Steal, page 22
For years and years, I’ve given in to Tracy’s fairy-tale New England, gag-me-with-an-L.L.Bean-catalogue tradition that’s been carried down through generations of his family, which is to wait until Christmas Eve to buy and decorate the tree. Never mind that Tracy is actually the son of two born-and-bred Iowans. Somewhere in that McKay family tree, undoubtedly being tapped for maple syrup, must have been some Mainers.
But this year was going to be different. I was making an executive decision, a unilateral overturn of my annual concession. It’s amazing what outsmarting an entire European country refusing to fully come to terms with its Nazi sympathizing past can do for one’s self-esteem.
Or maybe it was the $1.5 million check burning a hole in my pocket since yesterday and that I was going to hand it over to Tracy for Harlem Legal House the second he tried to object.
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” I hollered, coming through the door of our apartment with a six-foot Douglas fir wrapped in netting, courtesy of the Christmas tree store, otherwise known as the corner deli down the street.
I waited for the pitter-patter of Annabelle’s feet as she ran to greet me, her laughter growing louder and louder with each advancing step. Instead all I got was silence.
“Hello?” I called out. They were supposed to be home. Tracy had told me as much before I left for Carnegie Hall. He was eager to hear about whatever conversation I’d had with von Oehson. I was eager to now tell him.
They must have gone out for something, I thought. A last-minute trip to the market for dinner fixings. Since Tracy hadn’t texted, he had probably left a note for me in the kitchen.
But there was no note.
I turned the corner of our foyer and put the tree in its stand. Someone was waiting for me on the couch in our living room. Legs crossed, arms folded, teeth gnashed. The ligaments around his jawbone were rippling up and down.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said. It wasn’t so much a rude thing for me to say as it was an observation laden with implications, none of them good.
“Sit down, Reinhart,” said Landon Foxx.
This was my home. My castle. I could do whatever I wanted. Of course, so could Foxx. It was one of the perks of his being the CIA’s New York section chief. He could do whatever he wanted almost anywhere he wanted, including my home.
I sat down. As my knees bent I could feel them begin to weaken. First things first. “Where are Tracy and Annabelle?” I asked. I’d already crossed off their going to the market. Now I was just fighting back the looming wave of panic.
“They’re fine,” said Foxx. “They’ve been taken to a safe house.”
“Brooklyn?” That was the one he used as his external, off-the-record office.
“No. Different location. I took them there personally.”
That was even worse. It meant he wanted to make sure no one else could expose their whereabouts, including me.
It was right about then I noticed the folder sitting on the cushion next to him.
“What the hell’s going on?” I asked.
“You obviously have no idea, do you? Of course you don’t. When you screw up this goddamn royally, you’re always the last to know.”
“What are you talking about? Everything went according to plan,” I said.
“You’re right,” said Foxx. “Only it wasn’t your plan. It was never your plan. It was always von Oehson’s, right from the start. He was pulling all the strings and you got played, Reinhart. Plucked like a fiddle.”
“No. You’re wrong,” I said. I was quickly running everything over in my head, every detail, each move, the end result. “The Hungarians are proud owners of a fake Monet they’ll never know isn’t the original. I told you that, as well as Brunetti’s role in making it happen. Who cares if he netted fifty million in the process?”
“Fifty million? Try fifty billion,” said Foxx.
“What?”
“Although I suspect Brunetti’s cut truly was the fifty million. Von Oehson always makes money for those who invest with him.”
Foxx hadn’t explained anything yet, not a word to make me begin to understand, but there was no stopping the feeling of dread that had joined in the panic that was no longer merely looming. It was crashing over me. Crushing me. Swallowing me whole. I was drowning.
I had screwed up, all right. Goddamn royally.
CHAPTER 89
Everything was a blur, including the ride out to Connecticut. I didn’t ring the bell at von Oehson’s house in Darien, I pounded on the door until my fist nearly bled. All the rage I had for him, the anger—it was beyond anything I’d ever felt, with only one exception. The fury I now felt for myself. How could I have let this happen?
I didn’t think about who might answer the door. I didn’t care. I was too busy thinking everything else through, how von Oehson had pulled it off. Foxx had the endgame down, but there were still dots to connect. One of them was Brunetti. For sure, he was in on it.
The mob boss, who had more security tech on his gambling boat alone than most maximum-security prisons, used a remote keystroke-logging software program. It was able to track and record every letter and number that Dorian Laszlo had input to initiate the transfer of the fifty million to him. That was their back door. That’s why he had insisted up front that there be no third-party institution involved, no shell company or phantom investment fund. Brunetti needed to be paid directly from the central bank of Hungary.
But the software he used, sophisticated as it is, only gets you to that back door. It doesn’t get you in. The Magyar Nemzeti Bank isn’t like an ordinary bank, with savings and checking accounts that you can simply withdraw from as you would an ATM, if you happened to know the password. The only money that goes out has to be allocated. In other words, Laszlo was able to transfer the fifty million to Brunetti because the amount had already been set aside for her by the bank.
