“ ‘I just want to ask you a couple of questions.’ Nothing good ever started with that phrase, mister,” she said.
“Here’s almost three hundred bucks, for nothing—whether you talk to me or not.” I held out the wad of cash I’d taken from the kids.
“Yeah, I see how much that cost you,” she said, but she was looking at the money.
“I’ll throw in a hundred more, for five minutes.” She squinted at me and at the money, still suspicious.
“I hope they’re easy questions. My mind’s not what it used to be,” she said, and took the cash.
“There’s a bodega on Ninety-eighth and Madison, where you can make phone calls and send faxes. Did you send a fax from there eight days ago?” She knew what I was talking about, but she hesitated. Not nervous, just cautious.
“I know the place. And, yeah, I was in there with some stuff to send last week. Guy paid me fifty bucks to do it. Twenty-five up front, twentyfive when I brought him back the little slip that says it went through.”
“Did you know the guy, ever see him before?” I asked.
“Nope. Just came up to me in the park. I was sitting over near the playground. He walks up and asks if I want to make some money,” she answered.
“What did he look like?”
“He was like you,” she said, as if that told me all I needed to know.
“What do you mean he was like me? He was my height? My age? My hair color? His face looked like mine?”
“No, no. He was taller than you, and older, maybe forty-five or fifty. Built like you, though, kind of lean and wiry, but bigger in the shoulders. And not so pretty,” she said, and laughed a little.
“That’s very nice, thank you. Then what did you mean when you said he was like me?”
“I mean he acted like you—he acted like a cop,” she explained, as if I was a little slow.
I thought about this for a while. “What makes you say that? Did he say something? Did you see something?”
“You can just tell. Like with you and those shitheads. You smacked them around good, but you weren’t mad or anything. It’s like you didn’t care one way or another about them, like they were just things. And the way you talked to them—you needled them, but mostly to show them you could. The fax guy, he acted the same way to this old juicer who was lying on the bench next to mine. The old wino hears this guy talking to me, so he shuffles on over, looking to make a buck. This guy just stares at him for a while, all cold and scary. Then he puts his hand on the wino’s shoulder and does something that makes the old guy go white as a sheet, practically drops to his knees. Then he tells the old guy, real matter-of-fact, to get the fuck out of his sight before he gets his arm torn off. Like you with those kids, see?” I saw. It’s always nice to hear that you come across like a psychopath.
She finished collecting the cans and bags, and I helped her push the cart back onto the footpath. She didn’t have much else to tell me. The guy had approached her in the morning; he’d been alone. They’d walked to the store; she’d seen no sign of a car. He’d waited for her outside, around the corner. He was minimally polite, but said nothing that wasn’t necessary to conduct their business. He’d paid her in tens and fives. He was wearing dark pants, dark shoes, some sort of short jacket in dark blue, zipped to the neck, a dark blue baseball cap—no insignia. What hair she could see was short and dark. No accent that she noticed. No scars, no birthmarks, no jewelry.
I asked her name and she hesitated, looking at me and looking away. Finally she told me. Faith Herman. I paid Faith the extra hundred, and gave her a card with my number on it. I told her to call if she thought of anything else or saw the guy again. She looked skeptical, like I’d told her to call when she’d won the lotto.
Chapter Five
I had lunch at a coffee shop on upper Madison. Afterward, I leaned in the sun outside the Cooper-Hewitt and made some calls. The first was to Tom Neary, my contact at Brill. Neary is ex-FBI, and I’d met him when I was a cop and he was working out of the resident agency in Utica. We’d gotten to know each other pretty well, at least professionally, well enough to do favors for each other every now and then. He’d joined Brill about the same time I’d moved back to the city, and not long ago had taken over their financial services group in the metro area. I called three different numbers, but the best I could do was his voice mail.
