by Mario Bolduc
“It’s in Romanian. My mother was from Bucharest. A letter to her father.”
First an Olympic runner, then a thief, now a respectable man who’d settled down. Kevin had given up on marathons, given up on fraud, and had retreated into his own world. Through a long, complicated detour, he’d finally squared his circle, and Caroline was happy for it. Neither Kevin nor Caroline called Max asking him to visit more often, or rebuked him for coming too rarely. Max did what was asked — or more precisely, what wasn’t asked — of him.
And so it had been a surprise when Kevin, travelling through New York, had contacted Max for a drink. The two men — who hadn’t seen each other in more than a year — agreed to meet at the bar of the Plaza Hotel near Central Park. Max arrived a few minutes late and was surprised to discover Kevin seated with a young woman he didn’t know: Claudia Ferrucci. Brown hair, blue eyes, small, a few pounds overweight, with a nervous disposition. Next to calm, collected Kevin, Claudia Ferrucci, with her nervousness, seemed even more out of place. She was from Toronto, Kevin explained, and had travelled with him. To talk business, he added, with exaggerated mystery. Max couldn’t believe his friend had turned a friendly get-together into a business meeting. Especially when he learned that Kevin and his new business partner were working on a major con and wanted Max’s help.
Kevin rambled on to Max, who was mostly concentrating on Claudia. He’d never heard of her, and he didn’t like that. The whole thing could be a trap; she might just whip out a badge at any moment.
Finally, the young woman excused herself to go to the bathroom. Max waited until she’d disappeared to turn toward Kevin. “What the hell is wrong with you? And who is she?”
“I checked her out. She’s fine. I can vouch for her.”
Max was far from convinced. “I want nothing to do with any of this, Kevin.”
“Wait, I haven’t even told you about it yet …”
“I choose my teams, not the other way around.”
It was one of Max’s rules. There was nothing more dangerous than joining someone else’s plan, working for someone else’s interests. Naturally, early in his career, Max had joined teams he’d known little about. He’d been lucky to get off easy. But today it was different. No way he’d risk prison at his age.
Kevin had been expecting Max’s reluctance. Kevin looked at him, an ironic smile on his face. “Always a wall with you. Open arms, sure, but only when you’re offering. If anybody makes a move in your direction, you’re gone.”
Max furrowed his brow. “You want my help? Let me give you some advice. Run, now, and don’t look back at whatever idiotic job you’re planning.”
“You haven’t even heard me out!”
“Every con is the same. You know that as well as I do.”
Max couldn’t understand why Kevin would risk his family’s happiness over a roll of the dice. Years before, Kevin had had run-ins with the law and Max had gotten him off the hook. Today the situation was different. He lived in Montreal, happily, had a new life. Why screw it all up for a minor score?
“So you’re just going to say no to a friend asking for your help, is that it?”
“Don’t you dare use our friendship for this.”
“What should I use it for then?”
Max was already standing. This discussion was going nowhere. “Say goodbye to your friend for me.”
Max left the bar without looking back, furious with Kevin. Early the next morning he called around to his contacts; he would find out who this Claudia Ferrucci was.
Two days later he was almost disappointed to learn that the young woman was indeed who she claimed to be. From Italy, no husband or boyfriend, a Ph.D. and a master’s in geology from Queen’s University in Kingston. Her last boyfriend was a computer scientist. He’d left her two years earlier after a six-month relationship. She sent money back to her family in Italy — who still lived in Sardinia — despite her meagre salary with Dominion Diamonds, an import-export owned by a mining exploration company. She, too, like Kevin, was the sort of person to fall into debt and not be able to drag herself out. She had several maxed-out credit cards, which likely explained her desire to get in on Kevin’s job.
In other words, Claudia Ferrucci didn’t have much to hide. She must have felt a lot of frustration, glancing up at her wall full of diplomas after receiving her paycheque. At Dominion Diamonds some of the employees who made the same salary as she did had left school at sixteen. She would correct this injustice, whatever the cost. She’d punish her employer. She was broke and ready to team up with a thief to make things right.
