David Duffy - Last to Fold

“Wait! How bad?”

“How bad what?”

“How bad a situation—where you found Eva.”

“I’ve already told Bernie it’s best if I keep that to myself.”

“Goddammit, Turbo—she’s my daughter.”

“That might have meant something, once.”

“Bastard. Liar.”

“I’m not the one pretending to be someone she isn’t.”

“Hah! You—the biggest deceiver of all.”

We’d had this argument many times before—at higher decibel levels and with more vitriol. Try as I might, I couldn’t refute the accuracy of what she said. Still, I made my usual lame attempt.

“My passport was clean. You know that.”

“You got the aparat to say that. You got the aparat to say you had no past. You were a zek, Turbo. A lying zek. You always will be. How bad, dammit?”

“Bad as could be. Drugs, gun, corpse. Glad you asked?”

“The doctors said Rohypnol.”

“They didn’t know about the gun. Or the corpse.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m telling you straight. I took care of them. You despise me. I understand that. But I don’t necessarily live down to your expectations.”

Silence. “Turbo, I…”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been upset. It’s been a hard few weeks. I appreciate what you’ve done. It’s just…” Her voice was wound tighter than a bale of tin wire—she was trying hard. I should’ve given her credit, but old wounds, cut deep, still bleed.

“I’m still a lying zek. ”

“ FUCK YOU! Get the fuck out of my life!”

“Tell me something first. Eva left a note in her apartment. ‘You should have left me with Lena.’”

A long pause. “What?”

“‘You should have left me with Lena.’ No salutation, no signature. Woman’s handwriting. I assume hers.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

I waited.

“I don’t.”

I almost believed her the first time. “I have to assume she left it for you. Maybe Mulholland will have an idea.”

“No! I mean, I’m sure he won’t.”

“Eva ever mention someone named Rad Rislyakov, possibly Ratko Risly?”

Even on a cell phone, I could sense her tightening, ever so slightly. She didn’t recognize Rislyakov’s name, but she sensed danger.

“No. Who’s he?”

“Friend, perhaps. Lover, maybe. Pusher, I’m not sure. I do know he’s the man blackmailing you.”

She took her time processing that. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

“There’s not much you don’t follow, Polya. Never has been.”

“I go by Felix now.”

“What’s Rislyakov have on you, other than the fact that you didn’t always go by Felix?”

Silence.

“He works for Lachko, Polya.”

“SHIT! JESUS! WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU—”

“I’ll call back.”

I broke the connection. The phone buzzed as she tried calling me. I shut off the power. I shouldn’t have taken any pleasure, leaving her to stew in fear, but victories over Polina have been few and deserve some modicum of savoring.

FirstTrustBank’s logo, a three-dimensional, intertwined FTB , spun slowly on a granite pedestal outside its shiny, boring building on Sixth Avenue. The lobby was white and gray marble, and the best thing you could say about it was it was well air-conditioned.

I announced my destination to the guard, who looked me over, looked me over again, and called upstairs. He probably didn’t think I was properly dressed for a meeting with the CEO. After a short wait, I was given a sticker for my jacket and told to wear it as long as I was in the building. I took a fast elevator to the fortieth floor, which was labeled, helpfully, EXECUTIVE OFFICES. The two floors above were marked EXECUTIVE DINING AND FITNESS and LIMERICK CLUB.

An attractive woman of a certain age in a tight red dress met me at the elevator, introduced herself as Maude Connolly, and led me through the wide, hushed corridors. I alternated between admiring the machinery of her hips and reflecting on the silence of what was billed as a working office for a bank at risk of failure. Felt more like a mausoleum—maybe appropriate. At the end of the hall were a pair of glass doors with OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN stenciled on one. Maude Connolly put a plastic security card against a reader on the wall, which generated an electronic click. With a flick of the gluteus maximus, she pushed open the door and admitted me to the inner sanctum.

A large reception room with a seating area furnished by Mies and Breuer, several secretaries’ desks occupied by several secretaries, and a half-dozen doors, all open, leading presumably to executives’ offices. Still no noise. Five-by-Five leaned back on a white Barcelona chair, looking like a slug on a tablecloth. Maude Connolly paused, eying him with distaste.

I said, “You could’ve offered me a lift.”

Five-by-Five hauled himself out of the deep, low seat. That took effort and exposed the gun in his armpit. A female friend once observed Barcelona chairs are like Ferraris—you don’t sit in either one unless you’re wearing pants.

“I’ll be searchin’ you, snoop. Nobody sees the boss who ain’t clean.”

Maybe it was the call from Polina, maybe it was Five-by-Five, or it could have been Mulholland himself, but I’d had enough of all of them. “No deal.”

“Rules is rules.”

I said to Maude Connolly, “Please tell Mr. Mulholland he can talk to me now, I can take his thug down, or I can just leave. He has thirty seconds.”

She came back in twenty-seven, smiling. Five-by-Five glared at me the whole time but stayed by his chair.

“This way, please,” she said. “Mr. Rory says everything’s fine, Lachlan.”

Mr. Rory? I gave Five-by-Five a thumbs-up and followed her through the open door.

The office was large and airy, with two walls of windows sporting views over the city to the north and west. One wall held bookshelves stuffed with good-citizen awards and Lucite-encased mementos. The fourth was covered with photographs of golf courses, mostly aerial views of individual holes. Mulholland was a golf nut—something else we lacked in common.

He was seated in a group of upholstered chairs. “You took your time getting here.”

“Perils of public transportation. And I had to stop to talk to your wife. What’d the market do today?”

I don’t know whether it was the mention of Felix, a Marxist asking about the market, or the fact that the Dow had lost another four hundred points, but the question made his surly look more surly until he turned away. Maybe he didn’t like insolence that matched his own. I told myself to improve my mood and behavior, but I saw little reason to follow my instruction.

“Sit down,” he snarled. He made a faint stab at courtesy. “Coffee, soda?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

“Lachlan says you found some kind of note.”

“That’s right. ‘You should have left me with Lena.’ Your wife says she has no idea what that means. Do you?”

“None,” he answered too quickly. “Did you find anything on her computer?”

“Haven’t checked yet,” I said, which was half true. “Your wife pretty much told me not to bother. She’d prefer—make that, she insists—I stay away from all of you.”

The snarl turned to a frown. “You said she called.”

“Half an hour ago. I told her you asked me to help find Eva. She said cease and desist. Perhaps you two should talk.”

The frown deepened. “She indicated you know each other.”

“Another time, another place. We were two very different people.” I didn’t add that was literally true in her case. “Hardly seems relevant now. She can explain if she wants to. I’ll take payment for the kidnappers. You and she can decide what you want to do about Eva.”