“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are. I wanted to question you. That’s why I had Crane taped to his table. To show you what I would do to you.”
“And I’m assuming once I put down those two men of Kolenka’s, Kolenka decided I had to go.”
“Yes. And truthfully, I didn’t try to change his mind.”
Beck said, “You couldn’t have. So, do we have a deal?”
Markov asked, “You aren’t worried I will try to have you killed?”
“Will you?”
“No. Same reason as you. I don’t know who would come after me. You obviously have a lot of men. How else could you wipe out Kolenka and his crew, and Gregor and his men?”
“So, we’re agreed. You pay me my commission and costs. I give you ninety-two million and change, which is a hell of a lot more than you have right now. You don’t send any more people after me. And I don’t kill you right here and now.”
Markov inclined his head toward Beck and gave him a knowing look. “What does that mean? That you will kill me someplace else, later?”
Beck said, “No. I won’t kill you now, or later.”
Markov smiled, and let out a short laugh. He shook his head, muttering in Russian. He stuck his meaty hand out to Beck and said, “Take your expenses out of the twenty-three fucking million dollars, and we have a deal.”
Beck didn’t hesitate for a second. “No. You don’t really give a shit about two hundred grand. You’re just negotiating out of habit. Stop it. There are significant expenses still left to me. I have no doubt that with a stake of over ninety-two million you’ll earn back what you’re paying me very quickly.”
“What expenses do you have?”
“That’s not your business.”
Markov pointed a fat finger at Beck. “And like you said, this ends it between us. I don’t want to look over my shoulder all the time, as they say. And I won’t give you any reason to look over yours.”
“This ends our business.”
Beck slid the flash drive across the conference room table. Markov picked it up and held it in front of Beck. “The balance will be in this account midday Monday?”
“Yes.”
Markov shoved the drive in his coat pocket and sat back. “Okay. But a question, if you don’t mind. What about Crane and the woman?”
“They are not your concern.”
“Meaning?”
Beck said nothing.
“As of now?”
Beck said nothing.
“Expenses, huh?”
Beck tipped his head in agreement.
“All right,” said Markov, “I’m not negotiating, but I have one last question.”
“What?”
“Why do I have to wait until Monday?”
“Because I need that time for my man to get to the bank in Belize Monday morning. He’ll take our commission. We will confirm all is well on Monday, and by twelve noon all the information you need to take control of the account will be posted on the encrypted Web site.”
“I don’t like waiting.”
“Too bad.”
“You don’t trust I will pay you your money.”
“I don’t have to trust you.”
Markov took a long, slow breath. Scrunched his face. Put his meaty left hand over his eyes and rubbed. He blinked. Looked at Beck and said, “I underestimated you, Mr. Beck.”
“You just didn’t know me.”
Beck picked up the Browning, shoved it behind his right hip, stood up, and left Leonard Markov sitting at the conference room table.
* * *
Beck walked directly across the street to the Renaissance Hotel where he had reserved a room. He might have preferred the Four Seasons, but there was zero chance he would be going back there. And he wasn’t at all sure he could have walked the extra two blocks.
When he got to his room, he closed the blackout drapes, put on the Do Not Disturb sign, stripped down to his underwear, and slowly laid down on the bed, lifting his battered left leg with his sore, stitched and bandaged left arm.
He pulled the covers over himself and adjusted the pillows.
A wave of exhaustion engulfed him. He thought about Manny. He wasn’t going to call him. Either his plan with Nydia to persuade Olivia she needed a gun and making sure it was filled with blanks had worked, or it hadn’t.
As for everything else, there was nothing more for Beck to do. There was nothing he could do. He had planned the rest carefully. Now it was up to the others. He fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the next thirteen hours, knowing that by the time he awoke, it would all finally be over.
EPILOGUE
Demarco’s job was complicated, but ultimately quite enjoyable.
The Bolo brothers had one last assignment after returning Olivia to Red Hook. This time they switched their all-purpose van for an even more innocuous Lincoln Town Car, and once more staked out Crane’s building. At 4 p.m. a limo appeared, big enough for Crane, his three bodyguards, and all their bags.
