by Gorman, Ed
“My vault,” he said to Sol Silverstein in a flat, dangerous tone, “is private property. It’s where I keep my rare stamp collection, my movie memorabilia collection, my ancient coin collection, my gem collection, my early American post card collection, and my baseball card collection.” Now his voice faltered a bit. “Those things are personal, Sol. They mean a great deal to me. The government has no right to meddle with my hobbies!”
“That vault,” Sol quietly reminded him, “is also where you hoard money, Gus. I’ve seen sheaves of currency stacked to the ceiling in a back corner. The government will seize that money and everything else of value in that vault. I advised you not to have it installed, remember? Just as I advised you to have Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor retain private individual attorneys of their own, instead of having me representing them and you.”
“I like to have everything under one roof, Sol,” Doyle fretted. “Easier to keep track of things.”
“Yes, well in this case it just made it easier to subpoena everyone with one stop.”
Doyle rose and walked to one end of the patio, from which he could see across meticulously manicured, flower-lined grounds to an eight-car garage behind and detached from the main house. In front of an open port was parked one of his wife Vera’s cars, a silver Bentley Arnage sedan. It was being wiped down with a chamois cloth by Harry Sullivan, a quiet but deceptively tough young man who was employed as a driver and bodyguard for Doyle’s second wife, Vera Kenny Doyle. Sullivan, known more commonly as Sully, also drove and bodyguarded Doreen, Doyle’s twenty-one-year-old daughter by his first wife, Edna Callahan Doyle, whom Doyle had lost to lymphoma when Doreen was only ten. Three years later, with Doreen approaching adolescence, Doyle had seen the need of a stepmother for her; there were, after all, many things of a sensitive, female nature with which even the most devoted single father was ill prepared to deal.
For his second wife, Angus Doyle had chosen and courted twenty-eight-year-old Vera Kenny, who managed Doyle’s escort service, and who was the daughter of a late friend of the younger Angus Doyle, at that time just making his mark in the Irish mob known as The Clan. Doyle, at forty when he took his second wife, was twelve years older than Vera Kenny, but the two made a good fit and young Doreen took to her stepmother at once, thus removing a good deal of worry from Doyle’s mind. In all, Gus Doyle would have been a man of continuing contentment had it not been for the goddamned Department of Justice.
“All right, Sol,” Doyle said, turning his attention away from the eight-car garage, “what do we do now?”
“We have to get you as clean as possible before Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor are questioned at the grand jury. That means divesting yourself of as much liquid assets as possible. The other assets — real property, cars, the boat — we can put under protective mortgages so that the government can’t say that you bought them outright, therefore they can’t be used as evidence against you in a tax evasion case. You see, it’s cash — that’s what they need. Cash in bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, certificates of deposit, cash in that vault of yours — how much do you have stacked up down there anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Doyle shrugged self-consciously. “Maybe seven or eight.”
“Seven or eight hundred thousand?”
“Million.”
“Seven or eight million? For god’s sake, Gus.”
“It’s money I put away for a rainy day.” Doyle pointed an accusing finger at the lawyer. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up dirt poor, Sol. If you did, you’d understand.”
Silverstein stared at his client in astonishment. From an inside coat pocket, he removed a handkerchief and blotted his forehead. He did not want to hear Angus Doyle’s poverty-in-the-Chicagoslums story again. “Gus,” he said firmly, “I want to know — exactly — how much money you have — anywhere, Gus — that can be traced to you. How much?”
Doyle sat back down and drummed his thick fingertips silently on the tablecloth. After a long moment of staring at his attorney with pursed lips, he said, “Twenty-five million.”
“How long will it take to pull it all together — close all the accounts, empty all the safe deposit boxes, cash in all the certificates of deposit?”
Another shrug from Doyle. “Three, four days, I guess. But what the hell am I supposed to do with that much cash?”
“Convert it to bearer bonds, Gus. Convert all of it, along with your ‘rainy day’ cash in that vault of yours.”
