Pleading Guilty

by Scott Turow

  'He told me this long farfetched tale, how a fortune was owed to this litigation support group, Litiplex. He said their work had benefited all the plaintiffs, but the class lawyers were acting as if they'd never heard of them and Peter was in a spot because he was the one who'd retained the company and made some cozy deal with them, these Litiplex people, something a little unsavory. You know Neucriss when he gets like this. You'd expect him to leave a spot on the wall. At any rate, he felt it was his obligation to pay Litiplex even though I - me supposedly - I'd said at one point it would come off the settlement fund. I objected. A number of times. I mean, I'd had a few drinks, but I knew I'd never said anything like that.

  'I couldn't imagine what was going on, until suddenly he made this proposal: If we'd pay Litiplex offshore - $5.6 million was the number he'd come up with - set up an offshore account in their name, disposition subject to Peter's later direction, then Neucriss would let us reduce our remaining payment to Peter's clients to $22.4 million. That way, TN would be two million dollars ahead. He assured me his clients would net the same amounts. You know how it goes - we pay him, he deducts his share and remits to the clients. He'd just cook his books so it looked like he was working on a 10 percent contingency instead of a third. Why should I care? It's two million to us. That's the bottom line.'

  'I'm not following,' said Wash. 'What does Peter get out of it?'

  'It's a tax dodge.' It was Brushy who spoke. As usual, she didn't need a book of instructions. 'There's no Litiplex. Not really. It's a sham for Neucriss, who gets his fee offshore and never pays income taxes on it, not this year, and not on whatever it earns in the future. That's why he was willing to take two million less. He'd save two or three times that in the long run.'

  Jake was nodding eagerly as she ran it down. Eagerly. Even Jake had understood this much.

  'Neucriss denies all of this, by the way, the entire conversation.' It was Pagnucci, in the doorway. Carl was dressed in a double-breasted dinner jacket, blue sharkskin no less, smoking a cigarette and looking somewhat haggard. Considering the assembly, he said dryly that he'd already listened to this story several times.

  'Mathigoris and I were just on the phone with Mr Neucriss,' Carl said. 'He states, most emphatically, that the only time he's heard of Litiplex was when Mack and Martin spoke with him recently.'

  'Naturally,' said Jake, 'naturally he denies it. I told you he would. He's engaging in tax evasion. I don't expect him to put up a billboard. But I'm telling you, that was the deal. I set up the account with that understanding. When he presented me with signed releases on our cases, I'd give him the balance of the settlements and a letter of direction entitling whoever he designated to the account. Don't you see? I wasn't stealing anything. This for the company. For TN.'

  He looked at Krzysinski, but Tad's attention was on Ilene, the assistant, who stood at the door signaling obscurely. Tad stepped into his conference room to attend to whatever fire was burning there.

  'And what were you thinking the IRS would say about the company and you, Jake?' Brushy asked this. Wash in the meantime was peeking up hopefully. He didn't understand everything, but Jake's last lines had buoyed him. He could see it coming. Undeserved salvation. Story of his life.

  'Me? We haven't lied to them. We haven't filed any false documents. I haven't even seen Peter's return. God knows, I've got suspicions, but who can fathom the mind of Peter Neucriss? If the Service ever asked, I'd tell them the absolute truth. And I'm certainly not hiding any income. We want to declare it. It'll be on every return and financial statement. That's the point. Let's not pretend. We all know the story. Tad has been very concerned about the level of legal expenses. And quite pleased with the way 397 has turned out. This is two million, straight to the bottom line. We need that. All of us. The company and everyone here.'

  'I still don't think you'd get a good-conduct medal from the Service,' said Martin to Jake.

  'Or the SEC,' said Pagnucci.

  'Or Tad,' Brushy said.

