Black Maps

Chapter Ten

“Larry-let’s call him Larry-had just moved to town from somewhere in the Midwest, with his brand-new wife in tow. Larry was ambitious, and lucky. He had the world by the balls. And he had no clue at all of what was about to happen to him.” Burrows found the rhythm of his narrative easily, and I got the feeling he’d waited a long time to tell his stories. His tone was ironical and detached. The irony seemed to come naturally to him. He had to work at the detachment.

“Larry had just landed a job trading currency for one of the biggest FX market-makers on the Street. He’d been a rising star at the regional bank that he’d come from, but, after all, it was just a regional bank-a farm team. This was the big league, and the FX market was hot back then. Larry was poised to make some real money. And that was a good thing, because Mrs. Larry, his pretty new wife, had pricey tastes, lofty social aspirations, and a grim resolve. Of the many things she wanted, at the top of her list was a place to live. But not just any place. Mrs. Larry imagined raising a towheaded brood in just the right sort of Manhattan apartment. Something on Park Ave., say, no higher than Eightieth Street, or maybe on Fifth, with a terrace and a nice view of the park.

“Now, Larry had come to town with what he’d thought was a tidy nest egg. But in New York City, in the midst of the real estate boom twenty years ago, it was chump change. Mrs. Larry had set her sights on only the toniest white-glove buildings, places with the pickiest boards… places that required that all apartments be purchased in cash. Much more cash than Larry had on hand, and more than he was likely to see-in the best of circumstances-for nearly a year, when his bonus would be paid. This did not please Mrs. Larry, whose strengths ran more to petulance and pouting than to patience. And Mrs. Larry was generous with her displeasure.

“Enter Nassouli. He had started cultivating Larry on the boy’s first day at his new job. We were active in the FX markets, and Gerard made it a point to keep abreast of the comings and goings of traders at all the big market makers. He was especially interested in new, young traders. ‘Fertile ground,’ he called them.

“It took Nassouli all of a lunch with Larry, a dinner with him and the missus, and a boys’ night out at a strip club to suss out the dynamics of Larry’s domestic scene and the powerful forces at work on him there. Larry was a sitting duck. In short order, Nassouli had set himself up as the Larrys’ Big Apple mentor, showing them the ropes, opening doors, introducing them to all the right people and all the right places. Within a week he’d delivered them into the clutches of a realtor friend of his, who proceeded to show Mrs. Larry only top-of-the-line apartments in top-of-the-line buildings, all of which-wonder of wonders-had strict, cash-only policies. Six weeks and a hundred or so apartments later, they had found the place-Seventy-fourth and Park, ten rooms, terraces, views-the whole ball of wax. Mrs. Larry would not be denied. Larry’s problems came suddenly to a head.

“Ah, but there was his great, good friend Gerard, with such an easy solution to it all: a personal loan to the Larrys for the amount in question. And just to make sure that Larry’s financial statements would pass muster before even the pickiest co-op board, Nassouli would pay the loan into an account-in Larry’s name-at MWB. This account would have a very large balance and would appear, to whoever might ask, to have held this balance for quite some time. On top of all this, for good measure, Nassouli could arrange for some impressive letters of recommendation for the Larrys-from prominent people, famous people even, people who hadn’t a clue as to who the Larrys were, but who owed Gerard some heavy favors.

“Larry offered only token resistance, and charming, affable, worldly, plugged-in Gerard blew through it like tissue paper. ‘Not to worry, dear boy, really. You have a cash-flow problem-a timing issue. This is just a bridge loan. Happens all the time… this is how things get done here in the big city.’ And as must happen in such cases, Larry was complicit in his own corruption. He believed what Nassouli told him-bought into it all-because Nassouli told him precisely what he’d wanted to hear. And that was all it took to make Larry a party to fraud and conspiracy and violations of who knows how many of his employer’s rules of conduct.

“Two months later, the Larrys had closed on the place. Mrs. Larry was pleased, but it passed quickly. Now she had to grapple with renovation and decoration, and this left Larry, once again, to grapple with his lack of cash. But again, kindly Uncle Gerard came to the rescue. ‘Remember that account at MWB-the one in your name? Just think of it as a credit line, dear boy, draw what you need… pay it back later… whenever you can.’ Larry didn’t muster even token resistance this time. Then later came.

