The Banker Who Died

by Matthew A Carter

  “You put on a good show, McKnight, but it’s time for intermission. The only way you can help yourself is by working with us and giving us the information we need.”

  “As the Russians say, ‘Repent, and they’ll shorten your sentence’!” Stanley said in Russian.

  “I don’t quite catch the meaning,” Frank said, finishing his whiskey and pouring two fingers into the glass. “Is that something you heard from your new Russian friends?”

  “From my great-grandfather. Or grandfather. You probably read in my dossier that I come from a Russian family.”

  “I just did, as a matter of fact. There it is, next to your couch. Want a look?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Up to you. At any rate, your roots aren’t important in this matter. Listen, Stanley—”

  “You know what, Frank, it’s been a long day. Some particularly aggravating clients, a couple of meetings. I was getting ready to take a bath and get a good night’s sleep, and you show up with your twenty years in prison. How about you get out of my room? Now!”

  Frank calmly drank the rest of his whiskey and set the bottle down on the floor of the balcony.

  “Of course, Mr. McKnight, of course! I won’t bother you anymore. I’ll leave you the bottle, please enjoy.”

  Dillon put on his jacket and dug around in an inner pocket.

  “Here’s my card. Call me any time.”

  He opened the door.

  “And be careful with the wives of criminals, McKnight! Some jealous Russian might slit your throat over it.”

  The door closed. Stanley walked over to the table where the other man had left his card. There was no CIA or US government emblem. The card read: “Frank Dillon. Creative Director. Universal Studios.”

  McKnight flipped the card over and read the handwritten note: “Call any time. Look forward to speaking with you soon!”

  Stanley paced the room, drinking his whiskey. “Son of a bitch! This is the last thing I need right now!” He tucked the card into his pocket and got out his phone.

  Lagrange was initially pleasantly surprised to hear that McKnight had reconsidered joining them for dinner, but soon sensed that something was wrong.

  “We’ll be happy to have you, Stan,” said Lagrange, “but I don’t like the sound of your voice. Did something happen?”

  “I just need to talk to you right away, Pierre. But everything’s fine, just fine!”

  “Ok, then…we’ll be expecting you.”

  McKnight hung up and rang the front desk clerk for a clean shirt and a taxi. The shirt right away and the taxi in twenty minutes.

  The imperturbable clerk just asked what size and color shirt he would prefer.

  Someone brought the shirt while Stanley was still in the shower. He emerged to find it draped over the same couch that Frank Dillon had been lying on.

  He gave the shirt a shake, as if trying to cleanse it of some infectious disease Frank was carrying.

  Stanley told the driver the name of the restaurant, and after a couple of turns and a bridge crossing, they were pulling up in front of it.

  “Do you need a receipt, sir?” the driver asked.

  “No,” Stanley replied, handing him a hundred francs.

  “Shall I wait for you?” the astonished driver asked, but Stanley had already slammed the door shut behind him.

  The maître d’ gave an apologetic half bow as soon as Stanley walked in.

  “I’m sorry, monsieur, but I’m afraid we don’t have any tables available.”

  “I’m meeting a friend, table under the name of Monsieur Lagrange,” said Stanley.

  “Please follow me,” said the maître d’, turning swiftly and leading the way through the dining room.

  Lagrange sat at the head of the table. Dino Bernasconi sat to his left, across from Andrea Kovalevich, her legs twined around each other as usual. The fourth chair was empty. Lagrange gave Stanley a friendly wave when he noticed him.

  “Monsieur,” said the maître d’, bowing to Stanley, who slipped him a hundred-franc note.

  “Nothing for me, thank you,” Stanley told him and turned to his colleagues with a wide smile.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, Stanley!” Lagrange gestured to the empty chair. “Have a seat, we’ve ordered a couple of seafood dishes and white wine.”

  Stanley shook Dino’s hand, raised the back of Andrea’s strong hand to his lips, and clapped Lagrange on the shoulder.

  “I just need a word with you, Pierre!”

