The Deal (24 page)

It was obvious I was dealing with a guy who must have had a joke of a poker face. I sensed myself clicking into warrior mode, entering that place that makes the great brokers stand above the good ones. It was all about the upcoming moments, ones I could feel were about to happen, that often end up making, or breaking, deals.

“But we need the number to be a bit higher in order to make this a priority.”

“How much higher?” I asked, playing along.

“You tell me we have three thirty-five, and I can give you my word that we’ll look to make this a priority.”

My blood’s temperature rose quickly. Three hundred and thirty-five dollars per square foot was not the issue. Some pretentious, wannabe big shot looking to take advantage of me was.

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours, Jonah, to decide if you’d still like to move ahead.”

Looking to exhibit the control that had come to define my life and that others were trying to take from me, I decided to show Jack Merrill the light and punch him in the face as my father taught me. Not just for the team, for the deal, but for myself.

“At this precise moment, Jack, twenty-four hours is a tremendous amount of time. I don’t think I have it to spare.”

I decided to show Jack Merrill who, in fact, was in charge.

“So here’s my counteroffer. Take it or leave it.”

“Jonah, just rewind here for one second. If—”

“You tell your final decision makers that I didn’t come in at three twenty-five as a starting point. I came in offering you all three twenty-five as a fucking gift in order to get what I want, plain and simple. If you want to pretend that this was just some interesting starting point in order to churn out a few extra bucks, I’m fine to take my business elsewhere. Are you with me so far?”

Just like that, all of the craziness fell away from me, like the shiny robe from the back of a champion fighter upon entering the ring. It was ridiculous how much, if only for a few needed moments, I was enjoying myself.

“If I may get a word—”

“You didn’t answer me, Jack,” I continued. “Are you with me so far?”

After a brief pause, Jack Merrill finally got wise to the situation.

“I am.”

“Good. I’m not fucking around when I say I don’t have the time for crap. Three twenty-five is the number, and you can forget twenty-four hours. You have ten minutes to get back to me.”

“For Pete’s sake, Jonah, you haven’t even told me who the buyer is yet!”

“Given the fact that we’re going to be paying cash, you should focus your energy elsewhere as this should be the least of your concerns. As I mentioned to you previously, they’re spotless. Once you confirm for me that the number is accepted, both parties sign a confidentiality agreement, one I have already had drawn up, and we each start our due diligence. You’ll have all the numbers and information you could possibly need, and you have my word that the strength of this buyer is what has given me the ability to come in as strong as I have. If you don’t like the organization, which I promise you won’t be the case, you can simply walk away. As an act of good faith, my client will deposit a hundred thousand dollars into your account to show we’re not looking to waste anyone’s time. We make the deal, you credit the hundred K against the final number. We fail to agree on terms, Gallo keeps the cash. As for Murdoch, that’s your fucking problem. Now, have I made myself clear?”

“You have,” he conceded, painfully, after a brief pause.

“Good,” I said. “Two things. Number one, stop saying ‘for Pete’s sake.’ It makes you sound terribly fucking old. Number two, the clock’s ticking.”

I hung up.

Nine minutes later, Carolyn informed me that Jack Merrill was on the phone.

“To begin with, Jack,” I started, “I’d like to have my inspection team on the premises by Thursday morning.”

Chapter 27

I walked into Pastis at seven ten. The Meatpacking District hotspot was already buzzing, the norm for a nice evening. The red tin ceiling, which is embossed with a smart, simple pattern, was highlighted by the clear light bouncing off the mustard-colored walls. The soft breeze from the city was rolling off the cobblestone streets and in through the windows lining the avenue. Above the bar, a wall-size mirror laid out the menu for all to see in white grease pencil.

My eyes scanned the crowd in a way that was becoming all too familiar. I remember at this moment feeling uneasy about the fact I could actually feel myself getting better at such subtle surveillance. The bar area, which is tight, was jammed with all types. People in suits, people in jeans, whatever. The only constant was that most of the crowd, speaking predominantly in European accents, was wearing bright colors.

