JM01 - Black Maps (7 page)

It was, Pierro told me, one of several deals that Nassouli had brought to him. Textiles was a big MWB client in Europe. The company maintained a slew of cash accounts with the bank, to support its operations around the world. MWB also provided financing to Textiles. Textiles was planning a move into the United States and needed additional financing, in dollars, to support it. MWB couldn’t take on any more exposure to the company, but French Samuelson, having no previous dealings with Textiles, could. Nassouli had made the match.

Pierro’s main contact at MWB, on the Textiles deal and all the others that Nassouli brought to the table, was Nassouli himself. Pierro remembered working directly with only one other person from MWB: a guy named Al Burrows. Burrows worked for Nassouli, and ran MWB’s correspondent banking department in New York. Pierro recalled him helping out on the Textiles deal, and on one or two others. He didn’t know if Al was short for Albert or Alfred or Alvin, and he had no idea where the guy might be today. He spelled the name and gave me what he could of a description.

I took Pierro through the fax, looking not only for people who had access to each of the documents in it, but also for people who would’ve had the entire package. He wasn’t much help. According to Pierro, the late Emilio Dias, the Textiles CFO, would have had most of the documents: Nassouli’s letter to Dias, Pierro’s own letter to him, and the list of drawdowns and repayments. But he also thought that Nassouli would’ve had the same stuff. Pierro, as a courtesy, had copied Nassouli on his letter to Dias; and all of Textiles’ loan transactions moved through cash accounts at MWB.

I brought up Nassouli’s memo to “The Files,” the one alleging that he and Pierro had prepared Textiles’ loan application. Pierro bristled.

“That thing is bullshit,” he said, his face darkening. “There’s no point wondering who had access to it, because nobody did. It was made up by the same asshole that sent the fax. End of story.”

“So, the applications and the corporate documents—the Textiles people were responsible for those?” Pierro looked at me hard.

“I told you—yes. Is there another way I can say it?”

“How well did you know the company?” The muscles around Pierro’s mouth clenched, then he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“I knew them as well as I was supposed to, John. The world was different then, I’ll admit. The
know-your-customer
rules weren’t as tight as they are today, and there was maybe less scrutiny on referrals that came from the private banking department or from another big firm—but we didn’t just give the money away, for chrissakes. I kicked the damn tires, and as far as I knew Textiles was a legitimate concern.”

“Okay, the allegations are bullshit, but what about the document itself? You’re sure Nassouli couldn’t have written this?” Pierro looked at me for a while and ran his hand over his forehead. When he spoke his voice was low and tight.

“Why the hell would he do that? Why would he implicate himself in something like this—especially since it never happened? Why would anyone do that?” It was a good question, and I had no answer to it. We were quiet for a couple of minutes, and Pierro’s nascent anger seemed to fade. We moved on to the question of enemies.

Pierro readily admitted that in twenty years at French, he’d ruffled his share of feathers, perhaps more than his share. And he conceded that some of those birds might hold a grudge. But he thought it impossible that any of them would go to these lengths to get even. If the goal was to sink his career, he pointed out, there were easier and less risky ways to go about it. One could simply send the incriminating stuff to the French Samuelson executive committee and be done with it.

Nor did Pierro see any of them as potential blackmailers, for the simple reason that they were too damn rich already. I pointed out that we weren’t yet certain this was blackmail, but in fact I agreed with Pierro’s reasoning. The fax made more sense as the prelude to some sort of squeeze than as a warning of impending vengeance. Whichever it was, it was probably too risky a game for a senior investment banker to be playing.

Pierro considered all my questions carefully, and he was deliberate in his answers. And the talking seemed to relieve his tension. It often works that way with clients. Answering questions makes them feel like they’re taking some action, like they’re doing something. It’s better than the feeling of waiting around for something to be done to you. But Pierro was astute enough to recognize that this was fleeting comfort.

“Is this really helping?” he asked.

