A Perfect Wife and Mother

by Peter Israel

6 January

  Penzil on the horn, Sunday evening.

  “You going in tomorrow?” he wants to know.

  “Into the city?” I say. “What the hell for?”

  “I don’t know. I thought it might do you some good to get out of the house. I understand it’s been pretty rough over there.”

  “You got it.”

  “Helen says Georgie’s been under sedation?”

  “I guess so. Her old man prescribed something.”

  “How is she?”

  “That I can’t tell you. I’m still kind of persona non grata around here.”

  “Well, look, Bear, she had a pretty hallucinating experience yesterday, on top of everything. I saw you both on the news. You looked a little green around the gills, but I hardly recognized Georgie. Helen says the best thing is for everybody to stay out of her hair right now.”

  “I guess so. I’ve gotten pretty good at that.”

  “Look, it’s all going to blow over once you get Justie back. You and I both know that. The important thing is getting the two of you through it. I take it there’s nothing new in the case?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No more phone calls?”

  “Nope. Capriello thinks we’re going to get hit with a ransom demand any minute. I hope to fuck he’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What’ll I do if he’s right, plead personal bankruptcy? I don’t have the money, Joe.”

  “Well, that’s something we ought to talk about. Look, Bear, why don’t you drive in with me in the morning? In your impecunious state, I’ll even buy you breakfast. You can come with me to the office, go to the club, I don’t know, even go over to The Cross. You’re still employed, aren’t you? I think it’s eating you up, all the waiting and hanging around.”

  “Oh, I’m okay. But how come you’re driving in? Have they canceled the 7:12?”

  “I’m going up to see a client in Connecticut, later on. I’ll need the car.”

  “What time you leaving?”

  “Eight-thirty, nine.”

  “I don’t know. It’s pretty tempting. A hell of a thing, but I feel like I ought to ask somebody for permission first.”

  “Come on, big fella, it’ll do you good. Get yourself all suited up for a business day. I’ll pick you up at nine. Be ready.”

  7 January

  I’m waiting on the front porch when Joe drives up in the morning. Briefcase in hand, which is some kind of joke. It’s a gray day, but not as cold as it should be for January. We talk about that—the greenhouse effect, the warming of the planet, real estate in Canada. We talk tennis too—he hasn’t played in a long time either, and if we don’t get busy, Spain and Furth, Spain’s partner, are going to run the Bear and the Runt off the courts in the spring. Joe must have it in mind to talk about any topic so long as it’s not Justie or The Cross, which is okay with me, and I don’t even notice at first that we’ve shot by the cutoff road to the Holland Tunnel and gone through the Turnpike toll booths instead.

  “Hey, babe, you just blew it, didn’t you?” I say.

  “I didn’t blow it.”

  “No? Then where the hell are we going?”

  “Lincoln Tunnel. Midtown.”

  “Midtown? Since when do you work in midtown?”

  He tells me to let him concentrate on his driving. True, it’s Monday morning on the Turnpike, take-no-prisoners time. From the traffic, every swinging semi in America must be headed for the Big Apple.

  He says something about taking me to breakfast in style.

  “Come on, Joe,” I say, “don’t give me this breakfast shit. What the hell’s going on? Why are we going to midtown?”

  He doesn’t answer for a minute. I don’t get it. My stomach does a little roll-over. I say it again: “What the fuck’s going on, Joe?”

  “Okay,” he says, his eyes on the road. “The truth is, I’m taking you to a meeting. That’s all I can tell you, Bear, but, believe me, it’s for your own good.”

  I laugh out loud.

  “A meeting? What kind of meeting? Who with? Hey, Runt, this is your friend, remember? What the fuck’s going on?”

  But I can’t get it out of him. I can’t believe it, but it’s no joke, the guy’s dead serious. I end up swearing at him. If we’re going to a meeting, then the whole thing was a fucking setup, wasn’t it, starting with his phone call last night? It’d do you good to get out of the house, what a crock! And how can he pull this on me, for Christ’s sake, he’s my best friend! But all I can get out of him, the only thing, is: “Trust me, Bear. Just keep your cool. It’s for your own good, I promise you.”

