Due Diligence: A Thriller (54 page)

The three men turned and looked at the entrance. As they watched, one of the doormen opened a door to let someone out.

“All right, we have two upstairs in case he gets through. Two out the front. One out back. I’m here in the lobby to watch and make sure everything goes smooth. You got communication?”

Kevin nodded.

“You can get more guys?”

Kevin and Eddy glanced at each other.

“I’ll talk to Mr. Bailey,” said Kevin. “What about the side entrance?”

“Can we put a car out there?” said Prinzi.

“It’s not legal. If we have someone sitting in it, it should be all right.”

“We gotta have a car. Where else can we put it?”

“That’s the only place.”

“So that’s where we put it. Someone sits in it, watches that entrance as well. If he has to leave it, what happens?”

“The car gets removed. But that’s only if the traffic warden finds the car, and then it takes fifteen minutes, maybe. They have to call a truck to come and do it.”

“So he can leave it if he has to? If he has to get out and go after Holding. He can leave, we get back, the car’s still there.”

Kevin nodded.

“You sure?” said Prinzi. “I don’t want to get back to a car that’s gone. Huh? How would that be, Frank? Look like a bunch of fucking morons then.”

Frank shook his head in disgust.

“Maybe we should have two in the car if we can. One to stay if the other one has to get out. All right. So that’s … seven men, including Frank. You can get five more guys?”

“Four,” said Kevin.

“Him,” said Prinzi, pointing at Eddy. “He’s not there.”

Eddy’s face creased in anger. “Why not?”

“Your lovely blond hair, that’s why not. No offense, but who’s gonna forget it?”

“Like putting a fucking sign up saying, ‘Notice me,’” muttered Frank.

Nick held up a hand. “Frank, I think he’s got the message. You want to cut the hair off, you know, get yourself maybe a cut with the clipper—”

“A marine look,” said Frank, smirking at Eddy.

“Yeah, a marine look, whatever. You want to do that, you come back. Fine. Otherwise, good-bye.” Nick turned back to Kevin. “Five men. Four at the minimum, but then we have one in the car.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. Bailey,” said Kevin.

“All right. You talk to Mr. Bailey. I appreciate that, Kevin. He understands the importance. Now you, with this arm, normally I would say, go away with your friend here, good-bye, but you’re the one who saw the girl, right?”

Kevin nodded.

“You any good with that arm?”

“It’s my left arm.”

“So you can still jerk off,” said Frank.

“Hey, Frank! The man’s helping. You can describe the girl?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Okay, you want to wear something that covers this thing a little more? We don’t want people remembering it. Maybe a coat with a sleeve.” Nick tapped the back of Kevin’s hand to show where the cuff should come to in order to cover the cast. “We’ll put you upstairs in case the girl’s the one who comes. If she comes, she has to pass you. Someone else will be there with you to help, right? We have two upstairs.”

Kevin nodded.

“Nick,” said Frank, “you think he’s going to send her?”

“No. Where did our friend here find her? In the hotel room, right? Sitting by herself. He’s protecting her. He figures she’s safer with him than by herself in New York so he brings her with him.”

“That’s not so dumb,” said Frank, who knew what had happened at Emmy’s apartment.

“Sure. Who said he was dumb? He’s going to stash her in some hotel room and then he’s going to come down here by himself.”

“So why do we need Mr. Broken Arm?” said Frank, as if Kevin weren’t at the same table.

“Insurance,” said Prinzi. “Now, what do we say? Frank, it starts at three, right?”

Frank nodded.

“So everyone’s in place by two o’clock? Not too early, we don’t want people to think we’re hanging around.” He looked at Kevin. “Take me back to the hotel now, you’ll get everyone there by twelve, I’ll brief everyone. And everyone should know what he looks like, huh? We got pictures of him. Frank, you got the pictures?”

“I got the pictures.”

“Good.” Prinzi got up. “You,” he said to Eddy. “Thank you for your contribution. Maybe I’ll see you again without the hair. You wanna get lost right now?”

Eddy glanced at Kevin. Kevin shrugged.

Nick Prinzi watched him pointedly. Eddy got up and left.

“Show me the side entrance,” said Prinzi to Kevin.

They walked across the lobby. They went past a series of shops and came out into a narrow street. A couple of delivery vans were waiting, wheels up on the pavement.

Prinzi grunted. “We’ll put the car there, huh?”

