The Broker

17

At ten Monday morning in Singapore, the mysterious $3 million sitting in the account of Old Stone Group, Ltd, made an electronic exit and began a quiet journey to the other side of the world. Nine hours later, when the doors of the Galleon Bank and Trust opened on the Caribbean island of Saint Christopher, the money arrived promptly and was deposited in a numbered account with no name. Normally it would have been a completely anonymous transaction, one of several thousand that Monday morning, but Old Stone now had the full attention of the FBI. The bank in Singapore was cooperating fully. The bank on Saint Christopher was not, though it would soon get the opportunity to participate.

When Director Anthony Price arrived in his office at the Hoover Building before dawn on Monday, the hot memo was waiting. He canceled everything planned for that morning. He huddled with his team and waited for the money to land on Saint Christopher.

Then he called the vice president.

It took four hours of undiplomatic arm-breaking to shake the information loose on Saint Christopher. At first the bankers refused to budge, but what small quasi-nation can withstand the full might and fury of the world’s only superpower? When the vice president threatened the prime minister with economic and banking sanctions that would destroy what little economy the island was clinging to, he finally knuckled under and turned on his bankers.

The numbered account could be directly traced to Artie Morgan, the thirty-one-year-old son of the former president. He’d been in and out of the Oval Office during the final hours of his father’s administration, sipping Heinekens and occasionally dispensing advice to both Critz and the President.

The scandal was ripening by the hour.

From Grand Cayman to Singapore and now to Saint Christopher, the wiring bore the telltale signs of an amateur trying to cover his tracks. A professional would’ve split the money eight ways and parked it in several different banks in different countries, and the wires would’ve been months apart. But even a rookie like Artie should’ve been able to hide the cash. The offshore banks he selected were secretive enough to protect him. The break for the feds had been the mutual-fund crook desperate to avoid prison.

However, there was still no evidence as to the source of the money. In his last three days in office, President Morgan granted twenty-two pardons. All went unnoticed except two: Joel Backman and Duke Mongo. The FBI was hard at work digging for financial dirt on the other twenty. Who had $3 million? Who had the resources to get it? Every friend, family member, and business associate was being scrutinized by the feds.

A preliminary analysis repeated what was already known. Mongo had billions and was certainly corrupt enough to bribe anyone. Backman, too, could pull it off. A third possibility was a former New Jersey state legislator whose family made a bundle in government road contracts. Twelve years earlier he’d gone to “federal camp” for a few months and now wanted his rights restored.

The President was off in Europe, in the middle of his get-acquainted tour, his first victory lap around the world. He wouldn’t be back for three days, and the vice president decided to wait. They would watch the money, double-and triple-check the facts and details, and when he returned they would brief him with an airtight case. A cash-for-pardon scandal would electrify the country. It would humiliate the opposition party and weaken its resolve in Congress. It would ensure that Anthony Price would head the FBI for a few more years. It would finally send old Teddy Maynard off to the retirement home. There was simply no downside to the launching of a full federal blitz against an unsuspecting ex-president.

His tutor was waiting in the back pew of the Basilica di San Francesco. She was still bundled, with her gloved hands stuck partially in the pockets of her heavy overcoat. It was snowing again outside, and in the vast, cold, empty sanctuary the temperature was not much warmer. He sat beside her and offered a soft “Buon giorno.”

She acknowledged him with just enough of a smile to be considered polite, and said, “Buon giorno.” He kept his hands in his pockets too, and for a long time they sat like two frozen hikers hiding from the weather. As usual, her face was sad and her thoughts were on something other than this bumbling Canadian businessman who wanted to speak her language. She was aloof and distracted and Marco was fed up with her attitude. Ermanno was losing interest by the day. Francesca was barely tolerable. Luigi was always back there, lurking and watching, but he, too, seemed to be losing interest in the game.

Marco was beginning to think that the break was about to happen. Cut the lifeline and set him adrift to sink or swim on his own. So be it. He’d been free for almost a month. He’d learned enough Italian to survive. He could certainly learn more by himself.

“So how old is this one?” he said after it became apparent that he was expected to speak first.

