Montaro Caine: A Novel

by Sidney Poitier

  Chasman felt energized yet exhausted from his trip, and he spoke before he had a chance to take the chair that Dr. Mozelle had offered him. “I know we have a lot to discuss,” Chasman said breathlessly. “I can certainly assure you, from my end, that the past few days have been astonishing. But I think you should first bring me up to speed on what’s been going on here. I’ve obviously been operating under some erroneous impressions over the last twenty-six years.” He turned to Dr. Mozelle. “Is that a fair assessment?”

  Dr. Mozelle nodded. “Yes, apologies for that, old friend. But please, make yourself comfortable.” He once again gestured for Chasman to take a seat. “There’s a lot to discuss, and most of it is more astonishing than you already think.”

  An hour later, Dr. Chasman sat spellbound by the strangest story he had ever heard. It began with the story of Elsen Mozelle’s illness and concluded with the tale of Cordiss Krinkle, whose phone records had been obtained by Montaro’s investigators, leading them to find out all that she had learned while researching Whitney and Franklyn Walker’s births. Then, it was Chasman’s turn to tell the others about the phone call he had received from Julius Hargrove; his meeting in Chappaqua with Herman Freich and Colette Beekman; the private jet to Geneva; his ride to Lausanne for the meeting with Johann Flugle and Gertz Welbocht; and finally, his fruitless trip to Berlin, where he had been asked to comment on a seemingly endless number of outdated astronomical charts. He said that he had come to believe the Berlin trip had simply been intended to delay his return, though he had been paid handsomely for his troubles. When Chasman finished, the others remained silent until Montaro spoke, addressing everyone in the room.

  “Am I correct in assuming, since all of us in this room have a stake in this concern, that we are all interested in the exact whereabouts of both coins?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” Dr. Mozelle said.

  “O.K.,” said Caine. “But beyond that desire, which we all have in common, our individual interests come into play. Those interests differ from one another in varying degrees and could be the source of misunderstandings down the line.” Caine faced Chasman directly. “Therefore, I think each of us should state now, before we go any further, what it is we want”—Caine pivoted back toward Dr. Mozelle—“over and above the return of stolen property to the rightful owner.”

  Dr. Mozelle leaned forward, peering over his glasses at Caine. “Fair enough,” he replied. Briefly, his eyes slid away from Caine to stare out the window overlooking 67th Street and the afternoon traffic that was beginning to clog the streets. Then, he turned his attention back to Caine. “First of all,” he began. “There’s the question of ownership. Anna and I never told Whitney or her mother about the coin. I’ve tried to justify that decision to myself in several ways—if word got out, her life would no longer be private; no one would believe me and I would be ridiculed. And then, once we started to learn more about the coins, I didn’t know what the next step to take might be.

  “Most of all,” he continued, “I’d like answers. I believe we are dealing with more than science here, much more, something beyond us and beyond Whitney. Twenty-six years ago, Whitney Carson was born with a tiny object in her hand. Why? And why, less than two months later, fifty-six days later to be precise as we have now learned, was Franklyn Walker born in Georgia, with an object in his tiny hand? They grew up in different parts of the country, but still they found each other. They fell in love, they got married, and now they are having a baby.” Mozelle glanced, in turn, at Caine, Chasman, his wife, and, finally, at Anna Hilburn.

  “It is my strong feeling that we have to think a great deal about what will happen when that baby is born,” Dr. Mozelle said. He paced back and forth across the room a few times before he spoke again. “As to the question of the return of stolen property to its rightful owner, yes, I would very much like to have the coin returned to me. But again, I can’t claim to be the rightful owner in any true sense. If such a claim can be made on behalf of anyone, then the coins are the property of Whitney and her husband. What I want are answers about the coins, and I think we need to do our best to have those answers as quickly as we can and hopefully before that baby is born. What about you, Montaro?”

