“I can’t argue with that at all. Got any ideas how to make sure it goes cheap?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I do.”
Howie laughed. “I thought you might.”
“First of all, the RTC has asked Pierre for a rent roll so that bidders can evaluate the property. I know the rents are going up in September, so why not have Pierre send over the current rent roll as of today instead of waiting until they go up next month?”
“Good idea. And we’re fixing up some of the apartments, so the vacancy rate looks really high this month. I’ll tell Pierre to send the info over right away. Anything else?”
“Yeah. They’ve also asked Pierre for a general description of the property. I don’t see why Pierre shouldn’t also include information about the lawsuit brought by the adjoining property owners over the oil contamination.”
“But we’ve settled that suit, right? Felloff took care of it.”
“Actually, the final documents haven’t been filed yet, so technically it’s still a liability. To the tune of $1.6 million, if I remember correctly. In the interest of full disclosure, I think Pierre should mention it. Remember, our goal is to make it look like Pierre’s profits from the deal are hit or miss so somebody can buy it cheap. I really do think that’s your best protection against somebody ripping you off.”
“Sounds good. In the meantime, I gotta get somebody over there so Pierre can teach them the ropes before he goes on his little mini-vacation. Do you know of anybody?”
“I’ll check around.”
CHAPTER 50
[September 13, 1990]
“Come on Sweetheart, Daddy’s going to bring you to bed now.” Pierre scooped Valerie up off the couch. He could smell the baby shampoo on her wet hair as she wrapped her tiny arms tightly around his neck and nestled her cheek on his shoulder.
As he carried her into her room, she squirmed and reached for an object over Pierre’s shoulder. “Go swimming.”
Pierre turned and saw her bathing suit hanging from a hook on her door. He and Carla had taken Valerie to the ocean for the day, most of which they spent with Valerie on Pierre’s shoulders as he waded into the water and then turned and ran before the breaking surf could touch Valerie’s dangling toes. The sounds of her giggles still resonated, like the crashing surf, in his ears.
“I’m sorry, my girl, I can’t take you swimming tomorrow. Daddy has to go away for a little while.”
She leaned away from his shoulder to look into his eyes. She reached her arms out to him, as she would if she wanted him to lift her into his arms. “Va’rie come.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t bring you with me, Sweetheart.” Pierre lowered her slowly into her crib. Valerie’s big green eyes looked up at him expectantly. “But Grandmother and Grandfather are going to come stay with you and Mommy for a little while. That’ll be fun, right?”
Valerie thought about it for a moment, but didn’t answer. Pierre tried to stifle a laugh—he was never thrilled to see Carla’s parents either. “I bet they’ll bring you presents, because you’ve been a good girl. But even if they don’t bring presents, it will still be fun to play with them.”
“Gama and Papa?” Valerie preferred Pierre’s parents—for one thing, they actually got down on the floor and played with her.
“They’ll come visit also, and you and Mommy can go visit them too, but not tomorrow. Now, my big girl, Daddy won’t be here when you wake up in the morning, or even the morning after that. I have to go to work. But I’ll come home as soon as I can, okay?”
“Mama stay here?”
“Yes, Angel. Mommy will stay with you.”
She pointed up at Pierre’s eyes. “Wawa. Wawa.”
Pierre wiped his eyes. “You’re right, smart girl, there is water in Daddy’s eyes. Daddy has a little boo-boo in his eyes.”
She looked up at him, pensive, and reached up a pair of open hands toward his face. “Va’rie kiss boo-boo.”
“Oh, thank you. I would love you to kiss my boo-boo.” He pulled her face up to his and cradled her in his arms while she kissed his eye. Then he fluttered his eyelashes on her lips until she giggled, and lowered her back onto her sheets.
“Thank you for those wonderful kisses. Now it’s time to go to sleep. Remember, Daddy loves you very much.”
Valerie cuddled up with her doll, rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Pierre waited fifteen minutes until she had fallen asleep, then kissed her gently on the cheek. He closed her door quietly, washed his face and blew his nose in the bathroom, and went to join Carla in the living room.
