The Banker Who Died

by Matthew A Carter

  Mila jerked his head closer, freeing her other breast at the same time. Stanley finally had the sense to let go of the bike, pulling her to his face with both hands, biting each nipple gently in turn. Mila moaned quietly and arched against the bicycle seat.

  Noise thundered above them and they jumped apart.

  It took only a few seconds for the train to pass. Stanley and Mila stared into each other’s eyes the entire time—they both knew what they wanted, and that there was no turning back from it now.

  “There’s a small grove just ahead, before the vineyards,” Mila said hoarsely. “It’s not quite an impassible thicket, but it’s all we have. And if I don’t take these shorts off as soon as possible I’ll die from the heat.”

  Then they were in the grove.

  And then their clothes were scattered on the grass around them.

  Mila turned to Stanley, grabbing on to two slender trunks in front of her, and lowered herself slightly. McKnight lifted her hips, shifted her slightly to the side, and drove all the way into her.

  Mila stumbled on her tensed legs, then leaned back and down, adapting to Stanley’s thrusts, and when she felt him moving in and out without any barrier, she screamed. It was hard to tell what that passionate cry held more of, triumph or pleasure.

  The next sound she made was a long, drawn-out animal moan, and the slim trees she gripped trembled in her grasp.

  Suddenly, coming from the direction they’d been heading, a hunched figure in an angled bicycle helmet flashed into view and passed through the air next to them, metal rim shining.

  On his way down, the rider’s rear wheel slammed into Stanley’s handlebars, and the iron rattle reverberated in the air. The rider landed, righted himself, and was gone in an instant, barking an inaudible curse as he went. Even if he had gotten off his bike and come over to them, Stanley couldn’t have stopped; he came just as the bike flew by in the air.

  “The stupidest thing about it,” said Mila, gasping for air, “is that bicyclist is Russian too. Like us.” She finally managed to catch her breath and laughed a little nervously. “Italy is a wild country. Three Russians in one square meter. And all three on bikes.”

  “You know him?” asked Stanley in surprise, pulling on his shorts.

  “Yes. Unfortunately. A crazy Russian banker who thinks he’s the next Richard Branson. He used to be a professional cyclist.” Mila pulled Stanley close and kissed him with unexpected tenderness. “It’s a funny story, all right.”

  “Do you think he saw you and recognized you?” asked McKnight.

  “If he did, we’ll have to stop by the church on the way back and light a candle for our funerals. If that psycho recognized me and wants to tell Viktor, there’s only one thing I can say.” Mila fell silent and smoothed her hand along Stanley’s head, as if straightening his hair.

  “What can you say?”

  “That we lived for nothing. But let’s not panic. It’s just a possibility at the moment.”

  “What should we do then?” McKnight asked.

  “Find a more hidden place on the way back,” Mila said with a smile. “Where Russian bicyclists won’t jump over us.” Lowering her eyes, she whispered, “I was just on my second round when he interrupted us. And I need to have at least three orgasms a day. For my nerves. That’s my second wish.”

  Chapter 16

  The winter holidays and all the accompanying rituals were difficult for Stanley. He kept thinking about that last Christmas he had spent with his mother, Louisa.

  He had gone to her house in Berkeley the day before Christmas Eve. Before dinner that evening, Christine realized she was out of cigarettes and had to go to the store right away. Louisa decided to ride along to keep her company, despite Stanley’s protests. Christine was already pretty drunk.

  The car slid off the road on a curve and hit a telephone pole. There were no serious injuries, but Louisa hit her head against the window. They came back home, drank some more Basil Haydens, and the next day Louisa fell into a coma and died from internal bleeding. There was nothing the doctors could do.

  So when Stanley saw a crowd gathered in front of Zurich Central Station, his mood fell. They were putting up a Christmas tree, decorated with stars of Swarovski crystal. It shone brightly the next evening, one of Zurich’s main holiday sights, and it was, indeed, something to see. They opened the Christmas market then as well.

