Kill and Be Killed

by Louis Begley

  How did you guess? She laughed again. Not quite a couturier but big on Seventh Avenue. That’s how the Krohns have made their money. My great-grandfather started out sewing shirts on the Lower East Side. Next thing you know he had a sweatshop on West Thirty-First Street where people working for him sewed and sweated. My late grandfather moved the operation to Seventh Avenue, and that’s where it is today, making fancier and fancier ready-to-wear women’s clothes that you’ll find under the Krohn label at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Saks, if you want to see what we still make in the U.S. Most of what Father now sells to department stores and online under labels that don’t include the magic word “Krohn” is manufactured for them in China or Vietnam. There you have it, the key to my independence and my chic: money on my father’s side of the family. My mother’s family is all certified lefty intellectuals. City College in the old days, and Harvard and Yale now that they let in people called Rappaport and Schwartz. The bibliophile is a Rappaport.

  She laughed once more—I was beginning to like the sound of her laughter—and added, I guess we both know the story of Kerry’s visit to Abner when he said he expected her to give him a blowjob like a good Jewish girl from New Jersey. A charming literary fellow! If Kerry’s name was Black it must have been originally Schwartz, and if she’s from New Jersey she must be into giving head. Another Philip Roth creation straight out of Goodbye, Columbus! Just think, suppose instead of Kerry he’d seen a Krohn. He’d have raped me!

  I had decided to let Heidi babble on through what had turned into a longer cocktail hour than I had envisaged and waited until we were at table, eating Jeanette’s sauté, to remind her of the business purpose of our dinner. What more could she tell me about the file she’d recovered? Had she by any chance brought it with her?

  No, no, the file is in the safe. It wasn’t so much a matter of recovering it, she said, as of following instructions. I can give you the exact date: Tuesday, the first of October. The poor thing must have felt threatened, though she never let on. Anyway, she clearly wanted to get the file out of her possession and into some other hands. That Tuesday morning, then, I received a hand delivery in a Jones & Whetstone envelope showing her as the sender. Inside was another envelope, also addressed to me and scotch-taped in every direction, and a handwritten note asking me to keep the envelope for her in a secure place and open it only on her instructions or if something happened to her. Of course, I called her immediately wanting to know what was going on. She revealed nothing, literally nothing. She’d been going through her mother’s personal papers and had come across a journal her mother had kept that was fascinating, and very important for her, but otherwise not a file she’d want anyone else to see. I thought that was pretty weird and asked why she didn’t simply burn it. Oh no, she said, I couldn’t possibly. One day I may want to write a novel or a family memoir, and these pages are essential material. I went on thinking this was weird, but naturally I told her I’d do what she wanted and would put the envelope in my firm’s office safe, under my personal file number. Oh well, she said, I guess that’ll do, but I’d rather you put it in your personal safe-deposit box. And do it today, please. I was very busy; otherwise I would have asked to see her and would have tried to get to the bottom of this. As it was, I just told her that I had no personal safe-deposit box—which is the truth—and that no one except me would have access to a file I put in the office safe marked as belonging to me rather than to the firm. She said she guessed in that case it was all right, and hung up.

  If only you’d seen her, I murmured.

  I know, she said, I know. I can’t get it out of my head. But it was one of those things that’s nobody’s fault. I went to D.C. that evening and didn’t come back until late in the afternoon the next day. I called her once I got home. She was out and didn’t get back to me until around noon the following day—that was Thursday—just as I was leaving for lunch with a client, and we made a date to get together on Saturday. Dinner was better than lunch, she said, she’d want to sleep in. Why didn’t I suggest doing something together Friday night? Very simple. First, I didn’t think there was any urgency. Second, I was going to the opera with my parents. It was all so stupid and so crazy.

  She stopped to choke back a sob.

  I don’t think that you’ve done anything wrong, I told her. Have you been able to find out since what scared her?

  Heidi shook her head. The police actually got through to her voice mail at home. All messages had been erased. I don’t know what they did about voice messages at the law firm. Simon Lathrop should be able to tell you.

