by Chris Knopf
Using the flashlight in my smartphone, I looked for computer gear, but aside from an untethered power cord and Ethernet cable, there was nothing. So I opened the only file cabinet in the room. It was organized by date. I pulled out the last five years, files about five inches thick, and stuffed them in the backpack. I gathered up all the loose papers on the desk, and checked the drawers, which were nearly empty. I scanned around and saw nothing else of potential value.
The voice outside the door grew louder. A man on a walkie-talkie. The choices were to leave the office and try to evade notice, or just confront the guy, or go out the window, which opened easily enough, but it was too dark to see where I’d land after dropping at least a single story, enough to break a leg.
I chose option two. Waiting until he was past the office door, I stepped out behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder, which must have been alarming, though he had little time to fully grasp the moment, since I tried to channel Muhammad Ali’s Liston-felling right jab, which apparently worked, since the guard went off his feet and hard into the carpet.
I picked up the radio and apologized for dropping it, responding to the other caller’s urgent questions. When the caller said the Spanish equivalent of “Pay attention, dumbass,” I put the radio on the floor and picked up the guard’s flashlight, turning it off, but keeping it in hand, comforted by its heft.
The only back exit I was sure of went past the utility room. As predicted, men were in there with flashlights focused on the electrical panel, giving each other instructions, and still unaware that the cause of the problem was a single cut wire hidden behind a slender slit in the insulation.
I gently eased open the outside door and closed it silently behind me.
The Wrangler was where I’d left it, all my gear locked in the back and full of gas. I kept the headlights off until I reached the connecting drive down to the Caring Center, which I’d never be able to follow in the dark. I was happy to see the lights were still on as I broke through the forest and headed for the exit, the elation of imminent escape overturned by a pair of headlights darting in behind me just as I cleared the entranceway.
My pursuer knew the roads better than I did, but I think I made up for the advantage with heightened motivation. I forced myself to concentrate on the road ahead and ignore the glare of the high beams behind me as they closed in, then dropped back, depending on how each of us assessed the immediate risk of overturning or catching a wheel in the deep drainage ditches to either side of the road surface.
Slaloming down the steep mountain path, bouncing on the big tires, buffeted by potholes and crude asphalt patches, propelled by engines and gravity, it was a type of vehicular ballet. A dance contest where the only important variable wasn’t grace or strength, or endurance, but nerve.
His gave out when we hit a T intersection. The smart choice would have been to hit the brakes, but instead, I downshifted and made a right turn under full power. After a weightless moment on two wheels, I dropped to the road surface and struggled to get the careening Jeep under control. A quick look in the rearview showed the other guy skidding across the intersection and disappearing into the forest.
I saw no point in letting up until I reached flatter terrain, and light traffic, into which I eased with both hands on the wheel and a dry mouth and runaway heart rate.
Which I slowly brought under control, breathing in through the nose and out from the mouth.
I drove to the hotel in Condado and persuaded Slope to give up my two-grand deposit on the spot, thanked him again, and caught a cab to the airport. I grabbed the first flight I could get to JFK, by way of a connection in Philadelphia, doing my best not to think about the time it would take for the cops to trace the Jeep’s plates to Carlito, and from there to Slippery Slope, to the credit card I used at the hotel, to Jackie’s law office, and finally to me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Oh good, you’re still with us,” said Amanda, when I called her after leaving the parking lot at JFK.
“Glad you’re not disappointed.”
“Eddie might be. He’s come to rely on my menu. I think it’s the presentation.”
It was early afternoon and I’d lost a night of sleep. My goal was to stay awake long enough to make it to the Adirondack chairs above the breakwater, reckoning I could say hello to Eddie, then doze for at least an hour before Amanda came home from work. As it transpired, she decided to leave me there comatose well into the evening, when she came by with some take-out from the Pequot, breaded shrimp and a basket of heart-seizing french fries covered in cheddar.
Foggy, but conscious, I ate under the light from the lanterns hung from the market umbrella. The air was as warm as Puerto Rico’s, though many percentage points lower in humidity, and the trades had been replaced by our prevailing south southwesterly.
One of the most congenial aspects of our relationship was a mutual pleasure at evading pressing conversation, the type normal people relished, such as catching up on everything we’d been doing over the last week or so. Instead we had our own version of small talk, which could include the inconsequential as easily as the significant, as long as it didn’t involve subjects that could wait for another time.
So she didn’t tell me about progress on her latest rehab project, and I didn’t discuss my time in Puerto Rico, and both were satisfied with leaving it at that.
NO SUCH dynamic was available with Jackie Swaitkowski.
“You did what?”
I met her at her office in Water Mill where I dumped the contents of my backpack out on the client coffee table. She was freshly risen from bed, her messy red hair in full chaos, wearing a men’s Oxford cloth shirt, apparently Harry Goodlander’s, given its immense size. The summer sun had turned her pale legs a pinkish tan, with freckled accents on thighs and knees.
“I have a theory,” I said. “If it’s correct, I doubt we’ll be hearing from law enforcement. If not, you’ll have another client whose prospects are worse than Burton’s.”