“What the hell are bearer bonds?”
“They are unregistered negotiable bonds payable to the holder regardless of who they were issued to. They’re as good as cash at any bank in the world.”
“So what do we do with these bearer bonds then?”
“Get them out of the country. Move them to a Swiss bank in the Cayman Islands, where U.S. officials won’t have access to them.”
“How do we do that?”
“Someone you trust has to take them there. Who do you trust?”
“You.”
“Me! I’m your attorney, Gus. I can’t do anything like that. It wouldn’t be ethical. I could be disbarred.” Sol blotted his forehead again. “Who else do you trust?”
“Quinn, Foley, Dwyer, and Connor.”
“For god’s sake, Gus! They’re the ones I’m trying to protect you against! You can’t ask any of them to help you, because you don’t know which one to ask. They’re all suspect at the moment. What about Vera? Or Doreen?”
“Not Doreen,” Doyle shook his head vehemently. “I don’t want any of my business touching Doreen. I want her kept out of this completely. Do you understand that, Sol?”
“Yes, of course,” the attorney said quickly. He recognized Angus Doyle’s cold, hard, warning tone, his deadly tone. “I understand. Doreen will be kept out of it entirely, I assure you. That leaves Vera.”
“Yes,” Doyle said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “That leaves Vera.”
After Solomon Silverstein departed, Doyle went inside to his richly appointed, soundproof, and surveillance-protected office and pushed the intercom button for his garage. After three rings it was answered by Harry Sullivan.
“Sully, will you come up to my office, please.”
“Yessir, Mr. Doyle, be right there,” Harry Sullivan said.
By the time Doyle had opened a cold bottle of root beer from an executive refrigerator and was back at his desk drinking it, Harry Sullivan was there.
“Sit down, Sully.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Doyle smiled a slight, pleased smile. “How long have you worked for me now, Sully?”
“Two years and eight months, sir.”
“Do you know what the first thing was that I liked about you, Sully?”
“No, sir.”
“You always addressed me as ‘sir.’ Nobody ever did that before — except, of course waiters and clerks, servants, people like that. But nobody close.” He tilted his head slightly. “Why did you do it, Sully? From the very beginning, I mean.”
“I don’t know, sir,” the younger man replied. “It just seemed like the natural thing to do. The respectful thing, I guess I mean to say.”
Doyle fell silent for a long moment, studying Harry Sullivan. The driver-bodyguard was more common looking than handsome, with light brown hair and brooding deep blue eyes. He had, Doyle thought, a dependable look about him, a steadiness. He could, Doyle already knew, be dangerous when necessary, as he had proved two years earlier when a drunken college boy at a house party had gone a little too far in his advances toward Doreen, had in fact torn open her blouse in the shadows of a porch, causing Doreen to yell for Sully, who was parked nearby waiting for her. Sully had broken the young man’s right eye socket with brass knuckles and ruptured his testicles. Doyle, of course, had paid all the medical bills, and reasoned with the parents to convince them not to file criminal charges against Sully, whom he promised to seriously punish himself. Sully’s punishment came in the form of a thousand dollar bon
us.
“Do you like your job here, Sully?” Doyle asked.
“Yessir. Very much.”
“Tell me what you like about it.”
“Well, sir, you pay me very good wages. I have nice living quarters over the garage. The work is easy. Mrs. Vera and Miss Doreen treat me very well; they give me Christmas presents — ”
“I give you Christmas presents too, Sully. Two thousand dollars it was last year, I think.”
“Yessir, I know that, and it was very generous of you. But what I meant was, Mrs. Vera and Miss Doreen give me personal Christmas presents.”
Doyle frowned slightly. This was something he didn’t know. “Personal presents like what, Sully?”
“Well, sir, last Christmas Mrs. Vera gave me a really nice sweater, cashmere. And Miss Doreen gave me a wallet with my initials on it. Here, I’ll show you — ”
Sully drew a wallet from his hip pocket and stood to hold it over the desk for Doyle to see.
