by Jim CaJacob
“I’m looking at a place tomorrow,” she said.
“In Chile?”
“No Mr. Sarcastic. Right across town. I heard about it from Estelle. It’s a steal.”
“Mona, we have to talk.”
She sat down on the couch, put her chin in her hand, and looked at him.
“I told you that I hoped to be coming into some money from some investments soon. It’s not a sure thing. But even if it happens we have to be sort of careful about where we spend it. At least for a while.”
“Careful?”
“You know, we don’t want to go around bringing attention to ourselves. Because we don’t want to get audited or whatever. Don’t worry, if this works out we’ll be set. But we just have to be low profile for a while. Relatively.”
She patted the couch next to her. Josh sat down. She put her arms around his neck and gently licked his ear. “Are you mad at me, Sweetie? I just want the best for us.”
“How could I be mad at you when I’m mad about you?” Not bad! he thought. Of course Mona had no fucking idea where the money came from. He intended to keep her in the dark. She knew nothing about Tavron, nothing about the CPI, and for sure nothing about his little nest egg in Mexico. As far as she knew he just traveled to L.A. once a month or so. No need to worry her little head about his side trips to Mexico City, via San Diego, the stupid tourist bus over the border, and Scare Mexico flight cuatro whatever to Mexico City. She’d probably tell him not to drink the water.
“Good. Now let me up. We have to get ready. We have reservations in 45 minutes. Wear the white slacks, loafers and the powder blue blazer, will you?”
Chapter 33
It was surprisingly easy to find a bar that had Headline News on the TV all the time. Josh ordered a Ketel One Gibson at 9:15 a.m. Well, that’s my PR for stiffest drink earliest in the day, he thought. At that hour he had had no trouble commandeering a bar stool by an empty round bar table.
The same cute blonde as before was doing the news. Sasha something. The lead story was something about a runaway barge. The President was speaking somewhere about something boring. Just before the sports, the weather, the Hollywood minute, the I don’t know what all, the blonde said “The market is responding favorably today to encouraging economic news. The Consumer Price Index, which had been edging upward in recent months, took an unexpected turn for the better. Inflation in September was just two tenths of a percent, down a tenth from the previous month and lower than most forecasts. Analysts said lower oil prices were responsible. After the break: Headline Sports.”
Josh stared toward the commercial for an antacid, but didn’t see it. His eyes focused on a point in mid-air, about three feet past his nose. He said things along the line of “Oh shit. Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. Oh fuck me. Oh fucking no.” His knees were watery. He had to pee.
After a while he looked around. No one noticed. The bartender was chatting with the single on-duty cocktail waitress as he dried glassware. How could they not notice? He wondered if this is what it felt like to walk out of the doctor’s office into the world having just heard that you only had a month to live.
He took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, but didn’t know who to call. Mona? Right, she’d be a big help. Scott? What the hell had happened? But Scott couldn’t talk about it now. Josh had no idea how to call Hansi directly.
What the fuck had happened? He chewed the ice from the Gibson, still focusing on the same vanishing point. He felt a hand on his elbow. The waitress was standing there. “Would you like another?" she said.
Josh looked at her like she was speaking Estonian. “What?" he said.
“Can I get you another drink or something? Is everything OK?”
I guess she, at least, had noticed. Noticed that everything was, in fact, not fucking OK. Not at all. He’d have to think fast this time. Later, though. At the moment he was busy panicking.
“Cuervo Gold. Up. Double. Please.”
She stared at him for another moment, then walked back to the bar.
Josh was suddenly aware of the busy street, light pouring into the bar with its brand new dark aged wood. People streamed by. Sooner or later one would glance in and see Josh sitting there. His face would give it all away.
Chapter 34
Schneider did not know how to kill a man with just a credit card. He was master of no ancient martial arts. He did not speak accentless Arabic. He was not irresistible to women.
Schneider did not smuggle any firearms through customs. He did not carry a special radio disguised as an electric shaver. He did not use one-time pads, or disappearing ink, to encrypt messages.
Schneider was not a sleuth. He did not try to get inside the mind of his quarry. In fact, he didn’t think of his assignments as ‘quarry’.
Schneider was a policeman. At the moment, he was an employee of the Bank, but that didn’t change his profession. He thought that probably policemen all over the world were pretty much the same. The word ‘policewoman’ was more or less a curiosity for him, something like ‘white tiger’.
Schneider was not a philosopher. Still, he thought sometimes about what he and other policemen did for a living. What people want as individuals does not agree with what they want as a society. They hire policemen to deal with that disagreement. Every person is greedy. But everyone cannot be too greedy, because there isn’t enough to go around. So the police make sure nobody is too greedy. Everybody, not just Italians, want to drive as fast as they can on the autobahn. But not everybody can. So the police make sure that everybody is a little bit unhappy all the time.
When he was a new policeman in St. Gallen, Schneider had often been shocked. Once, neighbors heard a young baby screaming and screaming, enough to convince even the Swiss to not mind their own business. When Schneider and his partner went into the home, the home of a printer, they found a baby scalded all over his little body. His partner could tell from the pattern of the burns that the baby had been dipped into a pot of boiling water. His partner could tell this because he had seen it several times before, on the bodies of other Swiss babies.
