Zero Hour pp-7 Read online

  It had been quite a scenic picture that developed behind those bars over to the right of his cot, starting with a variation of the fuel delivery truck he’d driven for Hastings Energy before his row with that son-of-a-bitch deputy in Belfast had sent him down, and then growing little by little around the truck — a long black sweep of roadway beneath the heavyweight’s wheels, rolling green hills into forever, and, overhead, the wide blue sky with its bright round sun and cotton-puff clouds. Earl would work on that painting for hours every night till just before lights-out was called. He had always loved trucks. Step-frame trailers, cab-overs, tankers like the Hastings Energy rig. And all those nights he was in that cell working on his painting of the truck, or staring at it in the semidarkness after he’d turned in, Earl would imagine he was riding along in its cab with his windows rolled down, the roar of the wind in his ears blending together with the growl of its monster Detroit diesel engine and the loud chop of rock and roll guitars blaring from the radio.

  Yeah, Earl thought, he would imagine himself in that big Mack truck, would dream about it when he fell asleep. All he’d need to do was close his eyes, and he’d be riding fast and free along some unmarked country road, the Mack redder and shinier than a fire engine, taking him anywhere but where he was, taking him nowhere he’d ever be found, carrying him away from that miserable old house of rock and steel as mile after mile of open, empty countryside spooled out behind him.

  Earl frowned, once again remembering last night’s dream. Then he went from the mirror to get his clothes from where he’d tossed them on the bedside chair. In that dream, everything had been changed — turned inside out — and he’d been in his prison cell asking one of the guards for paint and getting turned down, begging for paint so he could work on his picture of the truck and getting turned town, getting laughed at, unable to see the screw’s face because it was hidden behind a dark mask like the kind you’d figure might belong on a spacesuit… which Earl now realized was a visored helmet exactly like the one Hasul Benazir had worn over his head while telling him about today’s goddamned job. The insane fucking mission that was supposed to net him a mint, and that he knew would really get him killed if he went ahead with it as planned — the meat eaten clean off his bones, his lungs dripping from his asshole, melted into chunky soup by the same poisoned air that would take out millions upon millions of other unsuspecting dupes.

  Earl put on his underwear, socks, jeans, and sweater, fetched his boots from where he’d left them by the door, and sat on the edge of the bed to get his feet into them, jerking their tops up over his ankles.

  He didn’t care about the millions. Not a whit. If all those people didn’t make it into the next dawn, Earl would shed about as many tears for them as had been cried for him throughout his entire life… which came to a grand total of none.

  They could fend for themselves, the same way he’d always looked out for himself.

  The way he would keep looking out for himself today, tonight, tomorrow, and on into all the tomorrows they might or might not live to see.

  * * *

  “Good to see you again… Mr. Friedman, that right?”

  Malisse stood facing Jeffreys in the entrance lobby of the DDC building on West 47th Street, a black vinyl garment bag folded over his left arm, a hard-shell briefcase in his opposite hand.

  “Right, indeed,” he said. “You have a knack for remembering names.”

  “Don’t know ’bout that, unless you count bein’ able to match the ones in this here book with people’s faces.” The security guard tapped the guest register on his podium with a finger and flashed the exaggerated grin of a silent screen performer. “Norman Green called to leave word you’d be comin’ by early this morning.”

  “Called?”

  “He’s runnin’ a bit behind, but you can sign in an’ go right on upstairs to wait for him,” Jeffreys said. He leaned forward with a pen, a shaded look on his face. “Got yourself ’least half an hour, Hoffman’s sayin’ his prayers,” he said in a hushed voice. Then, in a still lower whisper that seemed to slip out unintended: “Hope the Lord has mercy on the sinner lookin’ for repentance.”

  Malisse grunted, took the pen, and signed the guest book in the column beside his hand-printed alias.

  “If God were obliging enough to ask my opinion, I would advise him to save his concern for the just, and piss an ocean down on the rest,” he said, turning toward the elevator.

