The October List

Maserati’s Tubi exhausts, for instance, resonated at a high pitch that could, in the upper gear ranges, threaten to pierce your eardrums.
    He loved that.
    Faint classical music was on the radio but it dimmed when an incoming call announced itself. Daniel answered and spoke to his client in the awkward language of business that is at the same time vague and precise. Finally, some technical legal and financial decisions made, he offered a pleasant farewell to the man who’d earned The Norwalk Fund close to two hundred thousand dollars last year. He disconnected. The classical music rose once more. Mozart. The clarinet concerto. An odd instrument and very difficult, he knew, to play well. He’d dated a girl once who’d been a cellist in a symphony orchestra. She’d explained that the reeds had taken her the most time to master. ‘You’ve got to negotiate the sound from them.’
    Daniel had liked that expression quite a lot, which was why he remembered the sentence, while the image of the girl had all but vanished years ago.
    In his gray Canali suit, Daniel was certainly dressed for this area. He seemed like any other businessman returning home early from his White Plains law firm or investment bank.
    He drove carefully. The streets were slick with colorful layers; wind and rain had conspired to thin the canopy of oak and maple, decimating the foliage (almost literally, removing about every tenth leaf or so – Daniel grew irritated when people used the verb incorrectly).
    He steered onto Henderson Lane, presently deserted of traffic, and continued past houses less opulent than the mansions but just as quiet. The windows of the structures were dark, mostly, and he spotted not a single person on the clean sidewalks. At a four-way intersection, he braked to a stop and let a Grand Cherokee, dark red, precede him, turning into Henderson. Daniel accelerated slowly and fell in behind the vehicle.
    Several blocks away, when the SUV eased up to a stop sign, Daniel stabbed the brake pedal. The Prius skidded on the leaves and tapped the bumper of the Jeep gently.
    He frowned and glanced forward. He saw the eyes of the occupants of the Jeep: the driver’s in the mirror and his college-aged passenger’s directly; the girl turned to gaze with some generic hostility.
    Daniel winced and climbed out. He joined the driver, standing by the Jeep’s open door. He shook his head. ‘I am so sorry!’
    The stocky man in a navy sport coat, tan slacks and blue shirt grinned ruefully. ‘Not like you were doing a hundred miles an hour.’
    ‘I didn’t think the leaves’d be that slick. Man, it was like ice. I just kept going.’ Daniel looked into the front seat. He said to the girl, clearly his daughter, ‘Sorry, you okay?’
    ‘Like, yeah. I guess.’ The blond girl returned to her iPod. The day was warm but she wore a stocking cap pulled down tight over her long hair and the sleeves of her thick sweatshirt extended nearly to her fingers.
    The two men walked to the back of the SUV and regarded the vehicle. The Cherokee driver said, ‘They make ’em tough. I was going to say American cars, but, hell, I don’t really know where these babies’re built. Could be Tokyo.’ A nod at the Prius. ‘And that could’ve been made in Arkansas. Parts of it anyway.’
    Daniel looked around the immaculate neighborhood. All was still deserted. ‘Thomas, listen carefully. Are you listening?’
    The driver kept grinning. Waiting for an explanation. When there was none, he asked. ‘Do I know you?’
    ‘No, you don’t. Now, I want the name of the bank in Aruba your investment partnership uses. And the main investment account number and the PIN.’
    ‘Wait. What is this?’
    Daniel unbuttoned his jacket and displayed the narrow grip of an old Smith & Wesson revolver. A .38 special.
    ‘Oh, my God.’ His eyes went to his daughter, lost in the elixir of music.
    ‘Just give me the information and you’ll be fine. She will too.’
    ‘Who are you …?’ His voice rose into a filament of sound, not unlike a note from a reed instrument.
    ‘Hold on, hold on,’ Daniel said, keeping a smile on his face, just in case anybody did happen to be behind one of those black windows. ‘Don’t panic. You don’t want to do that. This is just business. All I want is that information. I’ll verify it and then you go on your way. You’ll be out twenty million dollars but no one will get hurt. Besides, you didn’t exactly get that through socially