The Garden of Betrayal

32

“October eleventh,” Claire said, reading from one of my old appointment books. “You had breakfast with a guy named Jens Solheim.”

I hunted through the S boxes stacked on one of the trestle tables lining the perimeter of the large workroom, looking for Solheim’s file. We’d stopped by the hotel after the funeral to change clothes and then continued on to the Queens warehouse where Amy stored my old records. The top floor of the former factory was partitioned into lofts that were usually rented out to law firms dredging through discovery material. High-speed wireless Internet, a Nespresso machine, a Bloomberg terminal, and an Xbox 360 hooked up to a fifty-inch plasma display were all part of the standard package. Being there reminded me of the long hours I’d spent proofreading prospectuses at the printers when I was a young investment banking associate. Like the warehouse, the printers kept hotel-quality facilities on the premises as a competitive lure. Video games got old fast in the small hours, and the tedium had made me agitate for a switch to research. I found the file I was looking for and flipped it open.

“Solheim was CEO of a Norwegian company named Axion. He wanted my European guys to initiate coverage. Said Axion was planning to acquire a bunch of refinery assets with financing from a syndicate of Scandi banks. I forwarded a summary of the conversation and his request to our downstream guy in London. No follow-up indicated.”

“Axion,” Kate said, tapping away at her laptop’s keyboard as Claire watched over her shoulder. They were both seated at a round conference table in the middle of the room. “Was trading at twenty-five on the Oslo exchange when you had breakfast with Solheim. Got as high as thirty-six the following year, and then faded back down to the low twenties.”

“Market cap?”

“Around four hundred million krone.”

Roughly fifty million dollars at the former exchange rate, making them a bit player in the industry.

“Mergers or acquisitions?”

“Bought a condensate splitter in Rotterdam in 2002 and were acquired by Norsk Hydro in 2006 for thirty-three krone per share.” She looked up with a curious expression. “What’s a condensate splitter?”

“Low-tech distillation tower. Heats up superlight oil recovered from natural-gas fields and separates out naphtha and kerosene. The naphtha gets used as a feedstock for plastic, and the kerosene becomes jet fuel. What about Solheim?”

She pecked away for another minute.

“On the advisory board of the Norwegian School of Economics and a director of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. Daughter got married a couple of years ago. Nothing else that jumps out.”

I glanced at Claire, who nodded in confirmation. I vaguely remembered Solheim. Scandinavian businessmen tend to come in two flavors-intellectual Euro prissy and bluff Viking conqueror. The former are easier to sell to international capital markets, but the latter are more likely to hit the ball out of the park-or to pitch the herring in the barrel, or whatever the equivalent Scandi saying is. Solheim had been the prissy type.

“Mark down Axion and Solheim as unlikelies,” I said. “What next?”

“Umaru Kutigi,” Claire read, struggling with the pronunciation. “A call at nine-fifteen.”

“Hard g,” I said, heading toward the K table. “Kutigi’s a Nigerian. Used to work for one of the industry rags.”

The disposable cell phone I’d bought rang as I was pulling his folder. I checked the display and saw my office number. I’d asked Amy to pass along messages before she went home.

“Give me a couple of seconds here.” I tucked the file under my arm and put the phone to my ear. “Amy?”

“Hi. Everything okay?”

Amy sounded forlorn. She’d been keen to help out at the warehouse, but I’d insisted she not get involved in anything that might make her a target.

“Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Busy. You got a lot of calls today. Everyone wants to know how you are, and why Walter’s angry at you, and what really happened with Rashid. There are a lot of crazy rumors flying around.”

I didn’t give a damn about rumors.

“What else?”

“Narimanov phoned. He’d like you to get back to him whenever you feel up to it. And Susan stopped by.”

“Let me guess,” I said, interpreting Amy’s tone. “Walter’s not feeling any friendlier toward me.”

“No. Walter wants you to know that you’re not welcome at Alex’s funeral on Wednesday, or at the chapel beforehand. I’m sorry.”

I sighed. Not just because I wanted to say good-bye to Alex-I’d hoped hearing the news about Kyle might soften Walter toward me. I was anxious to know whether he’d discovered anything about Senator Simpson’s link to the Saudi data, and-by extension-to Theresa Roxas.

“Susan tell you anything else?” I ventured.

“Like what?”

“Like what Walter’s been up to the last couple of days.”

Amy didn’t respond. The good and bad news about her as an assistant was that she almost never gossiped. Good, because I could count on her to be discreet, and bad, because she rarely passed along tidbits from the secretarial grapevine.

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“He was in Washington over the weekend,” she confided reluctantly.

“Did Susan tell you who he saw?”

“She doesn’t know. He made all his own arrangements, which is unusual. She only found out he went because his driver complained to her about having to wait around at Teterboro late last night to pick him up.”