  'Admittedly,' said Jake, 'admittedly. True on all counts. Krzysinski hates it. Hates it. Look at him. It's not his style.' Glancing darkly at the conference room door, Jake lowered his voice. 'But he'd love the result. So would the board. Friends, really. A tree falls in the forest. Is there sound if nobody hears? If I'm discreet, what does anyone know? Neucriss won't say a word. The IRS has no reason to audit an escrow account. We're showing a surplus, for crying out loud. That's why I told no one. I sent the memo to Bert, explaining that it was very sensitive. I left no records here. And I made my own hell by doing it that way. I'm the first to admit it. The very first. There was not a thing I could say when all of you began looking into the matter, except what I told Mack last week: If we just wait, it's going to turn out all right. When the disbursements were made, there would be no money missing. There'd be two million more than expected. Who would complain? Don't you see? I'm not a thief.' He looked around the room at each of us. He was being achingly sincere, wounded and vulnerable, that Jake-thing I'd probably last seen when he talked to me about the bar exam.

  Krzysinski had returned for the latter stages of this performance, but he did not allow it to hinder him as he walked back to his desk. He addressed Jake without rancor. Tad was just himself - completely in charge. His job was deciding things. He was better at that than most people, the way certain guys can jump a foot over the rim. He roamed an empyrean landscape where he figured out what would happen with the perfect instantaneous reflex of a machine. He asked Jake where he wanted to go while we spoke.

  'Home,' said Jake, and Tad nodded. That was a good idea, he said. Go home. Stay by the phone in case there were more questions. Jake departed, clearly at a loss for the right gesture of farewell. He reverted to his friendly little wave, a politician's touch that he'd absorbed from his father. It was, in the circumstances, sadly wrong. His departure, disappearance, seemed fateful and left a silent, troubled wake.

  'So what do you think?' Tad asked after a moment. 'I wanted your opinions. You've all known him much longer than me.' He swiveled about in his big chair. This might well have been Tad's ultimate test - would G & G's lawyers shoot straight when the target was Jake? Maybe, in order to decide about us, he was matching our estimate against one he'd derived already. But I thought he was merely making smart use of the available resources.

  'I believe him,' Wash said instantly. He had summoned himself to sound stalwart. He brought all that upper-crust nobility back into his face.

  Krzysinski pursed up his mouth. 'Mathigoris thinks it's a cover story. Carefully planned. Carl shares that opinion.'

  Carl nodded. As usual he wasn't saying much. But his ego would suffer no blows and he preferred the sinister to admitting he had failed in divining the situation. Now and then he had looked darkly at me, suspecting, I imagine, that I'd set him up. But I'd hung in there, meeting his eye meaningfully, and now he was not backing down.

  Martin, when Tad addressed him, wasn't there, lost instead at mystical depths within himself. He'd still not fit the last stud into his shirt and he was tossing it up and down in one hand, in a mindless way, the jewel glinting as it turned in the air. He caught me eyeing him and gave me a wry look.

  Tad asked the question again to gain his attention. What did he think?

  'Oh,' Martin said. 'Do I think it would tickle Neucriss to see your General Counsel doing tricks for him like a streetwalker? Naturally. Neucriss's favorite pastime is proving that all human nature is as base as his. On the other hand, do I think Jake is capable of this deception on his own?' Martin smiled fleetingly at me, with his usual deep appreciation of irony. 'Quite,' he said. 'Quite. Frankly, Tad, I don't know what the hell is going on.'

  Martin stood up in his half-secured formal wear and hoisted his striped trousers; he threw his stud in the air one more time. He was enormously cheerful. You wouldn't quite say he didn't give a damn. But you could tell he felt free of this life. Martin was on the road to being somebody else. He smiled again when he looked at Krzys
inski.

  'To me it sounds typically Jake.' That was Brushy. 'I hate to say it, but we all know Jake's consuming interests are corporate politics and what makes him look good. Frankly, Tad, I'm not even sure he realized he was breaking the law. I believe him.'

  I wasn't certain I'd ever seen Brush in the same room with Krzysinski and I watched them for signs. But all that showed was Tad's native intensity. His searching look lingered with her even after she'd spoken.

  ‘I think I do too,' Tad stated finally. 'You see,' he said to Wash, picking up on some dispute from the boardroom, 'this is what I never liked. Always the easy way out. Well, he's gone today. That's given. Given. And I have to advise the board. But I need to know what to recommend. Everyone will prefer to avoid the scandal. I'd hate to turn him over to the authorities if 1 didn't have to. I guess you go on your gut. I just wish I had some experience. What's your view, Mack? You're the one who's done this for a living. What do you say? Does Jake look to you like a crook?'

