Frederick Weber was just beginning to relax. Over the past year, he’d done everything possible to prove his worth to Victor Kemp. Following the problem with the girl whose body had washed up on shore, Kemp decided it prudent to make substantial changes. Weber applauded his employer’s decision. Although he might have recommended leaving the shipping business altogether, he made every effort to expedite paperwork and renegotiate contracts. They retained some of their most valued clients. Not the human traffickers, thank God. Weber preferred sitting across the table from the attorneys for the world’s most ruthless arms peddlers to dealing with sexual slavers and their minions.
His latest coup involved selling the building in Wapping for an impressive profit. The warehouse had been smartly upgraded. The property still had to move quickly. Daniel’s name was all over the news. He’d disappeared. Weber suspected the absence would be permanent.
That Kemp asked Weber instead of Luisa to arrange the sale surprised the attorney. Perhaps Kemp’s long-time mistress also found it wise to remove herself from the picture. He didn’t know whether authorities might connect her to Daniel. He assumed she was taking precautions. He wondered if she planned to stay away. If so, he would miss her.
While Kemp could be challenging to work for, Weber prided himself on doing right by the man. He rarely allowed himself to think what might happen if he couldn’t perform satisfactorily. At least he could look back and be quite pleased with his career trajectory.
Some twenty-five years earlier, Weber had just finished a discouraging year at a middle-sized real estate concern specializing in commercial properties. With a Harvard law degree in his pocket, he received a number of offers from established Boston and New York law firms. Three years at the prestigious school had soured him on the prospect of a large law firm with its legions of smart associates and cutthroat politics. The real estate job promised less pressure. It also turned out to be deadly dull and insufficiently challenging.
Then he met Luisa Guzman. She changed his life.
Luisa generally worked in high-end residential real estate. She had a property she wanted to help her client convert from apartments to mixed use. Frederick found a way to work around a restrictive zoning law. Luisa made her client happy and in turn suggested Weber might be happier with a firm at the cutting edge of the energy business.
Weber went to work at the age of twenty-six as one of five legal counsels for Kemp’s global enterprise. Everyone who worked for Kemp’s legitimate organization came with a recommendation, regardless of whether the job was in the mailroom or the marketing department. Luisa’s endorsement carried special weight, Weber noted. He felt as if he’d struck pay dirt. The work was interesting. Better still, his generous base salary rendered concerns about bonuses moot.
Frederick Weber knew he presented well. He possessed both focus and flexibility when it came to interpreting the letter of the law. Socially nimble, he stopped just short of being facile. He spoke six languages flawlessly, including Mandarin. He dressed with understated elegance and played jazz piano well enough to impress listeners.
Women loved him. He pretended to love them back. The corporate world in 1987 wasn’t the best place to be out of the closet. AIDS still posed a threat. While he wouldn’t have dreamed of going to a gay bar, he joined a private club whose members were carefully screened. There he could relax and enjoy himself. Mostly he worked hard.
He remembered the employee who would later cause Kemp so much heartache. She went by the intriguing name Susan J. Smith, which sounded so phony as to be laughable. She spoke in a modulated tone that hid her origins. She kept her face a mask and rarely showed emotion. Somewhere in her thirties, she possessed an ambiguous beauty, with pale skin, blue eyes, and blonde-brown hair. Even her job title projected mystery: corporate security manager. She traveled half the time, to conferences or meetings, Weber assumed.
Susan Smith was good at her job. She designed solutions that addressed security weaknesses. She came up with suggestions for protecting against predatory competitors looking to steal information. All in all, she was a diligent worker.
Occasionally, she might approach Weber’s group with questions about the legal implications of a safeguard she’d conceived. As technology began to play an important part of corporate life, she challenged the lawyers to think beyond contracts and mergers. Under her gentle prodding, they stayed abreast of developments in cyber-law. He liked the way her mind worked, always two steps ahead. He admired her self-possession, although he picked up on the sadness that colored their brief exchanges.
Weber kept his head down and his ambitions up. Within a decade, he’d risen to the position of chief corporate counsel. He was just thirty-six. When Kemp brought Paul Guzman into the fold, the younger man gravitated to the urbane attorney, referring to him as “my comrade-in-arms.” They even resembled one another with their pastel blue eyes and fair hair. The unmarried Weber took the new hire under his wing socially, a move thoroughly endorsed by Kemp. The lawyer suspected a blood connection between Guzman and Kemp and considered how it might present him with an opportunity.
