When Gage walked into the South San Francisco cafe, Matson was sitting in the same booth, staring toward the door and pushing his napkin back and forth on the Formica table. Gage walked across Matson’s field of vision as he approached.
Matson flinched when Gage sat down. “Where’d you come from?”
Gage jerked his thumb toward the entrance.
“You startled me.”
“Tough day?”
“The worst.”
“I called my people in Geneva,” Gage said, settling back into the role of Mr. Green.
Matson sat up like a puppy waiting for a treat, hands on the edge of the table.
“What did they say?”
“The Swiss have what they call an investigating magistrate,” Gage said. “He made Nauru freeze the account.”
“Why?”
“Did you try to move too much money at once?”
“I…I don’t think so. I did exactly what you said. A little at a time.”
“Where’d the money come from?”
Matson sat back, then spread his hands. “I can’t tell you.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I know, but I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“Because the guy who sent me some of it wouldn’t be happy.”
Gage adopted a stern expression and aimed a forefinger at Matson. “At the moment you need to worry about keeping me happy. You wanted to see me because you needed me to do something for you. Right?”
Matson swallowed, then nodded.
“And I’m not going to be working in the dark on this, understand?”
Matson glanced toward the door, and his voice rose. “But who’s gonna protect me?”
“How much you got in the account? If you got enough money, you can buy all the protection you need.”
Matson looked around the restaurant, then leaned in and whispered, “About twenty million.”
Gage rolled his eyes. “That’s idiotic. Why’d you put that much in one account?”
“It’s the only one I had.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you needed more accounts?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“What else weren’t you thinking about?”
Matson shrugged.
Gage leaned back in his seat, then folded his arms across his chest. “What do you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know. I just need my money.”
“How much are you willing to pay?”
Matson fiddled with his spoon, then said, “Five percent.”
Gage laughed. “You want me to stick out my neck for five percent and I don’t even know where the money came from? And worse, I don’t even know if it really belongs to you.”
“Okay.” Matson drummed his fingers on the table, biting his lower lip. “How about ten percent?”
Gage shook his head. “You’re still not thinking. Thirty percent. First and last offer.”
“Six million dollars! To make a call? A helluva Christmas gift.”
Gage shook his head again, seemingly disgusted.
“It ain’t a gift. Six million buys you my ability to make that call. It also means I’m putting myself in the middle of something I don’t have a clue about and I’ll need to watch my back forever because you won’t tell me what I need to look out for.”
“What about me?”
Gage lowered his arms and leaned over the table. “I’ll give you a bodyguard for a week. He’ll help you set up security for after that.”
“Starting when?”
Gage looked at his watch. “Two hours from now.”
“And how much will that little service cost?”
“Not a dime.”
“But how will you unfreeze the money?”
“I know somebody who can get to the magistrate.”
Matson drew back. “What do you mean?”
Gage smiled. “Nobody’s gonna hurt the guy. We’ll just appeal to his sense of justice.”
Matson exhaled. “When can you do all this?”
“At 9 A. M. Geneva time.”
“That quick?”
Gage nodded. “At 2 A. M. our time you call your banker and say, ‘Mr. Green will call with instructions. He has the looking glass.’”
“Looking glass?…I don’t get it.”
“You don’t need to get it. Just say exactly that-you need to write it down?”
“No. But…but what’ll happen to my money?”
“That depends on where you want it to end up.”
Matson shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How about Costa Rica? Good place. You’ll fit in there. Lots of people speak English. But you’re gonna need a passport.”
Matson smiled, as if he finally had a correct answer. “I have one.”
“I’m thinking you don’t want the cops to figure out where you are. Right?”
“I thought of that already,” Matson said, his voice firm.
“If you use your passport, they can find you.”
“I’ve got a backup. Panama. I’ve got a Panamanian passport.” He smiled again. “And it’s real.”
“Good thinking. But if it’s in your name, they can still find you.”
“No. A friend of mine set it up. She has one, too. I used her name.”
“What’s that?”
“Tarasov.”
Gage raised an eyebrow. “Tarasov? You mean like the Russian maffiya guy?”
Matson’s eyes widened. He swallowed hard, then licked his lips. “What do you mean?” Matson’s voice rose to a squeak. “What Russian maffiya guy?”
“Well, he’s not really Russian. They just call all those guys Russian maffiya. He’s Ukrainian. Works out of Budapest. Got pushed out of Ukraine by a gangster named Gravilov. I don’t know if they ever made up. It’s hard to follow these things. You could look him up on the Internet.” Gage shrugged. “Of course, I could be wrong, Maybe she’s not related to him. There have to be lots of folks in the world named Tarasov.”
Gage paused, idly looking about the restaurant, letting Matson founder on the ragged shores of his imagination.
“I can’t remember what Tarasov’s first name is,” Gage finally said, scratching his head as if searching his memory. “No wait…it’s P-something. Pavel, Pavlo, Petro…”
Matson glanced toward the door, then mumbled to himself, “Petrovna…”
“Can’t be. Petrovna isn’t a man’s name. It’s what they call a woman’s patronymic. You know, from the father’s name.”
“Alla Petrovna Tarasova,” Matson whispered.
“What’d you say?”
Matson looked up. “I’m fucked. I’m really fucked.”
“What do you mean?”
Matson glanced at the door again. “I need a place to hide-now. Right now.”
