by Robin Cook
“Not that I know of,” Bob said.
“Maybe we should ask her,” Angela said, reaching for the phone. “What’s her name?”
“Amy Lucas,” Carl said.
Angela asked Loren to call Amy Lucas and have her come by ASAP. Angela glanced at her watch. It was twenty after twelve, meaning there was a chance Amy Lucas would be at lunch.
“What’s the occasion for the flowers?” Carl asked. “When I saw them, I hoped it had something to do with your morning attempt at raising capital.”
“I wish,” Angela said. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea who sent them or why.”
“Wasn’t there a card?” Bob asked.
“There was a card,” Angela said, “but it wasn’t helpful.” She reached for the envelope, slipped out the card, and handed it across the desk. Carl took it, and both men glanced at it.
“What does ‘the used one’ refer to?” Carl asked.
“Not a clue,” Angela admitted. “You don’t think it could have anything to do with Paul Yang, do you?”
Both men shook their heads. Carl handed the card back. Angela puzzled over it for a second, and then her phone rang. It was Loren saying Miss Lucas had arrived.
“Send her in,” Angela said, tossing the mysterious card to the side.
Loren opened the door, allowed the secretary to enter, then pulled the door shut.
Amy Lucas was a waiflike woman in her mid-twenties. Her features were delicate and her complexion was pale, marred by a sprinkling of acne across her cheeks. Her frizzy blond hair with its lime-green highlights was pulled back from her face and held with a large tortoiseshell clip. Adding to her youthful, almost preteen mien was a simple shirtdress buttoned all the way to her neck. Her hands were clasped in front of her, evincing her nervousness.
Angela introduced herself, since she’d never before met the young woman, and thanked her for coming so quickly.
“No problem,” Amy said. “I know who you are.”
“Good. And of course you know these gentlemen.”
Amy nodded but didn’t respond verbally.
“To put you at ease, we called you in here to ask you a couple of questions about your boss, Paul Yang.”
In her own hyper state, Angela wasn’t certain, but it seemed to her that her attempt at putting Amy at ease had failed. The woman’s hands, previously clasped, were now working at each other. The question of whether Paul and Amy might have had or were having an affair popped unbidden into her mind from Bob’s statement about Paul’s past.
“What kind of questions?” Amy asked. Her eyes quickly jumped back and forth to all three individuals in the room.
“Have you seen him today?”
“No!” Amy said, inordinately quickly in Angela’s estimation.
“Has he called or contacted you in any way?”
Amy shook her head.
“Did he say anything last evening about not coming in this morning?”
“No.”
Angela looked at Bob and Carl and paused in case they had a question. When they didn’t respond, Angela redirected her attention to Amy.
“Do you know what a Securities and Exchange Commission form eight-K is?”
“I think so.”
“Has Paul Yang had you fill one out recently?”
“Yes, about ten days ago.”
“Was it filed?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t file it. He told me specifically not to file it.”
“Did you type it on your workstation monitor?”
“No, he wanted it on his laptop only.”
“I see,” Angela said. “Is the laptop in his office?”
“No, he always takes it with him.”
“So he took it last night in particular.”
“Yes, like every night.”
Angela glanced at the men again, but they didn’t ask any questions.
“Thank you for coming by, Amy,” Angela said.
“You’re welcome,” Amy responded. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and headed for the door.
“Amy!” Angela called out. “When you hear from Paul Yang, please let one of us know.”
“Of course,” Amy said, and then disappeared.
“Well,” Angela said. “That was a little strange.”
“How so?” Carl asked.
“She seemed overly nervous.”
“I’d be, too, getting a summons to the corner office,” Carl said.
“Maybe so,” Angela said. “My main concern is that there is a completed eight-K resting in Paul’s laptop, which the missing man presumably has with him.”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Bob said. “It speaks to his methodicalness. Just because it’s in his laptop doesn’t mean he’s going to file it.”
“Well, I hope he turns up soon,” Angela said. “I suppose that’s it for now.”
