The Deal (39 page)

“No other bank accounts whatsoever. Not one, at least with Salton Lynear Bank, the institution Andreu told you to open an account with. The institution Andreu told you his funds would be coming from.”

Derbyshev paused.

“Why should I believe you? About any of this?”

“Because I’m the only chance you’ve got. You call Andreu Zhamovsky and tell him about this chat, we’ll both learn that the hard way.”

I ended the signal and tossed Pop’s cell on the passenger seat. Within seconds it rang again. Unavailable caller.

“Forget to tell me something?”

“Jonah, why are you using this line? Where is your father?”

It was Galina Zhamovsky. I was caught completely off guard.

“My father is dead, Galina.”

Silence.

“He was shot outside his townhouse yesterday.”

“Oh my God. No!”

“I need some answers.”

“He was...this...he...” she went on, her stunned voice dwindling away.

More silence.

Click.

She was gone.

The highway, still running straight but over a knoll, started to lose elevation as I hit the crest. A wall of stars in front of me, my mind returned to Andreu, our deal, the timing of everything.

Three weeks for the real estate transaction.

Less than a month before Danish Jubilee Egg was to be moved to tighter security.

Andreu was looking to corral these eggs, a group of six and another of two, respectively, that seemed to have gone separate ways. Plain and simple. The perfect collection. But while the nature of our property transaction perhaps now made sense, there were still so many unanswered questions. Questions like, why me? Not for the cash, now obvious, but for being the one planted with the now-famous egg less than twenty-four hours after its theft? Or the stock certificates? What was the connection there?

I pulled off the highway to a rest area and stopped next to a pump of premium. I turned off the car. Sitting there, windows still down, I listened to the fans as they continued to run underneath the hood against the backdrop of the country calm. She was coming down from her workout, settling. After gassing up I headed into the MobilMart for a bottle of water.

The place was empty. The wiry kid behind the counter couldn’t have been a second over fifteen. I grabbed my bottle and placed it on the counter.

“Anything else?”

There were still some copies of the previous day’s paper on a plastic, rolling Star Ledger rack to my right.

“Ledger.”

Back in my car, constantly checking all mirrors, I slowly rolled into a parking spot off to the side. I unfolded the paper. I found it on page five next to a column about the still-missing actor.
Fallen Manhattan Mogul Inquiry Moves Forward
.

I started to read, but it was mostly the same facts I had already seen. I started skimming. More information on the evidence, the bullets, the body, and the testimony from Mattheau about the car that sped away. The cigar ash. The supposed timeline. Where my father was going so early. Why he—

Double take.

Cigar ash?

According to the article, a long cigar ash was found in the street in front of the townhouse, something authorities have deemed relevant because it was where the car supposedly sped away from “according to the testimony of the deceased’s chauffeur.”

The compact cockpit felt like it was closing in on me. My body temperature began to soar. I could see a snapshot of his fucking face like a Polaroid tacked up on the corkboard of my brain. I had seen him smoking just days earlier. Lloyd Murdoch, that bastard who knew Pop was leaving his house early Saturday morning for a tee time. He probably just sat there in the back of his limo, his arm hanging out the window, as someone with solid marksmanship took the shot. When the car jerked as it took off the ash from his cigar must have shaken loose. I closed my eyes and felt chills as I watched a reenactment of the possible scene in front of the townhouse. What a sadistic prick, I thought. Not only did he hire the hit as a message to me, he made sure he was there to watch it go down.

Pop had literally gotten caught in the cross fire.

But was it he, ultimately, who had helped load the weapon?

Parting the night, I glided toward New York City on the final leg of my journey. I was tired, angry, paranoid, yet undeterred.

Through all of the mixed emotions, through all of the anger, one thing was for sure. Andreu was looking to gather the missing collection of eggs, which made something else, so I thought, all the more clear.

