City of Ice

by John Farrow

  “We’d love some, Daddy.”

  “Better come inside.”

  “Where’s he going?” the well-dressed gangster asked as the Banker did a quick turn and headed down the hall to his kitchen.

  “To make the tea.”

  Gitteridge held out his hat. She looked at it. The rough-looking bikers were visiting rooms, checking the windows. Julia decided to accept the hat. She took their coats as well and hung them up beside her own. The two fat guys remained dressed as they were because they weren’t staying. They returned to the corridor, presumably to guard the doors, inside and out, and Julia was glad to be rid of their smell and menace.

  She and Gitteridge and the tough guy walked down the hall, their steps echoing in the narrow enclosure. In the kitchen the man in fancy dress lit a cigarette. “I don’t drink tea,” he announced.

  “Nice cup of tea,” the Banker stipulated. He was tousled and quaint, old womanish in his mannerisms and given to sudden, slight, involuntary twitches. He was shorter than the coed claiming to be his daughter. A square scar shone below his right eye. “What can be finer in the middle of the day? The trick,” he declared, “is to warm the pot first.”

  “Everybody knows that, Daddy.” Julia expressed the impatience of a child for parental babble.

  “The secret’s out, is it? Well well. What can I say?”

  The daffy financial whiz busied himself with teacups and saucers and boiling water. He had scarcely acknowledged the presence of the men, and when he turned and wiped his hands on his housecoat he grinned at them in that flat, strange way and offered a hand. “Who’re your friends, dear? Professors from the university?”

  Reluctantly, Gitteridge shook the Banker’s hand. “Mr. Bantry,” Gitteridge said. “I’ve been reading about you. It’s nice to see you’re out of the tunnel.”

  “These are businessmen, Daddy. They’re interested in your services.”

  “What can I say? I’m not at my best. If she told me you were coming, I would have dressed. Put on a suit. With tie. But I don’t have one or the other. I would have prepared a pot of tea.”

  “Do we have four cups, Daddy?”

  “Four cups? Yes. Four cups. Four.”

  “I don’t want no tea,” the suit said.

  “Oh, dear,” the Banker fretted.

  “Don’t upset him.”

  “All I said was—”

  “What’s your name?” Carl Bantry asked. Good, Julia was thinking. Get information. I keep forgetting.

  “This is Jean-Guy,” Gitteridge mentioned.

  The hoodlum wandered off into a corner, where he used his index finger to draw circles around his right temple, and Gitteridge gave him a nod. They had made it obvious that the Banker was daffy. Now they had to convince their guests that he was also savvy.

  “Daddy, these gentlemen are interested in offering you a job. They’re looking for someone with banking experience. Someone with expertise in international finance.”

  “Sounds like me!” Bantry whooped.

  “You’d be perfect for the job.”

  “You understand,” Gitteridge cut in, “we’ll be the judge of that.”

  “That’s the problem,” Bantry argued, and his voice sounded serious, direct. “Now! Who takes milk and who takes sugar?”

  “We’re wasting our time with this guy,” Jean-Guy murmured. “He’s nutso.”

  Julia pleaded to give him a chance, unaware that Gitteridge was prepared to do exactly that. “What do you mean, sir? What’s the problem?”

  Musing, Bantry patted his light down of whiskers a moment. Julia prayed he understood that this was his audition, that there was no time for further nonsense. The men were halfway out the door, and she doubted that patience was a virtue with them.

  “A cup of tea,” Bantry chanted quietly. He studied the floor. Julia wanted to scream. “A cup of tea. A cup of tea in the wintertime. Tea. I was up at the crack. Waiting for the morning trains.”

  Suddenly she understood. Julia stepped forward and gently cradled her make-believe father in her arms and touched his forehead lightly. “Daddy?” she said very softly. He had created an opportunity for her to demonstrate her worth.

  The men watched.

  “Tea,” Bantry said. “Yes.”

  “Daddy, you told this man that it would be a problem if he judged your ability at international finance. Why did you say that?”