Both men got up and returned the chairs to their original positions against the wall.
“Remember to call our fearless placement agent to get the loan ASAP,” Angela said as they filed out.
Bob waved over his shoulder to indicate he’d heard.
“And let me know the instant either of you sees or gets in touch with Paul Yang!”
“Will do,” the two men voiced as the door closed behind them.
Angela sighed and looked out the window. She wished she’d not had any coffee that morning. With everything else that was going on, her usually pleasant buzz was magnified a hundred times over. Her phone rang suddenly, and she literally jumped. She took a deep breath to calm herself. When she picked up the phone, Loren told her that Rodger Naughton was on the line. Angela’s pulse quickened. This call from Rodger was either very good news or very bad, meaning he was either letting them know that the bank would give them the desperately needed bridge loan, which would be terrific, or informing them that the bank was calling in one or more of their current loans, which would be an unmitigated disaster. Angela thought the chances were higher that it was the latter. With significant trepidation, she pressed the button below the blinking light and said hello as optimistically as she could manage.
“Sorry to bother you,” Rodger said.
“No bother,” Angela assured him. She had to restrain herself from demanding straight off whether he was calling with good news or bad.
“I just wanted to call and say it was terrific to see you this morning.”
“Well, it was nice seeing you,” Angela said with confusion. It seemed a strange way for the conversation to begin.
“I also wanted to convey how sorry I am that I cannot be more receptive to your short-term cash needs.”
“I understand,” Angela said, her confusion deepening.
“I have, as promised, passed it up through the channels.”
“It’s all that I can ask.”
There was a pause. Angela gritted her teeth, expecting the worst.
“I have a request,” Rodger said. “This might be out of bounds, so I apologize in advance. But I wonder if you’d be willing to meet with me for a drink after work. We could go to the Modern, which I find particularly pleasant.”
“Is this business or social?” Angela asked with surprise.
“Purely social,” Rodger said.
The unexpectedness of the request took Angela completely by surprise. Except for the brief and uncharacteristic reflection on her lack of a social life the previous evening, Angela was too busy to think such thoughts.
“That’s very flattering,” Angela said at length, coming from the credulous side of her personality. But then from the more powerful, experience-based cynical side, she added, “But what would your wife think of such a meeting?”
“I’m not married.”
“Oh?” Angela responded, feeling somewhat guilty. The image came to mind of the single photo of his daughter on his desk.
“My former wife decided that having a boring banker husband and a demanding child was a burden on her preferred lifestyle, so she departed to g
reener pastures with half my assets. I’ve been divorced with full custody about five years now.”
Angela instantly related personally to Rodger’s situation and felt even more guilty about her reflex cynicism concerning his motives. His matrimonial history seemed uncannily similar to her own, barring the custody issue. Angela could only wish that she had full custody.
“I’m sorry I was so flippant,” Angela said. “I assumed you were just another male in a midlife crisis.”
“That’s understandable. I’m sure you are hit on on a regular basis.”
“That’s hardly the case, but I have learned to be skeptical.”
“So, can I look forward to seeing you when you might be free? It could even be tonight and at your convenience.”
“As you can guess from my visit to your office this morning, this is not a good time, so I’m afraid I must decline. But I appreciate your thinking of me, and perhaps after the IPO, if you are still inclined, I’d love to have a drink, and the Modern would be fine. I haven’t been many places over the years. I suppose I fall into that sad and narrow category of the hyper, narrow-minded, workaholic businessperson chasing and being chased by the almighty dollar.”
“I hardly think that’s the case,” Rodger said. “Having a preteen daughter and you not having a spouse obviates that. But we’ll stay in touch, and good luck to Angels Healthcare.”
“Thank you. A bit of luck would certainly help.”
Angela replaced the receiver. She could hear disappointment in Rodger’s voice, which flattered her on one hand and saddened her on the other, especially hearing her own description of herself. For a brief moment, she lamented how she’d morphed from the person she was when she’d entered medical school to the person she was now, having abandoned committed altruism for equally committed but far less noble entrepreneurialism.