  He didn’t mention it, I said. I’ll ask him. So what was the next step with the envelope? I suppose once you came out of shock you got it out of the office safe and opened it…

  Yes, it’s a file, consisting of many sheets, reporting on due diligence that Jones & Whetstone did on the Brown Enterprises holding company, the one that owns all the legitimate businesses other than Abner’s residences and ranches and perhaps a part of his oil and gas investments, when it was being prepared for a public offering. I know that Kerry told you that your uncle Harry discovered the existence of Abner’s parallel crime empire through that work. I can’t tell whether what this file consists of is transcripts of notes taken by J & W associates or Harry’s summary and analysis of their notes. Unfortunately, if it’s the work of many associates—which is what I believe—their names aren’t given, and there are no file numbers or other usual means of identifying the authors. Anyway, whoever prepared these notes found a disconnect between the shipping documents—bills of lading and the like—that First National Brown Family Bank, which is a legitimate, real banking organization created under the laws of Texas and owned by Abner, and anything those shipping documents purported to cover, and the underlying transactions. For instance, there are shipping documents relating to huge volumes of rare earths being bought from Congo for hundreds of millions of dollars. Very nice, except that if you go to the trouble of tracing those documents to their source, you find that there was no such purchase, that nothing was loaded on the ships, et cetera, et cetera. Why? Because the criminal First National Brown Family Bank, organized under the laws of Malta unlike its legitimate twin, used the funds realized on the sale to buy arms from non-U.S. manufacturers for resale to countries under sanctions, or potentially nuclear-proliferating materials from North Korea or Pakistan, that were then shipped to Iran or—much more troubling—consignees who could well be al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, or the al-Qaeda affiliate operating in Yemen. The rare earths are a fiction. The list is extensive, and it doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive. It illustrates what was going on and how the feasibility of what went on hinged on the existence of the Brown Family Bank, with its huge and rock-solid capitalization and access to the Federal Reserve discount window. That access was the indispensable open sesame—it made it possible to use extremely cheap funds available without any practical limit to earn huge margins on the phony money-laundering transactions or usurious interest on loans, some of which were real and some imaginary, some repaid and some written off because the loss could be washed against some kooky illegal transaction. And here is the zinger: it would seem that transactions above a certain amount, I can’t tell you what it is, had to be authorized by Abner personally. So that you have his signature—or sometimes just initials—on the American side of these deals. Deals that are really transparent to any banker understanding finance. He couldn’t possibly get away with claiming he didn’t know what he was doing.

  God Almighty! I exclaimed. Why did she just sit on this? What was wrong with her? Why didn’t she take it to the guy she and I saw together when she and I turned Harry’s materials over to him, the U.S. attorney, whatever his name was. Why did she lie to you about what was in the envelope?

  Heidi was sobbing. I offered her my handkerchief, which she accepted, and refilled her wineglass.

  This is very good wine, she said, and delicious chicken. I’m sorry I haven’t got my nerves under better cont
rol. Why did she act the way she did? I can only speculate. First hypothesis: she came quite properly to the conclusion that these new materials, which she identified in her own handwriting as having been found by her in J & W’s files, were the firm’s property and were covered by the attorney-client privilege. Don’t forget, Abner and his businesses were Harry’s clients and major, very major, clients of the firm. I am pretty sure that Kerry explained to you how privilege works.

  I nodded. I haven’t forgotten, and I haven’t forgotten the exceptions to the privilege that should have let this stuff be given to the authorities.

  Good, she replied. She had probably in the end come to that conclusion. Don’t forget either that we don’t know exactly when she came upon this stuff. How much time did it take her to study it? How much time elapsed between when she finished and the first of October, when she sent it to me? Perhaps only days. And she was working her way first through the file and then through the privilege problem alone—I am certain she couldn’t have asked my advice, because there is no exception for disclosure to a friend.