  * * *

  Urban Jewelers on West 47th Street was a thirty-year-old, family-run storefront business that sold mediocre but affordable jewelry to the targeted walk-in consumer. The shop’s seemingly unimaginative name did, in fact, possess a certain double meaning that was not lacking in cleverness, since the bland reference to its location at the heart of metropolitan New York—urban—was also a shortened version of the surname belonging to its founder and principle owner, one Constantin Urbaniak, a Georgian Jew who had come to New York at the head of a half-million-strong wave of ambitious arrivals when, under tremendous internal and international pressure, the former Soviet Union relaxed its emigration policies toward persecuted minorities in the early 1970s.

  While Constantin still oversaw the store’s general affairs — with a close eye on tax-time bookkeeping — he had for the past seven years left its daily management to his daughter and son-in-law, a hardworking and borderline honest couple, who, when they gypped their customers at all, preferred exaggeration and embellishment to outright deceit, following examples they’d learned growing up with a steady diet of American television, on which multibillion-dollar corporations sold sneakers as schoolyard status, soft drinks as adolescent sex appeal, and expensive cars as adult success with flashy primetime advertising spots.

  Constantin Urbaniak had never done any such straddling of the line. Not when he’d stood behind the shop’s display counters from morning till night, and especially not these days. In his opinion, honesty, or relative honesty, was for the uninspired, men like his daughter’s dull but diligent lug of a husband. An artisan by disposition, and a forger by heritage — his beloved uncle on the maternal side was the famed World War II counterfeiter Solomon Smolianoff — Constantin had always felt his true calling to be creator rather than seller. And in the back room of Constantin’s office space on the seventy-second floor of the Empire State Building, a space whose front room housed Urban Jewelry’s mail-order and Internet sales operation — the pet project of his eldest son, Mikail, who had earned a doctorate in business from Johns Hopkins University — his view of himself as a virtuoso of the sham was a conceit indulged with exacting, tirelessly unscrupulous dedication.

  Among forgers of antique jewelry, Urbaniak strove to be the best of the very best.

  Avram Hoffman had followed a loud trail of whispers (as if there were any such thing as quiet whispers in the trade) to Constantin many months ago, bringing with him a genuine Japanese pink pearl and a handful of brilliant-cut diamonds, and requesting the fabrication of a gold Edwardian hatpin on which to mount them and exponentially increase their already fair value.

  Gathering from the frequency of his return visits, Urbaniak’s work had not disappointed. Indeed, the difficulty of Hoffman’s commissions had graduated by broad, bold leaps, as had his confidence that the hand of Urbaniak would render them to perfection… and there could have been no greater testament to this than the challenge he’d presented upon entering the office moments before.

  The question before Urbaniak this time around — underscored by the photographs Hoffman had laid out for him — was whether Hoffman truly had what he’d claimed to have in his possession. With it, Urbaniak knew he could fashion Hoffman something memorable, a classic piece of work. Without it he could give him nothing.

  “I must ask again about the sapphire, if you don’t mind,” he said, looking at Hoffman across his desk. “A twelve-point-eight-carat cabochon of first quality is noteworthy. An oval of that size from the old mines of Kashmir would be fabulous. A sensational rarity…”


  “And why shouldn’t a broker who is the son and nephew of brokers attain the fabulous and sensational?” Hoffman said. “Or don’t you believe even the man in the middle can exceed his origins?”

  Urbaniak shook his head, a bit confused over his snappish tone.

  “Don’t forget, you are talking to one who has done just that,” he said. “In the USSR, I was a factory worker. Here, a shopkeeper for many years.” He paused. “No insult was implied, and none should be taken. I only want to be sure we understand each other before moving ahead.”

  “Then consider yourself assured, though I don’t see any reason it should matter to you.”

  Urbaniak shrugged.

  “We can start with pride,” he said. “You know my policy, Avram. I am not a peddler of glorified costume jewelry. Of crap. What leaves my workshop must be faithful to the past work that inspires it in all but age.”

  Hoffman was quiet a moment, his lips tight, his face suddenly flushing above the line of his beard.

  “Avram, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Avram said, sounding short of breath. “Fine.”

