Last to Fold

by David Duffy

  “My fault entirely,” I said quickly. “I made mistakes. I won’t bore you with the details. A lot of them don’t make much sense anymore. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about the things that happened and what I could’ve—should’ve—done differently.”

  I definitely saw black kindness now. I looked for sincerity behind it. That’s the toughest thing to fake. To my surprise, that was there, too. Another point for Bernie.

  Mulholland sensed my investigation and misread it. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. We all make mistakes, I … Being a good parent is…”

  I waited for him to finish one sentence or the other, but he stared off into the dark room, lost in his own thoughts. I kept thinking about that look and why I’d told him as much as I had. Maybe underneath it all, I liked him, too?

  After a moment, Bernie cleared his throat, and Mulholland seemed to return to the present. The black eyes regained their hardness.

  “I apologize for my earlier outburst, Mr. Vlost. This has been a difficult day—one of many. Of course your fee is not an issue. I must ask, however, that you keep this matter entirely between us. I believe what the kidnappers say—about the police. No one must know, including my wife. She’s been under tremendous strain, for which I feel responsible. My business problems. She and Eva had a huge fight the last time Eva was here, which is why we haven’t seen her. I’m very afraid Felix will think she’s to blame for what’s happened.”

  “Felix?”

  “Her given name’s Felicity. She won’t use it.”

  “What did they fight over?”

  “It’s not important. Felix and Eva … they have a complicated relationship, like many mothers and daughters, I suppose. Theirs has a tendency to erupt from time to time.”

  “You’re sure it has no bearing? It’s possible Eva could—”

  He cut me off. “I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t believe it. She may have her issues, but she’s not that kind of girl.”

  I tried to remember when the word “issue” replaced “problem” in the American branch of the English language. As if nomenclature could make either go away. Not enough Americans read Orwell. I let it go—I could find out plenty about whatever problems Eva had in due course and make my own assessment as to what kind of girl she was.

  “You need anything else from me?” Mulholland said.

  “I’ll need to borrow the picture.”

  “I don’t see—”

  “I’m only interested in where and when it was taken. I’ll make no copies, and I’ll return it as soon as I’m finished.”

  “I’m going to assume you’re a man of your word.”

  Mulholland had a way of ending every sentence with a grimace as if he expected you to take issue with what he’d just said. He didn’t make it easy to get along.

  A knock on the door made us all turn. The man in the silver tie entered and crossed the big carpet, looking left and right and wringing his hands. He whispered a few words in his employer’s ear and hurried back the way he’d come. Black turned to midnight as Mulholland swung toward Bernie.

  “You said we had a deal with her.”

  “Victoria? We did. We do.”

  “Not anymore. The FBI is on its way up.”

  “That can’t be. I—”

  Mulholland started issuing orders, the anger in his voice replaced by cool efficiency. Bernie nodded, making a mental list, as he searched his pockets until he found his cell phone. A plan was being put into motion.

  “Get hold of Coughlin and O’Neal at the office,” Mulholland said. “They’ll know what to do.”

  Bernie was punching a number into the phone. “We’ll have to put out an announcement. No question this is a disclosable event.”

  “I know. We have a crisis plan. Supposed to be for the plane going down or something like that, but it’ll serve the purpose.”

  “I’ll get Alan and his team downtown ASAP,” Bernie said. “You won’t be there any longer than necessary.”

  Another knock. We all stood as the door opened and six men in suits came in, all looking this way and that before their eyes settled on the three of us.

  “Rory Mulholland?” the largest of the men in suits said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re under arrest. Come with us, please. Taylor, read him his rights.”

  I’d heard Mulholland say “FBI,” but it hadn’t registered he meant that FBI. The idea of him being hauled away in handcuffs was too incongruous. These men clearly belonged to the SUVs downstairs, though, and they were here on official business. I looked at my watch. Almost ten thirty. What had they been waiting for? The Cheka would have hauled Mulholland out of bed in the middle of the night, locked him in Lubyanka or Lefortovo, and not let him sleep again until he confessed to whatever crime they were convinced he had committed. But this was America. Perhaps the Justice Department had its rules of etiquette. Bankers should not be busted prior to ten o’clock in the morning.

