The Consignment (13 page)

We’d been driving for about half a mile when I glanced across at her purse again. It was open, but I couldn’t see the gun. Lagundi’s hair was pulled back tight, a tortoiseshell comb fixed beneath the knotted bun at the back of her head. She kept her eyes to the front. She looked worried, like maybe she hadn’t thought this through, but I figured she’d get around to what she had to say in the end, so I returned my attention to the road. A minute later she took off her dark glasses.

“I didn’t go to the bank.”

“We noticed.”

“What did Trevanian say?”

“Not much.”

“Was he angry?”

“Angry. Confused. Same as Rossiter.”

“You don’t seem angry.”

“They’re not my guns.” I looked at her. “Or my diamonds.”

“They’re not Trevanian’s either,” she said, and from her tone I gathered that was some kind of issue.

“If Trevanian can’t find you,” I said, “won’t he call his contacts in Nigerian Defense, let them know what you’ve done?”

“What have I done?”

“You tell me.”

She reached into her purse. My right hand dropped from the wheel to rest on my knee.

“I need the bill of lading,” she said.

“I don’t have it.”

“You can get it.”

“You can get it yourself if you just give Rossiter the diamonds.”

She produced a white handkerchief from the purse. “There would have to be another arrangement,” she said, touching her nose with the handkerchief, and at that moment I felt the entire operation crumbling. There was not going to be another arrangement. If Rossiter didn’t receive payment as agreed, he’d simply order the cargo to be unloaded. When I’d put him in the cab to his apartment, he’d been making noises about suing Trevanian for breach of contract. Reopening negotiations simply wasn’t on Rossiter’s agenda. When I spelled that out for Lagundi now, she went quiet for a while.

Then she said, “Trevanian was cheating us. He had a private agreement with Greenbaum. They were going to cheat us. I couldn’t let him have the stones.”

I pulled over into a rest stop and parked behind a snack truck that was doing business there. A couple of trucks were parked up ahead, their drivers sitting on the curb eating burgers, swigging Pepsi. I switched off the engine, then faced her. “What private agreement?” I said.

Then she told me. And while she told me, I tried not to give any sign of surprise or downright dismay. According to Lagundi, Trevanian and Greenbaum had agreed on an undervaluation of the stones. They’d agreed to split the difference between themselves after Greenbaum sold the stones on the bourse and paid Rossiter his money. Rossiter wouldn’t lose, but Lagundi and Trevanian’s client would be cheated.

“If it was so private,” I said when she finished, “how did you find out?”

“They thought I wasn’t in my room. At the hotel. They were talking.”

I didn’t get it. “Your room?”

“Adjoining Trevanian’s room.” Her eyes stayed on mine.

I thought about saying something, then decided things were complicated enough already. Instead, I asked her what she’d been doing just now at the dock.

“I knew someone from Haplon would come,” she said. “You or Rossiter.”

“You’re lucky it was me. If you’d gotten into Rossiter’s car, and told him what you just told me, he’d have torn your heart out.” I hit the ignition and pulled out of the bay while she turned things over. I asked if she wanted to come and see Rossiter. She shook her head.

“You tell him,” she said.

When I asked where she was headed, she told me to drop her on the corner of West Seventy-second and Central Park West. I remarked that she seemed to know her way around the city.

“Parts,” she agreed.

“How often you over here?”

“Not often.”

“Bit different from Monrovia.”

At my mention of Liberia’s capital, she glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “New York is different from anywhere,” she said at last, then she put on her dark glasses again and shut me out for the rest of the drive.

Half an hour later, I stopped at her destination. “How could we get in touch?”

“You can’t,” she said, getting out. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I get new instructions from my client.”

Tomorrow was going to be too late. “Look,” I said. “We’re not going to be passing anything on to Trevanian.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, then some guy behind me leaned on his horn and she closed the door and set off down the sidewalk.

I drove away slowly, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror. I hadn’t gone a hundred yards when I saw her cross the road, dodge traffic, and enter the park. I swung right, pulled up into a parking space, and grabbed Brad’s old baseball jacket off the backseat. Then I shed my own jacket, pulled on Brad’s, and shoved some coins in the meter before sprinting back to Central Park West. I couldn’t see her. I crossed over through the traffic, jogged up toward the Seventy-second Street transverse, and within half a minute had her in sight. She was walking east, on the transverse sidewalk, not hurrying or looking back. I couldn’t have followed her in my car, it was one-way traffic in the wrong direction. She’d chosen her dropping-off point well.

