Mortal Bonds (13 page)

Yup. Just like old times.

T
he Caribbean Hurricane Relief Fund shared a renovated three-story brownstone in the East Forties, a bit too far from United Nations Plaza to be considered chic. There was a weathered brass plaque on the front of the building that listed the offices of the missions to the United Nations for three different countries, not one of which could I confidently place on a map. Beneath this plaque was a second, much newer, which read
CARIBBEAN HURRICANE RELIEF FUND.
A man in overalls and blue work shirt was in the process of removing it.

Pauline Sinha had once been a beautiful woman—she still had many of the requisite external components—blond hair, black eyes, full lips, a mocha complexion, and the right amount of curves in all the right places. But the heart and soul had been ripped out of her. I pegged her for a tired thirty-eight. She spoke perfect BBC English, with only an occasional
t
substituting for a
d
—a slip as cute as a lisp—but her tone was flat, as though she had just come to accept the news of a terminal diagnosis.

“Mr. Castillo has been a friend to the fund since the inception. If not for his introduction, I would not be speaking to you.” She had been on my list for a week, but until I asked for Castillo’s help, she had not returned any of my phone calls. So, despite the fact that I was still reeling from Angie’s lunchtime revelations, I had to go through with the interview. “The fund’s history with Von Becker has been covered extensively in the media. I don’t know what I can addt.”

There was that little slip at the end. If she had been able to summon up a smile to go with it, I might have fallen in love—if I weren’t in a foul mood and ready to blame all women for the perfidy of one.

“I’ve been hired by the Von Becker family as an investigative consultant,” whatever that was. “Mr. Castillo has shown an interest.”

“Mr. Castillo has been a major supporter of the fund, since the beginning.”

I didn’t bother keeping the skepticism out of my voice. “I am sure he is very generous.”

Why was I hurt? It had happened years ago. I was well rid of the woman in question. The man involved was already a known factor—his character lying somewhere on the scale between dogshit traitor and backstabbing worm. Sinha was talking again. I pulled my attention back to the business at hand.

“Because of his involvement, we have been investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Secret Service no less than four times, Interpol and Europol twice each.”

“And you were surprised at this? The man moves money around for drug cartels.”

Pride. It was my pride that was hurt. When I stopped whining and just faced facts, that’s all it was. What else was left, and not much of that? I felt stupid. Betrayed, yes, but mostly stupid. I’d had countless opportunities—the news that I was married, and to a model who had twice appeared in the
SI
swimsuit issue, had brought forth a deluge of explicit and implied invitations from colleagues’ wives and girlfriends, casual acquaintances outside the firm, barmaids and perfume saleswomen, and the always hungry big-busted cougar saleswoman in money markets who reportedly was screwing her way through the firm’s trading desks. In putting on a ring, I had achieved a level of magnetism that had eluded me my whole life. Why, I now asked myself, hadn’t I taken what was being so freely offered? Honor? Some hitherto unknown sense of self-esteem? Stupid. Was I seriously regretting not having slept with the office slut? Stupid. Stupid squared. I had been faithful. She had not. End of goddamned story.

Sinha seemed to be unaware of my split focus. “And we were cleared of wrongdoing every time—an important distinction that the media consistently fails to mention when discussing our situation.” She was starting to show some fire.

I fought to stay on point. “Why don’t you just tell me about the Von Becker connection?”

She slumped back in her chair and exhaled in a long sigh. I caught a whiff of lavender.

“William Von Becker called me eight years ago and said he wanted to make a substantial donation. One million dollars. The fund was just two years old at the time, and we were struggling. Right after a storm we tend to get a rush of small contributions, but our only major sponsors at the time were the country of Venezuela and the Caribbean Coffee Growers Association. Together, they barely covered salaries for my two assistants. Von Becker’s pledge was a godsend.”

Gottsent.

“And all he wanted was to invest the funds for you, am I right?”

“No. He asked only if he could host fund-raisers for us. Which he did.”

“No strings?”

She shook her head. “He was much too sly. The first party he threw was at the Guggenheim Museum. Seven hundred guests. I understand the evening cost over a million dollars. We never saw the bill, and we had pledges for over thirty million.”

“He twisted a lot of arms.”

She gave a shrug. “He invited the right people. Morgan, the daughter, made sure of that. She was invaluable. She handled all of it, from the guest list to hiring the caterers and vetting the security.”

“And Castillo? Where was he in this?”