* * *
Carla poured a large glass of wine and waited on the couch for Pierre. She heard whispers from Valerie’s bedroom, but couldn’t make out the words. But she did hear Pierre go blow his nose in the bathroom.
He shuffled in, smiled sadly at her. She motioned him over, took his hand. “So, Honey, talk to me. What are you thinking?” she asked.
He sat on the floor at Carla’s feet. She rubbed his neck as they took turns sipping from the glass. It was a custom borne of their early days together, when a single wineglass was the best Pierre’s bachelor kitchen could provide. “Well, I’m trying to be optimistic. It’s only three or four months, and it’s not like it’s hard time. Plenty of people go away for that long, even longer if there’s a war or something. The worst part will be not seeing you and Valerie.”
Carla laughed lightly. “Nice try, big shot. You can deal with not seeing me, it’s Valerie that’s breaking your heart.” She would have felt the same way. She loved Pierre, but a parent’s love for their child was in a totally different league.
Pierre wrapped his arm around her knee. “I have to admit you’re right. I can talk to you on the phone, and you understand that four months isn’t that long a time and that I’ll be back. But will Val even remember me? It scares the hell out of me.”
“It might take a few days, but I bet within a week things will be back to normal. We’ll visit as much as we can, assuming you end up somewhere close by. Plus we have plenty of video of you, so I’ll make sure she watches it a lot.”
“Good idea.”
“But when I asked what you were thinking, I meant are you mad or anything?”
“No, not really. I did sign the affidavit, so it’s my own fault.”
“Don’t you feel like you got screwed by the system or anything?” It was the type of question that would give Pierre a lot of trouble. In many ways, he was a critical and open-minded thinker. He questioned everything, saw both sides of an argument, was willing to change his mind in the face of strong persuasion. But when it came to his country, Pierre was blindly patriotic. It would simply never occur to him to question the behavior of the government. In Pierre’s mind, the government was infallible, just like the Pope. It was a giant blind spot. Carla often wondered just what it was in the Catholic upbringing that allowed otherwise intelligent and critical thinkers to unquestioningly accept the infallibility of their religious leaders. Whatever it was, in Pierre’s case it had also blinded him to the faults of his government as well.
“Actually, the system worked pretty well. I mean, without the system, they could have used Bruce’s memo against me and probably convicted me for murder. So in a way, I feel pretty lucky.”
Carla was tempted to remind him that no innocent man should feel lucky to be going to jail, but on their last night together she didn’t want it to sound as if she was questioning his innocence. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t voice other opinions. “Well, I don’t. It seems to me that if anybody messed up, it was Bruce, not you. He’s the one who had the bright idea to make Felloff a partner, and he’s the one who wrote that stupid memo. I mean, he’s supposed to be protecting you, right?”
“Come on Carla, we’ve been through this all already. He didn’t even know about me signing the affidavit, or else he wouldn’t have suggested making Felloff a partner. And as for the memo, I can’t really blame him. He’s a young lawyer at a big firm; he was j
ust covering his ass in case something happened.”
“I still can’t believe he couldn’t tell you were just joking around.”
“Well, it was over the phone, so sometimes it’s hard to tell. And he didn’t really know me that well at the time. Besides, the bottom line on this whole thing is that my behavior wasn’t exactly angelic. I did sign that affidavit.”
“But you didn’t know when you signed it that you were lying.”
“That’s just a technicality. When it comes right down to it, it was wrong for me and Howie to gain an advantage over the other bidders by teaming up with Felloff. It was an unfair advantage, and I deserve to be punished.”
“Oh, Pierre, you drive me crazy with this Catholic guilt stuff! Everyone else is out there stealing and cheating, and you’re condemning yourself because you cut a little corner. Well I, for one, have no problem with what you did. Nobody got hurt. Nobody suffered.”
“Maybe you’re right, Carla. I haven’t quite figured it all out yet.”
