Montaro Caine (15 page)

Johann Flugle stood in his foyer and watched the American astronomer head upstairs to his room for a nap until the car arrived; he wondered whom the astronomer would call first after he had gotten into his rental car: Montaro Caine or Howard Mozelle.

After Chasman had closed the door to his room, Flugle, accompanied by Gertz Welbocht, escorted Herman Freich outside to a waiting limousine.

“Well,” Freich asked the men as they walked, “what do you think?”

Freich wanted quick answers, but Flugle and Welbocht had both been trained in a scientific discipline that abhorred jumping to conclusions. The two astronomers stared at each other, each pondering whether they had thoroughly covered all the points they had agreed were necessary before confirming the authenticity of the coin.

“Time is of the essence,” Freich told the men. “We have to move or not move before the day is out. What’s your verdict? What do I tell Mr. Fritzbrauner?”

Flugle spoke first. “Well, as outrageous, as bizarre, as hard to believe as the history of those coins may seem to any rational person, the evidence so far, though not conclusive, is hard to ignore.”

“And you?” Freich turned to Welbocht as the three men arrived at the limousine.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Welbocht replied to Freich, adding, “Going on the assumption that Chasman hasn’t seen Dr. Mozelle’s notes and knows nothing about them, then he has practically confirmed that the history of the coins, as outlined in those notes, is authentic.”

“So as scientists and rational individuals, your assessment is that the coins themselves are authentic?” asked Freich.

Silence lingered before Flugle spoke again. “As a rational person, I feel Mozelle’s notes are to be believed, as irrational as they sound. As a scientist, I don’t think that we should be on record on this matter. I’m sure Mr. Fritzbrauner will understand.”

Freich cocked his head toward Flugle. “If you are hesitant about putting your candid, scientific appraisal on the record, what do you think about Dr. Chasman’s promise to consider putting his remarks in writing?”

“I doubt very much if you will get that from him any more easily than you would from us,” Flugle said. “He is, after all, a scientist, as are we.”

“Good day, gentlemen, see you at dinner,” said Freich, as he got into the limousine.

Threading his rental car along the road past the shadowy vineyards, Dr. Chasman, whose habit was to avoid night driving as much as possible due to his weakened eyes, began to fret when darkness caught him still following strands of precious memories through a distant Lausanne of long ago as he mulled over the events of the previous two days. Time had slipped away while he retraced his path by the light of happier times. Then, before turning back to return to Flugle’s estate, he pulled his car over to the side of the road, took out his cell phone, and called his secretary in Massachusetts. Before she could fill him in on what had taken place in his absence, he instructed her to connect him with Dr. Mozelle and added, “Do you remember that chap Montaro Caine?”

“Yes!” she blurted out.

“I want you to locate him, too.”

“That’s what I have to tell you,” she said. “He called.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He said it was an emergency, but I couldn’t reach you.”

“Emergency?”

“Something to do with a coin you once had examined by Dr. Walmeyer when Mr. Caine was his assistant.”

“What did he say?”

She told him what Caine had asked her to do. “I didn’t know what to do. I was frantic, so I called Dr. Mozelle. I hope I didn’t make a mistake.”

“My God!” Chasman exclaimed, dumbfounded by the speed of events. “Get me Howard on the phone first, then Caine.”

When Chasman’s secretary called back, she told him that Dr. Mozelle was not at his office and there was no answer at his home or at the hospital. Nor was she able to locate Caine.

“Keep trying,” Chasman said. “When you do reach them, let them know I must see both of them as soon as I return.”

“When will that be?”

“I’m not quite sure at the moment, a few days maybe. In any event, when I know, I’ll text you the arrival time. I will go directly to Howard’s office. When you get ahold of Caine, tell him to meet us there.”

