is essentially here for two reasons, in addition to a little nightlife," he said with a chuckle. "One is to present a $1.3 million check to build a religious school on the grounds of a mosque in Harlem. A very commendable thing to do. However, he is also the president and chief executive officer of Kingdom Investments, Inc., one of the largest hedge-fund companies in the world. I assume you are aware of what a hedge fund is?"

"My understanding is that hedge funds allow more aggressive strategies than, say, a mutual fund, and aren't as regulated," V. T. answered, "and because they only allow a maximum of a hundred investors, the minimum buy-in can be in the millions."

"Exactly," Dean Newbury said. "Prince Esra's company is one of the top five hedge funds in the world. As such they have billions of dollars invested, but perhaps more importantly, that money allows them to leverage many times that.... We're talking hundreds of billions."

V. T. looked properly impressed as he glanced over at the prince, who was studying his own immaculately manicured fingernails. When he looked, however, at Al-Sistani, the little man was staring at him. As
you'd expect of the man who actually has to look after all that money,
he thought.

"Anyway, to date, Prince Esra has been content to deal with the banks and trading firms he uses from afar. However, now he's decided to meet with them and actually get them to compete against one another for his business. I'm afraid there's some concern that they've been taking him for granted," Dean Newbury continued. "As you might imagine, there are enormous commissions in these transactions; we're talking millions in a single trade. So the incentive to compete is strong, and the prince wants to meet face to face with them and hear who's going to put the best plan together."

"Sounds logical," V. T. said.

"We've agreed that you will be chief counsel for the prince while he's in this country."

"Well, I'm flattered," V. T. replied. "But I'm afraid that my experience as a business lawyer is negligible. I'm sure the firm has more qualified people."

"Perhaps for the detail work and for drawing up contracts," Dean agreed. "But as I've explained to the prince, you have considerable background in ferreting out and prosecuting white-collar criminals. He doesn't want to run afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and very much wants us—you—to protect his interests from unscrupulous bankers and stockbrokers."

Dean Newbury waited for a beat. "Besides, a lot of this business will transpire in a social setting. These people will wine and dine the prince and his entourage. I know that you're not unfamiliar with this set, and I think you're the man to guide the prince through these shark-infested waters. You'll act as the lead representative of our firm, and we can have some of the associates worry about the nitty-gritty paperwork."

V. T. thought about the offer for a moment. "Sounds exciting. I'm in," he said. "And I'll do my best on both counts."

Prince Esra smiled broadly. "Good ... excellent. You'll keep an eye on those criminal bankers and stockbrokers for me. Mr. Al-Sistani will give you my itinerary and plan on joining us as we are 'wined and dined,' and," he winked, "perhaps there will be time for exploring a city that never sleeps at night."

"I'll try to keep up," said V. T.

"Well then, that settles it,
'Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh',"
Dean Newbury said.

"I'm afraid I do not understand," the prince said.

"It's something we like to say around here," Dean replied. "It's Manx ... from the Isle of Man, which is where our family originated. It means, 'What must be, will be.'"

"Ah," the prince replied. "We Muslims have a similar sentiment, '
Inshallah.'
It means, 'as God wills.'"

Karp left the family loft and emerged from the five-story brick building on Crosby Street. Stopping on the sidewalk, he sniffed the air suspiciously and then smiled. That air actually smelled clean and lacked the usual
odeur de la ville.
A cool breeze had blown in from the harbor during the night, one of the first harbingers of the coming fall.

It was Saturday and he was considering which way to head for a morning walk. Marlene and the twins were already gone; the boys were staying with her father for the weekend, and she was off with the Baker Street Irregulars, plus Kenny Katz and Fulton. Her alarm had gone off before dawn, after which she'd expertly eluded his wandering hands as he tried to pull her back beneath the sheets.

"Should have thought of that last night, Lover Boy, but you were snoring before your head hit the pillow. The others are going to be here in a half hour. I don't have time for your nonsense."

Defeated, Karp had fallen back asleep until half-awakened by the presence of a warm body crawling into bed with him. Groggily hoping that Marlene had changed her mind, he turned and was shocked wide awake when the tongue that licked his lips was not hers but that of Gilgamesh, Marlene's 150-pound Presa Canario guard dog. Gilgamesh was her "baby"—trained to immediately obey both hand and voice commands, and capable of instantaneous violence, but otherwise a great big slobbery puppy.

"Guck!" Karp complained and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his nightshirt. Giving up on more sleep, he got out of bed to read the newspaper over a cup of coffee. His eyes went first to a story about the Yankees trying to catch the Red Sox, which meant something wasn't right with the world. Then he read the story about Senator McCullum criticizing the Patriot Act again. He'd met the man, heard him speak on the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties, and respected him.

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home,"
Karp read aloud. Now, there was someone whose politics he also liked, James Madison. The man had been absolutely devoted to the creation of a Constitution that would protect the individual from an intrusive government.

Got
another quote for you, Tom,
he thought.
Dad liked the one from A bra-ham Lincoln. 'America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.' I think we do well to think on that one a while, too.