Five minutes later, the first of the two mercenaries appeared on Hubert Street. They checked both the limo and the street to make sure there was no sign of trouble.
Ricky and Jonas were parked far enough away at the hydrant of Greenwich Street so they weren’t noticed. And even if the Town Car was noticed, so what? Just another car service vehicle waiting for a passenger, most likely from the Smith Barney building.
Once Harris and Williams had checked the street and the limousine, Ralph Anastasia came out with Crane, his gun in his hand. He scanned the street and the surrounding buildings until Crane and the others were in the limo. Only then did he get in the Town Car.
As soon as the limousine left the curb, Ricky and Jonas were on it. They assumed Crane was headed for an airport. There were two likely choices, Newark or JFK. Once the limousine passed Canal Street and didn’t go for the Holland Tunnel, they were ninety percent sure it would be JFK.
Jonas drove. He dropped back nearly out of sight, keeping just close enough to make sure they were heading for the Midtown Tunnel. Once the limo passed the exit to the BQE which would have taken them to LaGuardia, Jonas dropped way back again, now certain they were headed for JFK.
Demarco had been waiting in Olivia’s Porsche near the Verrazano Bridge, ready to head for either JFK or Newark when the Bolos called. As soon as he received word from Ricky, he headed for JFK with plenty of time.
As Crane’s limo approached the airport, Jonas closed the gap, blending in with all the other Town Cars and Yellow cabs. He followed Crane’s limo until it pulled up to the Swissair terminal.
Jonas pulled up to the curb a few cars back of Crane’s limo. Ricky got out and followed Anastasia and Crane into the terminal, just like any other passenger. He even had a carry-on piece of luggage.
Jonas pulled away and parked at the far end of the departure area.
Ricky stood in line at the first-class check-in behind Crane. When Crane walked up to Swissair’s first class counter, Ricky was close enough to hear the flight number: LX-23 to Geneva.
Crane checked in two large bags and walked away with a carry-on piece of luggage.
Ralph Anastasia accompanied him to the security area, stood in line with Crane, exchanging a few words that looked to Ricky like Crane’s final instructions for his bodyguard. While they talked, Ricky phoned Jonas with Crane’s flight information.
Crane headed into the security line. Anastasia waited until Crane passed through the body scanner, gathered his belongings, and walked out of sight. Only then did he turn and head for the exit.
* * *
Jonas Bolo, parked near the end of the departure area, working on his large-screen smartphone, completing a first-class reservation for Swissair Flight LX-23 at 7:45 p.m. in the name of Antonio Jones.
Conveniently, there were three seats still available in first class.
* * *
As Anastasia exited the airport, Ricky Bolo called to him from behind. Anastasia’s hand went into the pocket of his silve
r down jacket. Ricky showed both hands and said, “Take it easy. I have something for you that might be of help.”
Anastasia raised a hand and said, “Don’t move. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Ricky held up a piece of paper. “It’s just a bit of information.”
“Say it.”
“You may need to know the location of somebody. Check this Web site. Where-to-find-the-fat-Russian-dot-com. No spaces.”
Anastasia looked very carefully at Ricky Bolo.
Ricky held out the folded piece of paper. “It’s written on this.”
Anastasia smiled and said, “No. I got it.”
Ricky turned and walked away. By the time he slid into the passenger seat of the Town Car, Jonas had finished making the reservation on Swissair.
Fifteen minutes later, Demarco pulled Olivia’s Porsche up to the departure curb. Ricky jumped out of the Town Car, walked back to the Porsche, and gave Demarco all the information about his flight reservation.
Demarco Jones walked into the Swissair terminal. Ricky jumped into the Porsche and drove out of the airport, followed by Jonas.
When Demarco walked up to the first-class check-in, he looked every bit like a first-class passenger.