L
ARRY
B
UCHANAN WAS RUNNING LATE
. H
E HADN
’
T HAD TIME TO
shave, and he was already feeling self-conscious about his slovenly appearance even before he arrived at the front desk of the Carlyle Hotel where he told the skinny and officious young desk clerk that he was on his way up to see Montaro Caine. Larry hated the way the desk clerk’s eyes swept over him. Larry knew that he needed a clean shirt, but it was nine-twenty in the morning and Bloomingdale’s didn’t open until ten a.m. He waited for the string bean with a phone in his ear to grant him safe passage to the elevators across the hall.

“Yes, sir, right away,” said the string bean into the phone before hanging up. “Mr. Caine is in 1709. Do you need me to show you the way?”

Larry shook his head. Of course he knew the way to Montaro’s suite, even if he didn’t exactly look like he belonged in the hotel.

When Larry arrived at the suite, Montaro was eager to hear his friend’s report. But he had to wait until the slightly hungover Larry had demolished the cherry danish that Montaro ordered for him and washed it down with a large, freshly squeezed orange juice.

“Well, buddy, here’s what I’ve got for you,” Larry started. “The plane belongs to a company, okay?”

“What company?”

Larry held up an index finger signaling for Caine to hold on and let him finish. “And the company is owned by another company.”

Caine knew that Larry’s windy introductions usually led to substantial information, so he humored his friend. “Okay.”

“Which is owned by a trust.”

“Yeah, one of those,” Caine said.

“Which is owned by another company, and so forth, and so on—the usual shit that leads to the usual dead end.”

“I know the routine,” said Caine.

Larry proceeded, paying little attention to Caine’s impatient tone. He smiled broadly. “But because I’m suicidal and also smart, tenacious, and incapable of accepting ‘dead end’ as anything but an invitation, I got to the bottom of it. The real bottom.”

Caine brightened. “Let’s have it.”

“And there at the bottom, I found a man named Fritzbrauner.”

“Kritzman Fritzbrauner?”

“You know him?”

“I’ve heard the name.”

“I’m sure you have. Piss pots full of dough. Lives in Switzerland. He’s into oil, shipping, arms, heavy manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. His net worth is just below ten billion dollars. He also has one of the world’s most extensive collections of rare objects. I couldn’t come up with anything that explained why he’d be interested in Fitzer Corporation, but that doesn’t mean he’s not.”

Montaro smiled broadly at his friend, as if he were seeing a Larry he had never known.

“The girl, what’s her connection?”

“Beekman? She’s Fritzbrauner’s daughter. Beekman was her mother’s maiden name. She travels sometimes on a Swiss passport issued to Colette Fritzbrauner, other times on an Argentine passport issued to Colette Beekman—the mother’s Argentinean. She left Fritzbrauner for a singer in Argentina and she’s been living in Buenos Aires ever since.”

“How about Herman Freich? Find out anything about him?”

“He’s an assistant to Fritzbrauner.”

“Fantastic. How’d you get all this?” Caine asked.

“Spent a little time snooping in Hargrove’s office around five this morning.”

“You what? Son of a bitch! Larry!”

“Yeah, I know. Jesus, I still can’t believe I did it. It was fucking suicidal, I know it. But when my contact in Switzerland gave me all that stuff about companies and trusts owning each other and the plane, I had to dig out the names of as many of those companies and trusts as I could, and I knew the old man’s office was the place to do it.”

Suddenly Caine felt uncomfortable, but he wasn’t sure why. Hadn’t Larry just brought him more valuable information than he could have asked for? Caine thought briefly of Colette Beekman Fritzbrauner. He wondered if she was married. He considered asking Larry but didn’t want his friend to get the wrong idea. Or was it not the wrong idea?

“So,” said Larry, chuckling, “where the hell are we? You ready to fill me in?”

Caine stared at Larry with a troubled smile. He felt his breath catch in his throat. Larry had no personal investment in this case—he didn’t even know what it was about. And yet he had risked his career to help a friend. At that moment, Caine understood his discomfort. Larry was now invested in this too, as much for his own sake as for Caine’s. For Larry, it was all about being a winner, and he was willing to risk everything he had to finally become one.
Does a man run faster
, Caine wondered,
to avoid the loser’s destiny or to embrace the winner’s reward?