Very soon, Schneider’s ability to be shocked was replaced by a kind of acceptance. Schneider did not feel superior to the printer, or to the kids in Needle Park, or the Turkish smash-and-grab people, or to the small men with the thick glasses that embezzled.
Schneider was not an imposing physical specimen. He couldn’t hold his breath for minutes at a time – in fact he hadn’t been swimming since he was a schoolboy. He had never jumped over a fence, or out of third story window, or from the top of one high building to another in pursuit of a criminal.
He had never even been in a Porsche, much less driven one at breakneck speed while evading a carload of thugs.
He was of average height, with sandy hair. He had grown up the son of a farmer and was still solid through the thighs and shoulders. He still enjoyed his summer weeks in the Army. He was a sergeant in a reconnaissance platoon. They spent their time hiking through high meadows, reporting to headquarters on imaginary enemy parachute landings near vital installations.
Schneider did not think of himself as tenacious, or relentless, or implacable. But then, he didn’t think of himself that much anyway. He had heard other people use these words. Sometimes his employers. Sometimes his assignments.
The Bank employed many people to maintain security. Every boy who sees the Matterhorn wants to climb it, even though not all try and not all that try succeed. Some even die in the attempt. Schneider thought of The Bank this way. Every person, not just every criminal, looked at the bank and thought of what was inside and how it could make his life better.
Schneider did not work in a department. He worked directly for Mr. Reuss. He was one of Mr. Reuss’s personal assistants. He had a small office – at least it had a door – in the middle of the Auditing department.
Mr. Reuss gave him his assignments
face-to-face. Usually Mr. Reuss gave him a manila envelope, with a photo and a few pages of information. Even though Schneider was not an imaginative man, he had no trouble understanding what Mr. Reuss expected from his assignments.
This morning Mr. Reuss had asked Schneider to have a talk with Hansi Renggli, a medium-high manager at the bank, who was on a trip to New York. Schneider had never met Renggli before. The talk couldn’t wait. Mr. Reuss had suggested that they discuss certain currency trades that Mr. Renggli had approved.
Schneider was not an expert in international finance. To tell the truth, Schneider was an expert in just one area: getting people to tell the truth. Not the part of the truth that they were comfortable telling, or that they had prepared in advance to tell, or had learned to live with. The whole truth, as Mr. Reuss would want to hear it.
Schneider used a very simple, three-step technique to convince people to tell him the whole truth. First, he made sure that he had their undivided attention. Next, he made sure they understood what he wanted to know. Lastly, he looked at them in a certain way, until they had told them the whole, complete truth. He really didn’t have to know anything about the subject at hand, other than to be able to ask the question. The way that he looked at his assignments convinced them, every time, that telling him the whole truth was preferable to whatever alternatives Schneider had in his mind.
Once he had traveled to Morocco, to interview a deposed dictator from a country in Central Africa. The dictator was a Muslim, at least in name, so he had been granted asylum in Morocco.
The former dictator was not accustomed to being interviewed. He kept looking at the door of the small room in the government building that the Moroccan government had been kind enough to arrange. Once he left in a huff. Schneider heard raised voices outside the office, speaking English. The former dictator returned a few minutes later, in a more talkative mood. He told Schneider many, many things about the finances of his country and of his family.
Part of Schneider’s technique was to choose the place for the interview with care. In a foreign city was tricky – you needed privacy, you needed a setting where you could get the assignment’s complete attention, and you needed time. On the other hand Schneider had worked in New York
Chapter 35
Malcolm and Al Simmons went way back. Actually, Malcolm had been in the Bureau for several years already when Al came on board. In the beginning Al was a keep your nose clean type and a fairly hard worker. He and Malcolm had become office friends, who see each other socially with the wives maybe once a year. Malcolm didn’t happen to golf, which was Al’s big passion.
There was never a real career rivalry between them. Al was more politically adept than Malcolm, but that wasn’t really saying much. Al had mainly gotten to his current position through time-in-grade. Typically for this level of middle management, Simmons had lost the gratification that comes from doing the work, and had not gained enough power to influence events to compensate. As a result he was pretty much always in a bitchy mood. Malcolm’s inclination to listen to this waxed and waned.
Today the subject was the consultants, a familiar theme. The building was old enough that Albert had an actual office with a door, which was customarily closed for these sessions.
“So this son of a bitch gives me the nice guy routine. We’re all in this together. Right?”
“Which one? Val?”
“Right. Val. You know the definition of a consultant, Malcom? Somebody from out of town who makes more money than I do.”
“He seems OK. Albert, you know there’s going to be consultants on your neck, in your shorts, in your dreams and so on from now ‘til doomsday. Lay back, as they say, and enjoy it.”
“Easy for you to say, Mr. individual contributor. I got key performance indicators. I got personnel reviews in the middle of all this other shit. Christ.”
You also got the pay raise, Malcolm thought. “What’s the specific problem?”
“The specific problem is this, specifically. These wise asses are concerned about the QA of the Y2K work their own crew is doing. Calder and Crane. My little whiz kids.”
