“Mom,” Finny said.
“Hi, sweetie. How was your trip?”
“It was fine. Great, I mean. But, Mom, I need to ask you a question.”
“Finny, it’s unfortunate, but I must tell you that people will take offense if you don’t begin a phone conversation by asking how they are.”
Finny sighed. She knew her mother must have been in particularly good spirits, since she was back to offering her opinions as objective truths. She’d hardly done that since Stanley had died. Finny assumed things must have been going well with Gerald, which was a good sign. It meant that maybe Finny was wrong about him, or possibly that Laura hadn’t been pulled in yet.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Finny said. “It’s just that, what I have to ask you is pretty important. Really important, actually.”
“Oh,” Laura said, and Finny could imagine the blank look on Laura’s face. It was an expression she’d begun to have after Finny’s father died, and it seemed to reappear whenever bad news was about to be dropped.
“I wanted to ask you what’s going on with Gerald,” Finny said.
“Oh,” Laura said again, her voice much lighter. “Is that it? Well, it’s going fine. Thanks for asking, sweetheart.”
“No, Mom. I mean—I guess I’m not being clear. I was just reading this article. I think there might have been a part about Gerald in it.”
“He’s a very well-regarded businessman. People like that have articles written about them all the time.”
“But this article, Mom—it wasn’t about business, exactly. It was about stealing. It was about a scam that a guy named Gregory P. Mark is pulling. He has a bunch of fake names, and I realized that Gerald’s name, Kramp, is P. Mark backward.”
“Such a funny coincidence,” Laura said.
Finny knew the way Laura had of pushing uncomfortable details to the side, smiling that undefeatable smile of hers, waving at drivers who wanted to kill her.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Finny went on. “I’m pretty sure it’s Gerald. Your boyfriend, Mom. Everything in the article sounds like him. I think he’s a criminal.”
Finny went on to explain how Gregory P. Mark’s fraud operated. He would attend events that were often populated by single women with money—widows or divorcées. Lectures in the middle of the day, museum tours, wine tastings and cooking classes—these were the places he’d locate his targets. He would start casually, simply striking up a conversation, and then usually the conversation would continue in some more private setting—a bar or a restaurant. It would be like a date, except Gregory would spend most of the time talking about his business ventures, how successful they were, how much money he’d made from certain deals. If the woman was impressed, he would keep seeing her over time, and talk more and more about his new project: spices. He offered samples, even began to interest some local specialty businesses in his products. The spices were really just combinations of other store-bought spices you could buy for almost nothing. But Mr. Mark hired a food scientist to blend them, and then they gave the spices exotic names. He could sell a small jar for a hundred dollars. He’d even fooled some very knowledgeable tasters. All of which gave the women he dated more confidence in him. They practically insisted on backing his company.
The problem came when the products were tested. The business would fall flat at that point. But Gregory P. Mark was always able to wriggle free of legal ramifications, claiming he’d been duped by his suppliers. He’d shake his head and manage to walk away with a significant amount of the money the investors had given him, which he’d remove to various offshore accounts. He’d pulled the scam in a dozen states. And he was yet to be indicted.
Finny read to her mother a short passage in the New Yorker article she thought would be particularly persuasive. “‘The key to Gregory Mark’s success as a con artist is not his business savvy or the initial results he supplies; it’s his manner. He seems on the surface to be easygoing, almost inhumanly flexible. He’s known for using the catchphrase that has become his business motto: ‘Whatever you want.’ Yet one of his former business associates remarked, ‘The funny thing is, it always turns out that Greg gets whatever he wants. It’s just that you’d never suspect that such a fool could be swindling you. And once you do, he’s out the door with your money.’”
Finny stopped there. She waited for her mother to comment. She hadn’t wanted to present her case quite so forcefully, at least not yet.
“Mom?” Finny said.
No response.
“Mom, are you there?”
In a moment Finny heard a choked sobbing on the other end of the line, and she realized her mother must have been muffling her crying with a towel or a pillow.
