The Banker Who Died

by Matthew A Carter

  “With investment matters for Gagarin, of course! Pierre said that you should introduce me to Gagarin’s circle, and asked me to prepare some new proposals for him. So here I am…”

  Stanley was not at all pleased that Lagrange had sent Bernard to Pamplona without any advance discussion. It was an unpleasant surprise: in his opinion, Bernard was simply a stupid, boring, Swiss gnome with no initiative. Bernard had previously only been involved in structuring investments for Gagarin’s portfolio, so Lagrange’s instructions meant that he had to, in a manner of speaking, move several levels up at once. Lagrange wanting him closer to Gagarin simply meant that the older banker suspected something, maybe even that Stanley was thinking about leaving the game. Could he be preparing Bernard as a replacement?

  “Great,” McKnight said, trying to sound friendly. “That’s great, Bernard. Glad to hear it. Let’s meet in the bar—how about in half an hour?”

  “Of course, of course, that’s fine. I’ve prepared some really interesting offers! First of all—”

  Bernard was still talking, but Stanley hung up. This eager young banker, purely by accident, might just screw everything up for him. He would try to get in between him and Gagarin, get close to the Magnificent Five, curry favor with their wives and girlfriends with conversation and compliments. This was a terrible turn of events.

  McKnight got undressed and stepped into the shower. Lathering himself with orange-scented Hermès soap, he wondered how he should behave with Mila. She would definitely use the festival atmosphere to try to slip into Stanley’s room. He couldn’t turn her away. In fact, he would have to do whatever necessary to keep her happy to avoid any scenes and hysterics. And now, in addition to the usual spies, Stanley had the eager Bernard under foot.

  He stood under the warm stream of water and sighed. He couldn’t figure out where the CIA had gotten pictures of him and Christine. He should look on that drive and see what pictures they had. But then he decided just to wait until he got to his office computer, no need to rush.

  Bernard was reclining in a chair, his legs crossed, when Stanley came down. This wasn’t the uptight, obsequious bank clerk he knew from the office. Nor even the Bernard he remembered from their trip to Moscow.

  He was dressed in a light suit, soft shoes, and his hair was slightly, artfully disheveled. Everything about him said he was cool and only getting cooler.

  “Hi, McKnight!” he said, jumping up. “How are you liking Pamplona?”

  “I couldn’t say yet,” Stanley said, shaking the other man’s proffered hand. “I just got off the plane.”

  “Then how about a cocktail?” Bernard suggested. “Do you know that Ernest Hemingway stayed in this hotel? We should have a daquiri in his honor. Let’s order at the bar.”

  “First of all, I’m staying in Hemingway’s room,” said McKnight, interrupting Bernard’s cheerful flow of conversation. “Second of all, you drink daquiris in Cuba. We’re going to drink what Hemingway drank here, in Pamplona—some Rioja Alta wine. But not in the hotel bar, but on Estafeta, in the Buddha Café. Follow me, Bernard!”

  “Was that here in Hemingway’s time?” asked Bernard.

  “Of course!” said Stanley, who had no idea whether Papa Hemingway had, in fact, ever been there. “It was his favorite café. He wrote some of the key scenes of his most famous works there.”

  He’d grown accustomed to strong drinks lately, and easily downed two glasses of wine. Bernard looked at him in surprise as he savored small sips from his own glass.

  “Thirsty,” explained Stanley. “I’ve been thirsty the whole trip from San Francisco.”

  Bernard tried to speak to the waiter in Spanish, but he just gave them a sour and smile and responded in German, then switched to French, and finally English. Bernard ordered another bottle, although he’d barely finished one glass.

  “Is it far from here to the café Stedzip?” asked Stanley.

  “That depends on what you consider far, señor. I can call a taxi.”

  “No, we’ll walk,” said Stanley, ignoring Bernard’s nodding in favor of a taxi.

  “That’s an excellent choice, señor. You’ll have a lovely stroll. Turn left from here onto Cortes de Navarra, then right on Paulino Caballero, cross Baja Navarra Avenue, and right again on Leyre. It will be a lovely walk. Shall I bring some more wine?”