Max had forgotten all about Kevin’s offer when, six months later, he called out of the blue. This time he wasn’t looking for a partner, but advice. After Max had refused, Claudia and Kevin had gone at it alone. Max met up with Kevin in an out-of-the way restaurant in Brooklyn. Without Ferrucci. Between visits from the server, Max listened to Kevin describe the con. It was a classic job: you slowly seduce an avid businessman, gaining his trust. Then, out of nowhere, a situation arises, an emergency, an opportunity. Trust has been built by then and now comes the time to act. Listen, we’ll never get another opportunity like it, if we don’t act now, we’ll miss out …
Max had run the same con several times over the years. Surprisingly, the job Kevin was describing seemed doable, plausible. Especially with Claudia Ferrucci as the inside woman, an essential element of any successful operation.
“And she has access to the boss? She can convince him to move? Quickly, I mean.”
“Who?”
“Ferrucci.”
“What are you talking about? I’m the inside man.”
Max tried to hide his surprise.
Kevin added, “Raymond is the mark. My dear father. I want to hit Nordopak.”
Max was almost out of the door before Kevin finished his sentence. Kevin was right behind him. Max was tired of this bullshit. Tired of Kevin’s anger toward his father. Enough was enough; at some point you just had to move on. Raymond was overwhelming, controlling, but he couldn’t possibly be as hateful, as odious, as Kevin claimed. What Kevin was about to do to his own father was disgusting.
Kevin listened to Max spit all this out before grabbing him by the arm. “Oh, so you’re defending him now?”
“I’m trying to stop you from making a huge mistake.”
“For years I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get back at the bastard.”
“Keep looking.”
“Listen, Max —”
“I thought you’d patched things up.”
“I’ve wanted to get back at him since I returned to Montreal. I made peace with him, but only to soften him up. I wanted him to let his guard down.”
“If you keep this up, I’ll call him. I’ll tell him everything.”
Kevin closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then spoke almost inaudibly. “Look, I want to open a gym in Montreal. Modern facilities, a pool, an exercise room, a track to run on, the whole thing. I need some money to do it, and he won’t lend me a goddamn penny …”
“I can help you.”
“He’s the one who should be helping me. He should be the one to pay.”
Max stayed silent.
Kevin added, “A few million. That’s all I’m asking. He owes me that much, the bastard!”
11
Bucharest, November 27, 2006
Max had fallen asleep on top of the duvet. A thick cover silkscreened with a hunting scene in the Carpathians dating from the reign of Carol I. Hares and a fox fleeing from mounted nobles in period costumes. A phone rang, once, twice, as Max wondered why the nineteenth-century hunters were after him. He hadn’t done a damn thing to them, after all. A moment later he was pulling himself out of his dream. Shaking out the cobwebs, he picked up the phone.
“Mr. O’Brien?”
Was it room service? Max couldn’t r
emember ordering anything.
“Cosmin Micula.”
Max sat against the bedrest. “Is Kevin with you?”
A silence, then: “He spoke highly of your professionalism.”
Micula had a very slight accent. The flow of his speech was faintly stilted, as if he were reading from a script.
“Mr. Micula …”
“When Kevin learned you were coming to Bucharest, he immediately thought of you to help with our little problem.”
“What are you talking about? What problem?”
“You’ll see him soon enough. He’ll tell you everything, I’m sure. For now, his situation is rather delicate.”
“What’s going on? What do you mean?”
Once again, a long silence on the other end of the line. The usual crackling of poor-quality cellphones, then, “I’ve something to give you. Have you heard of Herăstrău Park?”
Max answered yes, though he had no idea where the park actually was. The man on the other end of the line added, “Very popular with newlyweds. They sit under the trees. It makes for beautiful pictures.”
More static on the other end of the line. Max thought he’d lost the connection.