“I gave him everything,” Laura said. “Everything I had.”
“Oh God. Listen, Mom,” Finny said. “You have to listen to me. Mom?”
“Mm-hm.”
“I think the worst thing you can do now is tell Gerald you suspect anything. The second you do that, he’ll be in another state and you won’t even be able to find his phone number.”
“So what do I do?” Laura sounded so much like a child that Finny had to remind herself she was speaking to a fifty-six-year-old woman.
“We’ll think about it,” Finny said. “I know someone who might be able to help.”
Chapter 28
The Spice Trade
There was one nice surprise for Finny when she started classes the next day: she’d received A’s in all her classes the first semester. Well, almost all. An A– in her philosophy class, which was a nagging disappointment. But she realized she was being a perfectionist. She hadn’t studied quite as hard for the philosophy final, since she’d found the contemporary philosophers such a chore to read. She’d done pretty well for her first semester, especially considering all the disruptions. She let herself be proud.
Her roommate was hardly around at all anymore. Finny had to practically hunt Dorrie down to give her the Eiffel Tower key chain she’d bought for her, and the package of chocolates from Angelina. Dorrie thanked Finny profusely but seemed distracted. She was spending every night in Steven Bench’s room. Please screw him already, Finny wanted to tell her roommate. You’ll probably go to hell for thinking about it so much anyway, so why not at least enjoy it?
Finny’s eye had healed well enough by Friday that she hardly needed any cover-up. She called Sylvan, told him she was going to visit Laura, that their mother was having some “relationship issues.” Sylvan asked if she needed help, but Finny said she’d be fine. On Friday afternoon she took the Greyhound to Baltimore. Her mother offered to pick her up at the station, but Finny insisted she’d get a cab. She wanted to keep her head clear for what she knew would be a difficult evening with Gerald Kramp, and a car ride with her mother was not the best way to stay focused. Plus, Laura had her own part to prepare.
Finny arrived at Laura’s house a little after six. She had just enough time to shower and get dressed for dinner. The dinner guests were due at seven o’clock.
The first to arrive were Poplan and Mr. Henckel, whom Finny greeted with enthusiastic hugs, thanking them for coming. Poplan kept her gloves on when she shook hands with Laura, who was in no state to deal with hand washing requests. Finny had hashed out the plan with Poplan; she knew Poplan would be meticulous about the details.
Mr. Henckel, who hadn’t been informed that there was a plan at all, was delighted with the invitation to such a “distinguished party,” as he put it. He was dressed in what Finny took to be his finery, which consisted of a black suit in the boxy zoot suit style, complete with a gold watch chain and a jaunty wide-brimmed hat, with pictures of playing cards, dice, and poker chips on the band. The outfit gave him something of the air of a retired pimp. Fortunately, he removed the hat at the door, revealing his usual comb-over style, except that Poplan seemed to have slicked down the unruly flap of hair that sometimes flopped over his ear when he fell asleep.
Poplan, who was of course well apprised of the pl
an, had sought to match Mr. Henckel’s exuberant choice of attire with one of the many fashions available in her extensive wardrobe. She’d chosen a 1920s-style blue and gray flapper dress, with black stockings and a feathered hat that suggested less the era of gangsters and prohibition than some sort of wildlife conservation project.
When she saw Finny’s response to the hat, she said, “What? You asked us to dress up.”
“And you did,” Finny said.
“Well,” Poplan said, removing the hat to display her cropped gray hair, “I wouldn’t expect everyone to have such an acute sense of fashion as I.”
They all said how glad they were to meet one another, and Laura thanked them for coming to help her. Finny had simply explained that Poplan and Mr. Henckel were her former teachers. Finny’s mother seemed shaky and a bit nervous, so as they made their way to the kitchen, Finny touched Laura’s arm and told her to relax, that it would all go fine.
