Middle Man

by David Rich

  I walked toward the door, expecting Gill to stop me, or two of the suits to grab me when I passed into the hall. Instead, the King spoke. “I will assume your refusal to bow stems from a matter of principle, Mr. Hewitt, and is not a personal affront.”

  I stopped and turned to him. “I don’t know you well enough for a personal affront. Not yet, anyway.”

  The King stood up. He put his left hand on his midsection to smooth his coat and, with his right, gestured with a casual wave for Zoran to stand back. Zoran managed to snarl in my direction before complying. The King was short, heavy chested, and thick at the waist. His movements were careful and smooth. Wavy salt and pepper hair made him resemble the soon to be foiled continental lothario in a black and white movie. He looked tired. His eyebrows flickered slightly before he spoke.

  “Bring Mr. Hewitt a chair. And coffee.”

  Zoran took a moment to scowl in my direction, but he did a lousy job of it. He threw out some orders in the other language and clapped his hands. A moment later, a servant came in and moved a chair near the King’s chair for me to sit on.

  I walked over. Before the King sat down, I offered my hand. He looked it over the way people look over the lobsters in a tank: something they have no intention of touching. But he overcame his aversion and shook. Zoran’s disgust with that was real. I sat down quickly, before he could pull the chair away. I waited like a patient pupil for the King to make the first move.

  “I have many enemies, Mr. Hewitt. In fact, I believe you are acquainted with some of them. And because of your acquaintance with these parties, I am put in a difficult situation. I need your help but must first believe I can trust your discretion.”

  I wanted to laugh. I could have taken my phone back from Gill and dialed The New York Times and told them to listen up, and the King was still going to pretend to trust my discretion. “I have no idea if you can trust my discretion or not. Something has happened to Maya and you don’t want people to know. Let’s start there.”

  “Maya said you are an interesting man, Mr. Hewitt.” The line sounded rehearsed. Everything he said sounded that way, all with the aim of simulating sincerity. But he was not a good enough actor to pull it off.

  “Call me Robert.”

  “Maya called after she left you last night. She had great hope that we would be able to find common ground. I hope so, too. I regret the difficult start we have had. But I warn you that I regard betrayal as the worst possible crime. The only unforgivable crime.” He turned away from me and looked out toward the pool and returned to his calm, elegant voice. “Maya did not return home at all last night. Just over three hours ago, at approximately two A.M., we received a phone call telling us that she has been kidnapped. I am hopeful that you could shed some light on this.” He was very calm for a guy with a kidnapped daughter.

  The black SUV hung from the ceiling, revving, its exhaust filling the room. One of us was going to mention it someday. The King was in no rush. I looked up. “Who was in the black SUV?” I said.

  Coffee was served. A servant placed a small table next to me and another next to the King. He was served first. He sipped a bit after the servant left, while he calculated his reply.

  “Well, well, Robert, Maya was right about you, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she, Zoran? I must say you are sharp. In fact, that was what I was about to ask you. You see, we know about it. They were following me earlier in the week and then last night Arun, that’s Maya’s chauffeur, reported that he saw them. And, of course, that’s when you appeared as well. You can understand Arun’s suspicions.”

  “And Zoran’s,” I said. “How about yours?”

  The King flicked his left eyebrow up and down. It might have been a tic, but I thought it was intentional. Showing off? I resisted the temptation to imitate him. “You’re in no position, Mr. Hewitt, to banter with me.”

  “Sure I am, King. I can banter until you call the police. And then I can leave. But, if you don’t want to call them yet, that’s fine with me; I haven’t finished my coffee.” Nothing in my manner or tone could re-chisel Gill’s features. Zoran was easy. If it weren’t for the soft dawn light invading the room, I was sure I could have seen the smoke pouring out of his ears.

  They were slow about getting to the point. I did not want to do all the heavy lifting but the vague, meaningless threats were getting to me. Impatience nudged me, though I had plenty of time. I put my cup down and said, “How much did they ask for?”

  “That, Mr. Hewitt, is confidential information.”

  I stood up. “I’ll leave now. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you and you don’t want to tell me anything more.” I turned to Gill. “I’d like to have my phone and wallet back.”

  At last his eyes moved. To the King.

  The King said, “Return Mr. Hewitt’s belongings to him.”

  Gill reached into the side pocket of his jacket and held out the phone and wallet. I went over to take them from him because I had caught on that he was not likely to move first.

  “Now, Mr. Hewitt, you are free to go. Zoran will arrange a ride to your hotel. But I ask you to stay. I find myself in a difficult position, Mr. Hewitt, in two ways. The first caused by the abductors of my daughter. The second is, well . . . frankly, it is not my habit to ask for help.”

  Help. I understood that language. Help meant money.

  Maybe he knew who kidnapped Maya, maybe he was in on it, maybe he was innocent of that part, but he was going to use it to con me out of money. That was certain. That was the first priority. He was fit to be a king, after all. That he was doing exactly as I wanted him to only made it seem worse.

  Dan, to his credit, was not poking me in the ribs and saying, “See, I wasn’t nearly that bad.” Instead, he said, “He scares me.”

