Authors: Jeffrey Robinson
“Just the facts, ma'am,” he said moving close to her, pulling the sheet away. “We don't have a balcony, and there are no racecars down there, and even if there's no whipped cream and chocolate sauce in the fridge . . .”
“I thought you were going to the gym.”
“There you go, thinking again.”
“This time, it's not about my book.” She pulled down his shorts.
He knelt down in front of her, moving his mouth from her face to her neck and down to her chest. “How about if Cuban girl and whiz kid write a chapter for my new book?”
“What's your new book called?”
“Multiple Amused.”
G
ETTING TO
the office later than usual, Carson winked at Rod Laver, then winked at Alicia, and then breakfast arrived. He paid the delivery kid for the papaya juice and buttered bialy, took it with his latte back to his desk and started making plans for Japan.
His first thought was that he should leave Tuesday night, because that would give him a day to recover from the fourteen-hour flight.
But then he checked his calendar and realized he'd forgotten the Clinton Foundation's “New York Lovesâwritten with a heartâHaiti” party at the Metropolitan Museum.
So he booked himself a first-class ticket on the flight that left JFK at 11:35
Wednesday morning, which would bring him into Tokyo at 3:35 Thursday afternoon, local time.
Next, he sorted through his phone's address book until he found the number for the Peninsula Hotel. The name he'd put there was Hattori. So he dialed the number and asked for Mr. Hattori. It was only when a woman came on saying that she was Miss Hattori that he decided he'd confused her with the reservations manager at the Peninsula in Bangkok, whose name was . . .
He couldn't remember.
Adding “Miss” to the Tokyo listing, he booked the suite he liked, overlooking Hibiya Park and the Imperial Palace Gardens.
“We look forward to seeing you again,” Miss Hattori said. “Have a good flight.”
“Thank you,” he said, then remembered, “One other thing. When I arrive on Thursday, I need to meet with a
feng shui
expert. Can you set up an appointment at the hotel for me, please?”
“
Feng shui
?”
“Yes.”
“
Feng shui
,” she said, “is Chinese.”
“Oh. Ah . . . okay . . . but surely there must be someone in Tokyo . . .”
“In Japan we have
kaso
.”
“
Kaso
? That's the same as feng shui?”
“Very similar.
Ka
is house and
So
is . . . something like phase or season. Then there is also
fuusui
.”
“What's that?”
“It means wind and water.”
“How about one of each?”
“I will check with the concierge and make an appointment for you. Not to worry.”
He thanked her and hung up.
Kaso, fuusui
, house, season, wind, and some water on the side. And with the Clinton party Tuesday night still on his mind, he wondered if he should also throw in some good old-fashioned Haitian voodoo.
O
KAY, IT'S JUST
a coffee table book
, Alicia kept telling herself as she flicked through the links she'd bookmarked on L. Arthur Farmer and that religious sect.
But if the man who controls twenty percent of the world's rice, regardless of whether or not he ever lived in Trump Tower, is still alive . . . and if he really is surrounded by this religious sect . . . that's not just a coffee-table-book kind of story
.
The NBC database had some fascinating stuff on these Finfolkmen, and she
also found several references to the senator in Michigan. There was even a phone number for him.
Then she saw that he'd died in 1984.
Undaunted, she located the number for Farmer's business in Saginaw.
A switchboard operator answered, “Corporate.”
Alicia tried, “Mr. Farmer's office, please.”
The operator said, “No one here by that name,” and hung up.
C
ARSON WENT OVER
the numbers he'd already discussed with Warring, then drew up a small chart.
Shigetada's got fifty-one percent. He confirmed that. We're second with twenty-two. He confirmed that
.
As the traders came into the office, they called out to him, “Hey” and “What's happening” and “You ever go home?”
We know eighteen are with the institutions. That leaves nine somewhere
.
He spotted Mesumi disappearing into the kitchen, then caught her on the way out with a coffee. “You got a minute?”
“Who are you fooling? With you, the word minute is never singular.”
She was a super-smart, slightly plump Princeton grad who'd worked in the Tokyo markets for a couple of years before coming to Wall Street. Carson met her at Goldman, and she'd been his first hire.
“What's happening?” She sat down on his couch.
“Here's what we know . . .” He handed her the chart. “We need to figure out which institutions are holding the eighteen and where the nine are.”
She studied it, handed it back, sipped her coffee, and shook her head. “This is what I get for being born in Kyoto.”
“No, this is what you get for going to Princeton.” He pointed to the conference room, “Let's work there.”
They set up their laptops back-to-back across the table and went in search of the Shigetada shares.
When Tony Arcarro got to the office, he volunteered, “Mitsubishi is holding around two. Saw it on some Intel tip sheet last week. Shigetada makes something that goes into something else that Mitsubishi needs. A phrannaporsennon.”
“A what?” Mesumi asked.
“Phrannaporsennon,” Carson confirmed.
“What's a phrannaporsennon?”
Arcarro asked, “You know what a widget is? Well, a widget and a phrannaporsennon . . . they're actually two entirely different things.”
“Oh . . .” Mesumi got it. “Is it true they only come in yellow or blue?”
Arcarro pointed at Mesumi and reminded Carson, “Princeton.”
“Even at Princeton,” Carson said, “eighteen minus two leaves sixteen.”