  Second hypothesis: she had in fact already told Ed Flanagan—that’s the U.S. attorney—in outline or perhaps in some detail what she had, although she hadn’t yet turned over the file. I’m sure you remember I told you she was scheduled to appear before the grand jury looking into money laundering by Abner and his businesses exactly one week after she was killed. I believe she gave that information to Flanagan or someone at Justice, which is why they wanted her to testify. I also believe that somehow Abner found out about it and decided there was no way she’d give that testimony. It’s probable that the description she gave to the FBI or Flanagan was too general for it to be much use without her to verify and explain. Otherwise, an FBI agent or assistant U.S. attorney could have testified to what she had told him or her. Hearsay rules don’t apply in grand jury proceedings, so her presence wouldn’t have been indispensable if the story she had given was adequate. But I think as a matter of preparing to get Abner, the U.S. attorney leading the charge on the laundering case would have wanted her live testimony and, above all, would have wanted the file.

  Third hypothesis: This one explains why she got so scared. Abner himself or someone who makes those fucking calls for him telephoned her and said something like Listen carefully, you little slut. Give back the file you’ve stolen or else—and previewed a list of things that she might expect to happen to her, from gang rape through torture to ultimate execution. You can fill in the blanks. So the first thing she thought she must do was to get the file into safe hands, in a safe place. That’s what she did. The question I can’t answer, which may undercut this hypothesis, is why Abner’s boys haven’t been turning over every stone looking for the file. For instance, there was absolutely no indication of a breakin at her apartment either before or after she died. You’d think they might have wanted to go through her papers. And I haven’t heard of a breakin at Jones & Whetstone, which would be the other logical place to look for a file she’d squirreled away.

  Simon didn’t mention any such thing either, I interjected.

  Well, that doesn’t surprise me, but it may not mean much. Remember that the guy who forced Harry to retire and was later booted out from the firm himself and took the Brown business with him to the Houston law firm surely has moles at J & W. Possibly they’ve looked. They may still be looking. So a burglary at J & W may not have seemed necessary.

  Another answer to the question, she continued, may be that Abner thinks the file is in your hands, that somehow Kerry, even though you and she had broken up, something he probably knows, would send the file to you when faced with danger and the possibility that the file might be taken from her.

  It took me a moment to think through Heidi’s hypotheses.

  All you say, I finally told her, makes sense in an insane sort of way. I’m groping my way toward a few questions that you might help me with. But let’s first have dessert.

  Jeanette had cleared the main course and was preparing to serve the apple tart she’d baked.

  I’ll take care of the tart, I said, and the coffee. And don’t bother throwing these dishes into the washer. Tonight, it’s my job. You go on and tell your sister I’m sorry we kept you late. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, unless I am visiting Scott Prentice, in which case I’ll see you when I come back. I’ll call you tomorrow at your sister’s and tell you whether I’m going or staying.

  Jeanette’s sister lives in White Plains, I explained once Jeanette had finished thanking me and left the dining room. She’ll take the number four train to One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street and catch the Metro-North there. Her sister will meet her at the White Plains station.

  Look, I said, here is where I stumble. Abner’s fortune—his known fortune as calculated by Forbes or Bloomberg—is way up there in the Warren Buffett sphere. How much money can this guy make on the money-laundering business? Isn’t it peanuts—in spite of the scale of the operation—in comparison with the legitimate businesses? I do know he’s Polluter Number One, Climate Change Denier Number One, and all that; Kerry talked about that, perhaps even Harry did. That I sort of understand. You make more money if you don’t adhere to environmental-protection standards. But nothing like what you’ve just described. Why does he bother?

