by Dete Meserve
The loneliness swept through me, stealing my breath. Where I’d felt warm and loved the night I was here with Eric, a chill ran through me. My eyes blurred with unexpected tears and I began walking quickly, trying to halt their progress.
Then I realized I’d walked all the way to the back of the orchard where the weathered cabin stood. In the daylight, I noticed its wood shingle roof was sagging and the front stoop was missing several floorboards—a far cry from the mystical place it had been with Eric. Its front door was slightly ajar, so I knocked gently.
“Hello? Anyone here?” I called out.
My heart raced as I pushed the door open and took a step inside. The interior was as weathered as the outside, with water-stained wood floors and faded gray paint peeling around the windows. The place smelled of old papers—even though there was no evidence of any—and a metallic whiff of electronics. On the back wall were tall racks of sleek black computers and equipment. A single glass table studded with several monitors and a trio of keyboards and headsets sat in the center of the room. The combination of serious computing power and the crumbling shack surprised me.
“What are you doing here?” A voice startled me.
I whirled around to find a man in black slacks and T-shirt standing inches behind me. He was built like a fireplug, and an eagle’s wing tattoo ran the length of his left arm.
“I’m Kate Bradley,” I said, extending my hand. He ignored it. “Channel Eleven.”
“You need to step outside. Now.”
I did as he said. He closed the door behind me and jiggled the handle to be sure it was locked.
“Guests are not allowed here.” I recognized a hint of a Chicago accent. “How did you get in there?”
“The door was open.”
He took off his wraparound sunglasses and peered at me. “And you walked inside? Would you want someone to do that to you if you left your door open?”
“Sorry, I didn’t think it was a big deal.” I motioned toward the cabin, making small talk. “This building must be over a hundred years old.”
He pulled a notebook from his back pocket. “Owner had it moved from Guatemala.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Guess his family grew up in it or something. What did you say your name was?”
“Why do you want to know?”
He double-checked that the door was locked. “I’m going to have to report it, of course.”
“I’m about to interview Stephen, so maybe I should tell him myself. But I bet he won’t like hearing that his security is so lax that I was able to walk right into his family’s hundred-year-old cabin.”
He shoved his notebook into his back pocket. “Yeah. How about we forget this ever happened. But if you’re the one doin’ the interview, they’re looking everywhere for you.”
The billionaires came prepared for the interview. Any hopes that this would be a freewheeling discussion were quickly dashed by Richard Ingram’s response to my first question, “What do you think Robin Hood is accomplishing?”
“I have the advantage of both genetics and upbringing. My good fortune was not due to superior personal character or initiative so much as it was to dumb luck,” he said, as though I had asked a different question. “As I look around at those who did not have these advantages, it is clear to me that I have an obligation to direct my resources to help right that balance.”
Of the three of them, Richard, dressed simply in brown slacks and a checkered shirt, was the most unassuming. His accent, a gentler version of a Texas twang, and his light blond hair and naturally wrinkle-free face—even though he was well into his sixties—made him look like he could be your next-door neighbor. Except Richard Ingram was one of the giants of the energy business and worth over $8 billion.
As if they had planned it beforehand—and I knew they had—Stephen added, “We believe that giving is primarily a private matter, but we also understand that our actions set a public example. That’s why the three of us have pledged to donate twenty million dollars—each—to what we’re calling the Mayday Foundation. We’re going to take a page from Robin Hood, but without stealing from others to accomplish our goals.”
That was a bombshell. Instead of coming off like whiny billionaires complaining about their losses or pointing fingers at police, they had craftily shifted the talking points to how they were going to be more like Robin Hood.
“What are your plans for sixty million in giving?”
“First,” Stephen said, “we’re going to be a lot more effective than Robin Hood. The funds I’m putting in are to disrupt the generational cycle of poverty, especially for very young children and their families: prenatal health care, early learning and development for at-risk kids, family health care, job, and income assistance for families with young children.”
Don Chase piped up. “My funding will focus on helping the homeless find employment, and teaching and supplying families in poor areas of the country with equipment to grow their own vegetables.”
Don had the most harried look of the three. Even though his navy blue suit looked like it cost upward of $5,000 and he had the coiffed elegance of a billionaire, he had thick, worried bags under intense hazel eyes that seemed to be working on another problem even as he spoke to me. He was restless too, shifting in his chair as though ready to leap as soon as the interview was over.
Richard added, “My funding will address urgent threats that imperil humanity. Things like conservation and water scarcity. These are all issues that could bring us to our knees if we don’t tackle them now.”
“Clearly you were inspired to start this level of giving by Robin Hood,” I said. “Even your foundation is named after the May Day celebrations that are associated with Robin Hood.”
The three men glanced at each other, making it clear to me that they hadn’t rehearsed an answer to this question even though everything up until now was parsed, spun, and carefully positioned.
