One Fell Swoop

by David Linzee

  “He said fifty.” Peter was approaching. The man shrank back as if he expected Peter to beat him with his cane. But he locked eyes with Renata again and his weathered features set in a stubborn expression. “A hundred or I won’t give it you.”

  “Oh … all right.” She dug in her purse. It was lucky that she had stopped at an airport cash point to get grocery money. She handed all of it to the man, who was fidgeting under Peter’s watchful eyes. His dirty fingers grasped the £10 notes while his other hand ducked under the orange singlet and came out with an untidy sheaf of paper. He gave it to her and walked quickly away.

  “It’s Don’s handwriting,” she said. His elegant but near illegible script covered the first page, which was his boarding pass.

  Peter read the pass and said, “He caught a late flight out of Chicago night before last. He’s been here a full day. Can you read what he wrote?”

  “It’s not easy. ‘Dear Renata, I must keep this impersonal and short, because you may have to hand it over to the police.’ ” Her insides were knotting up. She raised her head and forced a deep breath into her lungs.

  “He didn’t manage to keep it short. There must be ten or twelve pages.”

  The wind was curling the pages over her fingers. She said, “Let’s find a place to sit down and read.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They went into a crowded, noisy café overlooking the Serpentine. The wind was making waves in the long, narrow, blue lake, which sparkled in the sunshine. People on the banks were feeding the ducks and geese. Renata laid the untidy manuscript on the table. Don had obviously written it on the plane, using whatever pieces of paper had come to hand.

  She glanced at the first lines and said, “Well, at long last. We have the name of Don’s boss.”

  “Who is it?”

  She read, “ ‘This is a true and complete statement of my activities in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on behalf of Anand Mavalankar—’ ”

  “Mavalankar!” Peter said. “Holy shit.”

  “You know of him?”

  “You mean you don’t?”

  “Peter, ordinary people aren’t so well informed as you. Who is he?”

  “A major international criminal. Infamous around the world for his greed and ruthlessness. Nobody knows how many deaths he’s been responsible for, one way or another, but he’s too well insulated to be prosecuted. The part of his activities that shows above the surface is a construction company. It’s the company that was at the center of the Commonwealth Games scandal.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know about that either.”

  “Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games five years ago. It was a fiasco, thanks mostly to Mavalankar. He won the contracts to build the stadium and other facilities, not by making the lowest bid, but by bribing politicians to accept his inflated bids. He and his extended family and associates squeezed everybody else out with payoffs and intimidation. When one of his cronies lost the food service contract, Mavalankar simply slowed down work on the whole sports complex. It wasn’t going to be ready in time, and the government caved. Gave his pal the contract.

  “But by then it was almost too late. Mavalankar forced his employees to work longer and longer hours. He ignored safety procedures. I think it was thirty or thirty-five workers died or were crippled in accidents. The games took place on time. But in the years since, most of the buildings have become unusable or completely collapsed, because Mavalankar used cheap materials. Hundreds of millions of dollars had disappeared into his pockets and those of his friends. Even for India, it was too much. The government mounted an all-out drive to prosecute him. But the case broke down. The vital witnesses either recanted or disappeared. No one will ever be able to prove it, but Mavalankar’s goondahs probably murdered at least ten people.”

  “Goondahs?”

  “The Indian word for men like your friend Flathead.”

  Renata resumed reading, in silence, passing each page to Peter as she finished with it. Don’s resolve to write a formal statement had given way in the first sentence.

  Never been much of a writer but here goes. We’ve left Chicago. Soon we’ll be in Canadian airspace. Now I can gather my wits and begin. Hope I don’t run out of time or paper. If I were in first class the stews would provide me with stationery. But they won’t do a thing for you here in steerage.

  Steerage. That’s where to start. When we met at Maestro Grinevich’s, I was in London to see Mavalankar, and the trip had got off to a rough start, because his people had put me in steerage. A sign that I was in disfavour with the great man.