He presented his brother’s passport to the blond Swissair employee. Using his own was out of the question. She was a nicely coiffed airline professional. Although Demarco’s older brother looked quite a bit like him, she barely glanced at the passport. Demarco looked like he’d just stepped out of Men’s Vogue. His overcoat, a lush brown cashmere, was matched by an extravagantly expensive Borsalino fur felt fedora made of New Zealand red deer. His dark blue suit was Kiton. His gleaming white shirt Charvet, the shoes Allen Edmonds, the tie and pocket square Brioni, both a golden orange with a weave that made the color vary throughout a spectrum of shades.
The Swissair lady couldn’t stop smiling at Demarco. When she asked if he had any bags to check, he smiled back and said, “No.”
She peeked over the counter at his elegant Tumi Woodbridge carry-on garment bag. And smiled again. God, what a beautiful man. What style.
Demarco breezed through security, had his usual drink, Grand Marnier and decaf coffee in the lounge. He called Elliot to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make it upstate this weekend. All he had to say was that something had come up, and he was sorry. The sorry part was enough for Elliot.
By the time Demarco walked into the first-class cabin, the steward asked him if he preferred a window pod. One had become available at the last minute, closer to the front of the cabin.
Demarco settled in next to Alan Crane, in what would have been Olivia’s seat, finishing up a text to Beck that read cryptically “seat empty.” Enough to confirm for Beck when he woke up that Manny had done what he had to do.
Crane, already on his second glass of champagne, seemed a bit distracted, realizing that it was now certain that Olivia Sanchez was not going to make this flight.
By the time the plane landed in Geneva, Switzerland, Demarco had learned Crane’s new name, Paul Adler. And the hotel he was staying at: the D’Angleterre.
Demarco arrived at the D’Angleterre well before Crane, since Crane had to wait for his luggage. However, he didn’t enter the hotel. He waited across the street, sitting on a bench near the lake, the chill air not affecting him in the least, noticing that next to the hotel was a private branch of HSBC bank. Probably the reason Crane picked the D’Angleterre.
While he waited for Crane to arrive, Demarco booked a junior suite at another hotel, the Beau Rivage, and called for a limo. His limo arrived five minutes after Crane entered the hotel.
Demarco crossed the street, motioned for the driver to roll down his window. He told the driver he was Mr. Williams, asked him to take his bag and wait fifteen minutes, he had to take care of something in the bank, which conveniently was open until noon on Saturdays.
He walked into the bank, waited ten minutes for Crane to get to his room. While in the bank, he called the hotel and left word that a document was coming for Mr. Adler from the bank. He confirmed the room number. Then he entered the hotel through the service entrance, wearing fine leather gloves and his fedora pulled low to obscure his face from security cameras.
When Demarco arrived on Crane’s floor, he lifted a vase full of flowers from a table in the elevator foyer and carried it to Crane’s room.
He knocked on the door discreetly, holding the flowers so that they blocked the view through the room’s peephole.
When asked who it was, Demarco said, “Housekeeping.”
Crane must have liked the idea of more flowers for his suite. He opened the door quickly. Demarco punched Crane in the throat at just about the moment Crane recognized Demarco from the plane.
Crane landed on his back hard, clutching his throat, struggling to breathe.
Demarco quickly straddled Crane’s head and broke his neck. He stripped him of all valuables: watch, wallet, passport, cash in his pocket.
He grabbed Crane under his armpits and lifted his upper body onto the bed, and then his legs.
Demarco adjusted the body on the luxurious bed into a more normal position. He picked up the vase which he had set on the carpet and left the room, replacing the vase exactly where it had been on the table in the foyer.
He retraced his steps out the back of the hotel, reentered the bank, went out the front entrance, and slipped into the backseat of his waiting limo. He checked his watch. He’d been in the hotel exactly eleven minutes. Not bad.
* * *
Ciro’s job was much easier, although he, too, had to dress up a bit. He wore a black wool overcoat, a white silk scarf that covered his neck tattoo, and a wide-brimmed Irish cap pulled low to shadow his face. He had borrowed a dog from his cousin Veronica, an excitable little Yorkshire terrier named Mickey. Not exactly Ciro’s type of dog, but Mickey would have to do.
