The Gods of Greenwich

by Norb Vonnegut

  What happened to Cy’s paintings?

  The walls were empty. Gone were the paintings and the drawings, the vast expanse of portraits and landscapes fighting for space with abstracts everywhere. Gone in the middle of the night. Even the Picasso was gone, the master’s sangria-soaked meanderings nowhere to be seen. Gone like yesterday. The picture hooks were the only items left. They lined the walls like tombstones, testaments to majesty that had once been.

  “Bite me,” Cy snarled into his landline, and slammed down the receiver.

  Behind him, the computer pinged like a submarine’s sonar every five seconds. The sound reminded Cusack of old World War II movies. He could almost see navy crews waiting in silence as Nazi destroyers dogged through the murky seas and dropped their lethal charges.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  Cy’s BlackBerry loomed uncomfortably on his desk. Like his computer, the smartphone also announced the arrival of angry e-mails with pings. Cy had selected the same sonarlike ringtone. Or perhaps he had never changed the factory settings. The BlackBerry pings rang crisp, and they rang sharp. They rang every five seconds—though always a second earlier, or a second later, than the pings from the computer.

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  The pings came in waves. They filled the room: first the lead pings from the computer; and then the echo pings from the BlackBerry; or vice versa. Every angry e-mail announced its arrival twice, all with rambling variations of the same vitriolic message.

  E-mail number 1,314: What about your children, Asshole?

  E-mail number 3,025: Hey, butthead, don’t show your face in Venice Beach.

  E-mail number 5,911: Did you mail your check?

  Cy’s landline rang yet again, and he snatched the receiver from its cradle. “What?” His brow furrowed as he listened. “Bianca said what?” He listened a few minutes more and slammed the receiver into its cradle.

  He turned to Cusack and barked, “What do you want?”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  Leaning forward on his desk, distracted and preoccupied, Leeser did not wait for a response. “My wife just sabotaged me in a way you can’t imagine.”

  “She took your paintings?” Cusack deliberated over what impressed him the most, the empty walls or all the pings.

  “Worse,” he confirmed. “She jammed our communications. Our phone circuits are overloaded. Don’t work worth a shit. I must have twenty thousand e-mails by now. And my BlackBerry is fucking useless. I can’t hear myself think. There’s a goddam call-waiting signal every time I’m on the phone. Or a text message every time I fucking dial. So what do you want anyway?”

  Cusack ignored the bad timing. Leeser’s distractions, he decided, might even help. “Our conversation from last Thursday. That videotape from the Foxy Lady. Okay to finish our discussion?”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  * * *

  Inside the Bronx Zoo Rachel turned left at an intersection, instead of taking the right toward the World of Reptiles. It was an instinctive decision, the feral change of plans common to all predators—choices they make but cannot explain. Emily often started her days inside the long, meandering building named Madagascar, home to the Nile crocodiles.

  The detour required only ten minutes, a quick jaunt through the shadows of Madagascar, a search-and-destroy mission among obscure carnivores such as the mongooselike fossa. It would not take long to find a pregnant woman inside the building. The crowds had yet to arrive, and Rachel could save herself the trouble of doubling back later. Dressed in her Goth garb, Rachel disappeared into Madagascar’s interior blackness. Just to be safe, she reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves.

  As the corridors zigged and zagged, cool and foreboding, Emily was nowhere to be seen. Rachel checked the Nile crocodiles and their limestone caves. Not there. She checked around the tomato frog, so named for the astonishing red that belongs in every painter’s palette. Not there.

  Rachel decided the building was empty until she found the hissing cockroaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa. The roaches were indigenous to Madagascar. No doubt they would thrive in Manhattan like a hundred million others, give or take.

  There in the shadows, Rachel Whittier eyed a pregnant woman walking quickly in the opposite direction. “Gotcha.” She smirked.

  * * *

  Outside Leeser’s office, Victor paced back and forth. First to the left. Then to the right. Huffing at every turn. Every so often, he peered into his boss’s office to check if Leeser and Cusack were finished.