  A few days later, Stanley came to visit the train station along with everyone else, drawn by the excitement of the crowd. He saw rows of small wooden pavilions, styled to look like Alpine cottages, where they were selling anything you could imagine. Local cosmetics, cheeses, richly aromatic sausages, Indian incense for some reason, floor lamps in the local ethnic style, cheap jewelry, Santa Claus figurines, including ones made out of sugar, pasta produced by local businesses, and sweets of all kinds.

  Stanley drank a glass of mulled wine and ate crepes with Alpine honey. The honey was a little bitter, and Stanley bought another glass of the wine, only this second glass was too sweet.

  Stanley walked the market from end to end and then went over to the shopping center on Bahnhofstrasse, which also had a Christmas market, albeit a more modest one. It was quieter here. He sat down at a table in a small café, and ordered sausages, stewed cabbage, and beer. The sausages were too greasy, and the cabbage too sour. The food in Zurich was the worst Stanley had ever encountered. He took out a pack of cigarettes, but the waiter ran over to tell him anxiously that the fine for smoking was nearly 300 francs.

  Stanley almost lit it up anyway; but they wouldn’t take the fine right there—he would have to go to the police station, the local police would be sarcastic and pedantic, and they would find out where he worked, and probably send the bank a message to inform them that their employee scoffed at the laws and public health. Let him ruin his own, fine, but not those around him, the respectable burghers. Smoking therefore became a serious crime against the person.

  Stanley ordered a second beer. Beer was good. He thought that if it tasted bad, he would buy a ticket and fly back to San Francisco. And then he thought that the honey had been good, as had the wine, sausages, and cabbage; he simply couldn’t stop thinking about the mother he had lost.

  Stanley paid on his way out, and rode the escalator to the first floor. He bought a sugar Santa and then went outside to smoke, standing to the side of the entrance near a tall urn, watching the people going to the market. Young people in red Christmas hats shouted and laughed. A tall man led a girl in a fur coat by the hand. On closer inspection, Stanley thought it might be real fur. The girl was whining about a special toy she wanted. The man nodded absently and then suddenly leaned down and barked, in Russian: “I’ve had enough of your damned complaints! Shut up!”

  The shocked girl looked ready to cry, but then looked around her. When she met Stanley’s gaze, she gave him a gap-toothed smile.

  “Excuse me, sir, but you can’t smoke here,” Stanley heard behind him. It was a policeman, in a jacket with reflective stripes and a peaked cap with plastic brim.

  “Oh? But I’m standing by the urn. I thought—” Stanley began.

  “You’re a foreigner? Tourist?”

  “A foreigner, but I live and work in Zurich.”

  “You’re an American, no?”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you look at the urn, here, you’ll see a circle, with a cigarette crossed out inside. This tells you you’re in a nonsmoking area. Please put out your cigarette.”

  Stanley did as he was asked and threw the butt into the urn.

  “I could write you a ticket,” the policeman went on, “but I’ll let this go with a warning. And smoking is harmful to your health, I might add.”

  “Fuck right off, you Swiss moron,” said Stanley in Russian.

  “Is everything all right, sir?” asked the officer, moving closer. After the b
eer and mulled wine, Stanley smelled strongly of alcohol.

  “Everything’s great, officer, just great.”

  Stanley decided to walk along Bahnhofstrasse. The streetlamps were decorated with Christmas wreaths. He turned into a small side street leading upward, Rennweg, and bought some fried chestnuts. Then he ducked into a small jewelry store, and, surprising even himself, bought a woman’s watch on a soft leather band. He didn’t even look at the price, just pointed at the case. The salesman suggested buying a gift box, and now Stanley did ask the price, wondering aloud if a hundred francs was reasonable, but paid in the end and went back out onto the street.

  He went along Bahnhofstrasse again and turned onto the narrow Augustinergasse, admiring the twinkling Christmas stars, and stopped into a little basement bar, where he had a brandy. Then another. And a third. He decided to give the watch to Elise, a pretty German girl from the European client department.

