Peter Spiegelman - Thick as Thieves

“Jesus,” he says. “What time is it?”

“Time to make a phone call, Howie,” Carr says.

Bessemer’s hair is a weed patch, and he pushes clumsy fingers through it. “Call to who?”

“Come on, Howie, wake yourself up.”

“You want to call Curt now?” he asks. His voice is a rusty hinge. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Greg. Really, I’m not my best.”

Carr shakes his head. “Room service will fix you. Coffee and a club sandwich.”

Bessemer waves his hands and drops onto the sofa. “No, really, Greg, now isn’t a good time. How about I give you Curt’s number? Just say that I told you to call.”

Carr goes to the bar and fills a glass with crushed ice and Coke. He places it on the coffee table in front of Bessemer, takes a seat next to him, and drapes an arm across Bessemer’s hunched shoulders. Carr’s voice is low and intimate, almost a whisper.

“And how about I put your face through those glass doors, Howie, and drop you four floors off the terrace? Because unless you pull yourself together and remember who you’re talking to, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And I’ll be long gone while they’re still figuring out which pieces of you go where. So drink your soda and have a think, Howie, but don’t take too long. I’ll get the room service menu.”

Carr gives Bessemer’s shoulder a friendly squeeze as he finishes, and he sets a cell phone down next to the sweating glass.

Isla Privada Holdings is headquartered in a six-story slab of concrete and tinted glass that would be anonymous in an actual city, but that in George Town is a soaring office tower. It’s off Elgin Avenue, not far from a police building that looks like it’s made of orange sherbet. Carr parks next to a Land Rover with a large man leaning on the bumper. He’s wearing a dark suit and fiddling uncomfortably with his shoulder holster, and he gives Carr a hard look as he and Bessemer pass, but Carr knows it’s just for practice.

It’s not yet noon, but the asphalt is already soft underfoot as they cross the parking lot. Bessemer is shaved and combed and barely bloodshot, but his steps are hesitant.

“We take it nice and easy, Howie,” Carr says softly as they approach the glass doors. “And we keep things simple.”

Carr has said it before-spent much of last night saying it. “You introduce me, and you let me talk. He asks about Otisville, you stammer, look embarrassed, and you let me talk. Just do what you said you always do when you arrange these get-togethers-make the introductions and fade into the woodwork.”

“Why are we doing it at his office?” Bessemer asked a dozen times or more. “He always has me over to the house. I’ve never even been to the office before. Curtis hardly goes there himself.” And a dozen times or more Carr replied with comforting noises, none of which he himself quite believed.

There’s a security desk in the lobby, and cameras, but nothing more heavy-handed in the procedures than a glance at their passports, consultation of the visitors list, and a call upstairs. Carr fights the impulse to turn away from the cameras. Someone at Isla Privada approves them, and they’re pointed toward a small elevator for a slow ride to the fifth floor. Bessemer is shifting from one foot to the other.

“You have to pee, Howie?” Carr asks.

“Among other things.”

A woman, fit, brisk, and fiftyish, meets them at the elevator. She wears tan trousers and a sleeveless white blouse, and has a thick blond ponytail that barely moves as she leads them down corridors, around corners, and through a maze of low cubicles.

Isla Privada’s offices aren’t empty, but they feel that way-like a Saturday morning, rather than almost noon on a Wednesday-and the decor is decidedly low-key. The furnishings are as muted and generic as the building itself-slate and putty and taupe. The office artwork is visual pabulum: placating and instantly forgotten, surplus from a shopping mall or an airport lounge. Even the ringtone of the telephone system is muffled to a low burr that sounds to Carr like an electronic snore. The air is cool and smells like a new car.

This is not the back office-the centralized operation that processes the transactions of all the bank and trust companies in Isla Privada’s portfolio and that enables Curtis Prager to wash and move so much money so efficiently and inconspicuously. Those offices, Carr knows, are two miles away, in an even blander building, wrapped in much more serious security. But looking over the cubicles as he passes, Carr sees no clue of the business being done here. Insurance? Consulting? Selling time-shares? It could be anything.

The woman leads them to a glass-walled conference room. She stands by the door and ushers them in with a sweep of her muscular arm. There’s an oval conference table in the center of the room, and beneath the shaded windows a low credenza with trays on top. Coffee service, ice bucket, glass tumblers, and small bottles of soda.

“Sorry for the wait, fellas,” the woman says. “Please have a seat.” Her voice is husky, aggressively upbeat, and has a trace of Texas in it. Her skin is tanned and grainy. “We’ll get started in just a minute, but in the meantime we have refreshments.” She crosses the room and carries the trays from the credenza to the conference table. Bessemer reaches for a glass and a bottle of ginger ale.

“And for you Mr. Frye?” She spreads her hands toward the trays, like a trade-show model presenting a dishwasher. “Please, help yourself,” she says, and leaves, closing the door behind her.

Bessemer fills a glass with ice and ginger ale and empties it in one long swallow. He picks up a cocktail napkin and wipes his mouth and his forehead. Then he goes to the window and raises the shades. Carr sees the low rooftops of George Town, bright under the hammering sun, and the busy blue harbor. Bessemer turns and begins to speak, and Carr shakes his head minutely.

“Lots of boats,” Carr says.

Bessemer nods. “Curt must be running late,” he says, and begins to pace.

Carr stares until he catches Bessemer’s eye. “Another drink, Howie?” he asks, and slides a bottle of ginger ale across the table. Then he reaches for a glass of his own.

Twenty minutes later, Carr his finished two club sodas, and the hairs have risen on the back of his neck, though he doesn’t know why. Bessemer is pacing again, but the little knot tightening in Carr’s stomach isn’t fallout from that. He swirls the ice in his glass and looks around the conference room, which has suddenly come to resemble a fishbowl.

“Does Prager usually keep you waiting long?” he asks.

Bessemer flinches, startled by Carr’s voice. “He never keeps me waiting, and he never parks me in a conference room either. I feel like a salesman, for chrissakes.”

“I know what you mean,” Carr says, and he looks through the glass walls at the people in the their cubicles doing god knows what. “Have you caught a glimpse of him, walking around?”

“Walking around out there?” Bessemer says, flinching again. “No, I haven’t seen anything.” And the knot tightens more.

And then the blond woman is at the conference room door again, still smiling, though this time apologetically.

“Fellas, I feel terrible about this. I just now got off the phone with Curtis, and he’s not going to be able to make it in today. He’s on his way to the airport-got a little emergency, and he’s got to jump over to Nassau real quick. But he wants you to know he’s real sorry for this, and he’d like to reschedule for Saturday-lunch at his place.”

Carr looks at Bessemer, who is sputtering. “This is unbelievable,” Bessemer says. “We came down to see Curt, not for a vacation. I’d have come in February if that’s what I was after.”