“Bonus time eventually rolled around. Larry had had a great year, and the FX markets continued to be hot, so his bonus was a big one. But not big enough to settle accounts with Nassouli. Between the purchase of the apartment and his wife’s many improvements, Larry was deep in the hole. But money wasn’t what Gerard was looking for. What he had in mind instead was having a tame FX trader in his pocket, someone on a major market-making desk, someone who, every now and then, could do some little favors for him. Like providing some ‘insight’ into his bank’s positions and trading strategies, or executing the occasional off-market trade. Nine months after his first lunch with Gerard Nassouli, that’s what Larry became.

“He was one of maybe a dozen pet traders that Gerard had on file back then. Except in the particulars, the basic story was always the same. And with every ‘favor’ they did for Nassouli, they got in deeper and deeper, until they were completely his creatures.” Burrows shook his head a little.

“Not one of them was particularly likeable. You couldn’t really feel sorry for them. It was a simple quid pro quo. They’d made their deals with the devil, and they got what they’d deserved. A few of them seemed actually happy with the arrangement. But for most of them… it consumed them. You could see it happen over the course of months and years. It was like a cancer. At first it was a little secret thing, a small, dark corner, a little hunger that had to be fed, and not very often. But they’d get in deeper and the hunger would grow and grow and be more insistent, until the rest of their lives became irrelevant, and only the secret thing remained.

“Last I heard of Larry, he was living in Florida, working in boat sales, without Mrs. Larry. I heard she was still in New York, but somebody else’s problem now.” Burrows paused and took a small sip of water. My legs were stiff and I had a crick in my neck, but still I was reluctant to move. “Moe’s story is a little different,” Burrows continued in his soft rumble.

“Moe was a senior vice president at a prestigious investment bank, one of the last partnerships left on the Street. He had spent his whole career at the place, and he’d done well-by any standard other than Wall Street’s. He’d made good-though not important-money. He’d gotten decent assignments, though not the choicest ones. But Moe had grown troubled. It had occurred to him one day as he sat in a meeting, the oldest by at least five years of everyone in the room, that his career had come quietly to a halt. People who’d been his peers two or three years before had gone on to make partner. Others whom he had recruited from business school were now sitting at the table with him, as equals. When confronted by Moe, in the oblique fashion that such things were discussed at his firm, his boss confirmed his fears. Yes, several of the partners felt that Moe was unready; some felt that he might be forever unready. They all acknowledged that he was superb at following someone else’s lead, but wondered if he himself had a strategic vision. Could he think outside the box?

“Well, Moe started thinking, alright. About all of the years he had put in at the firm, about all the time he’d spent on the road, about how he’d uprooted his family with moves across the world, the havoc he had wreaked on his oldest son… pulling him out of high school just as he was entering senior year, how venomous his daughter had been. And, when he had a few drinks in him, and then a few more, he thought about some of the people who had made partner in recent years while he had languished. All that thinking left Moe a troubled man, a bitter man, an angry man. Nassouli was drawn to him like a fly to shit.

“Moe and Nassouli met while Moe was out following someone else’s lead. In this case, it was prospecting for clients among some Latin American companies that ran big U.S. operations-part of his firm’s strategy to build a franchise in the emerging markets. As it turned out, MWB handled a lot of meat-and-potatoes banking for these firms, at home and in the States. Nassouli caught the odor of discontent coming off Moe the first time they met, and a week later he took him to lunch. But Moe was no wet-behind-the-ears trader, and Nassouli saw that right away. His was an older and wiser head, and he would take a different kind of handling. No cramped, sweaty groping in the backseat for Moe, Nassouli understood, no quick feels in the cloakroom. No, Moe would need finesse. Moe would need romance.

“At first, Gerard was all business. ‘Our clients were impressed by your firm’s many capabilities…’ and so forth. Of course, he seasoned it with some discreet flattery. ‘They were quite pleased to have had access to so senior an executive as you, someone with such experience and insight into the markets…’ Then, he dangled the hope that some actual business might be coming Moe’s way. ‘Yes, they are quite interested in talking further, but it would be important to them that they continue their discussions directly with you.’ It was pure bullshit, of course, but it served Nassouli’s purpose-Moe was hooked.

