‘Absolutely not.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’ He should have handled everything better than this!
‘Did you see Dad today?’
‘Briefly.’
‘He’s going back up to Litchfield tomorrow.’
‘I know.’ It had been Jane’s urging that they buy a weekend house less than five miles from her father in Litchfield County, both close to Woodridge Lake.
‘I thought I might drive up with him, for company.’
‘Why don’t you do that?’
Manuel came enquiringly into the dining room and Jane said to Carver: ‘Do you want anything else? Dessert?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m full.’
‘That’s a lie, but OK.’ To the butler she said: ‘After you’ve cleared away we shan’t need you any more tonight. Thank you. Tell Luisa it was a wonderful meal, as usual. But we weren’t hungry.’ Neither Manuel nor his wife, who cooked, lived in.
‘Den or where?’ she asked Carver.
‘Den,’ he decided, following her along the linking corridor. The eight-room duplex on East 62nd Street had been her father’s wedding present.
‘You want a brandy?’
‘No thanks.’
‘I’m worried about Dad,’ she announced.
‘Worried how?’
‘So often losing the thread of what he’s saying. That’s why I want to go up with him tomorrow: persuade him to see Dr Jamieson.’
‘It’ll take some persuading.’
‘I want you to help me.’
‘How?’
‘I want him to stop work. Completely. That’ll be twice as difficult as getting him to see a doctor. But I’m asking you to try.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Carver. ‘I really will.’
Stanley Burcher was unique and knew it and was not concerned that no one else ever would, because fame – or rather notoriety – held no interest for him. The total opposite, in fact. Stanley Burcher prided himself upon being the person no one ever saw or noticed. He was a totally asexual bachelor whose only sensuality came from his association with the people for whom he practised and the knowledge of their criminality. Total evilness – and the people he acted for in such an unusual way were totally evil – fascinated him, as anthropologists are fascinated by unknown species. Which Burcher recognized himself to be too, because he was not revulsed by anything they did. Burcher maintained a small house on the unfashionable north side of Grand Cayman, in the Caribbean, and a box- numbered office in the capital, Georgetown, because Grand Cayman was the tax-avoidance haven in which the people he represented hid their vast fortunes. However, he lived for the majority of the time in distinguished but discreet hotels throughout the world, ensuring that the affairs of his exclusive clients never attracted public attention, most particularly from any law-enforcement authority.
The Harvard Club, in which he waited that night, just off New York’s Fifth Avenue, represented an unaccustomed luxury, as did most of his regular meeting places with George Northcote. Burcher liked the meetings and he liked Northcote. Northcote was a man who, like himself, had been presented long ago with an opportunity, taken it and prospered. He was surprised at Northcote’s lateness: Northcote had never before delayed an appointment and was now running later than the rescheduled time. But at that moment he appeared at the maitre d’s station.
‘Sorry I’m so damned late,’ apologized Northcote, approaching with his hand outstretched in greeting.
‘Not a problem,’ insisted the quietly spoken Burcher, who represented – through their combined consigliori – the five Mafia Families of New York.
Three
George Northcote was a meticulous dawn starter (‘I originated the early-worm philosophy’) but when Carver made his first attempt at nine thirty he was told Northcote hadn’t arrived: there’d been no warning of a delay, either. Carver was told the same when he called fifteen minutes later and again at ten. Carver telephoned Northcote’s apartment on West 66th Street to be told by Jack Jennings, the butler, that he’d missed Northcote by minutes but that he was on his way.
Northcote came on to Carver’s inter-office phone at ten thirty. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘George! You know damned well there is a problem, a big one! Why are you signing off double-accounted figures if the companies aren’t going public?’
‘It’s totally the opposite to what you think: what you imagine you’ve worked out. Which isn’t important. I’ve said I’m resolving it.’
‘I’m looking forward to hearing how it went.’
There was a pause in the still subdued, no-longer hectoring voice. ‘I think it would be a good idea to postpone lunch.’
‘I don’t. Nothing’s being postponed, George. I’ve made the reservation and we’re going to keep it. And you’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on.’
‘You think you can talk to me like this!’
‘In these circumstances, yes.’
‘You feel good?’
The rumble-voiced belligerence, too long in coming, momentarily silenced Carver before giving him his platform. ‘No, George. I don’t feel good about any of this. You know how I feel? I feel so sick so deep in my stomach that any moment I might physically throw up.’
‘You watch – and listen – to too much television.’
‘Stop it, George! We’re not talking television. We’re talking one great heap of shit you’ve gotten this firm, yourself – us all – into
…’ Carver stopped as the thought came to him. ‘And gotten Jane into, as well. The booking’s for one o’clock, at the club.’
‘I’ve things to do. I’ll see you there.’
Carver gave way to his anger. ‘Don’t be late, George. I don’t want anything to be too late.’
Northcote wasn’t late. The meticulous timekeeper was actually early but Carver was intentionally ahead of him by more than thirty minutes, ensuring their table was beyond overhearing, nursing his mineral water until his father-in-law arrived, trying to rehearse himself for a scene for which there was no script. Too late acknowledging the emptiness of the gesture to be just that, empty, he matched Northcote’s previous day’s refusal to stand. Northcote compounded Carver’s belated embarrassment by pointedly standing beside their table, refusing the chair withheld as an invitation to sit from the frowning maitre d’.
As he finally sat Northcote said to the man: ‘I’ll have Macallan. Large. With a water back.’
Carver said: ‘Gin Martini. Large. Straight up with a twist.’
Father-in-law and son-in-law remained looking at each other, unspeaking, for several minutes before Carver said: ‘So tell me.’
‘There’s a few things that still need sorting out. Not a problem.’
‘I’m getting a little tired of being told there isn’t a problem.’
‘And I’m getting tired of telling you there isn’t one.’
