Chapter 9

The "Mellows Incident" as Tony referred to it, stirred up the interest of the media. While Tony had escaped the spotlight when the three vice presidents were indicted, he wasn't able to dodge the reporters this time. A leaked police report and an informant in the local F.B.I. office made sure of that.

Martin was sure the F.B.I. leak was deliberate to get favorable press coverage of their "bust." He was angry that someone in his precinct thought it was clever to release the police report, but the damage had already been done. Tony was being besieged with requests for interviews. Reporters were banging on his door at all hours and Nina had retreated to Magda's apartment just to avoid them.

Finally, Tony agreed to grant one interview to one television station; a private not-for-profit cable outlet. He called the F.B.I. to inform them what he intended to do, and while they were unhappy they realized that they were the authors of this situation with their own information leak. They advised him what to stay away from in terms of evidence. They did not want him compromising the trial with inadvertent help to the defence.

The interview focused on Tony's recovery from amnesia and the bizarre story surrounding it. There was little interest in the technical details of the fraud, merely that it precipitated the attempt on his life, his memory loss, his new life and new identity and finally, his reuniting with his wife and regaining most of his memory. It was a great human interest story and the cable station ran the interview several times to milk the maximum value from it.

A major publisher contacted him and offered a sinful amount of money for the exclusive story, but Tony put them off, citing complications with the forthcoming trial. Perhaps afterwards, he hinted. He would at least do them the courtesy of discussing it.

Aurelia Chinetti had passed them on to Tom Hanson, an associate who specialized in commercial property, and in April, he had found a suitable site for Tony's restaurant. Ironically, it had been a photography shop. The location was good, the size was right and the access for commercial deliveries was in place through the traditional lane in the back. The space would have to be gutted, but that was no surprise. By very good luck, there was public parking available across the street, an unusual benefit in this district.

For a while, Tony was concerned about short-term financing and a need to dip into his special reserve, but got a surprise from Mr. Leung. He was willing to act as banker for the venture at bank prime rate. Tony and the elderly man sat down and hammered out the details in contract form. Repayment terms held no penalties for early retirement of the loan. Mr. Leung's English hadn't improved very much, but his confidence in Tony had. He was pleased to have the opportunity to be Tony's partner.