I could flatter myself that I did a great job tailing her, but the truth is she thought she’d lost me already, so she didn’t do anything more to shake me. The sun was out, there were plenty of joggers and pedestrians in the park, it wasn’t too hard for me to blend in with the human scenery. She passed Strawberry Fields, then the lake, then Bethesda Fountain, and she didn’t once look back. When she reached Fifth Avenue, she crossed over and turned south. I went and stood near some kids in the park who were out with their teacher on a nature excursion, everyone with pencils and paper, sketching a tree. On the other side of Fifth, Lagundi walked down until she was directly opposite me, then she turned east again.

I hurried across Fifth, walked along the sidewalk across from her, shadowing her at fifty yards. The only time she paused was to browse in a jeweler’s window, then she crossed Madison, and a minute later she stepped into the lobby of a hotel.

On the sidewalk opposite, I slowed. The Hallam Hotel, the name was carved in florid script on the stone wall by the entrance. Inside, through the glass doors, I saw Lagundi at reception, picking up her key. When she crossed to the elevators, I didn’t linger, I turned on my heel, walked back to Madison, and hailed a cab to get me back to my car. Sitting in the cab, I hung my head. If I told Rossiter what Lagundi had told me, he’d terminate the deal instantly. So what was I going to tell him? That everything down at the docks was fine? That Lagundi remained out of the picture?

It never crossed my mind to tell him the truth. The truth, by this time, was no longer the default option that came to me, as it had once done, automatically. Not with Rossiter. Not with Fiona and Brad. Not even with Channon and Rita. So I sat in the cab, plotting some plausible story for Rossiter, while remaining completely blind to the fact that there was really no one left to deceive but myself.

CHAPTER 16

The doorman had phoned up ahead of me, so Rossiter was waiting at the apartment door.

“You tell me the materiel’s been frigged around with,” he said, “I’m gonna kill someone.”

“The containers haven’t been touched.”

“Thank Christ.” He ushered me into the apartment. The place looked like something from an interior decorating magazine, vaguely minimalist, with expensive oriental objects in strategic positions. Rossiter’s wife, Eileen, got her favorite decorator in to advise on the apartment layout at least twice a year. “Trevanian’ll be here in a minute,” he told me, crossing to his bar. “Drink?” I shook my head. “Seems Trevanian’s been on to his client,” he said. “Client sent him to their bankers.”

“What about Lagundi?” I asked.

“He can’t find her. He’s guessin’ what’s she’s done is grabbed the stones and run. That’s why he needs the damn bankers.” Rossiter opened his bar fridge, took out a tonic water, and mixed himself a very large drink. Now that I knew Trevanian was trying to organize proper payment, I was even more convinced that there was no real need to tell Rossiter about my meeting with Lagundi. Not immediately. If Trevanian didn’t come through, I might think about it again. “Whole fucking thing’s my fault anyway,” Rossiter declared, sinking into the sofa. “What was I doing saying yes to the fucking diamond thing? Just say no. Old Nancy Reagan, maybe she was on to somethin’. What the hell got into me agreeing to that?”

“We needed the deal. We still do.”

“Sign of a sucker,” he remarked to himself. He took a pull at his drink, then studied the glass. “How much chance you figure Trevanian’s got of producing the money?”

I shrugged. I said there was no way of knowing.

Rossiter nodded to himself, then he reached across the sofa and lifted the head off a Chinese-style blue porcelain dog that sat on the side table. Digging into the dog’s hollow neck, he extracted a key. “You’ll need the reference numbers from the bill of lading. Call the stevedores. Tell them if they don’t hear different from us, we want our containers off the
Sebastopol
by midday tomorrow.”

“What if Trevanian raises the cash?”

“When we see it, we can call them again, tell them we’ve changed our minds.” He tossed me the key, jerking his head toward the study. The phone by his sofa rang, and as he answered it I went to fetch the bill of lading. I heard him talking with Vincent, Haplon’s financial controller. They were discussing whether or not to draw down Haplon’s last line of credit to cover the construction bills that were continuing to mount alarmingly out in California. Rossiter was lining up the contingency plan in case Trevanian didn’t come through with the money.

Rossiter’s study was the one room in the apartment where the remit of his wife’s decorator didn’t reach. It was oak paneled, a couple of old armchairs stood to either side of the window, and Rossiter’s credenza sat at an angle across one corner of the room. I opened the credenza drawer, got out the bill of lading, and rang the stevedores. They weren’t overjoyed by the new instructions I gave them, our cargo had already cost them more time and paperwork than they thought reasonable. But we were paying, so they agreed to speak to the
Sebastopol
’s captain and warn him that our goods had to be unloaded before the ship’s departure at noon the next day, unless they received contrary instructions from us. Then I relocked the bill of lading in the credenza and returned to the living room. Rossiter had finished his call. He was over by the front door, showing Trevanian into the apartment.

“Jack’s got the okay from the bankers,” Rossiter called across to me.

