The Zero Hour

In his thousand-dollar navy-blue double-breasted suit with a gold tie, hair combed back, and seated behind his mammoth, bare desk, Warren Elkind once again exuded gravity. Sarah found it hard to reconcile this mandarin with the sweaty, paunchy figure she’d seen wearing nothing but a leather hood just half an hour ago.

Warren Elkind was the chairman of the second-largest commercial bank in the country. An Amherst graduate, he had been married to a wealthy New York socialite for twenty-some years and had four children. He was a director of PepsiCo, Occidental Petroleum, and Fidelity Investments, and a member of a number of exclusive clubs, from the Cosmos in Washington to the Bohemian Grove in San Francisco. A well-connected guy.

But rarely did he appear in the public eye. Here and there he gave a speech about bank regulation. Once in a while he and his wife appeared in the society pages of the Times at some benefit or other.

“Now,” he said, “my lawyer will have a field day.”

“So will the press,” Sarah said. “And your shareholders. And the thousands upon thousands of employees of the Manhattan Bank.”

“Are you aware this is blackmail?”

“Yes,” Sarah admitted blithely.

“And that I could get you fired for it?”

“Only if you could prove it,” she responded. “But if I go down, I’ll take you with me.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Mr. Elkind, we have some very good information that either you or your bank, or both, are being targeted by terrorists. And we’ve been trying to tell you this for over two weeks.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know.”

He nodded slowly. “Probably the loons who did Oklahoma City. Those right-wing militia groups are convinced that the major banks are in some giant conspiracy with the Israelis and the Russians and the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.”

“I think whoever’s behind it is considerably more sophisticated than any militia group. In any case, we need your cooperation. A few weeks ago you saw a call girl in Boston named Valerie Santoro, who was murdered later that same night.”

Elkind stared levelly at her for several moments. His nostril hairs were white. His hands were perfectly manicured. “I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Elkind, I understand your situation. You’re a married man with four children, you’re the chairman of a major bank, you have a reputation to protect. I understand why you’d rather not admit you know Valerie Santoro. But the potential consequences here are serious. You should know I can make sure your name is kept confidential, that any connection to Ms. Santoro-”

“You understand English, don’t you? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“You should also know that a call was placed from a limousine rented in your name to a telephone number in the name of Valerie Santoro. We have records. That’s point one. Point two, your name was discovered in Valerie Santoro’s Rolodex. Now, perhaps we can talk for a few minutes.”

Elkind looked at her for a long while as if deciding which way to play it. At last he spoke. “Listen to me, Special Agent Cahill,” he said with quiet sarcasm. “I don’t know any Valerie Santorini or whatever the hell her name is. You say a call to some woman was placed from my limo? What the hell makes you think I know anything about that? What the hell makes you so sure I made this call? How the hell do I know who had access to the limousine?”

“Mr. Elkind-”

“And you say my name is in some girl’s Rolodex. So what?” He leaned over his desk, rustled through a pile of mail, and triumphantly waved a large junk-mail envelope. “I’m delighted and honored that some call girl in Boston put me in her Rolodex. And apparently I’ve also won ten million dollars from the Publishers Clearing House, Special Agent Cahill.”

“Please, Mr. Elkind-”

“Ms. Cahill, in my position, you’re a target for all sorts of schemers and loonies. These type of people prey on rich men like me all the time. They go through the Forbes Four Hundred, they buy addresses from these computer data services. I don’t even know this woman, and I resent your wasting my time with this bullshit. If you’re going to accuse me of the murder of some girl I don’t even know, go right ahead. But you’d better have an ironclad case. And you’ll be laughed out of a job. I’ll see to it.”

Sarah felt her face flush with anger. She studied the repeating floral pattern on the rust-colored carpet. “Is that a threat?”

“That’s a prediction. I’m not without friends and allies. Don’t fuck with me.” He stood up.

“Sit down, please,” she said. She took out a cassette tape recorder and hit the play button.

After she played the phone conversation between Elkind and Valerie, she said: “This, as well as your documented membership in the Brimstone Club, can become public knowledge through artfully placed leaks. Which means the end of your reign at Manhattan Bank. The humiliation will be too profound. Your board of directors will demand your immediate resignation.”