The Deal (46 page)

“What funds, Jonah? What disappointment? Please, perhaps I can help…”

I took a loud, deep breath into the phone.

“The short version goes like this. As you know, Andreu has us pitting three different deals against one another in order to weed out the most favorable one. In order to do this correctly, each of the three parties needs to believe they are, in fact, the buyer right up to the last second. The last second. You with me?”

“I am with you. Andreu informed me it is an aggressive tactic, hence all of the wire transfers over the last few weeks.”

“That’s right. The plan was to have all of them in position to come to the table this afternoon, at three different locations, to get the deals closed. Once it was determined who had stepped up to the plate the most seriously, the deal was to be completed with that party and that party only. The others were to fall away with only whatever reasons we gave them as to why their deals had fallen through. That’s it.”

Larionov was silent.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Jonah, please excuse my confusion. I still do not understand.”

“Because an all cash transaction has been proposed in each instance, Igor, sixty-five percent of the purchase price was to be in escrow at the time of closing with a note promising the delivery of the remaining thirty-five percent within forty-five days. This was part of the deal, in each case, since we were putting the sellers under such unheard of time constraints. Once the funds arrived via the account we’ve been using, the plan was to simply move the appropriate funds for each separate deal into three different dedicated escrow accounts that we have waiting. Because we needed to follow through with each deal as if it were the only deal, right through the end, we needed the funds in place for each separate deal.”

Now the kicker.

“Once we were finished, the unneeded funds, roughly two-thirds of the cash transferred, was to be immediately wired back. But at this point, frankly, it’s pointless to even discuss further.”

“Baw zhe moy,” Larionov said, dumbfounded. “Perhaps we can find Andreu and—”

“Believe me, I’ve been trying for the last four hours. He’s absolutely nowhere to be found. Svetlana said he’s most likely on his yacht.”

Svetlana is Andreu’s assistant.

“She said sometimes his itinerary changes so rapidly he forgets to leave word where he is. Especially in the summer. Anyway, there’s no way we can get the funds together at this point. So I’ll just have to stall everyone and hope for the best.”

“More time would usually be required for a larger amount. The transfer of funds is not the problem. It is only machines. As long as the funds are available, the transfer of one dollar is the same as the transfer of one million dollars. The problem is making sure someone with the proper authority has signed off on the transfer.”

Bingo.

Andreu Zhamovsky never imagined his plan failing, and in doing so made one very grave mistake. He willingly granted me power of attorney for the real estate deal in New York City. By limiting my access to his affairs to just this deal, and keeping me legally away from all of his other affairs, he figured he had protected himself. In readily granting me power-of-attorney when I said I needed the ability to maneuver freely as the deals called for it, he had given me the written authority to handle all aspects of any pending deals in New York City, including the handling of the finances. He figured all I would do was put each deal’s earnest money into place, along with some due diligence cash, by the time he was ready to move the real money over so he could immediately screw Derbyshev and steal the eggs.

He was wrong.

“Wait a second,” I responded, as if I was starting to get it. “So what you’re telling me is that the funds aren’t the issue as long as the transaction has been signed off on properly. Or, in other words, Andreu was not as wrong as I thought in waiting since he gave me power of attorney. He knew the funds could be transferred no problem.”

“Well, yes, I guess so,” he exclaimed.

“Yes!” I screamed into the phone. “Yes! Well then we better get those funds yesterday, Mister Larionov. If we don’t, these deals will be gone by the end of the day. And I’d rather not think about where you and I will stand in the eyes of Andreu Zhamovsky and Prevkos if that happens. If you know what I mean.”

“Of course, Mister Jonah. Of course. I need copies of the contracts. How fast can you get them to me?”

I had drafts of each proposed contract in my briefcase. They were being prepared simultaneously as the deals went along because of the obvious nature of the situation.

“I’ll fax them to you. You’ll have them in no more than thirty minutes. Remember, two-thirds of the currency will be back on your side of the ocean by the time you open your eyes tomorrow morning.”