  “Victor, why don’t I call you when they wrap up,” Nikki offered.

  “How long, do you think?” He inspected her over the bridge of his horn-rimmed glasses.

  “No idea.”

  “I can’t wait that long.” Victor stormed into Leeser’s office, five foot six inches of unbridled fury, still smarting from that morning’s confrontation with his boss.

  “We need to talk.” Lee plopped down on the guest chair next to Cusack.

  “Not now,” rejoined Leeser. “No dwarves allowed.”

  “The market’s dropping like a rock and you’re busy?” the head trader scoffed, ignoring the shot. “We’ll see nine thousand any minute.”

  “Everybody ‘wants to talk,’” growled Leeser. “I’ve probably received a thousand calls from angry women. They want to talk. There are twenty thousand e-mails on my computer. People I don’t fucking know ‘want to talk.’ I can’t figure how to turn off all these goddam pings. And now there’s you, Victor, and you, Jimmy. You ‘want to talk.’ Who goes first?”

  “I do,” demanded Victor. “If we don’t sell right now, not tomorrow, not an hour from now, but right now, Merrill will call their loan and puke out our positions. They don’t care if you sit on the board of Bentwing. Merrill will sell sloppy, and pretty soon everybody else will know and start puking out their own positions. Puke. Puke. Puke. You gotta do something.”

  “Anything else?”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  “Yeah,” Victor declared. “We sell now, or I quit and go somewhere that understands talent.”

  “And Jimmy,” Cy said, resting his left thumb on his right thumb, coiling his index finger around his lip, “what about you?”

  “We should speak in private.”

  Victor shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Come on, Jimmy,” taunted Cy. He was distracted. “There are no secrets among friends.”

  Ping. Ping. Ping.

  “Okay,” said Cusack. He stood up and reached his hand over Leeser’s desk. “Let’s buy out my father-in-law.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  LIFE IN THE FAST LANE …

  “What are you talking about?” Leeser recoiled from shock, from expectations that Cusack was about to resign. The boss no longer had eyes. Stinger missiles had replaced the pupils, and they were taking aim.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cusack, confused by Leeser’s reaction. “You said, ‘I need a partner. Not an adversary.’ Let’s get started.”

  No reply.

  “Caleb’s a careful guy,” Cusack volunteered. “But I think he might sell his company.”

  “Really?” said Leeser.

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Victor Lee. “What about me?”

  “Maybe you should leave,” Cy replied, quietly, not so much in control as in a state of confusion.

  “Leave?” yelped Victor. “I’ve been here three years. And you’re making him a partner.”

  “We can discuss it later,” replied Leeser.

  “I’d rather discuss it now,” Victor squawked, his voice rising. “Cusack over me! What happened to loyalty?”

  “You just threatened to quit.”

  “I’m the head trader. I make the sacrifices. I think outside the box.” Lee shook with rage, with the yawing motion of a bobble-head doll.

  “What sacrifices? What are you talking about?” demanded Cy. He was annoyed and perplexed. He was mashing the Off button
on his BlackBerry. “These pings are driving me out of my fucking mind.”

  Shannon appeared from nowhere. Large and menacing, LeeWell’s head of security heard the ruckus from down the hall. Walking into the office, he asked, “Is there a problem, boss?”

  * * *

  The woman scrambled, fast for being pregnant. Rachel remembered Emily as taller, not so round. But deep inside Madagascar, the inky lighting and shadows played tricks with silhouettes.

  The pregnant woman turned one corner and then the next. Fast, with purpose. Her movements became frantic.

  Rachel wondered if Emily recognized her. It was impossible. Rachel concealed her scar. The Goth look would fool anyone, especially someone with prosopagnosia.

  Too soon to use the insulin syringe. The bear pens were too far a hike. People responded to the drug in different ways. Emi might collapse from the massive shot within seconds. That would blow everything. Or she might turn belligerent and aggressive, before succumbing to the drug.

  “Bobby, where are you?” screamed the pregnant woman. She hustled around the corner and found her son inside the Spiny Forest. He was three, maybe four years old.

