He made a sour face and his hand flapped a familiar go-away gesture. “What’re you talking ‘kidnap’? I’m their zaideh, can’t I take them on a little trip.”
“Without telling their parents where they are?”
“I sent her a nice video every day. You saw them? Did they look fucking kidnapped to you? Believe me, they’re both having the time of their life.”
Oh, it all came back in a rush and I sat there gaping in frustration, as I had gaped as a boy at the ingenious rationalizations he spun out so easily to his wife and children. The very structures of reality had shimmered and dissolved under the flow of his words, and we’d always ended up thinking that somehow we were in the wrong. Decent people who have read this document thus far would be justified in thinking me a conscienceless, selfish piece of shit, but here sat my master. In that miserable department I couldn’t tie his shoes. A life of perfect egoism had done him good, however, and at eighty years old he looked ten years younger. He’d had implants and maybe a little work around the eyes, and his face had that leathery tan you see on rich old guys. He seemed strong enough for at least another decade of corruption.
“So where are they having this super time?” I asked, in a voice I hardly recognized as my own, my throat constricted, my head pounding, my vision going red around the edges. I heard in my ears the sound of gritting teeth. Had I not feared a bullet through the elbow I would have ripped his head off right there.
“They’re here, in an apartment belongs to a friend of mine up on the East Side. Miriam’s with them.”
Of course. That’s why a savvy city kid like Imogen had walked without a fuss into a strange car in Zurich: the occupant had been no stranger, but her beloved Aunt Miri.
“Then I’d like to see them,” I said.
“Not a problem. You’ll go get the manuscript, we’ll take a drive, we’ll see the kids, everything’ll be fine.”
“And if not, what? They’ll stop having the time of their life? You’ll cut off pieces?”
He sighed dramatically and said a brief something in a language I didn’t know, but which I supposed was Hebrew. The thugs laughed. To me he said, “Don’t be stupid. I’m not going to hurt anyone. But you are going to get me that manuscript, and you know it, so why fuck around?”
“What about Shvanov? He thinks it belongs to him.”
Again the hand waggle. “Shvanov is a putz. He’s a small-time loan shark with fucking delusions of grandeur.” He raised his voice and called out to the driver, “Misha, let’s go.”
The car moved smoothly away from the curb.
“Where’re we going?” I asked.
“To your place, to get the thing, where’d you think?”
“No,” I said.
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. Why should I give it to you? And how the hell did you get involved in this at all?”
He rolled his eyes and sat back in the cushioned seat, with his hands laced across his belly and his dark eyes (mine!) regarding me with the amused contempt I recalled as being their almost perpetual expression during my childhood. “Jake, your problem is you got my kisser and your mother’s brains. That wasn’t the good combo.”
“Fuck you!”
“An example-you’re sitting in a car with three guys who’d rip your eyeballs out with their thumbs as easy as they’d pick their nose and you’re using language? To me? But since you’re family I’m not going to get mad, I’m going to explain to you the situation here. Okay, I’m in Tel Aviv, I’m semiretired but I still keep an interest, a nice deal comes along I might go in on it. I have a lot of connections. So Shvanov-he’s in Israel three, four months ago and he’s talking big, he’s got a line on the treasure of the ages but he won’t say what it is, and people are thinking he’s on to some gold, some art, because he’s talking to people who handle that kind of thing. I’m curious, and the next time I see Miriam I ask her what her pal Osip is up to and she tells me about Shvanov and this Bulstrode character and the Shakespeare manuscript. Of course, by that time Bulstrode’s dead-why, I never figured out…”
“Shvanov thought he brought it back from England and was holding out.”
“Okay, that’s the problem with Shvanov right there,” said Izzy, “he’s too quick with his hands, he doesn’t think it through, and so he goes and kills the one guy with the best line on this thing. Anyway, after that, Miriam tells me you’re involved, you have these papers that point the way to the thing, so I talk to some people and we set up a little syndicate, start an operation to keep an eye on you and Shvanov and see if we can get our hands on this. And then it starts to look like you and this guinea, what’s-his-face…”
“Crosetti.”
“Yeah, him: it looks like you’ve got the best leads on it, so we start to follow you…”
“So it was you and not Shvanov’s, who mugged me in front of my apartment and broke into Crosetti’s house and made me kill two people?”
He shrugged. “Someone associated with the syndicate set that up, and I have to say, you buy cheap, you get cheap. The fuckin city’s full of Russian patzers don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. These boys here, on the other hand, are a whole different proposition, in case you get any ideas.”
“But before that you sent someone to pretend to be Bulstrode’s niece and she stole the manuscript I got from Bulstrode.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I studied his face; no liar more skillful than Izzy, but the look of confusion appeared genuine.
“Never mind,” I said, “so that was your gang following us in Europe?”
“I don’t have a gang, Jake. Izzy Numbers, remember? I got nothing to do with any rough shit, never had, never will.”
“So who are these eyeball-tweezer guys in this car?”
“They work for people you don’t need to know their names. People in Israel, people in Europe-I told you, it’s a syndicate. Shvanov proposed a simple deal. If he gets hold of this thing, we make sure it’s authenticated up the ass, total legit, Shvanov has the guy to do it, and we agree to buy it off him. He’s asking ten million, the thing’s worth maybe a hundred, hundred fifty mill, but who knows?”
“But you’re trying to grab it without Shvanov, aren’t you?”
“Oh, the lightbulb goes off. Of course, we’re trying to grab it if it’s up for grabs. Ten million is ten million, and why should we give it to that cocksucker?”
“So why did they send you? I thought you were above all this kind of work.”
“Because if there’s an item in play might be worth a hundred fifty mill, they want someone honest on the scene.”
“You? Honest?”
Another dramatic sigh, a specialty of his. “Yeah, me. Tell me, counselor, did it ever fucking occur to you how come I’m still alive? I’ll tell you why. Because I been in this business nearly sixty years, handling fucking billions of dollars, almost all of it in untraceable cash, and I never skimmed a nickel. If Izzy the Book says the numbers add up, they add up. If he says they don’t, guys get whacked. This is in a business full of momsers who’d cut your throat for your shoes. So don’t you look down your nose at me!”
“Oh, excuse me, I beg your pardon: you have a sterling rep with the scum of humanity. You walked out on us, you piece of shit.”
“Oh, and you didn’t? The difference is you did it because you couldn’t stop chasing strange pussy and I did it so I wouldn’t do twenty in Sing Sing. You would’ve been happy to see me in the joint? How the hell would I have supported you?”
“You didn’t support us.”
“No? Did you ever miss a meal, ever not have a roof over your head or a warm bed to sleep in, ever not have toys and clothes? You think she supported three kids on her salary, pushing a mop in a hospital?”
“She didn’t push a mop. She was an administrator.”
“My sweet ass, she was! Schmuck! She could barely read the Daily News. How the fuck could you believe she was handling medical paper? Listen, I sent each of you a card with money in it every birthday and every Christmas, and every year they came back with ‘not at this address’ written on it in her writing. And no money in them either. She steamed them open, took the cash, and sent them back to me. Fuck you, Izzy!”