Trust

by George V. Higgins

  “I never fell in love with Penny,” Simmons said. “If that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “I understand that,” Roth said. “You thought of it as business. What you weren’t prepared for was that she, or her pal Earl, might approach it the same way. Strictly business. Object’s to make as much profit’s you can. As fast as you can. Pure and simple. What’ve they got? Pictures, I assume. Tapes? Did this jezebel come to your bed with a tape recorder running in her cosmetics bag?”

  “No, no tapes,” Simmons said. “If they ever tried to make any, they’d be useless. I never promised her anything except money for sex. That’s all. No marriage proposals or anything. I’ve already got a wife.”

  “Yes,” Roth said. “Does Phyllis know about this? I mean this new development? She had to have a pretty good idea what you were up to, I assume.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Simmons said, “it was Phyllis’s idea. The year after I became a member of the firm I got into some trouble with one of the secretaries. She had to go away and have an operation. We didn’t have much money then, and what we did have Phyllis watched pretty carefully. I don’t mean I wrote a check to the kid, but there was no way a thousand dollars could come out of our income without Phyllis noticing. And she did. So I had to account for it, and she was very calm about it. Said if I felt I had to do things like that, well, she guessed there wasn’t much she could do to stop me. But sooner or later she was afraid there’d be a real scandal that a thousand dollars wouldn’t fix. She was very practical about it. She reminded me that I refused to let her hire unskilled people to do work around the house because it never turned out right, and we always ended up paying to have it torn out and done again by someone who knew what he was doing. ‘If you feel you have to have this variety in your life,’ she said, ‘stop using amateurs. It won’t cost any more for you to give some other woman fifty or a hundred dollars for the use of her body each time than it will for you to go around sneaking the same amounts to save up for a gold bracelet or something for a secretary. And the one you come right out and pay won’t get it into her silly little head that she’s going to take my place.’ ”

  “Phyllis always struck me as a real down-to-earth lady,” Roth said.

  “She’s pragmatic,” Simmons said. “Her father kept a mistress most of his adult life. Her mother knew about it, and in time so did his kids. She wasn’t shocked when she found out I was attracted to other women. More or less expected it.”

  “Well,” Roth said, “then if that’s the case, what’s the problem? Tell the extortionist to go to hell and show your wife the pictures.”

  “The problem is this,” Simmons said. “Part of the deal with Phyllis is discretion. I wasn’t to bring home any diseases, which I haven’t, and I wasn’t to appear in places with a woman where our friends’d be sure to spot me. Well, my interests and Phyllis’s are quite different, so that was never a real problem. I did occasionally run into one of her friends’ husbands, but there the benefit of mutual silence was so obvious we didn’t even need to discuss it. The society reporters may go to the parties down at Keeneland before Derby Day, and they’re all over the place when the America’s Cup’s being contested at Newport, or the Museum has a special show, but those weren’t the kind of events where I took my ladies. Where I took them, most of the men were about my age, and most of the women about the same age as Penny, and nobody in attendance saw much wrong with that. It was sort of like getting to the age where you could afford a beach house or a private plane or a big yacht with a crew. If you had the money, and you wanted a girlfriend, well, you certainly had the right.” He paused. “I’ve seen a lot of famous men at the places I’ve taken her. Faces you would recognize. Pro athletes, U.S. senators, show people, prominent businessmen—you name it. There may be some risk involved in that kind of amusement, but when someone that you’ve hired to sleep with you tells you that she slept with the president of the United States back when he was running, and people who know confirm it, well, it’s not the kind of risk that seems to stop anybody.”

  “I suppose not,” Roth said.

  “Unless it caused a ruckus,” Simmons said. “And that’s what seems to have happened to me.”

  “How much do they want?” Roth said.

  “I’m not sure it’s ‘they,’ ” Simmons said. “He says it’s just him, and that Penny’s not involved.”

  “You don’t believe that, I assume,” Roth said.

  “I didn’t when he said it,” Simmons said. “I figured that was just his way of trying to protect her. He collects the money, and then she flies off to meet him on some Caribbean island. But then she said it, and the way she said it? I don’t know. He left a note for her, this was Monday morning, before I heard from him, and if what she read to me over the phone was what was really in that note, and he left the place in the shambles she said it was in, it could be that she’s telling me the truth.”