“Over the next several months, Nassouli arranged for Moe to have many quite promising-but ultimately inconclusive-meetings with MWB’s Latin American clients. I don’t know if it dawned on Moe that these sessions were all strangely similar: a room full of attentive, nodding heads, plenty of smiles, a few easy questions that he could hit out of the park, more nodding heads, but slowly and with great significance this time, like he had just explained quantum mechanics to them, then an expensive meal, more smiles, and then… nothing… nothing more firm than a promise to meet again. Interspersed with these elaborate teases were invitations to be Gerard’s guest at some very high-end social functions-events that Moe had never been to before, but only heard about the day after, from the partners at his firm who regularly attended. Suddenly B-list Moe was on Gerard’s A list. Cinderella was off to the ball.

“After months of courting, when the meetings with the Latins had gotten Moe all hot and bothered, and the mad social whirl had turned his head ever so slightly, it was time to get serious. Nassouli’s pass at Moe took the form of a plea for Moe’s sage advice. Gerard confided that MWB had been trying to build an investment banking business, but that it had become clear to them that they lacked talent at the top. Did Moe know of anyone with the experience, vision, and drive to build such a business? Moe’s first thought was ‘How about me?’ And he said this- discreetly, of course. To which Gerard’s response was to be stunned, even a bit embarrassed. ‘Naturally, we would jump at the chance to get someone of your caliber and accomplishment, but it never occurred to us that you would walk away from a partnership.’ He was quite the actor, that Gerard.

“It was Moe’s turn to be embarrassed. After some stammering and stumbling, and aided by some single-malt lubrication deftly applied by Gerard, Moe revealed that partnership was not a certainty for him. Now Nassouli was even more stunned, and indignant on his friend’s behalf. ‘How can this be? To ignore a man of your keen intelligence, skill, insight-it’s shameful!’ Moe-who was quite well oiled by then-at first had no answer to these questions. ‘Something to do with visions and boxes ’ was all he could say. But then it all came tumbling out-the damaged pride, the anger and bitterness, the sense of betrayal. It was music to Nassouli’s ears.

“Now that he knew Moe’s problem, Nassouli knew just what sweet nothings to whisper. The firm’s gripe with Moe was lack of vision, that he didn’t paint on a big enough canvas; the firm’s strategy was to build an emerging markets franchise; MWB wanted to build an investment banking business. All well and good, said Gerard, here’s a bold stroke for the partners. And he laid it all out for his good friend Moe: a strategic alliance between Moe’s firm and MWB in the emerging markets, one that would let his firm tap into MWB’s huge network and customer base in those markets-give them an instant presence-and an instant clientele.

“Moe didn’t get it at first, and Gerard had to explain a few times. When it did sink in, Moe was flabbergasted, then leery. Did Nassouli really have the clout to strike this kind of deal? Gerard, reassuring but slightly bemused, explained that as head of New York, he was also head of the Americas for MWB, and one of the top five men in the bank- senior enough to make this happen. And what would MWB get out of this alliance? Again, Gerard had the ready answer: through Moe’s firm, MWB would be able to offer their own clients investment banking services that would not otherwise be part of their repertoire. And all MWB would want would be to share some expenses and have a share in the revenues from the clients they brought to the table. What he didn’t say, of course, was that this would give MWB another big, prestigious, squeaky-clean conduit for washing their clients’ money.

“Then he whispered the sweetest nothing of all. ‘Take this deal to your partners, take it to them as your brainchild, and we here at MWB will make it clear to them that without Moe-for whom we have the greatest respect, who has won our admiration, trust, and confidencewithout Moe, there is no deal.’ Moe must have pictured it happeningthe meeting with the managing partners, himself making the presentation, the revenue projections sloping up and up, then the side conversations between Gerard and the senior partner. Moe knew, and Gerard saw the knowledge gleaming in Moe’s grateful eyes, that this deal would be Moe’s ticket to partnership.” Burrows paused and drank a bit and shook his head a little.

“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.