Then I called Pierro. I gave my name to his secretary and she told me, in hushed tones, that Mr. Pierro was working at home today, but had left instructions that I was to be given his number. She said it like he’d told her to give me his firstborn. I called him at home. He answered on the first ring, and said to come over any time that afternoon. He gave me an address on Park Avenue in the low 80s, a short walk from where I was.
The holiday tipping season was approaching, and all the buildings I passed were scrubbed, waxed, and polished to perfection. Their door-men were spit-shined too, and turned out like a bunch of Soviet admirals. Pierro’s wore a long coat with big epaulets and lots of brass, and it probably outweighed him by ten pounds. He hauled open the door and pointed me across an acre of marble to the concierge, who announced me on the house phone. When he got the okay from above, he pointed me to the elevators.
“To the Pierros, Billy,” he told the elevator man.
Billy closed the metal gate and worked the controls. We rose slowly. The old-fashioned elevator, the staff in full dress, the smells of wax and oil soap and brass polish, reminded me of the building that I’d grown up in. It was the same prewar vintage as Pierro’s place, and just a few blocks south. It was my brother Ned’s home now, and I hadn’t set foot inside for months.
Billy pulled back the metal gate, and I stepped into a long, quiet hallway. It had pale gray walls and a high ceiling and thick gray carpet. It was lit softly and evenly from frosted glass sconces. At either end was a gleaming black door. Billy pointed to the right and waited silently while I knocked and was admitted.
Pierro answered. He was the country squire today, in a plaid flannel shirt, tan corduroys, and loafers. He smiled, and we shook hands.
“Hey, John, you made it,” he said.
Pierro seemed relaxed and glad to see me, like I’d come over to drink a beer and watch the game. He closed the door behind me. We were in a high-ceilinged, rectangular foyer, maybe three hundred feet square. The walls were a buttery yellow, and they were hung all around with photographs in black wooden frames. The heavy cornice molding was painted a sage green, and a green and yellow carpet with an intricate floral pattern covered much of the hardwood floor. In the center of the room was an oval table in black wood. It was empty but for a vase of yellow roses, a stack of letters, and a set of keys on a silver ring. To the left, a doorway led to a short hall that widened into a butler’s pantry. Beyond it I saw part of a large kitchen with black stone counters and cream-colored cabinets. On the long wall opposite us, the foyer opened onto a wide hallway that ran left and right. A child’s laughter came from far off.
Pierro smiled more broadly. “That’s my little guy. He’s a wild man. Come on, we can talk in the study.” He crossed the foyer and went down the hall to the right. I followed. “I wanted to work at home today, to get away from the phone,” Pierro said, ahead of me. “So naturally, I’ve been on the phone all morning.”
I glimpsed other rooms as we walked—dining room, living room, den. Beyond the apartment itself, which was easily worth a few million bucks, there was no aggressive show of wealth here, and none of the ugly fingerprints of professional good taste. The rooms were large and welcoming, with nice light and comfortable-looking furniture. The decor was tasteful but simple, almost spare.
Pierro led me to his study and shut the door. It was a small room, but large enough for an old rolltop desk, a swivel chair in green leather, a matching straight-backed chair, and a couple of brass floor lamps. The walls were lined with built-in shelves that were packed with books and family photos. Tacked above the desk were pieces of kid art: a smear of fin
gerpaints in yellow and red, a crayon jack-o’-lantern on a stone wall, a watercolor fish, a horse, nicely done in charcoal.
“So, where are we at, John?” he asked.
I told Pierro about my morning, and described the man who’d paid Faith Herman to send the fax. It rang no bells with him, but he was encouraged nonetheless. He seemed to believe that it was just a matter of time before I had it all figured out. I cautioned him against irrational exuberance.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Rick,” I told him. “We’ve got very little to work with here, not much time, and only one guy working on it. And what I found out today was not good news. Whoever sent the fax is not completely stupid. They may even have done this before. I want you to know, there is nothing encouraging here.” Pierro looked deflated. I was glad; it meant I was getting through. I continued.
