A month after they returned from Europe, Jack went to Vicki’s apartment after work one evening. He hadn’t seen her in more than a week, and he could tell right away something was wrong. She was lying on the couch under a blanket. “What’s the matter, you sick?” He sat next to her on the arm of the couch and touched her face, felt her forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a temperature.”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“Come on, I know you.”
“It’s not your problem.” Vicki looked up at the ceiling, avoiding his gaze, and then looked at him. “I owe a lot of money to a loan shark.”
It sounded like a line, like she was putting him on, but he could tell by her expression she was serious.
“I told you I was a dealer at the poker room. I usually made between three fifty and four hundred a night in tips—cash, tax-free. I worked three nights a week. In a year, I’d saved forty-five thousand dollars. I told Vincent, who ran the place, I didn’t want to be a dealer anymore, I wanted to play.”
“And that was okay?”
“I had money, and that’s what gets you in. I told the restaurant I had to take a leave of absence to care for my sick aunt who had cancer, and played high-stakes blackjack every night from ten till two, three in the morning. I won fifteen grand the first night, got overconfident, upped my bets, and it worked. The next night, I won twenty grand. Two nights, I’m up thirty-five thousand dollars, which is about half of what I earn at Balthazar in a year. I had seventy-five thousand dollars, more money than I’ve ever had in my life.”
“Why didn’t you quit and put it in the bank?”
“’Cause I wanted to keep playing; I wanted to stay in the game. That’s all you care about. You get in the zone. It’s a rush, and you want to stay there as long as you can.” Vicki squinted and rubbed her temples. “I was up and down the next couple nights. Then I lost seventeen, and then twenty-two, and by the end of the week, I was broke.”
He could see the stress on her face.
“I asked Vincent to loan me fifteen grand, which I lost, and borrowed twenty more. Did that a few times. I got into debt faster than the Fourth of July.”
“Why would he keep loaning you money?”
“That’s what he does.”
“How were you going to pay it back?”
“I was going to win. But I didn’t. You know what happens when you borrow from a loan shark?”
Jack glanced at her. He had an idea how it worked, but didn’t say anything, let her keep talking.
“The first fifteen came due, and of course I didn’t have it, so they tacked on their percentage.”
“You worked for the guy, Vincent, right? He wasn’t sympathetic, young girl gets in over her head? I would be.”
“If he was, he wouldn’t have given me the money.”
“This was all going on while I was seeing you? Why didn’t you say something?
“I thought I could work it out.”
“What do you owe? How much will it take to get you out of this?”
“I don’t know exactly. Every time I miss a payment, it goes up.”
“Give me a ballpark number.”
“Five hundred grand.”
“Five hundred grand? Come on, you’re not serious?”
“I’ve got a week to pay it off, or they’re going to put me to work turning tricks.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
“What are they gonna do? Nothing’s happened. Vincent works for Frank DiCicco. Know anything about him?”
“I see his name in the paper every once in a while.”
“He’s a bad guy.”
“You know him?”
“Not really. He’d show up every once in a while.”
“Tell whoever you have to tell I’m taking over your debt. Find out how much it is, and set up a meeting.”
“It’s not your problem.”
“I’m making it my problem.”
They met Vincent Gallo at the poker room in Little Italy. Vincent was short and heavy and had a three-day beard. Two of his men searched Jack, Vincent saying, “You better not be wearing a fucking wire.” Then saying, “I don’t think this’s ever happened, someone taking over someone’s debt. She must be good in the sack, uh?” Vincent glanced at Vicki. She didn’t react, didn’t give him anything.
Jack said, “How much is it?” He and Vicki stood facing Vincent and the collectors, a room full of green felt-covered tables behind them.
“You paying today? It’s seven hundred fifty thousand,” Vincent said.
Jack looked at Vicki. “You said five hundred.” Now Jack looked at Vincent. “You can’t do that, charge whatever you feel like. It’s usury. It’s against the law.”
“What law you talking about? She borrowed the money.” Vincent grabbed Vicki’s ponytail and turned her head toward him. “You asked for it, right, babe?”
Vicki’s face tightened. Jack took a step toward Vincent. He let go of her. “I said at the time, ‘You know how this works?’ Did I say that?” He glanced at her. She nodded and looked at the floor. “I own her. She’s mine. You want to buy her, show me the money. You don’t, I’ll sell her to someone else.”
“It’s going to take a little time.”
“That’s your problem. Take as long as you want, but just so you know, it’s rolling over. That means it’s multiplying, getting bigger. Don’t come back, play dumb like you don’t know what’s going on.”
“The deal is, I take over the debt, you leave Vicki alone, understand? I’ll be back in a week with the money.”
“Long as you know what you’re doing.”
“First I want assurances from Frank DiCicco. I want his guarantee that when I pay, it’s over.”
“Who the hell you think you are?” Vincent said, keeping his hard stare on him. “Get the fuck outta here.”
Jack glanced at Vicki and said, “Let’s go.”
When they were outside Jack said, “What the hell’s going on? You said it was five hundred grand.”