  “Of course! It will be a difficult walk without more wine.”

  Bernard chattered on without pause the whole walk to the restaurant. He talked about everything—the stressful work with Gagarin’s investment portfolio, about his fiancée, a journalist who wrote about cosmetics who had her own blog, about how much he got out of working with Stanley, how he envied him—with the best of intentions, of course—and how he’d love to have a peek at the Ernest Hemingway room if Stanley wouldn’t mind, although (and here Bernard paused, lowering his head sadly) he had to admit that he had never, in his entire life, read a single line by Hemingway, although he had googled the author on the flight here and looked through a couple of articles about him.

  There were so many people around that they lost each other several times. Once Bernard accidently directed a long discourse about the complexities of working as an investment consultant at an elderly Spaniard with a violin in a white suit and red necktie.

  Stanley tried to grab Bernard’s arm, but lost him again. They only reunited when Bernard called him, and they arranged to meet at a Kutxabank.

  Bernard went in the wrong direction nevertheless, and Stanley had to direct him on speakerphone while reading the map on his smartphone.

  Hundreds of tourists and locals streamed past them, all excited in anticipation of tomorrow’s events. The air smelled of alcohol, danger, and sweat, and Stanley thought he could hear, in the distance, the anxious lowing of the bulls being readied for the slaughter. Stanley finally picked out Bernard in the crowd, and followed behind, directing him over the phone, still, until they reached Stedzip.

  “You know the city so well,” exclaimed Bernard. “Have you been many times?”

  “I’m going to tell you something important, Bernard. If you want to have any kind of career in banking, you have to know how to do a couple of pretty basic things. You can learn them, but they’re usually innate skills. Three, in all. First, you have to be able to do math quickly in your head. For example, how much is 14.5 percent of 2,343?”

  “Ummm, hang on…”

  “Not ummm, but 339.735. The second skill, which might not seem so essential in this age of gadgets, but is actually just as necessary, is to be able to navigate by looking at a map and remembering it, quickly following directions someone has given you.”

  “What use is that to a banker?”

  “At the very least, to be able to run away if you’re arrested in Moscow like Michael Calvey.”

  “Are you serious, McKnight?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, I was a scout with my youth organization in school.”

  “Oh, I could tell that right away! Last, you have to be good at languages. I have to admit that’s not my strongest suit, but I can tell someone off in ten different languages…and we’re here!”

  Gagarin had reserved an entire room in the restaurant, and the entrance was manned by some broad-shouldered young men with sharp eyes whom Stanley didn’t recognize. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, blocking Stanley and Bernard’s way in, but Shamil appeared and whispered something, and they stepped aside.

  Gagarin’s entire group was seated at one long table, but Gagarin wasn’t at its head. Arseny Zaikin was, the deputy head of the presidential administration, whom Stanley had seen on the yacht Alassio, with Gagarin at his left. In fact, all of the Magnificent Five were in attendance, with the same wives or lovers in tow.

  It was difficult to distinguish between the Russian oligarchs’ women, however—they were almost all blond, with high cheekbones and
inflated lips, fluttering fake eyelashes and clenching their teeth so as not to accidentally let anything stupid slip out.

  Even the fat, red-cheeked priest who had called Stanley a ‘nobleman,’ Father Vsevolod, was here, wearing a light silk robe and wolfing down a Galician stew.

  The FSB general, Zlatoust, was here, surveying the scene with his steady, piercing gaze, in the company of two blondes, close enough in appearance to be twins. There were so many unfamiliar faces that Stanley even experienced some warm feelings when he saw Polina and her husband Krapiva, Gauthier, and Biryuza, and even Yulia, wearing her habitual expression of general contempt. He might even have felt some concern when he noticed Mila’s absence.

  Biryuza was the first to notice Stanley and Bernard. He clapped loudly and stood.

  “McKnight! Well, finally! Now we’ll get things going!” Biryuza strode over to meet them. “Now we’ll show those bulls! We’re going to give ’em hell, right, Stan?”

