by Louis Begley
Very lovely, I told her.
Meanwhile the butler served the cakes.
Have a piece of each, Dana, Abner told me. Myself, I’ll have two pieces of pecan pie—that’s my favorite—and one slice of lemon cake. Large pieces, Ralph, he added, addressing the butler.
That’ll be all, he continued, dismissing both Eileen and Ralph. If we want more tea, Dana here will pour it.
He waited until they were out the door and said, Sweets are strictly verboten! I suffer from type 1 diabetes. Since kindergarten, and it’s not been getting any better. But this is such an occasion, and you’re such a guest, that I’ve decided to indulge. You should too. These are the last sweets you will get to eat.
I don’t think so, I answered. Fortunately, I’m not on any sort of diet. I look forward to a long life of eating desserts.
Your remaining lifespan can be measured in hours, Dana. But as sweets go, you’ve been undeservedly lucky. My sweet blood—no amount of willpower, no amount of exercise, no asinine treatment, has helped. Measuring the blood-sugar level after every meal, the injections, doctors fiddling with doses…misery. Can you imagine what it was like when I was a schoolboy? In prep school? This has been my one defeat. Until now, until you’ve come along. You’re a lemming, Dana, a good-looking moron. That nincompoop George W. attacks Afghanistan and Iraq—hop, you jump in. Did you ever ask yourself whether Americans, American arms, American treasure, had any business doing that? Oh no, your lemming instinct was enough. Fruitcake Harry gets the idea he has to stop me—can you imagine such a thing, that limp-wristed fairy pitting himself against me, like a mouse blocking the path of a lion—and what do you know, his stupid nephew takes up the cause. To your everlasting shame.
You’re out of your mind, Abner, I said quietly. That’s a possibility I should have been considering. Until now, I’ve thought you were evil, evil through and through. But now I think you’re also seriously crazy. How do the murders—the only ones I know, of course, are of Harry and Kerry, of your own hit man Boris and his tootsie Lena, but there must be many others—fit into your superman will-to-power model? Collecting masterpieces with one hand, paying hit men with the other?
How can you expect me to concern myself with trivia at a time like this? The simple answer is: I kill because I can. When it suits me to do so. It suits me to kill you, and when this capital scene ends, I will have sent you to your death.
He said all this very calmly.
In the meantime, he said, you have succeeded where your homo uncle failed. When these despicable files are made public, when I stand naked and bound before the jeering Lilliputians, your fellow moral dwarfs, much of what I have built will crumble. And what will you have achieved?
The end of you, I answered.
This made him laugh. The same unforced laugh. There is no end of me. I’ve seen to that! There never will be. Another piece of cake?
I shook my head.
Very well.
Eileen, he spoke into the telephone, please bring my insulin kit.
I’ve no idea how you’ve been brought up, Dana. No doubt badly. Had your education not been neglected you would have been raised, just as I, reading The Swiss Family Robinson, that too-little-read classic. An immortal phrase from it, one you surely don’t know, although it is pregnant with profound meaning—“In the midst of this, Fritz did not neglect the training of his young eagle”—encapsulates much of what will follow here. Not everything is metaphor, Dana! Reality, above all, reality! Even so I, Abner Brown, have never neglected my diet. Except just now, for a short while. Wasting my time. Talking to you. Or my insulin. Meanwhile, only the Lord knows where my glucose level has gone to. No, I know. Sky-high! Oh, Eileen, thank you. Please set the insulin box on the coffee table. A Renaissance object, Dana, not that I think you would care!
It’s lovely, I said with sincere admiration, studying the inlay that showed Actaeon already transformed into a deer and pursued by his own hounds.
If you only knew what you’re looking at you would understand that it’s singularly apposite. Long-toothed and merciless hounds pursuing a noble hind.
He opened the box and examined the contents.
Eileen, he said to the rose of Texas, who was waiting by his side, this being a special occasion I will want a full vial of this wonderful life-preserving stuff and a real syringe. Would you mind bringing them?
Right away, Abner.
She returned with the two objects on a silver tray I recognized as Georgian, and asked whether he would like her to administer the insulin.
