That same night, a black Lincoln pulled up to the stone-pillared gates of the large estate in Greenwich. The darkened window of the car rolled down and the man behind the wheel, who was actually the passenger’s most trusted aide, leaned out and spoke into the security speaker. “Senator Casey.”
“I was told to have you drive up to the office,” the Filipino house servant said.
The “office” was a sleek stone and glass structure connected by an underground walkway to the large main house. The estate was situated on the point in Belle Haven, a promontory jutting into the sound where even the modest homes went for four to five million. And this was anything but. It had a helicopter pad, a dock that could moor a hundred-foot boat, a par-3 golf hole patterned after the famous sixteenth at Augusta. It even boasted a spectacular view of the Throgs Neck Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. It was the kind of place that anyone on the adjacent shore or passing by on the water might stare at in awe, wondering, Who lives there?
Senator Oren Casey had been here many times. For parties attended by some of the most influential people on Wall Street. Fund-raising galas at a thousand dollars a head. Or just for “business.” The senator was one of the most influential people in the statehouse. When someone needed something done—bills brought up in committee, licenses granted—things generally ran through him. Over the years, he had been courted many times by Washington to run for higher office. “An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens,” he always said, quoting Jefferson.
But privately, for thirty years, in his heart he laughed at the lie.
The Lincoln wound down the long drive leading to the house and came to a stop in the circular roundabout. The senator didn’t wait for his door to be opened. He wasn’t a fancy man and that wasn’t his aide’s job anyway. He bundled his overcoat against the breeze and waved through the glass to the old man who stood in the doorway.
Richard Scayne waved back.
They had known each other for decades; their fortunes had merged as their empires grew. The son of a Waterbury mill owner, Scayne had always been a bear of a man with round, thick shoulders and coarse laborer’s hands. Piercing blue eyes that could read a man like an X-ray.
Over the years, the senator had smoothed the way for many lucrative arrangements for him, always, at first blush, to the benefit of the state. Securing the way for Datacorp, Scayne’s “back office” data division, to buy their corporate headquarters in Stamford. Tax credits for relocating a large block of workers for their turbine factory up in Waterbury. Scayne even had a minority position in TRV, the consortium that ran the Pequot Woods, and retained a small but lucrative piece of the casino.
Casey thought it a shame to see what was happening to him now.
Not just the cancer, which had eaten away the man’s once-powerful presence. But the fact that he was under indictment by the state’s liberal attorney general. Caught up in this Iraq corruption mess. Under house arrest. A man who had brought more jobs to Connecticut than all the casinos strung together. His turbine plant in New London alone employed over fifteen hundred people.
The door opened and the two longtime friends embraced. Casey said to Scayne, “You know Ira.”
“Of course.” The billionaire nodded, extending his hand. “Ira.”
Scayne’s face was now gaunt, no longer robust and jowly. His formerly orange hair was white and sparse, his shoulders narrow. His usual machinist’s grip was half its normal strength. He’d fought the cancer like he’d fought every battle in life, to win—not just to win, to mow it down. To stampede over interference. This time, it didn’t seem as if God had gotten the memo.
The aide in the tweed golf cap nodded dutifully. “Mr. Scayne.”
“We’ll just be a minute, Ira,” Casey said, indicating for him to remain outside.
The two men went into Scayne’s office, a two-story glass and beam structure that looked out on the Long Island Sound. Casey couldn’t help but notice the black tracking donut secured to the old man’s ankle.
“Helluva risk coming here like this, Oren,” Scayne acknowledged. He glanced down at the donut. For the past year, Scayne had been under house arrest. “Of course, there’s not much chance anymore of me coming to you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Richard.”
Casey plopped himself on the large leather couch, Scayne in a chair across from him, exhaling as he lowered himself down. “Don’t ever get ill, Oren. God’s way of paying me back for all my sins.”
“In that case, I can look forward to an equally uncomfortable demise.” The senator smiled.
“Two peas in a pod?” He lifted his leg, the donut dangling. “Where the hell do they think I can go anyway? I can barely make it to the fucking toilet to take a pee.”
He reached forward to the large Noguchi coffee table and picked up a couple of brochures. Casey saw that they were the annual reports of companies Scayne either owned or had interests in. Datacorp. Apex Turbine. The NHL’s Nashville team. One by one, he tossed them back on the table.
The last was a product brochure from SRC Electric, which he made a point of tossing in front of Casey’s eyes. “Suppliers of the Nova 91.”
“Who would have thought a bunch of goddamn generators could bring the two of us down?”
“We’re not down yet.” Casey met the sick man’s eyes. “I’m looking into the assignment of a new lawyer. They may appoint a new head of the office up in Hartford. Not such a rabble-rouser. One more sensitive to the good you’ve done for the state. I’m busting as many balls as I can. In the meantime, there is one pesky wrinkle that’s come up.”
“Wrinkle…”
“Not to worry, Richard. You’ve got more pressing things to occupy yourself with.”
“Just as long as we understand each other, Oren…I won’t be spending the last time God gives me on this earth in a courtroom watching a bunch of meddling legislators undo everything I’ve done. I’ll use what I have, Oren, whoever I have to bring down. No reason for us not to be seeing things clearly between us now.”
The senator smiled. “You make it very hard not to root for the cancer to get you first, Richard.”
“I tend to think of it as motivation, Oren. I won’t be participating in any trial.”
Casey stood up. He took along the SRC brochure. “I think that’s all I came to hear. From your lips. No reason to take up any more of your time.”
“You mentioned a wrinkle…”
“I’m taking care of it. Some pesky local policeman. Sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.” He waved it off. “Thinks it’s all about some gambling issue. At the Pequot Woods. We’ve got it covered.”
Scayne pushed himself out of the chair too. “You, if anyone, know how to handle that sort of thing.”
The senator took a last view of the sound and moved toward the door. “I truly wish you the best, Richard. We’ve logged a lot of miles together over the years. It would be a shame to see it all undone at the end…”
Scayne took his arm. “Just remember—if I go, you go, Oren. I’m sorry to say that, but at this stage, that’s the best guarantee I have. So go do what you do best—put the pressure on. Bust some balls. Just so you know that in the end, I won’t be party to any trial.”
They walked to the door and opened it; the man in the tweed cap stood up.
“Thanks for driving him down, Ira…I think we said all we had to say.”