Caine threw an arm around the shoulder of his friend and squeezed him affectionately. “No, not yet,” he answered gently.

Larry’s chuckle faded. “Look, buddy …” he began.

“Say it,” Caine said.

Larry averted his eyes from Caine’s, swallowed hard. He tried to crack his knuckles, but no sound came.

“Come on, I’m listening,” Caine urged.

“What I want to say is …” Larry began haltingly. “Monty, if Fritzbrauner takes a meaningful position in Fitzer, one or two credit points for my helping to bring that about could move me up a notch. Sorry I have to put it that way, but I’ve been lost in that fucking firm for nine
years now. I—I’ve just got to do something, Monty. I’m dying on the vine. You know what I mean?”

Caine was touched again by his friend’s vulnerability, surprised to find it lurking so close to the surface.

“I hear you,” he said, although he felt fairly certain that Kritzman Fritzbrauner, a collector of rare objects, was most probably a great deal more interested in a particular rare coin than he was in Fitzer Corporation.

Larry looked into Caine’s eyes. “O.K. buddy,” he said. “Your word is good enough for me.” Larry started for the door. “I gotta dash. Stay in touch.”

“You, too, and love at home,” said Caine.

“Same,” said Larry. “Love at home.”

As Larry pulled the door shut behind him, those words echoed in Caine’s mind—
Love at home
. He took out his phone to call Cecilia.

T
HE SUN WAS SINKING BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS OF THE
S
AVOY
Alps beyond Lake Geneva as Herman Freich drove his black Mercedes to Kritzman Fritzbrauner’s estate. He parked the car at the turnaround in front of the main house, grabbed Colette Beekman’s briefcase from his front passenger seat, then stepped purposefully from the car and moved briskly past the butler, Marchand Gilot, who was standing at the door with a stiff smile.

“
Bienvenue
, Monsieur Freich,” Marchand said with crisp formality.

“Thank you,” Freich mumbled in English, still not quite used to being back on European soil. He hurried past Marchand into the estate.

Freich marched through the splendid seventeenth-century foyer. Though as Kritzman Fritzbrauner’s most-trusted lieutenant he had been here countless times before, he still had a hard time believing that any human could actually live in this palatial setting, which resembled a grand château or museum. Wherever he looked, he saw a painting or sculpture that had been created by a master. Here, a Rembrandt; there, a Vermeer; at the top of a set of marble steps, a Bernini. At the far end of the foyer, he passed windows that looked out onto the garden and the terrace where Colette and the family chef were consulting with household staff members about a dinner for fifty that
would be held here this evening. Freich had arrived an hour before the first guests were expected to arrive for cocktails on the terrace.

As Freich moved along the hallway en route to Fritzbrauner’s study he made eye contact with Colette, who then leaned in toward the chef.
“Je m’excuse. Monsieur Freich est arrivé
,” she told him, then excused herself and headed into the house.

Meanwhile, in his dressing room, Kritzman Fritzbrauner was searching the racks in his closet for a tie more appropriate to his dark pinstripe suit than the one his valet had laid out for him. The intercom voice of the butler, Marchand Gilot, filled the room.

“Mr. Freich is on his way up, sir.”

“Good,” said Fritzbrauner as he held a red tie under his chin against his pale blue shirt. “Tell Colette to join us.”

“She’s already on her way.”

Fritzbrauner lay the red tie against the leg of his pinstripe pants. He checked for a clash of colors, but saw none; the combination pleased him. Satisfied, he slid open the top drawer of his jewelry chest and reached for a pair of cuff links—a simple gold pair that his ex-wife had purchased for him many years earlier to mark their joyous first six weeks of married life. Fritzbrauner strode from his dressing area through his bedroom, across the sitting lounge of the suite to a door that opened into his study. Simultaneously, from the outer corridor, Freich and Colette let themselves in through a door on the study’s opposite side.