by Louis Begley
For instance, I continued, I’m having dinner with her tonight. At a restaurant in the neighborhood. Madison and Seventy-Seventh. I can go there in a taxi, which should thwart any tail that you haven’t spotted. What other precautions should I take? Should we get her a bodyguard?
These guys are so fucking vicious and devious that at this point it would probably be a good idea. Lee and I have our hands full with you. Should we see if any of the good people we know are available?
Let me speak to her first. But how do you think I should manage our meetings?
What you’ve planned for this evening is just right, he said. Let’s play the rest by ear. You should use the burner when you call her.
All right. That’s what we’ll do. Shall we go to lunch now?
Yeah, that would be good, but can we first speak for a moment about something different that’s on my mind? It’ll just take a minute.
Of course, I said.
Jack, my wife and I have talked. Jeanette won’t be able to come back to work anytime soon. Even if she recovers sufficiently, she may be too scared to come back ever if you tell her what really happened. The wife and I don’t see how you can live in this huge place by yourself without any help, and I’d be worried about your hiring someone new from an agency or however you’d normally go about it. You can check references all you want, but with these pricks—excuse my language—you can’t be careful enough. So we’re worried about you. Even Nora, that’s my daughter, is worried.
My good friend Martin, I said, let’s go and eat. We’ll walk and talk. The restaurant is practically around the corner, on Third, between Seventy-Ninth and Eightieth. The food’s OK, it’s quiet enough there to hear yourself talk, and the tables aren’t crowded together. Not a place for eavesdropping. Now about Jeanette and the apartment. I agree that there’s no telling when or whether she’ll come back to work. We first have to see about her convalescence. I’ll certainly offer her a nice pension, and, if it can be done without hurting her feelings, I’ll encourage her to retire. We’ll see. But you and your family shouldn’t think I’m someone who can’t cope or isn’t willing to cope without a full-time live-in housekeeper. I kept Jeanette after Harry died because she’s been at the apartment ever since I used to visit my uncle as a boy. He was really attached to her, and I’m not ashamed to say that I kind of love her. She’s the one remaining link to my past. And about that huge apartment. I don’t need an apartment like that and I know it. But it was my uncle’s apartment, it’s his furniture, some of it actually family stuff, and the paintings and objects he collected. I’ve hardly changed anything. He was like a father to me, perhaps more of a father than the real one. That’s why I feel at home in the apartment, just as perhaps I will someday again feel good about the house in Sag Harbor. As you pointed out to that creep Walker, I can afford it. Very easily. So relax! I’m not some sort of hopeless case even if I don’t really like the idea of doing my laundry or carrying it to the laundromat and picking it up. Someday I’ll replace Jeanette, but there’s no hurry. By the way, I’ve told you all this so you’d understand me better. That’s all. I’m very grateful to you and your wife for your concern. And, of course, to Nora!
Thank you! For your information, poking around I learned that there is an expensive and probably OK laundry that picks up at your building and delivers. So that’s not a problem. But I still think you need someone in that apartment, and I have someone exactly right for you that you can trust. A Hong Kong Chinese. He’s legal, he can clean, do laundry like nothing you’ve ever seen, and he’s a great cook if you like Chinese. He can also take very good care of himself. No one’s going to beat him up. You might even find you’re glad he has your back. I don’t mind telling you on the QT that he has on occasion worked for us. That’s how I know he can really be trusted. His name is Feng.
Martin, if you vouch for this guy I’ll be glad to try him out. I’m curious though: why is this paragon available?
It’s a sad story, he answered. The old gentleman he worked for finally died of cancer. He was someone we knew very well, and we wanted to be sure he was in good hands.
Then please ask Feng to come to see me. Preferably at a time when you can be there as well.
The restaurant was two-thirds empty. We took a table in the corner and, after we’d ordered our pasta, I decided to get back to business.
One of the reasons I don’t mind not giving Kerry’s file to the U.S. attorney just yet, I said, is that it may be easier to find the guy who murdered Kerry before Abner is indicted and goes on the defense.
You’re going to try to get Abner to sic the guy on you, the way you did with Slobo? Martin asked. The same trick may not work twice.
I nodded and said, That’s right. It might not. Though I don’t detect much originality in Abner’s method of operations. How are we going to do it otherwise?
