the war. He traded with the Germans for you. And Bibo ran your errands. You made money off Allied blood. Schatz was your point man with Göring and Goebbels.â
âGöring was an addict. And an art collector. I fed him dollars and drugs. We took some of the art.â
âMy hero,â Holden said.
âI promised you Aladdin, and you got it.â
âWith Goring as my silent partner.â
âGöringâs dead.â
âWell, no more errands. Iâm not chasing down bonds or cash for you. Youâll have to fix that hole in your pocket.â
âAfter Paris.â
âWeâre not going to Paris,â Holden said. Schatz lived there with the twig. Frog married her when she was seventeen, and one more mannequin in the fur market, a skinny girl whoâd never gone to high school, whoâd cultivated herself in Frogâs house and then eloped to Paris with Bruno Schatz before she was twenty.
âYouâll have to go there,â Phipps growled from his blanket. âYouâre still my collector.â
âDidnât you hear me, Phippsy? No more errands.â
âSooner or later, Sid. Youâll have to go,â Phippsy said before burying himself under the blanket.
A hot, dry wind rose off the roofs of the fur market. The air turned metallic. Frog sat in his bedroom office at Aladdin. He was with Benjamin Rudin, a wildcat accountant whoâd been stripped of all his licenses. Rudinâs business doubled while he sat in Attica. Heâd attached himself to a family of burglars, and now his fees were astronomical. But he was the one accountant with a âmenuâ large enough for Holden.
âI want his books, Ben. All of them.â
The accountant whistled through his broken teeth. âHe could have me killed.â
âHeâll never know youâve been washing around in his waters. I trust you, Ben.â
And the bargain was sealed without a âkiss.â The accountant was there with Holden, and then he wasnât. He lived like a burglar, moved like a burglar. Holden never left his office. He had sandwiches brought in. Heâd stopped visiting the Copenhagen. He paid his monthly charges and never thought about his rooms over Central Park. He was a president without his own proper palace. He still had a closet with cutouts from the Duke of Windsorâs clothes. Windsor reminded him of his dad. Theyâd both been wanderers. Theyâd both given up the kingdom of their very own names. But Windsor hadnât been a thief.
Benjamin returned in two days. Holden liked that kind of miracle. The accountant had no pencil or pad. He kept an inventory of Phippsâ ruin in his head. He could have been humming a musical composition, not the holdings of Howard Phipps.
âPhipps Steel and Tungsten, Phipps Bauxite, Phipps Aromatics ⦠heâs losing book value in everything he owns.â
âTalk my language,â Holden said.
The accountant stared at him with all the shrewdness of a man whoâd been to Attica. âYouâre president of Aladdin, arenât you? Then you ought to learn, my friend ⦠Someone close to Phipps is taking from the till.â
âSomeone like his daughter.â
âI never met his daughter. But whatever accountant he has ought to be shot. Itâs highway robbery, Holden. Nothing short of that. Theyâre moving paper around, and every time the paper moves, the old man drops a million. Heâs so fucking deep into debt, he has to keep borrowing so he can afford to borrow. I know a lot of billionaires like that. They just keep putting leverage on the banks. But they have armies behind them ⦠and I think Phippsâ first and last soldier is you.â
He was in Paris that night. Heâd taken the Concorde because he didnât want to meet Bruno Schatz while he had a woolly head. He got off the plane and took a cab to the piano bar at the
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