Pleading Guilty

by Scott Turow

  'Not quite,' he answered. 'Martin and Carl needed a break for the phone. We'll resume at four. Thought I'd take the opportunity to clear my head.' Wash hefted the golf club; only the fear that I might actually detain him kept me from saying that I was glad to finally know what it was for. Wash, meanwhile, escaped gladly from my company and headed for the gilded doors of the elevators.

  I did not leave the lobby. With my topcoat checked, I took a straight-backed chair in a small paneled alcove near the cloakroom and the telephones. I still didn't know what I was doing here. I had rushed over to confront Martin, but now I was moving as if my weight had tripled, and thinking at the same pace. What would that exercise accomplish? Plan, I told myself, think. Beneath my hand, my knee, to my considerable surprise, had started to tremble.

  A few years ago Martin's pal Buck Buchan, who was running First Kindle, got in Dutch in the S & L crunch and Buck made a few calls so that Martin was hired as special counsel to the board. Buck and Martin go back to a time when the mind of man runneth not to the contrary, Korea and the U when they were both trying to get in the girdles of the same sorority girls. There's a picture someplace of both of them in white socks and bow ties. I was with Martin the morning he had to go tell Buck they were taking his job. It was the end of the line for Buck, the conclusion of an upper-class life of achievement, a daily existence of hopping along the highwire, with the eyes of the world upon him and his body full of the erotic pleasure of power. The tent was coming down for Buck; he would have to tend his wounded soul in the festering dark of scandal and shame. Buck had dropped the ball and Martin was going to tell him, eye to eye, man to man, and remind Buck of what he undoubtedly always knew, that for all the hours he and Martin had spent together matching lively minds and senses of destiny, no one could expect Martin Gold to take a dive, to abandon the noble traditions of his professional life. Martin went off to this meeting with a graven face, shadowed and grieved. Everybody here admired his grit - and so did the board at First Kindle, which has hired Martin since then with increasing frequency. But how good are all those principles when you and your law firm come out on the short end of the stick? The answer - the memo Martin had stashed - was folded in my shirt pocket.

  I should have known better of course than to go after Wash. He's a weak person, never any help at all in a crisis. But when push came to shove, I wasn't ready to take on Martin - I lived with my father until I was twenty-seven and never once told him that I knew he was a thief. Nor did I want to confront Pagnucci's icy calculations. That would require more forethought and surer resolve. Instead, I went to an attendant, the kind of good-looking retainer you expect in this sort of place, a guy in a navy blazer and white gloves, retired military probably, and asked if he had any idea where Mr Thale could have gone with a golf club.

  He directed me to the second sub-basement, a cavernous service area that had probably doubled as a fieldhouse decades ago, before a sturdy running track had been put down under a dome on the roof. Now a flooring of green plastic turf had been laid over the concrete and a line of folks stood whacking golf balls. Many of these people were in sweats. Down this low, it was chilly, maybe 65 degrees. The green rug of the tee area extended twenty feet or so to a curtain of netting that was suspended from the ceiling and draped in layers like a veil. Beyond was a region of complete blackness, darker than doom. Somewhere out there must have been some kind of wiring, because mounted from the concrete abutments, directly over each golfer, was what looked like a green electric scoreboard. I watched as the guy nearest me hit and then studied the screen overhead, where a progression of white dots appeared, meant, I eventually realized, to show the predicted flight of the ball. After the last dot lit up, a digital readout popped up, announcing the supposed distance of the shot.

  I finally spotted Wash down the line, flailing away. He had a bucket of balls and had laid his fine jacket out neatly behind it. He swung awkwardly. He'd probably been playing his whole life, without ever quite getting the game.

  Seeing me approach, Wash's look hardened. I knew at once he thought I'd come to beseech him about my points and he was already drawing himself up to a high-minded stance in which he could remind me, with his usual perfect cordiality with underlings, that I was way out of line. Instead, to disarm him, I took the memo from my pocket and watched him unfold it. He read it standing on the driving mat. His eyes had a sort of hyperthyroid extension from his face anyway and they were quick, with little throbbing veins jumping about. The air around us raced with the steady rhythmic click of balls struck and rising. When Wash finished, he looked utterly uncomprehending.

