Among Thieves (49 page)

Crane shifted the screens appearing on his four monitors. He consolidated the screen that showed Markov's brokerage account, then brought up another showing the Cayman bank account, placing them next to each other so Markov could see them clearly.

“Here, just watch these, okay? As soon as I'm done, you can move all of it at once. All right?”

Markov sat down, pulled his chair close to Crane, and kept the gun pointed at his head.

“You keep making that number bigger. I see anything happen I don't like, you die.”

“Great. Do whatever the fuck you want.”

Crane felt the tremor in Markov's hand moving the gun barrel pressed against his head.

Crane shut his eyes closed, squeezing them tight, exhaling once, hard, determined to focus.

Fuck! This is going to be close, thought Crane.

 

76

Manny and Beck had ended up at the same small wooden table in Manny's downstairs kitchen where their first discussion about Olivia had taken place. It seemed like weeks ago, but it had only been four days.

“How bad you banged up, James?”

“It's adding up. How about you?”

Manny pulled his left arm out of the sling the doctor had given him. He tried to lift his elbow above his shoulder. He winced and said, “It's all right. I got a couple of hours sleep. Ate. You're the one who's been doin' all the running around.” Manny raised his chin toward Beck. “What'd the doc say?”

“The doc said the cut on my back isn't that deep. Sliced a few of the surface muscles. Says it's going to hurt every time I pick something up for a while.”

“Knives.”

“I fucking hate knife wounds. Shitty, sneaky, dirty. You hardly feel 'em when they hit you, but they can cause a lot of damage.” Beck rotated his shoulder.

Manny nodded. “And the rest?”

“It's not important now, Manny. We have other hurts to deal with.”

The old gangster shifted in his chair. He wasn't done talking. If he knew what was coming, he didn't give any hint. He wanted to recite for himself his discontents and perhaps delay Beck.

“You know what really got to me?”

“What?” asked Beck.

“The fact that I couldn't kill those guys out there. You know. Few hours back.”

Beck waited, saying nothing.

“No, no…” Manny struggled for a word. “No
finalidad
to it, you know. Hoping the fire took 'em out. Or the cops. I don't like the idea of them surviving so they can come back at me.”

“If killing them sent you back to prison, what good is it?”

Manny pointed to his head. “I get that here.” He pointed to his stomach. “But not here.”

Beck said, “I understand.”

Manny nodded. “Okay. Tell me again. You got Kolenka?”

“Devious, double-crossing old bastard, yeah, we got him. We were lucky. He was heading out of town. He won't be sending any more of his people after us.”

Manny nodded. “You figure it was Kolenka's guys out front here with the gasoline?”

Beck nodded. “And Markov's Bosnians out back to shoot us down when we tried to escape the fire.”

Beck looked at his watch.

Manny asked, “What?”

“A couple of things. You know that guy in the cellar?”

“Yeah.”

“He told me the truth about how it was going to go down last night.”

“Good.”

“So before the attack, I let him go.”

Manny nodded. “If we didn't make it, you didn't want him to die down there.”

“That. And I wanted him to do something for us. We agreed on a price.”

“What'd you have him do?”

“I'll explain later.”

Manny nodded, accepting that Beck didn't have time to tell him the whole plan.

“And you got the head guy in Markov's crew?”

“Right. Stepanovich. Although it might come back at us.”

“How bad?”

“Not bad enough to nail any of us. Maybe bad enough to cause trouble. If we're lucky and the Medical Examiner doesn't look too close, they might believe he cut his neck open on the fence.”

Reciting it all seemed to satisfy Manny Guzman in some inexplicable way. For the moment at least. Beck knew Manny would be sorting it out for a long time.

“You have to be patient for a bit longer, Manny.”

“Okay.”

And now it was time for the final nail. Beck leaned forward and placed his arms on the table. “So. Manny. Here's the hard part.”

Manny looked at him with his baleful eyes. “You gonna tell me we can't get Markov?”