  “I didn’t know you could be scared, even when you were alive.”

  “He scares me. I know you won’t leave, but I would.”

  “I can’t leave because I’m a greedy, cocky, overconfident business whiz who is slavering to take advantage of their misfortune. And I have to stay and be patient enough to let them make the first offer.”

  “I think he’s dangerous.”

  “You think he’s the puppet master?”

  “I think it bothers him that he’s not in charge. He suspects he’s a fraud. That’s what scares me.”

  I should have tried harder to understand what Dan was seeing. Instead, I looked at the King and said, “How can I help?”

  13

  The magic words earned me a guided tour of the grounds by His Majesty himself. Zoran and Gill were left behind. A path lined with rosebushes led to the swimming pool, which had one of those automatic cleaners floating in a corner. A large pool house was fronted by a wide patio and flanked by beds of flowers. When we got to the tennis court, the King soon lost interest in talking about the grounds. “Do you play?” he asked.

  The only time I ever touched a tennis racquet was when I stole one, brand-new, from a sporting goods store just to prove I could do it. I threw it into the dumpster behind the store. “Yes,” I said.

  “We must play then, sometime when this matter is cleared up.”

  “I look forward to it,” I said.

  “My people, Mr. Hewitt—”

  “Please call me Robert.”

  “Robert, my people are an ancient people. We have been without our own country, the ability to control our destiny, for too long. We yearn for freedom and unity. I know you are sympathetic or else you would not have allied with the Kongra-Gel. We are spread across four countries, and in each one we have been murdered and oppressed. All this is well documented. Yet we persevere. I know that my dream, my goal of uniting all the Kurdish people in their own nation, is regarded as foolishness by most people. I know this. But my life is dedicated to this quest. This burden has been placed on me and I must live up to it. I must and I will. Imagin
e not only your father’s faith and hope for you, but his father and fifty generations of fathers. It is only under the ancient crown that our people can ever be united and free. Only under our ancient crown can we regain our glory and achieve our destiny. I am a patriot first and last. A patriot beyond borders.”

  He stopped, satisfied with himself. I kept quiet as we walked back toward the pool house. I once had a teacher named Miss Bagnolia. Miss Bagnolia wore black the whole time I was in her class because someone in her family had died. She thought she would solve me by making me repeat, “Every day in every way, I am getting better and better.” At first I thought it was a lie I was practicing to convince others what a great teacher she was. After about a month, it dawned on me that I was supposed to convince myself. The King’s speech was passionate and passionately delivered, but more for his benefit than mine, as if he needed to repeat it to remind himself that the pain was real.

  At the pool house, the King opened a laptop and played a video for me that laid out the whole case for Kurdish nationalism from thousands of years back. There was a Median Empire and they fought the Assyrians and eventually lost. The real Aryans were Kurds, and they are the original rulers of this vast territory that now is divided into Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The video showed an ancient tomb cut in the rock face and supported by carved pillars that had been eaten by time. “Thought to be,” “Might be,” “Regarded as”: Those phrases dominated. Names repeated, adding to the confusion. If it were history, I would have paid attention, but it felt like Sunday school. I couldn’t know what really happened. I would never know. No one ever could. They would believe instead of knowing. I could not believe.

  My eyes glazed over and I thought about the King and what he was selling. What is patriotism to a king? Egomania. The loyalty, the passion, the fervor were to the King, to himself. All the insane vows and deceptions that go with zealous patriotism are put through the turbocharger of self-interest. This king seemed soft. I tried to keep Dan’s warning in mind. Softness can be used as a weapon, too, when combined with egomania. I could not picture this guy as the puppet master. He did not have the focus. The passion felt canned, salted, gooey. The man who put this conspiracy together would own intensity. This King owned wistfulness.

  Servants were setting a table on the patio. The King held my arm. “My situation is complicated, Robert. I cannot access the necessary funds, a million dollars, for Maya’s freedom in a timely manner. And I doubt whoever has done this will be willing to listen to reason.” He wiggled the eyebrow again. This time I was closer and wanted to put my thumb on it to make it stop.

  “I don’t know who we’re talking about, or why they kidnapped Maya. But I never heard of reasonable kidnappers. They’re going to want cash and fast. The police have experience with this kind of thing.”

  “We are guests in this country. I don’t trust the police to be discreet, or to understand the complexities of our situation. You can see the difficulty of my position. On the one hand, my daughter’s life is at stake. On the other lies the fate of my people. I cannot betray either. But if I had help, if some friend helped, my gratitude would be boundless. That friend would be honored in the Kurdish nation. I promise you that.”

  “How much can you put in?”

  I suppose once you have convinced people you’re a king, even if you don’t have a throne or a country to rule, you have handled the toughest task, and convincing people to cooperate in other ways is relatively easy. People will put up money just to be near you, figuring they can peddle influence elsewhere. Until you have a country to run, you’re not expected to put up your share. The King shook his head and looked at me as if I were a thief who wouldn’t take credit cards.

  “To obtain cash immediately would mean disrupting most delicate plans and operations.”

