Hard to justify the Friedrich, which had a powerful, almost haunting tone that would fill a concert hall, and was mostly played in Natadze’s living room. Such an instrument should be in the hands of a world-class artist, somebody who could coax from it degrees of subtlety far beyond an amateur such as himself.
He had more than enough room to grow into it — he would never be good enough to fully utilize the guitar’s capabilities, certainly not practicing just two or three hours a day as he did. But he had wanted it, and he could afford it, and so he had gotten it. He had owned beautiful instruments from other expert luthiers from around the world. He had Spanish, German, French, and Italian guitars locked away in a humidity- and temperature-controlled room in his house. The last few years, he had favored American makers — he had an Oribe, a Ruck, one by Byers, a particularly sweet-toned cedar-top from J. S. Bogdanovich that had been very reasonably priced — but this guitar had, in addition to its perfect craftsmanship and construction, a history. It had been played by some of the best guitarists ever. It had called to him the moment he touched it, he could feel the sense of history, and there had been no question that he would own it.
He settled himself upon the thin cushion on the stool. He did not need a back support, since he would sit completely upright throughout the session. One did not lean back while playing classical style.
He had his electronic tuner on the music stand in front of him, though he could tune to A440 by ear after all these years. He had experimented with various combinations of strings over the years, but found that medium- tension La Bella’s worked well, though some of the newer composites lasted longer.
He smiled. When you had a forty-thousand-dollar guitar, buying new strings was not a major expense.
He tuned the instrument, plucked an E-major chord, belled all six string harmonics on the twelfth fret, and was satisfied with the sound.
He began with his warm-up pieces, simple airs he had known since he had started playing: Bach’s “Bouree in E-minor,” the traditional Spanish piece, “Romanza,” Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”
Then he played McCartney’s “Blackbird.” Hardly classical, but a simple way to be sure he wasn’t being sloppy and squeaking the bass strings. Besides, it was fun, more so than scales or
He smiled, and went to work on the new piece, one by Chopin. He hated Chopin, but he was determined to learn it anyway. A man had to stretch now and then.
All thoughts of work, of anything other than the music, left him as he became one with the guitar of which he knew he was unworthy.
Most of the time, Cox stayed in the city until the weekend; he had an apartment in Manhattan, an entire floor in an exclusive co-op overlooking the park. His neighbors there were senators and Broadway producers and old oil money. He also had his current mistress, a delightful woman of thirty-four, installed in a brownstone, and if he didn’t feel like going that far, could make do in what amounted to a small apartment down the hall from his office. But now and then, he’d have his chauffeur haul him out to the estate during the week, just for a change. Sometimes Laura would be there, more often not — she was active in a dozen different charities, ran a foundation that gave grant money to starving artists, and went to see the children and grandchildren with some frequency, most of whom lived within a couple of hours of here. She had her own place in the city, and, likely as not, she would be there during the week as well — as apparently she was this evening, for she was not home.
The house was much too large for just them — thirty rooms, not counting the baths, but when you were a billionaire in a mansion, servants were a given. Even when Laura was gone there would be a dozen people there — a butler, cooks, maids, gardeners, security and maintenance people, his driver.
Now, as he sat in his home office, a room paneled in half-inch hand-rubbed and waxed pecan, with a desk made from flame maple and a couple million dollars worth of paintings by various Flemish masters on the walls, Cox looked at what appeared to be a rubber stamp, and allowed himself to gloat a little.
The silicone stamp was that of a human thumbprint.
A man in his position made a few enemies along the way. When you sat at the top of the heap, the climbers who would take your place were always scrabbling their way upward, hoping you would fall, and willing to push you if you didn’t.
Among the business rivals were some fairly vicious men, and one of them, Hans Willem Vaughan, of Sansome Petroleum, was particularly nasty. They had clashed more than once over the years, and finally Cox had grown tired of allowing it to happen without a response.
To attack him directly would have been dicey. But Vaughan had a weakness. He was extremely proud of the fact that his best people were beyond reproach; they were morally upright, none of them had ever been arrested, all were absolutely squeaky clean, honest, and loyal.
That was about to change. Or at least, it would seem to change, which was just as good.
Eduard had obtained the fingerprints of a third-level functionary in Vaughan’s organization. The man was an assistant to an assistant, a nobody, but he had access to certain sensitive material, and, like Caesar’s wife, needed to be above suspicion.
In a few days, this functionary, a married man with children, was going to be revealed as a sex addict, and not only that, a bisexual one who slept with dozens of men and women on a regular basis, who had somehow managed to divert funds from somewhere into his personal accounts, and who was living much larger than he legally could.
It was a carefully crafted lie, of course; as far as Cox could tell, the man was as honest and faithful as the Arctic summer nights were long. To no avail.
Eduard would have seen to every detail — he was like that, niggling to a fault — and a trail would have been laid that, once seen, could be followed by a nearsighted blood-hound with no sense of smell. Large cash deposits to a secret account, hotel and restaurant bills, visits to private clubs wherein hetero- or homosexual liaisons were the main business, visits to known brothels, records at call-girl organizations, massage parlors, the works, would all come to light. Some of it might be explainable to sympathetic ears, perhaps, but the entry and exit records on security computers vouched for by the man’s own fingerprints? It would be hard to explain those away.
The weight of the evidence would be very heavy.
Eduard had been very careful about faking this man’s attendance at these places only during times when the man had no reasonable alibi to show he had been elsewhere.
In the end, the target of these machinations would be ruined, and too bad for him, but that was not the point. He was within the group of Vaughan’s workers known as the Incorruptibles. And obviously as corrupt as all get-out.
At this level of the game, the appearance was more important than the reality. It would not be a fatal, or even particularly damaging, blow; Vaughan’s business would not be affected, save for a point or three dip in the price of his corporate stock for a few hours, if that. But that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to wound the bastard where he was the most smug. To show the world that he wasn’t infallible. A chink in the armor, however small, would do that.
Like a single drop of black paint in a vat of white, not even visible to the human eye, Vaughan’s organization would henceforth forever be ever-so-slightly
Cox leaned back in his chair and smiled at the image of Vaughan being interviewed on national television, defending himself for the actions of an employee that he likely couldn’t remember, if he had ever even
Of course, Cox had his own worry, and it was much worse than some flunky he employed being caught with his pants down, but Eduard was on that, and Eduard was his man, to the bone. Somehow, Cox had always won the day, and he was beginning to feel as if he was going to win this day, too.
