Rough Trade

by Hartzmark, Gini

  Not only that, but I suspected that the Monarchs’ bankruptcy would invalidate all of their existing contracts, including the ones that locked the team into millions of dollars of payments to injured or nonperforming players. Getting there might be ugly, but in the end Gus Wallenberg would control an NFL football franchise and be able to run it from a position of strength.

  I wondered whether Wallenberg saw this as an act of personal betrayal or whether in his version it was all just business. I was willing to bet that no matter what he’d convinced himself of, if it had been a dairy farm instead of a football team that I’d come to talk to him about this morning, First Milwaukee would have already granted the extension.

  As soon as I pulled into Chrissy’s driveway, I saw the unmarked Caprice parked in front of the door. Chrissy was waiting for me as well, pacing beneath the porte cochere in a chic black suit and pumps, her agitation making her oblivious to the cold.

  “You have to get in there,” she said, grabbing me by the arm and practically dragging me into the house.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Two cops showed up a little while ago. I told them that we were on our way to the funeral home, but they said it would just take a minute. They insisted on speaking to Jeff.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with him?” I asked as I followed her quickly through the kitchen.

  “They wouldn’t let me,” she replied over her shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on.” We stopped in front of the door to the living room. “It’s so awful,” she said in a whisper. “They’re acting like he’s some kind of criminal.”

  I pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Good morning, officers,” I announced brightly, barging right in, Elliott’s warning about the deaths of the famous not far from my mind. It was the same pair of detectives from the day before. I turned my back on them and spoke directly to Jeff, taking his hand, establishing eye contact to reassure him, willing him to calm down. “Chrissy said that you wanted to have your attorney present to advise you while you gave your statement.” There was no mistaking the look of relief on Jeff’s face. I flashed him a quick wink and then turned back to face the two homicide detectives. “I hope you haven’t gone too far without me,” I said, making myself comfortable on the couch beside my client.

  “Mr. Rendell was just telling us about the last time he saw his father,” reported Detective Eiben, less unhappy at the interruption than the fact of my presence.

  Jeff looked at me. “And I told them that the last time I saw him he was lying at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to his office.”

  “I meant to speak to,” pursued Eiben.

  “The morning he died, then. He and I spoke in his office.”

  “Just the two of you?” inquired the officer.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised. We took a look at your father’s appointment calendar for that morning. He was booked solid with appointments. Coach Bennato, a Mr. Wallenberg, Harald Feiss—they were all scheduled to see him. Your name didn’t appear anywhere.”

  “Our offices were right next to each other. My father and I talked a dozen times a day. I never made an appointment.”

  “Do you recall what time this conversation with your father took place?”

  “No. I didn’t notice the time. I was working in my office, and he buzzed to say he wanted to see me.”

  “What did the two of you discuss?”

  “Team business,” replied Jeff, catching my eye and looking for my approval.

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Jeff and his father discussed several items of team business,” I cut in.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to need Mr. Rendell to be more specific,” said Detective Eiben.

  “And I’m afraid that unless you can offer some kind of compelling reason why you need that information, I’m going to have to advise my client to not answer the question. His discussions with his father involved confidential team business.”

  “How confidential could it have been if they were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs?” interjected Detective Zellmer, obviously taking the part of the bad cop.

  I ignored him and turned to Jeff. “You don’t have to answer that,” I said.

  “Who owns the team now that your father is dead?” asked Eiben, changing tack.

  “Jeff and his wife Chrissy are now the owners of the Milwaukee Monarchs franchise,” I replied.

  “He left it to both of them?” demanded Zellmer, feigning incredulity.

  “He left the team to his son,” I answered matter-of-factly. “Wisconsin is a community property state.”

  “So I guess it’s safe to say that you’re the person who stood to benefit the most from his death?” inquired Zellmer, looking hard at Jeff.

  “Children usually are the ones who benefit financially from a parent’s death,” I pointed out.