  When I walked into his office in the City, he just looked at me. It wasn’t only the usual smile and handshake and invitation to sit that were missing. It was as if he’d never laid eyes on me before. He asked when he was going to see a return on Parkdale. I couldn’t come up with a reply. Before, he’d always said it was a long-term investment.

  He lost his temper. I’d been pouring his money into Parkdale and he was tired of it. He wanted to unload those buildings now. Did I have a buyer in mind?

  I didn’t. I’d made some friends on his staff and they’d warned me. You never knew where you were with him. But I wasn’t prepared. I was standing in front of his desk with my knees wobbling. The longest minutes of my life went by. Then he said, So it’s up to me to come up with someone? Very well.

  He called the man who stands outside his door, and whose only job is to take off the Persian slippers he wears in the office and put on his street shoes—which are always bespoke from New & Lingwood, by the way. So we were going out. As we crossed the outer office he shouted for someone to ring Sheikh Abdullah, ask for the favor of an interview, and say we were on our way. It was the first I heard of Sheikh Abdullah.

  He didn’t say a word to me on the ride across town. Busy on his mobile. It was raining and I was looking out at the wretched people under their umbrellas. Remembering what it was like when I was one of them and saw a limousine go by. Now I was in the limo, and envying them. A flunky crouching on a jump seat asked me if I wanted anything from the bar and I knew I couldn’t swallow so much as a sip of water. I hadn’t even noticed what make of car it was.

  Our destination was the sheikh’s townhouse in Belgravia. As soon as I met him I began to feel a little better. He hadn’t just climbed down from a camel. The voice and manners and handshake told me he’d been at a British public school. Mavalankar’s filthy mood improved a bit, too. It was obvious they were old friends.

  We sat down and ordered tea. Mavalankar said he’d have chai, not too sweet, and turned to the sheikh and said in the same tone, I have 89 buildings in St. Louis, USA, and you’re just the man to buy them from me. The sheikh didn’t turn a hair, just asked, St. Louis, where Adams University is? Mavalankar said yes, and that’s who you’ll sell them on to. By the time tea arrived, the deal was done.

  Mavalankar suggested to the sheikh that I should act as his agent, that I was a very capable fellow. Rather dizzying to be back in good odour with him so fast. The sheikh graciously accepted my services. He explained that he and Chancellor Reeve had been working on a Kutar Campus for some time. It was the first I’d heard of it. The sheikh had taken considerable trouble, his contribution had been vital, and now he deserved a token of Reeve’s appreciation. Adams would buy the 89 buildings from him, for a few hundred thousand dollars more than he was about to pay Mavalankar. To be exact, I would do the asking. In Arabia, the two principals would never lower themselves to discuss a side deal like this. Trusted subordinates would do it. I would act for the sheikh, he said, and whom did I think I should approach for the chancellor?

  I had to tell them that this might be courtesy in Arabia, but in America it would be called corruption. Safer all around if I approached Reeve directly. Mavalankar said I was trustworthy and discreet and should be given a free hand. The sheikh concurred.

  Outside the house, Mavalankar clapped me on the shoulder and said, You may be representing the sheikh, but don’t forget you work
for me. I’m not letting you go. As long as I was here, I might as well stay the weekend. Come along to the musical evening at Grinevich’s. That’s when I mentioned you, and he said he’d ask Grinevich to add you to the program.

  If this should be our last communication, I hope you’ll remember that when I was on top of the world, or thought I was, I did you a good turn. Give me credit for that at least.

  Back in St. Louis, the Adams flunkies were very tiresome. Wouldn’t let me see the chancellor unless I explained my business. I checked his public schedule and found he was appearing at the opening of the university’s latest do-gooder enterprise, a center for at-risk, differently abled children with special needs, or whatever. He was doing some sort of engineering demonstration involving Legos. The children were much more interested in his missing arm than the engineering. He twigged and made a joke about it and asked for volunteers to assist him. You should’ve seen it. A bunch of street urchins who could barely sit still, but when the chancellor gathered them round him, they were like shepherds adoring the Blessed Virgin. The man certainly does have charisma. Or did.

