Trump's International Hotel and Tower at Bay and Adelaide, the Donald arrived in a stretch limo and used a golden shovel. Several months later, at his own groundbreaking ceremony, Simon Birk made his entrance by helicopter, the rotors scattering hats and ruffling the hair of dignitaries and journalists. He scoffed at the shovel he'd been offered and commandeered a backhoe to crack the dry earth and scoop out the first bucketful of soil.
'So the big project of Rob's that you mentioned,' I asked, 'is the Birkshire Harbourview?' It was a massive new complex on a long-neglected part of Toronto's port lands.
'Yes.'
'How did he manage that?'
'Birk wanted to build in Toronto and Rob had the one thing they don't make any more.'
'The land.'
'Acres of it, all south of the Keating Channel.'
'How did he swing that?' Jenn asked.
'Depends who you ask,' Marilyn said.
CHAPTER 4
The plaza outside the Cadillac Fairview tower was bathed in sunshine, and full of people basking in it. Smoking, chatting, munching hot dogs from street vendors, or just leaning back and letting the light shine down on them. Enjoy it while you can, I thought. Despite the unseasonable warmth of the past few days, the long Canadian winter was coming. As the days grew shorter, faces would get longer, brows more furrowed, shoulders more hunched. Moods would get blacker, hopes would dim.
My own mood hadn't been great since Stefano di Pietra had died at my hands, the would-be Don lying motionless under the waters of the river of the same name. Sleep had been restless, sometimes elusive altogether. My dreams had been the kind you strive to forget when you awake. Sometimes I'd be lost: in a tunnel, a hotel, a subway station, in my own apartment. I'd be fighting with assailants, firing guns without bullets, swinging my fists uselessly, getting no power behind the punches. I'd be surrounded by flames with no way to douse them. I'd be on trial for crimes I couldn't remember committing.
In winter it would only get worse.
I walked through the sunlit lobby, a two-storey atrium with full-length windows on three sides. The floor and walls were pink marble, the railings highly polished brass. Two fountains at the base of a marble stairway created a rushing sound like a bountiful stream in nature. It was the only natural thing about the place.
I took an elevator to the fourteenth floor and walked into the glassed-in reception area of Cantor Development, where a woman sat behind a workstation made of dark wood in two shades, cherry and mahogany.
'Good morning,' said the receptionist.
'Good morn-'
'I'm sorry, he's away from his desk right now,' she said, and I realized she was speaking not to me but into a headset. I waited next to a rack of publications that included Condo Life, Canadian Builder, Greener House and Home. The cover of Canadian Builder, placed at eye level, showed two men: according to the caption, the one on the left was Rob Cantor; on the right was Simon Birk. Cantor was tall and fit, with thick dark hair. Birk was easily half a foot shorter, squat but powerfully built, grey hair cropped close to his skull, his head thrusting out of his suit as if trying to burst free of constraints.
'Yes?' the receptionist said.
He reminded me of someone… Norman Mailer or Rod Steiger… a pugnacious attitude that suggested he was ready to rip off his pinstriped suit and scrap in the street. You might beat him, the look in his eye said, but you'd know you'd been in a fight.
'Sir?'
I turned. The woman was looking at me now.
'Sorry,' I said. 'Are you talking to me or the headset?'
'To you, dear,' she said.
'I'm here to see Rob Cantor,' I said.
'Is he expecting you?'
'He is.' I gave her my name.
'Oh, yes. Let me call Florence for you.'
I flipped open Canadian Builder to the article on Birk and Cantor's partnership. The Birkshire Harbourview complex, it said, was being built at a cost of more than $500 million. No ex pense was being spared: it would feature only the finest marble; the rarest hardwood; the highest-end kitchen appliances; the most expansive and state-of-the-art workout facilities and spa.
I was wondering when the writer would run out of superlatives when a tall, dark-haired woman emerged from behind glass doors and introduced herself as Florence Strickland, Rob Cantor's executive assistant. She was holding a BlackBerry in one hand. Her handshake was firm, as was her voice when she told me Mr. Cantor would not be able to see me after all.
'He knows what it's about?' I asked.
'I told him, yes.'
'And he can't spare a few minutes?'
'Something came up.'
'I don't mind waiting.'
'That won't do any good,' she said. 'He had to leave the office.'
I remembered what my mother had said about Rob spending time on the phone during his daughter's shiva.
She glanced at the BlackBerry. 'He does have a 2:30 slot free tomorrow,' she said.
'Unless something comes up.'
'He's a busy man, Mr. Geller. Shall I reserve that time for you or would you prefer to rebook at your convenience?'
I could tell I wasn't going to get any further with her. Not without ice tongs. 'All right,' I said. 'I'll take the 2:30 tomorrow.'
'We'll see you then,' she said, and her fingernails skittled over the BlackBerry keyboard. 'From 2:30 to 2:45. Will that do?'
'I guess it'll have to.'
She smiled and thanked me-for what, I couldn't guess-and turned back toward the inner sanctum, just as a young man came out. He wore a dark suit too serious for his age and carried a long cardboard tube under one arm.
'Where's my dad?' he asked Florence Strickland. His dad. This, then, would be Andrew Cantor. He was twenty-five, his mother had said. His hair was dark but his complexion was pale. His neck was mottled with old acne scars.
'He had to go down to the job site,' Florence said.
'Why didn't he tell me? He has to sign off on these drawings.'
'Something came up,' she said. 'Would you like me to try his cell?'
'No. I'll take them over. They'll need them down there anyway. If he calls before I get there, ask him to wait there for me. Or to try my cell.'
'I'll tell him.'
She went back through the glass doors and Andrew walked past me as if I were invisible. He told the receptionist he would have his cell on.
'Of course you will, dear,' she said. 'Should I call you a cab?'
'Please.'
I followed Andrew into the hallway. He punched the down button on the elevator and stared at his reflection in the stainless steel doors. A warped reflection that made him seem shorter and wider than he was.
