Michael Ridpath - Final Venture

They dealt us a hand each of business cards, and then Jeff deferred to a tiny man named Sidney Stahl.

'So, Craig. Jeff's given me the red-herring bullshit. Tell me what you really do. You got ten minutes.'

His voice was thick and gruff, the New York equivalent of what Craig's might sound like in twenty years. I could see Craig found it reassuring.

'Sure,' he said, and he began talking. The Bloomfield Weiss hotshots were entranced.

Forty-five minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and a worried looking young man in a nice suit caught Stahl's eye.

'OK, OK,' he said. 'Sorry, Craig. I gotta stop you there.' He turned to look at the assembled group. 'I'm in. What about you guys?'

Heads nodded all round the table, with a mixture of deference and bravado. If Sidney thought it was a good risk, then so did the others.

Stahl stood up. 'You tell a good story Craig. I like you. You've got our money, but only if you and Jeff can agree on a deal. I don't think you'll find him a pushover.'

Craig and I shook Sidney Stahl's hand, and he left the room, followed by everyone but Jeff.

Jeff grinned at me over the table. 'I bet you didn't think it would be that easy, huh?'

I smiled broadly back. 'What was all that about? That's not the kind of investment committee you get in venture capital.'

'That's the point,' said Jeff. 'It's a kind of informal investment club of some of the big-hitters in the firm, with Sidney being the biggest hitter of them all. The idea is they invest in deals that are too small for Bloomfield Weiss to place with clients or do themselves. It's a kind of macho thing. Who's willing to put up their own money for a big risk.'

'So I noticed,' I said.

'But don't knock it,' said Jeff. 'These guys have had some spectacular home runs.'

'Um, there is one thing we didn't cover,' I said.

'Only one?' said Jeff.

'How much are we talking about?'

'How much do you need?'

My eyes flashed up at Jeff. 'Three million dollars.'

'Then I guess we're talking about three million dollars.'

Craig was ecstatic on the flight back. He gave himself and me a blow-by-blow commentary of what had happened, as though he still couldn't quite believe it. Jeff had hammered out a tough deal. The Bloomfield Weiss syndicate would end up with a large chunk of the company, Craig would keep a chunk, and Revere's holding would be diluted. Jeff would have a place on the board.

According to the investment agreement, the deal still needed Revere's approval, so the final word had to be left to them. But it looked very much as though Craig would get to build his prototype. And with working silicon, funding would come in from resellers like Luxtel and Ericsson. Net Cop was going to work.

'Thank you, Simon,' Craig said, finally.

'I never thought they'd come up with the whole amount.'

'But they did! They did!'

I stared out of the window at Long Island disappearing behind me. I was pleased about Net Cop. Very pleased. But it still left all my other problems out there.

Craig noticed my silence. 'Hey, Simon, what's up? You've been fighting for this as much as I have.'

I smiled at him. 'Yes. And I am truly very pleased.'

'So?'

So I told him about how I was everyone's favourite suspect for Frank's murder. I told him that Lisa had left me because of it, and that I needed to find out more.

'Perhaps I can help,' he said. 'My dad retired a few years ago, but I know a lot of people in the department. Hey, I come from a good Catholic family. I got more cousins than you got fingers and toes, and most of 'em are cops.'

'Perhaps you can,' I said. I took a moment to get my thoughts together. 'The man leading the investigation is assigned to the Essex County DA's office. Sergeant Mahoney is his name. He doesn't like me. It would be interesting to find out a bit more about him.'

'I'll ask around.'

'And can you get a look at any criminal records?'

Craig smiled. 'Of course not. That would be illegal. What do you want to know?'

'See if you can find out whether the following people have a criminal record. Do you have a pen?'

Craig raised his eyebrows. 'What do I need a pen for? I know pi to twenty-nine decimal places.'

'OK, sorry. The names are Arthur Altschule, Gilbert Appleby, Edward Cook – that's Lisa's brother, and,' I paused over the next name, but I remembered Daniel's words,'Diane Zarrilli.'

'Nice to see you trust your partners.'

'Someone killed Frank, Craig. And it wasn't me.'

'OK, I'll see what I can do,' he said. 'Just as long as you have a drink with me when we get to Boston. And that will be champagne.'

'Ow!' A stab of pain ran down my shoulder as I swung the boat into the water. Although I didn't much feel like it, I had kept my Saturday morning appointment to go rowing with Kieran. Are you OK, Simon?' he asked.

'I got into a spot of bother a couple of nights ago. My shoulder still hurts.'

'A spot of bother? Do you mean a fight?'

'You could call it that. I was mugged on the street outside Pete's, downtown. With Daniel Hall.'

'Really? How much did they take?'

'It was odd. They didn't take anything.'

'Oh, I see. So they just didn't like your face?'

'I don't know what they didn't like.'

I puffed as we carried the boat to the river. My shoulder ached like hell.

'It was probably Daniel. Did he make some smart-arse comment?'

'I don't think so. He thinks it was me they were after. I've been in some trouble recently.'

'Must be some pretty bad trouble.'

'I suppose it is,' I said. 'But even so, I don't know why anyone would want to beat me up. One of them spoke Russian.'

'Really?'

'It sounded like it.'

We threw the boat in the water, and set off at a slow pace. I wanted to warm up gently.

'I read somewhere that the Russians are the new boys in town when it comes to organized crime,' said Kieran. 'Drugs, money-laundering, loan-sharking, cabs.'

'Are cabs a criminal activity?'

'When they're driven by Russians they are,' said Kieran. 'Do you remember that guy Sergei Delesov?'

'Yes.' He was a very able Russian in our class at business school. I hadn't known him well.

'There was a rumour he was mixed up with some of them.'

'Delesov? A Harvard graduate?'

'That was the rumour.'

'Where is he now?' I asked. 'Maybe he might know something.'

'I'm pretty sure he went back to Russia. I think he's already running some bank there.'

We rowed on at a slow, steady pace. The aching in my muscles eased a little as I warmed up, but I didn't want to push anything. We met another pair who asked us to do a 'piece' to the next bridge, something we were usually game for, but I declined. I apologized to Kieran for my tentative performance afterwards, but he told me not to worry, he could use a gentle start to his Saturday.

Weekends are tough when you love someone and they hate you. Especially if you're alone.

The full reality of Lisa leaving me was sinking in, bringing with it the awful thought that she might not come back. At first, it had all seemed absurd, almost unreal. Frank being murdered seemed absurd. I had never known anyone who was murdered. And then suddenly Lisa going, shattering our marriage out of nowhere. It was so unfair. My father had been able to womanize for over a decade and get away with it because my mother adored him. But despite my desperate efforts to avoid becoming my father, my own marriage wasn't going to last a year.

The loneliness of that thought crushed in on me.

It should have been a perfect marriage. We seemed to me completely compatible. No, we were completely compatible. No matter what Lisa said or did I would always believe that. Our respective mothers had doubted it from the start, but they were wrong.