  “So you’d need the full amount.”

  “You understand. I knew you would.”

  “What form would your gratitude take?”

  “Ah, Robert, you’re negotiating. I should have known.”

  I could not offer to turn over a million dollars without something valuable in return, and I could not demand too much because I was supposed to be wise enough to know that he couldn’t sell out his nation, imaginary as it might be. A million does not buy much in the oil business. One small block of oil rights costs many multiples of a million.

  “You’re going to have plenty of companies bidding on the rights. Different blocks are going be attractive to different bidders. And you’re going to have investors who want to get in on any pipeline construction arrangements.”

  “What do you have in mind, Robert?”

  “How are you organizing all that?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I shrugged. “Do you use the pool much?”

  “Please, Robert, my daughter’s life hangs in the balance. Speak your thoughts.”

  “I could organize the auction for you. Take my cut from that. We’d be partners. Say, two percent.”

  He stomped his feet, walked away, came back, pulled me close, accused me of disrespecting his throne and his country, being a Turkish agent, a Syrian thief, an Iranian spy, and about everything else he thought he could get away with and still have the deal go through.

  When he was done, I said, “One and a half for the first one hundred million. Two percent after that.”

  He shook his head, looked to the sky as if for advice, or at least to pretend he was thinking about it. “Maya was right about you. We have a deal.”

  He was sure he had me conned and that the negotiating was over and I let him think that for a while. Breakfast was waiting on the patio. Zoran stood a few feet from the table and barred my way for a moment so the King could sit first. A servant poured coffee for the King, and then for me. The servant poured cream over a gooey looking pastry and sprinkled it with sugar as carefully as one would fill a syringe. He served it to the King. I had eggs and toast on my plate. The King dug in as soon as the servant finished his work. After savoring a few bites, he stopped long enough to say, “It’s called kahi. I like so many things Western, but I insist on kahi for breakfast whenever I am able.”

  When he finished the pastry, he downed the rest of his coffee and said, “Well, the banks should be open momentarily. I’ll have Zoran arrange a ride for you.”

  “I have a few questions before we get started.”

  “But this is hardly the time.”

  “Not about our arrangement. Tell me about the chauffeur.”

  “Arun is completely trustworthy. He has been with me since I was in school. He’s devoted to Maya.”

  I asked about threats and his contact with the enemies he mentioned. There had always been threats but nothing new and particular. He would not put a name on any enemies. The call came in on his cell phone, from Maya’s phone.

  “Did you answer the call?”

  “Zoran screens my calls.”

  “But this call came at two A.M. Were you concerned that Maya was not home yet? Did she often stay out that late? What did Arun say about the black SUV? Was Arun suspicious of me?” I bunched the questions fast to see if he would get flustered. He didn’t.

  “You act as though you have done this before. Not like an investor in oil.”

  “I’ll deliver the money myself. I’ll need your cell phone so when they call, I can make arrangements with them.”

  “But you agreed to give me the money.”

  “I agreed to put up the ransom for Maya. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  He looked all around. I thought he wanted Gill or Zoran, but a servant came out and poured the coffee that was inches from the King’s hand. “That is not what I understood, Robert. Zoran and Mr. Gill must handle this. Mr. Gill has a team of security people. Most competent. You yourself saw this at your hotel. For Maya’s sake. I insist.”

  I held my tongue and let him move at h
is own slow speed to the only conclusion. He smiled at me. I smiled back. The eyebrow went up to show that he had made an excellent case and it was my turn to give in. I poured my own coffee. The soft swoosh of the fan held the beat for the chirping, invisible birds. Again, the King looked toward the trees beyond the tennis court. I did not know him well enough to tell whether he was dreaming, whining, or calculating. I expected another brief plea to see things his way, but he turned to me sharply, suddenly. He seemed startled by his thoughts. For a guy who appeared to have rehearsed most of his act in front of a mirror, it was a naked and puzzling moment. I thought he made me for a fake. But he said, “I’ll let you handle it your way. What’s the first step?”

  The suddenness worried me and so did the omission of threats and warnings about the consequences of failure. I did not understand what it meant. I couldn’t have. And I’m not sure, looking back, if I had understood what made the King react as he did, I would have changed anything. “I’ll need Maya’s cell phone number and Arun’s.”

  The King slipped his arm through mine as we walked to the house. He had the style and elegance to pull it off. “Zoran and Mr. Gill will cooperate fully and give you any assistance you require. Those will be my orders.”

  “I’d rather leave them out of it.”

  “If you insist. You will deal directly with me.”

  He delivered the bad news to Zoran and Gill in the throne room. Zoran scowled. Gill might have been breathing. And immediately the King undercut it all by telling Zoran to write down the phone numbers I had asked for.

  Zoran spoke to the King in that other language. The seething tone made the message clear, though I could understand enough of the words: Don’t trust this American. Zoran warned the King that I might figure things out. The King said something that sounded like it meant “Who is your brain?” Zoran lowered his eyes.

  I did not wait to see if this argument was going to continue. “I’ll go get the money now. I should take your cell phone with me so if they call, I can make the arrangements.”