Win

Chapter 18

Vanessa Hogan shuts down after that.

“Kind of blew that one,” Jessica says, as we head out the door.

We hadn’t, but I don’t want to get into that now.

As we slip into the back of the car, my phone rings. I put it to my ear and say, “Articulate.”

Jessica rolls her eyes.

Kabir says, “You want the whole story, or should I cut to the chase?”

“Oh, please draw it out and be extra verbose. You know how I love that.”

“The black Lincoln tailing you belongs to Nero Staunch’s crew.”

I would ask him how he knows, but I’d encouraged him to cut to the chase and so he had. Kabir tells me anyway: “It was registered to a craft beer place the family uses as a front. By the way, do you know who runs the Staunch crew now?”

“I do not.”

“Leo Staunch.”

“Okay,” I say. “And that matters because...?”

“Leo Staunch is Nero’s nephew. More to the point, Leo is Sophia Staunch’s baby brother.”

“Ah,” I say. “Interesting.”

“Not to mention dangerous.”

“Where is this black Lincoln now?”

“Open up the map app on your iPhone. I’ve dropped a pin from the tracker device, so you can keep tabs on it.”

“Okay, good. Anything else?”

“Remember how yesterday tons of media outlets wanted interviews because your Vermeer had been found at a murder scene?”

“Yes.”

“Now imagine adding onto that the murder victim was Ry Strauss.”

It would indeed be a feeding frenzy. “What are you telling them?”

“I’ve learned how to say ‘No comment’ in twelve languages.”

“Thank you.”

“Ei kommenttia,” Kabir says. “That’s Finnish.”

“Anything else?”

“Tomorrow morning. You have Ema for breakfast.”

The one appointment I would never miss or forget.

I hang up. Jessica stares out the window.

“Would you like to go for an early dinner?” I ask her.

She considers it for a moment, and then says, “Why not?”

We arrive at the grill room at the Lotos Club, an elegant private social club whose early members include Mark Twain. It’s located in a French Renaissance town house on the Upper East Side. The grill room is in the basement. It is all dark woods and rich burgundy walls. The bar is front and center. Men must wear a jacket and a tie, something you rarely find in Manhattan anymore; some consider this dress code outdated, but I relish these old-world touches.

Charles, the head waiter, recommends the sole meunière, and Jessica and I both choose it. I select a Château Haut Bailly, a Bordeaux wine from the Pessac-Léognan appellation. Their whites are underrated.

I feel my phone buzz and excuse myself. You never pull out your phone at the Lotos Club. You instead make your way into a private phone booth, the only place where you are allowed to use it. As expected, it’s PT. I answer.

“Articulate.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” PT says. “As you can imagine, it’s been an insane day.”

“Anything new on your end?”

“Nothing worth reporting. You any closer to catching my killer?”

“Killers,” I say. “Plural.”

“You think there’s more than one?”

“You don’t?”

“I’m really only interested in the one.”

PT was talking about Arlo Sugarman, of course — the man he’d witnessed shoot his partner, Patrick O’Malley. “Here,” I say, “our interests may differ.”

“That’s fine,” he says. “What do you need from me?”

“There was a robbery at the Bank of Manhattan four months ago,” I say.

“Okay, so?”

“I need to know everything I can about it, especially suspected perpetrators.”

“Bank of Manhattan,” he repeats. “I think we caught one of them.”

That surprises me. “Where is he?”

“How do you know it’s not a she?”

“Where is she?”

“It’s a he. I just want you to be woke, Win.”

I wait.

“I’ll look into it.”

“Also, do you have anything on the shell company Strauss set up to buy his apartment and pay his bills?”

“It’s anonymous. You of all people know how hard it is to get information.”

Oh, I do. “You can still find out the setup date, the state, the attorney, perhaps even the bank used to pay the bills. Someone was paying for Ry Strauss to live in the Beresford.”

“On it.”

I rejoin Jessica. The wine is opened. Jessica is, no surprise, delightful company. We laugh a lot. We finish one bottle and open a second. The sole is superb.

“Odd,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“Have we ever been alone before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We always had Myron in the room.”

“Feels like we still do,” I say.

“Yeah, I know.” Jessica blinks and reaches for the glass. “I really messed up.”

I don’t correct her.

“My marriage sucks,” she says.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Are you?”

“I am now.”

“Did you hate me when I left Myron?”

