Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  As Aleks spoke the old man seemed to sort each fact into the proper file in his memory.

  “You are certain of all this, hey?”

  “Pretty certain, yes.”

  “You have been busy, Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian. Busy remembering, hey?”

  Again, Aleks didn’t correct Griggor’s mispronunciation of their name.

  “It comes. It goes. But it stays with me more and more.”

  Griggor mentally processed the new information about the tall stranger. His name: Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian. His occupation: financial investor. He still couldn’t nail down the thing that was unsettling him about the stranger’s background. He hadn’t known the tall man before he literally wandered into their lives. Had never met him prior to 9/11. He would have remembered someone so tall. Yet something Aleks said had tickled Griggor’s own memory. What worried the old man was the feeling of alarm that came with it.

  “How do you know Binyak, he is there? When Towers collapse?”

  Because I left him there. With Connie, Aleks couldn’t help but think. I strangled them both and left I them there.

  “It’s a…it’s a gut feeling, Griggor. We’re twins. I, uh…I just know.”

  Aleks had hoped the old man would take him at his word, had forgotten how thorough and perceptive Griggor was.

  “But you cannot prove this, hey?”

  “We worked there, Griggor. It was a work day. Binyak would have been there.”

  “So Binyak, he is working on September one and one, da?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are not there, Aleks. Where are you? On this work day, hey?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  Aleks touched his head where his wound had been, as though that explained his absence, as well as his lack of memory.

  “I liked to jog every morning. Pick up coffee. That morning…who knows? Anyway, Binyak is dead. And Connie. My, uh…my wife. I think.”

  “You think this Connie, she is wife? Or you think she is dead?”

  “Both,” Aleks admitted. “She may have been Binyak’s wife. I’m not sure. But I don’t think so.”

  So, Jills is not wife. Connie is wife.

  “If she is wife for you, Aleks, why is she there with him. If you are not, hey?”

  Always suspicious, Griggor wondered at any possible incongruity in the story.

  “Waiting for me. We had a meeting. An appointment. A brunch date. I don’t know, Griggor. I don’t have all the answers. Christ, I don’t have most of the answers.”

  Aleks didn’t feel like arguing with the old man any further, was growing impatient with Griggor’s incessant interrogation. After spending weeks dealing with amnesia, more weeks discovering who he was, then deciding to ask the old Romanian’s help getting his old life back, he was ready get on with it.

  “Look, I can’t find anything online about any of this. About Aleks Bagdasarian. About A/S/B Financial. Obviously, I don’t have enough to go on to dig anything up about Binyak or Jills or Connie.”

  He hesitated, unsure how the old man would react to his next comment.

  “Nadia says you were secret police. In Romania. I…I think you’re probably better at this than I am. At…uh…at finding someone…uh…information…about people.”

  Griggor was thoughtful.

  “Nadia. She tells you this, hey?”

  Aleks hadn’t intended to cause any friction between the old man and Nadia.

  “I…uh…I kinda pressured her. For information.”

  He hoped that would alleviate Griggor’s irritation with the Romanian woman.

  “Do you look at missing peoples lists?” Griggor asked. “You have name, hey? Do you look there? It is easy thing to do. Papers, they have lists.”

  “I’ve checked. No Aleks Bagdasarian on any lists I’ve seen. That wouldn’t really tell us much anyway. Let’s say our names were there. So what? That would only prove Binyak is real. Prove we worked in one of the Towers.”

  “It would tell us Binyak’s real name. His “S” name, hey?”

  Aleks had considered that. Seeing both his and Binyak’s name on a missing persons list would have proven Binyak was real and provided his actual name.

  “It’s a moot point. We’re not listed.”

  He had a sudden, agonizing realization. There was no one to report Binyak and him missing. Which meant Nene and Baba were dead. Which meant neither he nor Binyak had a family. A wife. Children.