“Swell. What besides breaking and entering?”
“Carpentry and some minor electrical work.”
“I think that’s legal,” she said.
“Mostly. And assault and battery. Not always my fault.”
“That’s a relief.”
As I flipped through the paperwork, I told the story of renting Drunk Carlito’s Wrangler and traveling up in the hills to the bed-and-breakfast in La Selva Bendita, the landlady’s nephews’ checkout approach, securing the building job under a false identity, and the satisfying work with the humble mason Ramon.
I described the office atmosphere in the hacienda, which appeared to be a circumscribed version of the phone-bank operation at the Loventeers’ HQ in Manhattan, with palm trees and ceiling fans in lieu of floor-to-ceiling windows facing neighboring skyscrapers.
“I thought they were doing humanitarian work,” said Jackie.
“That’s a wholly separate operation. I didn’t get a close look, but had a long talk with the nursing supervisor. It’s what you’d expect, earnest care for the destitute and disadvantaged, though with little involvement from management on top of the hill.”
“I don’t get it.”
I didn’t either, though I had my theory, which I tried to explain.
“If you have a business, the money to run the operation comes from selling products or services. It’s all a fully integrated enterprise, with direct cause and effect. You make stuff, you sell it, you make more stuff. If it stops selling, you’re out of business. If you’re a nonprofit, the money to provide free or cheap services has to come from donations. And there’s no direct relationship between the money coming in and going out. You just have to convince people that your good works deserve financial support. Not an easy task, since no amount of money will ever be enough to satisfy the overwhelming need, so competition for funding is fierce. At the same time, accountability for ultimate outcomes is hard to track. Big-time donors—foundations and government agencies—have the whe
rewithal to make sure their philanthropic dollars are well spent, demanding audits and metrics, but individual givers just go on trust and the good feelings that come from writing that check at Christmas time, or when their tax accountants say they need to lower their gross income.”
“So what about Worldwide Loventeers?”
“I want to believe that the majority of charitable organizations, NGOs, put the lion’s share of donated funds into providing services. If that isn’t true, I don’t want to know about it. But if an NGO was so inclined, it might put most of their efforts into an effective fund-raising machine, focusing on individual donors, rich or otherwise, while maintaining just enough in the way of services to justify their existence.”
“So you might have a lot of extra money sloshing around,” she said.
“A cynic might say that would tempt the less than virtuous.”
“So that’s what they’re all about?”
“Maybe, but I think it’s worse than that,” I said, putting my attention back on the stack of file folders in front of me. Jackie had to just sit there and watch me work, an impossible thing for her to do without constant fidgeting and making little snorting sounds of impatience. When she reached for one of the folders, as if her compulsive need to speed progress gave her special insight into the project, I swatted her hand, which shocked her, even though she’d done that kind of thing to me about a million times.
“Go do something,” I said. “Take a shower or jog around the block.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You have a kitchen in your apartment. I bet there’s a way to make coffee. That would be a help.”
She frowned at me and scratched an itch on her inner thigh, revealing a pair of plaid boxer shorts under the oversized shirt. In moments like that I often puzzled over our complete lack of erotic interest in each other, even though Jackie’s presentation as all female was impossible to overlook.
Perhaps because the thought of Amanda, at any time, day or night, stirred my weary heart.
“I wish we hadn’t given up smoking,” she said, and I knew exactly what she meant.
Ten minutes later, we both had big mugs of coffee and I had a folder open on the table. It was a filled-out form with a head shot of a young Latina stapled to the upper left corner. Everything was in Spanish, which was okay for Jackie, who was barely fluent, but could get by enough to serve the bulk of her indigent clientele.
It looked a lot like an employment application, complete with vital statistics—age, birthplace, education level, immediate family members, personal interests and skills, extracurricular activities. There was also a comment box labeled “Interview,” which was more telling.
“Pretty smile, nice figure if you like slim,” said the handwritten notes. “Clear complexion, except for small scar on chin. Refused drink, but admitted to having some wine with friends. Nonsmoker. No drug use. Not a virgin. One boyfriend, former.” Former was underlined twice. “Wants to model, maybe go into acting. No musical skills, though could sing a tune in key. Acceptable table etiquette. Minimum social media exposure, Puerto Rico only. Lives with mother. No father in the picture. One sister, no brothers. Highly recommended.”
Her birthdate put her age at sixteen. Jackie looked up at me over the file.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked.
I described the little breakfast reception at the hacienda with a bunch of overfed middle-aged guys and nervous, but hopeful-looking Latinas dressed for the disco at nine A.M.
“What do you think?” I asked Jackie.
“A little too much love at the Loventeers.”
“Of the wrong kind. I think you need to go through all this stuff and look for something dispositive. I’m heading back to New York.”
“I’m fine with that, but how does this connect to Burton’s case?”
“I don’t know, but I think it does. And if not, it’s an excellent way to shake the trees.”
“Who’re you planning to shake first?” she asked.
“You really want to know?”
She rolled up the sleeves of the giant shirt and did a better job with the buttons, as if just realizing the threat to her modesty, however poorly monitored.