  “What are those?” he exclaimed, pointing at the ring-tailed lemurs.

  The mother, who looked nothing like Emi Cusack in the eerie glow from token lights, bent down and hugged her son. “Don’t run off on me like that,” she scolded. And she hugged Bobby some more.

  “I saddled the wrong pony,” Rachel cursed to herself.

  * * *

  “We’re fine,” Cy advised Shannon.

  “You sure, boss?”

  “But do me a favor and ask Victor to join you.”

  “Whatever,” the head trader sighed, rising to his feet. Juiced on 1.25 mg of Premarin twice a day, Victor tramped across the room. At the doorway, he called over his shoulder, “You make me feel like an old cow, and I don’t like it.”

  “Close the door, Victor.”

  Cusack sat back in his chair. The theatrics over, he focused on Cy. “I’m pumped. You too, right?”

  “I don’t know what to say,” admitted Leeser, looking through Cusack.

  “Emi’s on board,” Cusack added. “I had to work it out at home before saying yes here.”

  “You got that right. Otherwise you get your paintings stolen and underwear scattered across the lawn.” Leeser’s words sounded bland and indifferent, preoccupied.

  “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “Yeah,” he grunted, his mind elsewhere. “It’s this thing with Bianca.”

  “I hate to ask, but did she give you the video?”

  “No,” he admitted, blinking. “Bianca still has my Mac.”

  “Do you mind if I call her?”

  “That might be best,” Cy replied, distracted. “Can I borrow your cell phone?”

  “Is yours broken?”

  “Sabotaged. I’ll return it in an hour.”

  Cusack flipped his cell phone to Leeser, who grabbed it and walked out the door. Jimmy sat alone in Leeser’s mausoleum, surrounded by empty walls, and wondering what had just happened.

  * * *

  In the parking lot underneath Greenwich Plaza, Cy marched through the sea of four-wheeled imports. There was enough money in cars to rival the GDP of a small Caribbean nation. When Leeser found his Bentley, he gunned the engine and dialed Rachel’s cell phone. His wheels screeched as he pulled out of the lot.

  One ring. Two rings.

  The voice mail picked up, and Rachel’s trademark recording purred through the airwaves. “You missed me.” No invitation to leave a message. Nothing else. Just a beep.

  “Call me now,” Cy thundered. “Now, Rachel.”

  Leeser turned onto I-95 heading south toward the Bronx Zoo. He dialed again.

  * * *

  Rachel, her black sunglasses on high beam, trooped through the courtyard en route to the World of Reptiles. When her cell phone rang, she did not recognize the number. The caller went into voice mail. The issue could wait, whatever, whoever it was. She had a job to do.

  The blinking message light piqued her curiosity, though. Made her wonder whether it was a new client, somebody other than Cy. He was grating on her last nerve.

  Outside the Amazing Amphibians exhibit, the phone rang again. Same number. It rang as Rachel stalked past the Bronx Zoo store. More voice mail. Three messages now.

  By the time Rachel reached the Dancing Crane Café, it was clear the caller would not stop dialing. This time Rachel answered. “Yes.”

  “It’s about time you picked up,” snapped Leeser.

  “You sound like a lizard on a hot grill, Kemosabe.” She could not help but add, “I wish you’d stop calling me.”

  “Have you finished your business?”

  “No,” answered Rachel.

  “Good.” Cy exhaled, sounding relieved. “Abort everything, now.”

  Rachel turned left on the path. “Abort. What are you talking about?”

  “Cusack didn’t resign.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Don’t you see?” snapped Leeser. “They don’t know. Cusack wants to buy his father-in-law’s company.”

  “I know what I heard,” countered Rachel. “They know.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “No way,” she snorted, her voice low, barely audible, but loud enough to register anger.

  “Then why didn’t Cusack resign?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m telling you, Rachel. Something’s fishy. If you strike now, we have problems.” He added cautiously, “No telling what the police will do.”

  “Emily Cusack can ID the scar on my hand.”

