The Lacey Confession (36 page)

Rogers Messadou lived on 77th Street, just off Fifth Avenue. His home was a three-story brownstone building. In front it had a tiny plot of grass, no more than a yard wide, plus something very rare in New York City, even in the most upscale private residences—a garage. The man could actually drive a car into his house, or more likely, have one driven for him. Not bad for a kid, thought Walter, walking up to the entrance. Nice house, if you've got fifteen or twenty million dollars. New York City had been a part of Walter's life for fifty years, since the first time his mother took him there by train, down the Hudson River from Rhinebeck, into Grand Central Station. He felt comfortable in New York, very much at home. He knew the restaurants, hotels, neighborhoods, Greenwich Village and Chinatown. Central Park too, since he had made it a forty-year habit to stay at the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West at 61st Street. He was not a big fan of change and he knew he would always be angry they tore it down. But he'd been away, on St. John, for a long time. Time went by differently in New York than in the Caribbean. Fifteen to twenty million is what he pegged the young Messadou's house for. Just as he might be losing something in other areas, he was well behind the times for the Big Apple. Had Rogers Messadou been willing to sell this place for fifteen or twenty million dollars, he would be selling cheap. And Rogers Messadou was not a man who sold anything cheap. He had agreed to meet Walter, and at his home, as Walter requested. Actually, he seemed quite friendly on the phone. He was the first person Walter called after Puerto Rico. That's the way he and Tucker worked it out. He'd find Messadou. She would deal with Abby O'Malley. Afterward, they would talk and move on from there.

A male servant—not from around here—Walter said to himself, showed him inside. The man was tall and very thin, wore a black suit, white shirt and skinny black tie. He looked like a very well-dressed funeral director except for the cheerful smile and bright eyes. Walter wore his big-city, mainland clothes, his New York outfit—gray slacks, open collar light blue dress shirt, no tie of course, and a double-breasted navy blue, gold buttoned blazer. He knew he was underdressed, but it didn't bother him. Mr. Messadou was upstairs and would come down immediately, the long, lean servant said to Walter as he took him to a study off the main hallway on the first floor. No chance to look around, Walter thought. Not here.

“Please make yourself comfortable, Mr. Sherman. May I get you anything?” Walter asked him if they had any Diet Coke. “Of course, sir,” the male servant said, and closed the door, leaving Walter alone. Seeing how people lived was a key to knowing what sort of person they were. Walter knew to look about carefully. Everything told a story, or part of one. Furniture, tables and chairs, lamps and light fixtures, rugs, paintings and sculptures, nicknacks and personal memorabilia, particularly books and magazines—all of it was important. But, most of all, he knew that when he was shown into a room, and left to wait alone, that room would give up no useful information. Only a fool lets a stranger into anyplace meaningful, unescorted. From his research, minimal though it may have been, and from the looks of the house itself, Walter did not make Rogers Messadou for a fool.

The young man arrived a few minutes later. He fairly bounded into the room, a glad hand extended and a big, white toothy smile lighting up his face from ear to ear. He wore a Nike running suit, complete with matching shoes, and it was clear he had just been exercising. Drops of sweat still rolled down his neck from under his long, deep brown hair. He could not have been more than thirty-two, if that.

“Rogers Messadou,” he introduced himself. “Call me Roy, everyone does.” He stopped, like an action figure caught in midstep, or in a freeze frame just after somebody hit the pause button on a DVD player. His smile was fixed in cement and his finger pointed stiffly toward Walter.

“I got it,” said Walter. “Roy—Rogers.”

“Hey, good for you, Walter. Sit down. Jake will be right in. You did ask for something, didn't you?”

“A Diet Coke.”

“Great, great. Love that stuff, but I'm not crazy about the artificial sweetener. Now, what can I do for you? It isn't everyone who calls me up and wants to talk about my great-uncle.”

“I'm here about the Czar's gold coins,” said Walter, getting right to the point. In setting up this appointment, Walter told Rogers Messadou—Roy—he worked for important people and he thought Roy might be able to help him with something that came up regarding his great-uncle. Roy was friendly, even eager to talk about that. “Djemmal-Eddin Messadou,” he said on the phone. “Quite a man, Mr. Sherman.” Here, in the home of a Messadou, Walter felt it necessary to demonstrate some knowledge of Djemmal-Eddin before asking for information about him, especially this kind of information. So Walter began with a review of the man's exploits and achievements. He saw Roy was impressed just with the mention of the Transcaucasian Federation. When was the last time he met anyone who'd ever heard of it? Of course, he did not think less of the Federation for its obscurity. To the contrary, he thought only that Americans were ignorant, and completely deficient in matters of history, their own and everyone else's. At times like these Roy Messadou forgot he too was an American, second generation. Family loyalty is a deep vein in the mine that runs over and across any lines of nationality. Walter passed the test—he wasn't going to come in here and make bad jokes, mispronounce exotic names and not know the Messadou family had not been Muslims for more than a hundred years—and when he saw he had won over Roy's confidence, he started talking business.

“I want you to know, right off the bat, my employers have no personal interest in the coins. Frankly, they don't even know of their existence. It's only me—and I too have no interest in them. I'm not searching for gold, Roy. I need the information about the coins in order for me to complete my work. I am not asking you to tell me where they are or even if you know where they are. But, knowing what happened to the gold—or what people think happened to it—will bring me closer to finding the person I'm looking for. That's it.”