  “You’re positive? I can get you a glass of water…”

  Avram waved him off, inhaled, exhaled.

  “Never mind,” he said. “The stone I’m providing will be a bona fide Kashmir. With certifications.”

  Urbaniak had noticed the flush spreading to Avram’s neck and forehead in little red blotches, but given his touchiness thought it be best to refrain from further comment. He instead considered his words in silence, inspecting the pictures of the sapphire ring spread out on his desk.

  “If that’s what it is,” he said at length, “that’s what it is.”

  “Will you be able to design a setting based on my photos?”

  Urbaniak looked at him.

  “I’ve been an admirer of Raymond Yard jewelry for a very long time and would be eager for the opportunity to”—he paused to choose the appropriate phrase—“adapt one of his pieces. Yard was among the greatest ever, an artist without peer among his contemporaries of the Deco period… and, speaking of men who are able to exceed humble beginnings, the son of a rail worker who became friend and advisor to the wealthy. His salon’s clientele was a who’s who of old-money society, and of the New York elite in particular. The Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Beekmans and Astors… and of course the Rockefellers.” Another pause. “It was for John D. Rockefeller Junior that he arranged the purchase of what may be the world’s most famous sapphire from the Nizam of Hyderabad. A sixty-six carat stone that once shone atop the ring in these photos you’ve brought me, and it would later be remounted onto brooches by both Rockefeller’s first and second wives — and after Yard died, set into an inferior ring at the fancy of a son of Raymond Yard’s colleague, the gem dealer Esmerian. When it finally passed into the anonymity of a private collection several years ago, I believe the blue commanded a record auction price of three million dollars.”

  Avram had opened the collar button of his shirt under his necktie and taken more deep breaths.

  “In excess of that sum,” he said. “Constantin, let me ask you something now. Suppose another stone was included in Rockefeller’s acquisition from the Indian Maharajah. Much smaller than the first — just under thirteen carats — but from the same source, and of comparable excellence. Then suppose Rockefeller had asked Yard to set it in a platinum ring for a woman other than his wife. A very young, very beautiful ingenue of the Broadway stage who kept her relationship with him discreet, and in her commendable discretion never revealed the identity of the gentleman who gifted the ring to her, or left documentation of its provenance… though it was styled after these photographs I’ve copied and brought you from a Christie’s auction catalogue, and did bear the engraved letter ‘Y’ that was Yard’s signature.” Avram sat forward in his chair. “Do you follow me so far?”

  Urbaniak met his gaze with interest, nodded.

  “You present an engrossing history.”

  “I’ve been working hard to get the details right,” Hoffman said with a conspiratorial glance.

  Urbaniak gave another nod. Perhaps working too hard for his own well-being, he mused. Hoffman’s breathing and color had gradually returned to normal, but he still looked tired and overwound.

  “Jumping ahead,” Hoffman went on now, “let us say this actress married after Rockefeller’s death, keeping her intimate friendship with him secret throughout her lifetime, bequeathing the ring to her own legitimate heirs. That it passed from child to grandchild, grandchild to great-grandchild, and so forth. And that it eventually fell to a beneficiary of some current social prominence who wishes to sell it without opening dusty boxes of scandal, and has engaged a broker like myself to do that while leaving the ring’s owner unnamed.” He regarded Urbaniak across the table. “My question to you, a supreme craftsman, is this: would the ring’s unique qualities be enough to satisfy a prospective buyer, and whoever he or she may hire to appraise it, that it is an authentic Raymond Yard?”

  Urbaniak was unhesitating in his answer.

  “The accomplishment of an expert hand always will be recognized by an expert eye,” he said. “And, with or without documents, command a suitable price from lovers of beautiful finery.”

  Hoffman remained silent for a minute. Then he nodded and settled back in his chair, finally seeming to relax a little.

  “Constantin,” he said, “I’m going to propose that you make me something beautiful and fine.”

  * * *

  Moments after leaving Urbaniak’s office, Avram stood on the corner of 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue, trying not to draw attention from passersby, feeling more than a bit embarrassed by his weakness as he leaned against the metal stanchion of a streetlight and caught his breath.