  Taylor took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Mulholland crossed the big carpet at his own pace, head high. I had to give him credit. He probably never in his life expected to be arrested, certainly not in his own home, and he was doing his damnedest to carry it off dignity intact. I had an unkind thought about how long he’d maintain the decorum once he got fingerprinted, mug-shotted, and stripped, then reminded myself that his impending humiliation was something millions of innocents had been put through—and worse. It was nothing to gloat over.

  Mulholland stopped at the desk to check the computer screen. He might have slumped a little then but recovered quickly. Bernie’s phone buzzed as the FBI men led Mulholland outside. He looked at the screen and grunted. The gears of his brain upshifted a speed as he opened the phone. Bernie doesn’t get angry often. This morning, he was seriously pissed off.

  “Goddammit, Victoria, what the hell is going on?… You can skip the goddamned pleasantries … I can see that, I’m right here with him. I thought we had a deal … What do you mean, changed? What the hell changed?”

  He listened for a few minutes, almost breaking in a few times, but thinking better of it. Finally he said, “Victoria, if you weren’t my former partner, I’d tell you exactly what I think of you. As it is, I’ll just say you’re full of shit, and we’ll prove it—to your embarrassment.”

  He listened again. Then, “Okay, do me a favor, huh? Take him in the back, skip the perp walk. He doesn’t deserve … Oh, come on, Victoria, you can make … What happened to innocent before proven … Goddammit!”

  He jammed the cell phone into his pocket, muttered, “Bitch,” and followed his client out the door.

  I hesitated. I’m no stranger to sudden arrests—no Russian of my generation is. Still, I was now an unwanted observer—no one had invited me to watch this. The last time I’d been witness to the authorities arriving unannounced, I’d been on the other side. I was the instigator then, but fate plays nasty tricks, and what I ended up instigating was the unraveling of my career, my marriage, and my family. I thought I’d locked that memory away, in the cell of unwanted reminiscences, but Mulholland and the FBI had set it loose. I had the unpleasant feeling fate was about to intervene again. If I’d had the slightest premonition of how, I’d have stayed right there and barred the door.

  Out in the entrance hall, Mulholland stood surrounded by the men in suits. Bernie pushed his way through.

  “Victoria says something changed, won’t say what. I tried to get her to forgo the perp walk, but—”

  “I understand,” Mulholland said. “We’ll beat this thing. They’ve got nothing because there’s nothing to have. This is just a feeble attempt at intimidation.”

  “I’ll call Tom and Walter,” Bernie said.

  “Let’s go,” one of the suits said.

  Having waited as long as they’d waited, the Feds now seemed in quite a hurry to drag Mulholland downtown. They were working to some kind of schedule. Had someone tipped off a local TV
news crew or two to be ready outside Police Plaza at eleven o’clock or thereabouts? Bernie thought so, and he’d said as much on the phone. No question Mulholland in his Savile Row suit, tie, and handcuffs, being led inside for booking, would make a good clip for the evening news.

  Survivors learn early in the camps never to let anything occupy their full attention. Trouble was all around, and it could come from any direction, take any form—a malevolent guard, another prisoner with a grudge, a new arrival who coveted the patch of straw on the floor you slept on, a lifelong jailbird who coveted you. Staying alert was one way to stay alive. You developed a sixth sense. Mine was sending signals before I heard her voice—but the FBI suits and Mulholland blocked the door. Nowhere to run.

  The voice came from above, halfway up the curved staircase. Its steely sharp edge sliced down my spine. I never expected to hear it again. I certainly never expected to hear it here. I’d spent a decade and a half building a new life. It had its faults, but it was mine by design, and I was largely content with it. It took only an instant for her to cut it to shreds.