I racked my brain, trying to think of anyone else who might be able to shed light on Walter’s movements. There was a chance he’d tapped some of his senior NASCAR associates for government contacts, but I strongly doubted any of them would tell me if he had. And I hated to ask Amy to snoop for me-I knew how uncomfortable I’d made her already.

“Okay. What about the service for Rashid?”

“I spoke to his assistant in Vienna. Everything’s up in the air because the Saudi embassy can’t find out when the city plans to release his body.”

“Why not?”

“She wasn’t sure. Some kind of problem.”

The medical examiner’s office had a big backlog. I knew, because Reggie had had to bribe someone to get Kyle’s remains released to us in time for a Monday funeral. Five hundred bucks and a case of Jack Daniel’s. It was a nasty little transaction that I hadn’t shared with Claire or Kate, and that I was grateful to Reggie for handling. But Rashid’s murder had to be a top priority for the city. I couldn’t believe the medical examiner or anyone else involved would deliberately drag their feet. I’d have to see what Reggie could learn.

“Is that everything?”

“Yes. I’ll be home if you need me.”

“I appreciate it, Amy. Thanks.”

I hung up and checked my watch, debating whether to return Narimanov’s call. I didn’t want to get sidetracked, but I had to give some thought to the future. I knew how curious he must be about Rashid, and how keen he was to get his hands on the Saudi information. It was just before seven. If I tried him back, I’d likely get his voice mail, which would let me be responsive without getting tied up in a long conversation. I glanced over at Claire and Kate, who were sorting through a stack of take-out menus that had been in a basket by the coffee machine.

“I have to make one more quick call,” I said.

“What do you feel like for dinner?” Kate asked. “Japanese, Chinese, or Indian?”

“In Queens? Indian. And don’t forget to order for the guys downstairs.”

It turned out that Joe’s nephew was a cop also, and was more than willing to earn a little extra cash as a bodyguard. He and his partner had driven us from the hotel to the funeral and back, and were currently stationed just inside the warehouse door. I wasn’t taking any chances with security. Kate extracted three menus and held them up.

“Punjabi, Bengali, or Tamil?”

“Whoever makes chicken saag and peshwari naan.”

She opened one of the menus and began studying it. I turned away and dialed my phone.

“Narimanov,” he said, picking up on the first ring.

“Mark Wallace,” I replied, disappointed that he’d answered. He probably had his office number forwarded to his cell.

“Mark. Hold a moment.” The phone went silent for a few seconds. “Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“I was very sorry to hear the news about your son, and to learn you’d been injured in the bomb blast at the Four Seasons last week. Is there anything I can do?”

“It’s kind of you to ask, but no, nothing, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. But I’m going to be out of pocket for a couple of weeks. I have some family matters to attend to.”

“Of course. Take whatever time you need.”

I hesitated, feeling guilty because of his graciousness. In his place, I wouldn’t have been able to resist interrogating me. Despite my desire to get off the phone, I decided to volunteer an update.

“Thanks. Just FYI, I’ve become less happy about the provenance of the Saudi data, but I found a couple of hours yesterday to spot-check it against some of the information you gave me, and the technical details are bang on.”

“Which leads you to conclude what?”

“Hard to know.”

“I see. And who else have you discussed this with?”

“No one,” I said, a little put off by his question. “Why?”

“Back-end oil futures are up almost five dollars today. I’m hearing that the hedge-fund community is buying heavily.”

“Shit.”

Narimanov’s silence felt like an accusation.

“I gave Walter a preview of what the Saudi data implied a couple of days ago,” I admitted, “when I was trying to enlist his help to check the information through his political contacts. I didn’t tell him anything very specific-just that it looked like we might be headed toward shortages. I warned him not to rely on my analysis and made clear that the information hadn’t been vetted.”

“Perhaps he found someone to confirm your analysis.”

I wished again that I knew what the hell Walter had been up to in Washington.

“Perhaps.”

“I’ll see what I can find out. Get back to me when you can.”

The line went dead. I dropped my phone back into my pocket uneasily. Five bucks was a big move to miss, and my relationship with Narimanov was too recent for him to have complete confidence in my integrity. Claire and Kate were still absorbed in ordering food, so I sidled over to the Bloomberg machine and punched up a market summary. Longer-term oil futures had been up on heavy volume, just as Narimanov had told me, but I noticed that the equity markets had finished roughly unchanged. It didn’t make sense. If the hedge-fund guys were expecting an oil spike, they should have been hammering the stock market.

“Food will be here in twenty minutes,” Claire announced. “Shall we get back to Kutigi?”

I opened the folder I was carrying and did my best to put Walter out of my mind.