  It has to do with Justie, I can smell it. But why all the hush-hush, is it the fucking Mafia? The smart money behind the banks? Ever since I started naming names, I’ve been afraid of something like this happening, but where in hell does Penzil fit in?

  I’ve broken out into a sweat, for Christ’s sake.

  We drive in silence the rest of the way. No more small talk. A half hour later, we’re parked in front of a small hotel a few blocks south of Grand Central. Penzil has one of these NYPD Captain’s Association cards which he sticks in his windshield—claims he’s never once gotten a ticket when he’s used it—and we go in past a reception desk to the elevators.

  Eleventh floor. He doesn’t even have to ask. He leads me down a corridor to the door of a suite. The last thing he says before he knocks is, “You’re in for a surprise, Bear, but it’s okay. Just listen to what they’ve got to say and keep your wits about you.”

  “Listen to what who’s—” I start, but a uniformed waiter has already got the door open, and behind the waiter, in the living room …

  Well, what do you know?

  I must have gone into shock for a second, when it simply doesn’t register. But now, sweet Jesus, it registers!

  Leon Gamble is standing next to a breakfast table, the Great White himself. And sitting behind him, coffee cup in hand, is none other than my rabbi.

  Francis Hale Holbrook.

  I haven’t talked to him since New Year’s Eve, when he called to find out what was going on.

  As for the Great White, I haven’t talked to him since he called to tell me they were keeping my contract in force.

  But the two of them together!

  Penzil has gone, and once there’s a fresh silver pot of coffee on the table, the Great White dismisses the waiter and sits down himself.

  I’m sitting down too. Have we shaken hands? Holbrook and Gamble, Gamble and Holbrook. It stones me.

  Apparently they’ve had breakfast together. The tablecloth is clear except for coffee cups, but I can still smell food.

  The Great White and the Rabbi.

  “Larry,” Gamble starts in without preamble, “it looks like we’ve all gotten ourselves into the quicksand together. It’s been one hell of a mess, hasn’t it, compounded of mistakes and misunderstandings you wouldn’t believe. Well, there’s no taking back the past. Done is done. But it’s our intention, Frank’s and mine, to straighten it out with you right here and now—this morning—and make you whole.”

  I stare at Holbrook—what quicksand? what do you have to do with the quicksand?—but he has nothing to say.

  “Once I learned of your special relationship with Frank,” the Great White is saying, “and I gather it goes back a lot of years, I invited him to join us. It seemed like the right thing to do. And he wanted to be here as an interested party.”

  An interested party? To what? But what do I know? I’m still locked on the single fact: that they know each other! Well, they’re allowed to, aren’t they? Wall Street’s like a small town. And this meeting—all the hocus-pocus with Joe, the anonymous hotel suite in midtown—that’s much more Holbrook’s style, not Gamble’s.

  You want paranoia, Christ Almighty, how much have I told him? My mind spins with it. New Year’s Eve, I think that’s the last time I talked to him. It seems like years ago. He called to wish me well, polite as always. B
ut did I tell him about Richter? I remember him cautioning me: Don’t do anything you’ll regret later. Karnishak came later, after the phone calls. I gave all my stuff to Karnishak first, and then Richter.

  But there’s Penzil too! For God’s sake, I’ve told Joe everything!

  I’ve missed half of what Gamble’s been saying. I’ve been looking right at him but not hearing. I’ve got ocean waves in my ears, like listening to a conch shell. If I told Joe everything, don’t I have to assume they know it too?

  “Wait a minute, Leon,” I interrupt him, fighting off panic. “I don’t get it. I mean, what are you talking about? What quicksand? You’re not by any chance talking about Justin, are you? My son? Because if you are, how in the hell are you going to make me whole?”

