Bermuda Schwartz (6 page)

Hindsight exists so we can see our own asses and give them a proper kick. And yeah, I probably should have had my attorney look over the papers. But I don't like the idea of too many people knowing my affairs. So I signed the papers and sent them off.

I'm not saying I went over everything line by line that Trimmingham
& Artemus sent me, scrupulously parsing all meaning and nuance. But I read most of it. And I do not remember anything that gave Brewster Freaking Trimmingham the authority to withdraw money from my account.

Trimmingham & Artemus is in Suite 406 of a gray block building that houses lots of outfits with ampersands in their names. I get tired of waiting on the elevator and take the stairs.

By the time I get to the fourth floor I am breathing hard, more from boiling blood than exertion. The hall ahead of me is long, narrow, and deserted. A couple of dozen doors open onto it, all with small brass plaques bearing the names of businesses that sound much grander than their surroundings.

The plaque on Suite 406 reads
TRIMMINGHAM & ARTEMUS INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT, LTD.
I try the door. It is locked. I knock. No answer. I knock again, louder. Nothing. I beat hell out of the door. And then, just because it feels right, I kick it.

I hear something creak behind me. I turn around. A man peeks out from behind a door directly across the hall from 406.

“May I help you?” he says.

“I'm looking for Brewster Trimmingham.”

The door inches open a bit. The man is middle-aged and wears one of those telephone headsets favored by people who are just so damn busy they can't be bothered.

He says, “You aren't likely to find him here.”

“This is his office, isn't it?”

“Oh, yes, it's his office. But he's already come and gone. He picks up the mail about eleven each morning and then he's off.”

“What about the rest of the staff?”

The man gets a big kick out of that.

“Good one,” he says.

The door is open just enough for me to see inside the man's office. It is small and sparse. One desk, nothing on the walls.

“You know where I would find Trimmingham?”

The man eyes me.

“Are you an acquaintance of his?”

“Yeah,” I say. “We go way back. I'm in Bermuda for a few days and thought I'd look him up, see how he's been doing.”

The man thinks it over. I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe me. If I were him I wouldn't believe me. He looks at his watch.

“It's almost three o'clock,” he says. “I'd try Benny's Lounge. It's up on Queen Street.”

The man starts to close the door.

“Just one more thing,” I say, nodding at the plaque on Suite 406. “Is there really an Artemus?”

The man grins a sly grin.

“That's another good one,” he says.

 

Benny's Lounge is as elegant as its name implies—a faded sign on an unadorned door and nary a window opening onto Queen Street, all the better for avoiding prying eyes and anything that resembles the tourist trade.

Inside, the place is bigger than it appears from the street—a couple dozen stools around a horseshoe-shaped bar, seven or eight wooden tables, and a row of highbacked booths along the far wall. A hallway leads to the bathrooms and, at the end of it, a box sits wedged in the back door, a token nod to ventilation that isn't doing much good.

Benny's is crowded, the clientele mostly male. I find a seat at the bar. There is Tennants on tap. When the bartender comes around I order a pint.

“I'm looking for Brewster Trimmingham,” I say.

The bartender is a fat-faced man with droopy lids that conceal most of his eyes. He nods to a corner booth by the hall. I turn in my stool, sip the Tennants, and study the man in the booth.

He does not fit my image of what a Brewster Trimmingham should look like. I am expecting someone like Bunson or Highsmith, the twerpy bankers. But Trimmingham is big—massive is more like it—his ample girth creating a snugness in the booth that borders on the uncomfortable.

He has the look of John Madden portraying a yachtie gone to seed: faded blue polo with the tail out, worn khakis, deck shoes without any
socks. His hair is thick and gray, and his face blotched red, a testament more to drinking, it appears, than to time spent in the sun.

I sip the Tennants and watch Trimmingham some more.

He drinks from a glass that looks tiny in his big hand. He holds a cell phone to one ear. He finishes his call and promptly makes another.

