by Rickie Blair
“The market crashed.”
“—which put downward pressure on our stock price—”
“The stock crashed.”
“—requiring an additional small adjustment to our stated revenues to keep the price-earnings ratio in an optimum range—”
“You lied again.”
“—with the result that Carvon developed a cash flow crunch. Which is where your people came in.” Flicking his hand, Antony leaned back against the sofa.
“You washed our money, and you took your cut,” Bogdan said. “But then you,” he pointed a finger at Antony, “took a cut of our money.”
“Excuse me?” Antony’s voice was shrill. “What about my exposure in all this? What about my risk?” He rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Let’s fast-forward to today, shall we? The Securities Exchange Commission is busting balls all over Wall Street. It’s getting so you can hardly take a guy out for lunch without somebody screaming collusion or insider trading or worse. Simple creative accounting is suddenly fraud.
“Meanwhile, the economy has dropped to the point that we can’t make any more upward revenue adjustments without raising red flags. In two weeks, we have to release our numbers. And they’re not good. Two weeks. And then,” he shrugged, “it’s over. There’s no more rope.” Draining his glass, he replaced it on the coffee table with a thud.
“So. Two weeks.” Bogdan spread his hands. “Plenty of time.”
“Are you deliberately slow? I told you, the whole damn company is going under. I have to get out now before the SEC connects the dots. You don’t know anything about it. And neither does Viktor. Tell him I can’t help him, it’s beyond my control. Just tell him. You’re a smart fellow. He’ll listen to you.”
Antony ran a hand over his hair, willing himself to be calm.
“You know, I might be able to free up a little extra if someone, say someone such as yourself, was to be helpful. Perhaps a quarter of a million helpful?”
“What would I have to do?”
“Persuade your associates that they’ve gotten everything from me they’re going to get. That they should take this last payment and move on.” Antony rose to refill his drink at the bar. “Listen,” he said, throwing ice into his glass and pouring another shot, “do you think you’ve got a future with this vor v zakonye thing?”
Bogdan stared at him.
“They’re goons, let’s face it. But you’re smarter than that. This is your chance to set yourself up somewhere with a bankroll and start your own scam. Or whatever, no offense. A restaurant, say, maybe a farm, or a business. With a quarter million you can do quite a lot. It’s a damn good offer. And it’s safe, very safe, because it would be between you and me. No one else would know.” He smiled. “How about it?”
Bogdan smiled back. He rose to his feet and took a step toward Antony, who lifted his glass in a mock toast. But before the glass reached Antony’s lips, Bogdan had grabbed two fistfuls of cashmere and yanked him across the room. Pinning Antony’s arm behind his back, Bogdan rammed him face-first against the wall.
Pain exploded in Antony’s forehead. His face was flattened against the wall and his glasses skewed to one side. Sweat trickled down his back as he struggled to breathe.
“Listen to me,” Bogdan hissed into his ear. “You will not leave the ship. You will give me the bonds and you will go back to New York and you will do what Viktor says.” He shoved him even harder into the wall.
Antony gasped, certain that his shoulder had been dislocated. Bogdan let go and he slumped to the floor. He leaned against the wall, gulping air and cradling his arm.
Bogdan leaned over him.
“And if you think you can outsmart us, you should think about your wife.”
Antony peered up at him, still wheezing.
“What are you talking about?”
Bogdan leaned back on his heels, smiling tightly.
“She is very beautiful, your wife. Shame you do not get along.” He shrugged. “But you do not want to lose her, no? Because then, people might talk.”
Antony adjusted his glasses with shaking hands. Scotch had splashed onto the lenses and Bogdan’s face was blurry.
“What do you mean, lose her?”
“If something happens to her, you will be the main suspect, no?”
Main suspect? “What are you saying?
Bogdan pointed a finger at him. “Also, if you ever mention vor v zakonye again—I will kill you, you worthless piece of shit.” He walked out, slamming the door.
Antony remained slumped against the wall. On the radio, one variation came to a halt with a flourish and another began. He rose to his feet with a groan and sank into the sofa, avoiding the areas soaked with Scotch. His glass had rolled across the floor and he retrieved it, his hand numb, placed it on the coffee table and wondered whether to call housekeeping. He decided against it. Reaching for the remote, he remembered it was in pieces on the other side of the room. Shuffling over to the stereo, he turned off the music.
‘Worthless piece of shit?’ Well, he’d heard that plenty of times. It had been his old man’s favorite phrase. No way to know what he’d say about his son’s current predicament, though, given that the death certificate from the nursing home had arrived in the mail a decade ago. Antony had tossed it into the trash. One less bill to pay.
And now, aboard the Apollonis, he pumped his fingers to get the circulation back. He fantasized about landing a single powerful punch to Bogdan’s face and kicking him repeatedly as he lay crumpled on the ground, screaming for mercy. Next time.
It was good that he hadn’t fought back. Maybe now these thugs would think he was scared shitless and ready to cooperate. Antony smiled despite the pain in his shoulder. He had misled the market, and the media, for years. A framed Time cover hung behind his office desk. The headline, ‘Wizards Of Wall Street,’ spanned photos of a dozen men and women including—in the bottom row, second from the right—Antony Carver.