She shifted slightly, cleared her throat, took her hands out of her pockets, as if he’d awakened her from a deep sleep. “It was begun in 1236 by some Franciscan monks. Thirty years later the main sanctuary here was complete.”

“A rush job.”

“Yes, quite fast. Over the centuries the chapels sort of sprang up along both sides. The sacristy was built, then the bell tower. The French, under Napoleon, deconsecrated it in 1798 and turned it into a customs house. In 1886 it was converted back to a church, then restored in 1928. When Bologna was bombed by the Allies its façade was extensively damaged. It’s had a rough history.”

“It’s not very pretty on the outside.”

“Bombing will do that.”

“I guess you picked the wrong side.”

“Bologna did not.”

No sense refighting the war. They paused as their voices seemed to float up and echo slightly around the dome. Backman’s mother had taken him to church a few times each year as a child, but that halfhearted effort at pursuing a faith had been abandoned quickly in high school and totally forgotten over the past forty years. Not even prison could convert him, unlike some of the other inmates. But it was still difficult for a man with no convictions to understand how any style of meaningful worship could be conducted in such a cold, heartless museum.

“It seems so empty. Does anyone ever worship in this place?”

“There’s a daily mass and services on Sunday. I was married here.”

“You’re not supposed to talk about yourself. Luigi will get mad.”

“Italian, Marco, no more English.” In Italian, she asked him, “What did you study this morning with Ermanno?”

“La famiglia.”

“La sua famiglia. Mi dica.” Tell me about your family.

“It’s a real mess,” he said in English.

“Sua moglie?” Your wife?

“Which one? I have three.”

“Italian.”

“Quale? Ne ho tre.”

“L’ultima.” The last one.

Then he caught himself. He was not Joel Backman, with three ex-wives and a screwed-up family. He was Marco Lazzeri from Toronto, with a wife, four children, and five grandchildren. “I was kidding,” he said in English. “I have one wife.”

“Mi dica, in Italiano, di sua moglie?” Tell me about your wife.

In very slow Italian, Marco described his fictional wife. Her name is Laura. She is fifty-two years old. She lives in Toronto. She works for a small company. She does not like to travel. And so on.

Every sentence was repeated at least three times. Every mispronunciation was met with a grimace and a quick “Ripeta.” Over and over, Marco went on and on about a Laura who did not exist. And when he finished with her, he was led to his oldest child, another creation, this one named Alex. Thirty years old, a lawyer in Vancouver, divorced with two kids, etc., etc.

Fortunately, Luigi had given him a little biography on Marco Lazzeri, complete with all the data he was now reaching for in the back of a frigid church. She prodded him on, urging perfection, cautioning against speaking too fast, the natural tendency.

“Deve parlare lentamente,” she kept saying. You must speak slowly.

She was strict and no fun, but also very motivational. If he could learn to speak Italian half as well as she spoke English, then he would be ahead of the pack. If she believed in constant repetition, then so did he.

As they were discussing his mother, an elderly gentleman entered the church and sat in the pew directly in front of them. He was soon lost in meditation and prayer. They decided to make a quiet exit. A light snow was still falling and they stopped at the first café for espresso and a smoke.

“Adesso, possiamo parlare della sua famiglia?” he asked. Can we talk about your family now?

She smiled, showed teeth, a rarity, and said, “Benissimo, Marco.” Very good. “Ma, non possiamo. Mi dispiace.” But, I’m sorry. We cannot.

“Perchè non?” Why not?

“Abbiamo delle regole.” We have rules.

“Dov’è suo marito?” Where is your husband?

“Qui, a Bologna.” Here, in Bologna.

“Dove lavora?” Where does he work?

“Non lavora.”

After her second cigarette they ventured back onto the covered sidewalks and began a thorough lesson about snow. She delivered a short sentence in English, and he was supposed to translate it. It is snowing. It never snows in Florida. Maybe it will snow tomorrow. It snowed twice last week. I love the snow. I don’t like snow.

They skirted the edge of the main plaza and stayed under the porticoes. On Via Rizzoli they passed the store where Marco bought his boots and his parka and he thought she might like to hear his version of that event. He could handle most of the Italian. He let it pass, though, since she was so engrossed in the weather. At an intersection they stopped and looked at Le Due Torri, the two surviving towers that the Bolognesi were so proud of.