I finish my Tennants and order a refill. Trimmingham keeps talking. He catches the bartender's eye and holds up his glass.

The bartender puts ice in a glass and fills it with gin, then the barest splash of tonic.

“I'll take that to him,” I tell the bartender.

The bartender sets the glass down in front of me.

“Shall I put it on your tab?” he says.

“No,” I say. “You shall not.”

I walk the drink over to Trimmingham's booth. He spots me coming and keeps watching me as I sit down across from him. I slide the glass his way. He takes it, gives me a nod, and speaks into the phone.

“I'm telling you, it's one hell of an investment,” he says. “You can probably sell them in a year for half again as much.”

He listens. Then he says: “Believe me, I'd prefer to hold on to them myself, but I need to move the money into something else for a while. I'm coming to you first with this, but I need to move quickly, OK?”

He listens some more, says: “Right then, think it over. Cheers, now …”

He flips the phone shut, sets it down, and picks up his drink. He takes a long pull on the gin, studying me over the rim of the glass.

“Sorry, I'm not placing you.”

“Zack Chasteen,” I say.

I stick out my hand. Trimmingham shakes it and smiles, all hale and hearty. If my name means anything to him, he's covering it well.

“Brew Trimmingham,” he says. “What can I do for you?”

Yeah, if my name were Brewster, I'd probably go by Brew, too. He tries to pull his hand away. I hold on to it.

“You can put two million dollars back into my account at Richfield Bank.”

Trimmingham's face sags. His eyes dart around the bar, then back to me. He tries again to pull away, but I squeeze his hand tighter. I have a good grip, right where I can bear down with my thumb knuckle into the bone. I bear down. Trimmingham winces.

“For chrissake,” he says. “I can explain.”

“Then start doing it.”

I let go of his hand. He rubs it, studying me.

He polishes off the rest of his drink and signals the bartender for another one. He doesn't ask if I want one. That in itself tells me everything I need to know about Brewster Trimmingham.

The bartender delivers the drink. Trimmingham sits back in the booth and sucks the top off it.

“So,” he says, “how long have you known Freddie Arzghanian?”

“Doesn't matter,” I say. “Talk to me about my money.”

“You have to promise not to tell Freddie.”

“Why? Are you screwing around with his money, too?”

Trimmingham shakes his head.

“I'm not that stupid. But I would prefer that Freddie didn't know anything about this. You have to promise me.”

“I'm not promising you anything. And you've got about ten seconds to tell me something I want to hear or I'm going to the cops.”

“I wasn't trying to cheat you.”

“You're down to five seconds. Four, three …”

“You'll have your money back in a week. With interest. Let's say fifty thousand dollars' interest,” says Trimmingham. “Is that something you want to hear?”

“It's a start.”

Trimmingham slides out from the booth. It is a tight squeeze.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he says. “I need to step down the hall to the men's room.”

He turns to go. I stand, grab the back of his collar, and pull him back. I pull a little harder than necessary. Trimmingham loses his balance and falls onto the floor, overturning a nearby table.

It gets the attention of everyone in the place. The bartender starts our way, but I wave him off and help Trimmingham to his feet.

“Sit down,” I tell him. “You're not going anywhere.”

We settle back into the booth. Trimmingham studies me. I study him back. We're just a couple of real studious guys.

A smirk creeps onto Trimmingham's face.

“It won't do you any good to go to the police,” he says. “I haven't done anything illegal.”

“You stole two million dollars from my account.”

He holds up a finger, wags it at me.

“Point of fact,” he says, “as the legal and designated nominee of your account, and a signatory under the banking laws of Bermuda, I have full authority to transfer, withdraw, or deposit any funds …”

I grab his finger and bend it backward. I'm pretty sure I feel something crack.

Trimmingham lets out a yelp and yanks his hand away, clutching it against his chest. All eyes in the bar are once again on us.

“Arthritis,” I tell everyone. “It flares up on him every now and then.”

People go back to minding their own business. I go back to my little tete-a-tete with Trimmingham.