  He surfaced from the particular rhythm of mind that had trapped him. “Balderdash!” he shouted, so forcefully that his words threw Julia off. Suddenly she was standing to one side. “I know the ropes. I have the contacts. I know the economies of scale, the deceptions of arbitrage, the finesse necessary to negotiate currencies and to traffic in cash. I know how to harvest money and invest it, and move it, and who will judge me? Who will judge my worth?” He looked straight at Gitteridge to answer his own question. “A dolt who probably thinks buying an automobile is a good investment.”

  Bantry continued to stare down the lawyer, and Gitteridge glared back, attentive to any signal of madness. Bantry held his gaze, and Gitteridge was obliged to speak. “My associates, my clients, have certain financial concerns and needs.”

  “Yes yes,” Bantry said.

  “They are particular and sensitive.”

  “Of course.”

  “We would like to ascertain if you can be of service to us.”

  “Sir, you are welcome and I would say entitled to one freebie.”

  Julia had to rescue the whistling kettle from the stove. In his current frame of mind Carl Bantry had forgotten entirely about the tea.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Give me a problem. I shall provide you with a solution.”

  Gitteridge gestured with his hands. “That’s a difficult proposition on such short notice—”

  “Hypothetical, of course.”

  “Well—”

  “Sir, let’s have it.”

  Gitteridge flashed a grin and moved off to one side. “All right. Let me think. Let us suppose, hypothetically, that a client possessed, say, ten million dollars, and, hypothetically, this client was unwilling to declare how the money had been acquired. Not to say that the money was garnered through anything but legitimate means, but let’s say that that particular client would rather keep the information to himself. In what country should these funds be deposited, if a short-term deposit is what the client has in mind? Would you suggest the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, or Switzerland?”

  “None of the above.”

  “Say again? Then where?”

  “Ha! You see, you posed the wrong question, sir. Now you are asking for a second freebie. All right, this is your lucky day. I shall be generous. Poland.”

  The lawyer stared at the man who, despite his attire, now looked the essence of forthright determination. “Poland?”

  “Now I suppose you expect me to explain myself.”

  “That would be interesting.”

  “Where ten million dollars can be deposited is of no consequence. Hire Bozo the Clown and he will set your client up with a secret numbered account. How to get the money to any of the places you mentioned is a surmountable problem, but a nuisance nonetheless. Usually it has to be carried in a sack. A million in twenties weighs five hundred and fifty pounds. A problem. Set up an offshore company with a Polish name and establish a bank account, run the funds through a series of blind accounts for numbered companies, each one receiving a modest sum—say, half a million over a couple of months, then collapse those accounts after the money has been harvested by the Polish account, then wire it—wire it—to Poland to assist with a development project there. While you’re at it, invest in Polish enterprises to a minor degree. You will lose a little, or you’ll gain a little. It is of no consequence. Pull out and no one’s the wiser, the money now has a country of origin, no bank is suspicious of extraordinary sums coming out of the Eastern Bloc, and that money is now not only hidden and accounted for but also freshly scented, crisp, clean, impeccable
, what the criminals call laundered. Of course there are complications, sir! But do not expect me to yield all my secrets. You have had enough freebies for one day.”

  A silence consumed the room, with all eyes but Julia’s intent on Carl Bantry. She surveyed Gitteridge’s reaction. He showed nothing, although his silence suggested respect. “How safe would the money be?” he asked at last.

  “If your client is primarily interested in safety, may I suggest the Royal Bank of Canada? Term deposits? If your client is interested in limited risk to capital with the benefit of exceptional periodic gains that are bound to offset the occasional downside, tell him to invest the money wherever I happen to be employed.”

  “Daddy,” Julia said quietly, “tea?” She held up his cup to him.

  “A cup of tea,” Bantry said, suddenly subdued and lethargic again. “A cup of tea. On a winter’s day, a cup of tea.” He addressed the cup he was holding in his hand without drinking from it. “Why’d I get up so early?”

  “Daddy,” Julia encouraged him. “Drink.”

  He sipped his tea, neglecting to serve his guests, and Bantry never glanced up as Julia ushered the visitors to the front room.

