The Banker Who Died

by Matthew A Carter

  “A fee?” Peshkov’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know anything about that!”

  “It’s in the contract, nonetheless. You’d do better to wait until the end of the period specified in the contract.”

  “My lawyer checked that contract.”

  “But it’s your signature on the document. You can fine your lawyer for it, if you like.”

  “I can’t,” said Peshkov sadly, “he died. Well, he had some help, but that doesn’t concern you. How much is the fee?”

  Stanley named a figure, but then remembered Peshkov’s order to transfer everything to the yuan, and wrote several numbers on his napkin.

  “What currency is that?” asked Peshkov, looking down at the napkin.

  “Still the most reliable and desirable currency for now, the dollar,” answered Stanley.

  “You’re a bunch of crooks!” Peshkov pronounced dramatically.

  “First of all, I’m here alone, and second of all, our bank is a dependable and well-respected institution, and the contract you signed is largely to your benefit.”

  “You’re going to answer for this!” Peshkov stood abruptly, but before he left, he leaned close to Stanley and said, “Transfer it all to bitcoin!”

  As if repeating the schedule of meetings from his first Moscow visit, Stanley met up with Grigoryan as well. Grigoryan asked for a higher percentage, promising Laville & Cie another five depositors. Stanley nodded dutifully and promised to discuss the rate increase with his management. He looked at Grigoryan’s smug face and wondered what new information this traitor would reveal about their allegedly common acquaintances.

  Grigoryan proved to be more astute than Stanley had given him credit for.

  “You don’t think particularly well of me, Mr. McKnight,” he said, “but I need money for the shelter. Orphans! They need help!”

  “Yes, of course, I understand. Our bank—”

  “What about your bank!” Grigoryan slapped his knee. “I’m talking about the orphans!”

  As Stanley watched Grigoryan walk out of the café, he thought that those poor orphans would be lucky to see one red cent of his money.

  Mila called him that evening, very upset that they hadn’t been able to meet. When he asked how her trip was going, she told him that she was exhausted and sick of everything there. And so she called him.

  “You—we—are taking a risk,” said Stanley.

  “I thought you’d be happy to hear my voice, handsome.”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  “All right, all right, don’t be a bore. Everyone here is drunk. Viktor got in a fight with someone. Can you imagine?”

  Stanley had never seen a fistfight between billionaires. He actually couldn’t imagine.

  “He did. He did. They argued about their visions for Russia’s future. I don’t give a shit about the future. I’m worried about waking up with a headache tomorrow. My only medicine for that is far away. Bye, handsome!”

  Just before Christmas, Lagrange told him that Gagarin was back in Europe, skiing in Lech.

  “At Princess Diana’s favorite ski resort, and mine too,” Lagrange went on. “It’s in Austria, about two hundred miles from Zurich. He’s invited us to join him. Want to go?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Stanley asked.

  “That’s the thing, not really. I was planning to go to Cuba for New Year’s, but I’ll have to skip it. I reserved us a corporate car.”

  “Cancel it, Pierre. We’ll go in my car.”

  “You bought a car? And you didn’t tell me? No bragging? What’s the model?”

  “You’ll see. When are we leaving?”

  “That Russian is expecting us tonight.”

  “I’ll pick you up,” said Stanley, and left Lagrange alone in his office with his glass of whiskey.

  Chapter 17

  Stanley had bought himself a Tesla electric car, becoming the first in Zurich to own this miracle of modern engineering. He’d put in an order as soon as Tesla opened a dealership in the city.

  As for why, he wasn’t exactly sure. Not because he wanted to stand out—there were a million other ways to do that, especially after that bonus from the bank. He would have had his favorite car shipped to Zurich, an old Ford Bronco—a huge vehicle with the stick shift by the steering wheel—if it wouldn’t have made him look like an oddball. And he might not have been able to squeeze it into several of Zurich’s narrow streets. At one point, he was even thinking about buying an Aston Martin, but realized it was a bit above his current station.