“Why are they concerned?”
“They did not deign to share that reasoning with this lowly civil servant. Something about a random audit of sensitive project components or some shit.”
“Maybe that’s built into their government contract or something.”
“Whatever. I just know it’s more grief for yours truly, just when I don’t need it.”
“Have they said anything specific or are they just sniffing around?”
“Nothing specific. But I have the idea they’re not just sniffing either," Albert said.
“How’s that?”
“Kowalski or whatever his name is – Val – requested access to some particular modules. He has clearance from the big boss to get whatever he needs. The security guys just about puked. You ever know a guy named Val before?”
“What kind of clearance?”
“I got a phone call. Nothing would be in writing, but give them whatever they need. What I think they need is a swift kick in the ass and a one-way ticket back to Hilton Head or wherever they go thanks to the taxpayers. Goddamned boondoggle.”
“Albert, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You need hip boots and a magnifying glass to find your way through most of that old stuff. I doubt that our young friends are up to any mischief, and I doubt even more that Val and his crew would find anything even if they are.”
“I hope you’re right, Malcolm. What I don’t need right now is some Internal Audit assholes climbing all over.”
“I’d relax, Albert. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and see what I can find out. Both Scott’s and Val’s teams need me to get to square one on this stuff. Maybe I’ll be a little less cooperative and see what crawls out from a rock.”
“Just keep me in the loop, Malcolm.”
Malcolm stood up, gave Simmons a thumbs-up, opened the door and walked back to his cube.
Chapter 36
Mr. Schneider rented a Ford Taurus when he landed at Kennedy. He drove straight to the Swiss Consulate and picked up a package. It included various identification papers, a fair amount of cash, a cellular phone, and a sidearm with rounds and holster.
Hansi Renggli’s secretary in Zurich (over here they were now called “assistants”) gave him the name of the hotel. The Bank had given him a counterfeit version of Renggli's Swiss driver’s license, with Mr. Schneider’s picture on it. He went to the front desk and told the clerk that he had both locked his key in his room and forgotten his room number. People always said he had an honest face. He could have probably gotten the key with just a shrug and a sheepish smile, dressed as he was. Immigrants were a part of the everyday texture of a city like New York. Mr. Schneider had very little trouble doing his work here. Operating elsewhere in America was more difficult, since his accent made people curious if not downright suspicious.
He sat in the dark in Hansi’s very posh room. It was almost four in the morning when Hansi let himself in. Mr. Schneider had positioned himself so he couldn’t be seen from the door. He waited until Hansi had gone into the bathroom and peed before speaking, in Swiss German:
“Mr. Renggli, Mr. Reuss has sent me to ask you some questions.”
Renggli, suspenders halfway off his shoulders, stood frozen.
“Who are you?, he said, trying to sound indignant.
“Schneider. From the home office. Security.”
“Security? Is this normal procedure, to break into someone’s room?”
Mr. Schneider remained silent. Renggli's reaction was entirely predictable.
“And at this hour. Is this entirely necessary?”
“Mr. Renggli, as I said, Mr. Reuss has asked me to ask you some questions. I think you know the matter they are regarding.”
Renggli was a typical blowhard. He was equally c
oncerned about the crease in his pants, his reputation, his career and his kneecaps. Mr. Schneider, without ever directly threatening, managed to play off all those fears. He placed a small tape recorder on a small round table. Renggli talked and talked after each of Mr. Schneider’s questions. Only twice did Mr. Schneider have to ask a question twice, a little more firmly.
By the end of the interview at six fifteen Renggli was weeping like a woman – an emotional non-Swiss woman with too much makeup. Mr. Schneider made no attempt to comfort him, nor did he abuse him. He simply made it clear what would happen next.
He had gotten some sleep after Renggli had left for the New York office. Renggli had suggested the restaurant in the SoHo neighborhood. Mr. Schneider made a telephone call to the New York Police Department and spoke with a captain in a branch in Queens. In the early afternoon he drove to the address he had been given, after stopping in a small store on Lexington that sold all manner of electronics.
Mr. Schneider had never killed a person. He didn’t even like to hunt. But his assignments didn’t know that he hadn’t, and he had no trouble convincing them that he would kill them, with neither relish nor regret, if they failed to live up to the agreements they made. Mr. Schneider just naturally looked like the last person in the world you wanted angry with you.
The Bank was not interested in retribution. This was about money. Whatever they were, the managers in Zurich held no illusions about the relationship between money and human nature. They treated problems like this for what they were: just business. It was bad business for The Bank to receive publicity about foreign exchange trades involving manipulating U.S. government statistics.
Mr. Schneider was, in the first and last analysis, just a policeman. If his assignments had nightmares about him later, that was their own fault.
Chapter 37
Scott’s speakers were each each the size of a washing machine. His place was cluttered with books, CDs, vinyl records and sheet music. A synthesizer was set up at right angles to a typing table with a computer on it. Both were in front of the large screen TV.
Wilton walked over to one of the bookcases and began reading the titles. Scott cleared some music off the couch and gestured for Val and Jenny to sit down. They declined Scott’s offer for drinks or snacks.