  “Larry, we’re well aware of what you’ve been going through,” he says sympathetically. “The whole business with your son, on top of our misunderstandings at The Cross. Your whole life coming apart, all at once, do you think I don’t understand? I know you’ve been running around like a lunatic, making all sorts of wild charges against the company and people we do business with. Some of them are serious. You know what my first reaction was? I said, ‘We’re going to sue his fucking ass off—for slander, libel, you name it.’ But the more I thought about it … well, you were going through hell, weren’t you? I even thought: In Larry Coffey’s shoes, I might be doing the same thing. So we’ve done nothing on that score, so far. And then of course there’s the matter of your contract. We felt the least we could do, under the circumstances, was extend it indefinitely.”

  If the charges are so wild, though, slanderous, libelous, then what on God’s green earth are we doing in a secret meeting, uptown, in the middle of the morning? And what does Frank Holbrook have to do with it?

  “But it wasn’t enough, Larry,” Gamble is saying. “Look, I know we went too far with you too fast. I admit it freely. Last fall—you know it as well as I do—a kind of mass hysteria set in on the Street. A lot of us went looking for radical solutions, and we at The Cross decided to clean house. It was high time anyway, but in a few special cases such as yours—inevitably—we threw the baby out with the bath water. What’s more, I think we even knew it at the time. But no two ways about it, it was corporate panic, corporate stupidity at its worst. Mea culpa, and you had every right to be pissed.”

  He’s glossing over stuff, I realize, but I can’t focus on it.

  “I’m sorry, Leon,” I said, “but I still don’t get it. If you’re saying you fucked me over, I agree. But—”

  “As much as that was a business decision,” he goes on, “and a bad one, there’s also been the personal side since. Look, I’m sorry about it, what can I tell you? The story of your missing kid, it’s horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. That business the other day, at that mall out in New Jersey? You came within an inch of getting him back, didn’t you?”

  I can’t answer. I’m watching his white head shake in sympathy. The Great Sympathizer. Everything so far, I bet, has been for softening up. You start with shock treatment—Holbrook being here—and then the Great White makes nice-nice. Mea culpa.

  While Holbrook keeps quiet?

  Gamble’s eyebrows go up, come down, stay down. He leans forward in his chair, elbows on the table, his eyes boring in on mine.

  Crunch time, I think, and watch out for your ass.

  “I’m not going to screw around with you, Larry,” he says. “By a fluke—really, it’s a tremendous coincidence—we’ve learned something about the case. About your son’s case. We’re absolutely unable and unwilling to go into any of the details,” leaning further forward, “but I think we can deliver him back to you, safe and sound. In fact, we’re ready to commit ourselves to it.”

  He says it slowly, emphatically. Or maybe that’s me, listening. Can you put a voice in slow motion? I glance quickly at Holbrook. He doesn’t seem even to be listening. Then back at the Great White’s intense stare.

  “Is it just a fluke?” I say.

  “Is what a fluke?”

  “You just said you found out something about the case ‘by a fluke.’ A ‘tremendous coincidence.’ Well? Is it one?”

  He returns me stare for stare, just like that morning in his office.

  “That’s what I said,” he answers levelly.

  The son of a bitch is lying through his teeth.

  And then—so help me—I can’t hold it back anymore.

  “Come on, Leon,” I accuse him, “how big of a goddamn jerk do you take me for? Was it a fluke that you strung me out at The Cross, or were you afraid of canning me because of what I know? Do you think I don’t know who’s looking at you? And was it a fluke my son got snatched at the same time? Was it a fluke I get anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night telling me to keep my mouth shut if I want him back? While all the time I’m making these supposedly ‘wild’ charges? And now you’re telling me that by another fluke—this ‘tremendous coincidence’—you just happen to know something about the case? Come on, Leon, tell me you just stumbled onto it, like dogshit. I’m ready to believe anything today.”

  He doesn’t so much as blink.

  “Are you making an accusation?” he asks.

  “I don’t have to,” I retort. “You guys are accusing yourselves.” I see him glance at Holbrook. No reaction. “Come on, Leon,” I say, “this big hush-hush meeting, and all your sympathy and commiseration and your mea fucking culpa and we’re here to make you whole out of the kindness of our hearts? Come on, I know you too well for that.”