Angela’s fleeting reverie was cut short by her insistent phone. Its discordant jangle rudely yanked her back to the exigencies of her company’s plight. With more than a tinge of resentment, she snatched up the phone. Loren told her there was a Dr. Chet McGovern on the line who wanted to speak to her.
“What’s it about?” Angela demanded, while she tried to place the doctor in one of the three Angels hospitals.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Loren said.
For a second, Angela flirted with the idea of telling Loren to ask the man again what he wanted and if he refused, to tell him to…Angela caught herself and refused to even finish the thought. Profanity had been part of her rebellion in college, but she’d grown out of it, mainly because Michael had used it to such irritating excess.
With more than five hundred physician investors, there was no way for Angela to remember all their names. That reality, and the need for the doctors to be encouraged to admit more patients, meant Angela swallowed her pique and took the call. She assumed it would be about the MRSA death the previous day, and prepared herself mentally to describe everything being done to avoid any more infection in the future.
“First, I want to make sure the flowers arrived,” the caller said.
Angela’s gaze shifted to the roses and their mystery. All at once it dawned on her. She was speaking with the Chet McGovern she’d had the casual drink with the previous night at the club and had “used” to clear her mind and perhaps satisfy her transitory need for some sort of social contact, especially with a member of the opposite sex.
“The flowers arrived,” Angela said. “Thank you. It was most unexpected. I hope they mean you have forgiven me.”
“That goes without saying,” Chet responded, “which brings me to the reason for the call. I thought it over, and after finding a spare two hundred thousand in my night table, I’ve decided to invest in Angels Healthcare.”
There was a slight pause. “Really?” Angela questioned, with her mind momentarily stalled between what she knew was reality and what she wished to be reality.
Chet laughed. “Hey! I’m making a joke. I wish I had a spare two hundred G’s, but such is not the case.”
“Oh,” Angela said. She wasn’t laughing.
“I have a sneaking sense you didn’t find that so funny.”
“What is the real reason for the call?” Angela asked. There was a new edge to her tone.
“I was speaking with a couple of my colleagues, one of whom is a very savvy woman. I told them about meeting you last night and being turned down for dinner tonight. She told me to ask you again and to be direct, even if it meant putting my fragile ego on the line.”
Angela smiled in spite of herself. “So you’re admitting you have a fragile ego?”
“Absolutely. Sometimes it takes me days to recover. With that said, I’m re-asking you to dinner tonight to stave off a depression.”
Angela couldn’t help but laugh. “You are persistent.”
“I’m not sure that’s accurate. Calling up like this and asking for more abuse is not my style.”
“Well, your honesty and humor have intrigued me, though I didn’t like the joke about the two hundred thousand. It was like you were mocking me.”
“Absolutely not,” Chet said.
“I wasn’t joking about the need for short-term capital, and that is honestly why I cannot accept your gracious offer. I truly am distractedly busy. I wouldn’t be good company even if I had the time.”
“Well, I’m disappointed, but my ego is still intact, thanks to your diplomacy. I tell you what, if you are suddenly successful with your money-raising or depressed you are not, call me. I’ll be available at a moment’s notice.”
When the call ended, Angela spun around in her chair, looking down the length of Fifth Avenue clogged with traffic. The unexpected dinner invites from two seemingly charming but different men, one obviously social and the other an apparent homebody, were remarkably unusual. And unsettling, in the way they made her question her choices and her lifestyle, causing her to wonder again about how she’d gotten sidetracked in her life. In a moment of insight, she sensed that the combination of the government reimbursement rules that caused her inner-city primary-care practice to go bankrupt and the demoralizing experience of divorce from Michael had worked to undermine her value system. She’d become jaded. Success from business, as measured by wealth and its trappings, had trumped notions of altruism, charity, and, apart from her daughter, the pleasures of interpersonal intimacy.