No, Eileen, thank you, he replied, I will do the injection myself. But I would first like to dictate a short memo to Will Hobson.
Yes, Abner, she simpered, I’m ready.
It was pure prestidigitation. Somehow, from some hidden pocket, she produced a stenographer’s pad and a ballpoint pen.
Then take this down:
Will—
In the lowest circle of hell are punished traitors. There, locked for eternity in a frozen lake, lie Lucifer himself and Judas Iscariot and, of late, Harry Dana. His nephew is delivering to prosecutors tomorrow a set of the documents I’m sending to you herewith, all stolen from the files of your former law firm, Jones & Whetstone, or prepared in shameless breach of the attorney-client privilege and the sacred duty of loyalty.
Be forewarned!
That will be all, Eileen. Finish the memo with “Dictated but not read by Abner Brown” and get it and these files to Hobson by messenger.
He pointed to the files I’d brought, which were still on his desk.
Have the fellow take the plane this evening, he continued, and call Hobson to tell him that a package is arriving and will be delivered to his home even if the hour is late.
Yes, Abner, I will, she said. As she turned to leave the room she shot in my direction a look of undiluted hatred.
Well, well, said Abner, opening the Renaissance box, do you see these strips and related gizmos? They’re for measuring the sugar level. Pain in the ass, we know it’s high and I’m about to make it higher.
The tea table was still there. Without getting up from his armchair, he reached, grabbed a slice of pecan pie, and ate it, dispensing with plate and fork. When he finished, he licked his lips, belched, and wiped his hands on the tablecloth.
Time for the injection, he told me, and unbuttoned his suit jacket, took off his necktie, unbuttoned his shirt, and opened his trousers. He wore suspenders, without a belt. Flabby stomach, I observed, although he isn’t a fat man.
Now I prepare the syringe. A small man, planning what I have planned, would have eaten no pie and no cake or at most a crumb. Made the job easy for the old insulin. My actions are large, just as I am large and my accomplishment is gigantic. Therefore, here is how we do it.
He took the fresh vial into his left hand and with the right drew its contents into the syringe Eileen had brought.
Full size, he told me, not one of those midget syringes for regular doses. This is a fine afternoon, neither the pie nor the cake disappointed me, so I’m quintupling the dose. Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion. We don’t want to be on a Sunny von Bülow roller coaster, do we? There, this should do it. Do you wish to administer the injection, Dana? It’s simple. Subcutaneous. You make a tent of the flab on my stomach with your index finger and thumb, push in the needle, and zoom. That’s all there is to it.
I think I’ll just watch, I answered. It’s your show.
Chicken, he said, here’s how. Your end won’t be so painless or easy.
I remained silent. He stuck the needle in and pushed in the plunger, showing no hesitation. A big smile spread over his face. I don’t know how many minutes passed until he slumped deeper in his armchair and his head drooped down on his chest.
I picked up the telephone, told Eileen that her boss passed out or was dead, and left the apartment, without anyone attempting to stop me. On the way out of the building I retrieved my briefcase from the Irish doorman and gave him a tenner. A q
uick look inside reassured me. The iPhone and .45 had not been disturbed.
—
Shall we go home, sir? asked Feng.
Yes, I replied, but I’ll walk. I’ll go in through the zoo entrance and head uptown and should be home in twenty minutes.
Feng looked troubled. It’s cold, sir, and getting dark, wouldn’t it be better to go back in the car and have a nice hot bath?
Don’t worry so much about me, I told him. I need to clear my head and a walk will do me good. Really, I’ll be fine. Here, hold my briefcase open for a moment, I’ll just grab my pistol and stick it in my waistband. The briefcase can go into the car.
