by Adam Mitzner
“I do,” Will said with conviction.
“But what do we owe to ourselves, Will?”
“I . . . don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean . . .” She hesitated for a moment, as if she was struggling to find the words to complete her thought, and then leaned in to him, placing her lips on his.
Will had what seemed like an out-of-body experience, where he was actually viewing the interaction from above them. He could feel Eve’s hand on him, her tongue in his mouth, her weight pushing him onto his back.
He broke their seal more abruptly than was required. “I’m sorry,” he said, wondering whether he was apologizing for the force he had used or for rejecting the advance.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Will,” Eve said. She resumed her position inches from him. In her eyes, he saw a sadness he hadn’t noticed before.
He could feel his heart beating, more out of fear than lust. Eve leaned in again, but this time angled toward his cheek. Her lips lingered there, and her hand slid into his hair. He could feel her hot breath in his ear.
A soft nibble, on the lobe, and Will’s eyes reflexively shut.
He was about to move her off him again when she whispered, “I’m going to go to bed now, Will. Sam is lucky to have someone as loyal as you.”
He watched her leave the terrace and then step into the elevator. When the doors closed, he felt a wave of relief at being alone. Then he stood up. He almost made it to the French doors before he vomited all over the terrace floor.
24.
Sam’s call woke him—with good reason, given that it was before 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday. Will looked over at Gwen, who stirred a bit but appeared to still be sleeping.
He could still feel the aftereffects of the sake. His eyes and throat were dry, his tongue heavy with a filmy coat.
In the hours since he’d parted from Eve, he’d convinced himself that the outing had indeed been some type of test, likely instigated by Sam. If that’s what it was, he assumed he’d passed—although he couldn’t be sure. On the other hand, it took a fairly demented mind to put a business associate through that type of hazing to establish loyalty. Perhaps it was all Eve, either seriously or not, seeing how far she could push naive Will Matthews from Cheboygan to compromise himself for a moment of passion with her.
“I thought you weren’t coming back until next week,” Will whispered into the phone.
“Change of plans,” Sam said. “There’s some stuff going on, and I’d like to bring you up to speed. Meet me in an hour, at my place.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
Sam Abaddon was someone who traveled in a suit and tie. Will, on the other the hand, was dressed like it was a Sunday morning, in jeans and a sweatshirt. He immediately regretted his sartorial choice.
Sam didn’t seem to care. He thanked Will for coming on such short notice, as if declining had actually been an option.
“I just put on some coffee,” Sam said. “Can I pour you a cup?”
Coffee sounded like manna from heaven. “Yes. That would be great.”
Despite the urgency in Sam’s message, he methodically attended to the coffee, recalling that Will took it with a little cream, but no sugar. He handed a mug to Will without pouring one for himself. Then he led Will into his living room, where he took a seat in one of the two armchairs. He gestured for Will to take the other. Will realized he had seen the same chairs in the Holly Hunt showroom.
“How was your shopping excursion with Evelyn?”
Will’s guard immediately shot up. He reminded himself that he’d acted completely appropriate with Eve. For the most part, anyway. He certainly hadn’t encouraged her, and he’d stopped her advances almost immediately.
But would Eve agree with that assessment? Would she tell Sam what had happened? Had she already done so?
“It was great. Furnished nearly my entire place. One day.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Evelyn is quite a talented decorator.”
He was about to ask Sam why he’d been summoned when his phone rang. “Mind if I answer this?”
He assumed it would be Gwen, telling him that she was heading to the office. But it was Eve on the line.
Will had enough experience with the opposite sex to know that these phone calls took one of two paths: apology for drunken action or a request to “talk” about it, which more often than not ended up with the couple picking up where they’d left off.
In this case, the first was unnecessary, and the second was to be avoided at all costs. The more immediate issue, however, was that he didn’t want to engage Eve at all while within ten feet of Sam.
“Hi, Eve,” he said, looking at Sam while he spoke. “I’m actually with Sam at his place right now. What’s up?”
“Really? He’s back?”
Will hesitated. Had Sam not shared his travel plans with Eve? Was his return something he wanted to keep secret from her?
He’d already told her that Sam was back, though. Therefore, whatever damage he’d done by speaking out of school was already done.
“Yes. Just this morning.”
“Put me on speakerphone.”
“What?” Will said. He was stalling, hoping Eve would think better of what she’d just requested.
He then recalled that there was a third way these day-after interactions worked. You just pretended the previous night had never happened. Perhaps Eve actually didn’t remember because the alcohol had hit her hard. It was also possible that she remembered every detail but was content to keep it stored away as a secret moment between them.
“Put me on speakerphone. I want to say hello.”
“I’m going to put her on speaker,” Will said for Sam’s benefit. “Eve?” he said after pressing the button on his phone.
“Welcome home, Sam!” she screamed from the phone.
“Glad to be home, Evelyn. I’m sorry I didn’t call right away. I assumed you’d still be asleep at this hour. You’ll see I texted that I wanted to see you as soon as you awoke.”
“That works out perfectly, then. The reason I was calling Will was to tell him that his rugs arrived. Why don’t you both come over right now to take a look at them? Will, I promise, you’re going to absolutely love them.”