“Terrific. How much do we need to wire?”

I covered the phone and swallowed.

Never a shred of doubt. Own the words.

“In American currency, nine hundred and seventy-five million dollars.”

Chapter 47

At ten fifteen a.m., I had L meet me on the sidewalk in front of his warehouse. The Meatpacking District was buzzing. People were scattered everywhere as refrigerated trucks wove in and out of the traffic through the old city streets. I jumped out of the cab with my briefcase.

“Let’s go,” I said following L inside. “Your office.”

My phone would not stop ringing. Text messages were flooding in from my three partners. My father’s funeral had started and I was nowhere to be found, which, for me, was exactly the point. I wouldn’t have given it another thought until something dawned on me from a message from Perry. My unknown whereabouts was perhaps, for others, startling. “Where are you?” Perry wrote, “Should I be worried?” I wrote back, simply, “I’m fine. I promise. I’ll explain later.” Then, figuring she would pass this on to everyone else, I silenced my phone.

The building has been around for a hundred years. It’s mostly warehouse with a few thousand square feet of office space upstairs. Luckman Meats was in full swing that morning. I followed L through his freezing-cold place of business toward the staircase. Conversations, spoken loud over machinery and the noise of in-coming and out-going trucks, were happening everywhere. Most were in broken English. Some were in completely other languages. A lot of the workers wore white, blood-streaked smocks as they scurried about carrying meat-related products or equipment. A few brushed my shoulders as we whisked by one another. The fresh, purposefully frigid air smelled fleshy, raw.

“Krissy Lockhart,” I said following closely behind L. “Find anything?”

“East Hampton High School. Class of ninety-seven. There were a few articles that mentioned her name.”

“Articles? About what?”

“Her mother. She died in some terrible car accident. The daughter was just mentioned.”

“I need you to call the school today. I know it’s summer, but I need you to try anyway.”

“For what? What do you want me to ask?”

“Anything that gets me as much information about this girl as possible.”

Once upstairs and in his office, L closed the door behind us. The place was a mess. There were file cabinets and stacks of papers everywhere. The office was an interesting study in contrasts. It looked the same as it probably did in the fifties except that all of the technological aspects of the space—computer, phone, fax—were up to the minute. The rear office wall, the one behind L’s desk, was a window that overlooked part of the warehouse.

L sat down behind his desk. I sat in a chair in front of his desk facing him.

“We’re missing your father’s funeral, Jonah. What the fuck is going on?”

“Did you get them?”

I started to dig through my briefcase. L, unhappy I wasn’t answering his questions, sighed angrily before opening his desk’s top drawer. He pulled out a large manila envelope and threw it on top of his desk. He slammed the drawer shut.

I found and took the contracts from my briefcase and walked over to the fax.

“Face up or down?” I asked.

“Down.”

I placed half of one of the three mini-stacks that was under my arm onto the machine and dialed Larionov’s office. I hit “send.” Then, with a thud, I dropped the remaining two and a half in front of L on his desk.

“I need you to send these after the first stack goes through.”

Purchase agreements of the magnitude we were dealing with were each over an inch thick. Even L’s high-speed fax would need some time for each.

I took a seat in one of the chairs facing my best friend’s desk.

“And then I need you to burn them.”

“You what?”

“You heard me. I can’t take them with me. If, or more likely when, the authorities figure out that they were sent from here, you simply tell them I have a key. You tell them that I could have slipped in through the back while you were out. End of story.”

“Jonah what the fuck are—”

I grabbed the manila envelope that was between us on the desk. I opened it, looked inside, and removed the identification card that had my picture on it. It was a driver’s license.

“Alaska? This is the best he could do?”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Not now,” L snapped.

They cracked it anyway.

“It’s urgent,” a woman responded.

“Make it quick, Hil.”

The tall, forty-something brunette rushed to L’s desk.