“Our announcement was spurred by Robin Hood,” Stephen said, eyes narrowed. “But we have always recognized that giving generously is important. While it cannot repair all of the social injustice in our country or the world, it can inspire good will, spark innovation, and provide leadership. And we named the foundation Mayday after the international signal asking for help—not any celebration of Robin Hood. “
“But would you have given so generously and established this foundation if Robin Hood hadn’t brought attention to the disparity between the super wealthy and the poor and made it newsworthy and popular to be giving generously?”
“Without a doubt,” Don said, but not convincingly.
“We were already giving generously long before Robin Hood came along,” Richard added with a thin laugh.
“But,” I said, drawing out the word. “As a percentage of your actual worth, were you giving generously? What percentage would you say that is?”
Richard shifted in his seat again and Don glared at Stephen. Stephen’s years on the debate team served him well. “We’re not quant jocks who go around quoting those figures. The point is that we’ve established a sixty-million-dollar fund to help finance important social initiatives, and we’re recruiting others to join us. This is only the beginning.”
After the interview, Don Chase and Richard Ingram dispersed like quicksilver and Stephen disappeared back into his house to avoid have to answer any questions that might spoil their carefully scripted interview.
Josh and Christopher rushed back to the station so the postproduction team could edit the interview, and I headed to Stephen’s front door. I wouldn’t normally track down an interview subject to say thank you, but Stephen wasn’t only an interview subject. He was one of my father’s biggest donors and friends.
The butler with the soul patch, opened the front door, but he was unwilling to disturb Stephen. “Mr. Bening is on a very important telephone call,” he said with a thick Eastern European accent. “I cannot disturb him.”
&nb
sp; “I need to relay something from my father. Senator Hale Bradley.”
Those appeared to be the magic words, as he then ushered me down the labyrinth of hallways back to the study. He flung open the two wooden doors with a flourish, and even though I’d experienced it once before, I got a similar thrill, as though I had stepped into a grand movie.
The library in the study was smaller than the formal library in the rotunda but still impressive, with beautifully bound books arranged in categories on dark oak shelves. One shelf housed science-fiction masterpieces by Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula Le Guin, and others. Another was devoted to biographies of great people such as Madame Curie, Benjamin Franklin, and Stephen Hawking. The bottom shelves were lined were various editions of children’s classics—Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and about a dozen different versions of Robin Hood. I pulled a worn volume off the shelf and carefully turned its brittle, dog-eared pages; it recounted the exploits of Robin Hood and his merry men in nineteenth-century prose, illustrated with exquisite watercolors of Sherwood Forest. Faded handwritten notes were scrawled in some of the margins and several passages were underlined.
As I leafed through the book, Stephen stepped into the room still engrossed in a call, his smartphone pressed to his ear. When he saw me, he quickly told the caller he’d call back.
“Everything okay?” he said.
My footsteps echoed on the marble floors as I walked across the room to shake his hand. “My father would never forgive me if I didn’t thank you for allowing us to record the interview at your home.”
“Not a problem.” His gaze fell on the book in my hand. “Give your father my regards.”
“Whose idea was it really to set up this sixty-million-dollar fund?”
“As we said, we all came up with it together.”
“It wasn’t my father’s idea? A way to paint all of you in a more positive light?”
“Your father is brilliant, but this one isn’t his idea,” he said. “Why is it so hard to believe that we would like to bring light and hope into this troubled world?”
I stared at him then. Not just because they were the words Robin Hood had spoken. It was the cadence in his voice. Familiar, like a flash of déjà vu.
Then I glanced down at the Robin Hood book still open in my hands. The notes in the margins started swimming before my eyes. Prickly heat raced up my spine.
“It’s you,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“Excuse me?” His smartphone beeped and he glanced at it.
I stood there for a long moment, firmly planted in one place, my mouth open but no words coming out.
“Are you okay?” he said, looking up from his phone.
The words finally came out like thick molasses. “What better way to plan a heist than to rob yourself first?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Because you’ve been robbed, that immediately takes you off the suspect list.”
“I’m not sure where you’re going…”
I set my purse on the stone table and ran my fingers through my hair, realizing I was in too far to back down. I glanced at the door and considered running toward it, but my feet felt bolted to the floor. My voice, when I finally found it, was reedy and thin. “You have the technical skills to hack into security systems and take them down. You wrote at least two papers about how security systems are far too vulnerable to attack.”
He laughed. “Are you suggesting that I’m that Robin Hood character?”
My hands were clammy. “You’re a natural leader. That’s why you were named CEO of the Year and given dozens of other accolades. That’s how you were able to lead a group of strangers to commit these heists.”
He rolled up his left sleeve. “A lot of people have leadership skills. But you know what I’m lacking? A reason to rob estates.”
The facts hurtled through my mind. It was an odd sensation, a feeling of knowing answers that hadn’t yet coalesced enough that I could form sentences or speak them aloud. “What Robin Hood needed was access. Which you have. You know some of the victims and have attended fundraising events at their homes. You are well known enough that you could walk freely around their homes at these events and get an idea of where they kept their jewelry, their luxury items, the keys to their expensive cars. No one would suspect you were casing the joint.”