  We were back to where we had been last week. I had their attention. Everyone's. The fly ball once more was coming my way. I knew I could save Jake. I could tell one of my wonderful wild-ass stories. There were already six of them in my head. Say, for example, that Jake must have forgotten that long ago he had vaguely mentioned some shady deal with Neucriss which I'd told him to avoid. That would do it. Give me five minutes with a fax machine to rip off messages to Pico Luan to the Zuricher Kreditbank and Fortune Trust and I could even replenish Litiplex's secret account. I could do it all.

  But I wasn't going that way. It's happened to all of us, especially as kids. The screen goes dark; the music fades and the speakers hiss; the sudden lights sting the eyes. How can it be over, the heart cries, when the film's still running inside me?

  It turned out that it no longer mattered what had actually happened. I was set on my way - another direction. I felt that. Somewhere new. Somewhere else. Me and Martin. I'd made the decision. Brave new world. No turning around. If I wasn't headed for a better life, at least I was going toward something unexpressed in the life I presently had.

  Looking back, I suppose it's sort of funny that we'd all been so willing to believe Jake was a thief. That slippery side of him must be out there for everybody to see - which was why we were still hanging in doubt. Isn't that life? Seeing it, hearing it - how much is there we don't really understand? Caught in our own foxholes, we never see the battlefield scene. I had wanted to believe they were no better than me. All of them. But we think what we do for a reason. Call me a fool or the victim of my own expectations. The one guy I wasn't wrong about was me.

  'I believe him,' I said. And I did. Not because Jake was too honest to steal. God knows, he wasn't. It was the story he'd told. About Neucriss. It wouldn't come to Jake in one thousand years. Not in REM sleep. Tad had it right. Jake always took the easy way out. If Jake was going to need phony cover, he'd find some fall guy, some flunky. Somebody like me.

  'I believe him,' I said again, then added, 'assuming there's no problem getting the money back.'

  'No, no,' said Krzysinski. 'He and Mathigoris ran off an hour ago to send a fax to the bank. Mathigoris has been standing by the machine waiting for a confirmation. Wait, here he is now.'

  There he was, Mike Mathigoris, security chief, nice-looking, right-in-the-middle kind of guy, former vice-commander of the State Police, out after twenty and in a great job here, fending off future skyjackings, ticket frauds, travel agents with commission schemes. I'd worked with him a lot before Jake let my well run dry. He handed the papers he was carrying to Tad without any ceremony. Tad read them and started to fume.

  'Son of a bitch,' he said. 'Son of a bitch.'

  Brushy, in her vaguely familiar manner with Krzysinski, stood to read over his shoulder. Soon the documents were passing among the rest of us. The first page was a fax cover sheet from the International Bank of Finance NA, Pico Luan, with the following message at its foot:

  Account closed, January 30, per attached

  letter of direction.

  Best wishes,

  Salem George

  The letter I'd faxed over on Monday from the Regency was attached. When I looked at the signature, I admit I smiled. Handwriting analysts can't work with a copy. And I'd fool them anyway. Brushy, it turned out, was watching me, something solid, maybe even fatal, in her eye. She mouthed: 'Why are you having such a good time?'

  'It's ironic,' I said aloud and turned away.

  Pagnucci was reading now, looking quite smug. He made little pontifical sounds but might just as well have said, Told you so.

  'What in the hell is Jake up to?' asked Tad. He had said this already a couple of times and nobody had replied.

  'He's running,' I answered. 'He put together this story about Neucriss to buy himself time. Now he's headed for the hills. And the money.'

  'Oh Christ,' said Krzysinski. 'And I let him out of here. Oh Christ! Let's go. Let's get the police.' Krzysinski was waving at Mathigoris.

  Wash had turned to wood right in front of me. He was dead as a stump.

  'Who do we call?' Tad asked.

  'Mack has friends on the police force,' Martin volunteered at once from across the room. 'He just had one in the office before.'

  'Wrong guy,' I said immediately. 'Not for this case.'