“The Lincoln and Holland tunnels are both closing in a matter of minutes. There’s a suspicious abandoned truck just outside the Manhattan side of the Holland.”

She handed him some papers. L rifled through them.

“Just thought you should know why at least seventy-five percent of our Jersey deliveries were going to be extremely late today.”

“Thanks Hil.”

She headed back toward the door.

“Hey, Jonah.”

Hilary ran L’s dispatch. Over the years I’d seen her from time to time.

“Hey, Hilary,” I said back.

She left.

“What’s the problem with Alaska?” L continued.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Jonah, they go with remote states on purpose. They do this because most people won’t have a point of reference for comparison.”

“What about my point of reference? Shouldn’t it be somewhere I’ve been?”

“Juneau’s fucking tiny. Just remember the governor’s mansion on Calhoun Street and the Red Dog Saloon as landmarks. You’ll be fine.”

I looked in the envelope again.

“Did you remember to get me—”

“It’s in there.”

He was right. I pulled out a second Alaskan driver’s license with my picture on it. The name on one was Stan Gray. The name on the first was Roy Gordon. Roy, a bartender at Bull & Bear, was my favorite barkeep in the city. I needed someone I would be able to remember, but who wasn’t a traceable connection.

“There’s one for each of your partners, just like you asked, along with matching passports.”

“Huge,” I exhaled. “Fucking huge.”

Considering I had given him so little time, L had come up monstrous. The only sticking point we ran into when discussing it two nights earlier was the issue of passport pictures for all of the different documents. L had come up with the brilliant idea of scanning them from the PCBL marketing materials I always send him. L knows a ton of people. I always send him updated copies in case he runs into anyone who needs our services. They contain individual pictures of our team. All are nothing more than actual-size passport photos.

I threw them back into the envelope, which I placed in my briefcase, then sat up straight in my chair.

“Thank you,” I said. “I mean that, L. That was some pretty under-the-gun shit.”

“I’d kill for you, Jonah. You know that.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Now all I’m asking for is the truth. You owe me that. Christ, we’re missing your father’s funeral. And we both know how pissed he’d be about that if he was alive—”

I stood and started to pace. L was right. I owed him the truth. Or at least as much of it as I had time for.

“I saw him this morning. I went by the funeral home and said good-bye to him.”

“Why can’t you be there?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Why?”

I drifted behind L’s desk. I looked out over the warehouse then laughed nervously.

“I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start. I know that sounds completely lame, but it’s true.”

“Start with why you’ve been acting so crazy. Not just since your father died, but since a week or more before that.”

“You don’t want to know that.”

“Try me.”

I dug in, lifted my chin in the air.

“I have the Fabergé egg that’s been all over the news.”

“You have to be kidding me.”

“I didn’t steal it. It was planted on me.”

It sounded ridiculous even to me.

“Who planted it on you?”

Literally, all I could do was laugh. Across the huge building, standing down below, I saw Hilary talking on her cell. Even though far away, I could swear she was staring back in the direction of the office.

“Next question. No time. Not relevant right now.”

“Do you still have it? The egg?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Can you get it back to the authorities?”

“It’s not that simple. Too much has happened. There are a lot of bloody hands because of that fucking antique, including my own.”

I continued to pace but didn’t stray far from the window.

“Jonah, I’m sure they’d understand. All you have to—”

“Knowing who stole the thing is just the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, it’s complicated. I want to give it back. But I can’t until I know I can fully wash my hands of the fucking thing.”

The fax machine beeped. Since I was up L handed me the second half of the first contract and I sent it through. I checked the window again. Hilary hadn’t moved.

“This deal I’ve been working on? This project? It’s all a set up. I don’t even think I was supposed to know the egg had been planted on me. But not only did I realize it was, I figured out who put it there. Once that happened, I was screwed. Remember that Ryan Stern situation a couple years back? Remember how that federal agent said he’d be waiting for his chance to take me down?”