“What did she do?”

“Nothing crazy. Just poking her nose in. Maybe looking to make a name for herself. Use her job to get some leverage. It’s what people do. But Alan heard about it and went overboard. Way overboard.”

“Overboard? What’s overboard? You’re supposed to watch that fucking guy.”

Milstein told it in one burst of words. “She claims he got rough with her and broke two fingers on her hand while he was yelling and pounding on her desk.”

Markov barked, “What?”

Milstein repeated everything he’d said more slowly.

“He does that to a woman? Idiot.”

“Alan says it’s not true. Says she started hitting him, and he fended her off. Says he can’t believe that would break her fingers. Says it’s bullshit. Either way, she tried to make a lot of trouble for us. Went to the police. Filed complaints. So we had to push back. We countersued. Lodged our own complaints. Came down on her very hard. Got rid of her.”

“So if you got rid of her why are you calling me?”

“Somehow she’s managed to get some strong-arm types to confront me and demand compensation.”

“What do you mean strong arm?”

“Tough guys. With guns.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Freddy?”

“Three men surrounded me and my bodyguard in the park tonight. One man held a gun on my guard. The other one roughed me up. He told me if I didn’t pay off this woman, he would kill me. And Alan.”

Markov did not respond for a moment. And then he said, “You believed him?”

“Yes.”

“How much did he ask for?”

“Six hundred thousand.”

Markov spoke slowly and carefully. “You think the six hundred thousand makes this all go away?”

“I don’t know. Actually, the way he came up with the number was fairly logical.”

Markov said, “Who are these men with guns? How does this woman know them?”

“I’m looking into that. I’ll know more in the morning.”

“How?”

“My bodyguard is an ex–police detective. He says he can identify them with police records. As for the woman, clearly there might be something in her background I wasn’t aware of.”

“Like what?”

“She’s Hispanic. I think originally from the Bronx or East Harlem, I don’t know. It appears that she might know people who are not all that legitimate. From her past, I suppose. She seems to have turned to them for help.”

“I think it is time to say good-bye to you, and Summit. Why should I have my investments anywhere around men with guns demanding money?”

“I completely understand, Leonard. You can certainly go someplace else. But I’m afraid that won’t solve much. Your man Alan caused this. You can walk away from my firm, but unfortunately, as long as you are connected to Alan, I’m afraid you’re connected to this problem. I’m trying to protect your investments, Leonard. We have to stop these men one way or another.”

“Then I walk away from both of you.”

“Unfortunately, that would cost you a great deal of money. I hope you understand that nobody can unwind your investments like Alan can. He’s the only one who knows how everything is set up. What the time frames are. Look, Leonard, maybe we can buy our way out of this. Not you. Me. The firm. Pay off this woman and be done with this. Let me find out more about who these people are. If worse comes to worst, I have connections to the police. They can help us.”

Markov immediately broke in. “Be careful about calling in the police.”

“Of course. But why don’t we take this step by step. I’ll find out more about these men threatening us. You talk to Alan. Tell him if this deal seems like it will work, he should accept it. And drop his lawsuits against this woman. If it comes to it, maybe you can exert pressure on these people to take the money and back off.”

Markov’s driver was just exiting from the Brooklyn Bridge heading south on the BQE. The remaining effect of the Adderall had helped to keep Markov focused as he listened. He checked his sense of what Milstein had told him. There was a great deal he didn’t know or understand, but he knew whatever was going on, he had to protect his money.

“Three men?”

“Yes.”

“With guns?”

“I only saw one with a gun.”

“One guy who comes to you with the deal?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t beat on you or break anything?”

“No. But he did enough to make me believe he could do worse.”

“He sounded calm?”

“Yes.”

“Professional?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know how this woman knows this kind of person?”

“No. He seems to have appeared from nowhere. But she’s the kind of woman who could get a lot of men to try to help her.”

“Why?”

“She’s very attractive.”

Markov grunted. “All right,” he said abruptly. “How can I find this guy?”

“I told him that I can come up with the money, but that I couldn’t guarantee Alan would back off from suing the woman or blackballing her. He asked me where he could find Alan.”

“You tell him where Alan lives?”

“I’m sure he already knew. Olivia Sanchez obviously told him where I live. He told me to tell Alan to be there tomorrow at noon.”

Markov nodded his head. Milstein was clever. Already setting this up.

“Okay. Noon. Let Alan know. Tell him I will be there at eleven thirty. Now go get rid of that phone.”

Without another word, Markov disconnected the call.

Milstein took the silent cell phone from his ear.

He stared at the phone, his mind spinning off in several directions at once. He kept flashing back to the park. He thought about getting a gun permit. About Walter Pearce’s ability to find out who those men were. About Markov’s ability to stop the men Olivia Sanchez had set against them. He tried to calculate the odds that Markov would leave the firm, and how much it would cost him.

Milstein took a long, deep breath. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to stop thinking. He told himself he had worked out a plan with Markov. Stick to it. Take it step by step. Stay calm.

Suddenly, he felt exhausted. He had been fending everything off until he’d finished the call. Now the tension, the fear, the worry seemed to smother him.

Well, he thought as he pushed himself out of the sitting chair, there is nothing more to do tonight. Except get rid of this fucking phone. He pried opened the back of the cell phone with his fingernail, dug out the SIM chip, went out to the hallway outside his apartment.

He tried to twist the SIM chip and break it as he walked toward the garbage chute at the end of his hall. He couldn’t. He couldn’t break it. He just opened the garbage chute and tossed the phone and the chip into the disposal, holding the door open, listening as the pieces fell fourteen floors to somewhere.

12

“So maybe you cut off this coño’s head and put it on the other motherfucker’s desk, and both of them get the message,” said Manny.

Beck pictured a severed head on Milstein’s desk at Summit Investing, and tried to imagine the effect.

“I suppose that would get everybody’s attention. Not sure Olivia would be all that comfortable with it.”

Manny and Beck sat on couches facing each other on the second floor of Beck’s Red Hook building. Beck had returned from Central Park a little past midnight.

“She don’t have to know the details,” said Manny.

Manny Guzman sat back on the comfortable couch and took another swig of his favorite Mexican beer.

The second floor where they sat was much different from the bar downstairs. Except for shoring up the floor and some rewiring, the first floor had been left as it was when Beck bought the building. But he’d gutted the two floors above the bar down to the bare walls and rafters, then built everything out to his exact specifications.

The second floor was now an open loft space. At the west end were three large comfortable couches surrounding a six-by-five-foot coffee table made of petrified wood, hard as iron, hundreds of years old.