  They stepped outside, a little away from the restaurant entrance.

  Lagrange remained surprisingly calm during Stanley’s recitation of Frank Dillon’s visit to his hotel room. Stanley did leave some things out, however. That Dillon knew about his relationship with Mila for example. And that Dillon had left his card, and knew about their shipment of the cash, gold, and jewels.

  Lagrange took Stanley by the arm, and led him around the corner into a side street. He took out a snuff box of cocaine.

  “You need to calm down, my friend. Here, Stanley, do a bump, just a little, and don’t worry about anything. Neither the Swiss police or the American agencies can do anything to you. They don’t have any proof or any witnesses.”

  “No witnesses?” shouted Stanley. “He knows about our transactions with Gagarin. Where did he get that information? Either we have an informant, or Gagarin does. If they know something, they’ll be able to find out everything.”

  “It won’t matter if they do. They can know everything. They still won’t be able to catch us. That’s the way our business is set up. The way Swiss law is constructed. In our case, neither you nor I can be arrested. We have people who check the legality of incoming money, and all our transactions are conducted in accordance with the law. You want some coke?” Lagrange extended the snuff box toward Stanley.

  Stanley took a long snort.

  “They’ve tried to scare me too, you know,” Lagrange said with a smile. “And nothing’s ever come of it. Not once! Your guy didn’t even tell you who he worked for. The ones who came to me showed me their official IDs, agent this and agent of that. And nothing! I told them to fuck off. And they went ahead and did just that.”

  “But you’re not an American citizen, Pierre!” McKnight said, wiping his nose. “They wanted you as an informant. It was easier for you to get rid of them. But I’ve broken a dozen federal laws, according to this asshole, and they can arrest me for that wherever I am. I’m somewhat reluctant to spend twenty years in jail, crazy as that might sound.”

  “And you’re not going to! I guarantee you that. Do you believe me?”

  “I do, but—”

  “No buts! You’re not going to jail. Hang on. I’m going to call our chief of security, tell him what happened. Yes, I should be the one to make the call, and then we’ll go do some serious drinking.” Lagrange got out his telephone. “Just a minute, just a minute…hello! Yes, it’s me…”

  Lagrange stepped a few paces away. Stanley’s head was buzzing. He felt that paralyzing fear beginning to dissipate. At the same time, no, he didn’t believe Lagrange. He was too calm, too optimistic.

  “What did you say his name was?” Lagrange was asking.

  “Frank Dillon,” Stanley replied, lighting a cigarette.

  “Dillon, Frank Dillon,” Lagrange repeated into the phone. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Lagrange put his phone away and rested his hand on Stanley’s shoulder.

  “Everything’s fine. They’re going to figure out what’s going on, who this joker is. Life will go back to normal, and the money’s going to keep coming in.”

  “I don’t need your money,” Stanley whispered, starting off into the distance, exhausted.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, I don’t need your damned money,” mumbled Stanley again.

>   Lagrange slapped him in the face, looked in his eyes, then slapped him again, shaking him by the shoulders.

  “Wake up! Wake up, you American shithead! You fucking loser with your endless guilt. No, money doesn’t make you happy. Okay, fine. But with money, you can buy any bitch you want. You know? The sweetest-looking bitch with the best legs in the entire world, and snort delicious fucking cocaine off her delicious smooth pussy! And I have never seen someone be unhappy snorting pure coke off some hot girl’s smooth pussy. Maybe you have? Have you, motherfucker? Answer the fucking question, you dumbass American loser!”

  McKnight shook his head silently, sighed deeply, then laughed, and snorted a little more coke.

  “There you go! That’s the Stanley I know and love.” Lagrange let out a deafening laugh and slapped Stanley on the shoulder. “Let’s go have a drink, it’s going to be a good night.”

  They went back inside. Stanley ate a half-dozen oysters and ordered some tomato soup. He had several shots of Grey Goose vodka, and then moved on to bourbon.

  “Nice shirt,” Andrea whispered. When Stanley turned, her eyes were suddenly seemed very close and bottomless.