  They’d gone out a few times. Elise had been open about recently splitting with her fiancé, and told him that she believed deeply in marriage, but that Stanley had nothing to worry about with her—yes, she knew he was married, and yes, yes, she knew he’d been trying to get divorced for a couple years, but Stanley, no matter how good he was in bed, did not meet her requirements for a good husband.

  When Stanley asked what these requirements were, Elise started to talk about children, common interests, dependability, mutual understanding, and kindred spirits. Stanley grew bored. He listened a little longer, and was getting ready to head home, when Elise asked him to spend the night. They’d only seen each other at work since then, in the hallways of the bank, but they’d had lunch together once. Stanley had been planning to invite her to his place, but Lagrange had called while they were having dessert and asked him to come back to work.

  “Is it urgent, Pierre? I, I mean we, just started dessert.”

  “And then you’ll go fuck,” laughed Lagrange. “Who are you with? Do I know her? Is it—yes, Elise? You’ll have to disappoint her. Reschedule the sex. I need you.”

  In reality, Lagrange could have waited till the next day. When Stanley came to the bank, Lagrange told him that the client funds under his, Stanley’s, management had grown to $1.5 billion, one billion coming from Gagarin, which was primarily due to Stanley’s efforts. Stanley shrugged—none of this was news to him. But Lagrange went on. The bank’s management, and Laville in particular, had decided to give Stanley a bonus of 850,000 francs. Not only that, but also the bank would pay the taxes on it. That was certainly the most generous gift of Stanley’s life.

  “When that yacht hits the water,” said Lagrange, “which will happen at the start of summer, I think you’ll get another bonus like this one. Stick with me, kid. You’ll go far!” Lagrange clapped him on the shoulder.

  Stanley called a taxi after the brandies. In the taxi, he realized he didn’t know Elise’s exact address. He remembered that she lived outside the city in Rapperswil, in a long apartment building. She had a nice apartment, but someone next door was constantly torturing Beethoven. He found Elise’s name in his list of contacts. She picked up right away.

  “Are you home?” asked Stanley.

  “I am,” she answered simply, not at all surprised to hear from him.

  “What’s your building number, floor, and apartment?”

  “Are you…but…”

  “Building number! Floor!”

  “Stanley! Are you okay?”

  “Everything’s great, honey. I just need to know.”

  Elise gave him her address, Stanley repeated it after her and forgot it immediately. Luckily, he was in a taxi with an attentive driver. He helped Stanley find the right entrance, and Stanley went on by himself after that, asking the driver to wait.

  Elise met him in the stairwell: it seemed that her sister and brother-in-law had come to visit unexpectedly. They were more upset over the end of her engagement than Elise was, and had come to talk her into reconciling with her ex.

  “I won’t keep you long,” said Stanley, and took out the watch box. “It’s not a ring. I’m not planning to get down on one knee. It’s a present. For Christmas!” He bent to kiss her on the lips, but missed, and kissed her neck instead.

  “Stanley!” cried Elisa, opening the box, “Oh, how lovely! For me? Oh, Stanley! It’s so expensive!”

  Stanley was bored again. If a woman this beautiful could bore him, any kind of spiritual kinship had to be impossible. There was no such thing. Connection, thought Stanley as he went back downstairs and into the waiting taxi, only happened between bodies; the incorporeal couldn’t bond.

  He told the taxi driver his address and sat back, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, only to find that his candy Santa had lost his head.

  In the morning, Stanley got yet another SMS from Mila. “Good morning, handsome,” she wrote. “Hurry back! They’re waiting for you at the bank. And remember: you owe me another wish. Your Spring.”

  They had been corresponding for a while now; after their meeting in the vineyard near Forte dei Marmi, Mila bombarded him with passionate messages. She only asked that he not write her first, as she could always get away for a moment, but an unexpected message from him could catch her at the wrong time.

