Mortal Bonds

by Michael Sears

“What’s the name of the bank?” I said.

  He relaxed back into the chair and smiled. “Welcome on board, Mr. Stafford.”

  Schooling began in earnest.

  | 14 |

  FBI Agent Marcus Brady had lost some weight and gained some gravitas in the eight months since I had last seen him. He’d saved my life and I had given his career a boost. Thanks to his efforts, and my engineering, he had been instrumental in wrapping up a multiple murder case that covered three jurisdictions. The powers that be had rewarded him with a transfer out of forensic accounting.

  “So there I was,” he said, smiling coldly.

  There’s an old trader’s joke—What’s the difference between a fairy tale and a trader’s story? A fairy tale begins “Once upon a time” and a trader’s story starts “So there I was.”

  “There you were,” I answered.

  We were sitting in his office at the Federal Building downtown—a windowless walk-in closet holding a desk, two chairs, and some filing cabinets. It was worse than my old cell, which was bigger and at least had a window. Of course, Brady didn’t have to share the space with a roommate with gang tats.

  “And I’m scrolling through surveillance tapes of the entrance to the Merchants and Traders Club . . .”

  “Our tax dollars at work,” I said.

  “And, Whoa! Who do I see? An old friend . . .”

  “Acquaintance.”

  “. . . arriving for a meeting with one Tulio Castillo, the main subject of a major interagency investigation. And I think, there must be some very good reason that a guy with almost two and a half years to go on his parole would risk being seen with a bad guy like that.”

  “You’d think.”

  “So I figured I’ll ask. It can’t hurt.”

  The FBI seemed to know my schedule. The two agents had been waiting outside the Ansonia when I got back from dropping the Kid at school. They had been polite but firm, offering me a choice. I could come downtown with them with the handcuffs on or off.

  “Mr. Castillo invited me to come down and talk with him. Same way you did. Only he did it classier. Do I tell him what you and I talk about?”

  “Suppose I put a wire on you and send you back?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have a strong aversion to being dead.”

  Brady chuckled. “I understand.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Shall we start over?”

  “Old friends?”

  “Reluctant allies?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Done. Who goes first?”

  “You do.”

  There was never any question on that. “Okay, I’ve been hired by a wealthy New England family to recover some money.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Just let me finish.”

  “Come on. I know you’re not working for the Kennedys. Are these people connected?”

  “You’re way off base.”

  “If Castillo is teamed up with the Patriarca people, I need to know about it.”

  “Who?”

  “The New England mob.”

  “Stop. Stop. Let me tell it.” How was it that everyone I talked to knew who I was working for—except for the FBI?

  “Get to the point.”

  “Castillo invited me to his club. Politely. He sent a card. We had a long chat, and he wants to hire me, too—to find the same money, which he says belongs to his client.”

  “Client!” Brady snorted.

  “Do I get to tell this or do I get to go home?”

  “Start from the top.”

  Everett Payne. Newport. The Von Becker family. Paddy. Douglas Randolph. The clerk, Rose-Marie.

  “She says there is no stash, right? Wouldn’t she know?”

  “Not necessarily. What I’m beginning to see about Von Becker is that he was brilliant at keeping everyone in the dark. No one got to see the whole picture, only their little part in it. Maybe the other clerk knows something—but he’s not talking. At least not to me.”

  “How did Castillo find you?”

  “I don’t know, but it feels like everyone knows what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  I filled him in on the whole conversation with Castillo. The bearer bonds. The lawyer, Biondi. The Swiss bank.

  “So you’re working for him?”

  “No. I told him that if I come up with something that looks like it belongs to him, I’ll let him know. That’s it. He’s run out of ideas, though he gave me one lead. If anything comes of it, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re in trouble. Way out of your depth.”

  “I promised him nothing. Zip.”

  “Did he say who this client is?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Well, I can guarantee they know who you are. And you don’t want that. That is not a good thing. It is a bad thing.”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with any of that. I plan on staying squeaky clean and out of prison.”

  “There’s scarier things than going back to jail. Let me tell you a little story. You need to know who you’re dealing with. Then I’m going to bring some other agents in here. They’ll want to hear your story—in triplicate—so get comfortable. And if you don’t believe what I tell you, ask these guys. They’ve seen it all.”

  Brady’s story was an eye-opener. When the U.S. and the Colombian government finally broke up the two big cocaine cartels, back in the late 1990s, they left a power gap at the top that still hadn’t been filled. But they hadn’t stopped the flow of drugs—there was just too much money involved. The remaining players—mostly the Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans—had rushed in to take over the distribution. And when the Taliban shut down the poppy growers in Afghanistan in 2000, the Central American gangs had seen a new growth opportunity—heroin. With considerably shorter distribution routes to the world’s largest market, they were able to provide a product much closer to pure in a much shorter period of time. They captured market share. The profits they were raking in made the old Medellín and Cali cartels look like kids’ lemonade stands in comparison.