“Not really,” she said. “And you wouldn’t tell me anyway.”
I WAS driving my ‘67 Pontiac Grand Prix, having had my fill of Jeeps and needing to give it a little exercise. I’d discovered the old car in a shed at the back of the property when I took possession of the cottage after my mother checked out of the house and into a nursing home for the last few months of her life. My father was a mechanic by trade and had kept the car’s internal organs in good repair, though the paint had worn down and he protected what was left with a layer of grey primer.
Sailing skill came in handy when piloting the colossal land yacht. I’d stiffened the suspension with upgraded shocks and other modifications, but it still had a pitch and yaw comparable to the Carpe Mañana’s under moderate seas.
After its first restoration, I’d used it to obliterate a pair of murderous thugs, basically totaling the car. For no good reason, I rebuilt it all over again. I told the guys at the frame-straightening shop, “They don’t make ’em like this anymore,” and neither should they.
I first went to see Frank Entwhistle to double-check the timeline for the cabinets I was building for him. He asked if six weeks was okay, and I grudgingly agreed, knowing that three would be all I needed to complete the job. Frank was never a slim man, but it looked like he’d padded on another fifty pounds since the last time I saw him. I wondered if three weeks was soon enough to outrace cardiac arrest.
I had other chores to catch up on—buying materials, settling my bill at the building supply store, restocking Big Dog biscuits from the pet shop and vodka from the liquor store—the prime underpinnings of my day-to-day existence. I also stopped by Mad Martha’s, a cave-like joint that had the best seafood in town, all locally caught, and a reputation for hostility toward anyone above a fifty K annual income. Undeserved, I felt, though I’d never tried to get a drink there with the arms of my sweater tied around my neck à la Art Reynolds.
So it was dark by the time I got to Burton Lewis’s house to check on things. Joe Sullivan let me through the gate, having requisitioned Isabella’s security camera, I’m sure not without keen resistance. Confirmed when Sullivan met me at the front door.
“She would have had me run a whole separate line for my camera array,” he said. “I got Burton to make the call.”
“Orwell said people never seize power with the intention of relinquishing it,” I told him.
“And that was way back in, what, ’84?”
He said that Burton was somewhere upstairs, but he’d be glad to see me. I asked if we could have a private chat first. We went out to one of the screened-in patios.
“How’s it been going?” I asked.
“Media dogs keep sniffing around but seem to respond to gentle suggestions that they get the fuck out of here. Other than that, it’s been quiet. I think Burton is pretty blue, but you can’t blame him for that. He’ll watch the ball game with me, but doesn’t seem to care when the Yankees lose. Bad sign.”
“Has Jackie been around?”
“Sure, but I don’t know what they talk about. Not a lot of fun and laughs, that’s for sure.”
He cracked us a couple of beers and checked his tablet when we sat down.
“I have all the cameras controlled from this thing. The monitors rotate through about every ten minutes. Motion sensors kick off an alarm once in a while. Usually squirrels. Sometimes a rabbit or small herd of deer. I’ll let you know if I see any lions, tigers, or bears.”
I’d noticed the Colt 9 mm holstered on his belt. Past experience told me there was a smaller pistol in an ankle holster and other ordnance stashed around the house in strategic locations.
“Just don’t shoot them,” I said. “We’re getting enough bad publicity.”
“So how’s the investigation
?”
I said we should bring Burton into the conversation so I didn’t have to repeat the story, and he used his smartphone to call upstairs. Minutes later Burton showed up wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and a pair of cashmere slippers probably sourced by a family retainer sometime in the last century.
We’d finished our beers, so it was easy to comply with his demand that everyone have a single-malt scotch on the rocks in massive cocktail glasses. As Sullivan suggested, he didn’t look too good, even more gaunt than usual, hair too long, eyes too dark, laugh lines seemingly erased. It pained me to see, reminding me of the many times I’d sought refuge from my own dreary obsessions in the company of his abiding joie de vivre, however burdened with the responsibilities and absurdities of vast, generational wealth.
“So where you been?” he asked me. “Jackie says Puerto Rico. Love that island, but what on earth for?”
They let me start the story from when the Reverend Jerry Swanson came out to my boat, back-filling his association with Milton Flowers, former executive director of Worldwide Loventeers.
Having already gone through the whole thing with Jackie, the narrative flowed along easily, with only a few questions from Joe Sullivan, such as, “Did you glove up before breaking into that office?” and “Do you know how bad you hurt the security guard you suckered in the hallway?” anticipating, I realized, future prosecution, looking for answers to questions he knew I’d be asked.
Throughout, Burton listened keenly without comment, his tired face settling deeper into grim discontent.
“So you think they’re trafficking young women,” he said.
“Not just young, underaged,” I said. “Could be the old scam promising fame and fortune, then have them turning tricks before they know what hit them. Might just get brokered off to the old business guys, let the sugar daddies handle the final transactions, which would provide a layer of deniability. No way to know, though Jackie might figure it out from the files I boosted out of Ruth Bellingham’s office.”