He headed for the bedroom, pulled off his Scotch-soaked T-shirt and dropped it on the floor next to his dinner jacket. Reaching for his phone, he tapped in a number and put it on speaker. Time to give Hari a call.
* * *
In a stateroom below the Emperor Suite, a man adjusted the wire that led from his headphones to a box on the coffee table. He leaned back on the sofa. At a staccato rap on the stateroom door, he looked up. “Come.”
Bogdan entered the room and nodded. The first man flipped a switch and Antony Carver’s voice filled the room.
“I know, Hari, but things have changed. We’re leaving too much money on the table.”
“You promised me the Kyrgyzstani deal would be it, that you would quit after that. My source at the SEC says they’re interested in Carvon. Your extracurricular activities are going to blow up in our faces.”
“Relax. If the SEC had anything on us, we’d have heard about it.”
“If they’re investigating Carvon, we’ll be the last to know. They’ll show up one day and haul us out in handcuffs and send in snot-faced junior investigators in cheap suits to wring the books dry until they find something, anything, to send us both away for a hundred and fifty years. Maybe more.”
“That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not fielding calls from reporters all day. They smell blood. One of those Wall Street Journal twits is even writing a book. A book, for God’s sake. He took Vanessa out for drinks last week and tried to pump her for information.”
“He grilled my assistant? Who the hell is this guy? What did she tell him?”
“My fellow Brit, whatever his name is. You’ve talked to him before. It doesn’t matter. Vanessa didn’t tell him anything, and we had a chuckle over it the next day. She does a hell of an imitation of him. I can’t do it justice, but,” he switched to an upper-class English accent, much stronger than his own, “Now, Vanessa, you have to admit that the recent revenue stream seems a trifle
hard to sustain. Oh, and, by the way, is it true that Mr. Carver has a twin whom he committed to a mental institution?’” Hari laughed. “Oh, wait, I made up that last bit.” He lowered his voice. “Seriously, though,” he added solemnly, “now that I think of it, she did tell him what a first-class prick you are.”
“Oh, good. Thank you both so much.”
“You have to get back here. The auditors are asking questions.”
“What are you telling them?”
“As much as possible, obviously. I’ve got them drowning in disclosures. It will take them months to sort it out. That compliance officer the board made us hire has been a real pain in the ass, though.”
“Send him out of town somewhere. Hari, you’ve got to go to Boca for me. There are things there that I can’t trust to anybody else.”
“I don’t have time to fly off to Florida. We’ve got alligators enough right here, I’m up to my proverbial ass in them. Whatever it is, it won’t matter once we come clean at the shareholders’ meeting anyway.”
“Yeah. A few things have come up that may have a bearing on that plan.”
“It’s more than a plan, Antony. We agreed.”
“I need your advice on something. Something I can’t talk about on the phone.”
“Ruby’s worried about you.”
“Give it a rest, Hari.”
“She thinks you’re leaving her. Are you?”
“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you? I’m not talking about Ruby. Meet me at the house in Boca. I’ll be there in a few days.”
In the stateroom on the deck below, the first man switched off the unit with a smile.
“I hope you didn’t rough him up too much,” he said in Russian. “Viktor wants him to look good for the shareholders’ meeting.”
Bogdan gave a quick, disgusted snort. “I’ll worry about Mr. Carver. You keep an eye on our insurance.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ruby’s plan was simple. Wait a few hours until Antony had passed out, tell the steward she had forgotten her key card and didn’t want to wake her husband, and ask if he could please let her in. Meanwhile, she would wait in the piano bar. Simple and efficient.
But as she turned to step into the lounge, a hand tapped her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” Ethan said, his freckled face flushed. Emily stood beside him.
Ruby patted her chest, struggling to get her breath back.
“Where are you two headed?”
“We thought we’d try the piano bar,” Ethan said. “We wanted something quiet. Didn’t we, Emily?” His wife nodded, smiling at Ruby.
Ethan continued, “and not too expensive, because we went to the casino last night and … we lost quite a bit of money.”
Beside him, Emily stopped smiling. Her lower lip wobbled.
Ethan looked down at his feet.
“It wouldn’t matter, I guess, except it wasn’t our money. Our parents …” his voice trailed off. He swallowed hard and looked up with a forced smile. “Listen to me, bothering you with our problems. Why don’t you join us for a drink and we’ll talk about something else?”
Ruby rubbed the back of her neck while she looked around the promenade. An evening with the Bobbsey twins would be the final straw.
“I’m so sorry,” she said quickly, with a pained shrug and a wince. “I promised to meet someone. Rain check?”
Ethan nodded. “Sure.”
Turning, Ruby hurried away. So much for simple and efficient. She kept going until she reached the casino, where she slid onto a low-backed stool at the blackjack table. She glanced at the boisterous party around the craps table and then nodded at the blackjack dealer.
On the stool beside her, a woman in a low-cut green dress and garish blonde hair stared at her.
Ruby extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Ruby Delaney.”
“Pleased to meetcha.” The woman mumbled her name and leaned in, grinning. “My husband will be along in a bit. He’s a huge fan.”
