19 Purchase Street (67 page)

B
AHNHOFSTRASSE
12–24

Gainer believed most of what Norma had earned from carrying would be there. Her deal had been one and a half percent commission. From what Gainer knew, her carries had averaged three million and she made about six carries each year.

Which came to two hundred seventy thousand a year for her.

More than two and a half million over ten years.

Up that to three million when the amount she had skimmed was included.

He was going to have it transferred to a bank in the Caymans. Had it all arranged on the Caymans end. Gainer had thought at first he would invest that money in something sure and reasonably high-interest bearing. It could bring three to four hundred thousand a year tax free and he could still keep the three million intact. However, now his plans for that money had changed.

He would spend it.

On Leslie and himself. On them.

As fast as their impetuosity and tastes required.

No prices asked. Not ever.

Maybe they'd run through the three million in a year, or maybe, especially with Leslie's help and considering how far money didn't go these days, it would be gone in just six months. Didn't matter. For once Gainer was going to enjoy that limitless feeling. The Rodger feeling, as he thought of it. And when the three million dwindled he wasn't going to regret a dollar, just take it all the way down to zero and be better off for the experience.

In other words, fuck Benjamin Franklin and his frugality.

Private bank Waldhauser.

It looked like a diehard town house being squeezed by larger commerce on either side. Only four stories and no brass nameplate on its exterior, just its address numbers in a discreet size and conscientiously polished.

Gainer went to a reception area. Black and white marble floor arranged in a diamond pattern. A graceful ascending stairway with an intricate wood bannister, and a runner of leaf green disciplined by brass carpet rods. Nobody here, nor any sounds of banking. Gainer was about to go outside and check the address when a man came down the stairs. His black suit was the sort of wool that would outlast him, and his tie was supposed to, and did, look expensive. He was in his early forties, appeared older because he was so dour.

He introduced himself as Herr Bremlich, an account manager.

Gainer thought it would be wrong if he said his name. He had come prepared, handed Herr Bremlich a card with account number SF-1259, code word
Necco
printed on it and said, “I want to make a transfer.”

Herr Bremlich went upstairs for ten minutes. When he returned he handed the card back to Gainer. “We have no such account,” he said.

Gainer was positive he had printed the correct number, and certainly he couldn't be wrong about the code word
Necco
. He told Herr Bremlich, “You'd better go check again.”

Up and down again for the account manager. “There is no account with either that number or code at this bank,” he informed Gainer.

“This
is
the Private bank Waldhauser, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“Was there ever an account here with this number?”

“I cannot say. Most likely not.”

Gainer read the lie in the man's eyes. Other than wrecking Herr Bremlich and this nice neat place—what could he do? He made fists in his pockets and walked out.

The bastards. The cheap, greedy bastards. Darrow or Hine or whoever had gotten to Norma's money. No wonder they didn't mind for such a long time that she was skimming.

Gainer used the Rathaus Bridge to cross over the River Limmat and set out for the hotel. The forty-some block walk of long strides did not help dispel the cloud around his head much as his street sense did. People who had the reach to confiscate three million as cleanly as that had the power to do damn near anything. They were no longer in his life, and the sooner he got them out of his mind the better. And safer. Forget them and the three million. Besides, the three was a paltry sum compared to what his old buddy Chapin had done him out of.

Chapin.

There was more to him than the double-cross, Gainer had decided. He wished he had Chapin's farewell tape to play over. He remembered the essence of it but would have liked to listen to it carefully, evaluate the inflections. “…
all that money would have made you dead
,” Chapin had said, and been right. “
I've really thought this one out
…
now all it has to do is come off the way I see it
.” Those Chapin words were not as cryptic to Gainer now—not since the return of the money in the gasoline tanker and the well-timed three billion dollar fire that had doomed Hine and saved him. Gainer wasn't sure that was how it had gone but it was how it felt to him, and the way he wanted to think.

When he got to his room at the Dolder he had the urge to phone Leslie. She had not wanted to come along on this trip, had some things to tidy up she had said. Gainer decided no, he wouldn't call her. Instead, he'd get back to her as soon as possible. Next flight was out at nine.

It was now five.

He booked an economy class seat and started packing so as to have that done. Scattered on the floor around a chair were some of Norma's papers. He had brought those along in a manila envelope, all documents of hers that had anything to do with Switzerland. Just in case. That morning he had gone through them again and found nothing that looked important.

He kneeled, started gathering the papers, shoving them back into the envelope. His eye caught on something that he must have passed over before. It appeared so insignificant. Merely a slip of paper, but with the Dolder Grand insignia on it. (The insignia had been covered up by another piece of paper the last time he'd looked.) Along with a scribbled number and initials and date. Gainer only vaguely recalled having taken it from Norma's wallet. He recalled more clearly now that he, himself, had had in hand another similar slip the last time he was in Zurich.

He hurried down to the lobby, asked for the porter.

The porter came with his chrome ring of keys. He led the way to a far end of the lobby, used one of the keys to open the door of the room there.

Gainer presented the slip.

The porter examined it.

Probably come up empty again, Gainer thought.

The porter went deep into the room, returned with a Mark Cross bag, a thirty-incher.

Gainer recognized it, its red and white leather name tag.

Norma's last carry.

She had checked it into the porter's luggage room when she arrived too late for the bank that day. She had thought it would be safer there—and it had been.

Now Gainer had the bag by its handle.

Three million in cash on the end of his arm.

Now
he would call Leslie.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T
HERE
was nothing worse for the nervous system than being jarred awake, Leslie believed.