Police work, police work, and more police work, Martin replied. Lee’s going to hit Le Raton. That’s the name of the club where Kerry was that Friday night when she died. He’s figuring out how to get in. It seems that for men it’s strictly by invitation. Like a private party.
I’d like to get down there soon myself, I said. Scott will be here on Friday, and I’m going to have dinner with him. Perhaps if I don’t go to Sag Harbor on Saturday morning—I somehow doubt I will unless Jeanette is kept in the hospital over the weekend or is well enough for us to make some other arrangement—I could get down there Saturday night. Whatever you and Lee think is best.
Good deal, he replied. I’ll alert Lee. That club, by the way, isn’t open every night. Friday and Saturday nights for sure. Other nights are announced to clients. Speaking of Lee, if you don’t mind I’ll ask Lee to keep an eye on your building and on the restaurant this evening. Let’s see if these guys have figured out where you’re likely to go to dinner.
We finished lunch and went down the block to an AT&T store. As I was paying for the burner, my iPhone rang. It was Detective Walker.
Mr. Dana, he said, I’ve got the statement typed up and I’d like to stop by your apartment and have you sign it. I also have some questions I’d like you to answer. Will you be at your apartment anytime soon?
In twenty minutes, I said.
Good. I’ll be over in half an hour.
I glanced at Martin. He had the facial expression of someone using his tongue to detach from a molar a piece of caramel candy he’s decided he doesn’t like. Do you mind, he asked, if I sit in on your visit with Rod Walker?
On the contrary, I told him, I’d like that.
—
At a quarter of three sharp, the doorman telephoned to say there was a detective downstairs asking to see me. Please send him up, I said, and opened the front door.
The statement Walker had typed up was an almost verbatim transcription of the interview at the hospital. I showed it to Martin. He read it over and nodded.
All right, Detective, I said, I’ll be happy to sign.
The response from Walker wasn’t immediate. He had gone, without my invitation or leave, through the open double doors from the library to the living room and could be seen examining the art on the walls and Harry’s collection of Viennese bronzes on the sideboard that came from my paternal grandparents’ house on Pinckney Street in Boston.
Quite a place you’ve got here, he told me when, some minutes later, he returned to the library. I see Mr. Sweeney is here. May I ask in what capacity?
I consult for the captain on security issues, Martin answered for me. You got a problem with that? Just in case you’re curious, I’m also an attorney, admitted to the bar in this state.
All right, Mr. Dana, is it the case that you live here all by yourself?
Yes.
I suppose with your Marine Corps background you make sure you stay in shape. There is no gym in this building?
I shook my head.
Have you installed gym equipment in the apartment? You know, a stationary bicycle, weights, or a rowing machine?
N
o, I haven’t, I answered. I go to a gym on Third Avenue.
Yes, which gym is that?
I said the name, which he wrote down initially in a cardboard-covered notebook.
Stupid of me, he said, and took out a recording device from an inside coat pocket. Having had me repeat the name of the gym, he played it back. It works, he announced.
I shrugged.
Do you do anything else to keep in shape? For instance, do you run?
So that’s where he was going. It was a good thing that Martin had warned me. But how the hell did he get to me so fast?
Yes, I do.
Most mornings?
Yes.
In Central Park.
I nodded.
Including this morning?
Yes.
And did anything unusual happen?
Yes and no. I became aware of another runner who seemed to be following me. When I slowed down, he slowed down; when I ran faster, he did too. I thought at first he’d picked out someone running at a speed he liked and decided he’d let me pace him. Then I realized there was more to it. He’d follow me if I left the road and so forth.
And what happened next?
I decided I’d cut across the North Woods—I don’t know whether you’re familiar with that part of the park—
I am, Walker interrupted.
And run to the West Side, I continued. This other runner followed.
What did he look like?
Tall. Perhaps not as tall as I. Heavier. Dirty blond. Wearing a gray running suit.
And what happened then?
Martin, at whom I sneaked a glance, was expressionless. Did this mean I was doing well? No way to tell. I’d better keep on trucking.
You mean after he followed me? We got to a spot called the Ravine. There I stopped. He stopped too. Started doing what you might call usual runner stuff—stretches and running in place—but gave no indication of planning to move on.