  I think there are several comments I can make, she answered. First, we’ve been talking about money laundering because that’s where we seem to have the goods on him. But as you know from what Kerry told you, and from Harry’s road map, all his legitimate—your word—businesses have criminal twins. We can’t even begin to guess how much the criminal twins as a group contribute and where their profits ultimately are stashed away. In Singapore? In Malta? In Kuala Lumpur? Brought back to the U.S. without incurring tax? We don’t know. Very likely it isn’t peanuts. Second, the guy is evil. He likes doing evil. I imagine it’s the spice of his existence. Do you want to take Lucifer as an example? The angel who shone brighter than all others and yet was hell-bent on rebelling? Excuse me, I didn’t mean to make a pun. It just popped out. Or to take a mere mortal, Saint Augustine and his pears, how when he was a boy he just had to steal pears from the neighbor’s orchard, not because they were better pears than the ones in his own orchard but because doing evil, stealing, made the fruit taste better. Hitler and his men? Stalin? Mao at his worst? Pol Pot? Did it profit them to kill countless millions, or did they do it out of total contempt for life and love of doing evil, a passion for malice? What about the jihadi, blowing up people, including children, decapitating, amputating limbs, stoning sinners, and on and on? They say they do it in the service of Allah, but don’t you think that the real reason is that they like to maim and kill?

  She fell silent.

  All right, I said. What’s our next step, what are the other materials you hope to find?

  I am convinced, she replied, although I have no proof, that there is more. We have to get to her personal email accounts and her iCloud. They may be tucked in there, or we might find clues to their existence—or nonexistence—elsewhere.

  Thank you! If all goes according to plan, I told her, I’ll go to visit Scott tomorrow. Back in a couple of days. I’ll be in touch when I return, and we’ll get down to business. You’re really something. By the way, what was your major in college?

  You mean my smarty-pants allusions? I was a Harvard College English major, and when I get carried away I let it show.

  We had coffee and, having refused her offer to do the dishes, I helped her into that fabulous velvet coat and put her in the elevator. The kitchen in fact was spic and span. I went into the library, put a log on the fire, and waited for Martin Sweeney to call. The phone rang a few minutes later.

  The lady’s a fast walker, he told me. No tail, no problem.

  That’s great, I said, just where are you?

  At Eighty-Fifth and Fifth, he answered, I want to check out your building once again.

  Come up after you’ve done that, I urged him on the spur of the moment. W
e’ll have a nightcap and talk about plans.

  He was up in no time. I poured him a Jameson with soda and a neat single-malt scotch for myself. We were clinking glasses when the telephone rang. The caller identified himself as Detective Rod Walker. Immediately, I put him on speakerphone.

  Does a Mrs. Jeanette Truman work for you and live at your apartment? he asked.

  Yes, she does, I answered, feeling weak, as weak as when Simon told me over the phone in Torcello that Kerry was dead.

  She was attacked on Eighty-Fourth Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, and badly beaten. The ambulance took her to the Lenox Hill Hospital. If you can get over there, you’ll be able to find out more about her condition. I could wait for you and get your statement there. Please go directly to the emergency room and ask for me, Detective Walker.

  I’m on my way, I said, and hung up.

  As it turned out, I wasn’t quite on my way. The phone rang again. UNIDENTIFIED WIRELESS CALLER was displayed in the caller-ID window. I pressed the talk and speakerphone buttons.

  Greetings from Jovan, you fuckhead, said the familiar voice. Tonight I beat. Maybe next time I kill.

  VI

  We’ll go on foot, I said, it’ll be faster than a taxi.

  Why had they done it to Jeanette? Why beat up an old black lady who’d never thought a bad thought or done a bad thing in her whole blameless life? The answer never changed, however many times I asked the question. Maximum evil, that’s what he’s after. Hurting the innocent. Heidi has the prick pegged. No more doubts or hesitation. Whatever it takes, I’ll make him pay.

  We got to the hospital in record time, but without Martin I’d have wasted the minutes we’d saved while I tried to find my bearings. Out of breath and sweating, Martin found the emergency room like a homing pigeon and spotted Detective Walker without having to ask for him. It occurred to me that this was not the first time they had met.

  It’s ugly, Walker said, but I don’t believe she’s in danger. Mr. Dana? There is some information I’d like to get from you. If you don’t mind, I’ll record what you say. You should be able to see Mrs. Truman right after we finish.