  “Wear a glove. You’re the one who told me about prosopagnosia.”

  “Not worth the risk.”

  “I order you to leave her alone, Rachel.”

  “You’re ordering me. I don’t think so,” barked Rachel, locking horns. “I’ve yet to receive one dollar from LeeWell Capital. All I get are your promises about my partnership interest. So don’t go telling me, ‘I order you.’ I’m doing Emily Cusack to settle my nerves.”

  “I’m sorry,” retreated Cy. “But we’ve got to think straight. Otherwise, this thing will bite us in the ass.”

  “Like you say, Kemosabe, ‘not my problem.’ I have no links to your employee’s wife.”

  “Just wait. I’m on my way.”

  Rachel held the cell phone away from her mouth and faked the crackling sound of static. “You’re breaking up, Cy.”

  “Back off. I’m telling you, back off.”

  More fake static.

  “You’re breaking up, Cy.” Rachel punched the End Call button on her cell phone. This assignment had turned fun. She loved the challenge. She loved asserting her will, just to spite Leeser.

  Cy heard dial tone and cursed, “You stupid…” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. He stepped on the gas pedal.

  Back at the Bronx Zoo, Rachel Whittier saw Emi Cusack leaving the World of Reptiles. This time there was no mistake. Rachel adjusted her sunglasses and began stalking the target.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  LEEWELL CAPITAL …

  Bianca pushed through the etched-glass doors. She wore crisp blue jeans and a baggy black sweater, by no means Greenwich couture, but comfortable and appropriate for the weather. She had a tall man, six one, maybe six two, in tow.

  He was buff, ten years her junior. He wore an off-the-rack suit, a dozen or so natural fibers beyond plastic bag. And he carried an almost-leather briefcase from one of the office supply superstores. Just above the right eyebrow, his forehead looked like it once played catch with something other than a baseball. Maybe a glass pitcher from an Irish bar.

  Amanda stood up from behind her reception desk. “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Leeser.”

  “Hey there, sugar,” Bianca greeted, warm with no hint of business whatsoever. “Where’s my husband?”

  “He stepped out.”

&
nbsp; Bianca rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “No, maybe Nikki knows.”

  Bianca pulled out her cell phone and dialed Leeser. His voice mail reported that it was full and not taking messages, which she took to be a good sign. Bianca turned to the tall man and said, “Come on, hun.” And the two pushed inside LeeWell’s inner sanctum.

  “Do you know when Cy will be back?” Bianca asked Nikki.

  “He didn’t say where he was going.”

  Bianca cocked her ear around the corner of Leeser’s doorway and listened to the rapid-fire pings from arriving e-mails. “Been like that long?”

  “All morning,” Nikki reported.

  “Nice,” exulted Bianca, now looking inside the office and admiring the empty walls Siggi left behind. “But I can’t reach Cy,” she complained to Nikki and the man by her side.

  “That’s because he has my phone,” Cusack announced, walking out of his office, where he had been paying attention.

  Bianca hugged him hello and asked, “What’s your number, hun? We’ve got papers to serve.” Bianca nodded toward the tall man.

  * * *

  Cy mashed his foot on the accelerator, hard as he dared. Seventy miles per hour. Sometimes eighty. Every once in a while he throttled back. The cops loved to ticket Bentleys. Six-figure cars brought extra bragging rights back at the station houses.

  Jimmy’s cell phone rang, and Leeser thought, Why not. He answered, “Yeah.”

  “Do you like my present?”

  “Where the fuck is my art?”

  “Our art,” Bianca corrected, smirking from ear to ear. “And I understand you’ve heard from the fans of a ‘broken-down plagiarist who hasn’t published in sixteen years.’”

  Leeser flipped her the bird, long distance, straining to check his anger. “Where are you?”

  “At your office with the marshall.”

  “Marshall,” bellowed Leeser. “Why’d you get a marshall involved?” He really needed to stop Rachel.

  “We have the papers right here.” Bianca was onstage now, acutely aware that Nikki and Cusack were hanging on to every word. She added, “Where are you?”