Trevanian balked when he saw me emerging from the study. When I nodded, he nodded back, then he turned to give Rossiter the details of his arrangement with the bank. While they talked, I dropped the credenza key into the blue porcelain dog, then replaced its head. I looked at Trevanian. He seemed uncomfortable, not quite the confident, indestructible character he’d been right up until Lagundi’s disappearance. He might have been acting, but somehow I doubted it. Too proud to play that kind of part.

After hearing Trevanian out, Rossiter slumped into the sofa again and picked up the phone. Trevanian handed him a business card and told Rossiter the banker’s name. Rossiter, I am a hundred percent sure, was as surprised and as suspicious as I was about how Trevanian had secured the funds at such short notice. But it didn’t show. He simply took the card and dialed, asking me to fix Trevanian a drink. Trevanian shook his head, he wasn’t in a drinking mood, and he went to the window to contemplate the view. Rossiter made the call.

There was more than a little tension in the room. After the screwup at the bank and the disappearance of Lagundi, we all knew that a successful conclusion to the deal hung on Rossiter’s call. The strain showed on Trevanian’s face. There were dark moons under his eyes, and his lips were tight. His washed-out expression did more than anything he could have said to convince me the break between him and Lagundi was real. Rossiter finally got past the secretaries, and he spoke with Trevanian’s banker for several minutes. Trevanian continued to stare out the window. At last Rossiter hung up. Trevanian and I both looked at him.

Rossiter lifted his eyes from the phone and smiled. “All clear. He confirms the twelve million’s available. He’s faxing me the confirmation.” Trevanian nodded, expressionless. Mightily relieved. Rossiter was silent a moment, then he asked Trevanian, “Why were you shoving the diamonds at us if your client had that cash?”

Trevanian jinked a shoulder. “Africans,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Nigerians?” Rossiter said.

Trevanian stepped forward. “I’ll take the bill of lading with me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“For my client.”

“You’ll get the bill when the money’s actually been paid into the Haplon account,” Rossiter told him. “Paid in, and cleared.”

“That’s a technicality.” Trevanian pointed to the phone. “You spoke to the man. The money’s there.”

“It’s a twelve-million-dollar technicality. We’ll wait.”

“Till when?”

“According to your man at the bank, tomorrow morning,” said Rossiter, and at that, Trevanian put his hands on his hips, his expression pained. Rossiter rose, went around and guided Trevanian to the door. “Come up here for breakfast. When the bank confirms the money’s cleared, you can have the bill of lading.” He clapped Trevanian’s shoulder and opened the door. “No problem.”

Trevanian didn’t move. He studied his feet a moment, then lifted his eyes. He was taller than Rossiter. Rossiter looked up at him. “You fuck me around like this tomorrow morning,” said Trevanian quietly, “and it’s going to be a big problem.” He pointed at Rossiter. “Yours,” he said. Then he turned and nodded to me and walked out.

Rossiter closed the door. “Fuckin’ tough guy,” he said, coming back to the sofa. He hauled out a phone book. “Big fuckin’ tough guy.” He dropped into the sofa, checked the card Trevanian had given him, then he searched the phone book.

“What can he do?” I said.

“Fuck all. That’s why he’s so goddamn mouthy.” Rossiter found the number, picked up the phone, and dialed. “Hi,” he said when someone answered. “I’m not sure I’ve got the right number. Trade Finance Department? Yeah. Listen, could you put me through to a Russell Fogarty? Yeah, I’ll wait.” It was half a minute before he spoke again. “Russell? It’s Milton Rossiter from Haplon Systems. Yeah. That’s me. I was just calling back to check. I think I gave you the wrong fax number.” He went through the charade, having Fogarty read the number back to him, and confirming that it was in fact correct. Finally he hung up. He stared at the phone, thoughtful.

“Genuine?” I said.

“Same guy.” He interlaced his fingers and twirled his thumbs. “The bank on the card’s the same bank as in the book. The number’s right.” He glanced up. “Any thoughts?”

“Six hours ago Trevanian couldn’t pay us with anything but diamonds. Now suddenly he’s got real money?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t understand it.”

“I don’t much like it myself.” Rossiter clasped his hands together, then threw them open. “But hey, what the fuck. We gonna let the deal fall apart? If Trevanian’s got the money, we’ll take it, right?”

The deal was on again. I arched a brow.

“I can call the stevedores—”

“Leave it.” Rossiter kicked off his shoes and swung his feet onto the sofa. He picked up his drink. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. His money’s not in our account yet. Till it is, we just leave things be.”

“We just wait?”

“We just wait,” he said, and drank his drink and settled his head on the cushions. He stared at me over his glass. The corners of his mouth turned down. “Fuckin’ tough guy.”