  Afterward he was drinking lemonade with some teachers, pretending to be accessible, but his flunkies kept heading me off. All I could do was write the sheikh’s name on a napkin, fold it and hand it to him as he was leaving. Couple of minutes later, a flunky returned to escort me to his car. He played dumb at first, said Parkdale was an interesting idea but would have to go through channels. I told him plainly, his friend the sheikh was asking for a personal favour and if he said no they wouldn’t be friends anymore and he could forget about his Mideast campus. He lost his temper. Just threw all his toys out of the pram. Said he didn’t believe I came from the sheikh. I told him he would receive a call and got out of the car. Then I rang London and arranged for the call.

  The very same day my mobile rang and it was the chancellor. Singing a very different tune. He would buy the 89 buildings. In fact, for camouflage purposes, he was going to buy all of Parkdale in one fell swoop. He wanted to put it behind him, and he wanted to get off the phone with me as soon as possible.

  That very day, Lombardo interviewed me. Fancies himself a tough journalist, always sniffing for a rat. Well, sucks to him and his suspicions. I told him I was saving Parkdale, and that’s just what I was doing. You’ll say it was a corrupt deal. But what Joel Rubinstein and his friends had been trying to do the honest way for thirty years, I pulled off in a couple of days.

  I was positively livid when I got that phone message from you. This was the most delicate moment of a not quite legal deal. And it was my golden chance. The money I’d make on it would be only the beginning. Last thing I wanted was you mucking it up with your ridiculous suspicions. I rang my friend Jhumpa. She said she’d try to calm you down.

  Only hours later Mavalankar himself called. I was frightened but he made a joke of it, asked me why I couldn’t control the females in my family. He told me you were on the way to St. Louis, even your flight number and arrival time. I asked him what he wanted me to do and he replied it was quite simple. You could only do real mischief if you found out his name. And I was the only one in St. Louis who knew it. I need only stay away from you. Next day he called again and I said the Parkdale deal was all over bar the shouting and why didn’t I just come back to London. He told me he would have something else for me to do in St. Louis. I didn’t ask what it would be.

  This is why I don’t like to write. Not this sort of postmortem anyway. Makes one aware of all one didn’t do and should have done. The sort of pointless brooding you’re so good at.

  I’m back after a break. Didn’t feel at all like going on. Crept past rows of sleeping people to the stews’ lair and managed to talk them into selling me a couple more little bottles of Scotch. Then I had a nap. But we’re over Ireland now and I have to finish.

  While you were dashing about St. Louis I was in a comfortable motel in the suburbs with my laptop. You’ll want to know what I was doing with my last hours before everything went spectacularly pear-shaped. I was on London estate agent websites, looking for a place to live. On what Mavalankar would pay me, I could definitely afford Fulham. Maybe even Chelsea.

  Remembering that made me so cross with myself I had to go back for more Scotch. Sorry. If I had more paper I would throw this sheet out, but I don’t.

  Now the descent into hell begins. First sign: The evening news said the police were looking for me. Something else to blame you for. I changed motels, registering under a false name, but forgot to get rid of the car I’d hired under my own name.

  Then the call came. Mavalankar told me to present myself at the Ritz Carlton, as Sheikh Abdullah had an errand for me.

  The top floor was entirely taken up by his entourage. Soon I was taking off my shoes at the door of the sheikh’s room. He welcomed me and turned on some sort of humming machine that’s supposed to foil listening devices. Then he brushed back his moustache, took a sip of tea, and said the things we discussed at our London meeting did not in fact happen. Parkdale did not change hands. I was to go to the chancellor immediately and inform him that I worked for Anand Mavalankar. That was whom the chancellor had made the deal with.

  He actually expected me to salaam him and depart. But finally, much too late, I was becoming a bit curious, and I demanded to know what the hell he and Mavalankar were playing at.

