Lawrence Elgin Coffey
Penzil on the horn, Sunday evening.
“You going in tomorrow?” he wants to know.
“Into the city?” I say. “What the hell for?”
“I don’t know. I thought it might do you some good to get out of the house. I understand it’s been pretty rough over there.”
“You got it.”
“Helen says Georgie’s been under sedation?”
“I guess so. Her old man prescribed something.”
“How is she?”
“That I can’t tell you. I’m still kind of persona non grata around here.”
“Well, look, Bear, she had a pretty hallucinating experience yesterday, on top of everything. I saw you both on the news. You looked a little green around the gills, but I hardly recognized Georgie. Helen says the best thing is for everybody to stay out of her hair right now.”
“I guess so. I’ve gotten pretty good at that.”
“Look, it’s all going to blow over once you get Justie back. You and I both know that. The important thing is getting the two of you through it. I take it there’s nothing new in the case?”
“Nothing.”
“No more phone calls?”
“Nope. Capriello thinks we’re going to get hit with a ransom demand any minute. I hope to fuck he’s wrong.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What’ll I do if he’s right, plead personal bankruptcy? I don’t have the money, Joe.”
“Well, that’s something we ought to talk about. Look, Bear, why don’t you drive in with me in the morning? In your impecunious state, I’ll even buy you breakfast. You can come with me to the office, go to the club, I don’t know, even go over to The Cross. You’re still employed, aren’t you? I think it’s eating you up, all the waiting and hanging around.”
“Oh, I’m okay. But how come you’re driving in? Have they canceled the 7:12?”
“I’m going up to see a client in Connecticut, later on. I’ll need the car.”
“What time you leaving?”
“Eight-thirty, nine.”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty tempting. A hell of a thing, but I feel like I ought to ask somebody for permission first.”
“Come on, big fella, it’ll do you good. Get yourself all suited up for a business day. I’ll pick you up at nine. Be ready.”
I’m waiting on the front porch when Joe drives up in the morning. Briefcase in hand, which is some kind of joke. It’s a gray day, but not as cold as it should be for January. We talk about that—the greenhouse effect, the warming of the planet, real estate in Canada. We talk tennis too—he hasn’t played in a long time either, and if we don’t get busy, Spain and Furth, Spain’s partner, are going to run the Bear and the Runt off the courts in the spring. Joe must have it in mind to talk about any topic so long as it’s not Justie or The Cross, which is okay with me, and I don’t even notice at first that we’ve shot by the cutoff road to the Holland Tunnel and gone through the Turnpike toll booths instead.
“Hey, babe, you just blew it, didn’t you?” I say.
“I didn’t blow it.”
“No? Then where the hell are we going?”
“Lincoln Tunnel. Midtown.”
“Midtown? Since when do you work in midtown?”
He tells me to let him concentrate on his driving. True, it’s Monday morning on the Turnpike, take-no-prisoners time. From the traffic, every swinging semi in America must be headed for the Big Apple.
He says something about taking me to breakfast in style.
“Come on, Joe,” I say, “don’t give me this breakfast shit. What the hell’s going on? Why are we going to midtown?”
He doesn’t answer for a minute. I don’t get it. My stomach does a little roll-over. I say it again: “What the fuck’s going on, Joe?”
“Okay,” he says, his eyes on the road. “The truth is, I’m taking you to a meeting. That’s all I can tell you, Bear, but, believe me, it’s for your own good.”
I laugh out loud.
“A meeting? What kind of meeting? Who with? Hey, Runt, this is your friend, remember? What the fuck’s going on?”
But I can’t get it out of him. I can’t believe it, but it’s no joke, the guy’s dead serious. I end up swearing at him. If we’re going to a meeting, then the whole thing was a fucking setup, wasn’t it, starting with his phone call last night? It’d do you good to get out of the house, what a crock! And how can he pull this on me, for Christ’s sake, he’s my best friend! But all I can get out of him, the only thing, is: “Trust me, Bear. Just keep your cool. It’s for your own good, I promise you.”
It has to do with Justie, I can smell it. But why all the hush-hush, is it the fucking Mafia? The smart money behind the banks? Ever since I started naming names, I’ve been afraid of something like this happening, but where in hell does Penzil fit in?
I’ve broken out into a sweat, for Christ’s sake.
