“And if Gerard had just left it at that, as he easily could have, Moe would have been guilty of gullibility, stupidity perhaps, and, of course, vanity-but nothing more. He would not have been complicit. But that would not have satisfied Gerard. In the end, Gerard had his satisfaction.
“It happened the night before the alliance deal was to be signed. It had been a heady few months for Moe. The meeting with the partners had surpassed even his imaginings, and a few days later he’d been buttonholed by his boss, who confirmed what Moe had felt in his gut at the meeting: that he’d changed quite a few minds, that he’d made people sit up and take notice, that he’d be getting some very good news in a few months’ time, when new partners were to be named. Moe called his friend Gerard to tell him about it, even before he’d called his wife. After that there had been a whirlwind of meetings, working sessions, a due diligence exercise that Moe-at Gerard’s insistence-had run personally for his firm, and endless lunches and dinners. The next day was the signing, press briefings, interviews, and then off with the missus for a week at a spa. When he got back, the partnership announcements would be made. He had just one more dinner with his good friend Gerard, who had made it all happen.
“Dinner was in Nassouli’s private conference room, adjoining his office. When the waiter had finished serving, it was just the two of them. Well, just the two of them and the state-of-the-art voice-recording system that Gerard had had installed in the room and that was operating flawlessly that night. Gerard got down to business quickly. They had two things to celebrate, he told Moe, not only the signing tomorrow, but also the first piece of business that MWB would bring to Moe’s firm under the agreement. Gerard explained that this was a privately held firm in Colombia, a very old client of MWB, and that their chief executive was very influential with a large group of other MWB clients. They were looking for a capital infusion to finance new plants, new equipment, the development of new distribution channels. They were looking for someone to make an equity investment in their company, and were very excited by the idea of doing business with the venture capital arm of Moe’s firm. Moe was surprised-and pleased. All of their plans had assumed a period of months to ramp up. He was also, naturally, full of questions: who are they, what business are they in, who are the principals?
“Gerard was smiling as he answered, you could hear it in his voice. And why not-it was the culmination of over a year’s worth of patient gardening. ‘Do you want the names we will give your partners, or the real names?’ was his reply. Moe was confused. Gerard said it again, slowly, with no smile in his voice this time, as if Moe were a stupid child. Moe was still confused, but perhaps a little offended by Gerard’s tone. Gerard cut him off. His voice was like a slap. ‘Oh yes, you need things explained two or three times, don’t you?’ On the tape you could hear Moe gasp. But before he could say anything else, Gerard spelled it out for him. The names they’d give to Moe’s firm would be that of a well-known Colombian coffee distributor and its nominal owner. The real principals-the actual owners of the coffee company-were an even better known cocaine cartel and its notoriously violent jefe.
“Moe laughed. His friend was making a joke-a bad joke. There’s a long silence on the tape then, during which I picture Gerard gazing at Moe in a certain way that he had, as if at a turd that had turned up in his wineglass. Moe realized it was no joke. He sputtered, and stumbled for a while. ‘This is ridiculous. You can’t be serious. My firm will never be a party to this.’ Gerard let him babble a bit, then cut him off. ‘I assure you, the documentation on this company is ironclad. It will survive any due diligence, and the return on the investment will be very appealing. Your partners will not know. Unless, of course, you care to tell them. Perhaps you should tell them, Moe. As I think about it, I’m certain that you should. Would you like to do it tonight? Please, use my phone.’ There’s not much on the tape after that. Some sniffling and the sounds of Gerard finishing his meal, that’s all.
“Of course, Moe didn’t tell his partners that night, or ever. How could he? Two years after the deal had signed, he dropped dead of a massive coronary. The partnership agreements left his wife quite well off, from what I understand.” Burrows paused and massaged his temples with his fingertips.
“Gerard took his time with Moe, played him very carefully. There were others who he played for even longer. But it wasn’t all subtlety and craftsmanship with him. No, Gerard could be heavy-handed… brutal when he wanted.” He paused again and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “The last one is a short story.
“Nassouli went out with a lot of women… you know that. He seemed to have an endless string of them, would-be models, would-be actresses, some of them just girls, really, teenagers living away from home for the first time. He showed them all a fine time, at least at first. He was a charming person, very funny; he’d traveled all over the world. He would introduce them to people and places they’d read about in magazines, spend a lot of money on them… teach them all sorts of things. It’s not a new story… it’s a very old one, in fact. But if you were eighteen, and fresh from a South Florida trailer park, it was pretty intoxicating stuff.
“He would date a girl for three or four months, sometimes less, and then break it off-but always in an amicable way. ‘Remember, I am your friend. If there’s anything I can do to help you, in your career or in any way at all, please let me.’ It was amazing, the number of girls who stayed friendly with him, and how many would show up at his parties. Amazing, too, the number of these women who-one way or another- wound up dating Gerard’s clients, or colleagues, or other associates. Gerard called them ‘party favors,’ though he didn’t let too many people hear him say that. After all, some of these girls ended up married to the men they’d met at Gerard’s parties, and these men didn’t think of their wives as party favors. They thought of them as trophies.
“He had another kind of party favor, too. When I knew him, Gerard frequented nearly every high-end strip club in Manhattan. And just as he collected models, he collected strippers, too-only for shorter times and in larger numbers. With those girls, the relationship was more straightforward. These party favors were handed out very freely, to people in Gerard’s file-like Larry, for instance-if they got edgy and needed a little pacifying, or to clients who wanted an evening’s entertainment, or to those Gerard was still cultivating, whose tastes were… a little grittier. But nothing from Gerard came free, and these party favors were no exception.
“You see, whenever he provided the party favors, Gerard would also provide the party space-one of MWB’s corporate apartments, conveniently located, tastefully furnished, fully stocked, with maid and concierge service. And unbeknownst to the guests, fully wired for video in every room. So every favor done in the place was recorded, start to finish, in all its graphic details, for posterity. Gerard had an extensive collection of these videos, and each one was leverage, a chit, a marker that he held over the tape’s featured players. And sometimes over people who weren’t even there.
“He’d hold private screenings of these things sometimes, for a select few. They were incredible. Very clear pictures, even the audio was flawless. And every permutation you could imagine… But I said this was a short story, didn’t I?
“Well, Gerard had an associate who had run afoul of him… how is not important. This fellow, let’s call him Curly Joe, had decided he was not going to do business with Gerard anymore. There was no threat of going to the authorities, never a question of that. Curly was sufficiently compromised himself to make that impractical, and besides, everyone was clear that that kind of decision would be… very unhealthy. But nonetheless, Gerard had a point to make.