Will looked at Sam, hoping he would tell Eve that they had business to discuss first. After all, Will still hadn’t heard what was so important that he had to be summoned to Sam’s apartment before nine on a Sunday morning.
“That sounds perfect, Evelyn,” Sam said instead. “We’ll be right over.”
When the elevator doors opened into Will’s apartment, Eve was standing right in front of them, wearing a white linen dress. Will didn’t think he’d ever seen her in white before—black was normally her hue of choice. He was struck by how she looked positively angelic. He suddenly doubted she was feeling any aftereffects of the sake.
She ran forward and embraced Sam. Whatever concerns she’d expressed about him the night before had obviously dissipated.
Will watched Sam spin Eve around. She seemed like a totally different person today than she had been last night. Maybe everything she’d said had indeed been some elaborate test to determine Will’s loyalty. Would he sleep with Eve? Would he badmouth Sam? If that was it, he could relax—he’d passed the test.
After she let go of Sam, Eve said, “So, what do you think?” She was pointing down at the living room rug. “Aren’t they everything I said that they’d be? They were just made for this kind of light.”
Will focused his attention on the enormous Persian rug covering the floor. The background color was a sharp yellow, almost gold, like a sunburst, with blasts of red in the center medallion that reminded Will of fire.
“I hate to play favorites, but the Gabbeh in the bedroom is even more magnificent,” Eve added. “The blue . . . I swear, it’s like you’re looking at the deepest Caribbean water.”
Sam placed his hand on Eve’s waist. Then, turning to Will, he said, “I need to dis
cuss something privately with Evelyn. It should only take a moment. Do you mind if we use your balcony?”
“Why don’t you check out the Gabbeh?” Eve said. “After Sam shares his secret surprise with me, we’ll come join you.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Young Will?” Sam asked. “That I’m going to steal Eve for a moment?”
This seemed uncharacteristic of Sam, asking Will’s permission to talk to Eve. He studied Sam’s face for some explanation of what was actually going on here: first Sam had urgent news to tell Will but didn’t share it; now he had some tidbit that required a private discussion with Eve on his balcony.
“No, I don’t mind,” Will said.
Sam smiled, bowed slightly. “Shall we, my dear?” he said to Eve.
Sam opened the French doors, then gestured for Eve to precede him outside. Sam closed the door behind him. From the other side of the glass, he smiled at Will. The two men held each other’s gazes for a moment, and then Will thought that Sam nodded—although why, exactly, he had no idea.
Part of Will wanted to rush toward the balcony, but he couldn’t imagine what he’d say once he was there, other than to reveal the previous evening’s events and declare that nothing had happened between him and Eve. But as far as he knew, Sam had no idea that anything other than furniture shopping had occurred.
So Will turned away from the balcony and took a step toward the bedroom.
That’s when he heard a loud bang, not dissimilar to the sound of a car backfiring. It was followed a moment later by the unmistakable sound of something heavy hitting the terrace floor.
Everything thereafter happened in a flash. Will reversed course, running toward the terrace. When he made it outside, he blinked hard, trying to make sense of the image before him.
Sam was on the ground, his left arm bent behind him at an unnatural angle, the pocket square that was always folded so perfectly spilling out in disarray. Distantly, Will noted that the handkerchief had red polka dots, which seemed as odd to Will as Sam’s state, because Sam had told him to wear only solid colors.
Eve stood over him, gripping a gun with smoke leaving its barrel.
“What happened?” Will said, his mouth dry as sand.
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. The answer was self-evident: Eve had shot Sam.
Will dropped to the floor, turning Sam’s face toward him. Blood was pooling out of Sam’s head, collecting on the cement, and running back toward the apartment.
Oh god, he thought, they’re not polka dots. Splatters of blood.
As he rose, his sight line returned to Eve. She was standing beside him in her flowing linen. There wasn’t a tear in her eyes. In fact, she looked as if she was in a trance. He realized that must be the face of shock, and wondered if he wore that mask too.
“He was trying to throw me off the balcony. And then—”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she threw her arms around him, sobbing into his cheek. They remained like that for a good thirty seconds, until Will ended the embrace and pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked. He’d expected her to be crying, but her eyes were still dry.
“Calling the police.”
She grabbed the phone out of his hands. “No. Calling the police would be suicide. For both of us. Sam has lots of dangerous friends. If they find out that I killed him, at your house, they’ll kill us both.”
SUMMER
25.
Each morning, Will awoke wondering if this would be the day. The day he’d learn that Sam’s body had been found. The day he was arrested.
But those things didn’t happen. Instead, the weeks moved on as they would have had Sam been alive. Will’s furniture arrived. He moved into his new apartment. He and Gwen discussed when she would move in too.
Even his work was unaffected by the death of his most important client. Sam had bestowed Will with complete discretion to trade his accounts, which meant that Will was able to buy and sell without regard to the fact that his client would never see a penny of the returns—or lament a dime of loss. At the end of the month, Maeve Grant generated account statements and then electronically transmitted them to the email address Sam had provided. The commissions earned were deposited into Will’s account, just as they would have been if Sam were alive.