There were once more than two hundred towers, she said. Then she asked him to repeat the sentence. He tried, butchered the past tense and the number, and was then asked to repeat the damn sentence until he got it right.

In medieval times, for reasons present-day Italians cannot explain, their ancestors seized upon the unusual architectural compulsion of building tall slender towers in which to live. Since tribal wars and local hostilities were epidemic, the towers were meant principally for protection. They were effective lookout posts and valuable during attacks, though they proved to be less than practical as living quarters. To protect the food, the kitchens were often on the top floor, three hundred or so steps above the street, which made it difficult to find dependable domestic help. When fights broke out, the warring families were known to simply launch arrows and fling spears at each other from one offending tower to the other. No sense fighting in the streets like common folk.

They also became quite the status symbol. No self-respecting noble could allow his neighbor and/or rival to have a taller tower, so in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a curious game of one-upmanship raged over the skyline of Bologna as the nobles tried to keep up with the Joneses. The city was nicknamed la turrita, the towered one. An English traveler described it as a “bed of asparagus.”

By the fourteenth century organized government was gaining a foothold in Bologna, and those with vision knew that the warring nobles had to be reined in. The city, whenever it had enough muscle to get away with it, tore down many of the towers. Age and gravity took care of others; poor foundations crumbled after a few centuries.

In the late 1800s, a noisy campaign to tear them all down was narrowly approved. Only two survived — Asinelli and Garisenda. Both stand near each other at the Piazza di Porto Ravegnana. Neither stands exactly straight, with Garisenda drifting off to the north at an angle that rivals the more famous, and far prettier, one in Pisa. The two old survivors have evoked many colorful descriptions over the decades. A French poet likened them to two drunk sailors staggering home, trying to lean on one another for support. Ermanno’s guidebook referred to them as the “Laurel and Hardy” of medieval architecture.

La Torre degli Asinelli was built in the early twelfth century, and, at 97.2 meters, is twice as tall as its partner. Garisenda began leaning as it was almost completed in the thirteenth century, and was chopped in half in an effort to stop the tilt. The Garisenda clan lost interest and abandoned the city in disgrace.

Marco had learned the history from Ermanno’s book. Francesca didn’t know this, and she, like all good guides, took fifteen cold minutes to talk about the famous towers. She formulated a simple sentence, delivered it perfectly, helped Marco stumble through it, then grudgingly went to the next one.

“Asinelli has four hundred and ninety-eight steps to the top,” she said.

“Andiamo,” Marco said quickly. Let’s go. They entered the thick foundation through a narrow door, followed a tight circular staircase up fifty feet or so to where the ticket booth had been stuck in a corner. He bought two tickets at three euros each, and they started the climb. The tower was hollow, with the stairs fixed to the outside walls.

Francesca said she hadn’t climbed it in at least ten years, and seemed excited about their little adventure. She took off, up the narrow, sturdy oak steps, with Marco keeping his distance behind. An occasional small open window allowed light and cold air to filter in. “Pace yourself,” she called over her shoulder, in English, as she slowly pulled away from Marco. On that snowy February afternoon there were no others climbing to the top of the city.

He paced himself and she was soon out of sight. About halfway up, he stopped at a large window so the wind could cool his face. He caught his breath, then took off again, even slower now. A few minutes later, he stopped again, his heart pounding away, his lungs working overtime, his mind wondering if he could make it. After 498 steps he finally emerged from the boxlike attic and stepped onto the top of the tower. Francesca was smoking a cigarette, gazing upon her beautiful city, no sign of sweat anywhere on her face.

The view from the top was panoramic. The red tile roofs of the city were covered with two inches of snow. The pale green dome of San Bartolomeo was directly under them, refusing any accumulation. “On a clear day, you can see the Adriatic Sea to the east, and the Alps to the north,” she said, still in English. “It’s just beautiful, even in the snow.”

“Just beautiful,” he said, almost panting. The wind whipped through the metal bars between the brick posts, and it was much colder above Bologna than on its streets.