When he finished the paper, Karp climbed into one of the sweatsuits he favored on weekends and went outside. He was still recovering from the gunshot wounds, especially the one to his right leg, which he blamed for the pounds he'd gained over the past year and was now determined to lose.

It didn't help that Marlene had learned to cook from her Sicilian immigrant mother, the acknowledged neighborhood queen of meatballs in Marinina sauce served over linguini. Nor did it help that he was battling an addiction to the hot pastrami-corned beef combo sandwiches, served with old Coney Island curly fries and an assortment of dill pickles, at the Carnegie Deli on 54th and Seventh Avenue.

Karp salivated like Gilgamesh at the thought of the sandwich, but that was a bit far to hike—all the way on the north end of Times Square. He could have taken a subway, but he'd promised his physical therapist and his waistline that today he'd walk. If he then deserved sustenance of some sort that he found along the way, at least he would have earned it.

He allowed himself a moment to gaze north up Crosby. He loved that street, but sometimes life got so busy that he hardly noticed it anymore.

Considering the value of real estate in lower Manhattan, it was amazing that the little street, with its old, low-rise brick buildings, small shops, and loft apartments, could survive, surrounded as it was by mountains of high-rise concrete, steel, and reflective glass.

Crosby was still paved with cobblestones, and steel fire escapes clung to the red brick like giant rust-colored insects. Except for those brief moments around midday, the sun rarely found its way into the shadows of the north-south-running lane, and the lack of direct sunlight added to the long-ago feel of the place. The buildings pressed so close from either side of the street—two vehicles couldn't pass without one going up on the sidewalk— that it almost seemed like you could jump from one rooftop to another across the way, with a running start and a stiff breeze at your back.

Even the businesses in the lane seemed part of a different, older New York. Although the original Madame Celeste, for whom the street-level Madame Celeste's Tarot Parlor and Piercing Studio had been named, was no longer on this side of the spirit world, she'd been replaced by a new, thirty-something Madame Celeste named Cindy.

Anthony's Best Shoe Repair in the walkdown shop across the street was still manned by hunchbacked gnome Giuseppe Cumino, who swore that some quiet nights when he was closing shop he could hear voices of long-ago immigrants shouting and laughing in Italian, Polish, and Yiddish. "They were happy here, and their souls don't want to leave," he once told Karp.

Ready to begin his walk, Karp opted for the morning sunlight and turned south for Grand Avenue. He then headed east into Little Italy, where sleepy busboys swept the sidewalks in front of the restaurants or carefully wrote the day's lunch specials on chalkboards next to the door.

His stomach growled as he read the selections, especially one that promised "New York's best cheese coffee-cake."
No disrespect, friend,
he thought,
but I know where the real best cheese coffee-cake is in New York, especially cherry cheese coffee-cake.

Now he knew where he was going and turned north on Bowery and followed it until it merged with Third Avenue. He enjoyed the city's streets on weekend mornings. The sidewalks weren't as busy as they were weekdays, and the people who were out and about weren't in as much of a rush to get wherever they were going. Most seemed to be enjoying a stroll, like himself, or heading toward a favorite sidewalk cafe or park bench.

Karp wondered how things were going up north on the Hudson with Marlene and the Baker Street Irregulars. He'd also picked up a message from his homicide bureau chief about another body found in the park near Spuyten Duyvil, this one with the numeral 777 carved into the chest.

"Three sevens again, huh?" Karp asked when he called. "What's that, the Devil plus one hundred and eleven?"

"Don't know," the bureau chief said. "The cops say they're hearing about some new gang out of Harlem calling itself the Rollin' 7s, but they're not sure there's a connection yet. Just letting you know that it's now a double homicide."

By the time he reached Il Buon Pane on 29th Street, Karp's wounded leg was aching from the exertion. Thus it was a bitter disappointment to see that the lights of the bakery were off and a sign in the door read "Closed." Only then did he remember that Moishe Sobelman was an Orthodox Jew and that "baking" was one of the prohibited labors on the Sabbath. He was considering whether to take a taxi back to Little Italy for what could have been at most the second-best cheese coffee-cake in the world when he heard a voice behind him.

"Well, if it isn't my friend, the district attorney, come to visit. Shalom. Shalom."

Karp turned and saw the little baker approaching from the north. "Shalom," he replied. "I was indeed hoping for a piece of cherry cheese coffee-cake and some conversation, but I forgot that you'd be closed on the Sabbath."

"A Jew who forgets the Sabbath? I don't mean to lecture, my friend, but there are some things Jews must never forget, and that this is a day for resting from our labors and counting our blessing is one of them." The baker said it with such a twinkle in his eye that Karp knew no offense had been intended. "But come, come, visiting friends is a 'mitzvah,' a good thing, on the Sabbath," Sobelman added, unlocking the door to the bakery.

