Middle Man

by David Rich

  She smiled. “You’re just talking about yourself.”

  She asked me to hold her and I did until she fell asleep.

  At Ramstein, I asked Maya to rent the car in her name. I found the flight coordinator and booked myself on the next flight to the U.S., going to Lackland, as Rollie Waters. I was not going to board the flight. I booked a commercial flight from Frankfurt to New York as Robert Hewitt. I was not boarding that one, either. All this was just a precaution to keep Victor off my tail until I was ready to deal with him.

  The school was set in the foothills outside Geneva. Iron gates, bigger than the iron gates at the houses in Houston, gave way to a bricked drive that opened onto a huge courtyard. We had to show ID to the security men at the gate. I think I saw a stray leaf on the bricks, but it might have been a fake, some student artwork. The first building was wide and beige, three stories with a mansard roof and two wings. We left the car and walked toward the door in the middle section of the building. A burly security man in a red sport coat and gray slacks watched us from a kiosk. Another one watched us from the foyer, but he did not open the door for us. There were plenty of security cameras.

  The secretary seemed used to this kind of intrusion. She checked a schedule and told us that Aza was in French class, which would end in twenty minutes. She offered to call him out immediately, but Maya told her we would wait.

  The terrace overlooked a swimming pool. Below lay the lake, wide and dark blue. Geneva was visible to the left, partially blocked by another three-story building. The red clay tennis courts were on the right. The soccer fields were beyond. And behind us, bulging high above the building, were snow-covered Alps.

  It reminded me of a resort where I once spent the night in Colorado with a woman who insisted it was better to spend all our money at once on something really nice than spreading it out over time in crummy places. She was right. We spent the rest of the trip sleeping in the car or on rocky spots beside the road, but the resort was worth the money.

  “Are you going to keep him here?”

  “Johnny insisted on a Swiss school. He mistrusted the English schools. ‘They grow up to be people I dominate,’ he said. ‘The schools can’t be any good.’ Besides, this is probably the safest place.” A sailboat appeared on the lake, too small and far away for any of the crew to be seen. Three birds lifted off and flew toward the town.

  A small, thin boy with wavy, light brown hair emerged from the building on the left. He saw Maya and waved and started to run along the path.

  “Don’t tell him,” Maya said.

  “About his father?”

  “His grandfather. I don’t want him to know yet that he’ll be king.”

  Aza ran up and hugged his mother, then broke and waited politely to be introduced. Maya introduced me as Rollie. He shook my hand. He kept his suspicions in check.

  “Your father asked Rollie to come here to meet you. They’re great friends.”

  We sat down, and Maya asked Aza if he was happy with the school and about the food and his teachers. Everything sounded okay. He was neither sullen nor forthcoming. He was waiting for the purpose of the visit to be revealed. He had already learned that no one ever dropped in to see him just because they missed him. And my presence settled the matter quickly for him. I recognized the situation. He assumed, of course, that some disappointment would be involved.

  I often imagined some stranger arriving and telling me Dan was dead. I imagined faking pain at the news, or just demonstrating my indifference, or using the sympathy to run away or even to nestle in if I were staying with Lita or one of Dan’s other girlfriends who smelled nice and treated me well. But the strangers always disappointed me.

  I was about ten, around Aza’s age, when I was either kidnapped or left as collateral; I never found out which it was. A couple, Ollie and Marvin, knocked on the door so many times that I finally let them in. Dan was out. Ollie sat on the couch and pretended to watch TV with me while Marvin searched the apartment. Then he joined us with a big drink of Dan’s booze. Pretty soon I could not hear the TV because they were arguing about whose fault everything was. Ollie told me to go to my room. But we were in my room; I slept on the couch in that place. Marvin’s phone rang and he went in the kitchen and did some loud swearing. Then they told me to put on my shoes because we were leaving. Of course I told them I would not go. They started bribing me with offers of food. I made them promise to take me to the putt-putt place I had often seen from the car.

