“Kat.” Robert Argenziano looked like he was in his late forties, in good shape except for a slight jowliness. Dressed like a professor in an adult extension MBA program, a pair of eyeglasses in squared little Versace frames, blue Egyptian cotton shirt, and a Harris tweed sportsjacket over gray slacks. Hamilton watch. Good shoes. No pinky ring.
“How’d you know me?”
“Are you kidding?” He smiled and shot a quick look around the room, pointedly taking in the other diners. Kat wasn’t sure if he was complimenting her or insulting them. “Come on, I have a table waiting.”
He led her to a section of the restaurant where no one else was seated. A waiter rushed to beat them to the table. Argenziano collapsed into his chair as if throwing himself into a La-Z-Boy, pulling his napkin from where it was stuffed into his water goblet in the same motion.
“Help the lady into her seat, Ignatz,” he told the waiter, chopping the air in her direction with the edge of his hand.
“It’s Sean, sir.”
“Whatever.”
The nonrhotic pronunciation flared into the rejoinder, as did a certain macho shrugged impatience that was familiar to Kat from about a million movies and TV shows. Sean helped her into her chair.
“Now,” Argenziano said, the attentive mentor again, “please order whatever you’d like. I’d recommend the single-malt scotch marinated tips of beef with the asparagus in Armagnac reduction and the gorgonzola polenta. Surprisingly light. Excellent.”
Kat glanced at the menu. “I’ll have a salad niçoise,” she said.
“Excellent,” repeated Argenziano. “Some wine with that?”
“Do you have anything Sicilian?”
Argenziano smiled tightly. “Very nice Trebbiano.”
“I’ll have a glass of that, then, please.”
Sean poked the components of her order into a handheld electronic device and then turned formally toward Argenziano.
“Bring me a steak, rare, and a glass of mineral water.”
Sean entered the order and then hustled away. Argenziano leaned forward as if sharing a secret. “I only eat half. Doctor’s orders.” Kat nodded, and then the two of them sat for a moment in silence.
“So,” said Kat. “You’d said that you could tell me something about Jackie Saltino.”
“So I did. What would you like to know about him?”
Sean returned with the mineral water and a bottle of wine, which he extended for Kat’s inspection. She assented to his turning her wineglass right side up and pouring a thimbleful into it. She found herself nodding appreciatively before she’d even gotten the glass to her lips, and thought about how she felt sometimes as if these rituals were embarrassing for everybody.
“Oh,” she answered, when Sean had gone to get bread, “everything.” They shared a small prescribed laugh.
“What can I say? He worked for us, he left our employ voluntarily, I haven’t seen him since.”
“He worked for the casino?”
“Not exactly. He shared the same employer I have.”
“Which is?”
“South Richmond Consultants. Ah.” Kat had removed a notebook and pen from her purse.
“You consult with casinos.”
“We develop business solutions uniquely suited to the gaming and hospitality industries. We also broker arrangements between resort owners and certain trades: construction, waste management, vendors of goods and services, and so forth. We bring people together.”
The bread arrived and Argenziano literally drummed his fingers while the boy set out two small dishes and poured olive oil from a decanter into the center of each.
“What sort of ‘business solutions’ have you come up with for Manitou Sands?”
“That would be proprietary information, I’m afraid.”
“And when you broker these arrangements, I take it that you earn a commission?”
“Yes, that’s the standard practice. A commission based on the value of the contract.”
“From both ends?”
“No. Generally payment is on the resort’s end. It’s very similar to real estate. The buyer pays the commission.”
“What if the resort decides, say, that it wants to hire someone on its own? Buy locally produced food, say.”
Argenziano, whose hand had made several false moves toward the bread, grabbed a piece, dipped it in the pooled olive oil on the dish before him, and took a bite. He nodded at Kat while chewing. He swallowed and took a sip of mineral water.
“Resort management is free to make any business decision that it feels is in its best interests.” This came out sounding like “innarests.” “We expect them, of course, to fully honor existing obligations. But we can work with all sorts of different contractors and vendors. They’re usually pretty quick to see the advantages of working with us. It means more business for them, sometimes considerably more. Of course, in such cases we take a commission on that end as well. It’s very similar to going to an out-of-network health care provider. You pay for the privilege.”
Kat said, “You told me that you were a ‘liaison.’ What exactly do you liaise?”
“Well, I’m the face South Richmond presents to the Northwest Michigan Band of Chippewa Indians, and vice versa.” Here he paused to smile, demonstrating the face in action. “Mostly I keep lines of communication open. In the very rare instance when one party has a complaint, I convey it to the other. I mediate in those rare instances. This is very rare, though. I must stress the rarity. Most misunderstandings can be cleared up without my ever having to pick up the phone and call back east. That’s one advantage to my being based on-site. I am the face they deal with. It’s a relationship. And for the most part, the job is the very pleasurable matter of overseeing things going very smoothly. It’s very similar to the work, speaking of journalism”—he gestured at her notebook—“of a managing editor. I coordinate the contributions many different individuals bring to a very complex series of operations.”
“And what did Jackie Saltino do?”
“Jackie reported to me. He was our transfer pricing manager.”
“What’s ‘transfer pricing’?”
“It’s pretty complicated to explain. But it has to do with maximizing profit.”
“And this is what Jackie Saltino did.”
“Yeah, until he left us.”
Kat had memorized the details, but it was the authority of the notebook to which she deferred. It was easier, sometimes, kept unpleasant confrontations to a minimum, to rattle off known facts transcribed in her own hand as if they were questionable pieces of information she herself couldn’t quite accept. She flipped a few pages back. “I have Jackie Saltino dropping out of high school in the tenth grade. Two years at Spofford Juvenile Center for auto theft and aggravated assault, remanded to Elmira Correctional Facility when he turned eighteen after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of a fellow detainee at Spofford. Paroled at twenty-one, worked for Archer Courier as a foot messenger for eight months, until he was rearrested on charges of having beaten a Henry I. Baumann, the recipient of a package who he, Jackie, thought had withheld a tip. This time he went to Auburn.” She looked up. “It kind of just goes on.”
“And you disagree with the idea of giving a person who’s paid for their mistakes a chance to wipe the slate?”
“No. I’m all for it. I was just saying that, looking at this history, it doesn’t really suggest the preparation or temperament necessary for a complicated management job.”
Argenziano gave her that tight smile again and sipped his mineral water. “Jackie worked hard to get where he was.”
“But then he left.”