  “What exactly did the note say?” Roth said.

  “I can get you a copy,” Simmons said. “Basically he claimed some IRS guy’d been by the place where he worked, asking questions about me. And for some reason or another, that scared the daylights out of Earl, and he decided to hit the road. Said he’d made up some phony story for the people at work, something about a family matter back wherever he comes from, and he advised her to alert me and then he hit the road. Well, that didn’t make any sense. Not to me at least. If it, if he’d said it was a guy from the SEC or something, well, that might make me nervous. But the IRS? Pretty unlikely. My taxes, well, you know how pure and honest they are. What do I pay in taxes that I could probably beat? Quite a lot. And they’ve audited me three years in a row, right? With three ‘No change’ letters in a row? They have to leave me alone for a certain amount of time now, unless they can prove going in I did something. No, it’s not the IRS.

  “So,” Simmons said, “I told her that, and I said: ‘Look, there’s something going on here that either he’s not telling me, or you’re not. And I want to know what it is. What’re you leaving out?’ And she assured me there was nothing. And this horrible thought struck me, blackmail was involved, and I asked her if there was anything, any kind of evidence, that he had of our relationship. That he could show, or threaten to show, to somebody else. And she said: ‘No.’ And that she was going to call his brother and see what was going on.

  “She did that this afternoon,” Simmons said. “Apparently it was a waste of time. She reached his brother up in Vermont and got nothing out of him. ‘He’s just as stupid as Earl always said he was,’ she said, this is when she talked to me. ‘I almost can’t believe it. They haven’t heard from him. They don’t know where he is. And they don’t really care.’ And I said: ‘Look, Penny,’—this was just a hunch—I said: ‘Look, Penny, you’re keeping something back from me. I can hear it in your voice. I believe you don’t know where he is. But I don’t believe you have absolutely no idea of what he’s up to. Is there anything, did he take anything you know about that could link the two of us?’ And that’s when I found out about the photographs.”

  He laughed. “On the one hand,” he said, “I feel like a sap. Here’s this goniff thief snapping pictures of us every time we take a trip, and here I am, man of the world, and I never even noticed him. All those times I shooed those goddamned nightclub photographers away from our tables in San Juan, out in Nevada, wherever, and all the time this piece of human shit’s been pointing a lens right down my throat.

  “ ‘And you knew it,’ I said to her. ‘You knew very well what he was doing. You didn’t tell me. You not only didn’t tell me, you probably helped him. Let him know where he could spot us.’ Who the hell pays any attention to people taking pictures in an airport? Long-lost relative comes home. Kid comes back from college. Happy couple going off on their honeymoon. There’s always some idiot grinning into space while his moronic relatives fire flashbulbs in his face. I mean, who the hell’d want a picture of a middle-aged man and a woman getting off a plane, or
going into a hotel?” He grimaced. “A two-bit crook with a long-range plan, that’s who,” he said.

  “And then you heard from him,” Roth said.

  “Late this afternoon,” Simmons said. “Right after she called to tell me about talking to his family. First there was an envelope by messenger service. He must’ve been somewhere around the building, where he could see the messenger come to deliver it. Probably in the lobby. Took a gamble that whoever took the elevator to my floor, and looked like a messenger, carrying my envelope, was the guy he’d hired. The phone rang about three minutes after I opened the envelope. One picture of me and Penny. Some airport or another—most likely Kennedy. She’s leaning on me and taking her shoe off.” He sighed. “We certainly made a handsome couple.”

  “And he wanted money,” Roth said.

  Simmons laughed. “He didn’t open with that,” he said. “He worked his way up to it. He hated to bother me at the office. He hoped I understood the only reason he was doing it was because he was desperate. He said Penny didn’t know where he was which of course is what Penny’d told me, and that she didn’t know what he was doing. Or’d been doing, for that matter, for the better part of a year and a half. I cut him off. ‘Earl,’ I said, ‘I’m a busy man. Let’s just dispense with the bullshit you gave your boss, and the bullshit you also gave Penny. I know about the pictures. What do you want?’

