Swimming with Sharks (65 page)

When Paul McIntyre—the commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings—returned to his office after lunch, he found a note on his desk telling him to call the mayor. He picked up the telephone and was only briefly surprised when he was immediately put through to Kostidis. It usually took a few tries to reach the ever-busy mayor.

“Hello, Paul,” Kostidis said. “I hear that you just came back from vacation. Did you get some good rest?”

“Hi, Nick,” McIntyre replied. “Yes I did, thank you. Unfortunately, it was much too short as usual.”

“Where did you go this time?”

“Oh, we got a little sun,” McIntyre said with a laugh. “I get depressed with the weather here. We went to the Caymans. Swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing.”

The Caymans!
That wasn’t a coincidence.

“Listen, Paul, I don’t have much time, but I really need to talk to you. Could you come by my office?

“Yes, of course,” McIntyre said, surprised. “Right away?”

“Yes, if you could manage it.”

“Of course. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

McIntyre left the Department of Buildings. He was in an excellent mood. After returning from the Caribbean two days ago, he and his wife had looked at the house that Vitali procured for them, and Jenny was delighted. It was out on the dunes with a view of Fire Island—it was simply fantastic! Only four more years, and then he could fulfill his dream and finally retire. Maybe even earlier, if he could find a doctor who would prescribe early retirement for his high blood pressure. Jenny could lunch at the country club, and he could play golf or go sailing all day long. The children and grandchildren could visit them on the weekends, stroll on the beach, swim in the pool, play tennis, or pursue other leisure activities
for which the city lacked the space. Yes, it was an alluring prospect indeed to live in their own oceanfront house, after sixty years of renting apartments in this damned loud and dirty city. McIntyre whistled as he ran up the steps to city hall.

“Hello, Allie,” he said to Kostidis’s secretary. “You’re getting prettier every day!”

“Thanks, Paul.” Allie said with a teasing frown. “You’re one charming liar. The mayor’s waiting for you. Go right in.”

McIntyre grinned and opened the door to Nick’s office.

“Hello, Nick!” he called out in a good mood, but then his gaze landed on the two men sitting at the large table and his smile vanished. He suddenly had a feeling that something was wrong.

“Paul,” Nick Kostidis said as he approached him and extended his hand, “thank you for coming so quickly. You know Lloyd Connors and Royce Shepard from the US Attorney’s Office.”

“Yes, we know each other,” McIntyre said carefully. “What’s going on?”

“Please take a seat,” Connors requested, and McIntyre obeyed. His uneasy feeling intensified when he spotted the audio recorder on the table and Shepard asked whether he had any objection to him recording the conversation.

“Let me cut to the chase,” Connors began. He looked pretty worn out. “We have evidence that you hold an account at a bank called Levy & Villiers in the Caymans.”

McIntyre turned as white as a sheet and started trembling.

“We suspect that you received the money in this account from Mr. Sergio Vitali and that you promised certain favors to him in return.”

McIntyre’s eyes locked with Nick’s inquiring gaze, and a dark redness crawled from his throat up his face.

“Do you have anything to say about these allegations?”

“That…that must be some kind of misunderstanding…I…” McIntyre stammered and wet his lips with his tongue. Thick beads of sweat appeared
on his brow, although it wasn’t particularly warm in the large room. This damned high blood pressure would kill him one of these days.

“Paul,” Nick said, “it’s not you the US Attorney’s Office is after, it’s Vitali.”

“We have account statements proving that you’ve regularly withdrawn and spent the money that was paid to you,” Connors continued. “So?”

McIntyre stared at the shiny tabletop, and he felt as if a dark abyss had opened up in front of him. It was the moment that he had feared all these years. The dream of a house on Long Island was over, and so was the prospect of a carefree life. Everything was over! He would be lucky to get any pension at all. Corruption was a serious crime that went severely punished, not to mention the fact that his reputation would be ruined forever.

“It…it’s true,” he mumbled after a while, and his confidence crumbled to dust. Nick sighed. In a small corner of his heart, he had hoped that it wasn’t true. He liked Paul McIntyre, trusted him, and worked well with him.

“When did it begin?” Connors asked.

“A few years ago.” McIntyre lowered his head. He couldn’t take Kostidis’s disappointed and hurt look anymore. “It was the invitation to bid for the construction of the World Financial Center. David Zuckerman approached me at the time. That wasn’t unusual, but when I personally met Vitali for the first time he offered me money.”

“And you accepted?” Connors asked.

“I hesitated at first.” McIntyre looked up, and tears actually shone in his eyes. “I was proud that I was incorruptible. But I had only been in office for a few months and was in debt up to my ears. Unfortunately, my wife likes to shop, and the banks were hassling me for repayment of a loan, and I couldn’t afford the payments on my salary. I knew how bad it would look if people found out I was technically bankrupt, and Vitali’s offer seemed simple and harmless enough at the time.”

Nick wiped his hand across his face. He didn’t want to hear another word, but McIntyre was talking his head off, as if he were happy to be
relieved of the pressure of his guilty conscience. Connors and Shepard listened carefully, asking questions now and then as McIntyre indulged in verbose justifications for his actions.

“Everyone lines their own pockets,” the commissioner of the Department of Buildings finally said. “That’s the norm. Small gifts, large gifts, a vacation package, a new car, and…money. I wouldn’t have stayed in office for very long if I hadn’t played along.”

“What do you mean by that?” Connors observed McIntyre sternly.

“Just like I said.” The broad-shouldered man with his carefully styled snow-white hair shrugged his shoulders. “Vitali and his people left no doubt that they would finish me off if I refused their offer.”

His gaze fell on the mayor.

“You don’t understand, Nick.” McIntyre smiled with a hint of bitterness. “I’ve always admired you for your idealism, but if you think that you can purge New York City of corruption, you’re crazy. Every civil servant is part of it—every single one of them.”