“I can try to get a line on people who had access to the documents in the fax, but that could turn out to be a very long list. We don’t have time for that. Maybe you could help focus things a little more.” Pierro shook his head.
“I’ve been going nuts ever since this started, trying to figure out who could have those documents . . . who would do this. And I just don’t know. After all these years, it seems like anyone could have those papers.” He rocked back in his chair, and last night’s tension returned. He folded his arms on his chest and stared out over my head. “I just don’t know,” he said.
“We won’t worry right now about how many hands the documents could’ve passed through over the years, okay? Let’s focus on who had them originally, back when you first did the deal. Let’s start there. Tell me about Textiles,” I said. And he did.
It was, Pierro told me, one of several deals that Nassouli had brought to him. Textiles was a big MWB client in Europe. The company maintained a slew of cash accounts with the bank, to support its operations around the world. MWB also provided financing to Textiles. Textiles was planning a move into the United States and needed additional financing, in dollars, to support it. MWB couldn’t take on any more exposure to the company, but French Samuelson, having no previous dealings with Textiles, could. Nassouli had made the match.
Pierro’s main contact at MWB, on the Textiles deal and all the others that Nassouli brought to the table, was Nassouli himself. Pierro remembered working directly with only one other person from MWB: a guy named Al Burrows. Burrows worked for Nassouli, and ran MWB’s correspondent banking department in New York. Pierro recalled him helping out on the Textiles deal, and on one or two others. He didn’t know if Al was short for Albert or Alfred or Alvin, and he had no idea where the guy might be today. He spelled the name and gave me what he could of a description.
I took Pierro through the fax, looking not only for people who had access to each of the documents in it, but also for people who would’ve had the entire package. He wasn’t much help. According to Pierro, the late Emilio Dias, the Textiles CFO, would have had most of the documents: Nassouli’s letter to Dias, Pierro’s own letter to him, and the list of drawdowns and repayments. But he also thought that Nassouli would’ve had the same stuff. Pierro, as a courtesy, had copied Nassouli on his letter to Dias; and all of Textiles’ loan transactions moved through cash accounts at MWB.
I brought up Nassouli’s memo to “The Files,” the one alleging that he and Pierro had prepared Textiles’ loan application. Pierro bristled.
“That thing is bullshit,” he said, his face darkening. “There’s no point wondering who had access to it, because nobody did. It was made up by the same asshole that sent the fax. End of story.”
“So, the applications and the corporate documents—the Textiles people were responsible for those?” Pierro looked at me hard.
“I told you—yes. Is there another way I can say it?”
“How well did you know the company?” The muscles around Pierro’s mouth clenched, then he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
“I knew them as well as I was supposed to, John. The world was different then, I’ll admit. The know-your-customer rules weren’t as tight as they are today, and there was maybe less scrutiny on referrals that came from the private banking department or from another big firm—but we didn’t just give the money away, for chrissakes. I kicked the damn tires, and as far as I knew Textiles was a legitimate concern.”
“Okay, the allegations are bullshit, but what about the document itself? You’re sure Nassouli couldn’t have written this?” Pierro looked at me for a while and ran his hand over his forehead. When he spoke his voice was low and tight.
“Why the hell would he do that? Why would he implicate himself in something like this—especially since it never happened? Why would anyone do that?” It was a good question, and I had no answer to it. We were quiet for a couple of minutes, and Pierro’s nascent anger seemed to fade. We moved on to the question of enemies.
Pierro readily admitted that in twenty years at French, he’d ruffled his share of feathers, perhaps more than his share. And he conceded that some of those birds might hold a grudge. But he thought it impossible that any of them would go to these lengths to get even. If the goal was to sink his career, he pointed out, there were easier and less risky ways to go about it. One could simply send the incriminating stuff to the French Samuelson executive committee and be done with it.
