Kill and Be Killed

by Louis Begley

  My conscience was clear. Slobo deserved to die. That did not prevent me from tormenting myself. If I had I known that the consequence of what I did to him would be to lose her, wouldn’t I have left him to criminal justice, however much I despised it? Had I done so, the daydream or nightmare continued, she would be alive. I would have shielded her from Abner Brown and his thugs. And I would have stood between her and drugs. I understood that she might not have shaken off her addiction, however much stability and reassurance I gave her, but surely she would not have been mainlining cocaine and whatever she’d mixed with it at that cheap Chelsea hotel. Had she not believed me when I told her over and over that I’d kill Slobo? Did she think I made empty threats? That seemed impossible. Then why hadn’t she beaten into my poor dumb head that if I stepped over the line with that bastard she wouldn’t forgive me? I knew the only plausible explanation: the revulsion and its strength came to her too as a surprise. A revulsion that was understandable, but one that she should have been able to overcome. Such was my unchanging ultimate answer. Monsters like Slobo cannot be rehabilitated. The concept as applied to them, I would tell myself, is grotesque and absurd. Society has no duty to lodge and feed them for the balance of their natural lives and—why not?—teach them useful skills. Computer programming, a second or third language, cabinetmaking! No, they deserve to die, and I deserved credit for not having tortured him first, the way he had tortured his victims.

  But all this going back and forth was no use. My sorrow and regret were so sharp that had I not been in a public place I would have howled.

  Ten o’clock. I hesitated between ordering dinner or another martini and decided a martini was the safer bet. Since my purpose wasn’t to give Heidi a lesson in good manners but to hear all she had to say, I shouldn’t embarrass her by eating my pasta when she arrived. I ordered the drink and once more checked messages on my phone. Still nothing from her. I’d give her ten more minutes. I wasn’t put to the test. The martini and she arrived at the same time. Wow! These hardworking girls must spend almost as much time at the gym as at the office. Like Kerry, she was beautiful and really very fit. Apart from that, very different: Heidi was no more than five foot seven, with brown eyes and straight dark blond hair worn in a stylish pageboy. In fact, everything about her was chic: the black leather jacket that she said she’d keep on a little longer, the knee-length dark red wool skirt, the ribbed black tights, the matching dark red pumps enclosing small and pretty feet.

  Before she could start on what I feared would be a lengthy apology, I asked what she would like to drink.

  She pointed to my martini and said, The same as you, but with an olive.

  The apology turned out to be very brief, more like a matter-of-fact explanation than an expression of regret. The traffic was terrible, all the way from the Van Wyck Expressway to the bridge; at the office she found a call from a client she had to take being held by her secretary, and another call she had to return; when she got to her apartment she realized she wanted to take a shower and change out of her jeans; and she walked to the restaurant instead of hailing a taxi. Et voilà! From Lexington and Eighty-Eighth, she added.

  That seemed to be all for the moment, so I asked whether she wouldn’t like to look at the menu.

  Don’t need to, she told me. I know it, and I always take the same thing. The Neptune salad and linguine aglio e olio. That’s if the smell of garlic across the table doesn’t bother you.

  I laughed and said it didn’t. The linguine and the seafood salad were exactly what I would have as well. After she confirmed that red wine was all right with her, and that, in general, she preferred it to white, we fell silent again. Wondering how we would get around to talking about Kerry, which after all was the reason she’d given for getting together, I told her that I’d seen Moses Cohen earlier in the day and that he’d said she and Kerry and he had all been on the Law Review together. Kerry told me you and she were friends, I added, but she didn’t give me the background.

  That’s just like her, she answered. Moses is a good guy. We’ve stayed in touch.

  He’s my lawyer, I soldiered on. Kerry recommended him after my uncle Harry died and I needed help with settling his affairs.

  She made no comment.

  We’d finished our first course, and I began to think that unless I gave her a real nudge the dinner would be over before she got beyond telling me such items of interest as that she liked the wine I’d chosen and, in general, the wines of Alto Adige and Friuli, as well as Venetian cuisine.