“Hate probably isn’t the right word.”

“What is?”

“Loathe.”

She laughs and raises her glass. “Touché.”

“I’m joking,” I say. “In truth, you never mattered to me.”

“That’s honest.”

“I never saw you as a separate entity.”

“Just a part of Myron?”

“Yes.”

“Like an appendage?”

“Not that relevant, frankly. Like an arm or a leg? No. Never that important.”

She tries again. “Like a small satellite orbiting him?”

“Closer,” I say. “In the end, you caused Myron pain. That’s all I cared about. How you affected him.”

“Because you love him.”

“I do, yes.”

“It’s sweet. So maybe you understand better now.”

“I don’t,” I say. “But go on, if you wish.”

“Myron was such a big presence,” Jessica says.

“Still is.”

“Exactly. He sucks all the air out of the room. He dominates by just being there. When I was with him, my writing suffered. Did you know that?”

I try not to scowl. “And you’re blaming him?”

“I’m blaming us. He’s not a planet I’m orbiting. He’s the sun. When I was with him too much — the intensity — I was afraid I would disappear into it. Like the gravity would draw me too close to his flames, overwhelm me, drown me.”

Now I do scowl without reservation.

“What?” she says.

“Ignoring your mixing metaphors — are you drowning or burning up? — that’s such complete and utter nonsense. He loved you. He took care of you. That intensity you felt was overwhelming? That was love, Jessica. The bona fide ideal, the rarest of the rare. When he smiled at you, you felt a warmth you’d never known before because he loved you. You were lucky. You were lucky, and you threw it away. You threw it away not because of what he did, but because you, like so many of us, are self-destructive.”

Jessica leans back. “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

“You left him for a boring rich guy named Stone. Why? Because you had true love and it terrified you. You couldn’t handle the loss of control. It’s why you kept breaking his heart — so you’d have the upper hand again. You had a chance at greatness, but you were too scared to grasp it.”

Her eyes glisten now. She gives them a quick swipe with her index finger and thumb. “Suppose,” she says, “I tried to get him back.”

I shake my head.

“Why not? You don’t think he still has feelings for me?”

“Won’t happen. We both know that. Myron isn’t built that way.”

“And what about you, Win?”

“We aren’t talking about me,” I say.

“Well, we can change topics. You’ve changed, Win. I used to think you and Myron were yin and yang — opposites that complemented each other.”

“And now?”

“Now I think you’re more like him than you know.”

I have to smile at that. “You think it’s that simple?”

“No, Win. That’s my point. It’s never that simple.”

Jessica wants to walk home alone. I don’t insist otherwise. In fact, even though the car is waiting for me, I choose to do the same. She heads south. I head west and start crossing Central Park by the Sixty-Sixth Street transverse. It’s a beautiful night and it’s a beautiful park and the walk soothes me for perhaps three minutes — until my phone buzzes. The call is coming from Sadie Fisher’s iPhone.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Before I have a chance to offer up my customary greeting, Sadie half snaps, “Where are you?”

I do not like the timbre in her voice. There is anger. And there is fear.

“I’m strolling through Central Park. Is there a problem?”

“There is. I’m at the office. Get here as soon as you can.”

She disconnects the call.

I find a taxi heading south on Central Park West. Traffic is light at this hour. Ten minutes later I’m back at the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue. Jim is working security at the desk. I nod at him and head toward my private elevator. It’s getting late now, north of ten p.m., but this building is filled mostly with financial advisors of one kind or another, many of whom need to work hours that coincide with overseas markets, many more of whom put in wastefully long hours to match the other guy vying for the same promotion. I press the button for the fourth floor, and especially tonight, with a few drinks in me, with images of Jessica Culver still swimming in my head, the memories of MB Reps — the M stood for Myron, the B for Bolitar, Myron would self-flagellate over the name’s lack of ingenuity — swirl though my skull.

Sadie greets me when I get off the elevator, though “greet” may imply a temperament that is not at all apropos. “What did you do, Win?”

“Nice to see you too, Sadie.”

She adjusts her glasses. It feels as though she is doing that more as a statement than a need, but whatever gets you through the night. “Do I really look in the mood?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Sadie steps into her office. I notice that Taft’s reception desk is empty except for a box of his belongings. Sadie sees me noticing and arches an eyebrow.

“I had visitors today.”

“Oh?”

“They braced me out on the street. Two huge guys.”