  From behind his horn rims Jeff’s eyes blazed. There was no doubt that the idea that he had been enriched by his father’s passing, when indeed the opposite was true, galled him.

  “So tell me, how would you characterize your last conversation with your father?” urged Zellmer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What was the general tone of the conversation? Amicable? Routine? Angry?”

  “I’ve already told you that we argued.”

  “Did your father raise his voice?”

  “My father always raised his voice.”

  “And did he on this occasion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. I already told you that.”

  “And did this argument turn physical at any time?”

  “What do you mean by ‘turn physical’?”

  “Did you lay your hands on your father at any time during the course of this argument?”

  “What kind of question is that?” demanded Jeff, outraged.

  “It is actually a very simple question,” replied Zellmer with real menace. “Did you or did you not lay your hands on your father?”

  “No. Of course not,” replied Jeff, looking the homicide detective straight in the eye.

  “But if you had, it wouldn’t have been the first time you and your father had come to blows,” pointed out Detective Eiben affably. “You had struck him before on other occasions.”

  “That is absolutely not true,” protested Jeff.

  “Oh, come now, Mr. Rendell. There was even one occasion where it made it into the newspapers as I recall. I believe you punched your father in the face in the parking lot of the stadium after a Steelers game.”

  “I was fifteen years old, for chrissake! I was just an immature kid!”

  “So how would you characterize your behavior yesterday?” demanded Zellmer.

  I rose to my feet. “Unless you have any other questions of substance, I’m afraid I’m going to have to put an end to this interview,” I announced. “My client lost his father under tragic circumstances yesterday. As far as I know, no crime has been committed and he is not a suspect. I can only assume that it is merely force of habit that has caused you to treat him as one.”

  Detective Eiben closed his notebook with great ceremony and put it into his pocket before getting to his feet. “Then we’ll just thank you for your cooperation at such a difficult time,” he said flatly.

  I could sense Jeff relax now that the interview was over. He led the way to the entrance hall, opened the closet door, and, ever the good host, extracted the coats belonging to the two detectives.

  “One last question,” asked Detective Zellmer, as if it were merely an afterthought instead of the whole point of this carefully choreographed interview. “Do you know anything about a key that was lying on your father’s desk the morning he died?”

  “A key?” inquired Jeff with a look of such convincing innocence that it completely altered my sense of what he was capable of.

  “Yes. A key. It was lying on your father’s desk when the photographe
r from the death investigation unit came through, but by the time we arrived to bag and tag evidence, it had disappeared.”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t help you,” said Jeff. “I don’t know anything about any key.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Once the door had closed behind the detectives I turned to face Jeff.

  “You never told me you went back into your father’s office,” I said, unable to conceal the irritation in my voice.

  “I told you that there were things in that box that I wouldn’t want anybody to see,” countered Jeff, defensively.

  “And you swear that they have absolutely nothing to do with your father, or the team...

  “Absolutely nothing. You have my word.”

  “So where did you find the key?”

  “On the desk, just like the police said. Dad took it off his ring and put it there when he asked me to go down to the safe-deposit box, but I forgot all about it after we started arguing.”

  “So when did you remember it?”

  “Afterwards, when the police showed up. I realized that I’d left it there on his desk. I was sitting in my office and I heard Feiss talking to the cops in the hall, so I ducked in there and grabbed it. You’ve got to believe me, Kate, what’s in there has nothing to do with any of this.”

  I looked at Jeff, his face exhausted and pleading, and decided for the time being not to push it.

  “What did they talk to you about before I showed up?” I asked. “Did they say anything about how your father died?”

  “No. When I asked them they said they’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but I spoke to the funeral director this morning. He said that the body was going to be released sometime this afternoon. The funeral is scheduled for Thursday morning.”

  Chrissy stuck her head in through the door from the kitchen. “Are they gone yet?” she asked.