  Stanley also spoke with Biryuza nearly every day, over Telegram or by email. Sometimes he thought that clients like Gagarin were clinically paranoid, and all their employees were infected with the disease too, if such a thing could be contagious. In conversation with Biryuza, Stanley did begin to believe in its infectious capabilities and that he should take steps to protect himself.

  Biryuza asked so many questions on behalf of Gagarin, that Stanley had to set aside time in his day to answer them all. Their main concern was some kind of conspiracy, some kind of outside influence, or the completely impossible collapse of Laville & Cie.

  At his boss’s behest, Biryuza even asked Stanley to have some trusted associates placed at the shipyard where the yacht was being built to ensure that no bugs were being planted in the vessel or explosives that could be detonated after its launch.

  When Stanley said that Gagarin surely had his own spies, Biryuza replied that, of course, they had their own, but if Stanley sent his as well, they would have more reliable oversight. He insisted on it, promising that the bank’s management should know nothing about it, and that Gagarin would certainly compensate him for his troubles.

  He had to discuss these conversations with Lagrange, who laughed them off, as was his wont.

  “What idiots!” Lagrange nodded in the direction of the cognac, indicating that Stanley should pour them both another round. “They really don’t know how the game is played, do they? Seeing conspiracies everywhere. Russian nonsense. If someone was trying to kill Gagarin, it would be done with approval from on high, and Gagarin would have no chance of escaping his fate. You think he’s the only one with observers there? He’s valuable to the top players in Moscow, and there are probably FSB agents at the shipyard, or their foreign intelligence officers, or somebody else. They watch over Gagarin like one of their best-kept secrets. Anyway”—Lagrange tipped his glass back for a long swallow—“we’ll think of something.”

  Several days later, Lagrange set up a meeting with a short, dark-haired man. They met in a noisy bar, rare for quiet Zurich, near an industrial part of the city. The man arrived precisely at the appointed time. Like Shamil, he exuded menace. Unlike Shamil, however, who grew more frightening when he smiled—or rather, bared his teeth—when this man smiled, it was as if a light shone from within him.

  “Avi,” he said in introduction as he sat down, nodded to Lagrange, and asked the waiter for mineral water, still.

  Avi, Lagrange later explained, had worked in some branch of the Israeli special forces. After retiring, he had opened a security service in Switzerland.

  He sat with them for the exact amount of time required for him
to drink his glass of water in small sips. He agreed to do the job, but suggested it was better for them not to inform their client that the observation had already begun, in fact, it was better to keep any details of his work from their client. Avi promised that he would monitor the other observers as well as the process of construction. Finishing his water, he rose.

  “You’ll receive weekly reports.” Avi said with a nod, and disappeared.

  “We didn’t agree on payment,” Stanley said, ready to run after him.

  “Don’t worry,” said Lagrange, sipping from his beer with evident enjoyment. “He’ll send you an invoice along with his reports. His prices are modest, and his results are the best. Send Biryuza the invoices. It’ll calm him down.”

  But Stanley traveled to Moscow again long before the Christmas season. He was hoping to see Mila, but she and Gagarin were vacationing in St. Barts.

  Stanley, who had been working for as long as he could remember, starting with collecting bottles, mowing lawns, and bringing groceries to his elderly neighbors, then moving on to restaurants and bars, could never understand what made rich people so tired. He had even tried to set up a mathematical correlation between fatigue and the size of one’s annual income. Moreover, these people always saw the worst side of things, barely dragging their feet through life.

  He spent most of his time in Moscow with Biryuza, meeting with his other clients only once. Peshkov, who had previously transferred all his assets into yuan, now wanted those yuan invested in bitcoin. Glancing nervously over his shoulder, he asked Stanley why profit from his investments had dropped so drastically.

  “We told you that you would lose out in the transfer from dollar to yuan. Also—” began Stanley.

  “If this happens again with bitcoin,” Peshkov interrupted him,” I’m going to withdraw my assets from your bank.”

  “That’s up to you, of course, but permit me to remind you that our contract includes a fee for premature withdrawal.”