“A little,” I answered. “Right now, the documents are the only trail we have to follow. Textiles Pan-Europa is defunct, and so are the executives you dealt with back then, so working it from that side isn’t promising. That leaves the MWB end of things, looking at the people who were there with Nassouli eighteen years ago, and the people who are there now. ‘Burrows’ is a new name; that might be helpful. But frankly, there’s not a lot here.” He nodded. I had more questions, but the phone interrupted us.

“Russell, hi. Yeah, I’m home today. No, I can talk, hang on a sec.” Pierro put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, apologetically, “This is the one call I was actually waiting for today. Give me two minutes. Thanks.” I nodded and left the study, closing the door behind me. I found my way back to the foyer.

The black-framed photos had caught my eye, and I walked slowly around the room now, taking a closer look. They were black-and-white pictures, and they all seemed to have been taken at fashion shoots. But they were not themselves fashion photos. Rather, they were candid pictures of the photographers, models, makeup people, and other assorted production types working on the shoots. And they were remarkable. The best of them caught petulance, vanity, pettiness, anger, frustration, and exhaustion all unawares. Even the less successful ones were arresting and beautifully composed. With their stark lighting and heavy contrasts they had the look of old crime-scene photos. Many of them had been taken outdoors, and I recognized streets in New York and London. They were superb, but I doubted that any of their subjects would have been pleased. In the bottom right corner of each frame, hand-printed on the matting paper, was the name “H. Barrie.”

I heard footsteps approaching and a child’s laughter, and I turned. A woman came into the foyer, pushing a small boy in a stroller.

“You must be John. Rick told me you’d be stopping by. I’m Helene.” She smiled and put out her hand and I shook it. Her hand was smooth and warm, her grip firm.

Helene Pierro was somewhere in her thirties. She was nearly my height and slim, but no starving model. She had broad shoulders and a firm, athletic figure. Her glossy chestnut hair was gathered into a ponytail that came to her shoulders. There was red in it where it caught the light. Her slender brows arched over large, dark eyes. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, her nose long and straight, and her lips full. Her skin was fair but not unblemished. Fine laugh lines bracketed her eyes and mouth, and on her chin, like a comma, was a small white scar.

She wore gray wool pants and a green cashmere sweater and black loafers without socks, and I could see tendons shift in her slender ankles as she walked. Her jewelry was simple, but expensive—small hoops of braided gold at her ears, a matching chain at her neck, a thick wedding band. Her fingers were long and supple, her nails expertly manicured, with a clear polish.

She ran her hands through the little boy’s hair. He wore jeans and sneakers and a red turtleneck with a sailboat on it. He had his mother’s coloring and her big eyes too. He was smashing the pickup truck that he held in one hand into the dinosaur that he held in the other, and making dramatic explosion sounds that dissolved into wild laughter. He did this again and again, but for him it stayed fresh. He looked at me and gave me a little smile, but did not pause in his work. I was suddenly quite conscious of the knives and dope I was still carrying around.

“You haven’t been waiting out here all this time, have you?” she asked. She had a gentle but distinct southern accent.

“No, just on a break. Rick had to take a call,” I explained.

Helene rolled her eyes. “That man and the telephone, I swear,” she said, smiling. “Do you want me to hurry him up?”

“That’s alright,” I said, “I can wait. I was just admiring these photos.”

She grinned wryly and laughed. “Those? Yeah, they’re kind of mean, but I like them too.”

“I’ve never heard of H. Barrie. Did these fashion people bump him off when they saw the pictures?”

She laughed again. “H. Barrie isn’t a he. H. Barrie is me. Barrie was my maiden name.”

“You were a photographer?”

“That would be generous; I was strictly amateur. I was modeling back then, actually. Nothing big—catalogs mostly. I was working all those shoots, and took the pictures in my downtime. You’re right, though, it did piss some people off,” she said, laughing some more. “Not that I cared, mind you.”