“No. I'm gonna tell you forget about Markov for now. That will play out.”

“When?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, it's got to play out so that we're not fighting off these motherfuckers for the rest of our lives.” Beck paused. “And so that something else is resolved. Resolved in a way that eliminates any doubts.”

“What doubts are you talking about?”

Beck paused, and then laid it out.

“Olivia has been setting us up from the very beginning.” Beck watched Manny carefully, meeting him eye to eye, not flinching from the truth, making sure Manny heard him.

Beck thought he saw a slight narrowing of Manny's eyes, but nothing more. Beck wondered if maybe he had suspected something all along. Or maybe he was screaming with rage inside his head. Or maybe he was just too stunned to react.

Beck went on. “I can give you all the proof I've got. But you still might have doubts. You might spin it another way because you love her.”

Manny cleared his throat. Swallowed. Finally, Manny said, “I can't believe it.”

“I understand.”

Manny shook his head, struggling. “I can't, I can't…”

“Let me explain. She was planning on stealing Markov's money from the very beginning. Markov was right. He was right to pull everything away from Milstein's outfit. Crane and Olivia were after his money all along.”

“Crane?”

“Yes.”

“What about her busted fingers? What about all that shit that he fucked her up at the job and all?”

“It wasn't like she said.”

“How do you know?”

“The medical records.”

“You got her medical records?”

“With Brandon's help. They didn't support the way she said it happened. When I pressed her on it, she admitted she lied. She blamed Crane for it, but she was lying all along.”

For a moment, Manny was trapped between believing Beck and believing Olivia. But he could never believe Beck would lie to him about something like this.

“She was working with Crane?”

“Still is.”

“How do you know?”

“Alex and I have gone over it a half dozen times. Look, I can go over it for you sometime, but there's just too much that we've been able to do. If Olivia and Crane were real enemies, there's no way she'd know so much about his trading. And the odds that our hack would still be working after all this time? Really slim, Manny. Alex is good. They made it very hard. But it should have been impossible.”

Manny looked down and shook his head. At that moment, the criminal in Manny Guzman told him it made sense. He'd been played for a sucker. He'd fallen for the con.

“I can't fucking believe it.”

“I know.”

“Motherfucker.”

Beck didn't respond.

“So what was I for?”

“You, me—we're supposed to take the fall for stealing Markov's money.”

“Fuck.” Manny smirked. “All those years. All those years she stayed close to me.”

“I can't believe she played you all that time. I can't say when it turned. When she came up with it.”

“Then why fucking stay close to me during all those years? I didn't want it. It just made the whole thing worse. It was another thing they could take away from me.”

“Lot of people want to be close to a bad guy, Manny. Hell, a lot of people would want someone like you in their corner.”

Manny pursed his lips. Mulling it over. Shook his head. He looked like he was about to tell himself something, but stopped. Pulled himself back from whatever rage or regret or combination of both that was plaguing him.

“I don't know. I still can't believe it.”

“That's where the worst part comes in.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the only way you're going to believe it, the only way to eliminate any doubt, you're going to have to have your heart ripped out.” Beck paused. “Before this day is out, Manny, you're going to have to pay a hell of a price.”

Beck watched Manny stare at him. He knew that Manny Guzman was one of the most implacable men he'd ever known. He knew that the impatience and edginess he'd displayed over the past days stemmed from a deep sense of guilt at having put Beck and the others in such danger. Knowing that, Beck was able to lean forward across the table once more and explain to his friend how his doubt would be expelled, and the debt of guilt would have to be paid.

Manny Guzman simply nodded, more to himself than to Beck. Beck touched the side of his friend's face, and left Manny alone in his small kitchen.

 

77

The first time Olivia Sanchez sat next to Alex Liebowitz as he worked his computer keyboard and mouse, clicking, typing, opening and closing charts and Web sites and pages on his monitors, he had been too inhibited to look at her.

