With some assistance from the towel guy, I found Terry Teresywzki alone in the cardio room plugging away on a treadmill. His orange UVA T-shirt couldn’t hide his barrel-chest, and his dark hair had probably been graying at the temples for years. Hawk eyes didn’t miss a movement of mine as I approached, and when I got closer, I noticed he had the largest, most well-defined forearms I’d ever seen, with the possible exception of Popeye. He looked to be about sixty years old, but I’m sure he could take a man twenty-five years younger in a wrestling match. With one massive forearm tied behind his back.

I introduced myself and he nodded, unable—or unwilling—to interrupt his exercise to shake hands. “So you’re Abe’s boy? He was a good man. A real throwback. He will be missed.” Teresywzki talked to me but kept his eyes forward, as if he were searching for a field mouse from two hundred feet up. “Hop on.” He pointed to the machine next to him. “You look like you could use some exercise.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I peeled off my sweatpants and sweatshirt and climbed aboard the treadmill. After a minute of fumbling around with the controls, I got it going at a fairly slow pace. A pang of guilt hit me. After my New Year’s Day run to kick off my get-in-shape regimen, I hadn’t been out since.

Next to me, Teresywzki maintained his metronomic pace. “So what can I tell you about your father’s real estate business?”

“Everything, I guess.”

“I’ve been handling his deals for years. Smaller ones at first, then larger.” Teresywzki punched a few buttons and increased his pace. I’d been going just barely faster than a walk for only a minute and was already feeling it. “These past few years, he’d gotten involved in some real money-makers.” He glanced at me sideways, then focused straight ahead.

“Anything out of the ordinary?”

Teresywzki grunted. “No. Nothing complicated,” he said. “Actually, that’s not true. Many of his deals were quite complicated. I should have said there was nothing unusual about them. Office buildings, professional buildings, some light industrial locations. Mostly part-ownerships, but good, solid stuff. For an individual investor, he did quite well.”

“That’s good, I guess,” I said.

“Yes it is. He did better than a lot of my institutional clients. They might have had more advisors and scads more money, but they didn’t have more business acumen than Abe.” Teresywzki spoke in a normal tone. No gasping for breath or pauses between words even though he was running seven-minute miles. Only the faintest sheen of sweat was visible on his forehead.

I’d compiled a list of questions in my head, but none seemed like the kind of question Mike Wallace would ask. Mine seemed so … pedestrian. “Did you know anyone who might want to see my father fail?”

Teresywzki blew out some air. “Hmm. Not that I can think of. He was well-liked. Respected. Honorable. Don’t recall him ever screwing anybody. Abe was a big proponent of the ‘win-win’ deal. He got his nickname honestly, if you’ll pardon the pun. As I like to say, he was a good all-around shit.”

I wasn’t sure what I hoped to find out, but I guess knowing my father was a “good shit” made me feel more comfortable as I delved into his business dealings. “In the past few months, had he been talking about developing anything especially large, or controversial, or unpopular?”

Teresywzki thought about it. “Again, no, not that I can think of. He’d been talking about that Russian thing for the Hebrew Home, but that idea had been bouncing around for a while. Frankly, I think it would fill a need and knowing Abe, he’d give them a real sweetheart deal. In fact, the latest I heard was he was going to foot the whole bill.”

“But nothing new lately?” I felt like I was grasping at straws.

“No, nothing new. And certainly nothing contentious.” He swiveled his head and settled his carnivorous gaze directly on me, sending a ripple through my body. I could see how he earned his nickname. “Why are you asking these questions? Has something improper been discovered? Erik never mentioned anything to me.”

I shook my head, getting a little winded. I cranked the speed down to a brisk walk and took a deep breath. “Just trying to get a better picture of my father, that’s all. A few things don’t really add up, but …”

“I assume you know about his other, um, investments?”

“His charities? Sure,” I said, but the way Teresywzki phrased it made me think I was off base.

“Erik never mentioned his angel work?” Teresywzki asked.

“His what?”

“His angel work. Abe was a venture angel. He invested in people who had trouble securing traditional financing. People who had good ideas, or noble ideas, or people he just liked who might not have possessed the business experience or wherewithal to attract conventional money.” Sweat had begun to form in earnest on Teresywzki’s face. He grabbed a towel off the treadmill frame and wiped his face without breaking stride.

“All I know about is his stake in the video game company.” And Erik hadn’t mentioned it to me. That info came straight from Matt and Goose.

“There you go,” Teresywzki said. “That’s one of them.”

“There were others?” For some reason, I pictured people in shiny, new meth labs—they probably had trouble securing traditional financing.

“Well, I don’t really know many of the details. I handled his real estate, Erik handled his other investments. Abe told me about some of them in passing, but I’m a real estate guy. I know my area of expertise as well as anyone in the county, and I wouldn’t want to hurt my rep getting involved in other arenas where I wasn’t so … comfortable.” Teresywzki glanced at his watch. “Still got forty minutes left,” he said, as he toggled the speed on his machine a little faster.

Funny, Erik had no trouble keeping my father’s angel investments secret while he blabbed to anyone with ears about my missing diamonds. What else was he keeping hidden? “Can you give me any more information?” I asked, anxious to have someone level with me for a change.

“Like I said, don’t know too much about most of Abe’s projects. There was one thing I remember him telling me about VidGamZZZ.”

“Go ahead,” I said, as I reduced the speed of my treadmill as far as it would go, disappointed there wasn’t a button marked “saunter.”

Teresywzki lowered his voice, although we had the cardio room to ourselves. “Abe said—this was about a month, six weeks ago—that a guy wanted to buy out his stake in the company. Abe told him he wasn’t interested, but he persisted. I’m not sure what happened, I just know Abe was perturbed by the whole thing.”

“Did he say who the guy was?”

“Yeah, that’s why he brought it up, I guess. Abe figured I might know this guy, which I did. I’d met him at one of those silly Business Elite breakfast get-togethers. He’s a real arsehole, pardon my English.” Teresywzki swabbed his forehead with a towel before continuing. “Brandon Flannery’s his name. I’m glad Abe didn’t sell anything to that arrogant jerk.”

Maybe Terrible Teresywzki wasn’t so terrible after all.