  It had been so close up there with the jeweler, he thought. So airless. The seeming lack of oxygen had stuffed his head, made his chest feel as if it were bound tight with leather straps.

  Avram swooped down mouthful after mouthful of cold air, and soon enough thought he felt better — certainly well enough to finish the rest of his business.

  He reached into his coat for his cell phone and sent the brief e-mail stored in its memory to Lathrop, then lifted the briefcase he’d set down on the pavement between his feet.

  Now he only needed to hurry over to the bank while waiting for his callback.

  * * *

  “You’re sure you don’t want to head up to see Ruiz with us?” Derek Glenn asked Ricci. He raised his shoulders against an explosive gust of wind. “Whatever might be rotten at Kiran, we can’t forget we came here to find Patrick Sullivan.”

  Ricci was silent. Along with Glenn and Noriko Cousins, he was standing on Hudson Street outside Sword headquarters, only minutes after the detective had phoned to arrange their appointment.

  “Didn’t know we were joined at the hip,” he said. “There are some other things I want to check out.”

  Noriko looked at him from under the brim of her leopard Carnaby.

  “Things?” she said.

  Ricci nodded.

  “Like the apartment building where Sullivan’s girlfriend lived, and whatever’s around it, and wherever she might’ve passed before she disappeared,” he said. “Things like that, and maybe more.”

  Noriko kept studying his face.

  “Do what you want,” she said. “But if you have any intention of snowing me, I promise you’ll rue the day.”

  Ricci shrugged.

  “You want to put another truant officer on my back, make sure I don’t do anything out of school, go ahead,” he said. “I were you, I’d worry about getting those added snoopmobiles we talked about over to that motel — and doing it before your man there falls asleep at the wheel.”

  A moment passed. Noriko looked at Ricci, started to give him an answer, realized she had nothing much more to say, and scratched whatever might have been on its way to her lips.

  Raising her arm into the air instead, she stepp
ed past him to hail a taxi at the curb.

  * * *

  Malisse stood looking in the window of the Nat Sherman tobacconist’s shop across from the library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, one eye on a charming and doubtless exorbitantly high-priced beveled glass and cocobolo rosewood humidor in which he could envision his prized Dominican Davidoff cigars resting in conditions ideal for their robustly delectable preservation. On some other day his fancy might have flared at the sight of it on display, ignited a rhapsodic gleam in his captive eye, propelled him beyond any thoughts of frugality toward a bacchanalian splurge at the store’s sales counter.

  Yes, Malisse thought, on another day his abiding passion for the exquisite might have led him to spend without restraint, while today his fidelity to his obligations — reinforced by his deep-seated contempt for the greedy and corrupt — obliged him to earn old Lembock’s advance with due diligence, and to be guided by the eye he had not turned toward the smoke shop’s window display but kept owlishly watching the display of the phone-sized global positioning receiver in his right hand… a device he had dubbed the Duncan in tribute to his good friend for having furnished it. For an hour and more now Malisse had followed the blip on its electronic street map layout that was Avram Hoffman, shadowing him on foot from the quaint lampposts marking the diamond and jewelry district to the great mullioned tower of the Empire State Building over a half mile downtown, where he had then tracked Hoffman to the 93rd-floor office of one Urban Gem Sales on an elevator that thankfully had been in smooth control on liftoff, descent, and between floors — unlike last night’s haywire elevator of his id.

  Having drifted past the door to the office for a look, Malisse had returned to the landmark building’s lobby, waited for Hoffman amid its continuous percolation of office workers and sightseers, and, upon Hoffman’s reappearance from the elevator bank some forty minutes later, resumed his tagalong foot pursuit, getting no closer than a half block behind him even in the thickest crowds, and dropping no more than five blocks behind when he felt at the slightest risk of being noticed. This allowed Malisse to remain safely out of sight, yet well within range of the GPS signal boosters he’d slipped under the lining of Hoffman’s briefcase in the coatroom of the Diamond Dealer Club’s synagogue.