  With the need to move on in mind, I put down my fork and knife and said: Moses also told me that you and Kerry were very close friends. He may have said best friends. Kerry had also said you and she were close. Looking back on it, I’m surprised that we didn’t meet while she was alive.

  You were together such a very short time! she replied. And so very absorbed in each other! But she did speak to me about you. Before and after you broke up, so I feel I know you pretty well, and also what happened between you. That’s why I thought I could write to you. I was glad when you suggested having dinner this evening.

  That’s very true, I said, it was a terribly short time. Four months and a few days. We were very happy, I was happier than I’d ever been, and then suddenly she left me. No, that’s not really fair. I had a premonition that something was wrong. As soon as I returned from Sag Harbor and gave her a full account of the final confrontation with Slobo. And things only got worse.

  It had occurred to me that a neutral characterization of what happened that night between Slobo and me was called for, and that was the best I could come up with.

  I don’t know how many times I’ve been over the story I told her, I continued. It was too graphic. I should have fudged.

  She wouldn’t have let you get away with it, Heidi answered. Don’t forget she was a crackerjack lawyer and a former prosecutor. You might have made it worse. Look, she hated what you’d done—in her eyes, because that guy was no longer a threat to you, it was murder, not justifiable homicide, and she picked up on something like boastfulness in the way you talked about it—but she thought you were too smart not to understand the effect your story would have on her, so at least she had to respect you for telling the truth.

  She was wrong, I answered. I was far too dumb. She knew how I hated Slobo for what he’d done to Harry—he didn’t just kill him, he beat him first—and for what he’d done to Plato, the cat I’d given Harry that both of us loved. And for pushing Harry’s secretary under a subway train. A nice woman I’d known since I was a boy. Kerry knew I’d sworn to kill him. She knew I didn’t want to leave him to the Suffolk County D.A. and a Suffolk County jury. If that was how she felt—that if what I did couldn’t qualify as self-defense she wouldn’t be able to bear to have me touch her—she should have laid it on the line. Then even someone as thickheaded as I, who’d killed men far less guilty than Slobo, men who’d done me personally no harm, would have gotten it. I can’t be sure thinking about it a year later. Probably I would have gone after Slobo the same way. But I might have called the ambulance right away, instead of letting the bastard bleed. I can’t tell. She meant everything to me.

  I stopped talking and drained a full glass of wine.

  Heidi surprised me by putting her hand over mine and saying, It’s all right, Jack. Kerry knew you were suffering, and she wished she had handled it differently or could go back to you. She just didn’t know how to make herself do it. But I don’t believe she stopped loving you—whatever that means—and you shouldn’t think she had. It wasn’t only stubbornness either. She wasn’t stubborn; she was more like a car without a reverse gear. Once she got herself into a situation—you know, a way of feeling—she didn’t know how to back out. She told me it was almost as simple as that. That’s a lot of what all the shrinks, all the therapy, all the anxiety and depression, and the medications were about.

  She never told me about any of that. Or the drugs. She did tell me about her parents. I realized that was hard
for her to do.

  Yes, it was, but she thought she must tell you that so you’d understand she was the principal source of their support, and she couldn’t risk losing her job. The rest of her problems…she was ashamed, she believed you wouldn’t be able to accept the truth.

  I interrupted. She was wrong. Of course I would have accepted it. I would have done whatever was needed to help.

  She covered my hand again.

  Yes, Jack, but she couldn’t be sure. I hate to say it, but I must: you loved each other, you had lots of great sex, but you remained strangers. There wasn’t enough time. Kerry needed time.

  You seem to know a lot—no, everything!

  I blurted that out, without managing to suppress the note of bitterness in my voice.