“Point of fact,” I say. “You're going to be in a lot worse agony than you are right now unless you tell me exactly why you took my money.”

“All right, all right, I'll tell you,” he says. “See, this investment opportunity came along, a very good one. But I had to move fast. I was working on your behalf, of course, and fully intended to notify you once everything was complete, but …”

I stomp on his foot. I hit the bony top of his arch and I can tell that it stings. Trimmingham jolts his leg away and jostles the table. I manage to grab my beer, but Trimmingham's drink topples over before he can save all of it.

“Fuck all, that hurt,” says Trimmingham.

“The truth, Trimmingham. Or else you aren't going to have many parts left that don't hurt.”

He looks away, jiggling the ice that remains in his glass.

“The truth is, I'm in a bit of a jam, OK?” He looks at me. His eyes are pleading. “I was wrong, I admit it. But I didn't think you'd notice. You opened the account six months ago and it has been inactive ever since. I figured you were one of those guys who just wanted to put his money in the cooler for a little while. That's the way it is with lots of these accounts I handle, especially those that come through Arzghanian. So I thought I could use the money for a few weeks, then return it, and no one would be the wiser.”

“Use it for what?”

“Real estate investment. Guy I know is building some condos out near Tucker's Town. A place called Governor's Pointe. Ultra high-end. Very exclusive. I bought six of them at preconstruction prices, thinking I could flip them.”

“And you haven't been able to.”

Trimmingham shrugs.

“The market has gone soft. It's taking longer than I predicted.”

“So why are you sweating it? It's my goddamn money sitting out there.”

Trimmingham looks down at the table.

“It's more complicated than that,” he says.

“I've got all the time in the world.”

I settle back in the booth with my Tennants. Trimmingham jiggles the ice in his glass, finishes off the little bit of gin that's left.

“I've had to borrow money from other people to get me over the hump,” he says. “Payment on the property is running almost seventy thousand a month.”

“How much have you had to borrow?”

“A lot,” he says. “And the interest on it is piling up.”

“Am I right in guessing that the people you had to borrow this money from are not the kind of people who are amused when you miss a payment?”

“Bloody understatement, that,” says Trimmingham. “Listen, I really need to use the men's room. Why don't you order us another round.”

He slides out of the booth and disappears down the hall. I watch as the hall floods with daylight, then goes dark again as the back door slams shut.

Men's room, my ass.

I'm not the only one who sees Trimmingham cut and run. The bartender spots him, too. He pulls out a cell phone and punches numbers.

I throw down money on the table and head for the back door.

 

By the time I step outside, Trimmingham is a third of the way down the long alley that runs behind Benny's Lounge, heading for Queen Street. He's fairly fast on his feet for a fat guy. And, cocky bastard, he doesn't even look back to see if I'm following.

I could catch him, even with my gimp foot. But where's the sport in that? More interesting to see where he goes. Who knows? I might even learn something. And the more I learn about Trimmingham, the closer I get to my money.

I hang back, waiting to see if he goes left or right when he hits Queen Street. But he never makes it there. As Trimmingham nears the end of the alley, a white Toyota screeches in from Queen Street and cuts him off.

Two guys get out, leaving the driver in the car. One is short, the other tall, and both of them wear sweatsuits like they've just come from the gym.

The short one carries a flat, wooden paddle—a cricket bat, it looks like—the handle wrapped in tape. He slaps it against an open palm as he stands beside the car.

Trimmingham stops. He turns back my way, but the tall guy is already on him, hooking an arm around Trimmingham's throat, shutting off his air as the short guy moves in with the bat.

I start running down the alley. Or, running as best I can anyway.

“Hey!” I yell.

The two guys don't even glance my way. The short one rears back with the bat.

Trimmingham throws up both arms, trying to ward off the blow. I hear the sharp, sick crack as bat meets bone.

The short guy flips the bat around and jabs the handle hard into Trimmingham's chest. Trimmingham groans. The short guy jabs him again.