  Stanley felt as if a veil was gradually dropping between him and everything else. He wasn’t getting any drunker; he just couldn’t stop talking. And he would lose his train of thought, jumping from topic to topic, either speaking too loudly, or softly enough that his companions had to ask him to repeat himself. The fear gradually left him. They ordered chocolate mousse for dessert, but Stanley couldn’t eat his.

  They all went back to the Beau-Rivage together; Lagrange had a room on the second floor there as well.

  They had just sat down in Lagrange’s room, where he was passing out cocaine again, when there was a knock at the door, and six girls came filing in. Stanley had been concentrating on the whiskey he was pouring, and looked up in surprise to find two girls sitting on either side of him.

  “Part of your bonus!” Lagrange said with a wink.

  Next thing he knew, Dino was dancing with a pretty blonde, comically bending his long legs. Three girls were tangled up together on the stairs, gradually tossing off articles of clothing. Stanley looked around for Andrea. He was thinking that ordering prostitutes with a female colleague present was a bit out of line when he realized that one of the women on the stairs was Andrea.

  She was involved in a passionate kiss with an unusually lovely, light-complexioned black woman, unbuttoning the other girl’s dress with her long fingers, which somehow reminded Stanley of Mila.

  “Aren’t you going to pour us a drink?” one of the girls asked Stanley.

  “Of course, I am,” said Stanley. When he tried to get up, though, he discovered that one of the girls had already unzipped his pants. Desire hit him like lightning. He tried to remember Dillon’s face and couldn’t. He got out a hundred-franc note, rolled it into a tube, and offered it to one of the girls. She leaned over the pile of cocaine on the table in front of them. The other girl slipped a cool hand into his underwear.

  “This one’s big,” she said in Russian.

  Stanley might have imagined that last part. He finished his drink in one swallow, listening to Andrea’s moans as she passionately caressed her companions, and turned to the girl who had just inhaled a fat rail of cocaine.

  “What’s your name?” asked Stanley.

  “What’s your favorite name?” she replied, getting onto her knees in front of Stanley.

  “I like all names.”

  “Well, that’s my name.” The girl smiled. “All names.”

  Chapter 30

  Several days after the first shipment of Gagarin’s cash and gold arrived in Zurich, on the eve of the trip to Berlin, Stanley and Lagrange were invited to Laville’s home for dinner.

  Lagrange assured Stanley that the invitation was a high honor. He, himself, had only been invited once, many years prior. As an expectant father, Laville had been living a fairly secluded life recently. He didn’t visit his club, and barely spent any time in Geneva’s restaurants. When the work day was over, he asked his staff not to disturb him at home, and dinners like the one to which McKnight and Lagrange were invited were practically a family affair. And Laville didn’t simply invite his employees—he sent a helicopter to fetch them.

  Stanley asked about the dress code, and initially regretted that decision.

  “You look great, but the tux is a bit over-the-top,” said Lagrange with a shake of the head, as Stanley exited the car. Lagrange was dressed elegantly, but less formally, in a tweed jacket, cravat, and pale-pink shirt. He kept up a running fashion commentary on the tuxedo all the way to the helicopter, until Stanley was heartily sick of it.

  But as it happened, Lagrange was the one who looked out of place at their gathering. Laville was in formal evening wear, and his wife, Maria, a wide-eyed beauty with an indefinable air of sadness, concealed her pregnancy under the folds of an emerald Chanel gown.

  The bankers were joined by an old friend of Laville’s, the famous Polish film director Rajmund Lieblingsky.

  Lieblingsky nodded silently to Stanley in greeting and shook his hand. He was a thin old man with disheveled gray hair. He reminded Stanley of Count Dracula from an old black-and-white movie.

  “Jean-Michel has told me so much about you,” Maria said, extending her slim hand in such a way that Stanley’s only option was to bow over it.