  'Who's that?' Mike asked me.

  'A dick named Dimonte.'

  'Gino?' asked Mike. 'Tough cop. He's working Financials now. He'd be fine.'

  In desperation I looked to Brushy, but she'd turned away.

  'Don't you think the Bureau would be better with an international case?' I asked Mathigoris. He was indifferent.

  'This guy's idea of investigative technique is to scare you to death,' I told Tad.

  'That sounds like just what Jake deserves. Call him. Go,' Tad said to me. 'Quickly, please. Jake can't get away. We'll move from bad to worse.'

  Because the conference room was in use, I ended up in a little phone closet off the TN reception area, where there was a colonial print of a woman in a Dutch collar, a poor cousin of Rembrandt. This was a kind of in-house phone booth, designed for visitors, a place they could take a call from their office in privacy. There was a small bowl of potpourri that sweetened the tight air. I considered the alternatives. I had none. 'I couldn't get through' is not a credible excuse on a call to the police. 'I called him' wouldn't work, because when he didn't show up, somebody would just call him again.

  'Gino,' I said. I tried to be upbeat and bright. 'When you hear this one, you're gonna love me.'

  'In another life,' he answered at once.

  I told him the story. If he ran quick, he could get Jake at home. I gave him the address. Jake of course would be sitting there. Like some beaten hound. Right by the phone, as he promised. Maybe he'd called a lawyer. Or his dad. But he'd be there. I'd have paid some money to see the look on his face when Pigeyes grabbed him. God, I thought. God, I hated Jake.

  'You won't need another collar before you retire,' I told Pigeyes.

  'I just want you to know,' Gino said when I finished, 'I didn't buy one word of that.' I had no idea what to say.

  'Not one fucking word. I don't want you going home and laughing in your beer tonight, or whatever you drink now. Postum. I knew that whole routine was a crock.

  About these three guys all doing the bunny hop.' He was talking about what I'd said when he'd come to the office, the tale I told about Bert and Archie and the could-be-Kam from the U. This was mano a mano, him to me. He wanted me to know I hadn't gotten the best of him after all.

  'It's all wrong,' Pigeyes told me. 'How?'

  'Archie ain't bent, for one thing.'

  'You're the one who told me, Pigeyes. About Archie. Rocket up his ass? Remember?'

  'No. You told me. I said, What if. I said, Give, and you said, Has this guy got an elastic asshole? and I said, What if. This mutt Archie, I know the story of his life and his mother's life. He's straight. He don't got nothing but dingleberries back there, same as yo
u and me. So it's a crock. That whole routine. Just so you know.'

  Just so I knew. The other one, his young bootlicker, Dewey, he was taken in. Not Gino.

  'I'm not following.'

  'What else is new?'

  'Are we done here or what?' I asked.

  'Are we done, you and me done, is that what we're asking?'

  'I mean Bert.'

  'Fuck 'em.'

  Nothing but fuzz on my screen. I did not understand. Which was just what he wanted.

  'So what is this? Favor done, favor owed?' I thought maybe with the big collar on Jake, he was calling the score even.

  He laughed, he roared. There was a phenomenal clanking wallop in my ear when he banged the phone on something hard.

  'You done me enough favors. When you're miserable in hell, suffering your sins and thinking it can't get no worse, you look behind you and I'll be there. Payback time with me and you ain't gonna end, Malloy. Just so you know. I'm telling you, you're dirty somewhere. I said that from the git-go and I still say so. You're covering your ass, same as you were doing with Goodlookin. So stay tuned. Same time. Same fuckin station.' He slammed the phone again and this time it went dead. Maybe he'd hung up. Maybe he'd broken it.

  But he'd done what he wanted. I sat in that tight little space and broke a sweat. This time I was really scared.

  B. Closing the Circle

  In the elevator, on the way down, Martin announced his resignation. I suppose he was forewarning Wash and Pagnucci. He seemed to regard his statement as dramatic, but it fell flat. This group had already been through too much, and as Martin had acknowledged before, there was not much left now to resign from. Brushy, a good kid to the last, started to talk to him anyway about changing his mind.