Can you describe the other runner’s face? Walker asked.
I really don’t think I can, I replied. Sort of ordinary.
Maybe I can help you. I’m going to show you a photo.
He took out his smartphone and after fiddling with it showed me an image.
Is this the young man?
It’s possible. I can’t be sure.
Really?
Yes, really.
All right, Walker said, but do you remember what happened after this young man had finished doing his stretches?
I called out to him: Have you got some problem with me? If you do, let’s talk about it. The guy answered, No way, no talk. Then he ran off toward the West Side.
Slow down, Mr. Dana. Didn’t you pull a knife on him before he ran off?
What an absurd idea! I exclaimed. Of course I never pulled a knife on him.
Not even after the telephone call?
What telephone call?
I was genuinely surprised.
Walker spoke slowly: You heard me, Mr. Dana. I said, Not even after you got the telephone call?
Whoa, hold your horses, Roddy boy! Martin spoke up suddenly. Suppose you answer the captain’s question. What telephone call are you talking about? Some telephone call to Captain Dana that you know about that he received there at the Ravine? Do you also know perchance from whom? And what was said?
Walker was visibly flustered. Strike that question, he said, we’ll move on. What happened after that young man, as you say, ran off? Did you follow?
Whoa boy! Martin said again. Nobody’s striking any questions, and don’t bother deleting anything from what you’ve recorded. I’ve got it all down right here—he patted his pocket—it will make good listening. Do you want to discuss why it will make such good listening for the Internal Affairs Bureau?
Walker’s jaw was set, but I thought he was going to speak. Instead, he shook his head. It occurred to me that he didn’t want Martin to record him. If that was the case, he thought better of it.
That will be all for now, Mr. Dana, he said once again very slowly, we will be in touch if we have more questions.
Bullshit, said Martin, rising from his armchair. There won’t be any other questions and you won’t be in touch. Get the fuck out, Roddy boy, and don’t bother the captain again. This is good advice. It can save you a shitload of trouble. Get going! I’ll show you to the door.
Holy Moses! What do you make of that, I asked Martin when he returned, and added, Thank you! Thanks a lot! You kept me out of some really hot water.
That’s right, he said, I did. Now let me make a call. There’s a piece of useful information we might be able to get.
He’d memorized the number he was calling or had it on speed dial. Yeah, it’s me, he said. The fellow who fell down the subway stairs at One Hundred Third Street, what’s the story on him? Only broken wrists and elbows and a bad concussion? Really bad? I see. At St. Luke’s under observation? What’s known about him? Couldn’t talk because of the concussion but his fingerprints talked for him? No kidding? A Serb called Goran Petrović! Spell the last name—thanks! Wanted by Interpol and the police in Italy, drug dealing and human trafficking? Child sex trafficking too? And that’s all! So you think he’ll be held on the Interpol warrant without bail until the extradition hearing. Mazel tov! Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Martin ended the call and turned to me. You dodged a bullet, Jack. I don’t think Walker will be back or that the NYPD is going to spend time looking for the idiot who pushed that prick down the subway stairs. Can you imagine Mr. Petrović filing a complaint? Or giving testimony? The scumbag that just left either didn’t know the background or thought he could pull a fast one. Interesting who sent him and filled him in on that phone call. Your pal Jovan? Whoever Jovan works for? Sleeping with the enemy, I’d say, and for once they weren’t very smart.
But you’re really something, Sweeney, I said. Why do you know so much, and how do you get to make a telephone call like that?
Twenty-five years in the Bureau, Jack! The last ten years in the Balkan organized-crime unit, which is how Scott Prentice and I got to know each other real well, and six years before that in major white-collar crime, concentrating on money laundering. You get to meet a lot of really upstanding people! Lee was with me in organized crime.
And you decided to retire?
You bet. Full pension and freedom to earn money working for rich guys like you. Little Nora isn’t so little anymore, and she’s a straight A student. I’m looking at paying for college and graduate school.
Let’s get this job done. If we do, nothing will give me more pleasure than to contribute to Nora’s scholarship fund.
We’ll be grateful for that, he replied, the wife, Nora, and I. When are you going to see Mrs. Truman?