  “But I didn’t tell you about Mr. McKnight’s exquisite manners, my dear, since I didn’t know, myself,” said Laville, giving Stanley a friendly slap to the shoulder. He exchanged a firm handshake with Lagrange, and then offered everyone an aperitif. Stanley had vowed to go easy on the drinking, and only had two glasses of champagne.

  Dinner was a feast, with several courses and many dishes, but Laville’s wife excused herself after the soup, a pumpkin puree only served to her.

  “Maria is having a difficult time with this pregnancy,” Laville told them. “She thinks this child is taking away from her beauty. And the doctor is concerned with the results of her blood tests. But you know,” Laville went on with a smug smile, “all my former wives had difficult pregnancies as well. And I came to the conclusion that I must be the reason why. Call me old-fashioned, but the man is always the root cause,” Laville concluded adjusting the napkin on his lap.

  “And what about that French saying: ‘Cherchez la femme’?” asked Lieblingsky.

  “Ah, that’s just for the sake of wit,” said Lagrange. “The French love to drop a turn of phrase that makes everyone think. Not like the Russians. They don’t have a single elegant saying. Everything is coarse, connected to hard labor or animalistic sex. Can you think of even a single Russian saying, McKnight?”

  “Just the one you told me the other day,” answered Stanley, covering his glass with his hand as Laville’s butler was preparing to fill it with red wine.

  “Oh?” Laville asked, looking to Stanley with a raised brow.

  “‘If you like to go sledding, learn to like pulling the sled back uphill,’” McKnight replied in Russian, then translated it to English.

  “Well, judging from that proverb, Pierre is right,” said Laville, taking a few sips of wine before setting his glass back down. “Now, of course, they’re not carrying sleds, are they?” asked Laville with a half smile. “They’ve got bags of gold and suitcases full of cash instead. Remember, Lagrange, the last time someone transported cash and gold to us in those amounts?”

  “How could I forget!” Lagrange swiped his mouth with a napkin, a sly look on his face. “It was the staff of Zaire’s president, Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga.”

  Laville clapped his hands in delight. But Lagrange continued.

  “Which can be translated from, if I’m remembering correctly, the Bantu language, as ‘The great warrior Mobutu who goes from conquest to conquest, leaving a trail of fire in his path.’”


  “And did he also send his deposits by diplomatic post?” asked McKnight, casting sidelong glances at Lieblingsky. Judging from Laville’s reaction, however, they could speak freely in front of his Polish friend.

  “No, they weren’t quite so bold,” Laville answered. “They didn’t actually need any boldness, though. They simply stole from their people, and were never troubled by the slightest twinge of conscience. They believed that the unfortunate Bantu belonged to them, body and soul, and they didn’t care what any international organizations or other countries had to say about it. They served a kleptocracy, unburdened by any compassion or moral restrictions or other such Western rubbish. Not too dissimilar from the current situation in Russia. Quite similar, actually.”

  “Come now, Jean-Michel,” Lagrange objected with a smile. “They don’t have the same level of poverty in Russia. Its citizens travel the world, run businesses, vacation in villas in Nice, and send their children to study in London, do they not?”

  “Those differences are only quantitative,” the Polish director broke in with a slight yawn. “How many Russians travel the world and don’t live in poverty? Millions? No, maybe several hundred thousand. There were maybe fifteen hundred rich Zaireans. But qualitatively, there’s no real difference. The same type of power. The same talk of greatness. Mobutu spoke about the glory of Zaire, the unique spirituality of the Zairean people, who starved so that he could live a life of unbelievable luxury. Same thing in Russia. The great, glorious history, the Russian soul. Lies, in both countries. Empty words!”

  Stanley coughed.

  “Did you find a bone, Mr. McKnight?” Laville shook his head. “My chef does sometimes make mistakes. But, in all seriousness, you wanted to ask, how is it that we can judge kleptocracies and still do business with them. Very easily, Mr. McKnight, very easily. We’re cynics, and we have no principles. A principled banker is a nonsensical creature.”

  “Moreover, a principled banker is a dead banker!” added Lagrange.

  Laville gave Lagrange a long look, swirling the wine in his glass.