Unfortunately, something else threatened to interfere. From the moment he laid eyes on the young man with the good future, Weber experienced an attraction so strong it pierced his heart, scrambled his mind, and stirred passions he didn’t know he could feel.
By that time, being gay carried less social stigma than it had when Weber began working. Being in love with the son of his employer, a hyper-masculine man with ambitions for his heir, was a riskier proposition. Weber was no fool, and he was not without discipline. Since he couldn’t presume his feelings for Paul were mutual, he knew to keep his desires thoroughly suppressed.
He lived in a state of exquisite anxiety. Each day became about the anticipation of seeing the young man. Paul’s office was down the corridor from Weber’s, and he developed the habit of popping his head in to greet the attorney with a “Hello, Frederick, how are we today?” The plural never failed to send a shiver through Weber.
The men attended events together in the company of women. Weber relied on his long-time friend Clara, a beautiful and remarkably accommodating woman. Paul dated a series of young and, to Weber’s mind, inferior females. Sometimes the two men went out for drinks with coworkers. Susan Smith never joined them.
Once, when the two of them found themselves at the bar ordering drinks for their table, Weber nearly let down his guard. They’d consumed plenty of top-shelf liquor at that point and were sloppily finishing each other’s sentences. Weber leaned in and fingered the collar of Guzman’s jacket. He allowed his hand to linger at the back of the other man’s neck.
Paul jerked away as if he’d been bitten. He stared unsteadily at the other man.
“What are you doing, Frederick?”
Weber played it cool. He narrowed his eyes as if he were studying the inside of the man's shirt. He shook his head, sat back, and wiped his hand on a cocktail napkin.
“You’ve got something on your collar. I thought it was blood; thank God it’s shrimp sauce. What the hell, Paul? Have you been napping in the hors d’oeuvres again?”
Paul roared with laughter and clapped Weber on the shoulder.
“If you only knew where this shirt has been, my friend.”
The lawyer put his companion in a cab and walked seventeen blocks to his apartment, cursing his carelessness and praying the incident would be forgotten. It was. When he went into work the next day, everything appeared as it always did. Paul even stopped by to complain of a headache.
“I suggest you drink lots of water.” Weber didn’t look up when he spoke.
Only when Paul left did the older man let the air out of his lungs. He swore he’d be more cautious going forward, no matter the personal cost.
Not long after Paul’s promotion to CEO, he proposed Weber become Kemp’s personal attorney. His father’s long-time advisor was retiring for health reasons, the son explained. Weber couldn’t imagine declining. The salary matched something he might pull in as a member of a prestigious law firm, except he didn’t have to share or pay back into the company. The favored son and new chief executive officer had recommended him. He’d now be read in on sensitive information. He might even have more interaction with Paul. Was there any downside?
Working closely with Victor Kemp might be one. If everyone carried secrets, Kemp probably had an armoire full of them. Beneath the bespoke suits and handmade ties, the man was a thug, or maybe worse. Weber had guessed as much the day he joined Kemp’s firm.
He’d long suspected Kemp operated at two levels, one completely aboveboard, the other far beneath the surface of propriety or legality. The public corporation did well. Even during economic downturns, the enterprise as a whole prospered. Kemp grew his business carefully. He retained a fleet of smart financial advisors. He built a board of shrewd investors. Still, a cash-heavy company, even a cautious one, suggested something less than aboveboard.
Working in the shade could prove hazardous, even for an attorney with flexible ethics. Refusing the promotion that introduced him to Kemp’s dark world would be more so.
~
Weber wasn’t apprised of the specifics of Kemp’s trip to Wales, only that it wasn’t to be a fishing vacation as announced but a potentially dangerous undertaking. The lawyer thought to question Arkady Dyukov, the taciturn Russian who worked as a sort of overseer. He doubted the man would be forthcoming. The two had taken an instant dislike to one another. At least they generally operated within separate spheres.
Weber only knew the plans called for Dyukov to accompany Kemp, Paul, and three others for a portion of the journey and then wait in Bristol for further instructions. Weber couldn’t understand why Paul had to make the trip—peace-loving, numbers-oriented Paul. The idea filled him with dread.