We drive in silence the rest of the way. No more small talk. A half hour later, we’re parked in front of a small hotel a few blocks south of Grand Central. Penzil has one of these NYPD Captain’s Association cards which he sticks in his windshield—claims he’s never once gotten a ticket when he’s used it—and we go in past a reception desk to the elevators.
Eleventh floor. He doesn’t even have to ask. He leads me down a corridor to the door of a suite. The last thing he says before he knocks is, “You’re in for a surprise, Bear, but it’s okay. Just listen to what they’ve got to say and keep your wits about you.”
“Listen to what who’s—” I start, but a uniformed waiter has already got the door open, and behind the waiter, in the living room …
Well, what do you know?
I must have gone into shock for a second, when it simply doesn’t register. But now, sweet Jesus, it registers!
Leon Gamble is standing next to a breakfast table, the Great White himself. And sitting behind him, coffee cup in hand, is none other than my rabbi.
Francis Hale Holbrook.
I haven’t talked to him since New Year’s Eve, when he called to find out what was going on.
As for the Great White, I haven’t talked to him since he called to tell me they were keeping my contract in force.
But the two of them together!
Penzil has gone, and once there’s a fresh silver pot of coffee on the table, the Great White dismisses the waiter and sits down himself.
I’m sitting down too. Have we shaken hands? Holbrook and Gamble, Gamble and Holbrook. It stones me.
Apparently they’ve had breakfast together. The tablecloth is clear except for coffee cups, but I can still smell food.
The Great White and the Rabbi.
“Larry,” Gamble starts in without preamble, “it looks like we’ve all gotten ourselves into the quicksand together. It’s been one hell of a mess, hasn’t it, compounded of mistakes and misunderstandings you wouldn’t believe. Well, there’s no taking back the past. Done is done. But it’s our intention, Frank’s and mine, to straighten it out with you right here and now—this morning—and make you whole.”
I stare at Holbrook—what quicksand? what do you have to do with the quicksand?—but he has nothing to say.
“Once I learned of your special relationship with Frank,” the Great White is saying, “and I gather it goes back a lot of years, I invited him to join us. It seemed like the right thing to do. And he wanted to be here as an interested party.”
An interested party? To what? But what do I know? I’m still locked on the single fact: that they know each other! Well, they’re allowed to, aren’t they? Wall Street’s like a small town. And this meeting—all the hocus-pocus with Joe, the anonymous hotel suite in midtown—that’s much more Holbrook’s style, not Gamble’s.
You want paranoia, Christ Almighty, how much have I told him? My mind spins with it. New Year’s Eve, I think that’s the last time I talked to him. It seems like years ago. He called to wish me well, polite as always. But did I tell him about Richter? I remember him cautioning me: Don’t do anything you’ll regret later. Karnishak came later, after the phone calls. I gave all my stuff to Karnishak first, and then Richter.
But there’s Penzil too! For God’s sake, I’ve told Joe everything!
I’ve missed half of what Gamble’s been saying. I’ve been looking right at him but not hearing. I’ve got ocean waves in my ears, like listening to a conch shell. If I told Joe everything, don’t I have to assume they know it too?
“Wait a minute, Leon,” I interrupt him, fighting off panic. “I don’t get it. I mean, what are you talking about? What quicksand? You’re not by any chance talking about Justin, are you? My son? Because if you are, how in the hell are you going to make me whole?”
“Larry, we’re well aware of what you’ve been going through,” he says sympathetically. “The whole business with your son, on top of our misunderstandings at The Cross. Your whole life coming apart, all at once, do you think I don’t understand? I know you’ve been running around like a lunatic, making all sorts of wild charges against the company and people we do business with. Some of them are serious. You know what my first reaction was? I said, ‘We’re going to sue his fucking ass off—for slander, libel, you name it.’ But the more I thought about it … well, you were going through hell, weren’t you? I even thought: In Larry Coffey’s shoes, I might be doing the same thing. So we’ve done nothing on that score, so far. And then of course there’s the matter of your contract. We felt the least we could do, under the circumstances, was extend it indefinitely.”
If the charges are so wild, though, slanderous, libelous, then what on God’s green earth are we doing in a secret meeting, uptown, in the middle of the morning? And what does Frank Holbrook have to do with it?