  They didn’t manage to leave on time—Lagrange called and said he’d been detained by some business. Stanley came to get him in the afternoon, and Lagrange was delighted by the Tesla. Not because he particularly liked the car, but because Stanley had, in his opinion, completed his ‘coming out’ by buying the car.

  “What are you talking about?” exclaimed Stanley, heading down Gessnerallee toward the A3.

  “This is a gay car!” Lagrange declared authoritatively. “The great gay division will head to battle in a fleet of these cars. To attack the poor asses of the hetero population. Say you’ll have mercy on me?”

  “Give it a rest, Pierre! This is the first absolutely unmotivated decision I’ve ever made. I even thought about seeing a psychologist. To ask, ‘Doctor, if I buy a Tesla, what’s wrong with me?’”

  “Funny, Stan, but you can’t justify this one. At least the villa Gagarin has rented can’t be reached by car. In this one or any other. We’ll have to leave your effeminate car in a parking lot and take a lift. But this car can move; I’ll give you that.”

  “Zero to a hundred in five seconds,” boasted Stanley, and pressed down a little more on the accelerator.

  “Engine in the back?” asked Lagrange.

  “Even if you looked for it back there, you wouldn’t find it,” answered Stanley. “There are four of them, if I’m not mistaken.”

  With an eye on the huge display mounted on the car’s central console, Stanley easily overtook every other car on the road. The mirrored surface of lake Obersee appeared on his left, and the high fences of a manufacturing zone extended along his right.

  “So how far can you go on one charge?”

  “It’ll get us to Gagarin’s.”

  “But how far in general?”

  “About five hundred kilometers.”

  “Wow!” Pierre whistled.

  “That’s not even the most impressive part, Pierre. The main battery is composed of about seven thousand AA battery cells, arranged in a particular pattern of positive and negative contacts. And that pattern is the big secret!”

  “I see, Stan—if you’re not ready to raise the rainbow flag just yet, at least you’ll be a healthy-eating environmentalist. You’ll give up meat, start eating nuts and berries. Do you meditate yet? Time to start!” Lagrange pulled out a cigar, lit it, and lowered the window after unsuccessfully searching for an ashtray.

  Brisk air streamed in from the open window, and Stanley turned the heat up. After Obersee they came upon another lake, Walensee, with low hills rising behind it. The mountains of Liechtenstein emerged and disappeared again into the fog as they drove.

  “At least you didn’t buy a pink or purple car. With a black one, you still have a chance.”

  “A chance at what, Pierre?”

  “At not turning into that kind of European asshole. Care for the environment! Give water to the Africans! Feed the Indians! Protect the whales! Aid the refugees! Goddamned Merkel!” Lagrange accompanied his words with energetic gestures, as if he was speaking to a crowded rally. “You know, I hate the liberals, always feeling bad about everything in the world. The left is more obsessed with power than the right.”

  “Why is that?” Stanley checked the display, glanced up at the road sign, and turned off the A3 by Sennwald, heading toward Rhe
instrasse.

  “Because they’re more certain than the right about how you should live. Their favorite word is ‘social justice.’ Not equality, not freedom, but justice. Justice, fairness. Have you seen fairness anywhere in this world, Stanley?”

  The Rhine appeared on their right. The river was narrow here, but even a quick glance at high speed was enough to see how powerful its current was.

  “Probably not,” said Stanley after a brief pause. He drove onto the Feldkirch bridge, and they entered Liechtenstein.

  “Our work is based on unfairness, as you have probably guessed,” said Lagrange. “If the world was fair, we’d be out of work. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like fairness and justice everywhere. It’s just impossible to achieve. Only in small doses. Pull over by that stand—it would be an injustice for me to piss my pants!”

  Lagrange returned with a small bottle of wormwood-infused vodka and a can of tonic water.

  “Like with like,” he said. He had obviously already sampled some of the drink. “Let’s roll! But just to finish my point—Gagarin loves to talk about fairness. Have you had that talk yet? No? You will. But his idea of fairness is really something, just wait. What’s good for Gagarin is what is fair, and vice versa. He’s sure that he is just a font of fairness, himself. For everyone. Those who can’t, or won’t, accept his fairness are enemies to him. And he chews them up. Mostly using Shamil’s teeth. Are we already in Austria?”