Danish Jubilee Egg now didn’t seem to be about me at all. She seemed to be part of a bigger plan than I originally thought, one that most likely had Robie/Hart hired, for lack of a better word, by Andreu to steal her to go with the other missing treasures. As I had learned days earlier from the newspaper, the egg hadn’t been stolen even twenty-four hours before I had been saddled with it. Plus, Robie/Hart had been caught in the act on camera. These two facts pointed to one conclusion. Robie/Hart must have learned about the government’s hidden cameras. A rapidly slamming window of opportunity was the only explanation for him following me out to the Hamptons to plant the egg on me at a crowded wedding. Because the antique was scheduled to be moved to the Capital so soon, the heist couldn’t wait and they moved to Plan B. I conveniently became that plan. Andreu knew, for at least three weeks, I wasn’t going anywhere. He had made sure of it, which meant I was ripe to hold onto the egg until later retrieval. All Robie/Hart
had to do was track me down, plant the egg, and disappear. Enter
Pangaea-Man.

As I came down, around the ramp that led from Jersey into the Lincoln Tunnel, I looked out to my left at the entire Manhattan footprint from Harlem to where the Towers use to reign. Even though it was the middle of the night, a dense ball of light hung over the island, the result of intense wattage flowing below. Thankful is the first thing I remember feeling for that energy. I couldn’t help marveling at the fact such a jagged skyline could seem so orderly.

I felt relief that my partners didn’t seem to be involved. I couldn’t handle that level of betrayal. Not now. The stars were continuing to align, but I still had questions. How well did I really know Andreu Zhamovsky or what he was capable of?

Did I know him at all? My own half-brother?

My lines kept getting crossed between the note in my father’s handwriting and the fact the watermark on that same note was in Russian. Is that why Galina hung up when I told her my father was gone? Was it possible she knew what was happening but was afraid of her own son?

At the bottom of the ramp I swung around to the right and shot through the toll using one of the EZ Pass lanes. Within seconds the tunnel linking the two states swallowed me. When it did, something dawned on me.

Someone once said that out of chaos emerge patterns. What if it didn’t, I thought. What if chaos was to remain just that, chaos, but you were able to create the patterns on your own, without anyone knowing? What if you were able to define the emerging order of events into a pattern that only became apparent to others after the consequences of such events were already irreversible?

I had been forced to play someone else’s game. So, I thought, maybe it was time to tweak the rules. Still wary of using my cell unless I absolutely needed to, I picked up Pop’s, dialed a familiar number, and hit “send.”

“Jonah!” L pushed out, trying not to sound asleep.

“Sorry to wake you, pal.”

“What the fuck is the matter? You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You said you’d—for twenty-four hours.”

“I know what I said, L. I’m okay. Really.”

“You’re not selling me. Tell me where you are.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I knew it. I knew you were in serious shit once you asked me for that gun.”

“I didn’t want to lie to you, L. You know that.”

“Of course I do.”

L paused before going on.

“I’m so sorry about your pop. The whole thing’s so fucking awful.”

At this moment I was treading water with regard to how I felt about my father. I said nothing.

“I wish I could bring him back for you, man. I’d be a liar if I said I know how this must feel.”

I knew L was trying to help, but I didn’t have the time or the stomach.

“I appreciate it, L,” I stopped him, “but I’d really rather not get into any of that right now.”

L obliged.

“How serious is the trouble you’re in? And be honest.”

It was time to trust my oldest, closest friend. My best chance for him to come through on my upcoming request was to convey the severity of the situation.

“Life and death I think.”

“Oh fuck,” he said under his breath. “Tell me where you are, Jonah. Let me come help you.”

“It’s out of the question.”

“Why?”

“Because it has to be.”

“I don’t understand. What’s so fucking—”

“L! Please! Don’t you think you’re the first person I would have called if it was at all, even the slightest bit, possible?”

He said nothing.

“If you truly want to help, just listen.”

L let out a big, drawn out sigh.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Tell me the name of the loading dock guy we always laugh about who works for Plotkin.”