Nor did Pierro see any of them as potential blackmailers, for the simple reason that they were too damn rich already. I pointed out that we weren’t yet certain this was blackmail, but in fact I agreed with Pierro’s reasoning. The fax made more sense as the prelude to some sort of squeeze than as a warning of impending vengeance. Whichever it was, it was probably too risky a game for a senior investment banker to be playing.
Pierro considered all my questions carefully, and he was deliberate in his answers. And the talking seemed to relieve his tension. It often works that way with clients. Answering questions makes them feel like they’re taking some action, like they’re doing something. It’s better than the feeling of waiting around for something to be done to you. But Pierro was astute enough to recognize that this was fleeting comfort.
“Is this really helping?” he asked.
“A little,” I answered. “Right now, the documents are the only trail we have to follow. Textiles Pan-Europa is defunct, and so are the executives you dealt with back then, so working it from that side isn’t promising. That leaves the MWB end of things, looking at the people who were there with Nassouli eighteen years ago, and the people who are there now. ‘Burrows’ is a new name; that might be helpful. But frankly, there’s not a lot here.” He nodded. I had more questions, but the phone interrupted us.
“Russell, hi. Yeah, I’m home today. No, I can talk, hang on a sec.” Pierro put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, apologetically, “This is the one call I was actually waiting for today. Give me two minutes. Thanks.” I nodded and left the study, closing the door behind me. I found my way back to the foyer.
The black-framed photos had caught my eye, and I walked slowly around the room now, taking a closer look. They were black-and-white pictures, and they all seemed to have been taken at fashion shoots. But they were not themselves fashion photos. Rather, they were candid pictures of the photographers, models, makeup people, and other assorted production types working on the shoots. And they were remarkable. The best of them caught petulance, vanity, pettiness, anger, frustration, and exhaustion all unawares. Even the less successful ones were arresting and beautifully composed. With their stark lighting and heavy contrasts they had the look of old crime-scene photos. Many of them had been taken outdoors, and I recognized streets in New York and London. They were superb, but I doubted that any of their subjects would have been pleased. In the bottom right corner of each frame, hand-printed on the matting paper, was the name “H. Barrie.”
I heard footsteps approaching and a child’s laughter, and I turned. A woman came into the foyer, pushing a small boy in a stroller.
“You must be John. Rick told m
e you’d be stopping by. I’m Helene.” She smiled and put out her hand and I shook it. Her hand was smooth and warm, her grip firm.
Helene Pierro was somewhere in her thirties. She was nearly my height and slim, but no starving model. She had broad shoulders and a firm, athletic figure. Her glossy chestnut hair was gathered into a ponytail that came to her shoulders. There was red in it where it caught the light. Her slender brows arched over large, dark eyes. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, her nose long and straight, and her lips full. Her skin was fair but not unblemished. Fine laugh lines bracketed her eyes and mouth, and on her chin, like a comma, was a small white scar.
She wore gray wool pants and a green cashmere sweater and black loafers without socks, and I could see tendons shift in her slender ankles as she walked. Her jewelry was simple, but expensive—small hoops of braided gold at her ears, a matching chain at her neck, a thick wedding band. Her fingers were long and supple, her nails expertly manicured, with a clear polish.
She ran her hands through the little boy’s hair. He wore jeans and sneakers and a red turtleneck with a sailboat on it. He had his mother’s coloring and her big eyes too. He was smashing the pickup truck that he held in one hand into the dinosaur that he held in the other, and making dramatic explosion sounds that dissolved into wild laughter. He did this again and again, but for him it stayed fresh. He looked at me and gave me a little smile, but did not pause in his work. I was suddenly quite conscious of the knives and dope I was still carrying around.
“You haven’t been waiting out here all this time, have you?” she asked. She had a gentle but distinct southern accent.
“No, just on a break. Rick had to take a call,” I explained.
Helene rolled her eyes. “That man and the telephone, I swear,” she said, smiling. “Do you want me to hurry him up?”
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