But as the hours ticked by, he had loosened up. They had concentrated on the task at hand, but there had been plenty of time to talk while they stared at the data in front of them. Alex shared his knowledge of security systems and firewalls. Olivia explained the complexity of Crane's trading methods, how he had developed the algorithms to program his conditional orders. Oftentimes, she would lean closer to the screen to point something out, closing the physical distance between them. Occasionally, their shoulders had touched. A couple of times, she had actually reached out to rub his back vigorously. Just a few quick strokes to revive or congratulate him.

Alex wasn't naïve enough to think that she actually might be attracted to him. Clearly she was playing him. So what? It still felt good.

He enjoyed the attentions of this incredibly beautiful woman.

Right up until the street fights, the blood, guns, firemen, and police. All of it suddenly blossoming like a virulent disease threatening to overrun them.

Olivia hadn't seen the men shot, maimed, burned, arrested. But Alex had. And he knew that if Olivia Sanchez had helped cause that, even if indirectly, he wanted nothing to do with her. They were back together now, working in their island of cyberspace on the second floor of Beck's loft. Even knowing what he did, on some level Alex enjoyed having Olivia Sanchez next to him again.

Now as the endgame unfolded, Alex took one more sidelong glance at her, and wondered how this was all going to end.

Suddenly, the bulk of James Beck filled the space on Alex's right side.

“Where are we?” he said.

Alex and Olivia began to speak at the same time. Olivia indicated that Alex should answer.

“He's got about five million left to close out. I'd say it's time we pulled the trigger.”

Beck answered immediately. “No. Not yet. Let him finish.”

“But…”

Beck interrupted by holding up his hand. He stared at the screen.

“You sure?” asked Alex. “You really want to risk losing”—he squinted at the total in the Cayman account—“a hundred and eleven million to get the last five?”

“Trust me.”

Alex raised a hand and tipped his head in agreement. “I'm too tired to argue.”

As Alex spoke, the last tranche of holdings were sold. Alex immediately minimized the screen that displayed Crane's trading platform, and expanded the screen that showed the balance in the depository account connected to the Cayman-based brokerage account.

All three of them focused on that screen.

Without taking his eyes off the screen, Alex said, “Normally, in a U.S. brokerage the trades would clear through in a maximum of two seconds. Offshore like this, it will take a few more seconds for the confirmations to appear.”

Alex pulled up the interaccount transfer screen on his second monitor, knowing that at the other end, the computer system in the Cayman-based brokerage thought it was Crane's computer pulling up the screen.

Alex hadn't bothered to explain to either Beck or Olivia that Crane and Summit had established a relationship with the Cayman brokerage company so that transfers between their brokerage accounts and bank accounts were seamless. He hadn't explained how he had artfully set up the interbank/brokerage accounts and linked them to the independent bank accounts over the past two days, sweating out the possibility that Crane might at any moment discover them.

Every last bit of Alex Liebowitz's waning attention was focused on when to pull the trigger to start the complex maze of interbank transfers from the Crane/Markov brokerage cash account to Alex's hidden bank accounts inside the same Cayman bank used by Summit.

He had prepared five separate transfers, displayed on cascaded screens that nearly filled his third monitor. Each transfer order would whisk money into different pre-established accounts. He had filled in all the amounts on four of the transfer screens. Now he waited for the final amount to begin his transfers.

In an unnoticed blink, the dollar number finally appeared. One moment incomplete and inchoate. The next, final and real. As real as numbers in cyberspace could be. $116,327,179.011.

Each of the four prepopulated screens had an amount of twenty million dollars filled in. Alex mentally calculated the amount of his final transfer and quickly typed it into the fifth transfer screen. $36,327,100.00. He left the $79.11 in the account.

Once he initiated the transfers, Alex would have five or ten minutes of extremely hectic work. He was nearing the end of his endurance, and waiting to start the transfers felt excruciating.