Three days after the explosion, Luisa Guzman sent Weber a ticket to London, along with a set of instructions. Weber hastily packed and grabbed a commercial flight out, his heart in his throat.
Once across the pond, Luisa apprised him of the entire horrific story. Weber didn’t understand what Susan Smith had done to incur Kemp’s wrath; she’d been gone five years at that point. He only knew Kemp’s determination to exact punishment had led to the deaths of five people, including the man’s own son.
Luisa assumed Weber would react chiefly out of self-interest. To that end, she assured him his services would be needed whether her paramour lived or died. Weber drew no comfort from her promise. Alone in his posh hotel room, he wept. Paul’s death devastated him. Yet he refused to wallow in regret. He worked for a criminal, which made him indirectly culpable. You lie down with dogs; you wake up with fleas. So he showered, shaved, rested for a few hours, and went back to sit vigil in the apartment where Victor Kemp hovered between life and death.
As soon as Kemp’s survival became assured, the lawyer commuted back and forth between London and New York in order to secure the business, ensure the lines of succession, and safeguard finances. He took a seat on the board and, together with Luisa’s proxy, voted for actions that assured money would flow to one of his employer’s secret accounts. He admired the mistress both for her loyalty and her acumen. She seemed in turn to value both his abilities and his willingness to handle all manner of arrangements. It made sense. Though remarkably resilient, not to mention resourceful, the woman was mourning her son.
As Kemp recovered, he relied on his lawyer to work out the details of his new shipping enterprise. Weber liked the focus. By serving those criminals with whom Kemp had formerly competed, they might remove potential threats. Starting over obviously appealed to Kemp’s entrepreneurial side. Overseeing a single business afforded him the opportunity for more top-down management. Luisa considered it good therapy. The attorney drew up papers and negotiated contracts with his usual savvy and finesse.
Then Daniel arrived.
Weber didn’t know the second son very well. He didn’t like what he saw. On the subject of Daniel Guzman, he agreed with Dyukov. The young man had nothing in common with his older brother or either of his parents, for that matter. He was lazy, disrespectful, spoiled, and possessed of an outsized view of his value. Luisa proved to be predictably forgiving. Victor’s indulgence of his second son’s indiscretions surprised Weber. An only child, Weber maintained a polite relationship with his parents. Placing family above all else had always seemed unwise, even fraught. Daniel’s series of blunders proved the point.
Weber sighed and returned to the present, which found him packing in his London hotel room. He looked forward to heading home. He welcomed a respite from the envy that radiated off Arkady Dyukov. The man had a pitiful need for his employer’s approval; that much was clear.
The lawyer was comfortable in his skin at last. He’d resigned himself to a life absent intimacy but filled with other fine things money could buy. He didn’t care what Kemp thought of him personally. He only wanted to remain invaluable to the man until such time as Weber could negotiate his retirement or his employer died—whichever came first.
His phone pinged. A text. Weber hated the intrusion but appreciated the convenience of instant communication. He was still an officer of Kemp’s legitimate empire, even though he was at the same time handling the legal affairs for the new shipping concern owned by Kemp’s doppelgänger, Johan Krüger. In both capacities, he needed to make himself available. Speed-dial worked well enough, text even better. Weber sighed and picked up his phone.
It read: “do u still carry a torch 4 him?”
Weber frowned. He looked at the number. Blocked. He typed back.
“Who is this?”
“u must miss him even now”
Two emoticons followed, one kissing and one looking sad.
The lawyer’s stomach tightened. He tried to think how to respond. Another text appeared.
“at least u have memories”
The note was followed by a blurred image. Weber sank to the bed, his heart pounding. The photo must have been a decade old, probably taken with one of those instant cameras. It showed Frederick Weber and Paul Guzman at a bar, their heads almost touching. Weber’s hand was at the back of the younger man’s neck as if about to embrace him. He knew exactly when this had been taken: the night the attorney came so close to exposing his true feelings.
Who had taken the picture? It must have been one of his coworkers. Who’d been at the bar with them? He couldn’t possibly remember after all this time.
The cursed text pinged again.
“cute couple. did VK know about u2?”
Weber commanded his fingers to obey.
“what do u want?”
He stared at the screen, willing it to respond.
A response appeared:
“u will know soon.”