So how did Brunetti—or, I should say, von Oehson—turn fifty million into fifty billion?
And if that was his plan all along, there was an even bigger question.
What kind of a man kidnaps his own son?
The door opened, and I was suddenly face-to-face with the one person who could tell me.
“What are you doing here?” asked von Oehson. “Did I not pay you enough?”
He was still smiling, but it was forced. Very forced. The personification of cool and collected knew he had a problem at the mere sight of me. Damage control among the very wealthy has a certain look to it. You might say it looks a lot like a very forced smile.
I didn’t wait for the invite to step inside. I didn’t wait for anything. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he’d said the first day we met. “Taking a swing at me?”
My fist, still balled from banging on the door, connected all four knuckles flat against his chin, the force dropping him like a house of cards. He landed with an echoing thud inside his cavernous foyer, his head smacking hard against the shiny white marble. For a few seconds, I stood and watched as blood trickled slowly from the side of his mouth. The plum-red drool was the only thing moving on him.
“Get up,” I said, stepping over him and into the house. “You and I are just getting started.”
CHAPTER 90
Von Oehson tried to stand. He couldn’t. Not yet. Best he could do was push himself up with his arms just enough so he could sit. The front door, which I’d closed behind me, was now keeping him propped up. If it wasn’t there he’d still be flat on his back.
“Who else is here?” I asked.
His head was down, his chin like a leaky faucet. Plop…plop…plop…the blood was dripping. He wasn’t answering.
“Who else is here?” I repeated.
“It’s just me,” he said finally. “Carter’s up at school…the wife’s in Palm Beach.” He lifted his head. For the first time I saw the eyes of a man who maybe didn’t have all the answers. “How’d you know I wasn’t in the city?”
“The same way I’m holding this,” I said, raising the folder that Foxx had given me. “But we’ll get to that in a moment.”
“Ten million,” he said.
The guy had no shame. “Do you really think you can buy your way out of this?”
“Twenty.”
“Insult me one more time and I swear I’ll kill you.”
“What do you want, then?”
“The truth,” I said. “From the beginning.”
“Carter was never in danger.”
“Gee, I feel so much better now.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“You stole your painting back years ago. That wasn’t enough?”
“No. The painting was about justice,” he said. “What I wanted was revenge.”
“No matter what the risk?”
“Controlling risk is what I do.”
“How’s that working out for you right about now?”
“I’m still going to get away with it,” he said, “no matter how much you know.”
“Get away with it? You arranged for the kidnapping of your son, and let the world think that he had killed himself.”
“Stop with the morality play, will you? It’s not your department.”
“What about the gambling problem? Carter and those bets? Was that all made up, too?” I asked.
“Not all of it. In fact, that’s what gave me the idea, the chance to finally pull this off after all these years. Carter forged that check from his mother, all right. Everything after that was my creation.”
“You mean, your masterpiece.”
“You gotta admit,” he said. “It was no ordinary plan.”
“So Carter, the painting—”
“He knew nothing about it. He still doesn’t. But, yeah, his little gambling problem was real. He was reckless. Spoiled. A little kidnapping wasn’t such a bad thing for him. A good wake-up call. Good for his character. Nice touch staging his return at his own funeral, don’t you think?”
“You’re sick.”
“And you’re just pissed because you got played,” he said, rising to his feet.
I could feel my fist balling up again but there was no point. No matter how many times you knocked a guy like von Oehson on his ass, you could never knock the asshole out of him.
He was even cracking a smile as he continued. “Pawn really isn’t the right word for you, though, is it? You were more like a very predictable bishop. Or maybe a knight. To be honest, I haven’t played chess in years.”
“Not with pieces, you mean.”
“Hey, you made all your own moves,” he said. “Each and every one was your decision. All I did was set up the board in just the right way.”
“No. What you did is use me,” I said.
“I use everybody, Dylan. That’s what rich guys do. Welcome to planet Earth.”
I stood there, staring at him. Glaring at him. Thinking about why he’d chosen me, how I truly was the right man for the job. He knew I’d say no when we first met, that I’d turn down his offer, so he made sure in advance that I’d end up saying yes.
He fed me just enough information, but never so much that I would catch on that he was leading me. I had to believe that I was always the smartest guy in the room. I’m the one, after all, who figured out the clue Carter had left in his father’s office. I spotted the telescope facing inward toward the bookcase, which gave us Jade’s fingerprint on the glass. How clever Carter had been, I thought, his putting it behind The Glass Menagerie.
But it wasn’t Carter. It was never Carter. It was always his father.
Von Oehson knew I’d bring all my skills to bear and begin connecting those dots, one after the other.
But wait. One dot didn’t make sense. Unless…
“Don’t tell me that Grigoryev was in on this, too,” I said. It didn’t seem possible.