  He hugged Stanley tightly and kissed him three times in greeting. McKnight stoically endured these sloppy kisses, repressing the urge to get out his handkerchief and wipe his face. A smiling Gagarin was the next to approach.

  “Here he is! Our hero! My savior! My adviser and friend, finally! I’m delighted to see you!”

  So Stanley had to kiss three times with Gagarin. But while Biryuza was high as a kite on something, Gagarin was simply drunk.

  Gauthier took the opportunity of Stanley’s appearance to tap his knife against the side of his glass and suggest that they all fill their glasses and drink to friendship and true friends. Stanley got a glass with vodka.

  “Who’s that with you?” Gagarin asked in a whisper.

  “Bernard, he’s an employee at our bank—your personal investment consultant, by the way, and my subordinate. Lagrange sent him in his place.”

  “So Pierre decided not to come?” Gagarin pursed his thin lips in a familiar gesture, and his face took on a nasty expression, despite his intoxication. “Well, well…” He turned to Bernard and said, “Have a seat anywhere, monsieur!”

  He turned back to the rest of his guests.

  “What are we drinking to?” asked Gagarin.

  “You forgot already, Viktor?” a high, thin voice cut through the general hubbub. It was the minister, Komarikhin, looking even fatter than before. Next to him sat a stout young woman with enormous breasts, but not the same one from the yacht; this one had short hair and wary, dark eyes.

  “To friendship and friends!” Komarikhin pronounced, raising his wineglass.

  “To friendship and friends!” Stanley repeated after him in Russian, deftly sticking the listening device onto Gagarin’s jacket.

  “Don’t smoke here,” said Gagarin, noticing the pack in Stanley’s hands, and said in his ear: “Only those five are allowed to, and they don’t smoke, the bastards. Bad for their health. So, to friends!”

  Chapter 40

  After the vodka and tonic in his hotel room, and the wine on the way to the restaurant, as soon as Stanley finished his glass, the room began to swim before his eyes.

  He dropped into the chair next to Biryuza, and Bernard sat down across from him and a little to the left. He ordered baked lamb.

  “What are you ordering, Stanley?” Bernard asked loudly across the table. “Is it good?”

  “He’s driving me crazy with the questions,” Stanley said quietly to Biryuza.

  “What does he ask about?”

  “Everything! What’s the meaning behind the bullfights, the running of the bulls? He wants meaning!”

  “I ordered lamb, Bernard,” Stanley answered. “You should try it.” And he added, to Biryuza, “You answer him too. Give him one of your lectures.”

  Biryuza took Stanley’s suggestion seriously, and began a long, overly detailed account of the tradition of bullfighting, and the history of the running of the bulls, which, he said, began in the sixteenth century. It used to be mostly Spaniards and Basque men running from the bulls, but now the majority of the participants are from America, New Zealand, and Australia, and they’re all on drugs or tipsy on sangria, and it’s the drunk and high ones who fall victim to the bulls.

  Gauthier brought around a silver tray of cocaine; Stanley and Biryuza venerated several times under the astonished gaze of Bernard.

  Biryuza paused, and Bernard, well into his wine by this point, giggled and, looking around slyly, asked why Russians in general, and Gagarin in particular, loved the running of the bulls so much.

  “After all, a Russian running from a bull—it’s pretty funny!” said Bernard, and laughed at his own words.

  There were few seconds of silence, and Stanley thought the tactless Swiss banker’s neighbors, already three sheets to the wind, were going to bash his head in.

  Biryuza was the first to recover. He continued his lecture—Hemingway was very popular during Gagarin’s youth in the USSR, and everyone read A Movable Feast and The Sun Also Rises, hence the adult Gagarin’s interest in bullfighting. Bernard continued to wonder, however, and Stanley’s irritation grew. Father Vsevolod saved the situation. He rose and began to sing, in a deep, heavy bass, the song that all the runners were supposed to sing before the bulls were released.

  When Father Vsevolod finished singing, everyone applauded and forgot about Bernard.

  “What a voice!” cried Gagarin.