Angela swung back around to face her desk and the problems besieging Angels Healthcare. Pushing the flowers away from her work area, Angela moved the afternoon schedule to center stage. A moment later, Loren brought in a sandwich and a Coke. While she ate, Angela’s mind switched back to the new problem about Paul Yang’s whereabouts and the laptop with the 8-K file. It was like missing a loaded grenade with its pin half out.
With that thought in mind, Angela reached for her BlackBerry to e-mail Michael about what he might know of Paul’s failure to show up for work. As her thumbs danced across the miniature keyboard, she applauded the ability the instrument gave her to communicate without having to talk to the man. It meant she could get the information she wanted without the aggravation she’d otherwise have to endure.
Once the message had been composed, she was about to send it when she had a second thought. She was well aware of Michael’s background and childhood, and at times had had unsettling questions about some of his friends and their current lifestyles, including his so-called clients, but she’d never asked because at the time she didn’t want to know. Now, as she was about to send the message to Michael, she had a similar feeling and wondered if she wanted to know the answer to what she was asking. Vaguely sensing she might not, she saved the message as a draft and put the BlackBerry aside. She’d deal with the issue later.
6
APRIL 3, 2007
1:05 P.M.
Michael Calabrese was in a foul mood from an amalgam of fear and anxiety as he pulled his black Mercedes SUV alongside a row of parked cars and then backed into an empty spot. From where he was parked, he could
see the entrance to the Neapolitan Restaurant on Corona Avenue in Corona, Queens. Corona was the next town over from Rego Park, where he’d grown up in a largely Italian neighborhood. A lot of people thought all the Italians in New York lived in Little Italy in Manhattan, but it wasn’t true. They had all moved out, many to Long Island, including Michael’s grandfather Ziggy, who’d started the family masonry-and-tile business in Rego Park.
Michael eyed the restaurant’s entrance and tried to think of a strategy for his upcoming meeting. The restaurant’s fame extended as far back as the 1930s when it was the favorite nighttime hangout of the Lucia organization. It had continued with the dubious association over the years with some ups and downs, but mostly downs, until Mayor Rudolph Giuliani managed to discourage a lot of mid-level mafioso bosses from schmoozing at night in Manhattan, and at that point, it had enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Its revival had continued with Vinnie Dominick having chosen the joint to be his haunt when he was selected as the local Lucia capo.
As a sign of the times, the competing Vaccarro crime family had chosen a considerably newer establishment two blocks down the street, the Vesuvio, as their rendezvous. Both organizations believed it made sense to open a handy avenue of communication with the Asians, Russians, and Hispanics coming in and jockeying for some of the action. The only problem, of course, was that Paulie Cerino, the titular Vaccarro head, was still in the slammer, so communication wasn’t what it should have been.
In a fit of unbridled rage, Michael pounded his steering wheel repeatedly while yelling “shit” over and over again. He’d experienced temper tantrums since he was a child, and back then they’d gotten him into more than his share of fights and a number of beatings from his father. Yet there was a positive side. Once the energy was expended, he’d calm down, and could deal with the bothersome issue at hand. As he’d matured, he’d learned to control his outbursts until he was alone, except when he’d been married to Angela.
As suddenly as he had started pounding the steering wheel, he stopped. “Spoiled bitch,” he grumbled, thinking about Angela. She’d been his bane from the moment they’d gotten married. Up until then she’d been a doll, but within weeks of the big ceremony at Saint Mary’s Church, he was no longer good enough the way he was. She wanted him to do this, and she demanded he do that, and she resented his going out, even for business dinners. In short, she wanted him to change, and he had no intention of changing for a spoiled, upper-middle-class Jersey girl who’d gotten everything she’d ever wanted by snapping her fingers. As far as the divorce settlement was concerned, he didn’t want to go there in his current state of mind. Whenever he thought about it, it made him furious. For nothing but causing him grief, she walked away with the West Side triplex apartment and a ridiculous amount of child support.