Kevin nodded.

“Okay.” He headed for the corner up ahead. He stopped, looking up and down Curzon Street. Then he crossed to the other side. He gazed at the entrance to the Royal Gloucester, diagonally across the street.

“Frank, you’ll go there,” he said, pointing to one side of the steps. “The second guy, over there.” Prinzi nodded to himself. “What do you think, Frank?”

Frank nodded.

“I’ll give Tony a call to let him know it’s all set.” Prinzi looked at his watch. Ten-thirty in the morning in London, five-thirty in New York. He’d wait a couple of hours.

Nick Prinzi looked up and down Curzon Street again, then gazed at the hotel entrance. “I’m getting sick of this Holding guy. Let’s hope he’s got the balls to turn up.”

60

Friday was set to dawn cool and misty in Baton Rouge. Lyall Gelb was awake long before the sun rose. Silently, as Margaret slept, he got ready.

When he was done, he looked in at each of the children’s rooms. He stopped at Becky’s doorway. She had an orange night-light beside the bed. She slept peacefully, one cheek to the pillow, one of her hands poking out from under the cover.

Lyall remembered the night he had come home and found her with appendicitis. The look of pain and fear on her face. His heart contracted at the thought.

Lyall knew that a father shouldn’t have favorites. He loved each of his children. Perhaps he even tried harder with the others, to make up for the special bond he felt with Becky. He didn’t know where this bond came from. Sometimes he thought he might be punished for it one day. Yet the Lord must have forged it, so it must be a holy thing and shouldn’t be denied.

He gazed at her. Minute after minute. Just watching her, as if he would never be able to watch her enough. Becky. His Becky.

“Honey?”

He turned with a start. Margaret was standing behind him.

She came closer, scanning his face. “Honey, what are you doing? You all right?”

Lyall nodded. Suddenly he reached for Margaret and hugged her tight.

“Honey…” Margaret laughed softly. “Honey, you’re squeezing me.”

Lyall loosened his embrace. Still, he didn’t let her go.

“Lyall?” Margaret’s voice was more serious. “Is everything all right?” Margaret pulled back from him. She tried to look into his eyes.

“Lyall?”

Suddenly it was all too much, it had been too much for weeks, and it was all about to come pouring out.

“Margaret, there’s something—”

Outside, a car horn honked.

Lyall fell silent. He kept gazing at Margaret, an expression half self-reviling, half imploring on his face.

“Lyall? What is it?”

Lyall glanced quickly toward the door.

“Lyall, what were you going to say? Were you going to tell me something?”

He shook his head.

“Lyall?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve … Mike’s waiting.”

Margaret gazed at him. “We’ll talk about it tonight, huh?”

Lyall nodded quickly. “Tonight.”

Margaret gave him a kiss. He went to the door. She followed him halfway down the hall.

He opened the door, then stopped. “Margaret…”

She waited.

Lyall couldn’t speak. How could he tell her how much he loved her? And how desperately sorry he was. There weren’t words enough even to begin.

There was a knock on the door.

Margaret smiled. “Go on, Lyall. I’ll see you tonight.”

*   *   *

Outside, Mike Wilson was sitting in one of the company limos. He was on the way to take the jet to New York and wanted a final run-through on the trickier questions that might come up. If they did come up, he knew, they would most likely be about the size of the extra debt Louisiana Light was taking on. Wilson wanted to have the facts and figures word perfect.

Lyall asked him questions. Wilson answered. Gelb added a point here and there.

“You sure you don’t think you should come?” Wilson asked.

Lyall Gelb shook his head. “I’m not much good in front of cameras.”

“Still, maybe we should have you there.”

“You’ve got to sell this deal, Mike. You don’t want to turn to your CFO for backup. Won’t look good, you want to go out bold and confident. Anyway, you don’t want to get into detail. You have me there, you’re inviting it. This way, you can say they have to talk to me and you don’t have to deal with it.”

That wasn’t much of a reason, and normally Wilson wouldn’t have accepted it. He was more than capable of being bold and confident with Lyall Gelb on a podium with him. But Lyall had pretty much refused to go, and if he forced him, that might just be the straw to break Lyall’s fragile back. The risk was too great. If Lyall was going to fall apart, Wilson didn’t want him doing it live on Bloomberg.

“All right,” said Wilson. “Let’s keep going.”

