I look up at him, only imagining how awful my eyes must look, along with my face in general. “Where the hell have you been all my life?” I ask.
“I’m here now,” he says, smiling at me. “Take the win.”
And I do.
SIXTY-SEVEN
JED BERNSTEIN’S OFFICE IS located on the second floor of his small brownstone on West 68th Street. He is still there when Robby Sassoon buzzes him from outside.
Robby has called ahead to tell Bernstein he’s coming, on his way back from Southampton and the visit he paid to Allen Reese.
Bernstein, Robby sees, has a spreadsheet in front of him. Next to it, he’s taking notes on a white legal pad, with a No. 2 pencil. Old school.
“Making a list?” Robby asks as he sits down across the desk from Bernstein.
“And checking it twice,” Bernstein says.
Robby enjoys working with Jed Bernstein, even knowing he may have to kill him down the road. He just doesn’t know yet how far down the road.
It has lately become clear to them both that Sonny Blum has been methodically tying up loose ends—apart from the ones he’s had Robby eliminate entirely—in his business.
No one in Sonny’s orbit has come right out and said it, and certainly not Sonny himself, but Robby feels as if the old man is dying. And, if that’s really the case, he’s clearly made the determination that he’s not going to leave this world being owed money. By anyone.
This, Robby knows, is not his immediate concern, becausewhat he is more concerned with presently is a much bigger picture:
Being the one to take over the business when Blum is gone.
Blum has no children. His two brothers are long since dead. There was a time when the people around Sonny thought that he treated Bobby Salvatore like a son, until Salvatore was viewed as a loose end, and then eliminated.
Robby feels himself smiling now, with a panoramic view of the big picture inside his head.
Why not me?
It’s something he’s been thinking more and more frequently.
Why not now?
To Robby, the entire drama, the way it’s playing out, reminds him at least a little bit ofKing Lear. Robby just doesn’t see it as a tragedy in the end, certainly not from his point of view, not if he plays things right.
“What’s on that list?” he asks. “Or should I say, who?”
Bernstein puts down his pencil. Robby really does like the way Jed Bernstein takes pride in his appearance, the way he presents himself, even if Bernstein is far too prepped out for Robby’s tastes, cashmere sweater and white shirt underneath. There’s even a faint whiff of cologne between them in the office. If Robby doesn’t miss his guess, and he’s rarely wrong about these things, it’s Frédéric Malle. One of his own favorites. Over three hundred a bottle.
Another thing over which they can bond.
Just not for long.
“What I have here in front of me,” Bernstein says, “are Bobby Salvatore’s debtors.” He makes atsk tsksound, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. “Having taken a deep dive into Bobby’s finances, it appears as if Mr. Salvatore was as late collecting as many of his clients were paying up.”
“Unless they had paid in a timely fashion,” Robby says, “and it wasn’t reflected in Bobby’s bookkeeping.”
He smiles. “Perhaps ‘skimming’ should have been listed as his cause of death.”
Bernstein gets up now, walks over to his liquor cabinet, picks up a bottle of Hennessy Paradis, and pours them both a glass.
They clink glasses.
“To the good life,” Jed says.