  'It's Jake,' I said.

  He recoiled somewhat. He checked over his shoulder on the other golfers, then pushed me back toward the steel door I'd come through to enter this area, where the light trailed off and the full subterranean dark began to reach toward you, along with the spooky underground sounds of the building.

  'You're making assumptions,' Wash said. 'Tell me where this came from.'

  I told him. I didn't know how to explain and I didn't. But even Wash recognized that my bona fides were a side issue. It was obvious from the results that I had good reason to search.

  'The memo's a phony, Wash. There's no Litiplex, remember? There are no records at TN. Jake faked this. Maybe Bert's in on it too. There are a million questions. But it's Jake for sure.'

  Wash scowled again and took a gander over his shoulder. His look was reproving, but he was too well brought up to tell me to keep my voice down.

  ‘I say again you're making assumptions.'

  'Like hell. You explain this.'

  The whole notion of a challenge clearly vexed him. I was putting him on the spot. Then I saw Wash's pale, soft face become firm as he fixed on an idea.

  'Perhaps it's Neucriss,' said Wash. 'Some game of his. Maybe he made all this up.' Peter, God knows, was capable of anything. But I had realized still sitting in Martin's office why he had contacted Peter. Martin had the memo. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know if the document was real or a fraud, if Neucriss, by some improbable circumstance, could explain. But it wasn't Neucriss jacking us around. It was Jake.

  'Sure,' I said to Wash, 'sure. So we get Jake in Martin's office and tell him there's no Litiplex, and does Jake say, "Oh my God, Neucriss told me there was"? Hell no. He acts like this whole thing's a shock to him. "How dare Bert," he says. "And by the way, if you don't find him, let's never hear about this again." This only adds one way. Jake wrote this frigging memo to Bert. Bert gave him the money. And Jake's got it now. He's covering himself, Wash. And Martin's helping him.'

  'Don't be absurd,' he said immediately. He was reacting to the idea of Martin as corrupt. His mouth worked around, as if he could actually absorb the bad taste.

  'Absurd? You think about this, Wash. Who was it who said he'd called the bank down in Pico? Who told you that the General Manager, whatever his name is, Smoky, that he indicated between the lines it was Bert's account? Who'd you hear that b.s. from?'

  Wash is a good deal shorter than me, and my height seemed at the moment, as it is now and then, an odd advantage, as if I was out of reach of refutation.

  'Think about Martin's performance the other day,' I said, 'dragging Jake in and spilling the beans after you and Carl had decided otherwise. What did you make of that?'

  'I was put out,' Wash said. ‘I told Martin so afterwards. But that's hardly the sign of some dark conspiracy, that he felt he had to speak up.'

  'Come on, Wash. You want to know why Martin whistled Jake in? He wanted Jake to know. He wanted it, Wash. He wanted Jake to know that Martin had the goods on him and was keeping his mouth shut.'

  A certain blankness set in as Wash pondered all of this. He was very slow.

  'You're putting this the wrong way. I'm sure Martin found this document somehow and realized, I suppose, that for the time being it was best not coming to light. You're making it sound sinister.'

  'It is sinister, Wash.'

&nbs
p; He frowned and torqued away. He took one more look in the direction of the other golfers. I could see that my brusqueness and bad manners had finally stimulated Wash to a sense of offense.

  'Look, man', he said, using that term, 'man,' in an old-fashioned high-born way, 'he was following the logical imperatives here. Don't be so quick to scorn. Or condemn. Think this through. This firm cannot go on without Jake. Not in the short run. Tell me, Mack, you're such a clever fellow - tell me. If you run and do something half-cocked, you tell me what your plans are.' His aged light eyes, pocketed by all that used flesh, glimmered with rare directness. The plans he was asking me to specify were not an investigative scheme. He meant what plans did I have to make a living without Jake. I actually took an instant to let the little logical steps descend. Nobody was going to reward my virtue if I put a knife in Jake's heart. I knew that. I'd been hugging his hind end for years with that realization. Nothing had changed really. It's just that the cost would be a little bit higher, in terms of my own self-respect.