  “Well,” Simmons said, “that sort of threw him off stride for maybe a second or so. Lost his place in his script. But he recovered pretty well. ‘Mister Simmons,’ he said, ‘the next time I call you, I figure I won’t be able to talk very long, because you’ll have something on your line.’ ”

  “Not entirely stupid, then,” Roth said.

  “Right on the money, in fact,” Simmons said. “If he’d taken thirty minutes instead of three to call me after that envelope arrived, our security people would’ve had a tracer on that line and the cops on alert to grab him. ‘This is true,’ I said.

  “ ‘So,’ he said, ‘I got to tell you what my situation is.’ And he started this long, involved fantasy about how the only reason he’s doing this to me is because he got in too deep with the bookies and the loan sharks, and they’re going to have him killed, if he doesn’t pay up. I asked him how he managed this, to get himself in such a mess. Very contrite. ‘Gambling, Mister Simmons. I’ve always been, well, I guess what I am is a degenerate gambler. It’s like a sickness with me.’ And I asked him how much, and he said: ‘Well, a million dollars.’ ”

  “Fellow thinks big,” Roth said.

  “Too big,” Simmons said. “I laughed in his face. Well, if you can do that over the phone. I said: ‘Come on, Earl, be serious, willya? A million bucks? What do you think I am, the federal government or something? That I can just lose, misplace, a million dollars, and no one’ll ever notice? My wife, or maybe the auditors here, or the guy who does my taxes—you think they wouldn’t see it and say: “Ahh, Mister Simmons, hate to bother you, you know, but do you have any idea where this million dollars went?” What am I going to say? “Gee, honey,” if this is my wife that asks, “I really can’t imagine. Must’ve left it in my other suit, before it went to the cleaners.” Come on now. Be realistic. Tell me something I can at least pretend to believe.’

  “He swears again it’s true. ‘Bullshit,’ I say. ‘I never heard of a bookie or a shy that’d lend a guy in your class, or let him get in debt, a million U.S. dollars. If you told me five, or maybe ten, maybe ten thousand dollars, that I would believe. But you in hock for a full mill? Couldn’t happen in this world.’

  “He backtracked some. ‘Okay, okay, it’s more like half that. But I aslso got to get myself lost, and I got this opportunity in southern California, to go in partners with this guy I know that’s building shopping centers. So I need a fresh start. A stake is all I need.’

  “ ‘Earl,” I said, ‘really, now. I like a good laugh as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous. Now let’s see if we can trim this thing down to manageable size here, get so we understand each other, and maybe just eliminate a lot of frustration and delay for both of us, all right?

  “ ‘You want money and you think I’ve got it. Conceded. I haven’t got anywhere near as much as you obviously think, but it’s more than you’ve got, and I’ve been in that position myself. Not as extreme, maybe, but in my time I’ve found myself a lot times in a situation where I had to get my hands on some money, and the only way I could do it was by yanking it away from somebody else that had more. So this is fun for you, I know.

  “ ‘The thing of it is, you’ve got to be, like I said, realistic. There’s no point in my giving you a sum of money that’s so big explaining where it went, and what for, ’ll put me in a position just as awkward as the one that I’d’ve been in if I didn’t give you one thin dime and just said: “Go fuck yourself.” Which is what I’d like to do, of course, but I’m willing to be reasonable, and that’s what I’m telling you, see? We both have to be reasonable here.

  “ ‘If you send those pictures to my wife, she’ll throw me out. Again. You hearing me, Earl? You soaking all this in? She will throw me out again. We’ve had our little differences in the past about my choice of companions, and I’ve spent my share of nights living in hotels alone. It’s inconvenient, and the word always gets out on the street, and people that I’d ordinarily never try it figure I’m distracted and start getting cute with me. So I have to mash their fingers, and that’s a damned nuisance, and while I’m doing it I’m not making any money.