The two sat silently for a few minutes, sharing the single wineglass, thinking separate thoughts. Finally Pierre spoke. “You’re comfortable lying to your parents?”
“Yeah, no problem. They firmly believe in telling lies to protect others from bad news, anyway. I told them you had to go away for business for a few days, and invited them up for a long weekend. After that, they wouldn’t expect to see you until Thanksgiving anyway, and I’ll just call them the day before and tell them you have the flu or something. It shouldn’t be too tough to fool them; these are people who didn’t know we lived together for a year before we got married.”
“Thanks, I appreciate you not telling them.”
“I understand. And I appreciate how much you want to win them over. And you are making some progress, believe it or not.”
“Well, only because even they can’t help but love their granddaughter.”
“What’s not to love?”
“Exactly.”
“Want to make another one?”
“Right now?” Pierre spun around and looked up at Carla. She had shaken her hair down and unbuttoned the top button on her cotton blouse.
“Why not? We’ve finally got a few bucks in the bank. And if I’m going to be stuck here alone for months, I might as well be doing something productive. Besides, with you gone, I’ll only have to take care of one kid, not two, so I’ll have plenty of time and energy to nurture. And it’ll be extra insurance against you falling in love with your cellmate.”
“You are an incredible woman.” Pierre pulled her down off the couch and buried his face in her neck. She closed her eyes, lifted his mouth to hers, tried to memorize the way he felt, the way he smelled, the way he tasted. It was going to be a long few months.
TROUBLE AT SEA
CHAPTER 51
[October 23, 1990]
Bruce dialed a number in California. “Hi Howie, this is Bruce Arrujo.” And, much to my surprise, I’m still employed at Choke, Suck and Steal.
“Hey, Bruce, how are things on the wrong coast?”
“Actually, Howie, if you’re on the left coast, doesn’t that make us the right coast?”
“Touché. What’s up.”
“Well, I went over to the RTC this morning to see what I could find out about the auction. You know bids are due tomorrow, right? October 24.”
“Yeah, I knew it was sometime this week.”
“Well, so far only five people have signed in to inspect the files. Some guy named Cathgart, from Texas. Two more from Boston that I’ve never heard of—Anthony Davis is one and Roseanne Luccia is the other. Ever heard of them?”
“No.”
“I’ll ask around. Also some Arab company out of New York; they had a lawyer from Springfield in reviewing the files for them. And finally some corporation out of the Netherlands Antilles—that’s an island that rich investors use to set up shell corporations. It has good tax benefits and some strict privacy laws.”
“Only five, huh? I know there were over twenty people registered to bid when Pierre and I bought the property back it in May.”
“Yeah. At first I was a little surprised at how little advertising they did for this auction. I’ve seen one small ad in the Globe and one in the Wall Street Journal. But then I started thinking about it. You’ve got some bureaucrat over at the RTC who was in charge of an auction a few months ago and the highest bid was $5.4 million, right? So now the same guy is in charge of an auction to sell the same property again, but this time only a minority ownership interest. And the winning bidder interest isn’t entitled to a penny until $5.4 million has been repaid to the RTC and the other partners and until some guy named Howie Plansky has been paid 20% interest on his money. So how does this bureaucrat look if all of a sudden some cowboy comes in and pays big bucks for the minority interest? Do you think they congratulate him for a job well done? They might. But I bet our bureaucrat friend is far more worried that some citizen’s group at the next set of hearings on Capitol Hill will ask why the RTC didn’t get a higher price a few months ago for the whole property if a minority interest is worth so much more today. He’s probably thinking that he won’t get promoted no matter how much it sells for, but he might get fired if it looks like he messed-up on the first auction.”
“Sounds like a good theory. I know that Andrea woman who was in charge of the closing was on the ball. Not bad looking, either. But she was just somebody’s assistant. She didn’t call the shots. So you could be right.”
“Well, whatever the reason, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of bidders. And it could go pretty cheap—all they’ve got in the file is the August rent roll, and it shows high vacancies and low rents. Plus, the oil contamination lawsuit stuff’s in there.”
