“Who are you talking to?”
“Bernard.” She cleared her throat.
“Oh, tell him hi.”
She did. Then fell silent.
“What’s going on?”
“Ah…” More clanking in the background. Still more silence. She was like this so often lately.
“What. Is. Going. On?” I said. “C’mon, Mags.”
“So you know how Bernard was moving here, but he wasn’t going to move in?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s moving in.”
“Wow.” I laughed.
Maggie laughed a little, too. “We decided to throw caution to the wind.” She sighed whimsically. “I guess I’m taking a chance.”
“Wow, Mags. I’m excited for you.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”
“Weird that we’ve both had guys move in recently.”
“Yeah, that is weird.”
Neither of us pointed out the obvious difference—the guy who’d moved in with me was in jail.
I had no idea what to make of Maggie’s relationship with Bernard. They had professed their love almost immediately upon meeting in Italy and it almost seemed (although I’d seen them together only a few times) like they were already married. Like they were committed. Like they’d just been traveling the planet solo until they met one another.
But now Brad was calling me. I dodged out Kim’s front door and into the hallway. “Brad, thanks for calling.”
Thump-chucka-thump-chucka was all I could hear through the phone.
“Brad,” I said, half-yelling. “Are you in a club?”
“Izzy?” Brad was almost shouting, too. “Is Theo with you? I can’t find him. I wanted to invite the two of you to Deluxa.”
I sighed heavily. The guy went to the clubs even on Monday nights? “No, Theo isn’t with me.” When I’d called Brad before, I hadn’t wanted to leave him a message about Theo’s arrest. I wanted to tell him in person, or at least in person on the phone.
“What’s that?” he shouted. “Come out to Deluxa!” I heard the squeal of a woman in the background, more thumping music, someone ordering a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“Brad, I need to talk to you.”
“Sounds great. Talk to you when you get here!” I heard him laughing, telling someone Theo and Izzy were on their way.
I called him back but no answer.
Kim came out in the hallway. She was wearing platform boots, which made her at least five inches taller than me now. She threw an arm around my shoulder. “I’m so glad you came over.”
“Me, too.” I squeezed her around the waist. “But I’ve gotta take off.”
“Putting yourself to bed? I should be doing that, too.”
“No. I’m going out to Deluxa.”
23
Deluxa was hopping, moving. Lights and music and waitresses swirled. I searched through the crowd for Brad and found him with LaBree in a booth similar to the one we’d been in last night. LaBree’s friends were different that time. She introduced them. One was an interior designer and one was an HR person.
Green lights, emanating from the DJ booth, streaked and burst around me as I shook their hands. The lights and noise felt incongruous to what was happening outside the club.
“Brad!” My voice shot out—overly cheerful, overly loud to combat the music.
I was determined to be as gentle about this as possible. But what to say—Hi! Just came to tell you your son is in jail. Yeah, they say he’s like Madoff. But smarter. Isn’t that nice?
Maybe Brad knew of his arrest already? The thought hadn’t occurred before, and it suddenly made me nervous. What kind of person would he be if that were true?
But as soon as Brad stepped from the table to talk to me, and LaBree and Company disappeared toward the restrooms, I could see Brad didn’t know anything was amiss.
“Great to see you,” he said with a smile. “Where’s Theo?” He looked around again, an expectant expression.
“Theo is…” I stalled. “Could we talk somewhere else? Somewhere a bit quieter?”
Now Brad appeared concerned. “Sure, uh…” He looked around and I did, too. There was nowhere quiet in Deluxa.
We walked to the front door and stood behind the hostess stand, where the music was a tad softer. Still, I had to raise my voice and lean toward Brad’s ear.
And then I just went for it. “Theo’s been arrested,” I half shouted in his ear.
His reaction was worse than I could have imagined. His features immediately twisted in pain and confusion. He put a hand out as if to break a fall he felt coming, but there was nothing to grab on to.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Brad, I’m so sorry to just tell you like that.” I gave him the story of the day—how it had started normally enough, with Theo off to work and me to court, but ended with Theo in jail.
“What could he be charged with?” Brad said, his voice shocked.
I explained the allegations as best I knew them.
“That’s ridiculous,” Brad said. “Theo would never embezzle from anyone. Or defraud anyone. Or whatever they’re saying.” He shook his head back and forth.
“That’s what I think. But I don’t know much about HeadFirst.”
Brad’s head shaking stopped. “What about Eric?”
“I talked to him today. He hasn’t been arrested, but he’s hired lawyers.”
Brad scowled. “Eric is more the leader in that company than Theo. Theo is just the creative side.”
“That’s what Theo has told me. He said he’s been trying to learn more about the whole business,” I said, “since he found out…” I stalled. Felt overwhelmed. But I took a breath and kept going. Brad and I talked again about how Theo had been turned down for a mortgage, and how maybe it was due to unpaid debt at work. Then I decided to change the topic. “I’ve asked my friend Maggie to handle the case. She’s one of the best criminal lawyers in town. We’ll both represent him.”