Around six, I told him. Her sister, Marjorie, is coming too. Then I’ll meet Heidi at nine. And between now and the hospital and the hospital and the restaurant, I’ll try to work.
Sounds good. Lee will take over when you go to the hospital, and he’ll stay on the job until the young lady is safely home. You’ve got his cell-phone number? Call him if there’s a change in the program.
VIII
I told Martin I’d get some work done before leaving for the hospital, and that had been my firm intention. At that point work should have consisted of going on with my story of Harry’s murder. But having written about two-thirds of the book by my reckoning—I was not many pages away from the confrontation that ended with my killing Slobo—I gave in to the urge to share my manuscript with a friendly but supercritical reader and showed it to my editor. She said she loved my draft—and then stabbed me in the back! She sent it for vetting to the in-house legal department! As always, the lawyers “had issues,” and my editor and I agreed I had better take care of them before going into the home stretch. This was the time to make such adjustments as might be needed to save the publisher and me from lawsuits and liability, before the text was complete and revised, and I felt ready to ask my agent to submit it officially to the pub
lisher. Whom, if anyone, was I libeling? the lawyers wanted to know. Had I invaded anyone’s privacy? So instead of pushing forward I squirmed at my desk composing an epistle to the lawyers, trying to respond to their litany of worries, some of them so stupid I wondered whether those jurists know how to read. Because if they’d read my manuscript, and had understood what they were reading, they would have seen what I’d made clear as a bell on the first pages: the story was true; nothing had been invented; I’d told no lies and pulled no punches; I’d spared no one, least of all myself. Yes, the names of certain persons had been changed, I warned the reader, to protect the innocent. And, although I didn’t say so, I invented the name I gave the monster Texas billionaire who’d commissioned Harry’s murder. I also invented the names of his lackeys, the lawyers I called in my book Will Hobson and Fred Minot, who sold Harry for thirty pieces of silver. If the shoe fits, let them wear it! If the book is published and they read my pages, they’ll know who they are. In the meantime, I chuckle whenever I think how my lovely agent Jane and my editor haven’t realized that Abner Brown is also the name of a fictional villain as evil and ruthless as my real-life Texas monster, whose schemes are ignominiously thwarted by a young boy, the brave hero of a children’s book that my beautiful mother adored and insisted on reading to me long past the age at which I became able to read it by myself. If they missed the allusion, how many book reviewers and readers would get it? I planned to have fun keeping count.
Getting steamed up about Abner and his crimes was no problem, but composing that dignified and irrefutable reply to each of the lawyers’ objections was another matter. My eyes were closing while I typed. The alternative to a nap that I didn’t have time to take was to goof off and hope the urge to sleep would pass. The New York Times lay conveniently on my worktable. I’d barely glanced at the first page in the morning before leaving for the hospital. Except for a brisk game of online tic-tac-toe, I knew no better way to goof off than to read “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Anyway not since I discovered that it was possible to whiz through the daily NYT in less than thirty minutes. The Sunday paper takes longer, mainly because I read the marriage announcements in the Styles section, congratulating myself on the men and women I haven’t married. The secret of my speed? I skip everything concerning Afghanistan and Iraq—been there, done it—Israel because there’s nothing there but bad news and problems without solutions, Africa because it’s one more big heartbreak I don’t need, and India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh because I’ve paid my dues reading A Passage to India. Thank God the Times doesn’t jump on stories about Latin America, Australia, or Canada. Those they do run can be disposed of in a flash. That leaves Europe, Russia and China, and our poor benighted country. I read selectively. For instance, the government shutdown, now in its third week. The Times prognosticated that it would end tomorrow. Why tomorrow? An article captioned “Boehner’s Last Stand” laid it out: the distinguished Speaker of the House had decided to let the government reopen because the president agreed to eliminate health insurance subsidies for members of Congress, some members of the executive, and their staffs. No shit! “It’s all about not walking away empty-handed, about Mr. Boehner persuading his Republican members that they forced President Obama to give something up in exchange for not wreaking havoc on the economy,” the Times explained to dumbfounded yokels like me. I’d chosen the right reading material. Furious and wide awake, I got down to work, corrected the typos and punctuation in the letter I’d written, and, hoping it would stop the lawyers’ guns, emailed it to my editor.