  The Great White pushes off abruptly on his palms, stands up. He says he wants a word in private with Frank, and with a nod and jerk of his head he leads Holbrook to the windows at the other end of the suite.

  I watch them, head to head. Faces pale. Gamble’s doing most of the talking. I realize my palms are sweating and that I’m twisting my hair between my fingers. Georgie always criticizes the habit, says it’s making me bald. Well, then I’ll be bald. But I stop anyway.

  They come back. Holbrook has his head down. I can’t read him. Gamble’s eyes are on me. He leans forward across the table again, and his white hair gleams in the light. A deep breath, exhales, then he says, “What you just suggested, Larry, is pure paranoia. I’m not even going to dignify it with a response. But we’ve agreed to tell you this much, although if you ever say we said it, we’ll deny it out of hand, just the way we’ll deny this meeting ever took place. We’ve no interest in damaging innocent people. But it so happens we know something about the girl—Harriet—the one who worked for you, except that’s not her real name. She comes from a family—well, that some of us happen to know. An old Wall Street connection, if you insist, but it’s one that goes back before your time. It also happens that she’s, let us say, a little mentally off. In fact, sometime last year she disappeared from an institution. She’s been missing ever since, and it seems she landed—this was sheer coincidence—in your household. And that’s all I’m going to say about it. The situation is highly delicate, but if you let us handle it our way, I think we can keep it from blowing up in our collective faces. The only important thing, as far as you’re concerned, is that your boy is okay and that we can get him back for you.”

  He sits back, studying me, his brows in a straight line across. I can’t absorb it all. Harriet a nut case? And not her name? I catch a glimpse of her in my mind, the little prick teaser.

  “Then why are we sitting here?” I manage to say. “If you can get him back, why haven’t you done it?”

  “Because there’s something we want in exchange, Larry.”

  But it’s not the Great White who said that. It’s Holbrook.

  And now—here it comes—it’s Holbrook’s turn.

  They must have worked it all out ahead of time. They must have decided: If they leave it to the Great White to tell me what they want in exchange for Justie, there’s a risk I’ll tell him to go fuck himself. But Francis Hale Holbrook has been my friend, my rabbi, for over ten years. In spite
of everything, they must have figured his presence would convince me that the magic could be mine one more time.

  Or maybe, convince me that there’s no other magic, no other way.

  It works too, I guess.

  Not that I’m blind to the play, but I’m listening. Listening hard. Holbrook starts out with the stick: what they want from me. Very simple. I’m too fucking stunned to say anything. And now comes the carrot: what they’re willing to do for me in exchange.

  If I agree to it, Justie will be returned to me, alive and well, within twenty-four hours.

  The abduction case will be considered closed. No charges will be brought by me or my family. If the authorities persist in criminal proceedings against the young woman or any third party, we may obviously be obliged to participate, but there’s reason to think the authorities will let the matter drop.

  I will be rehired by Shaw Cross on an independent basis—the same arrangement already proposed by the Great White with, however, full company benefits and a minimum guarantee of $200,000 a year, net of all expenses, for a minimum term of five years. If I decide to take another job or start another business while the agreement is in effect, Shaw Cross will make up the difference, if any, between my new earnings and $200,000.

  There’s more to it—fine-print stuff—but that’s the gist of it. Simple, like I said. All I have to do is sell my soul to the devil and I’ll get my son back, plus a million bucks over five years to ease the pain.

  “We invite your comments,” Holbrook says finally.

  I take a deep breath. Keep it short, keep it cool, I tell myself. Hold your fucking temper.

  “In other words, if I decide to sit on my duff for five years, I’ll still get my two hundred grand?”

  “That’s right,” Holbrook answers. He smiles at me. “But knowing you, Larry, I can’t imagine that happening.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. If I do what you want me to do, I’m not going to be able to get a job as a janitor. Not on Wall Street anyway.”

  They say nothing. It’s true enough, and they know it: if I do what they want me to do, I’ll be a fucking pariah. So long, Big Bear.