“But it wasn’t enough, Larry,” Gamble is saying. “Look, I know we went too far with you too fast. I admit it freely. Last fall—you know it as well as I do—a kind of mass hysteria set in on the Street. A lot of us went looking for radical solutions, and we at The Cross decided to clean house. It was high time anyway, but in a few special cases such as yours—inevitably—we threw the baby out with the bath water. What’s more, I think we even knew it at the time. But no two ways about it, it was corporate panic, corporate stupidity at its worst. Mea culpa, and you had every right to be pissed.”
He’s glossing over stuff, I realize, but I can’t focus on it.
“I’m sorry, Leon,” I said, “but I still don’t get it. If you’re saying you fucked me over, I agree. But—”
“As much as that was a business decision,” he goes on, “and a bad one, there’s also been the personal side since. Look, I’m sorry about it, what can I tell you? The story of your missing kid, it’s horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. That business the other day, at that mall out in New Jersey? You came within an inch of getting him back, didn’t you?”
I can’t answer. I’m watching his white head shake in sympathy. The Great Sympathizer. Everything so far, I bet, has been for softening up. You start with shock treatment—Holbrook being here—and then the Great White makes nice-nice. Mea culpa.
While Holbrook keeps quiet?
Gamble’s eyebrows go up, come down, stay down. He leans forward in his chair, elbows on the table, his eyes boring in on mine.
Crunch time, I think, and watch out for your ass.
“I’m not going to screw around with you, Larry,” he says. “By a fluke—really, it’s a tremendous coincidence—we’ve learned something about the case. About your son’s case. We’re absolutely unable and unwilling to go into any of the details,” leaning further forward, “but I think we can deliver him back to you, safe and sound. In fact, we’re ready to commit ourselves to it.”
He says it slowly, emphatically. Or maybe that’s me, listening. Can you put a voice in slow motion? I glance quickly at Holbrook. He doesn’t seem even to be listening. Then back at the Great White’s intense stare.
“Is it just a fluke?” I say.
“Is what a fluke?”
“You just said you found out something about the case ‘by a fluke.’ A ‘tremendous coincidence.’ Well? Is it one?”
He returns me stare for stare, just like that morning in his office.
“That’s what I said,” he answers levelly.
The son of a bitch is lying through his teeth.
And then—so help me—I can’t hold it back anymore.
“Come on, Leon,” I accuse him, “how big of a goddamn jerk do you take me for? Was it a fluke that you strung me out at The Cross, or were you afraid of canning me because of what I know? Do you think I don’t know who’s looking at you? And was it a fluke my son got snatched at the same time? Was it a fluke I get anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night telling me to keep my mouth shut if I want him back? While all the time I’m making these supposedly ‘wild’ charges? And now you’re telling me that by another fluke—this ‘tremendous coincidence’—you just happen to know something about the case? Come on, Leon, tell me you just stumbled onto it, like dogshit. I’m ready to believe anything today.”
He doesn’t so much as blink.
“Are you making an accusation?” he asks.
“I don’t have to,” I retort. “You guys are accusing yourselves.” I see him glance at Holbrook. No reaction. “Come on, Leon,” I say, “this big hush-hush meeting, and all your sympathy and commiseration and your mea fucking culpa and we’re here to make you whole out of the kindness of our hearts? Come on, I know you too well for that.”
The Great White pushes off abruptly on his palms, stands up. He says he wants a word in private with Frank, and with a nod and jerk of his head he leads Holbrook to the windows at the other end of the suite.
I watch them, head to head. Faces pale. Gamble’s doing most of the talking. I realize my palms are sweating and that I’m twisting my hair between my fingers. Georgie always criticizes the habit, says it’s making me bald. Well, then I’ll be bald. But I stop anyway.
They come back. Holbrook has his head down. I can’t read him. Gamble’s eyes are on me. He leans forward across the table again, and his white hair gleams in the light. A deep breath, exhales, then he says, “What you just suggested, Larry, is pure paranoia. I’m not even going to dignify it with a response. But we’ve agreed to tell you this much, although if you ever say we said it, we’ll deny it out of hand, just the way we’ll deny this meeting ever took place. We’ve no interest in damaging innocent people. But it so happens we know something about the girl—Harriet—the one who worked for you, except that’s not her real name. She comes from a family—well, that some of us happen to know. An old Wall Street connection, if you insist, but it’s one that goes back before your time. It also happens that she’s, let us say, a little mentally off. In fact, sometime last year she disappeared from an institution. She’s been missing ever since, and it seems she landed—this was sheer coincidence—in your household. And that’s all I’m going to say about it. The situation is highly delicate, but if you let us handle it our way, I think we can keep it from blowing up in our collective faces. The only important thing, as far as you’re concerned, is that your boy is okay and that we can get him back for you.”