Mr. Henckel, on the other hand, seemed remarkably at ease in these new surroundings. Whereas he had been so shy before when meeting people, it seemed that having Poplan around emboldened him. He strutted through the house, one hand jammed in the pocket with the watch chain, the other swinging by his side, snapping lightly to the beat of his footsteps. In the dining room, he looked through the doors at the lion sculpture and said, “Nice lion.”
“Thank you,” Laura said.
Mr. Henckel greeted this response with a nod, and several rather suave smile-frowns.
“So,” Poplan said to Finny and Laura, “I take it our friend isn’t here yet. Are we all ready?”
“The stew is done,” Laura said. “And Gerald knows he’s bringing the spices. He said they would be some very special ones, since I told him we’re having guests.”
“That’s great, Mom,” Finny said, patting Laura again on the arm. “And I put some white wine in the refrigerator.”
“Wonderful,” Poplan said.
Gerald arrived at seven-fifteen, completing their party. He greeted everyone with hardy handshakes, flashing his brilliantly white canine smile. He was dressed in what looked to Finny like an expensive gray suit, with wide lapels and polished shoes. He’d brought with him several small pouches of spices, and Laura directed him to the stew she’d made, inviting him to “go to work.”
“I’d love to know what you’re putting in there,” Poplan said.
“This first one is called baharat,” Gerald said. “It’s a blend of some of the finest spices from around the world: Sri Lankan cloves, Saigon cinnamon, Spanish paprika, Chinese tien tsin peppers. Only the best of each, of course.”
Then he sprinkled another pouch of spices over the tray of vegetables Laura had roasted in the oven.
“This one is a very rare wild oregano found only in the mountains of Greece. They call it rigani, but that name refers to all the wild Greek oregano. This one is particularly hard to procure.” He flashed another blinding display of teeth.
“They must be very expensive,” Poplan said.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Gerald said.
“Is it hard to make sure they’re pure?”
“It is,” Gerald said, pleased that Poplan was so interested in his business. “But of course I do all the work to make sure these are one hundred percent. That’s why people are willing to pay the big bucks for them.” He nodded at Laura, and they exchanged smiles.
“Let’s have some wine,” Finny said. “What do you think, Gerald?”
“Whatever you want,” he said. Then, in a moment, he added, “Though I do happen to know that a nice bottle of medium-bodied dry white wine is the best thing to bring out the subtle flavors in these exquisite spices. But that’s neither here nor there. You should enjoy them any way you like.”
“Then I guess we should have white wine,” Laura said. She seemed to have relaxed once Gerald had come in the door. She delivered the line convincingly.
“That’s fine with me,” Gerald said. “I just want you to be happy. All of you.”
In the New Yorker article, Finny had read how Gregory P. Mark liked to have everyone drinking when they tried his spices, especially if the tasters were experienced. They were more easily impressed that way.
Finny popped open a bottle of wine and poured everyone a glass. She was especially careful to pour Mr. Henckel a full glass.
Mr. Henckel drank swiftly, which prompted an extended confession about a time when he had been touring with the “dance” troupe and the dancers had persuaded him to join them onstage for a “disrobing routine.”
“I was actually quite successful at it,” Mr. Henckel added, his free hand still swinging and snapping by his side. “Though I must admit that certain aspects of the male anatomy undergo changes when subjected to sudden cold.” Here he began to sweat, and had to momentarily cease his snapping in order to mop his forehead with the handkerchief he always carried with him.
Poplan was shaking her head at him, but everyone else seemed to be amused, to Finny’s relief. Even Laura smiled, though she probably hadn’t absorbed a word of the story. Gerald was laughing especially hard. He must have thought Mr. Henckel was joking.
Finny opened another bottle of wine and poured glasses all around. Gerald was drinking much more slowly than he had at Thanksgiving, probably because he wasn’t sure how distinguished Poplan’s and Mr. Henckel’s palates were, and he wanted to make sure their perceptions were adequately dulled.