“Hell, no,” said von Oehson. “I didn’t know he was the one who ran the escort service. You weren’t supposed to know, either. Or, at least, you weren’t supposed to need to know. You moved even faster than I thought. Before I could point you in the direction of Brunetti, you got tangled up with a mad Russian.”
I had a comeback for him, and I had more questions. A lot more questions. But it was late. Later than von Oehson even realized. There was more to this visit than telling him the jig was up.
So I cut to the end and the purpose of his elaborate plan, a payback that he had waited years to extract from the Hungarian government. Everything had to be just right, and it started with his finding the guy who could solve this mystery of his making. The disappearance of his son was the smokescreen. This was only about getting the Hungarians to buy back the Monet so he could not only hack their central bank to the tune of fifty billion dollars, but also conceal the transaction so it couldn’t be traced. He even knew I’d figure out a way to switch the real Monet with a fake.
All in all, Mathias von Oehson had indeed painted a true masterpiece. And all in the name of revenge.
“Where’s the money?” I asked.
He cracked another smile. It didn’t matter that he was still bleeding and bruising right before my eyes. “What money?”
“Seriously? That’s your answer?”
“Oh, relax, will you? Everyone made out who deserved to, including your husband’s legal aid center. You know your world history. Are you really going to cry for Hungary? The only ones who got hurt were the ones who had it coming to them,” he said.
“Funny you should say that.”
“What does that mean?”
The time had come to wipe that smugness off his face.
It was time to show him the folder.
CHAPTER 91
“You hid the money once you stole it from them, but you couldn’t hide the fact that it was gone,” I said. “There’s no way. We’re talking fifty billion dollars.”
“Or roughly the sum total of all their foreign investments,” said von Oehson.
“What did you think was going to happen?”
“I’ll tell you what isn’t going to happen. There’ll be no lawsuit, no police investigation, no going public with it. Nothing. They can’t pin it on me.”
“What about Brunetti?”
“First, the Hungarians would have to admit what they were engaged in. Last I checked, the EU and the rest of the world haven’t changed their minds about the Nazis. Second, as far as wars go, do you really think they want one with a New York crime boss? If our own government has never been able to take him down, what makes you think that—”
Von Oehson’s voice didn’t merely taper off. It had stopped dead in its tracks.
Just like Frank Brunetti.
“Long-range rifle, one round, approximately a hundred yards as he walked out of his beloved restaurant to get into a limo this afternoon,” I said, thrusting the eight-by-ten photo in front of von Oehson’s face. It was a still frame—a screen grab, to be more precise—from the recording of the hit filmed through the scope of the gunman. That’s how paid assassins verify their kills these days, by sending an encrypted video file. Just not encrypted enough, in this case. It was intercepted by MI6, who happened to be tracking large financial transfers between an arms dealer in Bahrain and a suspected terrorist cell in London. Collateral intelligence, as it’s often called.
“This can’t be real,” said von Oehson. “It would’ve been all over the news. My phone would’ve lit up. I manage most of Frank’s money.”
“That explains the connection between the two of you.”
He kept shaking his head. “You’re trying to gaslight me.”
Some people just don’t trust anyone.
I reached into the folder, removing what amounted to a printed contact sheet from the intercepted recording. There it was, Brunetti’s murder, frame by frame, the side of his head exploding and his beginning to fall to the pavement. The reason he never fell all the way was the same reason that the story had yet to break. One of his two henchmen caught him on his way down and shoved him into the limo, which immediately sped off.
Von Oehson grabbed the sheet from my hand, his eyes scanning left to right, back and forth. Plop. Another drop of blood rolled off his chin, catching one of the corners. “So there’s a chance Frank’s still alive,” he said.
“No. The reason the world doesn’t know yet about his death is that those under him know the repercussions. They’re protecting their wallets. More important, they’re trying to save their own asses. If anyone wanted to kill them, now would be the time. They’ve never been more vulnerable, which means they’ve also never been more dangerous.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s what I’m asking,” I said. “Who else in Frank’s inner circle knew about your being involved?”
“No one.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
He understood what I meant. He could never be certain that Brunetti didn’t tell anyone. “No one was ever in the room besides us,” he said.
“What about calls?”
“What about them?”
“Did you ever discuss it over the phone?” I asked.
“Do I look that stupid?”
I pointed at the eight-by-ten of Brunetti getting his head blown off. “Funny. Frank once asked me that same question.”
Point taken. “No. The few times it came up in a call we always talked in code,” said von Oehson. “Anything important was discussed in person and in private. But, yeah, it’s not impossible that he told someone.”
“Which means it’s possible they think it was you.”
“Who killed him?”
“More like arranged to have him killed,” I said. “Either way, same difference.”
“Wait. You don’t actually think that I—”
“No. We know it wasn’t you. You clearly draw the line at kidnapping and grand larceny. The question is, what do the Hungarians know?”
“They shouldn’t know anything,” he said. “Not about me.”
“That’s why I’m here. To keep it that way.”
“How?”
“For starters, getting you out of here,” I said.