  'So that's it? I'm supposed to say dandy? That's Martin's answer. Let Jake steal. Just so long as he sends business. "Hey, Jake, you know that I know. So cut the crap with the firm in Columbus. Let's resume the gold rush." Come on, Wash. This is making me sick.'

  There was a sudden thunderous rumble above and we both jolted. One of the golfers had bounced a shot off the heating ducts on the ceiling. They were padded in foam but still let forth a tremendous sound on impact. The instant of brief fright seemed to prompt Wash to an effort at candor.

  'Look, Mack, I can't read Gold's mind. Obviously he prefers to keep his plan, whatever it is, to himself. But you've known this man for years. Years. Are you telling me you can't trust Martin Gold?' Wash and I, in this basement, snapping in whispers, posed close as lovers, both stood struck by that question. Wash was doing what he always did - what he did the other day when the Committee talked over Jake's proposal that we stay silent if Bert didn't return. Wash was posturing, shooting airballs, taking the easy way out. He knew just what was happening. Not every detail; neither did I. I still found it impossible to

  calculate how Bert fit in, how Martin had been able to blame him confident that he would not reappear. But Wash nevertheless had the lowdown on this scene: it was grubby and evil. He knew that instinctively because it was exactly what Wash, with no reflection, would have done -swap Jake the money for the survival of the firm. And he was keeping himself from speaking that sooty truth by pretending that Martin might have been up to something better.

  'You're a fool, Wash,' I said suddenly. In the midst of everything else, the seething emotions, the basement gloom, I walked away feeling great. Pure primitive pleasure. I had needed to say that for years.

  I had wrested the memo from Wash without resistance. I folded it into quarters again and jammed it in my pocket as I strode up the gray steel stairs that had led me down. It was all clear now. By the time I was back up in the grand surroundings, amid the wooden walls and the cut-crystal sconces, I felt motivated and strong, mean and myself. I was done being little boy disappointed. I was man among men. When I forged through the revolving doors to the winter street, I was starting to plan.

  Sunday, January 29

  XXI.

  THE INVESTIGATION BECOMES AN INTERNATIONAL AFEAIR

  A. International Plight

  The TN Executive Travelers Lounge, where I waited for Lena Sunday morning, afforded a rare vantage on a world askew. The place looked terrific. The interior designer produced the kind of tasteful space-age effect I'd have strived for in my office if I ever decorated, lots of curved woods and big windows, sleek leather chairs and granite end tables upon which were perched those special telephones operated by credit cards with two or three jacks for your portable modem and fax. The elegant-looking ladies guarding the door examined the entrants, who, every one of them, flashed their membership cards with the same air, Hey, look at me, I'm in the front of the boat, I really made it. Nipponese businessmen flying for thirty hours dozed on the fancy furniture; well-turned-out executives cracked away at their laptops; wealthy couples conferred, one of them always looking anxious with the prospect of flight. A waiter in a white jacket wandered around with a tray to see if anybody wanted a drink, while voices from the Sunday-morning TV news shows emerged from the bar.

  Here met is the Flying Class, a group ever expanding, whose real workday is spent in the sky, whose true office is an aisle seat on a DC-10, folks who have so many million award miles they could fly to Jupiter free. These are the orphans of capital, the men and women who have given up their lives for the corporate version of manifest destiny, who are trying to fling far some company's empire in the name of economies of scale. I had an Uncle Michael who was a traveling salesman, a sad sack with an ugly brown valise, one of those lacquered boxes that seemed welded to his hand. His was regarded as the fate of a misfit. Now it's a badge of status to be away from home four nights a week. But on God's green planet is there anything more depressing than an empty hotel room at ten at night and the thought that work, privilege, economic need not only claim the daylight hours but have, however briefly, entitled you to these awesome lonesome instants in which you're remote from the people and the things, tiny, loved, and familiar, that sustain a life?