Through bodies and suspended cocktail glasses I could see the girl pretending to be Angie at the bar. Somehow she had managed to save a seat for me. As I made my way toward her, I could feel all of the eyes on me becoming increasingly inquisitive as people realized I was the lucky one with the hot girl. You should all only be so fucking lucky, I thought, pissed.

“I took a nap this afternoon. I dreamt about you.”

I sat down. Whoever this girl was, she looked delicious, as usual. Low-riding Seven jeans, sharp, plum-colored Yves St. Laurent heels, and a matching colored, tight-fitting cotton top. I hated myself for noticing.

“Lucky me,” I replied.

I immediately got the bartender’s attention and ordered a Sapphire and tonic. Then I quickly turned back to the imposter girl, locked eyes, and said, “Angie Sheppard died six years ago in a car accident in the Hamptons. Out with it.”

Angie shot me the faint smile of a demon. It was a bit bizarre, revealing a glimpse of her potential psychosis.

“You think it’s really that easy?” she asked.

“Whoever the fuck you are, you need to know that I don’t have the time or the patience for this kind of drama.”

“You have no idea what drama can be.”

“Look this is all very cute, but I don’t really feel inclined to sit here and trade war stories with someone who’s seen Fatal Attraction one too many times. You need to tell me who you are. Then you need to understand what is going to happen when—”

“Look at you, Jonah. You really think you’re that almighty simply because you know how to stuff your pockets? You know how to control the soulless shells of other money seekers?”

The irony from this comment, that I can now see, was amazing. This girl seemed to be as far from what I’d call stable or clear thinking, imaginable. At the time, all I could feel from such words was anger. What I couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow myself to see was such poignant, painful truth.

The bartender placed my drink down. I took a healthy sip and continued, “This is the last time I am going to ask. What is it that you want?”

“A fair chance, Jonah. A fair chance to have a real connection, a real life. Can you really sit there and deny what happened last Thursday night? Can you? The way—”

“I can’t!” I broke in. “That’s why I fucking hate you! You have no idea what kind of possibilities for my life you presented the other night.”

I was curiously, surprisingly incensed. Indeed, I did hate her for being a liar and possibly a serious threat to my well-being. But that wasn’t it. There was something else there, something more needy, more selfish.

“Seeing you standing there the other night at the wedding was mind blowing. It was almost like, as cliché as it sounds, for the first time I could feel what destiny means. I looked at you and I knew we’d click right away, like we had already known each other in a past life or something. I knew we’d click, and I was right.”

I noticed that my right hand, the one holding my drink, was shaking, quietly rattling the glass against the bar. My emotions were unraveling. I quickly spun them back in.

“Every day I live with the fact that all of my conquests serve as nothing more than filler for the woman I really want. I also live with the fact that they serve as this filler because I have no choice since that woman for me is out of reach. The other night I actually thought you had proven me wrong. Instead you turn out to be nothing more than some sick joke, and I find myself chalking it all up to my senses being clouded by the booze and drugs that were running through my system. Trust me, I would never pretend to deny what happened. It was you who fucked with that. Not me.”

She gently touched my hand, letting out a giggle, trying to win me back over.

“Jonah, you don’t need to be so serious about—”

I pulled my hand away.

“What is it that you want?”

Again, the weird smile.

“What do you mean, sweetie?”

Could it be? Fuck! I didn’t want to say it, but I had to.

“You’re part of all this. That’s why you were there that night,” I said it out loud for the first time.

“Part of all what?”

I said nothing.

“What Jonah?”

“I want to see your driver’s license.”

“Don’t have my wallet.”

“Shocking.”

I slammed down the rest of my drink.

“You are to stop coming near me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Fine. To tell you the truth I don’t even want to know your real identity. I have too much to worry about as it is. So here it goes. I have supplied my apartment building as well as the Chrysler Center with your picture. Each has been instructed to call the police first, me second, upon sight of you even near the premises.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

Her face changed into a combination of sadness and restrained rage. All of a sudden it was as if I was actually staring into the eyes of Lucifer.

“I appreciate the input,” I responded, sarcasm intended, “but I’m going with my instincts on this one. Your words, your tough little attitude, your fragile, kooky tone and mood shifts, none of it means shit. The moment I found out you were nothing but a lie is the moment you became an insignificant little insect to me.”