“Got to be the usual suspects,” Arcarro suggested. “Mizuho Bank. Daiwa Group. Dai-Ichi Kangyo.”
“Japanese Industrial Bank.” Mesumi added to the list.
“Nomura?” Carson looked at Mesumi. “Don't you have a friend there?”
“Ren? We went to school together.”
“That school?”
“Yes . . . that school.”
“You okay with giving her a call?”
“Sure. She's in their office at Thirty-Seventh and Park.”
Carson reached for the phone on the conference table and pushed it across to her.
Mesumi found Ren's number on her cell, dialed it on the office line, and spoke to her in Japanese.
Carson picked up the words,
ohayo gozaimasu
, at the beginning of the callâit's the traditional way of saying good morningâand the word
sayonara
at the end of the call, which, of course, is the traditional way of saying goodbye.
When Mesumi hung up, he stared at her. “And?”
“And,” she stood up, “I'm on my way to admire her new engagement ring.”
“What's the traditional Japanese way of saying, congratulations?”
Mesumi assured him, “
Mazel tov
.”
A
LICIA SAT
through the morning story meeting, then started working on what, at least at this hour, looked like it would lead the showâthe murder last night of a nurse who worked at an abortion clinic in Queens. They'd already sent a crew with a reporter to the crime scene and another to the police press conference downtown at three.
Once that was set, she put in a pitch for a sidebar story on violence at other abortion clinics around the city. Her editor, Greg Mandel, was all for it, but he was the only one.
That's when she got a call from Sandy Bridgeman at
Nightly
. “Alishe . . . I need to see you. Come on down.”
She left her newsroom on the seventh floor and went down to the
Nightly
offices at Studio 3C.
Bridgeman, who was six-foot-six and heavyset, and looked more like a line-backer than a television news executive, was waiting for her in the hallway when she stepped out of the elevator. They chatted briefly, she hugged him, then came running back to her desk upstairs to call Carson.
He answered on the first ring. “Hi there.”
“Guess what?”
“What?”
“You'll never guess.”
“You've signed as a free agent with the Heat to play point guard?”
“Better than that.”
“The Lakers?”
“How about a call from Sandy Bridgeman?”
“Who's that?”
“The man who decides.”
“Decides what?”
“That it's official. I'm on the short list.”
“That's great,” he said. “I'm really glad someone finally made it official, especially since everybody unofficially knew it was official. So . . . good night from me and everybody here at
NBC Nightly News
.”
“Not so fast. There are two other candidates.”
“Who?”
She told him, “Clinton Fields. He's been bureau chief in Moscow for the past two years, and in Afghanistan for a couple of years before that. He wants to come home.”
“And?”
“And JPO,” she said referring to J. P. O'Malley. “He was in London and is now at the White House. His kids live in New York and he's looking for a move here.”
“But . . . you win because you already live in New York.”
“Except . . . Fields is the real deal, and JPO isn't to be sneezed at. They're already hooked into
Nightly
. They're on all the time, and both of these guys have been around a long time.”
“Come on, you're a shoe-in.” He reminded her, “Two white guys and a great-looking minority girl with perfect boobs? No contest.”
“Maybe that gets me into Harvard, but if tomorrow Brian Williams moved to CBS . . .”
“Scott Pelley would be furious.”
“Yes. And both these guys would make the short list for the big job. I wouldn't.”
“Hey, the big job is the next step. Anyway, both these guys already have network day jobs. Just because they want to live in New York . . .”
“Right now, their cards look better to me than my cards. I need to compete on their level. They've worked overseas, I haven't. They've got national street cred, I don't. They've been around forever, I'm the new kid on the block.”
“You've got two Emmys.”
“Local. They've got seven between them. And two are nationals. I need the
same kind of big-deal story that puts them on
Nightly
. I need to prove that I'm worthy.”
“Build it and they will come.”
“Call me if you find a vacant cornfield in Iowa.”
“Maybe this is the encouragement you need to do the book.”
“The book? Yes, I'm going to do it. I mean, I've been thinking about it all morning, and I decided, why wouldn't I? But it's still a coffee table book.”
“It's still a book.”
“But it's not a serious book. I need a big-deal book. Or, at least, a big-deal story.”
“Like what?”
“Like my guy . . . L. Arthur Farmer.”
T
ina barely opened her eyes wide enough to look at the clock.
It said six.
She wondered why the radio hadn't clicked on.
Then the numbers jumped to 6:01 and the radio came on. “. . . all news all the time . . . you give us twenty-two minutes and we'll give you the world. Ten ten WINS time is six o'clock.”
As she listened to the headlines, she fidgeted with the clock, moving the time back one minute. She also checked to see that the time was correct on the DVD player that sat on the big, Italian, carved wooden chest at the foot of their bed, in front of the wide-screen TV.
Throwing on a pair of San Francisco 49er sweats, she padded barefoot downstairs, made coffee in her coffeemaker, then carried the mug into the corner office and turned on all the screens.
She sat down, grabbed her iPhone, and began checking her e-mail.
There was nothing from David, so she texted him. “A) Ran away with Gwyneth Paltrow? B) Kidnapped by pirates? C) Gone native and found work on a banana plantation? D) Miss me so much that you can't get home fast enough?”