He looked at me as though I might be a tinfoil hat owner. “You’re making no sense.” His expression turned to one of concern. “Can I get you something? Water, maybe? Perhaps you’re dehydrated from the afternoon sun.”
“Your butler, where is he from?”
He crossed the room and withdrew a bottle of chilled water from a refrigerator carefully concealed as part of the cabinetry. “Gus? I think he grew up outside of Saint Petersburg.”
“Russia, of course. He must have helped you learn a Russian accent for the interview you—Robin Hood—did with me.”
“You realize what you’re accusing me of here?”
I started pacing the floor, trying to work out how he’d done it. “You use your access to case the joint and find out where all the good stuff is. But once you disable the alarm system, how do you get inside without any sign of forced entry?”
He handed me the water. “Exactly. You think someone like me—or anyone for that matter—can break into highly guarded estates?”
I thought about it a moment. “You don’t need to. Break in, that is. You only need access to the keys.”
“Clearly something I don’t have.”
I unscrewed the cap and took a long swig of water. “But the valet has them. When I came to your fundraising event—and again today—your valet took my car keys and my name. Many people leave their house keys on the same key ring, so it would be easy for the valet to copy the key and match it with a particular last name.”
He went to the fireplace and opened the glass doors. When he turned a metal key on the side, blue gas flames sprung up. His tone was mocking. “So Robin Hood’s entire plan hinges on some minimum-wage valet finding a locksmith and copying house keys—without getting caught—while wealthy patrons are at a fundraising event.”
I stepped over to the fireplace and remembered the story about key apps Conan had pitched a few weeks ago. “Now you’re patronizing me, Stephen. Because in your line of work, I’m sure you know this already. There are apps that allow you to take a picture of a key with your phone and have the key made and delivered to you. All you have to do—all the valet has to do—is take a picture with a smartphone. You used those same keys to have your team lock the doors after the robberies.”
He relaxed into a leather armchair by the fireplace. Anyone looking at him would think he was calm, as though we were discussing the weather. But I suspected that confidence had been honed by years on the debate team and in the boardroom. “You’ve thought of everything. Except you’re missing the big picture. Why would I ever rob other rich people? I have enough money of my own. In some cases, more than some of those who were robbed.”
It was a solid argument, one I couldn’t argue with. “That’s exactly why no one would suspect you. And exactly why the stolen goods never turned up on the black market. You’re wealthy enough that you didn’t need to sell the stolen goods in order to finance your Robin Hood events.” I withdrew a copy of his book from my purse and flipped to one of my many purple Post-it notes. “And you know why you did all this? Because you want to change the world. You say so in your book. ‘Economic inequality is our biggest social challenge. It has reached a tipping point where eighty of the world’s richest people control more than half of the world’s wealth. The only way to encourage global economic growth and the survival of our companies is to ensure the welfare of the poor.’”
He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head. “Plenty of people agree with that statement. But that doesn’t make them Robin Hood either.”
I nodded and took a huge gulp of water, hoping it would stead
y the muscles that were pulsing on the back of my neck. It didn’t.
“Do you understand you are accusing one of your father’s biggest donors of being a thief? A felon?”
My stomach sank to the floor and stayed there. As I looked at him in his dress shirt and expensive slacks, looking everything like the lord of the manor in this impressive setting, I had the sudden feeling that I was making a complete fool of myself. That I was completely wrong about him being Robin Hood, and because of his friendship with my father, he was allowing me to babble on until I reached the same conclusion. At the same time, he actually seemed to be enjoying the sparring, which made me think that perhaps I wasn’t far off the mark.
“You knew the news media would be all over the heist story because it hits all of our hot buttons,” I said. “Theft. Greed. And you knew that the events you planned—the flash mob to give away scholarships, building housing for the homeless, the food backpack giveaway—would be on such big scales that they’d bring major media attention to your message.”
“But here’s the flaw in your thinking,” he continued. “Why would I risk my entire fortune, my career, and my life to do that when I could write a twenty-five-million-dollar check to charity?”
“Again, exactly why no one else will suspect you. But I have a theory. Do you want to hear it?”
He shook his head. “Honestly? No. I’ve humored you long enough.”
“Hear me out,” I said, taking another slug of water. “Esteban Diaz comes from a life of poverty. His mother crosses the border into the United States illegally in the trunk of a car. An American man promises to marry her but vanishes when she tells him she’s pregnant. Then she’s a single mother with a sixth-grade education working two jobs to keep food on the table and raising a son in gang-riddled East LA.”
He stood. “This is my story, true. But just because someone grew up poor, that doesn’t mean he automatically chooses a life of crime. That’s offensive. And more than a bit elitist. We all can’t be senator’s daughters.”