  They took me to a crummy hotel and bought McDonald’s burgers. I put the pickles under the covers for a surprise for them later. The arguing got worse. They argued in a way Dan never did; they did a lot of name calling. Dan’s girlfriends or business associates called him plenty of names, but Dan never talked that way. Pretending he liked the people he was arguing with was an essential component of his act.

  Ollie told Marvin he was a moron, and Marvin did not take long to accuse Ollie of sleeping with Dan, which I’m sure was true. He called her a slut. Marvin’s phone rang, but they did not hear it, so I took it in the bathroom and answered. It was Dan. That was one of the few times it was pleasant to hear his voice. He was so calm and relaxed. I knew that overplaying things would not help with him, so I did not claim that they hit me or anything, only that Marvin was drunk and all they did was fight. Dan asked if I could sneak away. I told him I could. He said he would pick me up. I did not know where I was and the wastebasket in the bathroom said Red Roof Inn, but I had no idea which one. Dan decided I should just get out and run and, first chance I got, go into a restaurant or gas station and ask to use the phone and call him. I said I would find my own way home and Dan said, “No, pal, can’t go back there for a little while unless you want to go back to the Red Roof Inn, too.”

  I threw the phone in the toilet. Marvin and Ollie had lost a little steam and it was not long before Ollie demanded Marvin call Dan again. While Marvin searched around for his phone, I positioned myself near the door. He made Ollie help him look. As soon as he found it, I turned off the lights, pulled the chain off the door, and ran out.

  I don’t think they chased me. I heard Ollie yell, “Oh, forget the fucking kid.” I caught a bus and rode all night without calling Dan. I was still young enough to think he might worry about where I was.

  Maya suggested Aza take me on a tour of the school while she spoke with Mr. Labiche, the headmaster. When she left, Aza said, “Are you dating my mother?”

  I said yes because I knew he would take no as a lie. I was going to lie to him later. He had his grandfather’s manners, a courtly ten-year-old. The building we were in was for the upper school. Aza was eager for the chance to wander through there with protection beside him; this was forbidden territory for a boy from the lower school. Security cameras checked our movements, and security men appeared around corners. They did not smile or nod or acknowledge us at all and it seemed that the students did not notice them. The students did not notice Aza, either. There were probably more legitimate kings attending classes there.

  Aza showed me his dorm room, which he shared with two others. He had a view of the mountains. No bunk beds here. Each bed was tucked into a small alcove. Each boy had his own closet.

  We left the room and walked outside toward a cafeteria where some students were hanging around. “Do your roommates steal from you?”

  “The older boys come in and steal. They treat it as their right.”

  “What do they take?”

  “Someone took my watch. My father gave it to me. And someone took Nigel’s Kindle. They don’t take phones, at least.”

  “What about the envelopes that come from the banks? The ones you save for your father?”

  “Oh . . .” He was about to answer but caught himself because he had been told never to mention those envelopes. I could see Bannion taking Aza sailing or fishing, a special outing, just the boys, initiation, and explaining about secret
s and their importance, and how the men of the family must keep their secrets from everyone, that it was secrets that made the man. Secrets were holy. And, if Aza kept the envelopes secret, there would be many more days like that one, with better secrets to follow.

  Maya was approaching. Aza looked at me and said, “I have not seen my father in almost a year.”

  Maya and I talked for a few moments about how beautiful the school was and how much I wished I could have attended a school like this. Aza watched me and I could feel the mistrust. If you’re going to be King of Nothingistan someday, you might as well learn to be mistrustful at an early age.

  Maya and Aza went off together. It was time for the bad news. I went back to Aza’s room and found the paperwork I wanted from the banks, in a wooden box at the bottom of his closet. A security man was down the hallway when I came out of the room. I walked straight to him and told him Aza’s father had died and grandfather, too, and that there were political implications that the kid was unaware of. It was possible that enemies might come around to take advantage of the situation. Extra security was essential. He thanked me for letting him know.