  “A beautiful voice, indeed!” said Biryuza. “Too bad Mila couldn’t hear it.”

  “By the way, Anton, where is she?” asked Stanley.

  “Gagarin sent her to Promises,” Biryuza replied quietly.

  “Where?”

  “An addiction treatment clinic. In California.”

  “No way!” Stanley said, successfully concealing his joy beneath an expression of surprise.

  After that, it was chaos. Gauthier came around several more times with the cocaine tray. Gagarin demanded several times that Stanley drink vodka with him and his Magnificent Five friends, whom Stanley generously decorated with listening devices.

  Stumbling, his vision hazy, Stanley went outside to smoke and use the toilet. Passing through the restaurant, he saw a surprising number of guests who looked like Dillon.

  One Dillon clone was enjoying a plate of seafood and spilling white wine on himself. Stanley thought it would be hilarious to go up to the man, slap him on the shoulder, and explain to his companion, a large-boned woman with a horsey face that he was a friend from college, some small college in Nebraska or Indiana.

  McKnight didn’t even remember how he got back to his room early that morning, or for that matter getting dressed in the white clothes and red necktie, grabbing his newspaper rolled up into a tube, and coming back down to Estafeta Street.

  He took a few sips of strong coffee in a café there and looked at his watch. It was just after 7:00 AM. The street was full of people dressed in white like Stanley, all with rolled newspapers.

  The smell of alcohol still hung in the air. Bernard appeared from somewhere, pale and rumpled. He kept coughing, a nervous tic, maybe. He seemed worried about the upcoming run.

  “I woke up in my room,” said Bernard. “But how did I get there? I don’t remember.”

  “The same thing happened to me,” nodded Stanley. “Shamil must have taken us.”

  “That big one?”

  “Yes. There he is, by the way.”

  Shamil approached. He was also in all white, making his athletic figure look all the more impressive.

  “Ready?” he asked hoarsely.

  “My head hurts,” complained Bernard, but Shamil didn’t even glance his way.

  “Ready,” answered Stanley.

  “Remember: never, under any circumstances, run all the way to the arena. Try for about five hundred to seven hundred meters from where you’re standing, and after that, either jump over the barriers or climb up. Don’t ru
n into anyone, and if someone falls down, don’t stay to help them up. Understand?”

  McKnight nodded and looked up to see Dillon standing on one of the balconies overlooking the street. The horse-faced woman stood next to him. Dillon waved to someone, and Stanley looked away.

  Shamil looked at his watch.

  “Where are they?” he muttered irritably.

  “Who are we waiting for?” asked Bernard.

  “Gagarin and Biryuza—who else? Ah, here they are!”

  Gagarin and Biryuza arrived, pushing through the crowd.

  “Stanley, you American son of a bitch!” shouted Gagarin. “How are you?”

  “Excellent, Viktor!”

  “Do you remember how you danced yesterday?”

  “Danced? Me?”

  “Yeah, with Komarikhin’s girlfriend. You practically trashed the entire restaurant.”

  “I don’t believe it!” The incident was erased from his memory entirely. “What happened to the restaurant?”

  “The restaurant manager tried to reason with you. He thought you were Russian, and when he spoke to you in Russian, you started to curse with such virtuosity that even Zlatoust was impressed. Where did you pick that up?”

  Stanley didn’t have a chance to answer. At seven fifty-five, everyone broke into the song that Father Vsevolod had performed for them the night before:

  The street was flooded with people, and the noise of their singing was deafening. A group of guys next to them sang in Basque:

  “Entzun, arren, San Fermin zu zaitugu patroi,

  zuzendu gure oinak entzierro hontan otoi.

  ¡Viva San Fermín! ¡Viva!, Gora San Fermin! Gora!”

  The song was repeated twice more, and as soon as the singing ended, a deafening clap sounded as a firecracker burst over the city, and the crowd started to move.

  The gates of San Domingo, the bulls’ corral, opened, and twelve enraged bulls began the race along the narrow cobblestone streets of old Pamplona, to the cheers of thousands and thousands of spectators. They soon turned onto Estafeta, and the crowd raced past.