  “If you want him, my father will discuss a contract with you himself. We’ll need up-front money to get him dressed properly and groomed and all that. He can set up an office right here, but we’ll need phones and extra lines, a computer, a modem, a fax, a printer, yada yada yada. He won’t keep paper records, you can see for yourself that he’ll never make a reliable witness, so you have nothing to fear on that side of things.”

  Jean-Guy interrupted her. “Who says anybody needs this guy?”

  “You do, by being here. And by sending down your lawyer.” Their performance had gone so well. She hoped that her exultation, her joy, didn’t show too much.

  “We’ll be in touch, Miss Bantry,” Gitteridge told her. He had opened the closet that contained his topcoat. “We have your number.”

  “Great.”

  The men collected their outerwear and stepped through to the corridor. With a mere nod, Julia closed the door on their visit and promptly skipped down the hall to the kitchen to celebrate. She was virtually running by the time she spun through the door, reaching out to grab the doorframe to slow herself down. In the kitchen, the Banker held an index finger firmly to his lips. His eyes conveyed a fierce demand for caution. Julia was hushed before she spoke. Then he nodded for her to come forward. She leaned way over to gaze at the spot he indicated, and saw what she took to be a listening device wedged beneath the rim of old countertop.

  The Bantrys straightened up, and the daughter gave the father a rugged hug. “I think they’re going to hire you, Daddy. You did good, Pops. I knew you could do it! If they have any brains at all they’ll hire you.”

  “That would be nice, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, Daddy. Yes! I’d love a cup of tea!”

  9

  Thursday, January 13

  North of the mountain, in the affluent, largely French-speaking neighborhood of Outremont, Émile Cinq-Mars waited with Bill Mathers in an unmarked car six doors up from Walter Kaplonski’s. The house stood high off the curb, narrow, semidetached, approached by a steep double tier of concrete stairs. Although the building required a general sprucing up, trim paint especially, the three-story elegance of fieldstone and brick, leaded glass and time-darkened mahogany clearly marked a rich man’s abode.

  “Nice digs,” Mathers mentioned.

  “Crime pays.” Today they spoke English, as though adopting the language of their prey.

  “Keeps me employed,” Mathers concurred.

  Cinq-Mars had made it clear that he alone would choose the timing for the bust and had positioned a uniform and Detective Alain Déguire, André LaPierre’s orphaned partner, around the corner in a blue-and-white. Mathers scrunched down in the front seat and took a chance on thinking aloud. “His kids are in school. His wife’s taken a drive—to meet a lover if she has half a brain. We know he’s inside. We know he’s alone. I say there’s no time like the present.”

  “Where’s his lawyer?”

  “What difference does it make? Kaplonski will clam up and call him. After he talks to him he’ll go real quiet.”

  “He can try,” Cinq-Mars demurred. “It’s not so easy to say nothing.”

  The sun on the windshield warmed them.

  The cellular phone rang, and Cinq-Mars retrieved it and uttered his own name and no further word. He powered off and smiled at Mathers. “Golly gee, Bill,” he said, with mock surprise. “Kaplonski’s lawyer just went into court. Gitteridge has a trial—judge and jury. He could be incommunicado for hours.”

  Chuckling, Mathers shook his head and sat up straight. “Émile, we can’t talk to Kaplonski. He lawyered up. You know that.”

  The argument evoked little more than a shrug from Cinq-Mars as he called on the two-way for Déguire to come around. He and Mathers clambered out and strolled down the block, taking their time.

  “Seems to me we picked him up on suspicion of car theft and possession of stolen property,” Cinq-Mars mentioned. “That’s my recollection. Now I’m arresting him for murder. Different story. He never lawyered up for that.”

  “You’re splitting legal hairs.”

  “Too bad for him his lawyer’s in court. Gitteridge could’ve guided us through the hairsplitting, given us a few pointers. Unless you’re offering to be his counsel?”

  “Émile, he won’t talk to us.”

  “At the station? Never. Kaplonski values his life too much. But HQ’s a distance—who knows?—we might get to chat along the way. A little human discourse, Bill—it’s rumored to be good for the soul.” Cinq-Mars stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing up. Yard space was precious and sloped. Children, sliding on their fannies, had plowed troughs through the snow on the lawn down to the bare sidewalk.