He sits back, studying me, his brows in a straight line across. I can’t absorb it all. Harriet a nut case? And not her name? I catch a glimpse of her in my mind, the little prick teaser.
“Then why are we sitting here?” I manage to say. “If you can get him back, why haven’t you done it?”
“Because there’s something we want in exchange, Larry.”
But it’s not the Great White who said that. It’s Holbrook.
And now—here it comes—it’s Holbrook’s turn.
They must have worked it all out ahead of time. They must have decided: If they leave it to the Great White to tell me what they want in exchange for Justie, there’s a risk I’ll tell him to go fuck himself. But Francis Hale Holbrook has been my friend, my rabbi, for over ten years. In spite of everything, they must have figured his presence would convince me that the magic could be mine one more time.
Or maybe, convince me that there’s no other magic, no other way.
It works too, I guess.
Not that I’m blind to the play, but I’m listening. Listening hard. Holbrook starts out with the stick: what they want from me. Very simple. I’m too fucking stunned to say anything. And now comes the carrot: what they’re willing to do for me in exchange.
If I agree to it, Justie will be returned to me, alive and well, within twenty-four hours.
The abduction case will be considered closed. No charges will be brought by me or my family. If the authorities persist in criminal proceedings against the young woman or any third party, we may obviously be obliged to participate, but there’s reason to think the authorities will let the matter drop.
I will be rehired by Shaw Cross on an independent basis—the same arrangement already proposed by the Great White with, however, full company benefits and a minimum guarantee of $200,000 a year, net of all expenses, for a minimum term of five years. If I decide to take another job or start another business while the agreement is in effect, Shaw Cross will make up the difference, if any, between my new earnings and $200,000.
There’s more to it—fine-print stuff—but that’s the gist of it. Simple, like I said. All I have to do is sell my soul to the devil and I’ll get my son back, plus a million bucks over five years to ease the pain.
“We invite your comments,” Holbrook says finally.
I take a deep breath. Keep it short, keep it cool, I tell myself. Hold your fucking temper.
“In other words, if I decide to sit on my duff for five years, I’ll still get my two hundred grand?”
“That’s right,” Holbrook answers. He smiles at me. “But knowing you, Larry, I can’t imagine that happening.”
“Maybe, maybe not. If I do what you want me to do, I’m not going to be able to get a job as a janitor. Not on Wall Street anyway.”
They say nothing. It’s true enough, and they know it: if I do what they want me to do, I’ll be a fucking pariah. So long, Big Bear.
“Gee, Frank, I don’t know. Two hundred grand is quite a come-down from where I am now. And five years? With a family to support?”
I say it half as a joke—a pretty last-ditch one, I admit.
“I’d have thought all you cared about was Justin’s welfare,” Holbrook reproaches me.
“That may be so,” I answer, “but if that’s what you thought, then why are you offering me the money too? Out of the goodness of your hearts? Come on, Frank, Leon said you weren’t going to screw around with me.”
All of a sudden, I can feel the tension level in the room—theirs as well as mine. Gamble’s anyway. As for me, I’ve got Georgie in my mind, screaming: You’ve got a chance to get Justie back and you’re arguing about money?
But Georgie doesn’t understand. It’s a bribe. Call it want you want, guys, it’s still a bribe, and that gives me leverage.
“We’re not screwing around with you,” Holbrook says. “I found the offer eminently fair. I can’t speak for Shaw Cross, of course, but—”
“I can,” Gamble interrupts tersely. “If we can agree on everything else, I’ve got give on the numbers. Let’s hear what else you’ve got.”
I look at him, eye to eye.
“What’s going to happen when they come after me?” I say.
“When who comes after you?”
“The Justice Department, anybody. Do you think they’re going to take this lying down? They’ve got other stuff on you. What happens if they put me under oath, what am I supposed to say then?”
“You just tell them the truth.”
“The truth? What’s the truth?”
“That you don’t actually know squat. Not a goddamn thing. That you spoke out under personal duress and extreme frustration.”