“So he called you first,” Brad said. When I nodded, he said, “He really loves you, Izzy.”
The statement threw me. Was that true? “Thanks,” I said. The only thing I could think to say. Then I remembered why I was there. I told him how they’d set the bond and that fifty thousand was required to get Theo out of jail.
“Fifty thousand?” Brad’s eyes went big. “Wow.” He nodded, thinking. “Well, maybe I can sell something, liquidate something. Let me start working on it.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Yeah… Maybe…” His forehead was creased with concern. “This is horrible.”
“Yes.”
“Horrible.”
I wondered for a second if he might cry. I considered giving him a hug, but I was afraid that if I did, I’d start crying, too.
He gestured with his head toward the booth. “I’m just going to say goodbye, and then I’ll head out.”
“Great. I’m glad we’ll be able to get this taken care of.”
He looked right at me then. “I hope we can.” He paused and thought for a moment. “You said Maggie is the best. What’s her opinion about the case?”
“We don’t know enough yet about their allegations or their evidence. According to federal rules, they don’t have to give us the evidence they have for a few months.”
“A few months?” His voice sounded shocked and tormented.
“Yeah. The judge set a deadline so they can collect everything. It’s making me crazy, too. Maggie is going to try and work something out.” What Maggie had actually said was, Let me see if I can back-door some information, but I wasn’t even sure what that exactly meant. No sense in getting Brad’s hopes up any more than mine.
“Brad!” LaBree and another girl were squealing with laughter and headed in our direction.
Brad half glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t respond. “I just hope I can get something liquidated in time. When do we need the money by?”
“Whenever we can get it. Theo will stay
in the MCC until then.” I felt a pang of fear and sadness. I wanted Theo back at my place—our place?—more than ever before.
“Can I see him?” Brad asked.
“I’ll find out when visiting hours are.”
“But can I go now?”
I shook my head.
Brad said nothing, his forehead still creased. “I can’t believe this,” he said, his voice sounding far away. “I’ll try and find the money.”
The uncertain tone of his voice scared me. Then I thought of something else. “Someone should tell Anna,” I said. “Do you want me to call her?”
“Yes. If you would. I’m sure she’d rather speak with you.”
I looked at my watch. It was getting late. “I’ll call her in the morning.”
“You really should call her now.”
I nodded and took Anna’s number from him.
Leaving Deluxa and stepping into the misty, cold November night made me feel alone. I hailed a cab and called Anna Jameson.
I didn’t hesitate when she answered. I just laid out the story of Theo’s arrest.
“What?” she said. “What? This can’t be. Oh, God, no.”
I filled her in on everything I knew, including the fact that Theo didn’t have bond money, Eric didn’t either (or wasn’t willing to post it) and Brad had said he would try to liquidate some asset as soon as possible.
Anna made a scoffing sound. “Brad loves his son. I know that. But he can’t take care of anything quickly.”
“He seemed really broken up about it.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Hold on one second.” I heard the phone being put down, then the click-clack of fingers on a keyboard. “Izzy, I just checked my retirement account online. I have enough. I’ll get the bond money for Theo.”
I started to say that she should keep the money she’d saved, that she shouldn’t use it to pay bond money for her son. But if she didn’t, who would?
“Thanks, Anna,” I said.
24
On Tuesday morning, bleary from my never-ending Monday, I met my dad at a Greek diner on Halsted Street that opened early for breakfast. I watched as my father adjusted his copper glasses, looking at the gyro-and-feta omelet he’d ordered as if studying it like a specimen in a lab. Then he tentatively cut open the omelet, putting a delicate bite in his mouth.
“Hmm,” he said, as if considering it. Then, “Mmm.” He took another bite, while I watched. My father had rarely seemed interested in food. In fact, he rarely let on when he was interested in anything.
“Why did you choose this place?” I asked. When I reached out to him, he had immediately made the suggestion for our meeting place.
He took another bite. “I’m trying to learn the different parts of the city. You know. Ones I’d never paid attention to. I really only know the parts…”
His words died away and I finished for him. “You only know the parts of the city where Mom went or I went or Charlie. Because you followed us while we thought you were dead.” A silent bomb seemed to detonate. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I don’t know why I said it in a mean way like that. I’m a little off.”
“You certainly have reason.”
“No, I am sorry. And I need a break from thinking about Theo. Let’s just have a normal conversation like two family members would in the morning.”
“Perfetto.” I liked how he spoke Italian when he wasn’t censuring himself.
He looked at me. I could see from the way his eyes squinted under his glasses that he was struggling with what to say. He opened his mouth and closed it. Then opened it again and said, “That’s a lovely suit you have on.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It was my father’s way of trying to bridge a gap, to try and comfort me in some small way. I looked down at the herringbone suit I wore with a purple ruffled blouse. I remembered in a burst when I’d worn the same outfit to negotiate the contract of an executive producer with a local TV news show. That was only a year or so ago, and yet the memory was hard to hold on to, so different it was from my world now.