“I am from Suriname. We do not have the same view of the Castillo family that your country does. The Castillos are wealthy and aristocratic Colombian merchant bankers. They invest in our bauxite mines, lend money for infrastructure projects, help to negotiate more favorable trade agreements with larger, more powerful corporations. My family is in banking—on a much smaller scale, of course—but we have done business with the Castillos for over a hundred years.”

She hadn’t answered my question. “Without them, the drug cartels would be out of business.”

“No. Without them, another group of bankers would come in. HSBC? Standard Chartered? And I could name a dozen U.S. banks that already do their business. Your Justice Department only intervenes when the fines they can extort are large enough to be worth the time and trouble.”

I couldn’t argue. Criminal fines against Wall Street were a source of revenue; policing and prosecuting were expenses.

“Von Becker was one of these? Already engaged in that business?”

She twisted a plain gold wedding band. “If you say so. I don’t know.”

She knew.

“So how did Von Becker get hold of the cash?”

She gave a rueful smile. “I gave it to him, of course. He had donated ten million of his own money by that time, and helped us to raise over half a billion dollars. In fact, you could say that the whole fund—which stood at close to two billion at one point—was due to his work, because we would never have had such visibility without him. It was quite natural for me to ask his help. Managing the fund’s portfolio was taking too much of my time. I could have chosen Case Securities or Goldman Sachs, but I chose Von Becker. He seemed reluctant. I insisted. He agreed. I can see now how well he played me.”

“You never questioned how he produced those double-digit returns? Year after year? Nothing ever made you think, Hey, how does this guy do what nobody else can?”

“When I managed the investments, we earned six to eight percent. With Von Becker, it jumped to twice that. That meant we had a lot more money to spend on hurricane relief every year. Which is why we’re here, after all. Americans remember Katrina and Sandy, but in the island countries, they remember Ivan and Dennis and Dean. In 2008, Haiti was hit by four major hurricanes. In a row. I needed the returns Von Becker offered.” She had thrown off the lassitude and the cynicism. I had found her passion point. So, I pushed on it.

“To do what? Fly some celebrities around and show them the poor people. Get them a few good photo ops. Come on, this whole thing was rigged, and the fact that Von Becker gutted it is a minor subplot.”

“No! This fund helped real people get back on their feet after the kind of devastation you couldn’t imagine. Oh, you might watch it for a few minutes on CNN or Fox News, before flipping back to ESPN or the Playboy channel, and if you remember later you might write a check or send us five dollars from your PayPal account. But you don’t
see
it. We hire people—local people—to dig latrines, build huts or lean-tos, deliver clean water and rice and flour. Who do you think sorts through all that used clothing that gets sent down? Good god! Thongs, for heaven’s sake! Who sends thong underwear to hurricane survivors? Overcoats! People get a tax deduction for sending their old down coats. To Haiti! Canned food? How about pumpkin-pie filling? You would not believe how much pumpkin-pie filling is donated the week after Thanksgiving. And a container ship docks and a few politicians have their pictures taken in front of containers full of ‘relief supplies’ and then they disappear . . .”

She finally noticed I had my hands up in surrender.

“Sorry,” I said. “I needed to know if you were for real.”

“And what did you find out?” she sneered.

“I’m ready to shut up and listen. Now, will you finish telling me about Von Becker?”

She glared for a moment, and when I didn’t melt, she sat back and took a deep breath. “William Von Becker was a very charming man. He seemed both very sure of himself and yet very humble. He was always giving credit to those around him—and it is only later that you realize that he was the one who did all the talking and he is the one who will be remembered. It is an ugly talent.”

“He was managing the funds,” I prompted. “All of them. Everything?”

She shook her head. “Almost all. I still managed the daily cash fund—a few million. There’s enough left to pay expenses as we wind down. Whatever’s left at the end will go to the Red Cross or Oxfam.”

“But it can’t all be gone, right? I’m hearing most of his investors will be getting back somewhere between forty and seventy percent. You can still do a lot of good with that kind of money.”

“We will get nothing back. It is not yet public information, but we have been told this by the judge’s clerk. There is, of course, some pressure from the DEA and the FBI and others at Justice, who think that even though we have been cleared time and again of any criminal dealings with the Castillo family, that somehow we ‘got away with something.’ Your justice system is not about discovering truth, or even catching bad guys. It is about winning.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

“So, I will close the fund and if I’m not indicted, I will rejoin my family in Geneva. And I will try to think like an American when I hear news of some disaster, and write out a little check.”

I’d been thrown as badly. I thought about what had finally brought me through it.

“Do you have children?” I asked.