Nick looked at him for quite some time. Then he slowly nodded and lowered his head. He knew that McIntyre was right, but it hurt him nonetheless. His statement was proof that he had accomplished absolutely nothing in regard to corruption over the years. It was a declaration of his political bankruptcy.

“What’s going to become of me now?” McIntyre asked. Connors repeated the words he had spoken to many men over the past few days. He also handed him a prepared admission of guilt, and just like all the men before him, Paul McIntyre also signed.

“You’re going to act completely normally toward Vitali and your staff,” Connors said. “Of course, you’re also attending Vitali’s gala just as if nothing had happened. We want to avoid raising his suspicions too soon. Should you choose to warn him, then your prospects will look bad. Corruption in office, acceptance of bribes by a public official, falsification of building and
planning applications, price-fixing—all over an extended period of time—this means that you’re going to breathe filtered air for the rest of your life on top of the IRS coming after you for tax evasion and tax fraud.”

“I’ll do exactly as you say,” McIntyre quickly reassured him. “I promise you that.”

“That’s certainly the smartest thing you can do.”

McIntyre threw a glance at Nick, who was staring out the window with a blank expression.

“Nick,” McIntyre said quietly to his boss, “I’m truly sorry.”

Then, with hanging shoulders and clumsy steps, he walked out the door. The three men sat at the table in silence until someone else knocked on the door and Frank entered the room.

“What’s up?” Nick asked tiredly.

“There’s a woman who’d like to talk to you,” Frank said. “She’s been waiting for over an hour.”

“Did she tell you her name or what she wants?”

“No.”

Connors and Shepard collected their documents.

“Tell her I only have ten minutes,” Nick said, thinking a minute and walking to his desk. Frank returned, accompanied by a small, pear-shaped woman of about fifty. She wore a simple black dress, a pearl necklace, and a black headscarf. Her gray hair was cut fashionably short. Sorrow and tension were visible in her face, but fierce vengeance sparkled in her big brown eyes. She gripped the handle of her large crocodile-skin bag with both hands. She looked at the two US attorneys with uncertainty.

“Good afternoon.” Nick’s smile was somewhat forced as he extended his hand. Time and again someone managed to get through to his office, and then he had to listen to problems ranging from a lost job or marital troubles to neighbors’ disputes.

“How can I help you?” he asked. The woman glanced again at Connors and Shepard.

“These gentlemen are from the US Attorney’s Office,” Nick explained politely, “but they were just about to leave.”

“No, no,” the woman replied, “they should stay. What I have to say will also interest them.”

The three men looked at the woman in surprise. She opened her bag, pulled out ten videotapes, and placed them on Nick’s desk. Lloyd Connors curiously moved close.

“What’s that?” he asked. The woman looked into his eyes and then straightened her shoulders with determination.

“My name is Constanzia Vitali. And I’d like to testify against my husband.”

Monaghan and his men were patiently awaiting Justin Savier’s return in his apartment. He stayed out all night. The telephone rang repeatedly, but when the answering machine switched on the person on the other end hung up.

Someone unlocked the front door at two thirty the following afternoon. Justin Savier kicked the door shut with his heel and dropped his jacket on the floor. All he longed for right now was his bed. The plane from Georgetown had landed two hours ago in Newark, and then he’d been flown to Boston in a helicopter. Alex was right, and thankfully the US attorneys also believed their story. The evidence he had uncovered on the Levy & Villiers computers was truly powerful.

Justin yawned and pulled his sweater over his head, and then he suddenly felt something hard press into his back. He froze.

“Hello, Mr. Savier,” someone said behind him.

“He…hello,” Justin stuttered. “W…who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment?”

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Henry Monaghan replied, and Justin turned around quickly. He stared at the heavyset man with the walrus moustache.

“Who are you?” he repeated his question.

“That’s irrelevant.” Monaghan raised himself with surprising agility for such a fat man.

“How dare you break into my apartment?” Without a doubt, these were the people Alex was fleeing from.

“Funny you should put it that way,” Monaghan said with the last remnants of friendliness remaining in him after waiting for nineteen hours. “We suspect that you illegally broke into the central computer of a New York investment firm.”

Justin swallowed nervously.

“What makes you think that?”

“You worked on the security testing for BankManager 5.3,” Monaghan said casually, “and when your old buddy Mark Ashton asked you for help with a small computer problem, you complied.”

“I don’t know any Mark.”

“Really? That’s strange, because you went to Harvard together. I’ve seen the pictures of you two in your photo albums.”

Monaghan tried hard to stay calm and friendly. He would have loved to grab this guy who’d made a fool out of him and beat him to a pulp.

“Listen, Savier, I don’t have time for silly question-and-answer games. I want to know what—”

The telephone rang, and Monaghan fell silent. He detected panic flaring up in Savier’s eyes.

“Answer it!” he ordered, and since Justin showed no intention of doing so, he grabbed the revolver from his colleague Joey’s hand and pressed it to Savier’s temple. Justin turned an even paler shade of white. He picked up the receiver with shaking fingers. Monaghan pressed the
speakerphone button with his left hand, and a hot wave of triumph flowed though him as he heard Alex Sontheim’s voice.

“Justin, thank God! Where have you been for so long? I’ve tried to reach you countless times!”

Monaghan grinned. Vitali would be delighted by his next call. His people were certainly already closing in on Sontheim in Zurich.

“I’ve taken care of everything in Zurich,” Alex said. “I’ll go to—”

“Alex!” Justin interrupted her, but Monaghan pressed the barrel of the revolver more firmly to his temple and looked at him threateningly.

“Yes?”

“I…”

“Did you hear anything from Mark or Oliver?”