  Stanley looked at the display.

  “We’ll get past Sebastian Kneipp Strasse and…forget the details! When we get to the A14, we’ll be in Austria. Why did Gagarin invite us? To talk about fairness?”

  “Uh-huh.” Lagrange nodded, and took another large swallow of the vodka, chasing it with a sip of tonic. “He wants to work with us more. He likes us. Thanks to you. Laville, by the way, asked me to pass on his best wishes for the holidays. As far as I can recall, you are only the second employee of this bank whom Laville has ever sent an individual holiday greeting, even if it is through a third party.”

  “And who was the other employee?”

  “Me, naturally.” Lagrange took another pull on his bottle.

  Stanley loved how the Tesla handled. The powerful electric engines gave the two-ton car an agile and elastic acceleration over a range of speeds. The car started fast and picked up speed at a rate that put actual sports cars to shame. Stanley remembered the more measured pace of his old Bronco. If it hadn’t entirely disintegrated into rust, it was still parked at a relative’s house in Oregon. The Tesla also had superb brakes—a Brembo brake system, as they told Stanley at the dealership, could stop a two-ton car short even at a decent speed. And, of course, it handled magnificently, particularly on the winding roads after Langen.

  Then the road straightened out and grew steeper. They came out onto the Arlbergstrasse, entered the Arlberg valley, and took the B197 and Lechtalstrasse into Lech.

  Stanley turned sharply into a small parking lot in front of a restaurant named Hus Nr. 8, and found a spot.

  “Why are we parking here, exactly?” asked Lagrange suspiciously.

  “Because I saw an open parking spot,” answered Stanley.

  “I thought you must have found out somehow.” Lagrange fell silent.

  “Found out what?”

  “That I already reserved a table here. In this restaurant. There will be food at Gagarin’s of course, but they start with the vodka first, and I can’t take that. I’m French. What’s in first place for the French? Dinner! A scarf and a lover too, of course, but dinner above all else. Let’s go!”

  They went in, sat down, and ten minutes later the waiter began to bring them their food. Meat on hot rocks, fondue, melted raclette cheese. There was also soup with liver meatballs and a stewed leg of lamb. Lagrange partook heavily of the plum schnapps and unfiltered beer, and he ate as if he’d been starving for days, demanding that Stanley keep up with him in the drinking. They paid with a corporate card and left.

  “That was excellent!” said Lagrange, zipping up his coat and pulling on a knit cap. “Now we just need to walk over to the lift. I’m not exactly sure where it is. We still have two hundred meters further up to go. The village is called Oberlech. And let’s not forget our bags!”

  Stanley pulled both their bags out of the trunk. Lagrange, in a friendly mood and tipsy from the liquor and huge meal, asked, “Do you know how to ski, Stanley?”

  “Well, it’s been ten years since I last went.”

  “Where was that?”

  “In the US, Mammoth Mountain.”

  Lagrange’s good mood disappeared.

  “I’m sick of hearing about your America. Heaven on earth! You live here now. They’ll be happy to see you, Tesla owner. Everyone’s an environmentalist here. Look around you—not one smoking chimney. A single boiler heats all the hotels and houses here, and only wood for fuel. They don’t even have satellite television—antennas would spoil the view, you see. Pardon me, monsieur. Where can we find the lift to Oberlech?”

  The man wearing a jacket bearing the inscription The White Ring just looked at Lagrange before slowly turning his wrist to look at the time.

  “You’re late. The lift is already closed,” he said, and walked off.

  “Oh ho!” laughed Lagrange. “I’m not going to call Gagarin. You do it, Stan. You’re his favorite new drinking buddy, I heard. I know everything,” He wagged his finger at Stanley warningly. “Go ahead and call. He’ll think of something.”

  Gagarin did: he told them to go to the lift and wait. Five, seven minutes, tops. That was how long it took for the lift to start up again as a special favor to Viktor Gagarin. At his very persuasive request.