  “I have nothing that identifies me, Griggor. No photo ID. No documentation. No living relatives who can identify me. Nothing that says I’m Aleks Bagdasarian. Other than a Swiss cheese memory. I thought maybe you could help. I thought you might be able to get my birth certificate. My social security number. My driver’s license. I need to get my identity back.”

  Identity, da. Griggor contemplated. What is it about that, hey?

  “And you think Griggor can do this, hey?”

  “I think you’re the kind of person a person in my situation goes to when they need help, yes. A new identity, for example.”

  “Ah. But, you do not need new identity. You need old identity, da?”

  Aleks couldn’t determine if he’d been wrong about Griggor, or if the old man was toying with him. He only knew that, without Griggor’s help, he’d reached the end of his rope. He had nowhere else to turn.

  “I just want my life back,” he sighed. “I just want to be Bags again. I want to be Nikki’s Bagsman.”

  His last words echoed in Griggor’s mind.

  I want to be Nikki’s Bagsman.

  The old man suddenly had the answer to the puzzle that had been plaguing him about the stranger’s identity. The grain of sand had finally produced its pearl.

  Dumnezeule! You are not Nikki’s Bagsman, hey? You are Ilya’s Bagman!

  Griggor didn’t know why he hadn’t put it all together before. A variety of sentiments passed through him. Uncertainty. Caution. Even pity.

  “Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian, he is investor, hey?” he stated, obviously distressed. “He is numbers man. Monies man, da? Someone who is also called ‘bagman.’ In some crazy business.”

  Aleks didn’t understand why Griggor was referring to him in third person. Or what crazy business he was talking about. When Griggor spoke again, his words sent a chill through the tall man’s body.

  “I would caution you,” the Romanian warned. “If Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian, he is Ilya’s Bagman? He is better off to stay dead, hey?”

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 51

 

  A/S/B Financial opened in the spring of 1998. For a time, life was good. The brothers plunged into their business, worked endlessly on building their clientele. They obtained prospect lists. Made cold calls. Set up group presentations. They loved working together. And they worked well together. Step had his role. Analyze the market. Implement investment strategies based on his philosophy of slow, steady growth. Aleks had his role. Schmooze, sweet talk, persuade.

  The plan was simple enough. Put Step’s formula for financial success to work building profitable portfolios for their clients. One part patience. Two parts time. Low risk, modest returns. It wasn’t rocket science.

  For two years, business was good.

  Then greed reared its ugly head.

  It wasn’t enough that he was fucking his brother’s wife. Aleks had to go and fuck their business up as well.

  The older Bagdasarian twin sat in his office in the A/S/B Financial suite looking over the spreadsheets Step’s tracking program had generated. All showed negative growth. Double-digit negative growth.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucker!” Aleks shouted.

  I can’t pick one winner? One fucking dotcom that fucking succeeds?

  He’d been seduced by the technology boom. Believed he could make easy money. Stratton Oakmont-like money. Like a kid in a candy store, he’d invested in a host of promising dot-coms. High risk be damned. He was looking for high reward. He’d boug
ht high, hoping for stock splits that never materialized. He’d not only invested his clients’ money, he’d poured all of his seed money into speculative stocks. Internet companies that were popping up all over, creating overnight billionaires. Aleks had hoped to become one of them.

  By first quarter 2000, many dot-coms began running out of capital, filing bankruptcy. A/S/B was losing thousands of dollars. And Aleks could do nothing to stop the bleeding. He was soon spending more time trying to prevent Step from discovering the losses than trying to put together promising portfolios for his clients. Portfolios that followed Step’s program. Portfolios that delivered slow, steady growth and, eventually, financial security. Succumbing to his Achilles’ heel, greedy Aleks had sought fast returns. A practice that only snowballed after a loss as he risked more money in a futile attempt to recover the initial investment, still hoping to turn a profit.

  In no time, he was treading water. Then, struggling to keep his head above water. Aleks was significantly submerged the day Eva Karponov entered his office, tossed him a lifejacket.