  “Rory? What’s going on? Who are these men? Rory! Are those handcuffs?”

  CHAPTER 4

  They teach you in spy school how to keep control, never show emotion, especially surprise, regardless of circumstance. I’d actually learned that lesson years before, playing cards with the urki scum in the Gulag, where losing the game could mean losing a pound of flesh—literally, of the winner’s choosing. I don’t think anyone saw the double, triple, or quadruple take I did as she came down the curved stairs. My head didn’t move. At least I don’t believe it did. Just my eyes—and my brain, which started vibrating as if plugged into an electric socket.

  Mulholland took a step in her direction, but two suited arms held him back. Bernie hurried across the hall instead.

  “Don’t worry, Felix. Everything’ll be fine. There’s been … There’s been a misunderstanding. It’s all going to be worked out.”

  “Misunderstanding? I’m not a fool, Bernie, don’t treat me like one. These men are police, aren’t they?”

  Bernie nodded as she brushed past until she was a few feet from the group of suits. She moved with purpose. She hadn’t seen me yet. I was out of her field of vision, standing by the library door.

  “I’d like to see some identification, please,” she said.

  The big man took a wallet with an ID card from his breast pocket and held it in front of her face.

  “What’s the charge against my husband?”

  “Mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, obstruction, lying to federal officers in pursuit of an investigation. And money laundering. So far.”

  I could have been imagining things, but her face changed at the words “money laundering.” Something—surprise? fear?—passed through, and she all but stepped back as if shoved. Whatever it was vanished as quickly as it appeared.

  “Where are you taking him?” she said.

  “Downtown. Foley Square.”

  “What about bail?”

  “Not my department, ma’am. You’ll have to talk to the judge.”

  “Rory…”

  He took her hands in his. She wore two rings—a gold wedding band and a rock the size of an onion dome. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay, like Bernie says. I’ll be home for dinner.”

  “But…”

  “Bernie’s already got lawyers on the way. They’ll take care of everything.”

  “Let’s go, Mulholland,” the FBI man said. “People are waiting to talk to you.”

  Mulholland nodded and let go of his wife’s hands. She stood aside.

  The FBI man took a long look around the manor hall room. “Nice shack,” he said as he pushed Mulholland toward the elevator.

  I stayed in my spot, waiting for the inevitable, thinking I’d gladly change places with Mulholland if it got me out of here. She turned toward the library and froze when her eyes got around to me. Twenty-plus years hadn’t changed her at all.

  It’s a little-known fact, because it’s such a little-known country, but Lithuania produces way more than its share of the world’s most beautiful women. Polina was Exhibit A, maybe even more beautiful because she was a Russian-Lithuanian mix. Tall, blond, and slender in a pale violet sleeveless dress, tucked at the waist, that set off her eyes, which were deep indigo. Red lips that didn’t need the gloss she’d applied. Hair, cut to look like it hadn’t been touched, fell well below her shoulders. They were square, her back straight, and her legs ended up near her neck. White skin, the hue and texture of a marble sculpture, with the features to match, like the sculptures of goddesses in the museum across Fifth Avenue. In another time or place she might have been named Hera, Aphrodite, or Athena and tormented the souls of ancient man. I’d experienced the torment firsthand. I knew for a fact she was twenty years younger than her husband.

  Her stare intensified as she made sure she was seeing what her eyes told her she was seeing. I had to hand it to her as well—two life-changing shocks in as many minutes, and she barely blinked.

  “Hello, Polya,” I said.

  “What the fuck do you want here, you loathsome shit?” she said in Russian. One question answered—the years hadn’t softened her temper or tempered her language. The wounds of the Great Disintegration, as I’ve come to think of it, still festered.

  “I’ll let Bernie explain,” I said in English. “You might believe him.” I switched to Russian. “I’ll tell you this much—had I known you were here, I wouldn’t have come. You can bet whatever happiness we had on that.”

  She stayed with Russian. “There was no happiness, you prick, just a long string of lies. You’re lying now. Get out! Get away from me!”