  “ ‘You still with me, pal? You can cause me some trouble, granted. But not a million bucks’ worth. Not half a million bucks’ worth. Not a quarter of a million bucks, or a hundred thousand bucks, or even fifty grand. Don’t get yourself confused about what you are, Earl. You’re not a scorpion that can kill me. You’re not a German Shephered that can tear off my right leg, and you’re not even a bedbug that can cover me with welts while I’m unprepared and sleeping. What you are is a mosquito. If I’m not quick enough to swat you, you can make me itch. You nip me once—this the once—the chances are I won’t be quick enough. You hang around for refills, seconds, thirds, a buffet, the chances are, I will get quick, and I will swat you good. So I’m making you a counteroffer, and if you’re smart, you’ll take it. We still on the same song?’

  “ ‘I’m warning you, Mister Simmons,’ he says. ‘You may think this is funny, but I can tell you that it’s not.’

  “ ‘No problem there, Earl baby,’ I say, ‘this ain’t laughter that you hear, and these aren’t jokes I’m telling you. You put all of the pictures, and all of the negatives, in a box or something, and you leave that box in a baggage locker someplace. Keep the key on you. Train station, airport, the bus station on Saint James Street. Don’t matter shit to me. I’ll meet you in the nearest coffee shop. I will have two keys. The first key will be to a locker in the same place. In it you’ll find an envelope with ten big ones in fifties. You give me your locker key. I give you my first. I’ll go to your locker and get the damned box out. If it’s got in it all the stuff you’re saying that you’ve got—no fair keeping something back—you get the second key I’ve got, to my second locker. And in it is another pack of fifties—fifteen large. That’s twenty-five I’m offering and I’m not going up. I’m your only buyer, Earl, your only customer. Twenty-five to go away, tomorrow afternoon.’

  “ ‘Shit,’ he says, ‘you must think I’m an asshole.’

  “ ‘As a matter of fact, I do, ‘but the world is full of assholes, as I learned long ago, and sometimes I do something dumb and have to deal with one. Well, I admit it: I did that. And you lucked out and caught me at it. Okay, spilt milk. So I pay up. Get it over with. Forget it. On to the next thing. But once. Once is all I pay. Tomorrow. Twenty-five thousand. Take it or leave it.’

  “ ‘Fuck you,’ he says.

  “ ‘Sleep on it, pal,’ I say to him. ‘Give me a call in the morning.’ And that was my fun for the day.”

  “Umm,” Roth said
. “Off the top of my head, I doubt that he’ll take it. You made the same mistake he did. He started too high, and you started too high.”

  “Too high?” Simmons said. “I would’ve thought you’d say: ‘Too low.’ ”

  “Oh,” Roth said, “you had the right idea. I’m not saying that. But you’re misjudging him and his situation much the same as he is yours. He thinks you’ve got a raja’s purse; you know very well you don’t. But when he says he’s broke, you think his broker’s pushing him for ten grand more in margin and his cash flow’s been off lately. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. If you’re willing to give him twenty-five K to get rid of him, and you call him a mosquito, the mosquito gets the idea he must be a goddamned vampire and you’re really scared of him. That is big dough to this punk, and if you think it’s chicken feed you really must be rich.”

  “Ahh,” Simmons said. “So tomorrow when he calls me, he’ll still be demanding more.”

  “That’s my guess,” Roth said.

  “So what do I do?” Simmons said. “Call the FBI?”

  “How eager you are to testify, first to a grand jury, then in court?” Roth said. Simmons scowled. “That’s what I figured,” Roth said. “Well, that’s the only way you get J. Edgar’s men to help you. They’re not like the gallant firemen that come and rescue you down ladders, and then don’t expect a thing from you except you buy ten tickets every year to the Firemen’s Ball. They go out and grab a bad guy that is causing you trouble, they really want—insist, in fact—that you make sure he stays grabbed.”

  “I know some guys,” Simmons said “Well, I know some guys that claim they know, some other guys I don’t. That ocassionally do things for guys like me. I could feel them out. See if that’s all talk.”

  “It isn’t,” Roth said. “You put out feelers for them, you will find it’s not all talk, and find out real fast. But later on you’ll find out there’s a price for what they do. A price much higher, I would guess, than what this bozo wants, and one that you’ll have to pay. Pussy’s still against the law, unless you marry it, but nobody enforces that law. Accessory before the fact of some fatal event, well, that’s a different matter. That is one you can’t laugh off, and if you don’t pay up large money, you’ll have cops, not patient Phyllis, waiting for explanations.”