I wait.

“What did you do, Win?”

“Who were they?”

“Teddy Lyons’s brothers.”

I wait.

“Win?”

“Did they threaten you?”

“Well, they didn’t want to buy me a drink.”

“What did they say?”

“They accused me of sending a man to hurt Teddy.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think I said?”

“That you didn’t.” Then I ask, “Did they believe you?”

“No, Win, they didn’t believe me.” She moves closer to me. “You were at that basketball game.”

“So were seventy thousand other people.”

“Are you really going to lie to me?”

“What exactly do you think I did, Sadie?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“No, Win, that isn’t true.” Sadie gestures to the empty desk. “Taft told you what Teddy Lyons did to Sharyn, didn’t he?”

“As did you.”

“Not until after he was hurt. You know Teddy Lyons may never walk again.”

“Seems he’s able to talk though,” I say. “So you fired Taft?”

“I don’t like spies in my office.”

Fair enough.

“Do I need to find a new workspace?”

“That’s up to you.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Win. What were you thinking?”

“That Sharyn deserved justice.”

“Are you serious?”

I wait.

“We are law-abiding,” Sadie says. “We are trying to change hearts and minds — and laws.”

“Taft said Teddy was currently stalking someone else.”

“Probably.”

“He wasn’t going to stop because you wanted to change laws,” I say, realizing that I’m echoing the words I’d told Vanessa Hogan about the Hut of Horrors perpetrators.

“So you took care of it?”

I see no reason to reply.

“And now we have these goons coming after us.”

“I’ll handle them.”

“I don’t want you to handle them.”

“Too bad.”

“Is that the world you want to live in?” Sadie shakes her head. “Do you really want people to take the law into their own hands?”

“People? Heavens, no. Me? Yes.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I trust my judgment,” I say. “I don’t trust the common man’s.”

“You hurt us. Do you realize that? We had a chance of changing—”

“A chance,” I say.

“What?”

“A chance didn’t help Sharyn. It probably wouldn’t help Teddy’s next victim either. I love what you’re doing, Sadie. I believe in it. You should continue without reservation.”

“And you continue to do what you do?”

I shrug. “You work on the macro level,” I say. “What you do is important.”

“And, what, your hope is that my work will one day make your work obsolete?”

I smile with no humor behind it. “My work will never be obsolete.”

She thinks about it. “You can’t spy on me.”

“You’re right.”

“And whatever you do, it can’t involve me or my clients.”

“You’re right.”

She shakes her head. The truth is, I may indeed have messed up here. I don’t care about Teddy Lyons, of course. He crossed the line and earned any and all repercussions. I don’t look at it as vigilantism. I look at it as preventive offense. Think schoolyard rules. The bully hits someone. Even if the teacher is told, even if the teacher punishes the bully, the bully should expect someone to hit back.

I’d known that there was the potential for unexpected consequences, even disastrous ones, but I had added up the pros and cons and chosen to act. Perhaps I was wrong. I’m not infallible.

You need to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I don’t know if that’s true, but if you break the eggs, better to make an omelet than a mess.

Enough with the analogies.

“I almost called the police after the brothers threatened me,” she says.

“Why didn’t you?”

“And say what? You assaulted their brother.”

“They could never prove it. But if I may make an observation?”

She frowns and gestures for me to go ahead.

“You didn’t call the police,” I say, “because you realized that the law couldn’t protect you.”

“And damn you for putting me in that position.” Sadie squeezes her eyes shut. “Do you see what you’ve done? I went to law school. I swore an oath. I know that our legal system isn’t perfect, but I believe in it. I follow it. And now you’ve forced me to abandon my integrity and principles.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I’m not sure I can stay in this office, Win.”

I say nothing.

“I may want out of our agreement.”

“Think it over for a bit,” I say. “You’re right. Your anger—”

“It’s not just anger, Win.”

“Whatever you want to call what you’re feeling. Anger, disappointment, disillusionment, compromise. It’s justified. I did what I thought was best, but perhaps I was wrong. I am still learning. It’s on me. I apologize.”

She seems surprised by my apology. So do I.

“So what do we do now?” she asks.

“You’ve had a chance to chat with the brothers,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Do you think they are just going to leave us alone?”

Sadie’s voice is soft. “No.”

“So the eggs are broken,” I say. “The question now is, Do we want to make an omelet or a mess?”