  The strain was beginning to show. I went back to English. “You both have a lot to do. I’ll be on my way.”

  I crossed the hall and called the elevator. I could feel her eyes burning into my back. Bernie swung back and forth between the two of us, one of the few times I’d seen him unsure of how to proceed. I felt bad about leaving him to explain, but he got paid a lot of money to deal with difficult situations. I turned around in the elevator as the door closed. She was still glowering. If she’d had anything in her hands, she would have thrown it.

  The uniformed driver didn’t say a word as he took me to the lobby.

  * * *

  Outside, it was easily over ninety. Waves of heat rose from the asphalt, shimmering in the sunlight. A mime worked the thin crowd on the museum’s steps, but he was hot, too, and his heart wasn’t in it. I had time before I needed to move my car, so I took off my jacket and walked into Central Park. The flowering trees were over for the season, but everything was in full leaf, which made it feel a little cooler. Mulholland paid a fortune to live across the street from one of New York’s great treasures, yet he closed himself off from its beauty. He’d never spent a winter in northern Siberia, where cold and dark stretch on so long you wonder if the sun will ever rise again.

  I sat on the wall behind the museum and stretched my arms and legs while I watched a few masochistic joggers on Park Drive and contemplated fate and irony. Russians have a great appreciation for the latter, one reason we haven’t given up entirely on the former, with everything our history has served up. I would’ve paid a good part of Mulholland’s fee to know what the woman calling herself Felix Mulholland was telling Bernie, perhaps this very minute, and what Bernie was telling her—especially if he was respecting his client’s restriction. I’d have given more to know what she was doing here in New York, other than apparently being married to Mulholland, but I didn’t have to pay for that. I could get a pretty good idea by the time I returned to the office.

  The more immediate question was whether I’d go forward with the assignment, if I was allowed to. Try as I might, I felt only a little sympathy for Mulholland. He was a loan shark and a bully. But how much of that assessment was now tinged by … by what—jealousy? That wasn’t right. Not after everything that happened, not after all these years. What
then? Envy? No—I’d done my time. Polina wasn’t wholly responsible for the Disintegration—I played my part, too—but I wouldn’t want to go through that again. Maybe just good old suspicion. Was I being set up? If so, why? By whom? And to what end, after all these years? Polina and I had twisted pasts—jointly and each on his or her own. We weren’t the only people tied up in them. She could be an instrument of someone else as easily as she could be acting on her own. There were plenty of scenarios. I couldn’t see one that made sense, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  First step—more information. I took out my cell phone and punched in a number. A machine answered with no message, just the electronic beep. “You won’t like this, but I can explain. Wake up the Basilisk. Mulholland, yes, that Mulholland, Rory P., and his wife, Felicity, known as Felix, although that’s not her real name, and their daughter, Eva. Also a woman named Polina Barsukova. You’ll be pleased to hear the man himself is on his way to the Tombs as I speak. Back in an hour.”

  A pretty girl smiled at me as she ran by. Her tanned torso was shiny-wet and her athletic bra soaked with sweat, but she breathed easily and kept up a quick pace. Women fall into two camps, pretty evenly divided, on the subject of men with shaved heads like mine. Yea or nay—no one is ambivalent. My hair, which was once bushy and black, started to fall out when I was in my late twenties, probably the result of malnourishment when I was young. That’s what I blame any malady on—a time when I was powerless to control my life, which I go to extremes to do now. Rather than watch the thatch thin and recede, I shaved my scalp. I have no idea what would grow back if I stopped. The rest of me is in good shape, although I work hard to keep it that way. I tell myself I can make up for a half-starved youth with an overexercised middle age. I’m not thin—“stocky” would be the newspaper description—but I don’t carry any extra weight on my six-foot, two-hundred-pound frame. Staying in shape is one of my vanities, and one payoff is having your work appreciated by a good-looking babe on a hot summer day. There was a time when one of them was the woman now calling herself Felix Mulholland.