“Very nice,” Doyle complimented.
“That’s what I meant by personal, sir. They just treat me real nice, both of them.”
“Good. That’s good.” Leaning forward, Doyle clasped his hands on the desk. “Sully, I want to ask you a few questions and I don’t want you to be embarrassed by them, or afraid to give me honest answers. You drive for my wife and daughter, but you work for me. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Definitely, yessir.”
“Good. Very good.” Doyle’s icy gray eyes fixed steadily on Sully. “Do you think my daughter is attractive, Sully?”
“Yessir, very much. She’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen.”
“You’d never get too, ah — friendly with my daughter, would you, Sully?”
“Never, Mr. Doyle! I know my place, sir. Miss Doreen is way out of my league. If I have any personal feelings about her at all, it’s like she was a little sister to me.”
“Little sister?” Doyle sat back and began drumming his fingers on the desk top while deciding whether he liked that analogy or not. He finally decided that it was all right. “I like that, Sully,” he said, giving the younger man a genuine smile. “You’re doing fine, boyo, fine. Now let me ask you a few things about Mrs. Vera. And remember,” he pointed a finger, “be honest with me.”
“I will be, sir.”
“Tell me about the places she has you drive her to.”
“Ah, let’s see, sir. There’s the hair salon, the manicure shop, her doctor now and again, the dentist, that big book store on Michigan Avenue, a lot of those — what are they called — bow something — ?”
“Boutique shops?”
“Yessir, that’s it.”
“Does she ever have you take any place you think is unusual?”
“No, sir. Mostly the same places all the time.”
“And what do you and my wife talk about when you’re driving her?”
“Not much at all, sir. Mrs. Vera is usually on her cell phone.”
“Who’s she mostly talking to?”
Sully looked down. “I couldn’t say, sir. I try not to listen.”
“Well, if you had to venture a guess, would you say she was talking to men or women?”
“Women, definitely, sir. I can’t help picking up snatches of her end of the conversation, and it sounds like they’re talking about clothes and shoe sizes and styles and spa treatments, things like that.”
“I see. Does she ever meet anyone for lunch?”
“Yessir. Two or three times a week.”
“Any men?”
“No, sir. Always ladies.”
“Always? Without exception?”
“Without exception, sir. I’ve never seen Mrs. Vera even speak to a man anywhere I’ve ever taken her — ”
Just then there was a brief knock on the office door and Doyle’s daughter Doreen stuck her head in. “Daddy, do you know where Sully is? I want to go — oh, he’s in here with you. Sorry, Daddy.” She started to back out but Doyle stopped her.
“No, no, it’s all right, dear, come in. Sully was just reporting on the condition of our cars. Where is it you want to go?”
“Miranda’s Fashions, downtown. Some dresses I ordered came in and I want to try them on.”
Doyle and Sully were both standing now, and Doreen’s father came around the desk to give her a kiss on the cheek. Doreen was what most people would describe as cute rather than pretty. She looked younger than her age and had a fleshy figure without exactly being plump. By the look on her father’s face, she clearly was adored by him.
“Sully can run you down right now,” Doyle said. “We were finished anyhow.”
“I’ll bring the car right up, Miss Doreen,” Sully said.
“No, I’ll walk down to the garage with you,” Doreen said. “I need the exercise.”
“Do you know where Vera is?” Doyle asked his daughter as they were leaving.
“Out by the pool, last I saw.”
After they left, Doyle watched them through a big picture window as they walked side by side across the manicured lawn. Little sister, he thought. Good. Very good.
Grinning to himself, Doyle returned to his desk and called Sol Silverstein on the lawyer’s cell phone.
“I’m going to take your advice, Sol. I’ll make up some lists today, then tomorrow I’ll have some security people take Vera around to pick up all the cash I have locally. They’ll have a backup car follow them for protection. The outside money, bonds and stuff, I’ll have one of my brokers wire transfer to a central bank. I’ll have that same bank pick up what I’ve got in the vault and what Vera collects tomorrow. Then I’ll have the bank convert everything to bearer bonds, like you said. I’ve decided to have Vera take it all by charter jet to the Caymans on Saturday. You make the arrangements down there.”