I stood up.

“Understand that I’ll crush you if I need to.”

“I need access to you, Jonah. I need to be able to get to you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I’ll find your father, Jonah. Or perhaps your perky little partner, Perry—”

Infuriated, gripped, I sat back down, demeanor in check. I took out my Paul Smith pen from my inside jacket pocket.

“I would think twice about that if I were you.”

I grabbed the cocktail napkin that came with my drink and started writing.

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Why?”

I held up the cocktail napkin so she could read it. Matter-of-factly, it said, “Because I’ll kill you.”

Once I was sure her eyes had scanned, her brain had processed the words, I crumbled the napkin and held it in my fist.

More freaked out than I was letting on, I left. I still had no idea who the hell she was, and why it mattered to me, if it even did. Also, I had given no one her picture. Not my apartment building, not the Chrysler Center. It was all a bluff. The last thing I could do was willingly bring the cops into my life, no matter how much I was starting to feel that I could possibly use them. No matter how much I wanted to know who she was.

Knowing my visit would be short, I had a car waiting for me out front. It was my father’s stretch, and Mattheau, Pop’s Haitian driver of twenty-five years, was at the wheel. I would often call upon him when my father wasn’t in need of his services and that night I was meeting my father at a restaurant a block from his office. Therefore, Mattheau was free.

I jumped in the back, and as quickly as the car pulled away I opened my briefcase on the seat next to me. Mattheau, an extremely pleasant and accommodating man with cautious eyes, knew where we were going so there were no words spoken. I removed a small, emergency vial of coke from one of the inside compartments along with a fresh joint. In a perfect contradiction of drug use, a contradiction that mirrored some of the emotions stirring inside of me, I took a nice bump in each nostril then sparked the grass cigarette. A simple dose of “up” followed by a simple dose of “down.” Coke to keep me aware, pot to scrape away some of the edge.

“Jonah, are you sure you want to—”

Mattheau had seen me grow up, from the money to the wildness to the drugs to the entertaining of women, therefore nothing about me fazed him anymore. He always kept everything he saw between us, which I rewarded every Christmas by giving him cash on top of what Pop gave him.

“I’m okay, Mattheau. Really. Crazy day.”

“I know you’re okay. It’s just that when—”

“Mattheau, really. It’s cool.”

He retreated.

“Sure, Jonah. Of course.”

One hand on the wheel, the other working the keypad of his cell, he returned to the tasks at hand.

“Yves?” I said.

He loved to “text” his only son. He looked at me in the rearview mirror and nodded.

“Tell him I say ‘hi.’ ”

I always found Mattheau to be an interesting concoction of a soul. He had the manners of a topflight English butler yet the instincts of a lion for working Manhattan’s infamous asphalt grid. He was soft-spoken and mostly an introvert. Even though he had a child of his own, at times he looked out for me like a guardian. Especially when he sensed I was acting reckless.

I cracked the window as Mattheau seamlessly attacked the city. After only a couple of drags, I put the joint out on the bottom of my shoe and threw both drugs back into my briefcase. My cell rang. It was Perry calling me from the office.

“What’s up?”

“I’m here with Jake.”

They were on speaker.

“I was just telling him about how you handled the guy from Gallo.”

“You fucking stud!” Jake screamed.

“Just trying to make you some money, kid.”

“I mean it, man, that’s some kick-ass work.”

I heard a quarter start bouncing haphazardly around Perry’s glass desk top. Jake had missed.

“Sorry —”

“Where’s Tommy?”

“At a broker party for Seven Twelve Third,” Perry said. “God bless his young heart.”

Broker party: bash thrown by the ownership of a property at the beginning of a big marketing campaign to lease available space. They invite all of the hungry power brokers in the industry to the building. Then they let them see the available vacant space firsthand, have some kind of testosterone-driven raffle—possibly a golf weekend in Hawaii or a pair of jet skis—and serve free booze. All of the players get up to speed on one another’s deals, exchange some sensitive information, look for leads to infiltrate—you get the idea.