False Impression Read online

  The committee had been divided.

  Fenston was determined to make a good impression on his colleagues in the banking fraternity and had already dictated several drafts of the speech.

  Customers must always be able to rely on our independent judgment, confident that we will act in their best interests rather than our own.

  Tina began to wonder if she was writing a script for a bankers’ sitcom, with Fenston auditioning for the lead. What part would Leapman play in this moral tale, she wondered? For how many episodes would Victoria Wentworth survive?

  We must, at all times, look upon ourselves as the guardians of our customers’ assets—especially if they own a Van Gogh, Tina wanted to insert—while never neglecting their commercial aspirations.

  Tina’s thoughts drifted to Anna, as she continued to type out Fenston’s shameless homily. She had spoken to her on the phone just before leaving for the office that morning. Anna wanted to tell her about the new man in her life, whom she had met in the most unusual circumstances. They had agreed to get together for supper that evening, as Tina also had something she wanted to share.

  And let’s never forget that it only takes one of us to lower our standards, and then the rest of us will suffer as a consequence.

  As Tina turned another page, she wondered just how much longer she could hope to survive as Fenston’s personal assistant. Since she’d thrown Leapman out of her office, not one civil word had passed between them. Would he have her fired only days before she had gathered enough proof to make sure Fenston spent the rest of his life in a smaller room in a larger institution?

  And may I conclude by saying that my single purpose in life has always been to serve and give back to the community that has allowed me to share the American dream.

  This was one document Tina would not bother to retain a copy of.

  The light on Tina’s phone was flashing and she quickly picked up the receiver.

  “Yes, Chairman?”

  “Have you finished my speech for the bankers’ dinner?”

  “Yes, chairman,” repeated Tina.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” said Fenston.

  “It’s remarkable,” responded Tina.

  Jack hailed a cab and told him Lincoln Street, Queens. The driver left the meter running while he looked up the address in his much-thumbed directory. Jack was halfway back to the airport before he was dropped off on the corner of Lincoln and Harris. He looked up and down the street, aware that the suit he’d carefully selected for Park Avenue was somewhat incongruous in Queens. He stepped into a liquor store on the corner.

  “I’m looking for the Romanian Club,” he told the elderly woman behind the counter.

  “Closed years ago,” she said. “It’s now a guest house,” she added, looking him up and down, “but I don’t think you’ll wanna stay there.”

  “Any idea of the number?” asked Jack.

  “No, but it’s ’bout halfway down, on the other side of the street.”

  Jack thanked the woman, walked back out onto Lincoln and crossed the road. He tried to judge where the halfway mark might be, when he spotted a faded ROOMS FOR RENT sign. He stopped and looked down a short flight of steps to see an even more faded sign painted above the entrance. The letters NYRC, FOUNDED 1919 were almost indecipherable.

  Jack descended the steps and pushed open the creaking door. He stepped into a dingy, unlit hallway, to be greeted with the pungent smell of stale tobacco. There was a small, dusty reception desk straight ahead of him, and behind it, almost hidden from view, Jack caught a glimpse of an old man reading the New York Post, enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  “I need a room for the night,” said Jack, trying to sound as if he meant it.

  The old man’s eyes narrowed as he gave Jack a disbelieving look. Did he have a girl waiting outside? “That’ll be seven dollars,” he said, before adding, “in advance.”

  “And I’ll also need somewhere to lock my valuables,” said Jack.

  “That’ll be another dollar—in advance,” repeated the man, the cigarette bobbing up and down.

  Jack handed over eight dollars in return for a key.

  “Second floor, number three, and the safety deposit boxes are at the end of the corridor,” he said, passing him a second key. He then returned his attention to the New York Post, the cigarette having never left his mouth.

  Jack walked slowly down the corridor until he reached a wall lined with safety deposit boxes, which, despite their age, looked solid and not that easy to break into, even if anyone might have considered the exercise worthwhile. He opened his own box and peered inside. It must have been about eight inches wide and a couple of feet deep. Jack glanced back toward the front counter. The desk clerk had managed to turn the page, but the cigarette still hadn’t left his mouth.

  Jack moved farther down the corridor, removed the replica key from an inside pocket, and, after one more glance toward the front desk, opened box 13. He stared inside and tried to remain calm, although his heart was pounding. He extracted one bill from the box and placed it in his wallet. Jack locked the box and put the key back in his pocket.

  The old man turned another page and began to study the racing odds as Jack walked back onto the street.

  He had to cover eleven blocks before he found an empty cab, but he didn’t attempt to call Dick Macy until he’d been dropped back at his apartment. He unlocked the front door, ran through to the kitchen, and placed the hundred-dollar bill on the table. He then recalled how deep and how wide the empty box had been, before attempting to calculate how many hundred-dollar bills must have been stuffed into box 13. By the time he called Macy, he’d measured a space out on the kitchen table and used several five-hundred-page paperbacks to assist him in his calculation.

  “I thought I told you to take the rest of the weekend off,” said Macy.

  “I’ve found the box that NYRC 13 opens.”

  “What was inside?”

  “Hard to be certain,” replied Jack, “but I’d say around two million dollars.”

  “Your leave is canceled,” said Macy.

  9/23

  44

  “GOOD NEWS,” DECLARED the doctor on the morning of the third day. “Your wound is nearly healed, and I shall be recommending to the authorities that you can be moved to Jilava penitentiary tomorrow.”

  With this, the doctor had determined her timetable. After he had changed her dressing and departed without another word, Krantz lay in bed going over her plan again and again. She only asked to visit the bathroom at two P.M. She slept soundly between three and nine.

  “She’s been no trouble all day,” Krantz heard one of the guards report when he handed over his keys to the night shift at ten o’clock.

  Krantz didn’t stir for the next two hours, aware that two of the guards would be waiting impatiently to accompany her to the bathroom and collect their nightly stipend. But the timing had to suit her. She would cater for their needs at four minutes past four, not before, when one would receive forty dollars, and he would make sure that the other got a packet of Benson & Hedges. Disproportionate, but then one had a far more important role to play. She spent the next two hours wide awake.

  Anna left her apartment to set out on her morning run just before six A.M. Sam rushed from behind his desk to open the door for her—a Cheshire cat grin hadn’t left his face from the moment she’d arrived back.

  Anna wondered at what point Jack would catch up with her. She had to admit, he’d been in her thoughts a lot since they had parted yesterday, and she already hoped their relationship might stray beyond a professional interest.

  “Beware,” Tina had warned her over supper. “Once he’s got what he wants, he’ll move on, and it isn’t necessarily sex that he’s after.”

  Pity, she remembered thinking.

  “Fenston loves the Van Gogh,” Tina assured her. “He’s given the painting pride of place on the wall behind his desk.”

  In fact, Tina had been forthcoming