I SWEEP INTO the office. The receptionists give me a warm welcome as I blow by them with a quick return “hey.” My overcoat, taken off in the elevator, is slung over my left arm. My right hand holds my briefcase handle. Upon sight of me coming down the hall, Carolyn stands up behind her desk. She follows me into my office.
“Is Jake here?” I ask.
“He is.”
“Good. Tell him he needs to drop whatever he’s doing and meet me in my conference room now.”
“Perry?”
“I’ll get her,” I say, dropping the briefcase and coat on my couch.
I walk into Perry’s office. She’s sitting behind her desk, cracking up, speaking with Natey-Boy who’s across the room on her couch. Minus his suit jacket with sharp braces perfectly complementing his thickly knotted tie and slicked back hair, Landgraff is looking quite comfortable. Slumped backward on the couch, right leg high as his eyes as it crosses the left knee, I’d even say he’s lounging.
“Something funny?”
Landgraff perks up when he sees me and sits up straight.
“Our young buck Natey-Boy was just telling a funny story about a past conquest. A hot, horny little Ukrainian ex-gymnast with an inverted nipple who—”
“Fascinating,” I cut her off.
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
“I, uh—”
“Oh relax, Jonah. We were talking about how we’re going to present to Lennox next week and we digressed to some naughty talk. You do remember you and I used to do the same way back when you started at PCBL—don’t you?”
I do.
Look where it led.
“You two need to finish this later,” I say, disregarding her comments. “Per, I need you now.”
Perry and I walk into my conference room. Carolyn closes the door behind us. Jake, no jacket, loosened tie, and open top collar button, is using two chairs facing one another as a recliner. In one hand is a spreadsheet he’s intensely reviewing. In the other is a soft-shell crab tempura hand roll that looks like an ice cream cone.
I hit the button and cloud the glass wall.
“Isn’t it a little early for sushi?” I ask.
“It’s never too early for sushi,” he responds, his eyes never leaving his spreadsheet.
“Who even makes rolls this early?”
He shoots me a, “Really? We going to go there?” look.
“Anyway, we have a new assignment,” I go on.
“Oh shit,” Perry sighs as she sits down across from Jake.
Jake, mid-bite, finishes and swallows as he puts his spreadsheet on the table.
“What’s going on? What assignment?”
I sit down at the head of the table, for no other reason than it’s the closest one to the button I just hit for the glass.
“I just met with Cobus de Bont. For the second time in two days.”
“Cobus? Your boy from across the pond? He’s here?”
“Did you know he was coming to New York?”
“I did not.”
“What’s the assignment?”
“Cobus wants to start expanding in the Manhattan market. And he has pretty clear designs on the properties he wants. He wants us to handle the acquisitions, then he wants us to look after all the leasing and management affairs.”
“Which properties?”
“Buildings like One Hundred Three Church Street and One Twenty One West Forty-Fifth. And, Eight Twelve Seventh Avenue.”
“Did he say why he specifically wants these properties?”
“He did. For the amount of useable basement space.”
“The basement space?” Perry chimes in.
“We’ll get to that,” I say.
“So—what could possibly be the problem with that?” asks Jake. “We know all the players—whether they’re willing to sell at this very moment or not is a very different story—but we know them all quite well and we stand to make a boatload of cash. Unless I’ve missed something, isn’t that why we all walk in here every morning?”
It’s time.
Perry and I glance each other’s way, not trying to conceal it from Jake.
“What am I missing? Why did Perry say ‘shit’ when she sat down?”
“It’s not just what you’re missing, Jake. It’s what the whole world is missing. Something we need to make sure remains that way.”
“Bro—remember, it’s seldom I’m the smartest guy in the room. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The Cobus de Bont you see, the world sees, is the self-made Dutch commercial real estate mogul who I helped to build an empire. In the movie they’re making about my life, in the book, when the story is told in all the magazines and papers and all that shit—he’s the guy I worked for who, as you and everyone knows, gave me the shot. He believed in me. And gave me the opportunity to start a new life in Amsterdam as Ivan Janse so I could plot getting my life back.”
“But?”
“But . . . there’s a part of the story that’s been left out. A part of the story Perry and I need to fill you in on. A part of the story that always remains between the three of us, and no one else.”
“Jonah—seriously—you’re freaking me out. What’s going on? Who is this guy?”
“That’s just it. I have no idea.”
“You have no idea.”
“That’s right. I have no idea.”
“He’s not Cobus de Bont.”
“Oh, he’s Cobus de Bont all right. But only in terms of how the world knows him. De Bont Beleggings—his firm, his life—it’s all just a front. Legitimate as it is, and I know as I’m the one who helped him turn it into an empire, it’s all just a front.”
“A front for what?”