“And that’s why you’ve just offered me two hundred grand a year for five years? Because I don’t know a goddamn thing? What the hell do you take me for?”
Eye to eye, throat for throat.
Keep your cool, Bear.
“I think the point’s well taken, Leon,” Holbrook says mildly, glancing from me to Gamble. “Again, I can’t speak for Shaw Cross, but it seems to me any legal expenses Larry incurs ought to be fully reimbursable. I also think you personally, as well as Shaw Cross, ought to pledge to participate vigorously in Larry’s defense, if it ever comes to that.”
“Done,” Gamble says. “But I still say it’s pretty fucking remote. Without Coffey …” I see Gamble glance down at his watch. “What else you got, other than the money?” he says to me. “Anything else?”
“I want to think it over,” I answer.
“Think what over?”
“Think the whole deal over. What you’ve just offered me.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. There’s no time for that. Either we walk out of here with a deal, right now, or there’s no deal.”
That’s an old tactic too: You lock everybody in a room and nobody leaves till you reach an agreement.
But does he mean it? What happens if I walk now?
Better put: What happens to Justie?
“Just one other thing,” I say. “I want my son released first. Before anything else happens.”
It’s my last card, I realize, but it seems to take them by surprise. I see them glance at each other. It’s as though they don’t know how to answer.
Holbrook shakes his head.
“That can’t be, Larry,” he says. “The whole deal hangs on your fulfilling your part of the bargain immediately.”
“How come?” I ask, my last shot. “Where’s my leverage, your way? Look at it from my point of view, Frank. Once I do it, I’m out in the cold. How do I know you’ll deliver Justin? Suppose you don’t, or you guys get run over by a truck, where does that leave me? Whereas from your point of view, once I’ve got Justin back, you’ll still have my money, won’t you? To keep me honest?”
I’ve been looking at Holbrook. I don’t even see the Great White take the gloves off.
“I think I’ve had enough of this,” he says. He stands up abruptly, bumping the table and rattling the cups. He glowers down at me, one part contempt, one part pissed. “I think we’ve spent enough time here, and frankly, Coffey, I’m tired of wet-nursing you. You do what we tell you to do, and I’m ready to write in three hundred grand a year and eight years. That’s firm and it’s also final. Two million four.”
Suddenly I don’t care anymore. “Discounted, it’s more like a million six, Leon,” I point out to him.
“Discount it however you fucking want!” He’s shouting now. “But that’s what’s on the table. Take it, don’t take it, I don’t give a shit. But if you don’t take it, you’ve got zero. You want to play hardball? Go ahead, bring your charges, shout your goddamn head off! We’ll fight you every inch of the way. Maybe it’ll even turn out the only one who did anything illegal at Shaw Cross, if anyone did, was Larry Coffey. Want to try that one on for size? And as far as your kid’s concerned, you’ll be on your own, buddy boy. Strictly on your own. This meeting’ll never have happened. We’ll both deny it till the fucking cows come home.”
If it’s a bluff, it’s still vintage Great White, and right out on the table. I’d give my left nut to call him out on it—just this once—but there’s no way.
“Let’s stop right there,” Holbrook says. He stays Gamble with his hand. Then, to me: “You know, Larry, there comes a time in any negotiation when certain things have to be taken on faith. I doubt I’m—”
“Faith! For—”
“Please,” he goes on. “You’re right, you know. You’re absolutely right. Doing it our way, you’ll have no leverage left. Except this.” Now his eyes are locked on mine. “Whatever else you may think of me now, I’m a man of my word. Once I make a commitment, I stick to it. Believe me when I say that if we could do it your way, we would. Everybody wants this sorry affair behind us. The best I can do is give you my solemn word: What we say will happen will happen.”
And this is vintage Holbrook.
“What are you doing in the middle of this, Frank?” I blurt out. “What’s in it for you?”
For just a hair of a second, I see strain in his face. I mean, he looks old, distracted, as though his mind is totally elsewhere. But then he focuses in again, and he’s smiling at me faintly.
“I’m just protecting my investments,” he says.
“Your investments?”
“In you, for one thing.” The old ironic, New England voice. “In Shaw Cross for another.”
In Shaw Cross?
The Cross, I know, is the largest privately held firm left on the Street. But doesn’t the family still own the lion’s share? And Gamble, they say, has a piece.
Holbrook too?
Since when?
What was it he once said: networks within networks?