“Curly Joe had been married for several years to a beautiful young woman, a former model, who he’d met at one of Nassouli’s parties. She was a little wild back then, a little too fond of champagne, a little too eager for a few lines in the powder room. But when they’d met she’d been ready to settle down, and so too had Curly. They’d married, and had a baby less than a year later. Curly was by no means a saint, far from it, but he did love his wife, Mr. March. Everyone who knew him knew that about him.

“Well, Curly was determined to go his own way, and after much tension, Gerard seemed resigned to it. In fact, Gerard even invited him out-a combination reconciliation and farewell. It was a pleasant enough evening, they’d made the rounds of all their old haunts, and finally ended up at Nassouli’s for a nightcap.”

Burrows’s voice was soft and rock steady, but his eyes were red and swollen-looking.

“He gave Curly some brandy and suggested, for old times’ sake, a private screening. Curly balked-those things made him a little ill-but Gerard insisted. Besides, he said, he had a good one from the old days, one Curly hadn’t seen before.” Burrows stopped. He breathed deeply.

“I think you see where this is going, Mr. March.” He was matter-of-fact now. “Suffice it to say, it was Curly’s wife on the tape, the mother of his child. She was with two other women, two of Gerard’s stripper friends, and a man. The man was someone Curly knew, another associate of Nassouli’s, a particularly brutal person. Curly didn’t watch much of it, but from what he saw they were drinking, and freebasing cocaine as well. There didn’t seem to be any coercion involved. Though intoxicated, Curly’s wife-actually his fiancee at the time, according to the time stamp on the video-was energetic and quite vocal, and she seemed to be the center of attention for the man and the other two women.” Burrows paused and cleared his throat. “Gerard had a point to make-about having made Curly what he was, and that Curly should have no illusions about that, should have no illusions about himself or any of the things in his life that Gerard had given him. He made his point.”

We were quiet for several minutes, while the world seemed to restart itself around us. Burrows looked up at me, a single tear track drying on his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice or, if he did, to care. Finally, he spoke.

“I hope that’s of some help to you and your client, Mr. March.”

I nodded. I was full of questions, and I wasn’t sure how much longer Burrows would be willing to provide answers. I plowed ahead. “Okay, Nassouli’s game was to manipulate people into involving themselves in something illicit, and then use that involvement to blackmail them.” Burrows nodded as I spoke. “But that would require that Nassouli have some incriminating evidence, some proof of each person’s participation in whatever illicit thing had gone on.” More nodding.

“Oh, yes,” Burrows said, “Gerard was quite meticulous in his record-keeping. He maintained a file, a detailed audit trail, for every ‘specimen’ in his garden. Records of every meeting he’d had with a person, what was discussed, copies of documents, recordings, even videotapes-the whole history of their corruption. I think the cataloging was part of the pleasure for him.”

He kept files. He kept files. He kept files. I took a moment to get my heart rate under control. I didn’t want to pant.

“Wasn’t that risky for him?” I asked. “Anything incriminating to his ‘specimens’ would be incriminating to Nassouli too, right? That taped conversation with Moe, for instance.” Burrows nodded.

“Gerard was a huge risk-taker,” he said. “And hugely arrogant. He’d take massive chances, as he did with Moe, but to him they were calculated. I’m sure there was no doubt in Gerard’s mind about how Moe would react in the end, and he was right. He usually was about things like that. By the same token, he would never believe that his records would be in any hands but his own.”

“Do you know where he kept them?”

“I know where he kept them fifteen years ago. In his office. There used to be a big credenza behind his desk, with lots of locking drawers. It was almost a safe.”

“Who besides you knew the kinds of things Nassouli did, and knew about his files?”

“In New York, a very small circle-basically the rest of Gerard’s management team-a handful of people.”

“Who?”

He hesitated, then gave me three names. I recognized them all, and all, like Nassouli, were fugitives. “Those were the New York people. One or two people in London may have had some idea what he was up to, but they wouldn’t have known the specifics. But bear in mind, my information is fifteen years old.” Burrows paused again, as if deciding something. His face darkened. “There was another person, not an MWB employee technically, but someone very close to Gerard. Trautmann, Bernhard Trautmann. He and his company provided security for the New York branch, and anything that was rough around the edgesprocuring girls from the strip clubs, for example, or the videotaping at the apartment-he took care of for Gerard. He knew a lot of what was going on. He probably knew some things that I didn’t.”