  Listen to me. What was I missing but my easy chair and the TV set and bloviating moments interacting with Lyle? And I'd have Lena's youthful company. My briefcase and travel bag were between my knees. I'd packed light - underwear, a suit to do business, swimming trunks, and a few items I'd need: my passport, my Dictaphone, some TransNational Air stationery from the office, an old letter signed by Jake Eiger, and three copies of TN's annual report. Plus the memo I'd found in Martin's drawer, which was never going to leave my sight. Like Kam, I'd also taken a $2500 cash advance on my new golden credit card, which had been messengered to the office on Friday. I had been up most of the night scheming and I shut my eyes, imagining the wind on Pico, fragrant with sea salt and tanning oil as it rattled the palms.

  'Yoo-hoo.' The voice was sweetly familiar, but I still jumped a little when I opened my eyes. 'Brushy Bruccia, as I live and die.' 'So,' she said, seeming perky and young. She looked happy and pleased with herself. Her bag was slung over her shoulder and she carried her coat. She wore jeans.

  'Where you going?' I asked.

  'With you.'

  'Really and truly? What happened to Lena?' 'Emergency assignment. She'll be in the library all night.'

  I got it then. I told Brushy I didn't need to ask from who.

  'That girl has a lean and hungry look.'

  'She's got a look,' I said, 'I'll give you that.'

  Brushy punched me solidly in the arm, but I was too embarrassed to carry on in front of all these men. We walked over to the leather chairs. Neither of us said anything.

  'You're supposed to be pleased,' she told me eventually.

  'How could I not be?' I was feeling impinged upon. I had my plans for Pico, which depended on a traveling companion who was more credulous than Brushy.

  'Let's try this again.'

  She walked away and came around a handsome rosewood divider that sported CRTs listing arriving and departing flights.

  'Mack! Guess where I'm going.'

  'With me, I hope.'

  'Now you've got it.'

  I told her she was odd.

  'By the way,' she said, 'what are we doing down there?'

  '"By the way" nothing,' I said. 'Forget "we". Remember our deal? No askee, no tellee. You're not on the team.'

  A gal with a radio voice announced our flight, while Brush absorbed my rebuff lightly. She hung her head sideways; she fluttered her eyes.

  'Oh dear,' asked she, 'whatever will you do with me?'

  B. That Old Dance Step

  This, the high season, was not my favorite time in Pico Luan. I had last been here years ago during the summer, when the capital, Ciudad Luan, was almost a ghost town, but in this season the homebound travelers, grownups and kids in their
bright clothes, were crowded in the airport like the huddled masses from a steerage vessel. Their tanned faces were as surprising as the sweet breath of heat that greeted us as we descended the TN airliner staircase. Even in the long light, the tropical sun was compelling, so vital that winter at once was only a sad memory.

  'God,' said Brushy, shaking her hands free in the mild air.

  There was a rental car waiting. TN, as usual, had coughed up great accommodations right on the Regent's Beach, a nine-mile stripe of sand, white and uncluttered, that polishes the toes of the Mayan Mountains. Enormous and green, the foothills loom above the coast. In this season, with all the high-flyers and snowbirds down here, the narrow roads were crowded, and I found a back way out of the airport. Brushy opened the windows and took off her hat and let her short dark hair rise in the breeze. We whizzed along past the little lean-to houses with their metal roofs, the hand-lettered signs of occasional stores and stands offering local foods. Huge plants with leaves the size of elephant's ears grew in clumps at the roadside. The eternal Luanders strolled unmolested in the middle of the narrow roads, yielding for the car and then returning, pacing along down the center stripe, frequently barefoot.

  The Luanders are pleasant people. They know they have it made, having mastered the white man through his greed.

  They have been bankers since the Barataria Bay pirates began storing their gold in the caves above Ciudad Luan -C. Luan to the locals - and the Luanders today remain as casually indiscriminate about clientele. International narcotics magnates, tax cheats from many lands, and upper-crust bankers mingle congenially in this land of little restraint, sharing the tiny nation with its polyglot people in whose blood is mingled the DNA of Amerindians, African slaves, and a variety of runaway Europeans - Portuguese, English, Dutch, Spanish, and French. Pico has survived despots, Indian conquerors, and two centuries of Spanish rule, which ended in 1821, when Luan chose to become a British protectorate rather than be subsumed by the sovereignty claims of nearby Guatemala. In 1961, when Pico achieved independence, its parliament adopted the strict bank-secrecy laws of Switzerland and some of the BWI islands.