In for a Ruble (15 page)

“Please ask Mr. Stern whether he would like to talk to me—now—or whether he would like me to post the following purchases on the Internet, linked to his name.”

I read her the list of lingerie items, each purchased in a different city, all charged to Stern’s corporate American Express card.

“I’m downstairs, I’ll hold on,” I said helpfully.

The woman gulped and went away. Three and half minutes later the guard handed me a building pass, the elevator whisked me to the thirty-third floor, and a good-looking woman in her forties escorted me to a corner office.

A tall man in a striped suit, with fair hair parted in the center and a jutting chin, stood by the window, some papers in his hand. He didn’t offer to introduce himself. The secretary closed the door softly behind her.

“What the hell’s this all about?” Stern said. His voice held neither fear nor anger, just authority. I was a unwanted, unimportant interruption in his day. But not so unimportant that he left me continuing to cool my heels in the lobby.

“The answer to that depends on you,” I said evenly. “You’ve been sleeping with lots of women who aren’t your wife. That’s between you and her, except randy CEOs of public companies make good copy. You’ve also been charging Champagne and lingerie to your corporate credit card. That’s between you and your board of directors. Maybe you’ve been accurate on your expense reports about those charges and nobody cares.”

The hand holding the papers dropped a few inches. Some of the authoritarian veneer fell away. The mood pendulum in the room swung in my direction.

“I don’t give a damn about any of it,” I continued, “except for the leverage it provides. We haven’t been properly introduced, but the one thing you should know is that I was trained by the KGB. We’re very good at using leverage.” I smiled to show it was nothing personal. “Answer my questions, and I’ll leave. Lie, prevaricate, stonewall, and you’ll have many more people asking much more difficult questions by this time tomorrow.”

“Who the hell are you? What do you want?” His voice indicated I’d succeeded in moving up the food chain—from irritant to menace.

“I’m doing a job for your brother-in-law, Sebastian Leitz. That’s all you need to know about me—except that those corporate card charges, they’re only the beginning of what I know about you. You invest in your brother-in-law’s hedge funds?”

“What? Yes. But what the hell…?”

“Then why’d you help bug his computers?”

I was all but certain he hadn’t—he didn’t match the cleaners’ description—but I wanted him on edge when he answered.

“WHAT? What are you talking about? Sebastian? Bugged computers. I have no idea…”

“Okay,” I said calmly. “Sit down. Let’s have a rational conversation.”

He took the chair behind his desk. I sat opposite and made a point of shifting my body, crossing my legs, getting comfortable. The control pendulum kept shifting.

“Leitz’s computers are the reason I’m here. Somebody bugged them, like I said. The same somebody’s had a team of fake lawyers making the rounds of the family. They visited your wife. They come here? Elizabeth Rogers is the name I have. The firm is called Lindley & Hill.”

“Never heard of her or the firm.”

“Ask your secretary if this is another meeting you turned down.”

He started to respond, thought better, and picked up the phone.

She had no memory of Lindley & Hill either. That was interesting. I would have given long odds on Stern receiving a visit.

“It’s not my business,” I said, “but your wife was in bad shape when I left her this morning. She’d put away half a bottle before lunchtime.”

“I suppose you blame that on me.”

“I’m not assigning blame,” I said untruthfully as I got prepared to be thrown out. “I’m telling you what I saw.”

He stood and returned to the window. He had a view westward across Midtown and north to the Upper East Side.

“You’re right,” he said turning back to face me, “about not your business. But I don’t need any more enemies out there than I already have. I can’t get Sebastian or anyone else in the lunatic asylum they call a family to listen. You seem to care—you brought up Marianna and her drinking. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

I should have kept my mouth shut and left. I’d already learned what I could.

“I’m not going to explain or apologize,” he said. “The credit card charges were stupid, I’ll admit that. And I’ll reimburse the company for all of them. But the women …

“My marriage has been an empty shell for years. Not my doing. I worked hard to get Marianna to look at the cause, to get help, to hold things together—if only for the kids’ sake. I got no goddamned help from her family. When all that failed, I tried to bring it to some kind of rational end. I failed at that too. So, yes, in the last couple of years, I have sought … call it what you want—solace, companionship, just plain sex—I don’t care. I’m not proud, I’m not particularly sorry either.”