  “My interests are in the materials the coins are made of,” Caine said plainly. He rose from his chair, rammed his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, and cocked his head at an odd angle toward the ceiling as he searched for the right words. “I confess to being truly fascinated by the strange way in which the coins came into existence—who wouldn’t be, after all—and my curiosity has been at fever pitch ever since you first took me into your confidence. I don’t want to overstate the case, but if a way could be found to synthetically reproduce the materials in these coins, it could revolutionize my industry, just about every industry in fact. Think about it—a metal stronger than any we have ever seen, impervious to heat. I’m sure I haven’t allowed myself to imagine all the possibilities and implications. My overriding desire is to be able to conduct an in-depth, laboratory examination of each coin, when and if we manage to obtain them. That is the basis on which I am willing to work with you.”

  Dr. Mozelle glanced at his wife and Anna before turning back to Caine. “We three have had twenty-six years in which to develop interests far beyond those of fascination and scientific curiosity,” he said. “Though my wife, myself, and, I believe I speak for our friend Anna, have different interests from yours, they are in no way incompatible. You will have no resistance from us, as long as your work does not destroy or disfigure the coins.”

  The room turned to Chasman. “My interest is solely scientific at this point,” the astronomer said, “and I see no reason, from what I’ve heard here, for any conflict down the line.”

  “Well,” said Dr. Mozelle, “with that settled, we must now put our minds to finding where the coins are and who controls them.”

  “The coin I saw in Switzerland,” Chasman quickly broke in, “is controlled by whomever that man Freich and my colleagues Flugle and Welbocht were representing.”

  “Kritzman Fritzbrauner,” Caine said. “You’re right. If he bought it, it’s in Switzerland. But what if he didn’t?”

  “In that case,” Dr. Mozelle said, “it would still be with Cordiss, who would probably be busy right now searching for another customer.” He turned to Caine. “Have you had any luck in tracking her down?”

  “Her phone’s gone dead, but we’re on top of it as well as we can be,” Caine said. “By the end of the day, we should have a fix on her. Certainly no later than tomorrow.”

  “And then?” asked Dr. Chasman.

  “Then someone will have to pay her a visit,” said Caine.

  Howard Mozelle’s face grew alive. His wife reached out to Anna Hilburn and squeezed her hand while Caine looked long and hard at each of them. How much like children they were, he thought. Dr. Mozelle was brilliant beyond question; the two women were highly accomplished in their areas of expertise. As a student at M.I.T., Montaro had been a lot like them, he thought. And yet, as the CEO of Fitzer Corporation, he understood that they were all extremely naive about what went on in the trenches of the real world he had to inhabit on a daily basis. In his world, he rode the bulls of chance and fate, cunning and greed. Dog ate dog, and the mighty crushed only each other, since the weak had long been accorded the ultimate indignity of not being worth the fight.

  “If I’m going to carry the ball, which I am happy to do, I should let you understand what I think we’re up against,” said Caine. “To begin with, we’re fighting the clock. A hot item cannot be kept secret for very long. Every day the circle widens. If both coins are already in the hands of people like Fritzbrauner, our job starts out about as tough as can be. I’ve never met a collector yet who wasn’t a hard-nosed businessman first. By now, a man like Fritzbrauner will have gathered every bit of information there is about the coins, beyond the notes stolen from your safe. You can bet he has imagined a variety of scenarios, each of which
will lead him to the pregnancy of Whitney Carson Walker.” At this point, a thought occurred to Caine. He whipped around to face Dr. Mozelle. “Howard? In your notes on the history of the first coin, did you ever mention Whitney or any member of her family by name?”

  Mozelle closed his eyes and gently massaged them, as if trying to call forth mental images of his note pages. He slowly shook his head. “No, we didn’t,” he said. He shot a glance at Anna as he often did when he felt unsure. Anna nodded her agreement. “No,” Mozelle continued, more confidently. “We specifically left her name out of it. At the time, I thought it might be an unnecessary precaution, but now I don’t believe it was. Why do you ask?”