She smiled. “Yes, two. A boy and a girl. They live with their father in Geneva.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I saw the ring. I didn’t realize you were separated.”

She gave a sad laugh. “We are not separated. I visit often—three or four times a year. They are both in school there and I would not disrupt their lives. If Suriname ever fields an Olympic ski team, they will lead it. My husband is very busy, but he is a good father. He makes time for them.”

And, I would bet, he did not cheat on her with her boss. If he did cheat it would be very European, discreet. She didn’t cheat, I was sure. I had found an honest woman. And now that my pride and stupidity were no longer vying for my attention, I realized that I knew others. Skeli, obviously. Would she cheat on me? Not unless I deserved it—and probably not then. She had been married to a serial philanderer; she took the issue seriously. Would I cheat on her? No. Unless? No. There was no unless about it. The answer was no.

“Thanks for your time, Ms. Sinha. I wish you luck.” I stood up and we shook hands. She had long fingers and a strong grip. “Do you mind one more question?” I said. “A personal question.” I had a hard time leaving the Kid at school each day. I could not imagine living the way she did. “How did you do it?” I said. “Your family, I mean. Didn’t missing them just tear you apart every day?”

“Of course it did.” She was mildly offended. “But I thought it was my duty to try to do something good for the world.”

That was where she’d gone wrong. The world has perverse ways of showing appreciation.

F
irst Avenue was moving two miles an hour faster than a parking lot, so I walked up to Third to catch a cab back uptown. I had one foot on the curb, one in the street, arm in the air, and was trying to remember the last time I had eaten at Smith & Wollensky’s—well before my incarceration, I was sure—when my cell phone buzzed.

“You son of a bitch!” the voice greeted me.

“Wrong number,” I said and clicked off. Then I checked the call log. Douglas Randolph? What had I done to him? I could think of a great number of people who might initiate a conversation with me by calling me a son of a bitch, but Doug was not one of them. I waited a moment, giving him a chance to call again. It didn’t take long.

“Stafford,” I answered.

“You son of a bitch!” He was close to screaming—as frightened as he was angry.

“Whoa. Hold up. What is this about?”

“Those two goons you sent. Nice job. They scared the shit out of my wife.”

“Doug, I don’t know anything about this.”

“You lying sack of shit. I get home and I find the house trashed and her locked in the bathroom, crying. They fucking
told
her you sent them. All right?”

“This is all wrong. I sent nobody. I don’t know who these people are.” Who would I send? Roger and PaJohn? My crew.

“Bullshit. You didn’t have to do this, you know. She’s goddamn terrorized. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, coming from a class-A crook. Don’t you fucking get it? I don’t know anything. I’m not holding out on you. I just don’t fucking know anything.”

“Did she call the cops? What did they look like? What did they sound like? Give me something here!”

“The cops? And what makes you think they’d believe me?”

“I believe you.” I did, and I had no idea what else to say.

“Know this, you fuck, if there’s any way I can put your ass back in jail, I will find it.”

I was on very good terms with my parole officer, but something like this could change that in a heartbeat.

“Doug, I’m sorry. I really had nothing to do with this. Let me help.”

But he wasn’t there. He had already hung up on me.

•   •   •

EVERETT WAS AGAIN
standing guard over Virgil’s inner sanctum when I called.

“Virgil will be in meetings all day. I will pass on any information you have.”

“What I have are questions, Everett. I just got a very strange phone call from Doug Randolph. Someone threatened him—rather, someone threatened his wife.”

“Who threatened him?”

“That’s one of my questions.”

“As I understand things, Randolph has a lot to answer for. He defrauded a lot of people. I would not be surprised if one or more of them retaliated.”

“They used my name,” I said.

Everett didn’t respond.

“Did you get that, Everett?”

“I will pass that on to Virgil. Is there anything else?”

I promised myself that someday I would grant myself the luxury of venting a bucketful of frustration on Everett. Not today. “I spoke to Mrs. Welk. She swears there’s nothing there.”

“Welk? I’m taking notes.”

“The clerk?” Was he playing games? “The old man’s clerk. You said she ‘sat at his feet,’ if I remember correctly. Well, she just got out of prison, and I spoke to her. I don’t know that she was innocent, but I really don’t think she knows anything that would help us.”

“Any other messages?”

I had never trusted Everett, and so far I had heard nothing to make me change my mind.

“Yes. I need to speak to Virgil.”

He sighed impatiently. “He’ll just tell you to talk to me.”

“Then he’ll have to tell me that himself.”