Ruby smiled weakly and said to a hovering waitress, “G and T, please.” She turned to the dealer and checked her cards. A jack and a four.
“Hit me.”
It was after midnight by the time she pushed her few remaining chips to the dealer and stretched her arms over her head.
“I think I’ve lost enough for one night,” she said with a chuckle. Surely Antony was dead to the world by now. She left the casino, turned to the elevator and stopped.
Dimitri leaned against a pillar across the promenade, a linen jacket slung over his shoulder by a thumb and his blond hair gleaming in the light of an overhead spot. His black shirt and jeans emphasized his lean muscular frame. He straightened up and ambled over.
“Hello,” he said, looking at her intently with those icy blue eyes.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach and for a second or two she forgot to breathe.
“I have to get back. My husband will wonder where I am.”
Dimitri nodded and extended his hand.
“I take you. I know a shortcut.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think—”
He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head to the left.
Ruby turned. Ethan and Emily were walking up the promenade, but they hadn’t seen her yet. She turned back to Dimitri.
“Let’s go.”
She followed as Dimitri hurried to the next corner and then along a corridor. He turned once and then again and she hustled to keep up. They walked down two flights of stairs, into another corridor and down another flight. Then a new corridor, this one lined with stateroom doors. When he stopped, Ruby looked behind. How was this a shortcut?
Dimitri slid a card key into a stateroom lock and held the door for her. “Come in,” he said, gesturing to the darkened interior.
Her face flushed hot and she shook her head.
“I’m not going in there,” she said, smiling despite herself. Cheeky bastard. She checked the corridor in both directions. At least no one had seen her yet.
Across the hall, music spilled out as a door opened.
“Oh, come on, girl,” a woman said. “The damn casino will be closed by the time we get there.”
Dimitri raised his eyebrows.
Dammit. Ruby ducked under his arm and into the stateroom. He closed the door and they faced each other in the entrance hall, so close together that his bay rum aftershave wafted over her. From the hall outside came laughter and more voices. It sounded like a party.
With a smile, Dimitri ran his hand along her shoulder and down her upper arm, pulled her to him, and bent his head.
Ruby reached around him with her free arm and flipped on the light switch. Pulling her other arm away, she took a step back and gave him a stern look.
“I’m leaving the minute those people are gone.”
Dimitri walked into the stateroom and threw his jacket across a chair. Pulling a champagne bottle from an ice bucket on the bureau, he popped the cork with a practiced gesture and filled two glasses. Holding a glass out to her, he nodded at the twin beds.
“Sit. Take a load off.”
“Take a load off?”
“Is American expression, no?”
Ruby giggled and shook her head, accepting the champagne. She tried to remember how many drinks she’d ordered at the blackjack table. This was a bad idea. With a slight shrug, she sat on the nearest bed, crossed her legs, and eyed the open jar of caviar beside the ice bucket. Talk about advance planning.
“Do you do this every night?” she asked, sipping champagne and glancing around for a place to rest the glass.
Dimitri took the glass from her hand, placed it on the nightstand, and sat on the other bed, facing her. He leaned closer.
“I never do this,” he said in a low voice, his eyes locked with hers.
Clearing her throat, she looked away.
“I meant the caviar.” She pointed at the jar. “It’s expensive.”
His
eyes flashed.
“You think I have no money?”
“No, no, I’m sure you have money—”
“Okay,” he broke in, grinning. “Truthfully, I have friend in the kitchen.” He spooned caviar on a toast triangle and held it out to her. “Is good. Russian.”
Ruby took the toast and nibbled at it, glancing at the door.
“Do you have a lot of friends here, Dimitri? I mean, how did you come to work on a cruise ship?”
“I was working in a bar in Moscow when my friend told me about the cruise ship.”
“How did you become a gymnast?”
“When I was seven, my parents took me to a special training camp. Good opportunity.”
“Seven? Did you see them often after that?”
He shrugged.
“Were you happy?”
“Yes.” He looked away. “Until my accident.”
Reaching out, she placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Long time ago. It is forgotten.”
He turned to her, his intense blue eyes burning into her own, and crooked a finger under her chin to lift her face. His lips were on hers, hot and insistent, before she could back away. Circling her waist with his other arm, he pulled her closer.
Warmth flooded through her. Probably the champagne.
Dimitri caressed her neck, his thumbs pressing softly into the base of her throat, and then slipped the silk straps off her shoulders.
Ruby closed her eyes, trembling as he stroked her back. Nope, not the champagne.
His hands explored her torso, kneading and caressing. She moaned and let her head fall back as he nuzzled her throat. She thought about giving in. The passport photo of an anonymous blonde flashed across her vision.
Then she opened her eyes and pushed him away.
“I can’t.”
Dimitri sat back and held up his hands to show he wouldn’t stop her. But the room swirled as she tried to stand and she fell back, flat on the bed, her knees bent and her feet on the floor.
Sighing heavily, she closed her eyes. She’d better stay a bit longer. Just until the room stopped moving.
Dimitri sank to his knees on the floor and slid his hands up her thighs, peeling up her dress. Grinning, he slipped a finger under her thong and yanked.