“Damn. I wish I could bid.”
“I know, but it really would be risky. You’ve heard the expression about bears, bulls and pigs?”
“You mean the one with the farmer’s daughter?”
Bruce laughed. “No, Howie. I mean the one that goes: ‘Bears make money, and bulls make money, and pigs get slaughtered.’”
Howie guffawed. “That’s a good one. So you think I’m being a pig?”
“Well, I think you’d be taking an unnecessary risk by bidding. You’ve got yourself a nice deal already.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. You’re the boss. I pay good money for your advice; I guess I should follow it.”
“All right, then. If I hear anything about the bid tomorrow, I’ll give you a call.”
“Thanks for your help, Bruce.”
“My pleasure.”
Bruce hung up the phone and left the office. He told his secretary he was going for lunch, took the elevator down, and walked into the bank on the ground floor of the building.
He got in line behind a dozen other customers, most of them professionals with deposit slips in hand. Did these people have any clue how badly these banks were managed? He just finished reading a book about Edward Ponzi, the infamous Bostonian after whom a whole category of investment scams was named. In the early 1920’s, professionals and laborers alike had lined up—blocks at a time—to invest in Ponzi’s company. Ponzi, of course, didn’t really have a company at all. He simply took money from his new investors and used it to repay—with generous interest—his earlier investors. These investors spread the word about their profit, thereby attracting even more investors. Eventually, of course, the house of cards collapsed, but not before thousands of people had lost millions of dollars.
That old appraiser, Samuel Leumas, was right—many Massachusetts banks were little better than Ponzi’s company. On paper, they were solvent, and even profitable. They had taken deposits at five percent and lent the money out at ten percent. Unfortunately, the loans were secured by apartment buildings and office towers and strip malls, properties that were worth far less today than they were when the banks first made the loans. From the banks’ point of view, however, to actually recognize this loss in value would be tantamount to a dec
laration of insolvency. So the banks had entered into a ritualistic dance with their borrowers in which the borrower agreed to repay the loan at a later date—with all accrued interest, of course—and the bank agreed to give them a “grace period” to allow the economy to “stabilize.” It reminded Bruce of the way Soviet workers described their economic system: “We’ll make believe we’re working if you make believe you’re paying us.” The arrangement allowed both the bank and the borrower to delay the day of reckoning, but it did nothing to add to the underlying solvency of the banks. Yet depositors continued to line up and hand over their paychecks.
Bruce reached the front of the line and slipped a twenty-dollar bill under the window. “Could I have two rolls of quarters please?” He thanked the teller, left the building, and entered a movie theater down the street. He wanted some privacy to make a phone call, but didn’t want to use his office phone.
He called the operator and asked her how much money a twenty minute phone call to Springfield would cost. He knew he would not be on the line for the full twenty minutes, but he did not want his Springfield lawyer to know he was calling from a pay phone so wanted to avoid the intrusion of a metallic voice requesting more money. He dialed the number and dumped a handful of quarters into the slot.
He adopted his accent. “Yes. I am the man Ahmed Bahery. Is the lawyer available for to speak with me?”
The attorney picked up a few seconds later. “Mr. Bahery, I’ve been expecting your call.”
Bruce had sent a letter to the attorney a couple of weeks earlier, prepared by Bruce himself on his office computer one night. Bruce typed so many of his documents himself that it no longer surprised the support staff and other attorneys to see him hard at work at his computer terminal.
The letter requested that the Springfield lawyer enter a bid of $182,230 on behalf of Arab Acquisitions for Pierre Prefontaine’s interest in the Fenway Place property. It was all the money Bruce could scrounge together—profits from the sale of the two condos he had bought and sold, money he had saved from his salary, lines of credit he had been collecting over the past year, two month’s worth of bills that had gone unpaid, coins dug out from under the cushion of his couch. It reminded him of playing Monopoly as a kid and using every last dollar he could find to put up hotels on his properties.
[Boston Law 01.0] Unlawful Deeds Page 31