  Eva was a strikingly tall woman. Over six feet in flat-heeled business shoes. She was athletically built, tending to the slender side, but with a bountiful bosom. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Her blond hair was pulled back tightly in a business bun. Her eyes were steely blue. From the tight collar of her charcoal grey pin-striped suitcoat to the tip of her practical beige business flats, Eva Karponov was all business.

  Aleks liked everything about her. Her looks. Her accent. Even the smile he never saw that day.

  The beautiful woman presented a particularly interesting proposition. She claimed to represent a Russian businessman who was looking for investments. Her client was ready to advance two-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars as his initial outlay. Aleks would be free to invest the money any way he deemed appropriate. However, the client had certain demands about how his money would be handled. Dividends and withdrawals were to be distributed exactly according to the client’s strict mandates and time frames. For this, Aleks would receive a twenty percent commission.

  It was obvious Eva was managing a money-laundering operation for her client. Who was most likely a Russian mobster. No concern to Aleks. He easily calculated twenty percent of two-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollars was fifty thousand bucks. His right off the top. He was in no position to pass up such lucrative business. Even business with the Russian mob. Ethics be damned. His current money problems didn’t allow him to be selective about his clients. He saw an opportunity to make some money, reverse his recent string of bad luck and, hopefully, get some blond Rooskie tail in the process.

  He accepted Eva’s deal. Then asked the beautiful, buxom blond if she had plans for dinner.

  “I do now,” Eva said in her thick accent, her long eyelashes slowly lowering and raising.

  Aleks didn’t succeed in getting any Rooskie tail that evening. Or for the longest time afterward. That Eva might be a lesbian crossed his mind. That she could already be in a relationship, or simply not interested in him, never occurred to the arrogant womanizer.

  Initially, Aleks invested the Russian’s money in safe stocks offering modest returns. Over the first several months, he shared reports with Eva that showed steady increases in the value of the accounts he’d set up. She feigned excitement, but it was obvious neither she, nor her client, were the least bit interested in spread sheets. Eva was more focused on providing Aleks with numbers for the accounts into which he was to transfer dividends. That the orders often included requests to sell off stock and transfer sums of money under ten thousand dollars further confirmed Aleks’s belief that he was involved in a money-laundering scheme.

  Eva’s client soon invested an additional hundred thousand dollars. Then another. And another. Within months, Aleks had handled more than one million dollars of the Russian’s money. He’d netted over two hundred thousand dollars in commissions.

  And he’d finally succeeded in bedding the Russian beauty.

  Eva was a stoic partner, unpassionate, unable to achieve an orgasm. Sex with her was an athletic event. Very physical. A work-out. Despite the blond Russian’s apparent lack of gratification, Aleks found their encounters invigorating. Satisfying.

  He was still sleeping with Connie, as well. Not as often as his sister-in-law wanted, but more often than he wished. He lived with the constant worry that Step would find out. Or that Connie would expose them. She’d been making more and more noise about telling Step the truth. Aleks had told her to keep her mouth shut. The last time she’d brought it up, he’d been in an especially foul mood over the latest market closing. Had grabbed her by the throat with one hand, backed her up against a wall, snarled at her harshly.

  “You utter so much as a peep about us to Step and I’ll kill you!”

  He’d been livid. On the edge of losing control. Before having a moment of clarity when he realized he actually could have snuffed Connie’s life out. He’d been both surprised and embarrassed by the intensity of the hatred he’d momentarily felt. So this is how it can happen, he’d thought. A moment of intense emotion. The complete opposite of love or affection. Then you’re serving twenty years to life for manslaughter.

  In addition to the precarious affair with his brother’s wife, Aleks was skating on thin ice with his business dealings. The twenty percent commission from the Russian hadn’t put much of a dent in recouping the losses he’d incurred during his dot-com frenzy. He needed more. Since it was apparent his new client wasn’t concerned with making money but, rather, making his money appear to be legitimate, Aleks began taking certain liberties with the Russian’s funds.