  But without centralization of the power structure, there was no way to maintain agreed-upon areas of influence. The drug war became a free-for-all. The violence ratcheted up. It wasn’t just the Mexican border gangs that were out of control, killing one another, policemen, politicians, and innocent bystanders in a crazy bloodbath. Honduras had the highest per capita murder rate in the world. Guatemala was not much better. There no longer needed to be a reason to murder someone—terror was now the objective.

  “Castillo is an aristocrat. His family has been at the top of the food chain in Colombia since they arrived three or four hundred years ago. That makes him think he has some control over what these people do. He doesn’t. They are very scary people and they now know your name. If you’re not scared, you’re an idiot.”

  “I’m not an idiot.” Everyone was calling me an idiot.

  “Good. Stay here.”

  He went out and returned a moment later with three members of the team—two from the DEA and Brady’s senior agent. I started again from the beginning.

  | 15 |

  With Tino visiting friends out in Greenport for two days, I had been inveigled into escorting Angie and her mother to a Wednesday pre-matinee lunch at Sardi’s. We were finishing our coffee, Mamma had just gone to “freshen up,” and I was waiting for Angie to pick up the check.

  We were “discussing” which show would be best for the Kid’s first time in a Broadway theater the following weekend. It wasn’t going well.

  Angie had purchased four fifth-row orchestra tickets for Sunday afternoon to a show I considered to be wildly inappropriate for young children—and proba
bly outright dangerous for my son. She had paid almost three times face for them—an extravagance made doubly painful by the fact that all of her money had once been mine.

  I had Paddy’s four vouchers for house seats to a lighthearted 1920s musical revival with a book by P. G. Wodehouse and a plotline that could easily be followed by a golden retriever. It also featured an original Stutz Bearcat that rolled on stage at the end of the second act—a theatrical event guaranteed to put a rare smile on the Kid’s lips.

  The show Angie picked had been panned by every reviewer in the Northeast and was playing to sold-out crowds eight shows a week. Paddy’s show had won raves and was covering costs, and if they made it through the summer, they had a good shot at keeping it running through the end of the year.

  “Angie, I spend hours each week trying to keep him from biting people, and you want to take him to a fucking vampire show!”

  The sound of the fricative f followed by the hard consonant caught the attention of the four matinee ladies at the next table. They did not look our way, but their antennae went up.

  “It’s a love story,” Angie countered in an acid whisper that could easily have carried to the back of the house. “And I don’t like that language.”

  Unless she was using it.

  “Fine. I won’t say ‘vampire’ again.”

  She actually smiled. It reminded me of how rare smiles had been when we were together.

  “When did you turn into such a worrier?” she said in a more conciliatory voice. “All boys like vampires. He’ll be fine.”

  I wasn’t a worrier, I was a parent. The distinction was perfectly clear when you were a parent.

  “The Kid doesn’t like vampires—he doesn’t know what they are. He knows about cars. If you don’t want to see Paddy’s show, that’s fine. But can’t you find something better for the Kid than this?”

  “Mamma is dying to see it.”

  “So, take her! Tino and I will take the Kid to the zoo and meet up with you later. No problem.” I thought I scored some points with the ladies across the aisle.

  “Tino wants to see it, too.”

  Impossible. Tino had taste. “Challenge.”

  “Now, stop with this,” she continued. “If the Kid doesn’t like it, I’ll bring him out at intermission and you can come pick him up.”

  My cell phone rang. I checked the screen. Skeli.

  “I have to take this,” I said.

  Angie waved her hand in dismissal.

  I had called Skeli three or four times every day since the disastrous graduation dinner, but I had not spoken to her. Her phone went straight to voice mail every time. After two days I stopped leaving messages, though I kept calling. I turned away from Angie and answered the phone.

  “Please tell me this is not a butt-dial.”

  “How come you stopped leaving messages?”

  “Nice to hear your voice,” I said.

  “Well?”

  “Well?”

  “How come you stopped leaving messages?”

  Because I hated sounding so pitiful. “I’m not good at talking to machines.”

  “You’re not alone, are you?”

  I was not a natural dissembler, but having traded trillions over the phone in my time on Wall Street, I thought that my control over my telephone voice was one of my major strengths.

  “I don’t know why you would think that,” I said.

  Skeli burst out laughing. “Call me when you can. I want to take you to lunch tomorrow. Someplace special.”

  I hung up, feeling more than a touch better than I had a few minutes earlier. And possibly a touch more generous as well.

  “Angie, I’m being a bear. Take the Kid to the show. I’ll come, too, in case you need help.”

  “Thank you, boo,” she said, looking up at me with a model’s blank smile. “But it’s sold out.”

  “I’m sure I can find one lousy scalper’s ticket.” For six or eight times face value.

  “That will not be necessary. I can take him. This whole trip you have insisted upon watching over my shoulder whenever I am with the boy. I think I know my limitations, and don’t need your constant reminding.”

  “It’s not like that.” It was exactly as she had called it. Good intentions—mine or hers—were not going to cut it. Try as I might, I was not prepared to trust her. And, I was sure, neither was the Kid.