I feel the lump in my throat. I can’t help it. Jesus Christ, he’s been my rabbi for thirteen years!
“And what if I still refuse?” I manage to get out.
“Don’t, Larry,” he says. “By any criterion, you’ve done very well this morning. Now just let’s play it out.”
The same afternoon, downtown, I meet by appointment with one Joseph A. Richter, attorney at the Department of Justice, in his office. I’m accompanied by Joseph Penzil, Esq., of Lambert Laughin Spain.
I’m there to recant.
Everything.
Everything I might have told or intimated to Richter about Shaw Cross & Company and its customers was a fabrication, a fantasy. Everything I might have told or intimated to Special Agent Karnishak of the FBI on the same subject was a fabrication, a fantasy. Shaw Cross & Company, to the best of my knowledge, has never been party to any dirty-money or money-laundering schemes. To the best of my knowledge, none of the customers I’ve dealt with at Shaw Cross has engaged in any illegal activities or activities contrary to federal banking regulations. The same goes for any individuals I might have named to him or Agent Karnishak. No officer or director or other employee of any of the lending institutions I’ve done business with at Shaw Cross have ever suggested to me, in direct statement or by innuendo, that the funds invested with Shaw Cross were derived from illegal sources or activities.
It was all pure invention on my part.
At the end, I apologize to Richter, and to the Department of Justice, the FBI as well, for any inconvenience I might inadvertently have caused them.
Richter’s clearly taken by surprise. He takes notes at first—I, myself, am working from notes Penzil and I put together over lunch—but partway through, he tilts his chair back on its rear legs and just listens, hands linked behind his head.
I look up, done. His pale and freckled skin has gone ruddy. Suddenly he catapults forward on his chair and slams his fist so hard on his yellow pad that the pencil he’s been holding snaps in two.
“Inconvenient?” he explodes at me. “Inadvertent? Goddamn it, Coffey, is all this your idea of a joke? Do you really think you can make a mockery of this whole organization and then just say, ‘Gosh, I’m sorry but I take it all back’ and walk out the fucking door?”
He has a lot more to say. About wasting the department’s time and the taxpayers’ money. About the willful obstruction of one criminal investigation (his) and giving false information in another (Justin’s kidnapping). As far as his—Richter’s—investigation into certain Wall Street practices is concerned, it’s ongoing and nothing I can say will stop it. Furthermore, if it turns out I’m lying now, and if I go on lying in the face of other evidence, then the department will come after me personally with every resource at their disposal.
“You better believe it, friend,” Richter says. “Every fucking resource. So make up your mind right now, because I’ll be goddamned if I’m letting you off the hook. Which version is the truth? What you’ve told Karnishak and me or the bullshit you’re giving me today? And which one are you going to testify to under oath?”
Penzil warned me. He knows Richter from the Street, says he’s got a short fuse. He’s kept mostly quiet to this point, but now, leaning forward, he asks Richter if we can have a few minutes alone.
“Be my guest,” Richter says. He stands, leaves.
Penzil pulls two pads from his briefcase.
“We may be bugged,” he writes, pushing one pad in front of me. “Keep talking but write the important stuff down.”
We communicate through a mix of speech and writing. Penzil says the important thing is that I keep my cool. Richter’s bluffing, he says. What I told them—him and Karnishak—will lead them nowhere by itself. What Penzil suspects is that, prematurely, Richter has blown up their conversations with me into a full-scale scandal, at least inside the Justice Department, and now he’s going to have to eat it.
“Don’t worry about him,” Penzil half-says, half-writes. “Keep to your story. If it comes to it, maybe you said some things you shouldn’t have, to him and Karnishak, but you were distraught, crazed, not yourself. There was your situation at Shaw Cross, your wife had just had a baby, then your kid was snatched right out of your house. More than any sane man could tolerate. You were angry, despondent, even paranoid. Drinking too much. Maybe you made some accusations that had no substance, but it was a crazy time for you. Okay, and now you regret it. That’s why you’re here, to make a clean breast. Now who, I ask you—even in a court of law—is going to hold that against you? Do you see what I mean?”
It’s not in me to argue. I’m thinking of Georgie and Justie, neither of whom is ever likely to understand what I’m doing. I’m thinking of Penzil, the fuck who sold me out, but here I am agreeing to whatever he says.
Then Penzil calls Richter back into his office.
“Well?” Richter says to me. “What have you decided?”
“What we’d like to do, Joe,” Penzil answers, “is give you a sworn statement.”
This catches Richter short.
“A sworn statement? Great! When can I have it, Counselor?”
“What’s wrong with right here and now?” Penzil says.
“Right here and now? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Can you lend us a secretary who takes shorthand?”
“Shit, no. I’ve already wasted enough taxpayers’ money on you bastards. I’ll give you a keyboard, that’s all. You can type the damn thing out yourselves.”
We end up squeezed into a little cubicle, which is the best Richter says he can find for us. Penzil does the typing, on an ancient IBM. The statement pretty much summarizes what I told Richter before—“I, the undersigned, Lawrence Elgin Coffey,” recant fully, of my own free will and in the absence of coercion from any third party—and it ends with the same blanket apology that drove Richter up the wall. We make two copies of it on a department photocopier, one for each of us, and I sign, Penzil witnesses.
Richter makes a show of keeping us waiting. We wait in the corridor outside his office. Finally he meets us in his doorway, in his shirtsleeves, takes the copy of the statement. He glances at it.
“They really got to you, didn’t they?” he says to me. “Well, let me tell you something, Coffey. This won’t be the last you’ll hear from us, you can make book on that. We’ve got long memories around here. Memories like fucking elephants.”
This morning, I guess, I could have hung Penzil up by the thumbs, but by the time we leave Richter, the fight’s pretty much gone out of me. All I can think of is holing up somewhere with a bottle. Instead, we do it together. Joe’s idea. Come on, the Runt says, we better talk this through. We start in the city and work our way to Hoboken and points west.
I kept saying stuff like: “This has been the worst day of my life. I’ve been betrayed by the people closest to me—Frank Holbrook, for Christ’s sake!—and I’ve sold out. I’ve sold my fucking soul down the river, and all for a lousy two million four. Discounted to a million six.”
All with your help, Joe.
“And then there’s you,” I say, “you son of a bitch. I told you everything! You betrayed me!”
Not so, Penzil insists. What about Justie, he says? I’ve got to remember Justie. I didn’t do it for the money, I did it to save my son.
Every time I think of Justie, though, I think of Georgie. I need to tell her, but I can’t tell her anything. Not only did I swear myself to secrecy in the hotel suite, but if I tell her Justie’s coming home, she won’t believe me unless I also tell her I’ve cut a deal. I’m not ready for that.
I’m supposed to meet with Karnishak tomorrow morning. What am I going to say to Karnishak?
“Why do you have to tell anybody anything?” Penzil says. “Why can’t you just let it all happen?”
“Yeah, it’ll all be over in twenty-four hours. That’s their time limit on delivering Justie, right?”
My best fucking friend.
I can’t believe he sold me out. For Christ’s sake, he knows everything, I told him everything!
He keeps saying he only got the call from Gamble yesterday. Gamble only recruited him because he knew we were friends, that’s all.
“Besides,” he tells me, “when you look at it objectively, Bear, aren’t you a damn sight better off now than you were twenty-four hours ago?”
But there’s a missing link, somewhere out there in the fog. Why did he only get the call yesterday? Was it because of what happened at the mall? And why him? Maybe he’s a genius, but he got a late start in the law, and he’s still only an associate at Lambert Laughin Spain, and guys like Gamble and Holbrook deal with partners, not associates.
And then it hits me—dunnnh—right between the eyeballs. Because who else could have tipped Gamble off? Who else could have said: Hey, I’ve got this associate working for me who also happens to be Larry Coffey’s best friend?
I can see the bastard across the net, old hawk face ready to pound a volley at my feet.
“Where does Spain fit in, Joe? Come on, it’s too big a coincidence! Mark’s got to be in it up to his neck—I can smell it—and why the hell won’t you tell me? You owe me, you son of a bitch. You owe me!”
I work him on it. I pound at him. “Who’s protecting who, Joe? I mean there’s got to be more to it! Wall Street companies are always being investigated, and maybe I knew stuff about them, maybe Richter has a file yea thick, but to nail them? For Christ’s sake, kidnapping’s a felony! And all this shit they laid on me about the girl, Harriet? Whatever her real name is? Maybe she is a nut case, what do I know, but there’s got to be something else! What the hell were they so scared of?”
“I think you’re confusing two separate things,” Penzil says.
“I think I’m confusing a lot of things! You’re damned right I am! But they were scared this morning, Joe! I had them by the balls! You owe me, Joe! You’ve got to tell me.”
Back and forth, and he keeps saying he doesn’t know, that he’s only the go-between, the messenger, and I don’t believe him. I bring up the man in the leather coat too, the tweed cap, the one who grabbed Justie at the mall. Who was he? How do I know it wasn’t one of them?
“That’s crazy,” Penzil says. “Guys on Wall Street aren’t into kidnapping, for Christ’s sake! It was Harriet, whatever her name is, who snatched Justie. All they’re doing is getting him back for you.”
“Yeah, out of the goodness of their fucking hearts.”
Finally, though, he stumbles. Has he had too much to drink? Else I’ve worn him down. Else they told him it doesn’t matter anymore, what I know or don’t.
“What you’re missing, Bear,” he tells me, “is that your alma mater—Shaw Cross & Company—is in the process of being sold.”
The news hits me like a load of concrete.
“The Cross is on the block? You’ve got to be kidding!”
“More than on the block. It’s practically a done deal.”
I can’t believe it. I think of MacFarlane, all the stuff he told me. But they weren’t dealing with an investigation, they were selling the company!
“It’s been one of the best-kept secrets I’ve ever run into,” Penzil is saying. “I never even heard a rumor about it before yesterday, when Gamble himself let it out.”
My mouth is open wide enough to catch a pigeon.
“I can’t believe it,” I say. “I can’t fucking believe it. Who’re they selling to?”
“That he wouldn’t tell me,” Penzil answers. “I understand it’s foreign money. But don’t you see, Bear? A company like The Cross, they’ve got millions riding on it, probably hundreds of millions. It’s a very major deal. That’s why they couldn’t afford to have you rocking the boat.”
Say no more, ole buddy. I get it, even in my cups. I get it all. So they were peddling the company. As far back as October probably, they were peddling the company. The last thing they wanted was an investigation. Not because of an investigation itself, but because even the rumor of one might make a buyer look closer. At what, for instance, went into the balance sheet and income statements. Would make them want to talk, for instance, to people like … Lawrence Elgin Coffey.
Unless Lawrence Elgin Coffey has already discredited himself, in public? Which I just did, in Joe Richter’s office?
Who’d believe me now?
Jesus Christ.
That’s why they didn’t can me, in October. They were afraid I’d start squawking. That’s why they strung me out, and why, when the going got rough, they panicked and stole Justie.
And Spain. It figures. Mark Spain is the missing link, the deal-maker behind the scenes. Otherwise it’s just too big a coincidence.
Forty-love, set and match.
“Who was it who brought them together, Runt? The sellers and the buyers? It was Spain, wasn’t it? Your boss? Isn’t that what got you into it, because Spain’s your boss?”
But all he’ll say is that, at Gamble’s urgent request, he drove up to New Canaan late yesterday. Gamble asked him what he thought it would take to get me to go to Richter.
Justin’s return, he told Gamble. And money in my pocket.
Jesus Christ.
I think that’s when I take a swing at him. We’re in a john somewhere. I’ve got my head over the sink, dumping water on my face, and when I look up, I see him in the mirror. My best fucking friend.
I miss anyway. Probably I’d have missed him sober. The Runt was some kind of regimental boxing champ in the Marines.
“I let them off cheap, the bastards!” I shout at him. “They gave me three hundred grand for eight years, and they’re making millions! I had them by the fucking balls!”
There’s more to it. I think I end up bawling. I don’t think I’ve been this drunk since Hanover, New Hampshire, class of ’77. The Runt keeps telling me I’ve done just fine. He has his arm around my shoulders. People like us, he says, we’re not in their league. He says I went up against the heavyweights—Holbrook and Gamble. The only way to look at it is that now I’m getting Justie back, and a sweet deal on top.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That’s about the last thing I remember, that and that on the worst day of my life, when I sold my soul down the river, we still somehow ended up friends. Big Bear and the Runt.
I must have passed out in his car. I guess he must have loaded me into the house.
It’s four in the morning now. I just woke up, on the couch in the den. My head is pounding and I’ve still got all my clothes on.
Remember Justie. That’s about all I can tell myself.
Twenty-four hours—less now.
That’s all that matters.
Hey, I can’t re-recant anyway, can I?