“I have no idea. Whoever Cobus de Bont really is—white-collar kingpin, drug lord, organized crime syndicate boss—he’s a criminal on a global scale. A criminal who has everyone from politicians to law enforcement to financial institutions in his pocket, will kill anyone or anything in his path, and answers to no one.”
Jake looks at the half-eaten sushi roll in his hand, looks at Perry then back at me, and slowly puts his snack down on his spreadsheet.
“You know all this for sure?”
“We do.”
“One time in Amsterdam, then a couple times when I finally made it back to the States before heading off with Cobus to ultimately spring Perry from Moscow, I should have been killed, or captured. The only reason I wasn’t is because Cobus was watching. How, with whom—I have no idea. But he was always watching from the second I stepped foot in Amsterdam and was ready to step in and crush whatever was blocking my path. Because he wanted to protect me? No. Because he had to protect me. He needed me to get my life back before I got pinched or maimed whether I was innocent or guilty. He needed to make sure Gaston Picard—the Swiss banking mastermind responsible for the financial management of both his empires—couldn’t be tied to a global fugitive like me. At all costs. Cobus de Bont, as the story goes, wasn’t just the guy I worked for with the private jet shuttling me around the world as I fought—unbeknownst to him—to reclaim my name and life. He was literally committing crimes of his own just to keep me safe and give me every chance to get home. All nothing more than a matter of due course for him to mitigate risk.”
“But how do you know all of that for sure?”
“Cobus told me. On the way to Moscow to get Perry, the stakes incredibly high on so many levels, he told me. Because he wanted me to finally know I was only alive because he had allowed me to be. His way of letting me know I guess—no matter what happened from there—that I was indebted to him. And I guess he’s now come to collect.”
“Now, when you say crimes,” Jake goes on, “are we talking about—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut him off. “Just have a look at this.”
I open the camera roll on my iPhone, bring up one of the pictures, and slide the phone to him. He takes one look at the screen, starts to fumble the phone but recovers before dropping it, then covers his mouth with a trembling hand.
Shane’s severed head sitting nicely in the bowl in the Tiffany Box.
I took the picture, along with another, in case I might need them before I returned my gift to Cobus. This just happened to be another use I hadn’t seen coming. Jake doesn’t have the strength to return the phone. He simply sets it down.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” asked Jake.
“Because I hoped there would be no reason to. To be honest, I never thought I’d hear from Cobus again knowing what he let me in on about his life. Seems I may have miscalculated.”
“Why wouldn’t he use someone else? Find another firm who just knows him as Cobus de Bont?”
“I’ve been asking myself that same question.”
“And?”
Carolyn comes through the intercom.
“Jonah, you have Waterman calling in five minutes.”
So many names.
“Waterman. Help me.”
“Bloomberg. They want some bites from you for the piece they’re doing on the financial district occupancy levels.”
“Right. Bloomberg. Did they ever send the questions for me to—”
“I sent them to you yesterday at 4:05 p.m. Will resend them right now. Will you be on the call or do you need me to try and shuffle them?”
“No, no shuffling,” I say, looking at my watch. “Too much going on. I’ll be on the call.”
“And?” Jake repeats himself.
“We all know a million and one unforeseen things can come up in a real estate transaction. Someone else will be able to rely on that reasoning should they not be able to get him what he wants. But not us. My knowing who he is, what he’s capable of, and the fact I have respected that to the fullest these past two years by not breathing a word of it, is precisely why we’re the perfect team for him to align with. Not only does he know we’re the best, he knows I understand failure simply isn’t an option.”
“We can’t just go to—”
I’m already shaking my head.
“Absolutely not,” I snap back. “Cobus already made it clear to me if I even think of fucking around with him the rest of Shane’s body shows up with my name somehow all over it. And knowing what he’s capable of, that will just be the beginning until he gets what he wants.”
“Christ, Jonah. I don’t know if I have the stomach for this.”
“I’ve seen you eat leftover foie gras at three in the morning. Your stomach will be just fine.”
“So what now?”
“Until I know what he’s actually up to, we have to play his game.”
“Which is?” Perry finally jumps back in.
“Going after the specific properties he wants. I’m sure the basement space is why he needs these buildings. Just not for the bullshit reason he gave me.”
“How are you so sure?” she goes on.
“Because I surprised him. The first thing I asked him when we started discussing the buildings he had designs on was ‘why properties with so much basement space?’ I could see in his eyes he didn’t see me putting that together so fast.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s because he invested in—get this—a Bucharest, Romania-based fast-food chain that is exploring expansion into New York City. And if they do, they want to be able to use basement space for the ‘back of the house’ while still being able to offer tenants basement space for storage and such. He was certainly quick with his answer. But I know in my gut I’ve got a leg up on him.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Oh, I believe he’s an investor in ‘Bang Burgers and Steaks,’ something easily verifiable. What I don’t believe is that they’re coming to the States anytime soon.”