The October List

confessed what had happened.’ After a pause. ‘I forgave him.’
    ‘Carole?’
    ‘What can I say? She’ll never be the same.’
    Gabriela nodded.
    On his large desk were papers and files and printouts and a large collection of model cars. Expensive ones. Metal. You could open the doors and hoods and look inside. They were really quite some works of art. Aside from the phonograph records the Professor had given her, Gabriela didn’t collect anything. There were no trophies in the upstate house; she hunted for the meat. And weapons? They were simply tools of the trade, to be discarded or swapped if a more efficient one came along.
    ‘So. Reardon? He’s after your company?’
    Karpankov Transport didn’t transport much except laundered money, weapons and prostitutes – though, despite such limited specialties, it made a great deal of money.
    ‘I think what happened with Carole was opportunistic. Reardon struck up a conversation with her, learned her father worked for a profitable company and he took advantage of that.’
    ‘He and this other man? It’s just the two of them?’
    ‘No, there are three who work together. One is Andrew. There’s an enforcer too, first name Sam.’ Karpankov added solemnly, ‘I think Sam was the second man with Carole.’
    ‘That’s their modus operandi? Finding innocents and exploiting them?’
    Karpankov laughed. ‘“Modus operandi.” You studied Latin, I remember. Your father told me that. He was very proud of his schoolgirl.’
    Her father had gone to the police academy right out of high school, but he appreciated education and had indeed been proud that his only child had graduated with honors from Fordham. He himself had taken continuing education courses, specializing in history, and would spend hours talking about New York’s past with Gabriela and her mother. They’d good-naturedly dubbed him ‘the Professor,’ and the nickname had stuck.
    ‘It’s one of his MOs,’ Karpankov now said. His voice trembled; the sentiment of a moment ago was gone. ‘They come up with a lot of different schemes – extortion, blackmail, kidnapping, outright murder. Sometimes they masquerade as business consultants or insurance experts. They get close to executives, find inside information, learn their weaknesses.’
    ‘Businessmen, insurance?’ Gabriela mused. She found this an interesting strategy. She filed the fact away for her plans, which were already forming. ‘So you want Reardon dead, you want me to find out who Andrew and Sam are. And them dead too. And your money back?’
    ‘That’s right.’ Karpankov pulled a model car closer to him. She thought it was a Jaguar. She didn’t know much about autos. In the Adirondacks, she kept a thousand-cc Honda motorcycle.
    The mob boss continued, ‘I don’t care about the money but—’
    ‘Respect.’
    ‘Exactly. Respect and revenge. You see what I mean by complicated?’
    It was, yes.
    But Gabriela lived for complications. She straightened her jacket, small white and black checks, houndstooth. And smoothed her skirt, which was gray as the Hudson’s unsettled water this morning. From her orange leather Coach bag Gabriela took a roll of knitting, blue and green yarn, and began absently working the needles.
    Click click click competed with the sound of trucks from outside Karpankov’s window. He said nothing.
    ‘Tell me what you know about Reardon,’ she asked, matter-of-factly, which was her way of saying, Yes, I’ll take on the job. Of course I will.
    ‘He’s in his late thirties. Good looking. Here.’ He displayed a picture of a dark-haired businessman.
    Good looking enough, yes, she decided. Broad shoulders. Gabriela felt a stirring, though only partly because of his physique and curious resemblance to the George Clooney of ten years ago. The attraction was primarily due to his narrow eyes. Cruel, they seemed. Savvy. Predatory.
    ‘Ink?’
    ‘Apparently no tattoos,’ Karpankov said. ‘But he has a scar – on his chest and shoulder. He set a bomb in an arson scam and it went off prematurely. Apparently he claims he got it saving two children from a car crash, or when somebody saved him from a crash. He changes the story to suit the scenario.
    ‘He has a degree in business from an Ivy League university. And he has a legitimate investment company he runs as a cover. The Norwalk Fund I mentioned. Makes a lot of money and spends it. Cars and boats. But he’s also a sociopath. Last spring Andrew and he