  “And I will have Mamma and Tino with me.” Her voice ratcheted higher and louder. The four matinee ladies had given up all pretense and were watching us with an intensity usually reserved for Real Housewives.

  “That’s not the point.” I let my voice top hers.

  “No, Jason. The point is that you still don’t trust me.” She leaned forward, and I expected her to lower the volume. She didn’t. “It was my intention to invite you to come to see me get my ninety-day chip. I thought you’d be pleased. Happy for me. Well, you can go fuck yourself, Jason.”

  I leaned across. We were almost touching. The two wolves were fighting in my head—the ones from the old Cherokee fable. The story where the wise old man tells about the good wolf and the bad wolf fighting inside all of us and the child asks which one will win and the old man says, “The one you feed.” My angry wolf said, “You have got to be shitting me, Angie. Did you really expect me to fly halfway across the country to watch you pat yourself on the back? I’ve got a life! And you don’t figure in it. And that is making me happy, thank you very much.” But the wolf didn’t say it out loud, and neither did I.

  I tried feeding my good wolf. “Angie,” I said out loud, “you have done a wondrous thing. I salute you. And I appreciate that you would ask me. But I can’t do this. I’m not your pigeon. I’m not your buddy. We have a history and we have a son—and that’s all it’s ever going to be.”

  “You have never been there for me—when I needed you. Never.” Her index finger threatened to pierce the table as she beat out the rhythm of her words.

  To hell with the good wolf. “That is such BULL SHIT.”

  Whatever meager goodwill I had with the matinee ladies was exploded. One of them began waving frantically for the check.

  Further escalation would have required physical violence. We glared silently. Angie recovered first.

  “You and I were finished years ago, but I didn’t leave. You did.” She was still angry but managed to sound calm and reasonable, as though this madness might actually make some sense—on her planet.

  “Christ, Angie. I went to jail.”

  “Don’t you hide behind that! You were gone long before then. As soon as I got pregnant, you were looking the other way. You were done with me. I was fat. Moody. I had hair growing in all kinds of new places, and you turned your back.”

  I was floored. It wasn’t like that.

  “No! I was afraid to touch you. You were growing like some perfect honeydew and I just knew if I did the wrong thing, it would be all twisted around backassed. I’d mess it up. How could you think it was you? Jesus, I’m sorry. I thought you were beautiful.”

  “Fat? Hairy?”

  It was like dancing through a field of land mines.

  “No! Glowing. With life. Twice over.”

  “You barely spoke to me.”

  I had been juggling a half-billion-dollar accounting fraud that required forty-eight-hour-a-day attention.

  “Jesus Christ! I was a little preoccupied there. My goddamned career was swirling down the drain and I was looking at serious jail time and you were bent out of shape because I wasn’t chatting! So I didn’t have much to say when I came home and you ran on about the new nanny quitting. Again. So sue me. You want an apology? Fine. I am sorry. Shit. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I had never started down that road. But, Christ, I spent two fucking years in federal prison for that shit. Isn’t that enough? I thought that once I was out w
e could have found some way of putting everything back in place. Moving on. Together.”

  It was the longest, most heartfelt speech I had made to her—possibly in my life. And I wanted nothing in return but for her to release me from the guilt of making her unhappy. I got it. In spades.

  Her face went rigid. “Thank you, Jason. Thank you very much.”

  An arctic blast swept through me.

  “I came to New York to see my son, of course. But I also came here for my recovery. Step nine. Making amends. Whether you find it in your heart to forgive or not is not the point. The point is that I acknowledge my mistakes and apologize for them. Are you understanding me?”

  Her voice was like toxic honey.

  “Angie, please. None of this matters anymore. We both made mistakes. You don’t owe me a thing.” It was a feeble attempt to head off the inevitable. And it failed.

  “No. I have to say this.” She paused while the four women scraped back their chairs and filed out, all doing their best to ignore us—and failing.

  I would gladly have traded the next ten minutes of my life for an hour in hell and called myself lucky.

  “I told myself I was helping you,” she continued. “That it was going to help us. Our marriage. That was a lie. I didn’t know it was a lie, but I know it now. I did it to hurt you. That’s the truth. Cheating never helps a marriage—it can only hurt. That’s what I have to say. Oh, and, I’m sorry.”

  “Angie, I don’t know anything about this. I’m not sure I want to know. When are we talking about? I hear the word ‘cheating’ and the brain starts shutting down.”

  “Oh, please. Are you saying you knew nothing about this? I cannot believe that.”

  I wanted it all to go away. And I wanted to hear it all. Who? How many? How often? Dates. Times. Concrete facts that I could look at and set into a logical, emotionless story line that would fit into a minor chapter of my life, so I could turn the page and make it go away and not hurt. I was wrong. It was all going to hurt.

  “You had an affair. One?”

  She was offended. “Of course one. What do you think I am?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend. I’m just trying to take this in. When was this?”