  Aza was crying and looked like he meant it. Not a big hysterical show, just tears flowing down while Maya held his hand on the terrace. He was a rich, spoiled kid living at this luxury resort and would someday parade around the world calling himself royalty and I could talk to him, sympathize with him, care about him. But confronted with genuine tears at the news of his father’s death, I was flummoxed, could offer no genuine consolation. I did not know how he felt. I sat next to them and said nothing.

  I was taking the riches his father had left him and leaving him with his grandfather’s legacy of delusion: the delusion that royalty existed as anything more impressive than a ribbon or a medal that could be bought at the art supply store. The King’s patrimony was a perpetual Halloween.

  Rather than one of the grand Geneva hotels, we stayed at Hotel de la Cigogne, a small hotel where Maya had stayed with Bannion early in their marriage. We walked through the old city, which felt abandoned at nine P.M., and ate dinner. On the way back, Maya said, “I know you laugh at my pretensions, at the Kingdom of Kurdistan.”

  “Does it matter if I laugh? Do you want me to believe in it?”

  “Imagine if I let it go. If I pulled Aza away from it and he dropped it and never mentioned it to his children. In a short time, it would disappear, disappear forever. And we would never know if it could have happened. Never know if the kingdom could have been restored.”

  “I don’t mind the idea of a united Kurdistan. Means nothing to me. As for kings, if the boy is going to be one, it’s from his father. You were married to one.”

  She took my arm. “You could at least pretend to believe in royalty.”

  “Why?”

  “Then I would not mind liking you so much.”

  We made love, affectionately this time, slow and easy. That was probably the last time. I boarded a plane for Los Angeles in the morning.

  29

  The stewardess is cute. Send back the wine so I can see what kind of personality she has.”

  The flight was Dan time. He belonged in first class much more than I did. I told the stewardess the wine tasted wrong. She said, “I agree. I was waiting for someone to notice.” I don’t know if she meant it, but her personality was fine. My mind was leaning toward corpses and royalty. I took the envelopes from my bag. Each came from an investment house in the U.S. Each one started with some version of “JB Limited in cust for Aza Karkukli Bannion.” The first one I opened listed a current balance of about forty-two million dollars. The next was twenty-six million. The last was thirty-nine million. Aza was a nine-figure man.

  “It’s a great feeling, leaving money to your child,” Dan said.

  The stewardess asked, “Are you okay?”

  I had choked on Dan’s comment. I reassured her. She brought me water.

  “It would have been more fun to take it away from the kid if he knew it was there.”

  “You mean if he knew it was gone,” I said.

  “Do you think Maya knew about the money?”

  “I’m sure she did not know the boy received the envelopes. Bannion would never have let that out.”

  “But she knew there was always money. Those rented mansions in Houston. Bannion’s large staff of his boys. The supposed effort to obtain the throne for her father. She was around, had to hear talk of Saddam’s stolen stash.”

  “But if she knew, she would not have looked to me to help get money for the King. She would have just wanted Bannion killed.”

  “Well, then.”

  Dan did not deliver bad news. Dan allowed bad news to ripple naturally, through silence, preferably in his absence. I did not like thinking that Maya saw me as a potential assassin from the start, though it might have been the case, whether she knew about the money or not. As part of my self-indulgence I had assumed “savior” meant something noble. I was infatuated with an image of Maya, and an image of myself.

  Consoling me, Dan said, “She didn’t carry on when Bannion died. If she thought she would be coming into all that money, she would have pretended that his death devastated her. Besides, no one knew but Bannion that the money wasn’t in the graves. He loved her. But that’s different from trusting her.”

  I did not care if she knew or not. She was going to have to pretend that it was all legit money when the legal moves to recover the money hit her. She would consider it her sacred duty to fight for the treasury of United Kurdistan. I settled back in my seat, thinking of the curses and hatred that would be launched in my direction.