They drilled the questions all the way to the airport. They kept going inside the plane as the pilot did the last few things he had to do before they could take off.

“Okay, Mr. Wilson,” said the pilot over the intercom. “We’re ready to go.”

Wilson looked at Gelb and grinned. “This is it, huh?”

Lyall nodded.

“You sure you don’t want to come?”

Lyall shook his head.

“You going to watch?”

“Sure,” said Lyall, and he got up.

“Lyall.”

Gelb stopped.

“It’s going to be okay, you know that.”

Lyall stared at Wilson for a moment. Then he got off the plane.

He walked quickly to the limo. As he got in, the plane started taxiing away. The sky was still dark. Lyall watched the lights of the plane heading for the end of the runway.

Lyall Gelb knew he should have been in that plane. He should have been there for backup, in case Wilson needed it, to field the curly ones. But he couldn’t bear the thought. He couldn’t bear the idea of the cameras filming him as the deal was announced, as the big lies were told. He saw it in his mind like one of those pieces of footage that get dragged out whenever there’s a story on corporate fraud, like the footage of Bernie Madoff in his prime. They showed that kind of stuff for years. He didn’t want producers to be dragging out footage of Lyall Gelb for years to come.

“You ready, Mr. Gelb?” said the driver.

“Oh. Sure,” said Lyall.

“We going to the office?”

“Yes, please.”

The limo moved off. It turned out of the airport exit.

Lyall stared silently out the window at the dark scenery of the ride downtown. Mike Wilson was wrong. It wasn’t going to be okay. You couldn’t pile lie on lie. It got too heavy. Eventually, the whole edifice would topple. Already, he could feel it crushing him. He felt as if he were holding the whole thing up all by himself. The weight was unbearable.

He went over it all, for the hundredth, the thousandth time, starting from the first words that had kicked it all off, from that first Hungarian venture. There was no point, but he couldn’t help himself. He traced every step on the primrose path that led to this hell he now seemed to inhabit. He felt a stab of pain in his belly. He was tired of the pain. He was tired of everything. Like a juggler who’s been juggling so many balls for so long he just doesn’t think he can keep even one of them in the air another second.

The car turned onto North Street. St. Joseph’s Cathedral came into view. Lyall watched it as they approached, the pale bulk of it coming closer in the predawn mist. It was disproportionate. He had always thought so. The steeple with its metal spire was too tall for the narrow mock-gothic building it surmounted. Lyall had never been inside the building. For six years, every day, he had passed it and kept going.

It came closer. A faint light filtered out of the windows.

“Stop,” said Lyall suddenly.

“Here, Mr. Gelb?”

“Yes.”

The car pulled in. Lyall opened the door.

“Should I wait?”

“Yes,” said Lyall.

He got out. The driver watched him walk toward the cathedral.

The door was open. Lyall took a couple of steps inside.

The interior was bare, severe. The light was coming from the altar. Rows of pews ran in shadow down the nave. A large, pointed arch of stone soared above the altar. On the wall behind it hung a big wooden crucifix.

A priest in his cassock was leading an early Mass. His voice carried as a low, burbling murmur up the nave. A few worshipers sat scattered in the front pews. For a moment, the scene felt foreign to Lyall. Then memories came rushing back at him out of his childhood, and suddenly it was familiar, as if he had never turned away.

He moved in a little farther and sat in a pew at the back.

The indecipherable burble of the priest’s words in the stone cavern of the church was lulling, almost mesmeric. Lyall stared at the crucifix above the priest’s head. The figure of Christ was plain wood, the same color as the cross. A long, narrow body. Thin, gaunt. Arms stretched, knees flexed, head down.

The Lord on the Cross. Dying in agony for our sins.

Suddenly it was as if Lyall were seeing the cross for the very first time. It was all clear. You made your choice. Heaven or hell. One side or the other. Lyall had made his. He had made his pact with the devil. His deal. A deal that was bigger than anything Mike Wilson could ever dream up.

He stared at the cross. In his mind, Lyall didn’t hear the priest in front of him now, but Father Ahern, just as if he were back in the old priest’s Sunday-school classroom. The words of the catechism that the father had drummed into him, Sunday after Sunday. The sins. The seven deadly sins. The list. How many times had he heard it, read it, repeated it under Father Ahern’s malevolent gaze? Pride, Avarice, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth.