The Fixer

28

Rick called Darren Overby, the editor in chief of Back Bay.

“Darren, how would you feel about a profile of Alex Pappas?”

“Alex Pappas… Remind me who he is again?”

“The Pappas Group. PR guy, fixer.”

“Oh, right. That would be great. But not a full profile, of course.”

“No, no. Nothing too serious. Just a Q &A, really.”

“Do it! But when am I going to see the Thomas Sculley piece?”

“Yeah, soon,” Rick said. Like never.

Then he called the Pappas Group, was connected to Pappas’s office, and left a message with one of his assistants, a woman with an appealingly raspy voice and a posh British accent.

It was a long shot, but worth a try.

To his surprise, an hour and a half later he received a call from the assistant agreeing to an interview the next morning.

The game was on.

He called Monica Kennedy and managed to keep her on the phone for six minutes while he questioned her about Alex Pappas. Though she claimed to have very little information on the man, she did know a few interesting things. She knew that his clients included a couple of former governors and mayors and senators. They also included a judge caught in a bribery scandal involving the construction of a huge parking garage. A football player for the New England Patriots, accused of murder, had hired Pappas to handle the public relations fallout, not legal representation. A House Speaker charged with corruption but who maintained his innocence had used Pappas’s services-again, not legal but in the realm of “reputation management.” Improving the Speaker’s image. A chemical company accused of contaminating the drinking water in a remote Massachusetts town, causing a sudden rise in leukemia cases among the children, had hired Pappas. The chemical company had had the charges dismissed, but that might have been the result of shrewd legal representation.

Alex Pappas specialized in crisis management, in “putting out fires,” Monica said. In making scandals go away.

The more Rick learned, the sketchier Pappas seemed to be. He seemed to have his fingers in a thousand pies.

In the morning, after too many cups of coffee, Rick arrived at Pappas’s offices, on the forty-second floor of the Prudential Tower in the Back Bay. He was apprehensive for some reason, probably because he didn’t know what to expect. He had to keep reminding himself that he was ostensibly there to conduct an interview. A puff piece. That was the cover story, anyway.

On one side of the bank of elevators was a law firm. On the other side, behind glass doors, was the Pappas Group. The reception area was hushed and sterile. Dove-gray wall-to-wall carpet, low flat coffee tables perched in front of low white leather couches. A receptionist sat at a long mahogany desk. Rick gave his name and prepared to wait. Some interview subjects liked to keep their interviewers waiting, just to show them who’s boss. The more reluctant the subject, the longer the wait, Rick had always found. The receptionist, a dark-haired Asian beauty in her midtwenties, offered him coffee or water. Rick took a bottle of spring water and sat down on one of the sofas. He took out his iPhone, switched off the ringer, and pocketed it again.

Arrayed on the coffee table were the local newspapers, the Globe and the Herald, as well as TheNew York Times,TheWall Street Journal, and the salmon-colored Financial Times. Rick was reaching for the Journal just as someone said, “You must be Rick Hoffman.”

He looked up and saw a lean middle-aged man bounding across the reception area. The man had silver hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses and was dressed in a perfectly cut gray suit.

Rick rose. “Mr. Pappas,” he said, offering his hand.

“Alex. Please.” He had a pleasant baritone voice.

“Rick. Nice to meet you.”

Pappas had a sharp, prominent nose like a hawk’s beak, a deeply creased, tanned face, and a dazzling smile. His teeth were a shade of white not found in nature. He was a few inches shorter than Rick, a tightly coiled man, fit and trim and radiating energy. “Come,” Pappas said, placing a hand on Rick’s shoulder and guiding him across the reception area, down a hallway and into a big corner office. Here Pappas didn’t seem a recluse at all. The walls of his office were lined with photographs of himself with the rich and powerful and famous, governors and senators and businessmen and TV stars. He obviously wanted visitors to his office to admire his proximity to the famous, even if he didn’t like to talk about it to reporters.

They sat at a couple of chairs off to one side of his desk, a glass coffee table between them. The chairs were high-backed, overstuffed, comfortable. The whole office was arranged as carefully, as ceremonially, as the Oval Office. Rick placed his small black leather-bound reporter’s notebook on the table. He considered taking out his iPhone and switching it to Record mode but decided to hold off. A running tape recorder-actually, most journalists by now used their phones to record-was a quick way to get an interview subject to clam up. And he wanted Pappas to let down his guard, unlikely though that might be. But for now, that was Rick’s best hope. He’d prepared a set of questions for Pappas, all of them predictable, none probing or provocative. The sort of questions that would enable Pappas to spout boilerplate answers by the yard, the sort of questions that might get the man to lower his defenses. This wasn’t going to be an interrogation. The point was to lull him into complacency.

“I’m sorry Back Bay stopped publishing the print edition,” Pappas said. “It was a handsome magazine.”

“Me, too.”

“Well, that seems to be the future. Everything digital, everything online, no more paper.”

“Seems that way.”

“They laid off a lot of the staff. And yet here you are.”

“Thanks for seeing me. I know you don’t often talk to the media.”

“I talk to the media all the time.” He paused. “Just not about myself-and why should I? I’m boring! I may have some interesting clients, but that doesn’t make me interesting.”

“Well, you are Boston’s crisis management king.”

“Or so the Globe once called me.” He smiled, relenting a bit. “Rick, I want to get a sense first of what you have in mind. I think it’ll work best if we’re both clear about where we’re coming from and where we hope to be going.”

So this wasn’t an interview at all, Rick thought. It was a pre-interview.

“Sure,” Rick said. “Well, I’m interested in the world of crisis management and reputation management. You’ve been at the center of some significant events in the last several years, yet you seem to be happiest staying out of the spotlight.”

Pappas was silent. He pursed his lips.

Rick went on: “It’s basically a character study. What kind of person has these skills and abilities?”

“I see,” Pappas said. “You’re onto something. I’m not the guy who uses up all the oxygen in the room. Which is why this little story of yours may turn out to be a nonstarter. It may be what neither of us needs. Let’s talk about you, shall we?”

“Me?” Rick attempted a smile.

“You’re no longer the guy who was writing stories about pension abuse or illegal chemical dumping in Western Mass, are you? Though your byline on that series was shortlisted for a Pulitzer; am I remembering correctly?”

Pappas was clearly remembering from five minutes ago when he read through some information file, probably in a folder on his desk right now.

“Very good,” Rick said. “That’s right.”

“You gave up a high-powered career in journalism, and now you’re in the soft-soap business,” Pappas said. “What is it that you really want?”

“What I want…?”

“You. I ask because I’ve hired people in the past from your line of work, often very successfully.”

“What are you turning this into, a job interview?”

“Would that bother you?”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Pappas leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. The lenses of his glasses were thick, distorting his eyes. “Here’s the thing, Rick. I don’t really want this piece to be written about me. And I don’t think you actually want to write it. Let’s talk about the real reason you made this appointment with me.”

“Okay. What I really want to ask about is my father. You knew him, didn’t you?”

“I sure did,” Pappas said at once. “Leonard Hoffman was a wonderful man.”

“Actually, he’s still alive.”

Pappas’s BlackBerry vibrated on the coffee table. He picked it up, glanced at it. “I understand. He had a stroke. A very unfortunate thing.”

“Going over his papers, I noticed a lot of phone calls between you two. Were you a client of his?” That was an out-and-out bluff, about the calls. Rick hadn’t seen any records of phone calls. He was hazarding a guess. If the two of them met, Pappas was the kind of man who’d have put in a call, or several calls first. Or had his office place some calls.

“Did I call your father? Of course. I called when I needed his help.” Guess confirmed.

“In fact, you were scheduled to meet for lunch on the day of his stroke.”

“Is that so? It’s been years.” His tone flattened. “What can I help you with, Rick?”

“I’m curious what sort of work he did for you.”

“Various legal errands. I can’t say as I recall the details.”

“But why him? You have access to any white-shoe law firm in the city. To be honest, I was surprised to discover you two knew each other. You move in… well, in very different circles.”

“If I were to limit my reach to the usual suspects, the Ropes and Grays, the Goodwin Procters, the Mintz Levins-well, they all play in the same sandbox. Your father, on the other hand, was well connected in certain quarters.”

“So what sort of legal work did he do for you?”

Pappas had become distant, wary. His eyes looked out of focus. “I’m sure it all falls under the general rubric of attorney-client privilege, Rick.”

Now Pappas hunched forward in his chair and gave a great crocodile’s smile. “Rick, we’re both grown-ups. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’d like to know? Let me know how I can help you.”

“It’s just surprising that you’d have anything to do with my dad,” Rick persisted. “You’re the major league, and he was anything but.”

“Your father provided services.”

“By services, you mean…?”

“Any number of things. Rick, I’m-”

“Did my father’s services include something called the cash bank?”

He waited. Pappas was silent. He didn’t indicate whether he recognized the term or not. Rick went on, inching up to the edge of the cliff. “To be blunt, my father procured cash used for bribery. So I’m wondering whether he provided cash to you. For bribery.”

“Certainly not, but I’m glad to see you’ve retained the old think-the-worst instincts of an investigative reporter. Son, I don’t swim in that lane.” His BlackBerry buzzed again. He glanced at it and ignored it again. Then he looked directly at Rick, his eyes magnified in size, the expression dead. “But you believe your father did.”

Rick met Pappas’s stare unflinchingly. He nodded.

“Were his books a mess? Did he leave you cash you can’t account for? The more I know, Rick, the more I can help you.”

“It’s clear my father was involved in dirty work of some kind. I’m trying to get a handle on exactly what it was.”

Pappas was silent for a long while. A cloud scudded by over the Boston skyline.

“That’s quite an accusation,” he said. “I assume your father isn’t able to speak, or you’d ask him. So you must have proof of some sort.”

“A number of documents,” Rick lied.

Pappas tented his fingers thoughtfully. “Be more specific.”

“Let me put it this way. There’s a pretty interesting trail there.”

Pappas took off his glasses and massaged his eyes with his fingertips. The BlackBerry buzzed again but this time he didn’t even look at it. With his eyes still closed, he said, “You’re suggesting your father was a bag man?”

“A fixer.”

Pappas let the word hover in the air. “I believe the usual term for guys like him is expediter. How they do what they do is their own business. I know nothing about it, and I don’t judge. But I think you’re being uncharitable.”

“Uncharitable?”

“Your father, as you may know, was scorned in most legal circles. He was regarded as untouchable, the poor man. But I knew better. I knew the stuff he was made of. He was a stand-up guy. He was a good person. Now, did I send people his way? Sure. I looked out for him. So tell me something: Why in the world would you want to drag his name through the mud, a man in his condition?”

Pappas was far slipperier an opponent than Rick had expected. For a moment he faltered, unsure how to proceed. Finally he replied, “Don’t misunderstand me. I have no intention of writing an article about my dad’s business. I’m here to get some clarity on the mess he left behind. On the ‘cash bank’ and how it worked. For my own sake.”

“I see. Simple curiosity.” He said it in a gentle, thoughtful way, but Rick sensed a subtle sarcasm.

“That’s all.”

“The ‘cash bank,’ you say.”

“Whatever you can tell me.”

“Well, Rick, Boston twenty years ago wasn’t exactly the cleanest town. A lot of money changed hands, true. None of this shocks me. You know what Robert Penn Warren said in All the King’s Men. ‘Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, and he passes from the stench of the didie to the stink of the shroud.’ Or something very close to that. Just because my hands happen to be clean doesn’t mean I judge. I do not. So tell me what you’ve found. What amount of cash did he leave around-ten thousand dollars? Ten dollars? I can’t help you if you don’t let me know the particulars.”

Rick shook his head slowly.

Pappas got to his feet and beckoned Rick with a flip of his right hand. He turned and walked out of his office into the hallway, Rick following close behind. Pappas swerved through the open door of an empty office that had been cleared out. There was a big desk and a high leather chair behind it and a lamp and a cluster of chairs and a coffee table in front of it, just as in Pappas’s office. The view over Boston Harbor was remarkable. But there were no papers or framed things. It was vacant. No one worked here.

“This was Cass Mulligan’s office. He was just hired away from me by a K Street firm. I need to replace him with someone who’s fast and skillful and savvy.”

Rick nodded. “Okay…”

“Let’s speak frankly.” He placed a hand on Rick’s shoulder as they both stood facing the Boston skyline. “Son, your life is shit. You left journalism behind, Mort Ostrow offered you a big pay package, and that worked out for a few years until it didn’t. You were let go. Minimal severances were paid. You have no salary, no wages, no benefits. Your situation clearly cost you personally-you and your lovely fiancée split up, yes? Holly, was that her name?”

Rick felt something twist within his abdomen. Pappas had done his homework. “That had nothing to do with my job,” he protested.

“Irreconcilable similarities, then, is that it?” Pappas gave a low chuckle. “The temperature sure seems to have dropped quite a bit since the days when you and Holly were enjoying umbrella drinks at Pink Sands on Harbour Island, hmm? You’ve got to be wondering about the decisions you made. Now, you know the media from the inside out. I’ve always thought there’s no better defense attorney than a former prosecutor. You’re just the sort of person I’d be pleased to see on my team. If this is a scenario that might appeal to you, we can have that conversation. But maybe you have other decisions in mind.”

“I’m flattered,” Rick managed to say.

“The question, Rick, is whether you’re more interested in the past or in the future.”

Rick hesitated. “Both, I suppose.”

“Let me tell you a story,” said Pappas. “When I was a kid, my old man kept a small home office-he was an accountant-with a file cabinet whose top drawer was always locked. Naturally, I was curious.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Then as now, I liked knowing things. What could possibly be in that locked file drawer? What could my father possibly be keeping from me? I loved and respected my father more than anyone in the world. Well, one day a friend and I figured out how to pick the lock on that top file drawer, using a couple of paper clips. We managed to unlock it. And what sort of files do you imagine were hidden away in that drawer?” He smiled ruefully. “Alas, no files. No papers. Do you know what was in that drawer? Magazines. What you might call smut magazines. Magazines with photographs of women with big boobs, lots of leather, lots of chains. Women being dominated. Women being submissive. My father was into what’s called BDSM. Bondage and discipline and sadomasochism.” He seemed momentarily lost in thought. “This was a side to my father I wish I’d never learned. I didn’t need to know this. It turned my world upside down. It made me lose all respect for the man. I wish to hell I’d never opened that file drawer, Rick.”

He stared at Rick again with those enlarged, blurry eyes. Rick nodded.

Pappas went on. “It’s my business to know things. To know as much as I can. But sometimes… well, every once in a while you learn something you later wish you could unlearn. But you can’t. Though, by God, you wish you could.”

There was a long silence. Rick said nothing.

Finally, Pappas said mournfully, “Do you really want to know what’s in that file drawer, Rick?”