There are at least two sides to every story—it always pays to remember that. The truth usually lies somewhere in between. It can be difficult to pin down the exact point on the continuum, and often it doesn’t matter. This time, something kicked my curiosity into gear.

“What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew. It wasn’t an all-of-a-sudden thing. I was probably slow to realize we had a problem. I was traveling even more in those days, trying to get the company off the ground. Strictly solo, by the way.”

I nodded. He was being truthful, I believed him.

“Anyway, it finally dawned on me that we were growing apart—all of us, Marianna, me, the boys—and about the same time that we were spending a lot of money on booze. I cut back on my schedule, spent more time at home. That just seemed to make it worse—put Marianna on edge. She was drinking more than was good for her. I tried to talk about it. She wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to face it. I tried to get Sebastian and the others to help. He made an attempt at least, but she kept him at arm’s length. She’s good at that. The others? To be honest, they were no help at all.”

“How long ago was this?”

He looked out the window for a moment.

“Two years, give or take—when I woke up to something happening, I mean. If I’m honest, I’d say the drift started two years before that.”

Right about the time Daria Leitz shot herself.

He said, “It was two years ago when I made my big mistake. I was in Chicago, it had been a bad day, a bad trip, I got to talking to a pretty woman at the hotel, we had dinner, one thing led to another and … I saw her a few more times, and she assumed things were more serious than they were. When I tried to explain, she threatened to call my wife. She knew her name and number—she’d done her research. I didn’t believe she’d follow through, but I was wrong. Marianna flew off the handle. We had a horrendous fight, I kept telling her to quiet down, but she just kept screaming. No way the kids didn’t hear. That’s when I decided it was over. I was wrong about that too. You know that expression, ‘Takes two to tango’?”

I nodded.

“Also takes two to break up. She refuses to discuss it. But every time I show up in Bedford, she berates me with language no one should have to listen to. Certainly not children. So I’ve taken to staying in the city. I can’t go forward, can’t go back. I’m at my wits’ end, I don’t mind telling you.”

“That why you cut off the money?”

“She told you that?”

I shook my head.

“Then how…?”

“I told you, I know lots of things.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. But it’s the only way I can think of to get her to face reality.”

The reality I’d witnessed was downgrading from Rémy to Presidente.

“Tell me one thing,” I said. “These so-called lawyers who went to see your wife—if they asked her to help with Leitz’s computers, if they offered her money, do you think she’d go along—in her current state, I mean?”

He came back to the desk and sat down, head in hands. When he raised his eyes, I could see the emotional exhaustion they held. That’s tough to fake. He’d been telling his story straight.

“I wish … I wish I could say no, no way. But these days, to be honest, I have no goddamned idea.”

*   *   *

It was 2:30
P.M.
when I put the Potemkin back in the garage. I stopped at a gourmet deli a block from the office and bought a designer smoked salmon sandwich. They were pushing a new brand of gelato, one of whose flavors was tiramisu, so I took a small container of that too. Upstairs, I put a spoonful in Pig Pen’s bowl.

“Try this. Frozen tiramisu.”

Pig Pen took a long, skeptical look before sticking his beak into the bowl.

“No tiramisu,” he announced.

“It’s gelato,” I said. “Tiramisu flavor.”

“No tiramisu. Gigolo.”

“Not gigolo. Gelato. Italian ice cream.”

“Gigolo. Russky bull.” He retreated to the backmost perch, where he goes when he’s pissed off, and gave me his hostile, one-eyed stare.

Foos was in his office, the last bites of a cheeseburger and fries on his desk. My designer salmon seemed less appetizing.

“I bought Pig Pen some gelato. He thinks I tried to trick him with Russian tiramisu.”

“Pig Pen has a very discerning palate.”

I doubt parrots have palates, but there was no point arguing. I opened my sandwich. Foos eyed it with bemusement. “Diet?”

“You are what you eat.”

“Personally, I never aspired to be a fish.”

“I spent the morning with Marianna Stern, Jenny Leitz, and Jonathan Stern. That family’s got nothing but trouble.”