I walked slowly to the zoo, which was already closed, looked longingly at the pool where the seals and sea lions were all surely asleep, resolved to visit them soon at feeding time, and headed uptown, walking toward the arcade between the zoo proper and the Children’s Zoo. The Delacorte music clock was striking six and began to play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” I paused, never having been able to resist the parade of animals. My head was absolutely empty. So that was the evil genius, the murderer by remote control, the quiet fanatic working to subvert the republic! Mad. Mad as a hatter. Feng was right. I should have let him drive me home. There was a chill in the air. The park was deserted, the wind chasing dead leaves and ice-cream sandwich wrappers along the path. My leg was doing its throbbing act, but I wasn’t about to baby it. Instead, I picked up the pace and began humming a marine cadence: There’s travel and adventure and loads of fun, and we’ll even teach you how to shoot a gun. I broke into a smile—like Abner, it seemed to me—but I couldn’t help it. So this is how it all ended!
There was a choice between a path that went up some rocks and one that avoided them. I wasn’t in a mood to climb. Instead I turned left. How to shoot the gun, how to shoot the gun. I thought I’d left all that in Afghanistan. That turned out to be an illusion. What lay before me now? Abner’s threat. But the guy was dead. Dead men don’t kill. I started up the cadence again and wished I could break into double time. Memories, that the distance had made fond, of drills and marches occupied me until I became aware of the figure of a man of about my build, dressed in camo, who appeared from the bushes on the right, about twenty feet ahead of me, reached the asphalt path, and began to walk in my direction. Peering through the rapidly falling dusk, I recognized him. Eric! What a strange world: once a noncom in my platoon, now a bouncer at the Rat. I waved to him and he waved back.
Hello, Eric, I said. What brings you to Central Park at this hour of the evening?
You’re not as quick on the uptake as you used to be, Captain Dana, he answered. You brought me here. I’m here to kill you. The only question is how I do it. The Ka-Bar or a bullet? I’d rather see you bleed. It’ll be the knife.
You’re insane, I said. This is on account of Helmand? I saved your ass from a court-martial and the brig. Many years in the brig. You know that. Anyway, if you wanted to kill me, why didn’t you do it then? Why did you take out the sniper who would have done the job for you?
Two reasons, Captain. One, back there we were both marines. That’s over. Now nothing stops me from settling our score. Paying you for the rank, wife, and kid I lost. Because of you. Two, you’re going to make me able to quit my fucking job. There’s a serious price on your head.
I’ve got news for you, Eric, I replied, Abner Brown died just about half an hour ago. If I were you, I wouldn’t count on being paid. Anyway, what the hell are you doing working for him?
Why do I work for him? To save this fucking country from assholes like you—and make good money on the side. Got it?
The Ka-Bar flashed. I reached for the .45, knowing I was hopelessly late. It was a hell of a way to die.
He cut my good arm which held the pistol and was going for my throat when I heard the crack of a gunshot. Eric stopped in midmotion. Part of his cranium was no longer there. He stood there perplexed and sank to the ground. Whoever had shot him must have used a hollow-point bullet. Who the fuck was it? I turned around, looking for the shooter.
Running toward me was Feng, a Glock 17 in his hand.
Are you badly hurt, sir? he asked.
Just a cut. Nothing serious. You got here in the nick of time, man! How did you know?
I didn’t, sir. Just being cautious. It’s an old habit.
He looked at Eric and said, This fellow is quite dead. Do you believe, sir, that we must call the police? If that’s not absolutely necessary, we could cut over to the avenue. You might sit down on a bench and rest while I get the car.
Epilogue
A couple of Goldman Sachs traders out on their early dawn run found him. The report of the discovery, only a short distance north of the entrance to the Children’s Zoo, of the body of a white male in camouflage fatigues, armed with a combat knife and a handgun, the top of his head blown off, took over morning TV shows and online breaking news posts of major papers. It made the late editions of the Daily News and NY Post, and for a few days distracted attention from Police Commissioner Kelly and his stop-and-frisk policy. Already the next day it was known that the victim was Eric King, a former Marine Corps NCO, working as a security guard at an entertainment space in Chelsea. Taking decidedly the second place—although it rated a below-the-fold first-page obituary in the New York Times—was the report of the sudden and unexpected death at his Fifth Avenue triplex of Abner Brown, the multibillionaire Texas investor, noted philanthropist, and principal backer of right-wing candidates and policies. The apparent cause was an injection of insulin for his type 1 diabetes condition that, as was his custom, he administered himself.