  He was soon doctoring reports to make it look as though the Russian’s accounts were losing money. Plausible, he reasoned, given the current dot-com bubble. Meanwhile, he continued to invest in high-risk companies, hoping to dig himself out of the financial hole he’d quarried.

  When the money first began “disappearing,” he blamed variances in the market to an uncomprehending Eva. Their discussions became more and more antagonistic as the funds continued to dwindle. With each consecutive meeting, the beautiful Russian became more distraught. She demanded that the accounts improve, began dropping hints that her client was not a man one wished to cross.

  One evening, Eva failed to appear at their appointed meeting place. Days later, a peculiar-looking man entered the offices of A/S/B Financial. It was late afternoon. Step was out, meeting with their banker. Fortuitous for Aleks since his brother knew nothing about his dealings with Eva and her Russian client.

  The odd man was slender, almost effeminate in build. He wore a black fedora, had bulgy eyes, carried a black cane with a silver bear’s head adorning the top. He held it with hands concealed in black felt gloves.

  “You are Albanskiy (Albanian), da? Eva’s money-man?”

  He had a thick Russian accent. Not nearly as enticing as Eva’s. He hissed like a snake when he spoke. Aleks didn’t know what “Albanskiy” meant, assumed it was a Russian word for accountant. Without waiting for an answer, the queer man sat, indicated that Aleks do the same. He didn’t remove his hat.

  “How is Eva?” Aleks asked amiably as he looked across his desk at the strange man. “I’m a bit concerned. She missed our last meeting.”

  The Russian smiled, squinting his eyes.

  With a wave of his hand and a shrug, he casually said, “Eva took holiday. To visit sick mother.”

  Aleks wasn’t convinced the odd man was telling the truth, considered that Eva’s “holiday” was probably being spent in some isolated Russian village. Probably in northern Siberia.

  “Well,” he answered, “I hope her mother finds her way back to good health. Eva and I have become good friends.”

  “You are shtupping her,” the Russian said, without any hint of emotion.

  Aleks ignored the comment.

  “Would you care for a drink?” he asked politely.

  “Da,” the Russian responded, then added, “but nyet. Business first, then we
drink.”

  “I suppose you’re here about your portfolio, Mr. uh....”

  When discussing business Aleks believed in anticipating the other party’s objections or concerns. Raising the issue first often disarmed them.

  “Klymenko,” the Russian said briskly. “Ilya Klymenko.”

  Aleks started to explain why the Russian’s investments had begun to slide. The peculiar man held a gloved hand up as if to ward off Aleks’s words, silenced him with a cluck of his tongue.

  “Ilya does not wish to hear about your market variances. Nor does he care about business valuations, profitability and…what was it? Growth metrics? Also, something about baubles.”

  “Bubble. A stock market bubble. In this case, the dot-com bubble. It’s been well documented in all–”

  Again Ilya silenced him with a raised hand and a cluck.

  “Ilya wishes to terminate this business arrangement, Albanskiy. He wants his money. All of it.”

  He eyed Aleks as though taking his measure. Didn’t seem intimidated by the much taller man.

  “Ilya is not greedy. Let us settle on, say, five hundred thousand dollars.”

  The Russian made the comment as though asking for a glass of water.

  Aleks was stunned. He hadn’t anticipated this. Hadn’t foreseen Eva’s client terminating their agreement, wanting all his money back. He was amazed the man would even venture such a request.

  “I’m afraid it just doesn’t work that way, Mr. Klymenko. The–”

  Yet again, Ilya silenced him with his raised hand, a cluck of his tongue.

  “Albanskiy does not tell Ilya how it works. Ilya tells Albanskiy,” the odd man hissed. “You are paid well. Twenty cents on dollar. When Ilya says make distribution, you make distribution. Eva, she makes this clear, da? When you begin?”

  “Yes,” Aleks consented. “Howev–”

  “Now you say Ilya’s money, it is gone.”

  “Look, I can’t control the market, Mr.–”