“You can walk to the park gates from the Arcul de Triumf. I’ll see you there in, say, thirty minutes? Please don’t mention our appointment with anyone.”
According to the map he’d picked up in the hotel lobby, Herăstrău Park was on the north side of the capital at the far end of Aviatorilor Boulevard. Max asked the doorman to hail him a cab, which appeared a few moments later.
In the car, speeding across the city, Max parsed the conversation he’d just had with this Cosmin Micula character. It sure seemed as if Kevin had gotten in over his head in some scam or another. Kevin, once again in a bind, counting on Max to save his skin. Once more waiting until it was too late to give Max a call and ask him to bail Kevin out. It frustrated Max, Kevin’s attitude, far too similar to the one he’d had during his operation against Nordopak six years earlier. Conning his own father? It had been a ridiculous idea, and Max, like an idiot, had helped his friend, though it went against all of his rules. To this day, he still regretted having followed Kevin’s obsession, a spoiled child’s tantrum.
Well, hindsight is 20/20. Kevin had been going to con his father, anyway. Might as well support his friend, try to protect him. Within a few weeks, Max had learned everything he had to know about Raymond Dandurand’s company. Kevin was his guide. By then his friend had been promoted. As an executive, Kevin knew Nordopak inside out.
Raymond had certainly earned his nickname, the emperor. He would occasionally listen to his board of directors, sure — especially since it was composed of old friends of his — but never when it came to what he considered to be an important decision. Anyway, no one could really complain. The company had always made money, or so it seemed, and had been steadily growing for a long time. The only real setback had come in 1998 when Aspekt-Ziegler decided to cut ties with its Montreal-based partner. Raymond had gone on the road then, refusing to let his company fail: he’d managed to charm a few contracts out of American companies enticed by the lower value of the Canadian dollar. Soon enough he’d found replacements for Aspekt-Ziegler.
An almost perfect record had made him overconfident.
The perfect mark.
Raymond had lacked supervision and believed that the mix of luck and skill that had brought him this far couldn’t fail him. It had made him easy prey for an experienced crook like Max.
The con was made doubly simple by the fact that Nordopak was in the market for acquisitions, especially in Europe. Raymond had his eye on a number of modest-sized companies well established in their national markets. A Turin-based company, Cambiano, was particularly appealing. However, brothers Dino and Ricardo Negroni were jealous of their autonomy and had no interest in giving part of their company away. So Raymond had begun talks with other European companies, but negotiations were slow and arduous.
An impasse then. Until the day Carlo Negroni, passing through Montreal, had sent an emissary to ask Raymond for a few minutes of his time.
Carlo Negroni?
Cambiano’s third owner. He was the youngest brother, and more discreet, leaving his two older siblings to lead the company as they saw fit. But here was Carlo, who’d been going through a rough patch. He’d lost money in a string of unlucky investments. And there was the matter of a minor gambling problem, barely worth mentioning. Anyway, he had a small liquidity problem and …
The emissary was Claudia Ferrucci, of course, who knew all about Raymond’s interest in the Italian company.
Raymond had reacted just as Max had predicted. Instead of calling on his board for advice and guidance, he acted alone, without wasting any time. However, thinking himself prudent, he didn’t trust the emissary’s word alone, no matter how credible she was. He wanted to meet Carlo Negroni directly and hear the proposal straight from the horse’s mouth.
Claudia had agreed. She’d arrange a meeting as quickly as possible.
A few days later Carlo Negroni would be passing through New York. He would take the time to meet Raymond Dandurand, accompanied by Claudia. The real Negroni was somewhere in the Bahamas. Max had made sure of that before making his move. Once the meeting concluded, Raymond, already convinced it was a good deal, would rush back to Montreal and urge the board to act quickly. Carlo’s shares would be bought the following day.
For $38 million.