  That’s right, Jack, I do, but I’m Kerry’s oldest and best friend. We had almost no secrets from each other, not even when telling them hurt the one who told and the one who listened. Anyway, I had no secrets from Kerry. You must understand that Kerry kept things and people in separate boxes. There was a box for Jack, a box for the parents, boxes for different aspects of her work, and on and on. It was her way of maintaining order, of fighting against the worst of anxiety. Yes, and a box for sex different from what you and she had, for sex where there was no question of love, and, I am certain, a box for stuff she’d keep even from me.

  She broke off and took her hand away.

  Look, she said, I hope I’ve made it clear that I understand how you felt about Kerry and how you feel now. Talking about it has broken the ice between us, but we are here together for another reason. It’s what happened to Kerry. I want to tell you that I’m sure that Kerry didn’t overdose in order to commit suicide—she wasn’t at all suicidal, hadn’t been for years—and I’m not at all sure that the overdose was an accident. I think she may have been murdered.

  Me too, I murmured.

  Good, she continued. In that case I assume we have the same notion about where the inspiration for the murder would have come from. I have friends at the Manhattan D.A.’s office, and I’ve read their report on the case. It throws no light on what most likely really happened, and obviously no light on who may have done it or how he or she went about it. So let’s put that aside. But I do have an idea about timing—the reason why Kerry might have been murdered at that particular time. She was scheduled to appear the following Friday before the grand jury that’s been meeting in secret in Alexandria, Virginia, looking into new money-laundering charges against a string of Brown’s companies and this time—it’s a first—against Abner himself. Someone may have tipped Abner off about her appearance and about the fact, known only to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, that she had come into possession of important new information. There may have been a leak picked up by Abner himself or his lawyers. If Abner or the lawyers thought—and it’s not improbable—that the evidence was uniquely in Kerry’s possession, someone may have concluded that it would be good for Abner if Kerry was permanently prevented from presenting it.

  I see, I said. Do we know what that evidence is?

  I think I do, at least in part. There is a file I’ve put in a safe place. I believe there’s more that Kerry hid somewhere. I hope that working together we will be able to find it.

  You’ve got yourself a partner, I said, and held out my hand. She shook it, and let me hold her hand for a moment. Will you tell me about what you have and what we are going to look for?

  Of course, she said, but it’s late now, and I have a court appearance in the morning. I’ll only give you a thumbnail sketch: it’s the method used by one of Brown’s commodities trading firms working together with his bank—he may have other banks in addition to that one, but only this one is mentioned—to launder really huge amounts of drug and sanction-avoidance money as well as proceeds of really big bribes paid to foreign government officials. The sexy thing is that what she found does show Brown’s own involvement. As for the rest of the evidence, while I’m pretty sure it exists, I don’t know what it consists of. I do know that Kerry thought it was dynamite.

  When will you have time to tell me more and make some plans?

  Tomorrow. Would you be able to have a relatively early dinner, for instance at eight?

  Yes, I said, realizing that meant I might not make it to Washington to see Scott that day. Would you like to meet here? Would you mind coming to my apartment, which would at that hour be more private than this place or any restaurant I can think of? My housekeeper is a good cook.

  She laughed.

  I know that too, she said. I’ll be glad to come, but having been told about the rapid progress between you and Kerry, I want us to start off on the right foot. You might as well know that I’m not attracted physically to men. It hasn’t always been so, and it may not be so forever. But that’s the present position. Understood?

  Yes, I answered, understood and admired. I’ll expect you tomorrow at eight. No wonder you were Kerry’s best friend.

  Make it seven-thirty, if possible. I’d like to leave time for one or two martinis just like these. By the way, do you think they’ve got a tail on you?

  I don’t think so. No, in fact I don’t know.

  Please try to find out. If there is a tail, I’d like to make sure I don’t get onto their shit list unawares. If I know what’s up, I can probably take care of myself.

  V

  As soon as I came home from my run the next morning I called Scott.