  Caine ignored the doctor’s question. “I want you to pull Whitney’s chart and all references to her and her mother from any of your active files in this office. If you have records online, trash them. Do it today; and, instruct everyone with access to those files to report to you any inquiries of any kind about Whitney or her parents.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Dr. Mozelle.

  “If there is no reference to Whitney by name in your notes, and if Cordiss Krinkle is as smart as I think she is, she will withhold all that information from her buyers.”

  “Why would she withhold it?” asked Chasman.

  “Because if Whitney is going to have a baby, information about her pregnancy and her whereabouts could bring a handsome price. My sense is that Miss Krinkle will first sell the coins to two interested parties; later, when the time is right, she will sell the information about the pregnancy and have those parties bidding against each other.”

  “But,” interrupted Anna, “wouldn’t whoever she has sold the coins to insist on having that information?”

  “Not if there is no indication of it in the notes. My guess is that Miss Krinkle will claim to have no knowledge of Whitney’s whereabouts, and she will not, under any circumstances, divulge what she knows about the pregnancy until she can sell that information. In any event, time is of the essence.”

  When Caine emerged from Dr. Mozelle’s office into what intermittent sunshine was left, the Friday afternoon getaway traffic to Long Island had all but strangled the exit routes from the city. The bumper-to-bumper parade of vehicles on Park Avenue was barely crawling now. He’d have to walk to The Carlyle if he wanted to get there by nightfall, he thought. As he walked west, he wondered when he would ever get a decent night’s sleep. He longed to be home—he needed the comfort of his wife’s touch; his daughter needed him. He longed to hear both of their voices, not on the phone, but in person. Unfortunately, other matters beckoned.

  When Caine reached The Carlyle, Michen Borceau was already waiting for him in the lobby, flushed with excitement. In one hand, he held the printout of the analysis that he had conducted on the coin slivers that Caine had provided him. The Frenchman’s words began to come forth in a torrential flow, but Caine silenced him with a wave of his hand. Borceau talked too much—Caine had often cautioned him about this indiscretion—and, though he was as eager to hear Borceau’s report as the man obviously was to deliver it, he would not let Borceau speak until they were alone in his apartment.

  “I tell you, Montaro, the behavior of these elements is astounding,” Borceau said once he had sat down in Montaro’s living room, somewhat calmed by the Lillet that Montaro had poured him. “I mean, what is hinted at here is mind-boggling. Their influence on a number of common elements is dramatic. Am I allowed to ask what we’re dealing with?” Caine didn’t respond, so Borceau continued. “Never in all my experience have I seen elements like these. They’re … what I’m trying to say is …”

  “I think I know what you’re saying.”

  “The damn things are so … How can I say it? So active is what they are. Organic. Montaro, I don’t know exactly what I mean by this, but this material behaves almost as if it’s alive. Does that sound crazy to you?”

  “Not at all,” Montaro said. That’s exactly the word that came to my mind twenty-six years ago, he thought.

  By the time night had fallen, Montaro had long since abandoned any hope of returning home before morning. Though he had little appetite, he had, upon his wife’s advice, forced himself to eat half his dinner of braised Alaskan halibut accompanied by green asparagus risotto. He was just placing his tray, along with the empty bottle of Lillet whose contents Michen Borceau had consumed, out in the hallway for the housekeeping staff to remove when he saw Lawrence Aikens walking down the hallway toward him in tandem with his assistant, Curly Bennett. He assumed that they were coming to inform him about whether or not they had been able to discover any information about Cordiss Krinkle. And, by the looks of their confident strides, Montaro figured they had.

  “You got her?” Caine asked after the men had entered his living room.

  “Think so,” Aikens answered, pleased with himself. “That lady is damn impressive, let me tell you. She did a helluva job covering herself, but we got her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Europe. Six thousand miles from where she’s supposed to be.”

  “Europe instead of California,” said Caine. “Can I get you something?”

  “Oh, something cold, maybe,” said Aikens.

  “Like what?”