“I don’t know.” Vicki shook her head. “It’s crazy. Vincent’s crazy. He can do whatever he wants. Listen, if you don’t have the money, I understand.”
“I’ll get it.” He put his arm around Vicki and walked her back to the apartment. “Who are the two guys that work for Vincent?”
“The dark-skinned one is Ruben Diaz, a former boxer, which is probably obvious looking at his face. The other one is Duane Cobb. They’re collectors. They keep the pressure on. One of them might be standing outside my building when I go to work, or standing outside the restaurant when I get off. Thing about it is, it’s on my mind every second I’m awake and probably when I’m sleeping, so they’re wasting their time.” Vicki paused. “I don’t know how to thank you for what you’re doing. I’ve never felt so stupid in my life. It’s a lot of money. Can you really cover it? If you can’t, it’s okay. It’s my fault. I got myself into this.”
Now they were walking on Sullivan Street, stopping in front of Vicki’s apartment. “I’m not going to come up. I have to go to the office. I have to get moving on this.”
Jack withdrew forty-five thousand dollars from his and Diane’s joint account and had an idea where he would get the rest. He pulled up Barbara Sperrick’s account on his computer. She had almost six million in equities, bonds, and cash.
Jack decided to sell a fund of blue chips that had gained 21 percent in the past twelve months. He thought it was his most defensible move if the Sterns & Morrison compliance group ever looked over his shoulder.
He also decided to take the full amount from Mrs. Sperrick. Why use his money if he didn’t have to? He had more debts than cash as it was. And his client would never know the difference.
Jack had converted the Sperricks’ stocks to cash and deposited $750,000 in a new account he’d opened at a local bank. Everything had hinged on Jack’s freedom to buy and sell without permission. Mrs. Sperrick and her son Buzz had given him free rein to manage the accoun
t any way he wanted.
What he didn’t expect was the son, David “Buzz” Sperrick, a forty-year-old unemployed former meth addict, spending thirty days in rehab and coming out a new man, alert and interested in his mother’s estate for the first time ever. Buzz had reviewed the August statement, saw the equities that had been sold, and called Jack on September 7.
Jack said, “How’s your mother doing?”
“I don’t think she’s going to be around much longer.”
“What happened?”
“Old age. She’s losing it. Doctor says it’s dementia or Alzheimer’s.” Jack heard him light a cigarette or a joint and inhale. “I see you sold one of the blue chip funds. Not sure I agree with that, but it made an acceptable profit.”
That was by far the most intelligent thing Buzz Sperrick had ever said.
“According to our analysts, those stocks are going to get banged up in the next few months—that’s why I sold them. You made twenty-one percent in a year. It seemed like a good time to cash out.”
“That’s not why I’m calling. I’m looking at the statement. The stocks were sold for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, right? But I don’t see the cash.”
“Let me pull it up.” Jack looked north from his window at the Empire State Building in the distance, counted to ten, and said, “Okay, I’ve opened your mother’s account. Hang on, let me find it. Just a second. Yeah, there it is. I’m looking at a cash balance of one point four million. I don’t know what happened. The full deposit didn’t get recorded in time to make it on the August statement. You’ll see it next month.”
“Oh, okay. Will you print that out and fax it to my mother’s house? I’ll stop by later today and get it.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “No problem.” But he did have a problem, a big one.
Buzz Sperrick phoned him at five and left a message. Jack didn’t get back to him. There was nothing he could say. The next call he got was from Stewart Raskin, the morning of the tenth, saying he wanted to see Jack immediately about a matter of extreme urgency. Stu had obviously been contacted by Buzz Sperrick, reviewed the Sperrick statement, and noticed the discrepancy: funds had inexplicably been withdrawn and had disappeared.
Jack told Mary, his assistant, he had to have a root canal that day.
She said, “You have clients coming in at three and five.”
“Call them and cancel. Say it’s an emergency.”
“Want me to reschedule?”
“Tell them we’ll get back to them.”
“Jack, are you okay? Is everything all right?”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
He took the elevator to the lobby, walked up the street, and grabbed a cab to Vicki’s apartment.
He could hear the shower when he walked in. He took off his suit coat, folded it on the back of a chair, and went in the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, scanned the contents. There was half a bottle of Cuvaison chardonnay. He took it out, pulled the cork, and poured a glass. He felt like a fool. Why did he think he could get away with it? He drank the wine and poured another glass. Everything he had done was to help Vicki, but he couldn’t tell anyone.
“I thought I heard somebody.” Vicki walked into the room, wearing a robe, drying her hair with a towel. “What’re you doing here so early?”
“I thought you’d be glad to see me. I decided to take the day off.” Jack wasn’t going to tell her about embezzling money from Barbara Sperrick to pay off the debt or that he was going to be fired in the morning and would probably be arrested and taken to jail.
He saw himself flanked by detectives, escorted out of the office in handcuffs, passing a waiting news crew in the plaza. But first, Cobb or Ruben would stop by his office and he’d hand over the cashier’s check.
Jack said, “Can you call in sick?”
“Really?”
“Why not?”
“You said you had meetings all day. What’s gotten into you?”