In another few minutes they sat down to dinner. Laura and Finny served the stew, which was made from braised lamb and potatoes. Laura had roasted all kinds of vegetables to go alongside: carrots and beans and broccoli and tomatoes. Mr. Henckel was helping himself to a third glass of wine by the time everyone was ready to eat.
They all took a bite.
“Delicious,” Finny said.
“Astounding,” Poplan said.
“You see?” Gerald said. “Spices.”
Laura nodded supportively.
After a few more bites they looked to Mr. Henckel for his opinion. He had also been nodding at people’s comments, but Finny could see that his eyelids were drooping. In a moment he slumped forward, his nose only inches from his stew. Poplan had told Finny the wine would have this effect. Plus, he would sleep for longer, which would give them the time they needed.
“Oh my God,” Poplan said now, looking alarmed.
“What?” Gerald said. “What is it?”
“He’s—Oh, Jesus,” Poplan said.
“Is he okay?” Gerald asked.
“What’s happening?” Finny said.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Laura asked.
“Do you know what’s in the stew?” Poplan asked.
Laura listed the ingredients: lamb, tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, flour, onions, wine, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, potatoes.
“Yes!” Poplan shouted. “Go! Go! Call an ambulance! Tell them he could die.”
Laura dashed out of the room.
“Why?” Gerald said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s got very serious food allergies,” Poplan said. Her military bearing suited this situation well. She appeared like the sort of person who could be calm but firm under extreme pressure.
“To what?” Gerald said.
“The two things he absolutely can’t eat,” Poplan said, “are nuts and marjoram. Marjoram makes him pass out. Nuts make his throat close up. If he eats them together, it’s a lethal combination.”
Gerald’s face went white. He gulped several times, and looked around the room, like a trapped rabbit. Finny had read in The New Yorker that the most common counterfeit oregano used marjoram instead of the wild plant, and that ground nuts were often substituted for the more expensive ingredients in Middle Eastern spices.
“I never thought to mention it,” Poplan went on, “since Laura told me what she was making, and of course your spices are so pure. That’s why I asked you what was in them.”
“I—” Gerald started, but he couldn’t seem to get th
e words out. This was exactly what Poplan had guessed would happen. Gerald was a con artist, not a killer; he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying.
“What?” Finny said. “What is it?”
“There might be some marjoram in there. And some nuts, too,” Gerald said. His lips looked dry, and he kept moving them after he’d finished speaking, though no sounds came out.
“I don’t believe this,” Poplan said. “What are you telling me?”
“The spices,” Gerald said. “They might not be a hundred percent pure.”
“Do you know that for a fact? Because I need to tell the paramedics what shots to give him. Tell me exactly what was in what.”
“There is marjoram in the oregano, and nuts in the baharat.”
“But I thought you said it was pure,” Finny said.
“I have a guy,” Gerald blurted out. “Sometimes he mixes in some extra ingredients.”
“Why does he do that?” Finny asked.
“He … Well—People can’t tell the difference. It saves a lot of money.”
“So you’re lying to people?”
“Not lying,” Gerald said. “Marketing.”
Mr. Henckel’s breathing was becoming heavier and more agitated. He was beginning to snore.
“Oh God,” Poplan said. “His throat is closing up.”
“What can we do?” Gerald said. “Please save him.”
And then Mr. Henckel snorted awake. Gerald leapt out of his chair and put his hands over his face. Laura must have heard the snort from the other room, because she walked back in at that moment.
Gerald slowly took his hands away from his eyes and said to Mr. Henckel, “What’s this? You’re okay.”
“I’m very sorry,” Mr. Henckel said, shaking his head. Finny could see that he was embarrassed for falling asleep at the dinner table. “It just comes upon me.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Poplan told Mr. Henckel.
“You did great,” Finny said.
Mr. Henckel seemed satisfied with these compliments. He produced a winning smile-frown and resumed some light snapping under the table. Gerald, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know what to make of these developments. He stood there, next to the dining room table, his mouth moving but no words coming out.
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