by Adam Gittlin
Like a brick to the head, the secrecy finally meant something. Communism. The Cold War. The classified seminar when my father met the Zhamovskys. Not too long ago the world was a different place. History spoke for itself. Galina Zhamovsky was the wife of a top-tier Soviet natural resource official. She was smart enough to understand to what extent she was being monitored.
As I scoured the painting, my mind kept going. Pop and Galina always found time to get together. Family trips, Pop’s international business trips, maybe the words in the artworks were the answers to bigger questions, bigger discussions that went on when they met up. Maybe they were afterthoughts on things that happened as they parted.
What about the letter my father was writing to me? Was he apologizing? Was he trying to explain the situation? Did it matter anymore?
Of course it did. Sometimes, whether wrong or right, human nature is all about truth. Other times it’s all about revenge.
For the first time, I found the correspondence at the bottom of a piece. It was systematically worked into the thick grass that got higher toward the sides. Four strung-together bullet points.
The most compelling message yet.
Chapter 46
It was eight thirty on Tuesday morning. I was standing at the side of my father’s coffin in the funeral home. There was no one else around. It was just the two of us having our final one on one. The funeral wasn’t to start for another two hours, but I didn’t feel it was safe for me to be there. At this point I wasn’t comfortable with anyone knowing where I was going to be at any certain time. There was too much going on, too many situations, too much I still didn’t know or understand. The last thing I needed was to have to pretend to throngs of people that I was simply an innocent, mourning secondary victim to all of this while I constantly looked over my shoulder. From business associates to clients to Pop’s friends to my partners to the egg to Detective Morante to Krissy Lockhart to God knows what else after what I had seen on the news the previous night, there were simply way too many chances for surprises, exposure. Besides, I was on a very tight schedule especially now that Pangaea-Man resurfaced.
“How the fuck could you do this? I was...there was...”
I was fumbling for the right words. I was talking to a dead man, but never had a conversation been more important to me.
“I know everything, Pop. Galina, Andreu, the artwork, the eggs, I know it all.”
Pop was in the outfit I had picked out for him. Navy, wide pin-striped Brioni suit with a white shirt and silver necktie. The colors were a nice contrast to the burgundy velvet he was surrounded by. I carefully scanned the topography of his face. I was amazed at the job the funeral home had done putting his features back together.
“How could you betray us like this? All you’ve told me my whole life is what an angel my mother was. So why? Why would you willingly betray an angel?”
I sucked in a breath and shook my head. So many thoughts. So many things I wanted to say.
“Justice is a funny thing. Seeing you lying on the ground, bullet holes in your head, I went numb when I realized it was Murdoch. I thought I had done this to you. Now it’s painfully clear you did this to yourself and fucked me pretty good in the process. I was actually beating myself up about not being able to speak about you at the funeral. Now I can’t even be sure how well I knew you. I don’t even know what I would have said.”
I dropped my eyes from my father’s face to his necktie’s perfect knot. Then, for myself, for my mother, I shifted it ever so slightly off center so he’d be annoyed for eternity.
“You always said it was a cruel world. I had no idea just how cruel it could be.”
An image of my half-brother ripped through my mind. Then I saw Murdoch at The Four Seasons standing over me smoking a Monte Cristo #2.
As I looked at my father for the last time I couldn’t ignore the irony. The lessons he taught me, the instincts he forced on me, were now all I had to save myself.
Soon I was in a cab heading south on Fifth Avenue. I took my cell phone from my pocket and dialed an international number that I read from a document in my briefcase. I took a deep breath then hit “send.”
“Privyet?”
“Igor, Jonah Gray.”
It was Andreu Zhamovsky’s banker in Russia. Because Andreu needed everything to be on the level, until his mission was complete, this meant his financial institutions had to be abreast of what was happening in New York. International wire transfers of escrow, due diligence contractor payments, etc., still needed to be handled without incident as Andreu had been doing thus far. Larionov, like everyone else who had been dragged into this sordid mess, was oblivious to the fact it was all horseshit.
“Good day, Jonah,” Larionov said with a heavy Baltic accent. “What can I assist you with today?”
By this point, thankfully, Larionov and I had become comfortable with one another.
“Have you by any chance heard from Andreu about the transfer of some funds?”
“No sir, I have not.”
Action.
“Fuck!” I said, pretending as if I had been trying to hold it in.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that Andreu has us all running around over here like chickens with our heads cut off to get this deal closed for him. We’ve absolutely dropped everything for him. And—and—”
“And what?”
“And all I asked him to do was take care of one fucking thing.”
“Please Jonah, calm down. Perhaps there is some way I can be of assistance.”
“I don’t think you can. Andreu was supposed to make you aware of this a few days ago so you could prepare the proper funds. When they didn’t come in this morning, I figured he had waited too long. I told him you’d need more time than just a few hours, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” I carried on, pretending as if I had shifted the conversation to me talking to myself. “Fuck it. He’ll just have to live with the disappointment.”