When he finished the call, Doyle went outside and strolled around the west grounds of his estate to the pool to look for Vera.
• • •
A mile down the road from the Doyle estate, Sully pulled over and stopped to allow Doreen Doyle to move from the rear seat of the Mercedes-Benz McLaren to the front seat with him.
“What was the big pow-wow with Daddy all about?” she asked, lighting a forbidden cigarette.
“He wanted to make sure I wasn’t making any moves on you,” Sully said. They leaned together and kissed briefly on the lips.
“If he had any idea the moves you’ve already made,” she declared lightly, squeezing the inside of his thigh, “he’d kill us both.”
“Me, anyway,” Sully agreed. “I sure he’d find a way to forgive his little princess.
Is everything all right between him and Vera?”
“Far as I know. Why?”
“He asked me a lot of questions today about where I drove her, who she talked to on her cell phone, whether she ever met any men for lunch.”
“Really! You don’t think he thinks she’s cheating on him, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“I wonder. You know Sol Silverstein was up to see him this morning.”
“Yeah, I saw his car.”
“They had a kind of intense talk out on the east patio while Daddy was having breakfast. I watched them from my bedroom window. Sol tossed some papers of some kind onto the table. They both seemed very serious. Daddy got up and paced. And he drummed his fingers on the table, you know how he does sometimes. Could he be thinking about divorcing Vera?”
“I doubt it. Not for cheating anyway. He knows if she was cheating on him, I’d be suspicious. And he knows I’d tell him.”
“You would?”
“Sure. I work for him, Dorry.”
“That doesn’t keep you from sleeping with his daughter.”
“That’s different. I couldn’t help myself. You seduced me.”
“I seduced you!” Doreen reached to his thigh again, this time pinching it smartly. “You practically raped me the first time we did it after the party that night when you put poor Freddie C
arter in the hospital. God, I will never forget that night!”
“Me neither. I think we probably raped each other.”
Now she rubbed his thigh a little higher. “Step on it, baby. Let’s pick up those damned dresses and get out to the room.”
Sully kept a small kitchenette that he rented by the month at a long-term executive motel in a nearby suburb. Feeling warm from Doreen’s touch, he eased down on the accelerator.
• • •
Back at the mansion, Vera Doyle was sitting up on the chaise lounge where her husband had found her, staring at him in uncertainty.
“This was all Sol’s idea?” she asked.
“Yeah. He said it was the only thing to do. To be on the safe side, you know.”
Doyle had drawn up a deck chair beside Vera’s chaise lounge, and was drinking another root beer.
“What do you think of his theory about Quinn and the others?”
“I don’t know. I’ve known the four of them since we were all kids together on the lower West Side. We were all in the West End Dukes together. We were like brothers.”
“People change,” Vera said pragmatically. “Then too, Sol is only guessing. He doesn’t know what the justice department is planning.”
“Well, Sol is usually right about those things.”
Vera nodded. “I can’t argue that.” She took the root beer bottle from him and had a sip for herself. “It’s the money thing that really bothers me, Gus. That’s a lot of money to be moving at one time. And why me? Can’t somebody else do it?”
“Like who?” Doyle shrugged. “Those four guys are the only ones in the whole of my outfit that I’ve ever trusted. If I only knew which one was about to rat me out, maybe I could have one of the others move the bearer bonds. But that’s the snag: I don’t know.”
“You’ve no idea at all who it might be? Not even a suspicion?”
“None. Ed Quinn and Tom Foley and me grew up together down around Halsted and Van Buren. Mike Dwyer and Dan Connor I met in the reform school out in St. Charles. Charleytown, we called the place.” He grunted quietly. “I can’t imagine any one of them betraying me. If only one of them limped.”