June 27 began no differently from any of the other days since Sam’s death. Will woke up, showered, put on one of his Mario-crafted bespoke suits, and headed to work. He arrived at his usual time and looked up at the Tenth Floor aquarium from the Maeve Grant lobby. He was seated behind his desk by seven, busy examining the overnight trading results on the Nikkei and the trends on the Footsie. All indicators pointed to a strong day in the US markets.
At 10:30, his secretary poked her head into his office.
His office. The thought still made him uneasy. Will would never stop thinking of this space as Wolfe’s office. Yet, the day after Wolfe’s funeral, Mattismo had told Will that Wolfe’s office was now his, along with 25 percent of his former boss’s book of business. Maria Murano, Wolfe’s assistant, was part of the deal as well.
Will had reflexively declined. It seemed ghoulish. For Mattismo, however, death was simply another line item in the big ledger of life.
“It’s not a haunted house, Matthews,” Mattismo said. “It’s prime New York City commercial real estate. And I’ll tell you one thing: we’re not turning it into a shrine to Robert Wolfe. That’s for damn sure. The way it works is that the windows are given out based on AUM, and you’re next in line. You’re welcome to pass; then it’ll go to Hurley, or maybe Sinclair. And believe me, neither one of them is going to hesitate to take it. That means you’ll wait until some other swinging dick dies and hope that you’ve got the top AUM when they kick, or you’ll be in cubeland for . . . anybody’s guess how fucking long.”
“Mr. Matthews, Mr. Billingham asked for you to meet him in his office,” Maria said. Then she added, “Right away. He told me to say that.”
Will smiled, as if Maeve Grant’s general counsel requesting an immediate audience with him was of no moment. In point of fact, nothing could be more disconcerting.
It wasn’t until he was in the elevator on the way to the Maeve Grant C-suite that Will was able to assuage his greatest fear: this couldn’t be about Sam’s death, or Robert Wolfe’s either, for that matter. If Sam’s body had been found, or even if someone had connected Wolfe’s murder to Sam, it wouldn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the firm’s general counsel. Instead, the NYPD would have come to his apartment—or waltzed right into his office and hauled him off the floor in handcuffs.
Which meant that this was about financial crimes. Not the most silver of linings, of course, but any port in a storm.
The forty-fifth floor occupied the same footprint as all the others, but it contained only enough offices for the CEO, the COO, the CFO, and the GC, and each of their two or three top lieutenants. A few administrative assistants filled the interior space, but huge amounts of square footage were devoted to reception areas, which gave the floor the feel of a hotel conference center.
Billingham’s secretary, an older woman with thick glasses who couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, led Will into the general counsel’s office. When he stepped inside, he was surprised by the number of attendees.
Seated on one side of a conference room table were six people. Will recognized Billingham from his photograph in the firm’s annual report, although he hadn’t ever met the man before. To Billingham’s left was the head of human resources. Will had met her back when he joined the firm, when he’d needed help completing some insurance forms. The man to her left, and the three people on Billingham’s right, were complete strangers.
Will took the middle seat on the opposite side of the table. He offered a weak smile, but his insides were churning.
“Thank you for coming up on such short notice.” Billingham sounded almost as if Will had a choice. “I’m Jack Billingham
, general counsel of Maeve Grant.”
The only African American on the Maeve Grant board of directors, Billingham looked to be about seventy. His scalp was shaved smooth, glistening at the crown. His strong chin and bright eyes were those of a handsome man.
“I’m joined by Laura Johnson from HR and Brandon Sherman, who is also in the GC’s office,” Billingham said, gesturing to the two people on his left. “I’ve also asked outside counsel to help us with this matter. From left to right are David Bloom, Anne Steiner, and Claire McKeown, all of Cromwell Altman.”
Will didn’t know if he was supposed to say anything, so he just nodded. Billingham took a sip out of the water bottle in front of him. That’s when Bloom began speaking.
“Will, as Jack said, my name is David Bloom. I’m a partner at the law firm of Cromwell Altman. We’ve been retained by Maeve Grant to do an internal investigation. Before we begin, I need to go over some ground rules. Okay?”
“Okay,” Will said, trying his utmost not to sound scared, and doubting he was fooling anyone.
“As I said, we’ve been retained by the company. That means we’re Maeve Grant’s lawyers. We’re not your lawyers. That’s important, because while attorney-client privilege applies to this meeting, it is controlled by the company, and not by you. What that means is that Maeve Grant could choose to share every word of what you say here today with whomever they want. Or the company could choose to invoke the privilege, and thereby prevent anyone from finding out what was said here. The point being that it’s totally the company’s choice, and you have absolutely no say in the matter. Are we clear about that?”
Will resisted the urge to say “crystal.” Instead he nodded, but when Bloom didn’t respond to the nonverbal assent, Will said, “Yes. I understand.”
“Good. So first thing is that we’re going to ask you to sign this document that confirms what I just said.”
Steiner, the woman seated to Bloom’s immediate right, had a piece of paper at the ready. She slid it to Will. Across the top it read in all capital letters: ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND AGREEMENT OF TERMS FOR INTERVIEW OF WILL MATTHEWS.