  “Straight on, Émile? Murder won’t stick to this dope. Accessory, maybe. Material witness, good chance. Homicide? Never.”

  “I doubt he did it myself—but does Kaplonski need to hear that from me? Follow my lead, Bill.”

  “Once in a blue moon, it’d be nice to know what’s going on ahead of time.”

  Cinq-Mars cracked a wide grin. “Simple as pie, William. LaPierre gave this man a gentle rubdown and a manicure, trimmed his hair. I don’t plan to sprinkle him with talc. I’d prefer to see him itch. I want Kaplonski to feel an insatiable urge to scratch himself.”

  The squad car braked at the foot of the stairs to Kaplonski’s place, driving a front tire onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing a hydrant. Déguire and the uniform jumped out, and the four men leisurely climbed the first set of stairs in the morning light with the rhythmic flash of the car’s rooftop cherries reflecting off the brick. Déguire looked peeved. His partner’s archrival had selected him for this duty, and he looked worried about that, his heavy forehead sinking lower over his eyes. He seemed lost in troubling thoughts. At the initial landing Cinq-Mars signaled him and the uniform to circle around through the snow to the rear as he and Mathers carried on.

  “So why’s Déguire here?” Mathers asked quietly.

  “No special reason.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Cinq-Mars gestured with his chin. “It’s a test.”

  “You test us all, don’t you, Émile?”

  Cinq-Mars removed his revolver from its holster, pocketed it, and with his free hand rang the bell. “East of Aldgate,” he stipulated.

  “East, west, north, south—makes no difference to me. Who knows what you’re talking about?” Mathers knew enough to take out his gun and snap the detective shield off his belt.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Bill. Anything on for the weekend, you and your wife?”

  Mathers shrugged. “No plans, no. Why?”

  “Come out to the farm Saturday night for dinner.”

  The interior door opened. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Why wou
ld I? Our wives can meet. I’d like to show you the place.”

  Wrapped in a bathrobe and smoking a cigar, Kaplonski answered the door. He snatched the cigar out of his mouth to more effectively sneer. “What’s this?”

  Cinq-Mars ignored him and pressed his partner instead. “What do you say?”

  Mathers sputtered, “Sure. Thanks. Look forward to it.”

  “Sevenish all right?”

  “Fine.” He couldn’t fathom his partner’s timing.

  Turning, Cinq-Mars inquired, “Mr. Walter Kaplonski?”

  “Dickface, you know me.”

  “Police.”

  “I know who you are, Asswipe. You got a warrant?”

  “Sir, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Hagop Artinian.”

  Kaplonski was shaken. He visibly paled.

  “May we come in?”

  “What for?”

  “So you can change your attire, sir,” Cinq-Mars pointed out. “Otherwise, we’re obliged to take you downtown dressed as you are.”

  Kaplonski checked his bare legs under the housecoat. “You limp dick,” he seethed, looking up again.

  “Thanks for the invitation.” The two policemen followed Kaplonski into the house, and before they’d gone ten feet he had his hands on a telephone. Cinq-Mars stepped up and clicked the line dead. “No calls,” he informed him.

  “Hey! I got a right to talk to my shyster!”

  “Sure you do.” Cinq-Mars took the receiver from his hand. “Your guy’s in court, I’m just saving your breath. Make the call downtown.”

  “Pig Pussy,” Kaplonski muttered.

  “Put out that cigar, sir.”

  A blustering Kaplonski suggested to Cinq-Mars that he preferred carnal relations with swine and goats.

  “True, but you’ll do in a pinch. Now put out that damn cigar.”

  Kaplonski shot a look at Mathers, who merely grinned, his pistol in evidence at his side. Taking one last contemptuous drag, the prisoner crushed the cigar in an ashtray on the telephone table and glared back at Cinq-Mars.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Despite the prohibition against the pastime, Kaplonski seemed wrenched by thought. He considered his options carefully, and chose to blow his smoke away from the detective’s face.