  Chapter 18

  In Oberlech, seventeen hundred meters above sea level, Gagarin and his guests occupied one of the ski resort’s most expensive chalets. So it was really no surprise that he could insist that the staff turn the lift back on.

  Oberlech’s wooden houses fitted beautifully into the landscape of the Arlberg massif, and the chalet Gagarin had rented didn’t stand out from the others. From afar, it might have been a home for some of the resort’s ski instructors, who made up about a fifth of Oberlech’s fifteen hundred residents. The building’s modest exterior, however, marked only by the letter N on a plaque and several balconies and terraces, concealed a seriously luxurious interior.

  Against the traditional Alpine frame of wooden beams and walls the décor of the chalet included black granite, shining chrome surfaces, and Swarovski crystal, while the windows were made of bulletproof glass.

  Guests usually rented these chalets for a week, but Gagarin had taken this one for two, at a cost of nearly 600,000 euros. Twenty staff members had their hands full providing services to the temporary residents: in the kitchen, in the spa, maintaining the enormous pool, the waters of which were changed in accordance with the wishes of each new group of guests, while tennis instructors waited to assist anyone who wished to play on the court located in the basement. A butler was available at any time of day or night to pour a glass of champagne, while the steward of the wine cellar could offer wine from any country to match any dish.

  Stanley emerged from his room before Lagrange and found a number of familiar faces in the main hall downstairs.

  Gagarin, Biryuza, Durand, and Krapiva sat in armchairs around an oval table laid with small plates and bottles. Gauthier hovered around the table and, while Gagarin was distracted by something, invited the other guests to have some cocaine.

  Shamil sat on a low chair, legs stretched out, warming himself in front of an enormous fireplace. The ladies were gathered around a different table, on low, cushioned sofas. Their table was spread with sweets, chocolate, and several silver buckets with bottles of brut and rosé champagne.

  Mila and Polina were there with two unfamiliar women: Yulia, a blonde with a triangular face, pointed chin, and full li
ps, and a young girl no older than sixteen or seventeen. This, he learned later, was Durand’s new love interest, a top model despite her young age, and already the face of several popular brands.

  Gagarin leaped up as soon as he noticed Stanley, knocking over a bottle of vodka on the table in front of him.

  “Stanley, my friend! I’m delighted to see you! Your boss told us you bought a Tesla? Switching your sexual orientation, eh? You’re probably sick of that question—I’d kill anyone who asked me!”

  Gagarin managed to say all this as he walked over to Stanley, then embraced his guest, and, to the surprise of Stanley and everyone else, kissed him three times.

  “That’s the Russian way, my friend!” Gagarin explained. “When we drank to our friendship, we didn’t forget to kiss! And so there’s the continuation!”

  “Yes, I remember,” muttered the stunned Stanley, searching for something to say.

  “Lighten up, Stanley! Make yourself at home! Hey, Biryuza! Pour Stanley a glass. Here, come sit with us!”

  “No,” protested Mila, watching with interest as her husband kissed her lover, “come sit with us—we need an arbiter. We have an important disagreement, and Stanley can be our judge.”

  “Okay, okay,” Gagarin agreed. “But he has to drink vodka. Followed with some real herring and onions.”

  Biryuza handed Stanley a glass of chilled vodka and a piece of black bread with herring.

  “I had this brought specially from Moscow,” said Gagarin, pointing at the fish. “I’ve seen what they call herring here. They pour vinegar into the brine, sprinkle it with spices, do God knows what to it. This is our good Russian recipe! Here, to your health!”

  Stanley, mentally thanking Lagrange for making sure they’d had a real dinner, drank the vodka and took a bite of the sandwich.

  “That’s the way! Have a rest, Stanley! He’s all yours, girls,” he said, turning to Mila.

  When he sat down with the women, it quickly became apparent that they had indulged quite heavily in the cocaine on offer, including the young model. The topic of their argument was about the power of masculine beauty and charm, and French actors.