Usually, on a day when she had to be somewhere, her miniature bedside clock struck gold for her—a single resonant
ding
that not only said good morning in a nice and rather apologetic way but also told her there was still time to lie there a while and gradually emerge, give her eyes a chance to become accustomed to being open again. And to stretch. Especially stretch, like a sensible animal.

However, this morning when her clock went off she was already awake and its
ding
seemed only to rub in the fact.

No doubt about it.

Today, of all days, she had the
monies
.

Perhaps, she thought, they were only psychological resistance to what she had in mind to do. Once she was up and around they might subside—although they never had before that she could recall.

She was too buzzed up for breakfast, left the
Times
folded up, hurried through her shower and took twice as long as usual for her makeup. Last night, last thing, she had assured herself that tomorrow would not be crucial, that she would scoot right through it. What between then and now had caused such a turn on her? All she'd done was sleep.

In her dressing room she chose and hung out what she would wear—a black Armani suit that she adored but had never worn, had been sort of
saving
. Its shorter jacket had one black bone button at its collarless high neck. Underneath it and for just enough of a contribution to the neckline and cuffs, she wore a plain white silk St. Laurent blouse. Also her best low-heeled shoes, a pair of black antelope with a touch of fancy stitching in the same black; the only pair like it in New York, she had been told by both Susan Dennis and Warren Edwards.

She dressed and appraised herself in one of the full-length mirrors and thought she looked terribly serious, as though she were about to make an appearance in court somewhere or at someone's new graveside.

She took that outfit off. She opened another section of her dressing room wall, where some of her more casual things were organized. Quickly, barely making a decision, she brought out a flecky, oatmeal-colored light wool dress by Perry Ellis. Two years old, worn twice. It had always struck her as having a lot of independence to it. More her mood, Leslie decided, certainly more suitable. She put it on and a pair of tassled brown snakeskin loafers. Loaded up a brown Fendi shoulder bag and then again asked the mirror.

She was not going to stay there dressing and undressing until the last minute, she told herself.

She went out.

She considered being driven but it would take at least ten minutes for the driver to get into his jacket and cap and bring the car around. She went to the corner of Seventy-fifth and Madison, glanced once for a taxi before starting downtown on the west side of the avenue.

At Sixty-fourth Street she crossed over to see what Fred Leighton thought enough of to put on display. Just curious, she told herself, but needed grit not to go in.

Her trouble, she thought as she continued on, was that she appreciated extravagance. She had never, however, wanted anything out of greed, although she had known quite a few people who were like that. Greed was so ugly. You could read it in people's hands as well as their faces, and it was the most obvious whenever they were buying anything—the way they sort of gobbled things up. She hoped she bought with at least a touch of grace, a kind of near-reverence for the moment, even when she knew she was being impulsive. Perhaps especially then.

Doors were opened for her at the Morgan Guaranty Trust and “Good mornings” were accómpanied by her married name.

She went downstairs to the safe deposit boxes, signed in and produced her key. Hers was not the largest sort of box but the second largest. Within minutes she was alone with it in one of the private rooms. She made herself comfortable. It was going to take a while.

She removed everything from the deposit box, including all the square and shallow and oblong little boxes of Winston and Bulgari, Cartier and others. Placed them to one side. Had a pen and pad ready. Systematically she opened the little boxes and noted down their contents: a fourteen carat emerald ring, a diamond bangle of thirty-seven carats, a cushion-shaped twelve carat ruby ring surrounded by tapered baguettes, a
soirée
-length strand of twelve millimeter natural pearls, a pair of unmounted pear-shaped diamonds weighing eight carats each, a strand of forty-three imperial jade beads graduating from eleven millimeters to eight millimeters with diamond rondels, a ten carat canary diamond penant, a six carat pink diamond solitaire, a diamond necklace of one hundred and forty-six carats, including twenty-seven pear-shaped diamonds of two carats each.

And so it went.

Clasp after ring, bracelet after pendant.

Some she had bought herself at various times in Paris shops. Or had outbid the competition at Parke-Bernet and Christie's. Or even bought from women acquaintances who said they were selling a certain ring or whatever because they had become bored with it. That's what they said, and Leslie never dreamed of questioning them. Others, the more important pieces such as the one hundred and forty-six carat necklace, were gifts from Rodger over the years, accumulations from birthdays, Christmases and anniversaries. It was not unusual, even lacking an occasion, for her to arrive home and find on her hall console a Winston box containing a treat. No card ever. The sentiment went without saying. Even since she had been only with Gainer, that had happened numerous times.

She listed everything and made extra notations when they were pertinent. For example, the twelve carat ruby ring as well as several other items were Jean Schlumberger; this was from Winston, and that from Bulgari. She tried to approximate the years when they had been acquired. Most important was how much were they now worth? Diamonds were not priced as high as they had been two years ago; down as much as twenty-five percent, she'd been told. Would she be better off if she dumped the entire lot in someone's hands, someone like Winston perhaps, or might it be to her advantage to spread them around, a few at Cartier's, a few at Van Cleef's and so on? There was also the option of putting everything up for auction at Parke-Bernet and/or Christie's, though she didn't believe the commissions they charged were fair when off the top there would also be taxes.

Her fast, optimistic total came to somewhere between seven and eight million.

Enough if she sort of skimped.

That didn't exactly mean thrift shops and cheaper butchers, but she had to consider that one of her sables and her Corniche together cost nearly a third of a million dollars. And those were only things to wear around and get around in.

Your values are out of shape, part of her said.

She's sensible, part of her said.

Hell, who knew where the dollar was going the way it was going? It would be awful to be beyond middle age and dowdy because a truckful of dollars were required to buy one or two nice things. It already seemed there was hardly anything that didn't cost five hundred dollars. Her bikini panties were fifty dollars a pair at Montenapoleone.