I read Burrows a list of company names, including Textiles Pan-Europa and Europa Mills U.S.A., the companies referred to in Pierro’s fax, along with others mentioned in the Economist article.

“There were so many companies, Mr. March… they all run together. All nice businesses, with lots of receivables, and lots of invoices too- plenty of cash flowing across squeaky clean accounts, preferably in multiple currencies. Just right for bringing money into the system in nice, careful chunks, and just right for moving it all around afterward, through money transfers, loans, foreign exchange deals, what have you. Placement and layering, the authorities call it. The newspapers wrote a lot about it a while back.” Burrows paused and looked beyond me, remembering. “Maybe those names are familiar… I just don’t know. Frankly, my memories of that time are spotty and probably selective. I drank quite a bit then and for a long time afterward, and did other things too, none of which were very good for my gray cells.” I wondered what his gray cells would do with my next question.

“Moe is dead, and you’ve said that Larry is in Florida, out of the business.” I paused, and his eyes met mine, then slid away again. “Can you give me the names-the real names-of any other of Nassouli’s ‘specimens ’ from back then?” Burrows sat up straight and started to shake his head, started to withdraw. I hurried on. “Mr. Burrows, I don’t want to know about their indiscretions. I could care less. But I need to talk to other people who Nassouli had on file. I need to know if they’ve had the same kind of trouble that my client is having.”

Burrows pursed his lips and crossed his arms on his chest, still shaking his head. “I know the damage Nassouli did to these people, the hell he put them through-deservedly or otherwise. I had my own small part in that, and I have my own hell to deal with as a result. I’m not going to play a part in making them relive those nightmares.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do, Mr. Burrows. Someone is putting my client through that same kind of hell. It’s possible that whoever is victimizing my client is victimizing some of these people, too. It’s possible they could use some help. I’ll be discreet, I’ll be quick, and I won’t be heavy-handed, but I need to talk to some of these people.”

“You’ll forgive me if, at this point in my life, I find altruism slightly harder to believe in than the tooth fairy,” Burrows said.

“I’m not claiming to be altruistic. I’m trying to act in my client’s best interests. If I can establish that other people from Nassouli’s files are being victimized too, it reduces considerably the avenues I need to pursue. If I find whoever is doing this, I will discourage him from bothering my client. If he is victimizing others, and I can offer a more general discouragement, I will.” I paused for a bit and watched Burrows as he teetered again on some internal cliff edge. I said, softly, “If you’re looking to make amends… to make something right… maybe this helps.”

We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Burrows shook his head a little and rubbed his eyes. Then he gave me four names. I wrote them down.

“Thank you,” I said. “This helps. I won’t mention your name to any of these people.”

Burrows shrugged, indifferent. He looked exhausted. I’d taken him about as far as I could, but I wanted to know one more thing. “Did you talk to the feds about any of this?” I asked.

“As I told you, the questions they asked had to do with Nassouli’s whereabouts. They never asked anything else.”

“And if they had?”

He shrugged. “I would probably have told them.”

“No concern about legal action?”

He gave a little snort and shook his head. “According to my lawyer, the federal people are interested in what they can prosecute, which apparently means more recent events-those still within the statute of limitations. He tells me that the time has long since passed on activities they might have wished to discuss with me. Though I’m not sure I’d care in any event.” Then he stood, and so did I, and I thought it was time to leave. But he had some questions of his own.

“Will you be looking for Nassouli, Mr. March?”

“I don’t think so. A lot of people, with a lot more money and time than I’ve got, have spent nearly three years looking for him, with nothing to show for it. Right now, that doesn’t look to be a productive use of my time.”

“And Bernhard Trautmann… will you be speaking with him?”

“If I can find him, yes.”

Burrows pursed his lips again. “I suspect you will. But be careful when you do, Mr. March. Be watchful. Trautmann is… a very brutal person, and violent-really quite the psychopath. But he is not stupid, not at all. I’ve seen him laughing and smiling with men who, the next moment, he was beating nearly to death. He seemed to enjoy putting them so at ease before almost killing them. He and Nassouli were well matched in that respect.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, and I left Alan Burrows to his strange penance.