Book of Nathan (31 page)

“I need a favor,” I said to Yigal.

“Okay.”

“I have to get back to New Brunswick. Unexpected Gateway
business.”

“You’re not goin’ to Florida?” Twyla squealed. I couldn’t
tell if she was disappointed or elated.

I gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder and kept on
talking to Yigal. “If I can get a flight out of Charleston tonight, I’m going
to leave Twyla in your hands.”

Yigal’s eyes twinkled. I knew he was picturing one hundred
and one things his hands could do, some of which were illegal in South
Carolina.

“Listen,” I implored. “This is very important. If I bail
out, I want you to promise me you’ll finish the drive to Orlando. No side
trips. No distractions.”

“I can do that,” Yigal said with far too much enthusiasm.
“Yes, I can.”

I turned to Twyla. “Try to understand something. I’m on the
line here. You have to be in Orlando tomorrow and ready to start work on
Monday.”

“I know. I’m so excited!”

I leaned forward and breathed into Yigal’s ear. “This is all
on your shoulders. Can I count on you?”

“Yes, you can.”

In the deep recess of my exhausted brain, I heard Manny
Maglio growl. I recoiled into the backseat. “On second thought, this isn’t a
good idea.” A flight from Charleston to New Jersey tonight would give me all
day tomorrow and Saturday to chase the leads I had picked up in Ida’s trailer.
On the other hand, riding another six hours in the rear of Yigal’s car, pulling
an overnight in Orlando, and depositing Twyla in a safe location would keep
Maglio off my back. I was five seconds from telling Yigal to forget the airport
when Twyla said, “Getting the job at Universal is the best thing that ever
happened to me. Nothing’s going to stop me from starting work on time.
Nothing.”

There was a zeal in her voice that pushed me into saying,
“All right.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the Delta counter
listening to an agent tell me that if I cleared security without a hitch, I
might make an 8:49 that would get me to Newark with a stopover in Atlanta. I
took the ticket and phoned Yigal that the flight was a done deal.

I had no trouble with security until one of the TSA workers
yelled, “Hey, mister! Didn’t I see you on TV?”

I raced toward the Delta gate.

A
half-hour flight delay and a long limo ride from LaGuardia to New Brunswick put
me in bed at three a.m. My alarm woke me at eight thirty and after a quick
shower and a cup of coffee, I was on the phone. First call was to Yigal whose
cell dumped me into his voice mail. I tried the lawyer’s office and got a
recorded message informing me that Gafstein & Rosenblatt wouldn’t open
until nine. My anxiety began to spike.

The next call was to
Quia
Vita
’s
Manhattan office. A receptionist gave me the usual runaround. Judith Russet was
tied up.

“Tell her Rick Bullock’s on the line.” The receptionist put
me on hold, but not for long. Russet picked up, her icy tone laced with fury.

“Proud of yourself?” she asked.

“What?”

“I’ll give you this. After our last conversation, I started
thinking maybe you didn’t
have
the disk. I should have known better. From the start, this was about more than
extorting a few million dollars, wasn’t it? It was about playing me for a
fool.”

I huffed out half a word, but Russet rolled on.

“No more games. We want confirmation the money made it to
your account.”

“What money?” A meaningless question since I already had the
answer. Whoever was selling Le Campion’s disk wasn’t treading water. The
auction for the
Book of Nathan
CD
was apparently over.
Quia Vita
had cast the winning bid and was about to acquire the motive for Benjamin
Kurios’s murder.
 

“Come on, Bullock,” Russet shot back. “There’s no point in
keeping up this ridiculous pretense. We did what you asked. Sent five transfers
of five hundred thousand dollars for each of five installments of Le Campion’s
notes you emailed us. There’s a total of two point five million sitting in your
Cayman Island account.”

“When did you wire the money?”

“We’re done with the first half of our arrangement. You got
your asking price. Give us the disk and we’ll make our final payment.”

Both Abraham Arcontius and Russet had spelled out how the
deal was to be done. So, I wasn’t surprised by what I was hearing—only
surprised by how fast the sale was being transacted. “I don’t have a Cayman
Island account.”

“For the love of God, you’re a millionaire!
And we’re ready to double what we’ve
already paid you. What more do you want?
Give
us the CD. If it’s the real thing, you get another two point five million.”

“Don’t wire another dime. Not until you hear what I have to
say.”

“When you’re finished with your charade, let me know.”

“I told you before—I don’t have
the damn disk. I never did.”

Russet came through with such force that my phone seemed to
vibrate. “You’re still trying to convince me you’re the crusading public
defender? You are who you are. A low-life extortionist!”

“I have nothing to extort with,” I yelled. “My only interest
in the disk is how it might help a homeless man.”

My rejoinder brought Russet back from her boiling point.
“And the only thing I’m interested in is the
Book
of Nathan
disk. Your little campaign for justice means nothing to
me.”