“What funds, Jonah? What disappointment? Please, perhaps I can help…”
I took a loud, deep breath into the phone.
“The short version goes like this. As you know, Andreu has us pitting three different deals against one another in order to weed out the most favorable one. In order to do this correctly, each of the three parties needs to believe they are, in fact, the buyer right up to the last second. The last second. You with me?”
“I am with you. Andreu informed me it is an aggressive tactic, hence all of the wire transfers over the last few weeks.”
“That’s right. The plan was to have all of them in position to come to the table this afternoon, at three different locations, to get the deals closed. Once it was determined who had stepped up to the plate the most seriously, the deal was to be completed with that party and that party only. The others were to fall away with only whatever reasons we gave them as to why their deals had fallen through. That’s it.”
Larionov was silent.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”
“Jonah, please excuse my confusion. I still do not understand.”
“Because an all cash transaction has been proposed in each instance, Igor, sixty-five percent of the purchase price was to be in escrow at the time of closing with a note promising the delivery of the remaining thirty-five percent within forty-five days. This was part of the deal, in each case, since we were putting the sellers under such unheard of time constraints. Once the funds arrived via the account we’ve been using, the plan was to simply move the appropriate funds for each separate deal into three different dedicated escrow accounts that we have waiting. Because we needed to follow through with each deal as if it were the only deal, right through the end, we needed the funds in place for each separate deal.”
Now the kicker.
“Once we were finished, the unneeded funds, roughly two-thirds of the cash transferred, was to be immediately wired back. But at this point, frankly, it
’s pointless to even discuss further.”
“Baw zhe moy,” Larionov said, dumbfounded. “Perhaps we can find Andreu and—”
“Believe me, I’ve been trying for the last four hours. He’s absolutely nowhere to be found. Svetlana said he’s most likely on his yacht.”
Svetlana is Andreu’s assistant.
“She said sometimes his itinerary changes so rapidly he forgets to leave word where he is. Especially in the summer. Anyway, there’s no way we can get the funds together at this point. So I’ll just have to stall everyone and hope for the best.”
“More time would usually be required for a larger amount. The transfer of funds is not the problem. It is only machines. As long as the funds are available, the transfer of one dollar is the same as the transfer of one million dollars. The problem is making sure someone with the proper authority has signed off on the transfer.”
Bingo.
Andreu Zhamovsky never imagined his plan failing, and in doing so made one very grave mistake. He willingly granted me power of attorney for the real estate deal in New York City. By limiting my access to his affairs to just this deal, and keeping me legally away from all of his other affairs, he figured he had protected himself. In readily granting me power-of-attorney when I said I needed the ability to maneuver freely as the deals called for it, he had given me the written authority to handle all aspects of any pending deals in New York City, including the handling of the finances. He figured all I would do was put each deal’s earnest money into place, along with some due diligence cash, by the time he was ready to move the real money over so he could immediately screw Derbyshev and steal the eggs.
He was wrong.
“Wait a second,” I responded, as if I was starting to get it. “So what you’re telling me is that the funds aren’t the issue as long as the transaction has been signed off on properly. Or, in other words, Andreu was not as wrong as I thought in waiting since he gave me power of attorney. He knew the funds could be transferred no problem.”
“Well, yes, I guess so,” he exclaimed.
“Yes!” I screamed into the phone. “Yes! Well then we better get those funds yesterday, Mister Larionov. If we don’t, these deals will be gone by the end of the day. And I’d rather not think about where you and I will stand in the eyes of Andreu Zhamovsky and Prevkos if that happens. If you know what I mean.”
“Of course, Mister Jonah. Of course. I need copies of the contracts. How fast can you get them to me?”
I had drafts of each proposed contract in my briefcase. They were being prepared simultaneously as the deals went along because of the obvious nature of the situation.
“I’ll fax them to you. You’ll have them in no more than thirty minutes. Remember, two-thirds of the currency will be back on your side of the ocean by the time you open your eyes tomorrow morning.”
“Terrific. How much do we need to wire?”
I covered the phone and swallowed.
Never a shred of doubt. Own the words.
“In American currency, nine hundred and seventy-five million dollars.”
Chapter 47
At ten fifteen a.m., I had L meet me on the sidewalk in front of his warehouse. The Meatpacking District was buzzing. People were scattered everywhere as refrigerated trucks wove in and out of the traffic through the old city streets. I jumped out of the cab with my briefcase.
“Let’s go,” I said following L inside. “Your office.”
My phone would not stop ringing. Text messages were flooding in from my three partners. My father’s funeral had started and I was nowhere to be found, which, for me, was exactly the point. I wouldn’t have given it another thought until something dawned on me from a message from Perry. My unknown whereabouts was perhaps, for others, startling. “Where are you?” Perry wrote, “Should I be worried?” I wrote back, simply, “I’m fine. I promise. I’ll explain later.” Then, figuring she would pass this on to everyone else, I silenced my phone.
