So here I was, alone with Saurel, but my mind was drifting back to Danny and more specifically what on earth he was doing right now. He wasn’t the sort of guy you just let out of your sight in a foreign country. Left to his own devices, it was almost certain that something badwould happen. The only saving grace was that in this particular country, there wasn’t much Danny could do, short of rape or murder, that the man seated across from me couldn’t fix with one phone call to the proper authority.
“…so most of the time,” proclaimed Saurel, “I take them to the Métropole Hotel, just across from the bank, and I fuck them there. By the way, Jordan, I must say that I find this English word of yours, fuck,to be quite satisfying. There is really no French word that gets the point across quite as well. But not to digress—the point I was trying to make is that I have made it my second profession, behind banking, of course, to bed as many Swiss women as possible.” He shrugged a gigolo’s shrug and smiled a warm Eurotrash smile. Then he took another deep pull from his cigarette.
“According to Kaminsky,” he said through exhaled smoke, “you share my love of beautiful women, yes?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Ahhh…that is very fine,” continued the Whoremaster, “very fine! But I was also told that your wife is very beautiful. How odd that is, wouldn’t you say? To have such a beautiful wife yet to still have a wandering eye? But I can relate to that, my friend. You see, my wife is also quite beautiful, yet I feel compelled to pleasure myself with any young woman who might care to have me, as long as she is up to my standards of excellence. And in this country there is no shortage of these sorts of women.” He shrugged. “But I guess this is the way of the world, the way things are supposed to be for men like us, wouldn’t you say?”
Jesus! That sounded horrific! Yet I had said those same words to myself many times—trying to rationalize my own behavior. But to be on the receiving end of it made me realize how truly ridiculous it was. “Well, Jean, there comes a time when a man has to say to himself that he’s proved his point. And that’s the point I’m at now. I love my wife and I’m done screwing around.”
Saurel narrowed his eyes sagely and nodded. “I have been to that point many times myself. And it is a fine feeling when you arrive there, is it not? It serves to remind us of what is truly important in life. After all, without a family to come home to, it would be an empty life, indeed. That is why I relish the time I spend with my family oh so much. And then, after a few days of it, I realize that I might very well slit my wrists if I were to stay around any longer.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Jordan. It is not that I don’t love my wife and child. Indeed I do. It is simply that I am French, and as a French man there is only so much of this wife-and-child business that I can reasonably be expected to swallow before I begin to resent them greatly. The point I make is that my time away from home makes me a much better husband to my wife and a much better father to my child.” Saurel picked up his cigarette from the glass ashtray and took a tremendous pull.
And I waited…and waited…but he never exhaled. Wow, that was interesting! I had never seen my father do that one either! Saurel seemed to internalize the smoke—absorbing it into his very core. All at once it occurred to me that Swiss men seemed to smoke for different reasons than American men did. It was as if in Switzerland it was all about being entitled to partake in a simple manly pleasure, while in the United States it had more to do with having the right to kill yourself with a terrible vice, in spite of all the warnings.
It was time to get down to business. “Jean,” I said warmly, “to answer your first question—on how much money I’m interested in moving to Switzerland. I think it would make sense if I started small, perhaps with five million dollars or so. Then, if things work out, I would consider bringing over a significantly larger amount—perhaps another twenty million over the next twelve months. As far as using the bank’s couriers, I appreciate the gesture, but I would just as soon use my own. I have a few friends in the United States who owe me some favors, and I’m sure that they would agree to do this for me.
“But I still have many concerns, the first of which is Kaminsky. It’s impossible for me to go forward if he has any knowledge of my relationship with your bank. In fact, if he even suspected I had one penny at your bank, it would be a complete deal breaker. I would close all my accounts and move my money elsewhere.”
Saurel seemed entirely unfazed. “You need never raise this issue again,” he said icily. “Not only will Kaminsky never know of this, but if he chooses to make any inquiries in this matter, his passport will be put on a watch list and he will be arrested by Interpol at their earliest convenience. We Swiss take our secrecy laws more seriously than you can possibly imagine. You see, Kaminsky was once an employee of our bank, so he is held to a much higher standard. I do not kid you when I say that he will wind up in jail if he discloses matters such as these—or, for that matter, sticks his nose in areas that he would be better off steering clear of. He will be locked up in a room and we will throw away the room. So let us put Kaminsky aside, once and for all. If you choose to keep him in your employ, that is your own decision. But be wary of him, because he is a babbling buffoon.”
I nodded and smiled. “I have my reasons for keeping Kaminsky where he is right now. Dollar Time is losing serious amounts of money, and if I hire a new CFO he might start to dig. So, for now, it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, we have more important issues to discuss than Dollar Time. If you give me your word that Kaminsky will never know about my account, then I will take you at it. I’ll never bring it up again.”
Saurel nodded. “I like the way you conduct business, Jordan. Perhaps you were European in a former life, eh?” He gave me his broadest smile yet.
“Thanks,” I said with a touch of irony. “I take that as a great compliment, Jean. But I still have some important questions to ask you, mainly in reference to that crap you guys handed me this morning about giving you my passport to open up an account. I mean—come on, Jean—that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
Saurel lit up another cigarette and took a deep drag. Through exhaled smoke, he flashed me his conspirator’s smile, and said, “Well, my friend, knowing you now for who you are, I assume you have already figured out a way around this impediment, yes?”
I nodded but said nothing.
After a few seconds of silence, Saurel realized that I was expecting him to come clean with me. “Very well, then,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Most of what was said in the bank was complete horseshit, as you Americans say. It was said for the benefit of Kaminsky and, of course, for the benefit of one another. After all, we must appear to abide by the law. The simple fact is that it would be suicide for you to have your name behind a numbered Swiss account. I would never advise you to do such a thing. However, I think it wouldbe prudent for you to open an account with our bank—one that proudly bears your name for one and all to see. This way, if the U.S. government ever subpoenaed your phone records, you would have a plausible explanation for calling our bank. As you know, there is no law against having a Swiss account. All you would have to do is send us a small sum of money, perhaps two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which we would then invest for you in various European stocks—only the best companies, of course—and that would give you reason enough to have contact with our bank on a continuous basis.”
Not bad! I thought. Plausible deniability was obviously an international obsession among white-collar criminals. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to take the pressure off my left leg, which was slowly catching fire, and I casually said, “I see your point, and I might very well do that. But just so you know what kind of man you’re dealing with, the chances of me calling your bank from my own home are lessthan zero. I would sooner drive myself down to a pay phone in Brazil—with a couple of thousand cruzeiros in my pocket—before I allowed your number to appear on my phone bill.