“How about a glass of wine?”
“It’s ten to eleven. I usually wait till at least eleven fifteen.”
“Let’s go to bed,” Jack said, thinking it might be the last time.
“What’s going on, Jack? You’re acting strange.”
Vicki untied the sash, opened the robe, and let it slide off her shoulders onto the wood plank floor. She walked naked toward the bedroom, stopped, looked over her shoulders and said, “Jack, you coming?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Cobb watched Sculley get out of a taxi and move quickly to the apartment building entrance.
“Let’s go,” Ruben said.
“What about the doorman?”
Ruben frowned. “You worried about that guy in the clown outfit?”
That was the one thing about Ruben he liked; the dude had confidence. Cobb got out and waited for traffic to clear. Ruben came around the car and moved up next to him, the two of them walking side by side to the building. Cobb went in first. The doorman, wearing a green double-breasted coat with gold trim, gave him a concerned look, checking out Cobb, then Ruben.
“Can I help you gentlemen?”
“We’re visiting our friend, Joe Sculley,” Cobb said in a friendly, down-home voice.
“I’ll give Mr. Sculley a call. Can I have your names, please?”
Ruben said, “Hey, where you get that outfit at? You going to a costume party, or you like looking like a clown?”
The doorman gave him a nervous smile. His name tag said Pat. What kind of pussy name was that?
“I’ll tell Mr. Sculley you’re here.”
“We want to surprise him,” Ruben said.
“I have to announce you. It’s a rule.”
Ruben took a step toward him. “Go take a leak, you never saw us. That’s the rule I’d follow I was you. What apartment’s he in?”
“Four D.” Pat the doorman looked like he was going to be sick.
“Why don’t you come up and show us where it’s at,” Cobb said. Put him to work, put Sculley at ease.
In the elevator, Cobb said, “Like being a doorman?” He imagined himself standing in the lobby in that outfit all day, opening the door and having to be nice, walking tenants out to a taxi under an umbrella on rainy days and helping them with their groceries, but mostly taking a lot of shit.
“It’s not too bad.”
“Yeah, what do you like about it?”
“It pays pretty good, but sometimes people will ask you to do things that aren’t part of your job description.”
“Like what?”
“Like washing their windows and walking their dog. One time, a woman asked me to do her dishes.”
“Any of the ladies ever ask you to come upstairs and take care of their personal needs?” Cobb winked and punched his open palm with a fist a couple times, one guy to another.
Pat the doorman shrugged and said, “No sir, nothing like that.”
The bell sounded and the elevator doors opened.
“It’s this way,” Pat the doorman said, directing them to the left. “Last one at the end of the hall.”
Now, standing in front of Sculley’s door, Cobb said, “Knock, say you have a package for him, but don’t mention us. It’s a surprise, remember?”
Pat did as he was told, and the door opened. Sculley saw them and backed away into the living room. Ruben went after him.
“If that’s all, I have to get back to work.”
“We’d like the pleasure of your company a while longer. People can open their own fucking door.” Cobb grabbed the doorman’s collar, pulled him into the apartment.
Ruben had Sculley on the couch in the living room, standing over him, the skyline of Lower Manhattan minus the Trade Center in the background. Cobb took the doorman into a bedroom, opened the closet. “Take off your clothes and get in there.”
“Why? I did what you asked. I have a job to do.”
Cobb drew the Ruger. “’Cause I have this. I’m your new boss, and I’m telling you to.”
“Ahh, Jesus.” Sculley ducked and put his arms up to protect himself.
Cobb said, “You gonna call security?”
“I don’t know where Jack is. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, but I don’t believe you,” Cobb said.
“What do you want me to do, make something up?”
Cobb said, “I believe that’s what you’re doing.” He aimed the Ruger, held it six inches from Sculley’s face and cocked the hammer. “What do you think’s gonna happen here? You think we’re just gonna go away, forget about you?”
“Eventually,” Sculley said.
“You trying to be funny? Let me tell you, this is no fucking joke.”
“Well, it is a little absurd, don’t you agree? You’re threatening to shoot me but you can’t ’cause you believe I know where Jack is. Does that about sum it up?”
Ruben bent down and pulled Sculley up off the couch and hit him in the gut. Sculley grunted and fell back on the cushions, holding his stomach.
“Last time I talked to him, he was in Florida, a town called Pompano Beach,” Sculley said, breathing hard.
Cobb said, “What’s the address?”
“It was a post office box.”
“Where’s he staying?”
Sculley answered the question just as Dominic “Dapper Dom” Benigno walked into the room pointing a silenced semiautomatic at them.
TWENTY-FIVE
Diane sat in the car, watching people walk by. She was across the street from Cobb’s apartment building. She wouldn’t have guessed Duane Cobb lived in Chelsea, but then he was something of an enigma.
Midafternoon, Cobb came out of the building and walked down 21st Street past his car. Diane crossed the street and followed him. She wondered what she’d say if he saw her. He was seventy to a hundred feet ahead of her on the crowded sidewalk, Diane trying to keep an eye on Cobb, and then she lost him.
Unknown Remains Page 14