At the Plaza, where the whole scheme had first been discussed, all the pieces of the puzzle were in play. Max had recruited Flavio Morelli from Cincinnati, who’d been practising his best Carlo Negroni for weeks. Soon Morelli knew everything there was to know about the Italian businessman. His mannerisms, sure, but also his personal life, taken from Italian gossip sheets. According to the script Max had written, Negroni was travelling through New York — where his collaborator, Claudia Ferrucci, was waiting for him — unbeknownst to his two brothers. For this reason, Raymond couldn’t verify the Negroni he was about to meet for the first time was truly the family’s younger brother. A useless precaution. Raymond was seeing green and never doubted the story. Negroni was asking for his help, so Raymond believed himself to be in a position of power. He thought the Italian was desperate. Raymond was no fool; he knew how to take advantage of a golden opportunity.
Negroni’s suite was on the hotel’s top floor. Eight rooms with a view of Central Park. The neighbouring room — a suite, as well, but smaller than Carlo’s — was also occupied by Max’s people. Strategically placed bugs allowed them to hear everything said in the other room. A small transmitter in Morelli’s ear allowed Max to guide his collaborator in case things soured.
Ted Duvall was waiting at the airport, able to warn the team if anything seemed off. Raymond was expected to arrive in New York alone and negotiate without the help of any financial consultants or lawyers, according to habit. But Max thought he might have gotten his board involved. They might have decided to come to New York in secret to ensure everything about Negroni’s offer was kosher.
In the end, Max hadn’t needed to worry. Raymond had gotten off Air Canada flight 746 from Montreal. A limousine ferried him to Trump Tower, his favourite hotel in Manhattan, only a few blocks from the Plaza. According to Ted Duvall, there wasn’t a whiff of outside counsel. Raymond’s ego knew no bounds. He was throwing himself headfirst into the trap Max had laid.
At the Plaza everyone took a breath. Kevin, who’d chewed his fingernails halfway to his knuckles, was most relieved. Carlo Negroni had flown in from the Bahamas where his yacht was docked. His flight plans had been a secret. He only had a few hours for the Canadian businessman. He wouldn’t waste a second or drag things out: he was in New York to find out whether Dandurand was a serious businessman, ready to commit. If he wasn’t, fine by Carlo; others would be glad to have his piece of the business.
Raym
ond left Trump Tower ten minutes before his meeting. He walked quickly toward the Plaza. He entered the lobby and made his way to one of the elevators. The fake Carlo Negroni and Claudia Ferrucci were already in their respective positions in their penthouse suite. She opened the door, welcoming the businessman. They exchanged pleasantries, which Max could listen in on in the other room, where he was accompanied by Ted Duvall and Kevin. Claudia was nervous, Max could tell. Raymond didn’t notice a thing, or didn’t remark on it. He was wearing his own mask: that of the confident businessman who signs multi-million-dollar deals before breakfast. A professional.
Flavio Morelli made his entrance. Bathrobe, slippers, very Old Europe — a character trait Max had read about in Oggi. Carlo Negroni saw himself as a member of the decadent Italian nobility. And yet the three brothers were the grandsons of manual labourers. Their father had founded a small packaging company in the early 1970s just as Italy was becoming more prosperous. He was the one who’d taken all the risks. The three brothers had simply reaped what was sown by their father — a father dead at fifty-eight from exhaustion and overwork.
A friendly handshake. A boring discussion on the nightlife in the Bahamas, and that one restaurant with all the freshest fish. An exceptional glass of port, which Raymond politely refused. In short, they broke the ice. But the Italian tycoon was in a hurry; he had to be out of New York by mid-afternoon. He wanted to close the deal as quickly as possible.
“I read through your offer,” Raymond began. “I can’t say I’m pleased. A lot of risk, a lot of uncertainty …”
Behind him, in the other room, Kevin jumped to his feet. Max remained calm; he knew Raymond was simply negotiating.
“I don’t understand,” Morelli replied. “We agreed on a price. I even mentioned it to my financial consultant. And now —”
“Now things have changed. The board of directors is reticent. They’re interested, but not to the extent of putting our company’s future at risk.”