  “Like beer.”

  “You, Curly?”

  “Same for me.”

  Caine took two beers out of the mini-refrigerator and handed them to the men before leading them to the couch.

  “Well, according to our information,” Aikens began, “she and her man friend have been on the move a lot lately. Right now they’re either in Paris, where they’ve taken a small apartment under another name, or San Remo, Italy, where they might have the same setup. In any case, there was one ‘T’ she didn’t cross; and, if my guts are reading her right, we’ll have their exact addresses in a couple of hours.”

  “What ‘T’ didn’t she cross?”

  “Remember that loan shark they borrowed the fifteen grand from?”

  Caine nodded.

  “Well, before they disappeared, they paid him back with a draft drawn on a Liechtenstein bank that was issued at a branch here in the city.”

  “An account in Liechtenstein,” Caine mused.

  “Yeah, and somehow or other,” Aikens continued, “she managed to finagle herself a secret numbered account. My guess is there’s probably a hell of a lot more in that account than a thirty-year-old receptionist’s salary would explain. I couldn’t get into the account—I tried but couldn’t come close to cracking it before I had to back off. But I did learn that the bank in Liechtenstein is instructed to make monthly transfers to a bank in Paris and one in San Remo. I couldn’t get the size of the transfers or the amount of her balance, though. Sorry ’bout that, chief, but I’m on it as best I can.”

  “And I appreciate it,” said Caine.

  Curly Bennett stared at the two other men in the room, feeling uneasy and even somewhat miffed. He had listened intently to Aikens describe detail after detail about Cordiss—her whereabouts, her finances, all information Curly had painstakingly assembled after long hours of persistent digging. Curly had been expecting a little credit: a mention, a pat on the back. Aikens was a good boss in many ways, and Curly knew that lots of men in Aikens’s position would sometimes find it in their best interest not to give credit where credit was due. Still, he felt a little resentful toward his boss for not telling the CEO that it was Curly Bennett and only Curly Bennett who had done the actual work that Aikens was now accepting thanks for.

  “Can’t you tell us what this is all about?” Aikens asked Caine now.

  “The most I can tell you,” Caine offered, “is that Cordiss Krinkle may have stolen something, a very rare object.”

  Aikens looked at Caine, startled, then exchanged a glance with Bennett. “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  “What?” asked Caine.

  “A rare object like … like … an antique or …” Aikens fumbled for the right word.

  “Antiq
ue what?” Caine asked.

  “Jewelry? Little statues or something?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Her apartment.”

  “What about it?”

  “I was there.” Curly shot Aikens a glance and his boss corrected himself. “We were there, me and Curly. For fifty bucks, her janitor let us look around her apartment while the couple she leased it to was out. There were some books there—only about two dozen in the whole place—and at least ten of those were about artifacts, antique coins, jewelry, collectors, that kind of stuff. I wondered if it was her hobby. The janitor didn’t know. I thumbed through a couple of the books. Some pages were dog-eared, and there were scribbles here and there.”

  “Can you get those books?” Caine asked.

  Aikens looked at Curly, who checked his watch, then nodded, but neither man moved.

  “Can you start getting them now?” asked Caine.

  Aikens rose, then spun toward the door with Curly at his heels. “I’m on it,” he said, then correcting himself, he said, “We’re on it.” And with that, the two men were out the door.

  22

  ALAN ROTHMAN WAS GETTING READY TO LEAVE HIS OFFICE AT Fitzer Corporation for the night when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Assuming that his wife was calling to remind him once again not to be late to the Four Seasons, where they would be meeting her parents for dinner, Rothman figured he would let the call go straight to voice mail. But when he checked the caller display, he instantly answered the phone.

  “What’s up?” he asked, then heard a familiar female voice on the other end of the line.

  “Are you free?”

  “I’ve got a dinner with Lauren’s folks at six-thirty,” he said. “Why?

  What’s up?”

  “An important matter needs your attention.”

  “Important?” he asked. “How important?”