Hot Mahogany

9

Stone looked across the table at Cantor, who seemed to be hav- ing trouble establishing eye contact. “Bob, what do you mean by maybe?”

“You know what maybe means, Stone: It means ‘maybe so, maybe not.’ ”

“Is that why you invited me to lunch, Bob? So you could jerk me around?”

“Look, all I want to know is if the Colonel is all right.”

“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

A rather attractive woman at the next table looked at Stone, shocked.

“Just a figure of speech,” Stone said to her. “All zippers remain at high mast.”

She looked back at her salad, blushing.

Stone turned back to Cantor. “You first.”

“This goes no further?” Cantor asked.

“No further.”

“I don’t think he would want his brother to know.”

“I won’t tell him,” Stone said.

Their food arrived, and Cantor took the moment to fiddle with his napkin and sip his beer.

“Our food is getting cold, Bob,” Stone said.

“All right. Toward the end of our third tour together the Colonel came across something valuable, something that belonged to the South Vietnamese government.”

“What was it?” Stone asked, wondering if the South Vietnamese government had possessed an eighteenth-century mahogany secretary from Goddard-Townsend of Newport.

“Let’s just say it was a fairly liquid asset.”

“Stop being coy, Bob.”

“Look, I’m trying to clue you in without causing you any problems, all right?”

“Problems?”

“It would not be conducive to your personal safety to know everything I know.”

“Well, I’m very fond of my personal safety, so just tell me what you can without getting me killed.”

“Like I said, we came across this fairly liquid asset, and we figured that the South Vietnamese government was about to be overrun by the North Vietnamese government, and we didn’t want to see it fall into their hands, so that they could use it against Americans.”

“So your motives for… liberating it were entirely patriotic?”

“Not entirely,” Cantor admitted, “but we did see that it remained in American hands.”

“Whose hands?”

“Our hands.”

“How many of you were there?”

“Six,” Cantor said, “including the Colonel.”

“And you all benefited equally from this item or items remaining in American hands?”

“Not exactly equally, but everybody was pretty much satisfied with the arrangement.”

“Pretty much satisfied? That means that at least one of you was pretty much dissatisfied, doesn’t it?”

“You could look at it that way.”

“Bob, how much did you, personally, benefit from this… patriotic act?”

“Let me put it this way, Stone: You’ve been in my shop.”

Stone had indeed been in Cantor’s shop, which was filled with exotic electronic equipment. “I have.”

“You and I are on pretty much the same pension. Where did you think I got the wherewithal to own, say, two, three hundred grand’s worth of gear?”

“I suppose it crossed my mind. I thought maybe you inherited something from somebody.”

“My father pressed pants on Seventh Avenue. Inherit?”

“Okay, I get the picture. How much better did the Colonel do than you?”

“It was the Colonel’s deal: He took half; the other five of us took equal splits of the other half.”

“And how did you transport this windfall back to the States?”

“Safely,” Cantor said. “By governmental means, you might say. We didn’t do the split until it was on these shores and not on government property any more.”

“How wise of you.”

“It wasn’t us; the Colonel is a very wise man. He found a way to convert the, ah, discovery, to cash, and at something close to its actual value.”

“So what went wrong?”

“What makes you think something went wrong?”

“Bob, the Colonel had an outstanding war; he was up for general. It is what every Marine officer at his level lives and breathes for; but he resigned his commission.”

“Well, yeah, there was that.”

“Why?”

“He had his reasons.”

“Come on, Bob, what were they?”

“Some brass hat got suspicious.”

“Was there an investigation?”

“Yes.”

“Were you investigated?”

“No, none of us, only the Colonel.”

“And what did the investigation determine?”

“Nothing. They couldn’t prove a thing. Well, not much of anything.”

“What did the investigation prove?”

“It was like this: There was going to be a court martial, but the brass hat running things offered the Colonel a deal. He could cough up the proceeds – all the proceeds – and have the charges dropped and, maybe, get his promotion.”

“That sounds like a pretty good offer to me.”

“Trouble was, the Colonel no longer had all the proceeds; we had done the split and scattered to the four winds. Three of us were out of the Corps by this time, one was getting out in a matter of days and the other one was dead.”

“Did that one get dead because of this… transaction?”

“I don’t want to go into that.”

“But the rest of you wouldn’t give back, so you cost the Colonel his career?”

“No, no, you don’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

“The Colonel never asked us for our end back; he never even contacted us. The brass hat wanted the money for himself, so the Colonel turned down the deal and resigned from the Corps. By the time any of us heard about it, the deal was done, and the Colonel was gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Nobody knew. He was just gone.”

“Did any of you look for him?”

“I did. When I joined the NYPD I did a search every year or so, using department resources, but I always came up dry.”

“Are you in touch with the other three guys?”

Cantor shook his head. “We agreed never to make contact again. It was safer that way.”

“Did anybody get caught?”

“Nope.”

“And you never saw each other again?”

Cantor looked around. “Not until yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?”

“I was having a drink here last night.”

“At Clarke’s.”

“At the bar. I looked up from my glass, and a guy was standing at the end of the bar, looking at me.”

“You know his name?”

“Of course, but I’m not telling you. All you need to know is that he was the one who wasn’t happy with the cut. In fact, he was so unhappy that a couple of us were going to off him, but he cut and ran before we had the chance.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I looked away for a minute, trying to figure out what to do, and when I turned back, he was gone.”

Stone nodded, he hoped sagely.

“Stone?”

“Yes?”

“How is the Colonel?”

Stone told him.

“I’m glad he’s all right,” Cantor said.

“Bob.”

“Yeah?”

“If you see this guy again or hear from him, you should get in touch with me right away.”

“Why?”

“To make sure the Colonel stays all right.”