  The sheikh explained that he and Reeve were at an impasse. In view of the long friendship between himself and Mavalankar, it was inconceivable that anyone else should get the contract to build the Kutar Campus. But Chancellor Reeve consistently refused to do business with Mavalankar, whose reputation he found unsavoury. His resistance would cease, once I told him that he was already dealing with Mavalankar. The contracts were signed and the money was transmitted.

  I won’t waste space bidding for sympathy from you. You’ve never had a moment like that. That’s one advantage of being so anxious and pessimistic, such an all-round wet blanket. You’ve never been led down the garden path to the edge of the cliff. Finally, I saw that this was what it had all been about from the beginning. Parkdale didn’t matter. It was just a few million. The contract to build the Kutar Campus was worth a hundred million dollars. All this rigmarole had had only one purpose, to get Phil Reeve into bed with Mavalankar without his knowing it.

  They had me where they wanted me, too. No one would believe I’d been such a fool. I had only one chance and that was to do as I was told. Give Phil Reeve the glad tidings and get out of St. Louis. Out of America.

  And those were the cheerful thoughts going through my mind when I emerged from the Ritz and looked over my shoulder to see Lombardo on his bloody bicycle bearing down on me. It did cheer me up a bit to send him flying arse over tip.

  Sorry. That’s the Scotch talking. I’d throw this page away too if I could.

  I had the chancellor’s private number and I rang it. He didn’t want to meet with me. Even when I made it clear to him he had to, he wouldn’t let me come to his house or the campus. And so we ended up having our fateful rendezvous in the parking lot behind a Taco Bell. For the rest of my life I think I will never be able to smell a quesadilla without being sick.

  If you don’t think a one-armed man can’t frighten you witless you haven’t see Reeve in a fury. I thought he was going to pound my head in. He said he was taking me to a man he knew in the local FBI office, from which I would go directly to jail. But then he realized that was a non-starter. He would lose control of the timing of the revelations, which was his only hope of surviving the scandal.

  I thought he’d let me go but not a chance. He wanted me to know all about the man I was working for. He told me Mavalankar had made untold millions on construction projects in the Gulf. He hired poor Indians and shipped them to the Gulf where they had no rights and he could house and feed them as cheaply as he pleased. He overworked them and neglected their safety and many were injured or died in accidents. Of course all that fattened the profit margin for the investors. Mavalan
kar had made many friends like Sheikh Abdullah.

  He said it was true, the sheikh kept insisting they give the contract for the campus to Mavalankar and he kept refusing. Reeve had people on his faculty who opposed the campus for their own selfish reasons. The news that an international human rights pariah was building the campus would be a godsend to them. He wasn’t sure the project would survive it. Or he would survive it.

  He had no choice but to take his licks. His virtue was lost already. When you’re dealing with the Devil, it’s in for a penny, in for a pound. It didn’t matter that the Parkdale deal was only a few million. He fell silent and I could see his mind working, how he was going to delay releasing the news, finesse it, manage the reaction. He forgot I was there, and I just stood breathing greasy exhaust fumes.

  Finally he noticed I was still on the planet. He said only, do me a favor and arrange that I never see you again, and walked back to his car.

  Peter looked up from the sheet. “Well, that explains it. Why Chancellor Reeve collapsed the way he did when the Medical Park thing blew up. Why he couldn’t bring himself to face the press. He knew he was done for. He could survive one scandal but not two.”

  “Now he’s resigned in disgrace. He’s finished, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Poor bastard.”

  She had little time for the problems of ex-Chancellor Reeve. She returned to her brother’s.

  I’d like to go back to the stews and beg another fistful of bottles but they’re busy serving breakfast and we’re over Merrie Olde, so I must end.

  I can skip a lot about my last visit to Parkdale. From what you told Hannah, you already knew. And by now you know I was up in her flat while you were talking to her at the door. I know you. You’d only tell me I had to turn myself in to the American police and I didn’t want to hear that. I just wanted to get out of the country, back to London and my reward. I’d done such a splendid job for Mavalankar. When he rang my mobile and said he was sending someone to help me, I said oh good, and told him where I was.