“I don’t believe that. Didn’t from the first time I talked
to you. You’re not the type to let an innocent man get the ax.”
 

“You’re using the man who killed Benjamin Kurios as a cover,
which makes what you’re doing even more disgusting.”

“Goddamnit. I don’t have the
Book of Nathan
disk. And I doubt Miklos Zeusenoerdorf ever killed anybody.”

“This conversation is over.”
 

And it almost was until I threw back two words that kept
Russet from slamming down the phone.

“Arita Almiras.”

Russet said nothing, but I could hear a slight wheeze.

“That’s why I called you this morning. To ask you about
Almiras. Some way, somehow, I think he’s connected to the Kurios murder.”

I heard a mix of surprise, confusion, and maybe even a sprig
of concern. “You’re moving into very, very perilous territory.”

“That’s territory I’ve been calling home for some time.
Look, if Almiras is
responsible
for what happened to Kurios, then Zeusenoerdorf is taking a hit for something
he didn’t do. I’m ready to go to the police, but before that happens I thought
you and I should talk.”

“We’ll talk only if you prove to me you have nothing to do
with the
Book of Nathan.
”

“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t prove I don’t have
something that I’ve never had. Look, maybe you should do a character check. I’m
not the money type.”

“We already did that.”

I was getting more of a once-over than a pole dancer at one
of Maglio’s strip clubs. “Then you should know I’m telling you the truth.”

I could hear Russet take a deep breath—or maybe it was a
sigh of resignation. “What do you want to know about Almiras?”

“He runs something called the Almiras Society. It’s
connected to
Quia Vita
,
isn’t it?”

“No,” she stated emphatically. “It’s a stand-alone group
with no ties to my organization. None whatsoever.”

“Isn’t it true most members of that society are also
Quia Vita
members?”

“I have no idea.”

“I think you do. I just talked to a woman who wears both
hats. She’s
Quia Vita
and
she’s Almiras Society, which says to me
that you’re blood relatives. So if the Almiras crowd gets implicated in the
Kurios killing,
Quia Vita
’s
going to be answering a lot of questions.”

I could almost feel Russet leaning into the phone. “I don’t
know Arita Almiras. In fact, I don’t know anyone who knows his real identity.
But this much is known—he has powerful connections and access to money. He’s
someone who could do you considerable harm.”

Russet wasn’t just warning me to watch my step with Almiras,
she was confirming my theory that the man could do damage to
Quia Vita
if he were exposed. “Suppose Almiras and company get charged with banging the
brains out of this country’s favorite evangelist?” I asked. “What happens to
your organization when it gets roped into that kind of investigation?”

Russet came back with an unexpected disclosure. “If Almiras
had anything to do with Benjamin’s death, then he most likely would own Le
Campion’s disk. That’s not the case.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we think he’s one of the people who’s been trying
to buy the CD.”
 

This came as a surprise. I thought there were just two
potential buyers—Silverstein and
Quia
Vita
.
If Russet were right, there was a third horse in the race. “You were bidding
against Almiras for the book?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re the first to put a down payment on
the CD. Now we have exclusive rights. Another two point five million and the
disk is ours.”

Russet’s right-to-life convictions were so rock hard that
she had tunnel vision. But she was also smart. Too smart not to consider the
possibility
Quia Vita
was being conned. “How do you know Le Campion’s notes haven’t been sold for two
point five million a pop to anyone else looking to buy the
Book of Nathan
?”

“The notes themselves have value,” she answered. “For that
reason, it’s possible others may have bought them. But the notes have little
credibility without the book’s text to back them up. The text is encrypted and
can’t be duplicated. Which means only one buyer walks away with the prize and
that buyer is
Quia Vita
.”

“How can you be sure?”

“The seller appears to be more sympathetic to our cause than
others who have an interest in the
Book
of Nathan.”

There were probably other guarantees plugged into the deal
Quia Vita
cut for the purchase of the full text. Whatever those were, Russet was
convinced she was about to become the owner of Henri Le Campion’s translation.
“When are you supposed to get the disk?”

Russet hesitated. She had already dispensed more information
than I thought I could extract in a phone call. “That’s not something I’m going
to discuss.”

“I told you—I don’t want the disk. I want whoever is milking
you for five million bucks. Whoever that is probably owns the foot that I need to
kick down Miklos Zeusenoerdorf’s jailhouse door.”

“Sorry. I can’t take this any further.”

I had only one more card to play, but it was my high trump.
“Let’s make a deal. You give me the specifics about when and where you’re going
to pick up the disk and I tell you who Arita Almiras is.”

Russet went silent. Then: “There’s no way you could know—”

I hadn’t planned to put the spotlight on my theory so soon.
However, as someone recently reminded me, opportunity is lost with ease. “Arita
Almiras is Abraham Arcontius.”

“That’s impossible!” Russet shouted.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” I admitted. “But I’ve
enough evidence to make a pretty strong case.”