“You quit modeling when you got married?” I asked. She was aware that I was probing, now, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’d more or less quit when I met Rick. I was working my last job, in London, and he’d just moved over from New York. Modeling was fun for a while, and I got to see more of the world than I would have from Asheville, North Carolina. But it’s no kind of life, really.”

“Do you still take pictures?”

“Just vacation snapshots now,” she said, chuckling.

She knelt in front of her son and wrestled a coat on him. She zipped it to just under his chin, adjusted the small collar, ran her fingers through his thick hair again, and kissed his forehead. Then she pulled a knit cap on his head. This broke his concentration, and he focused on me for the first time.

“Hi,” he said. I walked over and knelt down.

“Hi,” I said.

“This is Alex. Alex, this is Mr. March,” Helene said.

“Nice dinosaur,” I said.

“T. rex,” Alex replied, and with that he went back to his smashing. I stood.

“I heard he was a wild man. He doesn’t seem so wild to me,” I said.

Helene laughed ruefully. “Oh, he’s just biding his time, believe me. We’re going out to pick up his big sisters, and when those two get home they’ll whip him into a frenzy.” Helene pulled on her own coat, a chocolate brown shearling. She took the keys and envelopes from the table and slipped them into her pockets. “We’ve got to run. Are you sure I can’t get him for you?” she asked.

“No, thanks, waiting is fine,” I said

“Okay, then. . . . It was nice to meet you, and I’m sure we’ll see you again.” We shook hands, and she rolled Alex out the door.

The apartment was quiet. No traffic noise made it through the thick old walls, and the only sounds were my own slow footsteps around the foyer. I looked at Helene Pierro’s pictures and thought about her. She struck me as more than just another trophy wife, though she seemed to be eminently qualified for that too. It was interesting that she’d asked me nothing about the case or what I was doing there, but it was hard to know what to make of that. It could mean that she didn’t delve into her husband’s affairs. It could mean that her husband had told her everything and she had no questions to ask. It could mean a bunch of other things too.

More footsteps, and Pierro was back. His cheerfulness had returned.

“Hey, John, sorry for the wait. Did Helene go out already?” he asked.

“Yes, she just left with Alex. He’s a cute little guy,” I said. Pierro smiled.

“Oh, yeah, but he’s a handful. Come on, let’s get back to it.” We returned to the study.

“What else can I tell you?” he asked as we took our seats.

“Tell me about Nassouli.” Pierro collected his thoughts for a moment.

“Gerry was a smart guy, charming too. He was a guy a lot of people did business with back then. He was a big schmoozer, and a big deal maker,” Pierro said. “And he was very social. MWB entertained a lot. They sponsored events—concerts, sports, charity dinners, you name it. Gerry was their head guy in New York, so he’d be at all these things. Usually with a cigar and a brandy, and a model on his arm.”

“It sounds like you knew him pretty well,” I said.

“We were friendly. Like I said, MWB did a lot of entertaining. I was on their guest list, along with a lot of other people.”

“When did you see him last?”

“It’s been a long while. We lost touch when I went to London; that was around thirteen years ago. Nothing but company Christmas cards since then.”

“I read in Mike’s file that Nassouli was the treasurer of the New York branch. The kind of deal-brokering he did with you and Textiles, is that the kind of thing the treasurer usually does?” I asked.

Pierro smiled. “Not typically, no. But Gerry wasn’t just the treasurer. He was MWB’s head guy here—their main relationship guy with other banks, customers, regulators, you name it. So it was the kind of thing he did. And he loved it.”

I had no more questions for the moment, and I told Pierro so.

“This was great, John,” Pierro said, smiling. “Thanks for coming by. And thanks for your help on this.” He was looking encouraged again.

“I haven’t done much yet, and, as I keep telling you, there may not be much I can do,” I said. “I’ll poke around MWB, and try to stay away from the feds while I do it. And I’ll try to get a line on Burrows. But our best bet may be to wait until someone contacts you again, and hope that gives us a little more to work with.” Pierro nodded his agreement, but he still looked altogether too optimistic. He walked me to the elevator.