  “Bannion’s only mistake was relying on the consistency of the King. But it was hard to figure that guy would choose martyrdom.”

  “If Bannion lived, I had him.”

  “Did you? Dead Soldiers? Clever boy? He was going to take you for a tour of grave sites around the country. Oh, look, here’s a million dollars. And here is a corpse. Maybe the money was removed. So sorry. And soon enough, you would be distracted enough for him to slip away. You know he had a plan to slip away. And if you handed him over, he would have melted his jailors in the palm of his hand because he would offer them a couple of fruitful graves he had not given you.”

  “Stop.” I knew Dan would see it Bannion’s way. “I would have gotten to the kid though I might have been too late.” Why argue with him? I sat back and let the voice of one great artist explain the work of the better craftsman.

  “I have to admit I’m envious, Rollie boy. I was there. I was there and I let it pass me by. Bannion must have had fun. He must have seen early on that once he pitched the plan to plant the money, everyone would relax their watch. I would bet he pulled a lot out and spread it around as mad money, maybe tens of thousands per, to make them feel big. Everyone had his eyes on the handouts. Then it became a matter of confusing the issue. Twenty-five million in the grave I dug up, and maybe one other, but lower amounts in others. It hypnotized even me. I saw one and closed my eyes to the possibility that there were others, many more. Half the graves that McColl or Frank had marked for money had bodies or who knows what. Same for your DS graves, you’ll see. That way, if he had to give some up, he wouldn’t lose big numbers. He had a private jet, lent it generously, of course. All the generals felt important. But when they weren’t using it, Bannion loaded it up with cash and moved it to Switzerland. And from there to the U.S.”

  “Some left in Switzerland? Some to burn in case he had to give it up?”

  “Certainly.”

  I started thinking about how Dan and Bannion thrived by starting ventures that must come to a bad end. No one could accuse them of being optimists. It wasn’t visions of rosy futures that drove them. They were sensualists: slaves to the pleasure of deceit on a scale large and small. They found it irresistible. The inevitable pain was a lightning bolt at the horizon; there was no sense i
n running inside while the sun still shined.

  Dan interrupted, moaning about the opportunity missed. “I was there. I was there and I did not see the possibilities. I was stealing iPods.” Dan had gone to hell.

  “But you walked away with twenty-five million dollars. More than anyone else besides Bannion.”

  “If it were about the money, I would have spent it. And so would you. And so would you.”

  30

  Ireceived VIP treatment upon landing. An official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an ICEman, wearing a badge on his short-sleeve blue shirt, came on board and asked if he could carry my bag. We were first off the plane. One of his equally sour coworkers met us at the end of the ramp and they escorted me down many long corridors to a small room, a private room. I was allowed to enjoy the facilities for two hours. Free. Two different ICEmen came in and asked all about my trip.

  “Have you ever seen the Citadel in Erbil? They say it’s been inhabited for six thousand years. You really should go,” I said. “Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures.”

  ICEman One said, “Your passport stamps indicate that you entered Russia six months ago and China twice in the last three months. Can you explain this?” He mumbled it, as if he were nervously intruding on a stranger. His face was sallow and thin, and his belly fought with the buttons on his shirt.

  “They must have stamped it when I entered there.”

  ICEman Two said, “Who are you?”

  “Whatever it says on my passport.” They looked at each other for a signal on how to take that. “Look, guys, I know you’d rather be scaring some old woman from India coming in to visit her grandchildren or stopping a couple from Africa from enjoying their vacation. I’m sorry to keep you from your fun. So why don’t we agree that you tried your best, but I was uncooperative. And you can go about justifying having an assignment in this air-conditioned airport instead of the Nogales border station. Meet whatever quota you have for tears and fears. When you get the word that it’s okay to release me, come and get me. Okay?”