  You’re right as usual, I told him. The threat is different this time. It’s so diffuse! When Abner sicced Slobo on me, I managed to goad him into actually saying the bastard’s name. Afterward, because of the figure I’d seen on the beach, I felt I could recognize him and was pretty sure I could take him out. For instance with my switchblade. But just now, when I went out running, and slipped the knife into the pocket of my windbreaker, it was more as a nostalgic gesture, a wink at that prick Jovan, than as a weapon I’d get to use. By the way, I was curious when I left the house whether I had a tail, but no one followed me, on foot or on bicycle, and no one odd looking was hanging around the building when I returned. Perhaps my morning schedule isn’t of interest. They know I run and that I run in the park, and that’s enough. Now I should report about my dinner with Heidi.

  Scott gave one of his long whistles when I told him about Kerry’s scheduled appearance before the grand jury sitting secretly in his own backyard in Alexandria and the file belonging to Kerry that Heidi had in her possession.

  This may be it, he said. Heidi may have put her finger on why Abner decided it was time to move on Kerry. And now he figures he’d better move on you as well. He knows you’re sure to try to get whoever murdered Kerry and to pursue any leads she discovered. He’ll think of killing you as a preemptive measure. I’ll check through my contacts at Justice into what this grand jury is up to now. And look: I agree you should have dinner with Heidi and, if necessary, stay in the city another couple of days. But I do need to see you, you old mother. Not just because I love you. We have to talk seriously about making sure you don’t get killed. Also there is that Amazon package. I can’t just sit on that stuff.

  What do you mean? I asked.

  I think the FBI has to be brought in, he replied. There is the small matter of a federal criminal statute: misprision of a felony. Not reporting one to the authorities. Sometimes the feds take it very seriously, particularly in cases like this one that involve egregious criminal conduct. I want to discuss with you how we go about reporting.

  The implications didn’t sink in until sometime after we’d hung up. If he went to the FBI, would I have to file some sort of complaint? If so, how much would I have to say about the background—my past dealings with Abner, the killing of Slobo, my suspicions about Kerry’s death, Heidi’s discoveries, Torcello and the new threats, and anything else she or I might unearth? Would the FBI take over the “case,” cutting me out? That’s not what I wanted. Heidi or perhaps even Moses could tell me whether I could dig in my heels and take the view that recei
ving a stupid-ass package didn’t require me to run to the FBI or the NY Police Department. It was advice that Scott’s position with the Agency possibly prevented him from giving. Shit! The FBI had been screwing around with Abner for over a year now based on specific information—Harry’s road map they’d gotten through me—and what had it accomplished? Zero against Abner and close to zero overall. Both Scott and Simon had mentioned some fines and settlements. What did Abner care about that? And what did I care about them? I wanted whoever had killed Kerry dead by my hand. And Abner? The task seemed almost impossible, but a resolution was hardening inside me: somehow, somehow or other, I would have to try to kill him too.

  The immediate priority, though, was to avoid exposing Heidi to danger. I was prepared to believe that if someone had been following me on my run I would have realized it. But that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t be tailed next time I went out or that the building and anyone identified as coming to visit me weren’t under surveillance. How such an identification of my visitors would be made I had no idea, but I was sure there were ways—for instance photographing people who came in or went out and then sorting out who they were. I needed help from someone in the business of surveillance. Fortunately, I was convinced I knew the ideal person. Martin Sweeney, the guy I had retained as a bodyguard for Kerry. He’d worked out well, and he had a partner who should be available to step in if needed. I consulted my iPhone. Sure enough, Martin’s telephone number and email address were there. I had no idea how often he checked his email. To save time, I clicked on his number. He answered right away, and, after I’d identified myself, he told me how sorry he was about Kerry.

  Such a nice young lady, so brave and, if you don’t mind my saying so, very decent. I would have never thought she was a user. A heavy user! Someone who’d overdose!

  Perhaps she didn’t, Martin, I answered. That’s part of a long story I want to go into with you, but I have a more immediate need for your help. Would you, or you and your partner—I think his name is Lee—be able to figure out whether I’m being tailed? We’ll discuss what to do if in fact I am.