She stared at Beck. He had put it so bluntly and succinctly that she turned away, her face lit by the guttering fire. He wasn’t sure what she didn’t want him to see: anger, fear, tears. Whatever it was, he didn’t press her.
Beck shifted his gaze to the view out her windows. A red tone had seeped into the winter sky. Beck had missed the sunset, but imagined how stunning sunsets would look from Olivia Sanchez’s window.
Neither of them said anything for a few moments.
Finally, Beck said, “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
She turned back to face him. “So am I.”
Beck paused, exhaled, said, “So you called Manny.”
“Yes.”
“What did you ask Manny to do?”
“To help me.”
“How?”
“I didn’t ask him to do anything specifically. I just told him about this guy who was ruining my life. I told him I couldn’t afford defending myself against his lawsuits. That I needed to stop him from blacklisting me. That I needed to get back to work.”
Beck pressed. “How did you think Manny could accomplish all that?”
She looked at Beck, defiance coming into her voice, as she finally admitted it. “You know how. I wanted him to threaten Crane. To confront him and scare the shit out of him. I wanted Manny to do what I couldn’t.”
“You wanted Manny to do to Crane what he did to you.”
Beck’s comment confused her. Then angered her. But she didn’t shrink from the answer.
“Yes. Yes, I wanted him to threaten to kill Crane if he kept trying to hurt me. Okay. I admit it.”
Beck nodded. He let what she’d said sink in for a moment.
“This threat of Crane’s to kill you, did you believe him?”
“At the time, it terrified me.”
“You actually believed some Wall Street hedge fund guy would kill you?”
“I don’t know. It sounded real.”
Beck nodded. “What about Manny? Do you think Manny is capable of killing someone?”
Olivia cleared her throat. She didn’t want to say it, but finally she answered, “I think it’s a matter of record.”
Beck shifted around on the couch. Looked at the fire. At the red sky darkening. At Olivia Sanchez. Then he asked, “Whose money is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The money Crane is investing. Who is the client?”
Olivia looked down. Then directly at Beck, but this time she didn’t say anything.
Beck said, “Shit. That’s what you’re not telling me.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know for sure.”
“Are you saying you don’t know? You, the person in charge of monitoring risk?”
Olivia’s expression tightened. She looked away. Stared at the fire. Finally, she said, “I don’t know all the details. The money belongs to a Russian named Leonid or Leonard Markov. There may be some other money in Crane’s hedge fund, but it’s mostly Markov’s. There’s a lot of privacy issues involved. Client’s identities and who owns what are kept confidential. But like I said, I hear things. What I hear is, Markov’s an arms dealer. He supposedly has all kinds of connections to the government. The U.S. government. Maybe other governments. I don’t know. Now, it might not be just Markov. Crane has a reputation of dealing with shady types. I know that he swaggers around like he has friends that…”
“That what?”
Olivia didn’t back down. She looked straight at Beck, “That could or would kill people.”
So there it was. Beck grimaced. “Christ.”
“But I don’t know if that’s true, or just a bullshit macho image Crane likes to project.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was I supposed to do? Just let that bastard threaten me; let them take away my job and slink away?”
Beck didn’t answer.
“Look, Crane is full of shit. You’re right. He’s no gangster. No tough guy. He’s walking around like a big man because he knows some unscrupulous people. I just figured he’d fold in two seconds if he saw a real tough guy.”
Beck made sure to speak very calmly. “Olivia, a real tough guy, a man like your cousin, doesn’t go around threatening people. It doesn’t happen that way.”
Olivia started to explain more. “I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t tell him to…”
Beck raised a hand. He had the picture now. “All right, all right. Take it easy. I’m not out to make you feel any worse than you do now.”
“Well, you are. I thought you would understand.”
“That’s the problem. I do understand. Now I get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why Crane went off like that. You say he’s running money for unscrupulous people. Maybe a guy with connections to who knows? He’s taking big risks. If he gets shut down, and loses a ton of money, what’s going to happen to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe what he said would happen to you.”
Olivia looked down, shaking her head, “Dear God.” She paused. “So what do I do? Is there anything you can do? Or do I just forget about it? When this mess blows over, I’ll just start again. I really can’t fight this. I mean, you don’t think Crane is actually going to make good on his threat, do you?”
“Crane isn’t your problem now. At least not your main problem.”
Olivia looked confused. “Who is?”
“Manny Guzman. You don’t just put him back in a box. Something has to be done about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Manny is not going to let this slide.”
“Even if I ask him to?”
“It’s too late for that.”
“You can’t tell him.”
“No,” said Beck. “And I can’t not tell him what’s going on here.”
Olivia stood up and turned to the window, the red winter light making her skin seem to glow deep bronze. She turned back to Beck.
“This is a nightmare.”
“All right, take it easy. Let’s go back to what you want. You want Crane off your back. You want to be able to earn a living, someplace. Not Summit. That’s a dead end, but you want to get back to where you were.”
“Yes. And I don’t want Manny involved. Or hurt. Or … anything.”
“Yeah, okay. Well let’s take it one step at a time.”
“Meaning?”
“For starters, we don’t talk about this anymore.”
“What? What do you mean? Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Beck watched her consider the question. He watched her deep brown eyes flecked with gold move up and down as she processed everything.