The building has been around for a hundred years. It’s mostly warehouse with a few thousand square feet of office space upstairs. Luckman Meats was in full swing that morning. I followed L through his freezing-cold place of business toward the staircase. Conversations, spoken loud over machinery and the noise of in-coming and out-going trucks, were happening everywhere. Most were in broken English. Some were in completely other languages. A lot of the workers wore white, blood-streaked smocks as they scurried about carrying meat-related products or equipment. A few brushed my shoulders as we whisked by one another. The fresh, purposefully frigid air smelled fleshy, raw.
“Krissy Lockhart,” I said following closely behind L. “Find anything?”
“East Hampton High School. Class of ninety-seven. There were a few articles that mentioned her name.”
“Articles? About what?”
“Her mother. She died in some terrible car accident. The daughter was just mentioned.”
“I need you to call the school today. I know it’s summer, but I need you to try anyway.”
“For what? What do you want me to ask?”
“Anything that gets me as much information about this girl as possible.”
Once upstairs and in his office, L closed the door behind us. The place was a mess. There were file cabinets and stacks of papers everywhere. The office was an interesting study in contrasts. It looked the same as it probably did in the fifties except that all of the technological aspects of the space—computer, phone, fax—were up to the minute. The rear office wall, the one behind L’s desk, was a window that overlooked part of the warehouse.
L sat down behind his desk. I sat in a chair in front of his desk facing him.
“We’re missing your father’s funeral, Jonah. What the fuck is going on?”
“Did you get them?”
I started to dig through my briefcase. L, unhappy I wasn’t answering his questions, sighed angrily before opening his desk’s top drawer. He pulled out a large manila envelope and threw it on top of his desk. He slammed the drawer shut.
I found and took the contracts from my briefcase and walked over to the fax.
“Face up or down?” I asked.
“Down.”
I placed half of one of the three mini-stacks that was under my arm onto the machine and dialed Larionov’s office. I hit “send.” Then, with a thud, I dropped the remaining two and a half in front of L on his desk.
“I need you to send these after the first stack goes through.”
Purchase agreements of the magnitude we were dealing with were each over an inch thick. Even L’s high-speed fax would need some time for each.
I took a seat in one of the chairs facing my best friend’s desk.
“And then I need you to burn them.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I can’t take them with me. If, or more likely when, the authorities figure out that they were sent from here, you simply tell them I have a key. You tell them that I could have slipped in through the back while you were out. End of story.”
“Jonah what the fuck are—”
I grabbed the manila envelope that was between us on the desk. I opened it, looked inside, and removed the identification card that had my picture on it. It was a driver’s license.
“Alaska? This is the best he could do?”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Not now,” L snapped.
They cracked it anyway.
“It’s urgent,” a woman responded.
“Make it quick, Hil.”
The tall, forty-something brunette rushed to L’s desk.
“The Lincoln and Holland tunnels are both closing in a matter of minutes. There’s a suspicious abandoned truck just outside the Manhattan side of the Holland.”
She handed him some papers. L rifled through them.
“Just thought you should know why at least seventy-five percent of our Jersey deliveries were going to be extremely late toda
y.”
“Thanks Hil.”
She headed back toward the door.
“Hey, Jonah.”
Hilary ran L’s dispatch. Over the years I’d seen her from time to time.
“Hey, Hilary,” I said back.
She left.
“What’s the problem with Alaska?” L continued.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Jonah, they go with remote states on purpose. They do this because most people won’t have a point of reference for comparison.”
“What about my point of reference? Shouldn’t it be somewhere I’ve been?”
“Juneau’s fucking tiny. Just remember the governor’s mansion on Calhoun Street and the Red Dog Saloon as landmarks. You’ll be fine.”
I looked in the envelope again.
“Did you remember to get me—”
“It’s in there.”
He was right. I pulled out a second Alaskan driver’s license with my picture on it. The name on one was Stan Gray. The name on the first was Roy Gordon. Roy, a bartender at Bull & Bear, was my favorite barkeep in the city. I needed someone I would be able to remember, but who wasn’t a traceable connection.
“There’s one for each of your partners, just like you asked, along with matching passports.”
“Huge,” I exhaled. “Fucking huge.”
Considering I had given him so little time, L had come up monstrous. The only sticking point we ran into when discussing it two nights earlier was the issue of passport pictures for all of the different documents. L had come up with the brilliant idea of scanning them from the PCBL marketing materials I always send him. L knows a ton of people. I always send him updated copies in case he runs into anyone who needs our services. They contain individual pictures of our team. All are nothing more than actual-size passport photos.
I threw them back into the envelope, which I placed in my briefcase, then sat up straight in my chair.
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean that, L. That was some pretty under-the-gun shit.”