Ciro waited on the quiet path that ran from Seventy-ninth Street past Dog Hill to the boat basin.
Milstein was right on time.
When Milstein saw the large man walking a small dog, heading his way, he hardly gave it a second thought. Ciro looked nothing like the man Milstein had seen briefly in the park four days before. He was just another dog walker.
The stupid dog almost got in Ciro’s way. He had the leash in his left hand, the knife in his right, in perfect position as Milstein approached. Then the damn dog veered over to check out Milstein’s dog.
Milstein’s dog also started to cross in front of him. He yelled, “goddammit,” and wrenched the leash on the big terrier.
Ciro pulled up on the little dog’s leash hard enough so Mickey landed about three feet to the left. The dog emitted a short yelp at the exact moment Ciro buried the knife just below Milstein’s sternum, angled straight up toward his heart.
The blade was long, sharp, hardened steel. Ciro plunged it into Milstein with such force that it rose up and severed the pulmonary artery and half the aorta, and lifted Milstein off his feet. Goddammit was the last word Frederick Millstein uttered.
Ciro pulled out the blade. Milstein fell face forward onto the asphalt path.
Ciro looked around. No one in sight. He let go of the dog leash, wiped the blade on Milstein’s coat, and pocketed the knife.
He dragged Milstein into the bushes about twenty feet off the path and dumped him well out of sight. He quickly stripped him of everything in his pockets.
Both dogs had stayed where they were on the path, sniffing each other, Mickey jumping around and yipping at the bigger dog.
Ciro picked up both leashes and started to lead both dogs back to Dog Hill. But now his cousin’s dog wanted nothing to do with him. Perhaps it had to do with being jerked three feet off his feet.
Ciro picked up the little dog, feeling bad about giving it such a hard tug. Milstein’s dog walked along with him as if nothing had happened.
When he got to where Milstein usually let the dog off the leash, he released Tam. The big dog immediately ran off
into the dark field.
Ciro kept the small dog cradled in his arm so he wouldn’t follow the big dog.
“Sorry about pulling you so hard little guy.”
Mickey looked up at Ciro and licked his gloved hand.
Ciro smiled, and then he realized the little dog was licking Milstein’s blood.
* * *
Beck had waited until after Olivia’s funeral to distribute the cash that Alex Liebowitz had smuggled in with his scuba-diving equipment from Belize.
He’d decided that the bribes he’d paid to Walter Pearce would set the amount. Thirty thousand for setting up the cops, plus twenty for monitoring Milstein’s call to the Belize bank. It added up to an even fifty thousand dollars.
He didn’t even try to calculate whose efforts might have been worth more than another’s. Nydia, the Bolos, Phineas, Brandon Wright, Joey B: without any one of them, they would have never survived.
He doubled the amount he gave to Pearce, giving each of them a hundred thousand in cash.
He also paid for Joey B’s hospital bills and follow-up care.
He knew Brandon Wright wouldn’t accept any money, so he bought him a case of his favorite Irish whiskey, Midleton Very Rare, gave him ten thousand dollars to give to his surgical nurse, and asked Wright to name a charity to which Beck promised to contribute money in the doctor’s name.
That left Willie Reese and Alex Liebowitz outside the core team. Willie got fifty thousand in cash. Alex got five hundred thousand funneled into his trading account.
After laundering the remaining money through five dummy corporations Alex had set up, paying the corporate taxes to keep clean with the IRS, Beck had enough to give himself, Manny, Ciro, and Demarco three million dollars, leaving a little over four million to keep the house fund they all shared solvent for the foreseeable future.
Given a choice, Demarco and Ciro would have preferred to skip the funeral. Beck had mixed feelings. But out of respect for Manny, they all attended.
Manny had taken care of everything. Beck never asked how he managed to make the funeral arrangements, obtain a death certificate, and cremate the body.
The four of them stood in their best suits in a small chapel at Ferncliff cemetery north of the city. The minister was Hispanic. They listened to the ritual, keeping their thoughts private.
Among Thieves Page 41