Plotkin, whose facility is across the street from L’s, is another meat distributor and one of Luckman’s primary competitors.

“The who?”

“Come on, L, the fucking shady Mexican guy we laugh about who spends every other six months in jail. The one who always comes looking to you for a job but always gets hired back across the way when you say no.”

“Oh, you mean Hernando, the one who helps smuggle illegals into the country?”

“Yes! Hernando!”

“What the fuck could you possibly want from him?”

Chapter 40

Early Monday afternoon, draped in fine Italian fabric and briefcase in hand, I stepped through the door and onto the sidewalk in front of my apartment building. Everything from the pistol to my sunglasses to each hair on my head was perfectly in place. Under the hot summer sun I made a right to head uptown. Just as I did, to my surprise, was an approaching Detective Morante.

“Good afternoon, Jonah. You have a minute for me?”

He looked just as he did the first time I met him, neatly dressed, almost stylish. A nicely pressed navy blue button-down was tucked into his nonpleated charcoal pants and finished off with brown leather shoes that matched his belt.

Remaining calm I looked at my watch.

“I’m on my way to a meeting.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” the detective responded slowly.

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” his voice snapped back, his arm dropping back to his side, “I’m just surprised to see you jumping back into work so quickly. You know, with everything that’s happened over the last few days.”

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t been easy. Keeping busy is best. It’s how I deal.”

“I guess that makes sense. I mean—”

The detective turned slightly to his left and threw his arms out in front of him, palms up, as if presenting my apartment building to me.

“How else do people come to live like this?”

I looked dryly at the property, then back at Morante.

“I have somewhere to be, detective. What is it that I can help you with?”

Detective Morante returned his angle, focus, to me.

“We’re doing a full inventory of the crime scene, standard procedure in all homicides, and we’ve come across a cell phone A/C adapter plugged into the wall in your father’s study. Only, there was no phone. You have any idea who may have removed it?”

Fuck! All I had meant to do was duck anyone listening in on me.

“Because,” the detective went on, “it seems there’s been some activity on the line since after his death. And if—”

A bit of sweat began forming on the back of my neck and it wasn’t from the sun. If push came to shove, L and Galina could be easily explained. My best friend and, as I had just learned, my father’s Russian mistress whom I felt the need to confront. Although then there was Derbyshev, which meant a whole new world of shit Morante hadn’t learned of yet. That’s when it hit me. A preemptive strike appeared to be in my best interest.

“It was me, detective.”

If they knew it was me who took the phone then perhaps they’d have no need to check the identities behind the called numbers.

“Really. When?”

“Friday afternoon. Before I headed home from the office early I stopped at my father’s townhouse to pick up some business papers I left in his study. Once there I realized my phone was about to die. Even though I felt like shit, I still had some time-sensitive calls to make on my way home. Pop told me to take his phone.”

“Is that right?”

“It is.”

I looked at my watch again.

“Detective, I really do need to get going.”

“I understand, Jonah. You’re a busy man. I just have one more question.”

“About?”

“A couple of items in your father’s basement.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, the set of free weights. What can you tell me about them?”

“I used to lift with them in high school.”

“High school.”

“That’s right.”

“You haven’t touched them since?”

“I don’t believe so. Maybe a couple of times when I was home in the summer during college, but—”

“But what?”

“Detective, I’m not sure I understand your question.”

“My question is I’d like to know if you can tell me why a couple of them are missing.”

“Missing?”

“That’s right. The weight set you have down there isn’t only a damn nice one, but according to the manufacturer you have the complete set, both dumbbells and plates. Only, two of the barbell plates are missing. Both of them thirty-five pounders.”

The manufacturer. Morante had just informed me, no doubt intentionally, he was digging.

“Like I said Detective, it’s been a lot of years since I used them.”

“Huh,” Morante grunted, turning his attention to the passing traffic. “So I guess you wouldn’t know much about the tool chest either.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”