“So what are you working on with Mayburn?” I asked, just for something to get the conversation going.
My father looked up from his plate. “This and that.”
“What kind of this?”
He said nothing.
“What kind of that?” I shook my hair off my shoulders. His reticence was starting to make me hot with irritation.
“You know the attorney-client privilege?” he said.
I nodded.
“I believe there is a similar such privilege when you’re working on an investigation.” He said nothing else, then resumed eating. He really could be infuriating.
“But even with the attorney-client privilege,” I said, raising an index finger, as if to represent that this was point one in a list of many, “I can tell you about the type of cases we’re working on without revealing any specific information that my clients told me. For example, I can tell you that I’m working on a case where people loaded a whole bunch of drugs…” I stopped myself, felt the lowering of my brow. “Let me rephrase that. People had allegedly loaded a whole bunch of drugs onto a boat. See? I’m not telling you their names. I’m not telling you any details about these guys. I’m not telling you who they are or anything they said to me. So come on. We’re trying to establish a relationship here.”
Well, that caught his attention. He looked up at me, his eyes rather wide. Did I see a shot of hope or excitement? He put his fork down. “Okay. Okay. I understand what you’re saying.” He seemed to be pondering. I realized this was probably strange for him—sharing anything. He had lived his life mostly in Italy, working to shut down an arm of the Italian Mafia called the Camorra. And he had trained to keep everything quiet. Silent.
Then he started talking. “We’re working on a case where this young woman was in France, a college student from America. And she was arrested for drug trafficking to Thailand.”
“Wow,” I said. “Hey, we’re both working on drug cases.” It wasn’t the usual thing that brought glee to a family, but it was a start. “Who hired you? Generally speaking, I mean. The student?”
He hesitated, seemed to be considering whether answering that question would be revealing too much information, then he shrugged. “The parents retained us. John knows them from growing up along the Northern Shore.”
“The Northern Shore?”
He blinked. “The suburbs north of the city?”
“Oh. That’s the North Shore. And you’d say he grew up on the North Shore. Not along.”
My father nodded, seemingly un-insulted by my vernacular lecture. “It’s a really interesting case. It’s giving me a lot of opportunity to utilize my contacts in Europe.”
“That’s fantastic.” There was an enthusiasm in my voice, as if I were encouraging a small child into using their potential, pushing to see what they were capable of.
My father caught it. He looked at me quietly. Then lifted his fork and cut off an end of his omelet. We sat in silence.
When he still said nothing, apparently unperturbed by the silence at our table, I was forced to realize our daddy-daughter talk was probably over. I took a breath. “So,” I said, “tell me what else you know about Theo’s case.”
“I found out that the Feds were investigating HeadFirst.”
“I know that. But how?”
He chewed more of his omelet. “I have a number of contacts who give me a heads-up if they come across something I should be interested in.”
It reminded me of what Vaughn said about cops keeping an eye out for other people’s cases.
“I learned,” Christopher McNeil continued, “that there was possible fraud, possible embezzlement, maybe some other things, and then yesterday morning I found out they were specifically looking at Theo.”
“And you heard that he was like Madoff?” I said, incredulous. “I’ve been up thinking about that all night. How is that true? M
adoff was involved with securities. He ran an investment firm.”
My father gave me a bland look. “I think it was a vague comparison, that’s all. But the core of it is the same—they say people invested money in his company, and he bilked them of it.”
“But even if that’s all true, which I’m having a hard time believing, why wouldn’t the government go after Eric, too? If HeadFirst was wreaking all this havoc, why hasn’t he been arrested? From what I know, he’s more the business-side guy anyway.”
My dad put his fork down. “Have you spoken with Eric?”
I told him I had. And that Eric had retained legal counsel.
“When do you believe he hired them?” my dad asked.
“Probably as soon as he heard about the investigation.”
“Probably.” My dad pushed his omelet plate away.
“And…?” There was something more, something he was thinking but not saying.
“And when do you think that was?”
“What was?” I asked.
“When do you think Eric heard about the investigation?”
“Recently?”
My dad shrugged.
“Make your point, please,” I said.
“You’re right that Eric likely hired counsel when he first heard from the Feds. But what if that wasn’t recently? What if it was weeks ago or months ago or even a year ago?”
A beat went by. Then another. A busboy clanged an armful of plates and coffee mugs into a plastic container. The door of the kitchen swung open and closed and opened again. I thought about what my dad was saying. I was trying to no longer become exasperated at how he liked people to figure things out for themselves. I didn’t know if that trait had to do with his background working for the FBI or his covert work in Italy. Lately, I’d just accepted that my father was the person who would lead the proverbial horse to water, but he would never force the horse to swallow anything.
I decided to put on my lawyer hat and treat him as a witness on cross-examination. “You’re suggesting that Eric might have heard about the investigation into HeadFirst before Theo.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know this for sure, but it’s a strong feeling of yours.”
“Correct.”
Question of Trust Page 9