I was no more eager to take my knife wound to the emergency room and face the inevitable questions it would provoke than was Feng to call the police after he shot Eric. How could you blame him? His firearm was unregistered. He bandaged my arm expertly and, deciding that the cut would benefit from a few stitches, called his friend Dr. Yan, whose office on Mulberry Street was just closing. The doctor jumped into a taxi, was at my apartment within the half hour, and within another twenty minutes had me sewed up and rebandaged. Afterward, assuring me it was just a formality, he asked how I got hurt. Feng, hovering in the background, made a face so sour you’d think he’d eaten an ice-cold egg roll. I sighed and said, It was so stupid of me, I cut myself shaving.
The bandaged arm fit neatly into the sleeve of my suit jacket. For the first time since I returned to the city from Torcello, I did not spoil the hang of my clothes by sticking the .45 into my waistband or the switchblade into the pocket of my jacket. I doubted that Abner had yet another surprise waiting for me. Besides, I was on the way to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where I was meeting Heidi and Scott. The hardware would make the wrong impression, I told Feng, who drove me there, having first pointed out, politely but firmly, that it would be prudent to stay out of the subway for a while. I had with me the file Kerry had sent to me at Mail Boxes, Etc. Heidi had her own “Kerry file.” Flanagan received us with considerable solemnity in his conference room, flanked by FBI agents from the New York office and D.C., the chief of his criminal division, a couple of younger assistant U.S. attorneys, and an emissary of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia presenting the case against Abner and his enterprises to the grand jury in Alexandria. We handed over the files with equal solemnity. High-speed copiers are a great invention. Within minutes copies of the files were distributed to the assembled jurists. They read and read in complete silence.
Ed Flanagan was the first to speak. This is it, he said, there’s more than enough here to indict just about every one of the Brown companies and a dozen of their executives. Too bad that Abner bailed out.
Prompted by Scott, I raised my hand and gave an account of the Amazon packages I’d received, courtesy—I was certain—of Abner Brown, and Scott completed my narration by telling of the effort to track the sender. The news drew a prolonged collective whistle from the assembled forces of law and order, the FBI representative from D.C. stating th
at he would recommend to the director the start of an intensive and accelerated investigation.
We’ll want you, Miss Krohn, and you, Mr. Dana, to authenticate these files and tell the grand jury how they came into your possession, as well as, of course, the Amazon story, said the Virginia assistant U.S. attorney. Could you be in Alexandria for instance next Wednesday, in the early afternoon?
It turned out that she could. Of course I was free. We both accepted Scott’s invitation to have dinner with Susie and him and spend the night at their house.
The indictments handed down after Heidi’s and my appearances before the grand jury provided grist for the media mills for weeks afterward and were accompanied by howls of outrage at yet another political witch hunt from conservative radio talk-show hosts, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, on the one hand this and on the other hand that news analysis by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and a mixture of jeremiads and jubilation from left-leaning blogs and publications including, months later, a five-thousand-word article in the New York Review of Books. The untimely disappearance of Abner Brown himself did not go unnoticed, regretted on the right (he would have vindicated himself against these jackals) and on the left (he should have lived to a ripe old age in jail).
For weeks I waited for the other shoe to drop, for my presence in Abner Brown’s library when he gave himself the fatal injection to come to light and draw the interest of the New York district attorney or perhaps Ed Flanagan himself. I did not think that a great leap of imagination was required to see Abner’s hand in the attempts to murder me of which I was twice the target in Sag Harbor, a year and a half ago, when I killed Slobo and lost forever the love of Kerry, and just recently, when Jovan came close to killing me before I killed him. Abner was dead. His punishment for those crimes and so many others of which he was guilty would have to come in another place, if there was one. For my part, I preferred to leave those matters just as they were—closed. Never far from my mind was Goran Petrović and his unfortunate fall down the 103rd Street subway station stairs. That too was an adventure I didn’t wish to revisit, and I particularly didn’t want to renew my acquaintance with Detective Walker.