“What did Jenny have to say?”

“She told me about the ALS.”

“Life’s not fair. She’s way too nice a person for that.”

“Agree. You didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

“She asked me not to talk about it.”

And that, of course, for Foos, was the end of it.

“What do you know about Marianna and Stern?”

“Not much. Only met them once or twice.”

“Their marriage is all washed up, she’s a lush and won’t consider divorce, he’s chasing other women.”

“Shit happens.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Nope.”

“You are aware that Andras is a computer whiz?”

“Kid’s pretty swift. I wrote him a couple of college recommendations.”

“You didn’t think
that
worth mentioning?”

“He’s Leitz’s son.”

“You’re the one who pointed out that the strange computer activity corresponded with school vacations.”

“Never thought about it that way.”

Mathematicians and psychology. There’s just a disconnect.

“You know anything about a woman named Alyona Lishina?”

“She’s a knockout.”

Knockouts were something he had experience with. “You’ve met her?”

“Sure. She’s Russian. Temperamental.”

“You suggesting cause and effect?”

“Got a mirror?”

“I don’t know who’s less forthcoming, you or Leitz. Are they…?”

“Just friends, so far as I know.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“I told you before, don’t believe everything you read in—”

“I didn’t read this. Aleksei told me.”

He shrugged. “Russian rumor, still a rumor.”

True enough, and if this rumor had any kind of traction I would have read about it on Ibansk.com—it’s the kind of insider tidbit Ivanov makes a living on.

“Here’s some fact.” I told him about Andras’s multimillion-dollar bank account.

“Huh. I wonder if…” He clattered away at his keyboard. “Looks like you’re on to something. That strange activity originated at Leitz’s house. He’s got the home system networked through the firm’s.”

“What’s the kid up to?”

“Can’t tell. Hard to avoid concluding that he’s ripping someone off, though. Question is, who and why?”

“There’s more. His girlfriend’s in it with him. She’s got the same bank accounts and deposit patterns. Her name’s Irina Lishina—Alyona’s daughter.”

“You’re full of surprises.”

“So’s your pal Leitz. What do we know about the Baltic Enterprise Commission?”

“Bad-ass mofos. Web hosting for hire, if your business is spamming, phishing, or kiddie porn. Premium service, pretty much bulletproof. Everybody thinks they were behind the denial of service attacks on Estonia and Georgia a few years back, working for your former colleagues in the Kremlin. Word is, they’ve been experiencing a few glitches, but there’s been no noticeable decline in spamming, phishing, or kiddie porn. Lowlife online thrives as always. Why?”

“Aleksei thinks the same thing. Says the guy who beat me up on Second Avenue last week is the BEC’s chief enforcer.”

“He sure about that?”

“That’s what he says.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked across the desk at me. I had his full attention now.

“They the ones targeting Leitz?”

“Could be. Let me show you something.”

I walked around the desk, brought up a Web browser on his computer, logged onto Ibansk.com, and scrolled to the photo of Konychev.

“That’s the man behind the BEC. Check out the background.”

Foos stared at the screen for a moment, and said, “Huh. See what you mean.”

“His sister is Alyona Lishina.”

“I’m finished being surprised. You gonna tell Leitz?”

“I’m betting he already knows about Alyona. Andras, I’m not sure. I’d like more information about what the kid is up to first—and whether and how it ties in with his old man’s office being bugged. Let’s check out that law firm.”

Foos worked the Lindley & Hill Web site while I called Elizabeth Rogers. Halfway through the second ring, there was the slightest pause and
click
as the call was transferred from the 212 area code to somewhere else—out of state, probably out of country. Another ring and a female voice answered.

“Lindley & Hill.” No discernible accent.

“Elizabeth Rogers, please.”

“I’m sorry, she’s out of the office. Would you like her voicemail?”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Does she have an assistant?”

“One moment, please.”

The voice came back in ten seconds and announced the assistant was away from her desk. Whoever set this up had covered the bases. I asked for voicemail and listened to another accentless voice announcing herself as Elizabeth Rogers and asking me to leave a message. No point in that. Elizabeth Rogers didn’t exist.