The way Sobelman carried his keys was another reminder to Karp that there are Jews and then there are Jews. Attaching one's keys to the outside of a piece of clothing, rather than, say, putting them in a pocket, allowed one to avoid violating the prohibition against "carrying useful items" on the Sabbath because the item—be it a set of keys or a piece of jewelry—was then worn and not carried. There were thirty-nine categories of work prohibited by the Talmud, the book of Jewish law. But Jewish scholars had pored over the letter of the laws and found "workarounds" for most categories.

"You sure?" Karp asked, stepping into the bakery and inhaling the intoxicating aroma of bread and pastries. "I shouldn't disturb your Sabbath."

"Nonsense," Sobelman exclaimed. "Like I said, we are supposed to visit with friends and family on the Sabbath—so long as you walk.... You did walk?"

"Uh, yes, I walked," Karp replied, thinking that when he left, he was going to have to wait until Sobelman was out of sight if he planned to hail a taxi.

"Good, good," Sobelman replied, "though I would not have held it against you. I keep the Sabbath as I think it works for me, but I leave it for every Jew to find his or her own way. I was just returning from the synagogue. The reading of the
Sefer Torah
was particularly long today. Ever since the bombing, the services have grown longer and longer. But I am starving. You will join my wife and me for
shalosh seudot?"

Karp's stomach growled its acceptance but he shook his head. "No, thanks. I couldn't impose like that."

"Please, it's been a long time since we last had you under our roof," Sobelman said, "and we would consider it an honor. I observe the Sabbath more for the enjoyable aspects—the eating and conversations with one's friends and family—than because I like not doing anything."

Thinking that he would, indeed, enjoy spending time in this man's company, Karp let himself be persuaded. "Well, then I accept."

Sobelman led the way through the bakery to the back of the store, where stairs led to the apartment above.

Karp found himself in an entryway surrounded on both sides by what appeared to be old family photographs. Most of them looked to have been taken many years before and reminded him of photographs in the Ellis Island museum of immigrants from Eastern Europe. The men wore stiff black coats and wide-brimmed hats, or
kippah,
while the women dressed conservatively. He noticed a more recent photograph of a smiling young man in a suit next to a beautiful young woman in a wedding dress. It took him a moment to realize that the couple was Moishe Sobelman and his wife, Goldie.

"Welcome to our humble home," Sobelman said as his wife appeared, surprised to see a guest. "Ah, my bride. Look, my love, who came to visit on the Sabbath, our friend, Butch Karp."

Goldie Sobelman smiled shyly and then signed her response to her husband, who translated for Karp. "After scolding me for not giving her more warning, she said that you are most welcome. And she's off to set another place at the table," he said.

"You are both too kind," Karp said. He pointed to the older photographs. "Are these your families?"

The baker looked fondly at the photographs. "Yes, these are the only photographs we were able to find after the war. The people in them are all dead—none survived the camps. Only Goldie and I from both of our families."

Karp bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine that kind of loss."

"Neither could I until it happened," Sobelman said quietly. "But that was a long time ago, and the Talmud forbids us to discuss unpleasant things on the Sabbath. This is a day for pleasant conversations."

The baker led Karp into the dining room, where the latter noted the double candlestick holder on the table, with long white candles that were already lit. Karp's own parents were non-observant Jews, ignoring most customs except for Passover and Chanukah, which they'd often spent with his grandparents. And then there was his bar mitzvah, of course. However, he knew that the two candles symbolized the two admonitions: to observe the Sabbath by refraining from forbidden activity, and to remember their heritage in their words, thoughts, and actions. The candles would have been lit shortly before sunset on Friday and would be extinguished at sundown Saturday. Suddenly, Karp felt naked. "I apologize," he said. "My head isn't covered." Sobelman, who was still wearing his
kippah
from the synagogue services, reached up to the top of a wooden vanity and found another, which he offered to Karp. "I keep a spare for such occasions."

Insisting that Karp sit in what was obviously his own favored chair, Sobelman then took a seat between it and where his wife would sit. "So what brings the district attorney to my little bakery? Surely not just the cherry cheese coffee-cake?"

"And why not?" Karp said. "It's the best in the Five Boroughs. It's hard to find the best of anything, so I better enjoy it while it lasts."

Sobelman's face fell into an expression of mock horror. "What? You have some word that I will not be here much longer?"

Karp chuckled. "No, nothing like that. I was actually out to get exercise and thought that I might reward myself." He explained how his political rival, Rachman, had tried to shoot her way to the post he now held.

Sobelman wagged his head. "I remember reading the newspaper accounts of the shooting. Such a thing to happen in America, but politics is a dirty business, so I'm told."

Goldie appeared with a plate of boiled chicken and then sat down. "But again, such a topic is not for this day," her husband said. "Instead, let us break
challah
bread together."

The three were soon eating and laughing like old friends. Goldie was as much a part of the conversation as Moishe and Karp; she simply signed whatever she wanted to say, and then her husband relayed her contribution to Karp. When they finished the main course, she "found" three pieces of cherry cheese coffee-cake, which she served with strong black coffee. Finishing, she stood and started clearing the dishes, pushing Karp down by his shoulders when he tried to rise up to help her. She signaled to her husband.