“The tower is the fifth-tallest structure in old Italy,” she said proudly. He was certain she could name the other four.

“Why was this tower saved?” he asked.

“Two reasons, I think. It was well designed and well built. The Asinelli family was strong and powerful. And it was used as a prison briefly in the fourteenth century, when many of the other towers were demolished. Truthfully, no one really knows why this one was spared.” Three hundred feet up, and she was a different person. Her eyes were alive, her voice radiant.

“This always reminds me of why I love my city,” she said with a rare smile. Not at him, not at anything he said, but at the rooftops and skyline of Bologna. They stepped to the other side and looked in the distance to the southwest. On a hill above the city they could see the outline of Santuario di San Luca, the guardian angel of the city.

“Have you been there?” she asked.

“No.”

“We’ll do it one day when the weather is nice, okay?”

“Sure.”

“We have so much to see.”

Maybe he wouldn’t fire her after all. He was so starved for companionship, especially from the opposite sex, that he could tolerate her aloofness and sadness and mood swings. He would study even harder to gain her approval.

If the climb to the top of the Asinelli Tower had buoyed her spirits, the trip down brought back the same old dour demeanor. They had a quick espresso near the towers and said goodbye. As she walked away, no superficial hug, no cheek-pecking, not even a cursory handshake, he decided he would give her one more week.

He put her on secret probation. She had seven days to become nice, or he’d simply stop the lessons. Life was too short.

She was very pretty, though.

The envelope had been opened by his secretary, just like all the other mail from yesterday and the day before. But inside the first envelope was another, this one addressed simply to Neal Backman. In bold print on the front and back were the dire warnings: PERSONAL, CONFIDENTIAL, TO BE OPENED ONLY BY NEAL BACKMAN.

“You might want to look at the one on top,” the secretary said as she hauled in his daily stack of mail at 9:00 a.m. “The envelope was postmarked two days ago in York, Pennsylvania.” When she closed the door behind her, Neal examined the envelope. It was light brown in color, with no markings other than what had been hand-printed by the sender. The printing looked vaguely familiar.

With a letter opener, he slowly cut along the top of the envelope, then pulled out a single sheet of folded white paper. It was from his father. It was a shock, but then it was not.

Neal placed the letter on his desk and walked over to lock his door. He sat on a small leather sofa and tried to arrange his thoughts. He had already decided his father was out of the country, otherwise he would’ve made contact weeks earlier. Why was he in Italy? Why was the letter mailed from York, Pennsylvania?

Neal’s wife had never met her father-in-law. He’d been in prison for two years when they met and married. They had sent photos of the wedding, and later a photo of their child, Joel’s second granddaughter.

Joel was not a topic Neal liked to talk about. Or think about. He had been a lousy father, absent for most of his childhood, and his astounding plunge from power had embarrassed everyone close to him. Neal had grudgingly sent letters and cards during the incarceration, but he could truthfully say, at least to himself and his wife, that he did not miss his father. He’d rarely been around the man.

Now he was back, asking for money that Neal did not have, assuming with no hesitation that Neal would do exactly as he was instructed, perfectly willing to endanger someone else.

Neal walked to his desk and read the letter again, then again. It was the same scarcely readable chicken scratch he’d seen throughout his life. And it was his same method of operation, whether at home or at the office. Do this, this, and this, and everything will work. Do it my way, and do it now! Hurry! Risk everything because I need you.

And what if everything worked smoothly and the broker came back? He certainly wouldn’t have time for Neal and the granddaughter. If given the chance, Joel Backman, fifty-two, would once again rise to glory in the power circles of Washington. He’d make the right friends, hustle the right clients, marry the right woman, find the right partners, and within a year he’d once again work from a vast office where he would charge outrageous fees and bully congressmen.

Life had been much simpler with his father in prison.

What would he tell Lisa, his wife? Honey, that $2,000 we have buried in our savings account has just been spoken for. Plus a few hundred bucks for an encrypted e-mail system. And you and the baby keep the doors locked at all times because life just became much more dangerous.

With the day shot to hell, Neal buzzed his secretary and asked her to hold his calls. He stretched out on the sofa, kicked off his loafers, closed his eyes, and began massaging his temples.