“How so, Walter? Tell me.”

“I'm not sure who it is I'm going to find when I reach the end of my search,” he answered. “I have reason to be believe he or she or they may themselves be after the coins. Knowing that—if it's so—will point me in their direction. Likewise, if I have others—let me call them suspects—on my list, and I discover they either don't know or don't care about Djemmal-Eddin's gold, that information also gets me closer to where I have to be.”

“What makes you think I can help you?”

“Your last name,” said Walter.

“You know, Walter,” said Roy, sounding nothing like the exuberant youngster who met him a few minutes ago, “most powerful men, men of great influence, are rich. But not all rich men are powerful. Not all rich men have influence. I believe it's fair to say I am rich. Look around you. You could say wealthy, without argument. But I have no power—don't seek any—and I have even less influence. All of which pleases me immensely. Everything you see around you comes from money I've earned. There is no Czar's gold here.” He continued his tale of the self-made man unaware that Walter knew most of it already. That's the way Walter liked it. Getting information you already have is a good way to assess the veracity of the person giving it to you. This works particularly well when the source is certain you have nothing to start with.

Roy spoke of his grandfather, who came to the United States after World War II. Roy's father was born here, in New Jersey, in 1948. His grandfather opened a restaurant, a small place that catered to the new population of Georgians in the New York area. Of course, it was a tiny population even at its postwar height. Still, the restaurant persisted. The family persevered. Roy's father and his uncles and aunts grew up, went to school, on to college, and the family made ends meet because of that restaurant. “My father had ambition,” said Roy. “We imported many of the foodstuffs that went into the menu and Dad thought the market for those foods might be wider than just our little restaurant in Jersey City.” He laughed, the same friendly laugh Walter saw earlier. “He was right too.” Roy Messadou's father eventually opened an import/export business specializing in Russian products coming in and American luxury items going out. It was nothing huge, but it was much bigger than the restaurant. For Roy's generation, a home in the suburbs, new cars and the finest colleges were part of the deal. Roy Messadou's father saw the upper middle class as the culmination of the American dream. America was a great country—the Messadou family, proof of it.

“I went to Princeton and then got my MBA at Harvard,” said Roy.

“I thought it was Columbia and the Wharton School,” said Walter.

“Good, good,” said Roy, once again the jovial host. “I wanted to see how much you knew. You'll forgive me. You're pretty good, Walter.”

“It wasn't much. You flatter me.”

“Just want to know that we both know what we're doing here.”

“Look, Roy. I'm chasing a killer and I've been running toward a certain revelation in Frederick Lacey's personal journal—something that has absolutely nothing to do with you or your family. Then, all of a sudden, Lacey's wife comes up, then her father—your great-uncle—and I begin hearing about the gold and thinking maybe who I'm looking for has no connection to what I've seen revealed in Lacey's confession, and instead has everything to do with the gold. If that's true, I may be after the wrong person. I was hoping you could help me.”

“A killer?”

“Yes.”

“As in murder?”

“As in murder.”

“You're not the police.”

“I'm not. You really should stop asking questions. Let me ask them. The more you know, the more you know what you shouldn't. It serves no purpose. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” answered Roy Messadou. “It amazes me when you say you are after a killer, when you tell me you are really talking about murder. I assume this murder has already taken place.”

“Correct.”

“You know, of course you do, that I am just a stocks-and-bonds man. A good one. Well, what the fuck—a great one. But one nonetheless. I am a Messadou, proud to be one too. But my family's history is a subject for great misunderstanding. I assure you whatever murder you are involved in, it has nothing whatever to do with Djemmal-Eddin Messadou. Do you know why?”

“Your sister doesn't feel that way,” said Walter. “She came to see me and she was quite interested. The family fortune—your family fortune—was put someplace by Frederick Lacey. He never told any of you, according to your sister. After his father-in-law died, he kept the secret himself. Lacey surely didn't spend it. The last thing he needed was more money. So, it must still be there—wherever he put it. Your sister says your family has a claim on that gold. I make no judgment about that. As I said earlier, I don't care about the gold. But, if someone you know is killing people to get to Lacey's document, to find the Czar's coins, I will find them. I will.”

There was an earnestness in Walter's voice, a serious nature to his bearing, a level of agitation Roy Messadou could not miss.

“Walter,” he said. “You've been misinformed.”

“Yeah, about what?”

“There is no gold. So far as I know, there never was. My great-uncle was a great man, a man who has been slighted by history. But he was a simple man and so was my grandfather a simple man. There was no gold then and there is no gold now.”

“That is not what your sister has to say.”

“Which one?”

“Aminette. Aminette Messadou, who your father named after Lacey's wife.”

“I have a younger sister, Piper, who lives here, in the New York area, in Far Rockaway, Queens. She is slow, if you know what I mean. Retarded they used to call it. She lives in a special home, a wonderful place really, directly on the beach out there. I pay for it. I visit every week. Sometimes she remembers who I am. Sometimes she doesn't. I have another sister, Jean. She lives in Houston. She's married to some sort of financial executive. He does all right. Nothing like this, but okay. Jean is proud. Will not take a penny from me. She doesn't want anybody's gold. My sister Aminette came to see you? I have no sister named Aminette.”