ARAWN – A few days before
I step up the last stairs to reach an impressive garden.
Even if it is full of bushes, trees, and flowers, making it look as if the plants were growing rampant, I can recognize that it is taken good care of.
I walk towards an old man, who is about to trim a bush of roses with a set of garden shears.
“Apologies for this informal reception, but the sun is out rarely today, and I can’t risk them shrinking just because they think that I stopped caring for them,” he explains with a rough voice, taking his time to finish before turning to me and slipping off his gardening glove.
I take my hand out of my pocket to shake his hand. “No worries, I’m glad that you found time for me on such short notice, Mr. Goldberg.”
“Your friend surely knows how to be convincing. Why don’t we take a seat?” he chuckles, pointing towards a table and chairs sitting under a small pavilion.
He lets himself slump into the chair with a groan as we sit down and as if on cue, a maid appears to serve us a cup of coffee.
I must recognize that Nerthus has softened me up as I actually raise my gaze to thank her, getting her to do a little curtsy with a smile.
“I don’t know to what extent I could be of any help as I haven’t talked to my son in over three decades,” he mumbles as he starts loading spoons of sugar into his coffee.
Sitting up to take the cup of coffee into my hands, I clear my throat. “We are very well aware of that. But the asset management company that he has been able to build with the family money was once established by you, isn’t it?”
“By my father,” he corrects me, twirling his finger in the air.
He reaches out to take a mini-muffin from the plate standing in the middle of the table as he turns to me. “As soon as my son had his finger on my company, it grew fast. He managed to achieve this by taking shortcuts to take over the business sooner, pushing me out of its cadre.”
“That’s exactly the information we are planning to get,” I say, leaning forward. “Maybe you were keeping tabs on your son’s doings that could help us in a way that will help you as well.”
He squints his eyes at me, plopping the mini-muffin into his mouth. “Help me as well in which way?”
“Don’t you want to pay him back for his ingratitude? Teach him a lesson about greed?” I ask, taking a sip from my coffee.
Rubbing his hands, he thinks it through before he shifts in his seat. “I might have tabs on certain… business transactions. And I might or might not have, certain insiders who are still providing me with information because my son was unable to fire them as he dismembered my company. That would have meant for him to lose all the knowledge he needed to make the amount of money he was aiming for.”
“What business transactions are we talking about?” I ask, setting my cup down.
He stares at me, turning his cup on the gold-rimmed saucer. “Hypothetically?”
“Fine, hypothetically!” I confirm, making him laugh.
“All the beautiful deals that would interest the FinCEN a big deal.”
I grin. “Money laundry? Insider trading?”
“Maybe,” he shrugs, taking another sweet.
I wait for a bit, but he doesn’t add more to it, so I push again. “Would you be able to prove it?”
He pushes out a short laugh, mocking me. “He was so incredibly intelligent to use the old contacts I used to work hard to establish, and my goodwill, to broker dirty deals. I have as much documented proof as you want to.”
“How much?” I ask him. “How much to hand me just enough information to give a call to the FinCEN and get them interested in taking a look into his businesses?”
Scoffing, he rubs his hands again. “A man like me is rarely interested in money, my dear Mr. Rodberg. And a man like you should know that.”
“We both know that it’s not only money I could provide you with,” I offer, amusing him further.
“Let me think about it, Mr. Rodberg. And I’ll get back to you.”
He groans as he gets back up, slips on his gardening gloves, and returns to his rose bushes as if I had never been there.
Just a normal hallucination he was bored talking to any further.
I walk back out, passing the staff scurrying around before I leave the impressive mansion with a content smile.
***
ARAWN – Present
I know I look ridiculous as I wait for Nerthus to open the elegant door with a key while holding the puppy in one of my hands.
But I don’t care even a single bit as I watch her getting into the house all excited.
“Oh, wow!” she breathes out as soon as she stands into the first living room and goes to touch the fireplace. “This is breathtaking. Your client has good taste.”
She giggles as she walks past me to get to the stairs and climbs it to see the second floor. I follow her silently as she admires everything and as she has already seen all the rooms on the floor, she scrunches up her nose. “Am I even allowed to snoop around?”
“Sure,” I shrug, moving my hand to make Goldie confirm with a small bark as well. “Go ahead.”
Celebrating, she picks up the pace and sprints up the last set of stairs, gasping as she stands in the large master bedroom and walks slowly towards the flowery terrace.
She stands in front of the large window doors enjoying the view for a second or two before she turns around to me. “I don’t understand where I could help you with anything related to interior design. This is so lovely. And it seems as if it was just renovated.”
“See how intelligent your mommy is,” I whisper to Goldie as he barks again, and Nerthus hits her thighs with her hands.
“What is it Arawn?”
I straighten my spine as I step forward to reach her. “Actually, there has already been a team of interior designers go through here, and the entire house, which belonged to a really old man, has already been completely renovated.”
“What old man?” she chuckles, looking at me curiously.
“Goldman,” I answer with a smile and she cracks up.
Shaking her head, she moves her hand dismissively. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“Ah, but you know I love that too much to stop now,” I joke, making her giggle.
“You know what I mean.”
I follow her downstairs as she must be looking at the interior with completely different eyes now. “Before he was arrested, we got his assets completely frozen. By the pending lawsuits and the irregularities the banks kept disclosing, he encountered high fines and he couldn’t manage paying them back. Also, he was losing all his clientele, so there was no way he could get out of this. This led to him having to sell his property assets and everything he could get hold of, as long as the feds didn’t confiscate everything, and taking up predatory loans.”
“This is so good,” she grins, clapping her hands. “So we are officially back?”
I puff my chest proudly, and Goldie barks once again as if he were able to feel the excitement in the air. “Yes, beautiful. We are officially back.”