  “The coast is clear,” I replied, doing my best to make light of it.

  “What is the deal with them anyway?” she asked, stepping into the room, her arms folded across her chest indignantly. “I thought they were supposed to be public servants. I swear, I’ve never been treated so rudely in my life!”

  “Homicide detectives don’t go to charm school,” I pointed out. “Their job is to shake the tree and see what falls out. I don’t think anybody likes it much.”

  “The two of them seemed like they were enjoying themselves,” pointed out Jeff, ruefully.

  “They were just trying to get under your skin,” I said. “It’s all an act. They’d sing their questions like opera if they thought it would get you to open up and tell them what they wanted.”

  “Speaking of getting what you want, how did it go at the bank?” asked Chrissy.

  “They refuse to budge an inch,” I replied. “Gus Wallenberg is determined to be the new owner of the Milwaukee Monarchs. That’s probably been at the back of his mind from the very beginning. The day he okayed the loan I’m sure he figured he was giving Beau the rope to hang himself with. That’s why he insisted that the trust be revoked. He wanted to be sure that the bank was first in line in case the loan went sour.”

  “So now what?” asked Jeff.

  “Now you go down to the funeral home and make arrangements for your father. I’m going to head back to Chicago and start digging through the boxes of Monarchs documents in my office. I’m also going to fax you a letter to sign authorizing the transfer of any files and records from Harald Feiss to Callahan Ross’s Milwaukee office. They’ll make arrangements for someone to go to Feiss’s office and pick them up.”

  “I didn’t realize you had an office in Milwaukee,” said Chrissy.

  “It’s relatively small, less than fifty attorneys, but they’ll make sure we get what we need from Feiss.”

  “And then what?” asked Chrissy.

  “Then we come up with plan B.”

  “You realize we only have six days before Wallenberg calls the loan and puts us under,” said Jeff.

  “Wasn’t there some famous coach who said, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over’?”

  “That was Yogi Berra,” replied Jeff, “and he was talking about baseball.”

  By the time I got back to Chicago, there were two dark green shopping bags waiting for me on top of my desk. I had wanted to stop at my apartment and change clothes on my way to the office, but when I’d called Cheryl from the car, she’d informed me that the porno brothers had just arrived and were closeted in the conference room with Stuart Eisenstadt, eagerly awaiting my arrival. With a groan I told her to scare up something for me to wear, find me a bag of M&M’s, and put on a fresh pot of coffee. It was turning out to be one hell of a day.

  Drawn as much by curiosity as the necessity of bringing me coffee, Cheryl followed me into my office to see what the personal shopper had sent over this time. As one of eight children, she’d grown up in a household where anything new was cause for excitement. Besides, most of my emergency purchases ended up in her closet anyway. By the time she graduated, Cheryl was going to be the best dressed first-year associate in the city.

  “Stuart just buzzed to say that they’re still waiting for you in the north conference room,” she said, setting my coffee on the corner of my desk and standing on tiptoe to peer eagerly into the bags. She had a heart-shaped face, a cap of blond hair, and the kind of ferocious intelligence that is prized in any profession. I could not imagine what my life was going to be like without her.

  “Have we heard anything from the SEC today?” I asked, pulling a black jacket from the bag and freeing it from a cocoon of tissue.

  “I talked to Janice right after I got off the phone with you,” she reported. Janice was the secretary of the SEC administrator assigned to Avco, and from the very first, Cheryl had cultivated a phone friendship with her. They spoke three or four times a day. Cheryl knew everything about Janice—about her crazy mother-in-law and her husband who was finishing up a three-year hitch in the navy. She was also able to pick up a stunning amount of information about where Avco stood in the regulatory process at any given moment. “She says they’ve accepted our latest answer and that it looks like they won’t be sending us another comment letter.”

  “Yessss!” I said, making one of those gestures of victory that we’ve all learned from watching pro athletes on TV. “Any idea how long it will take to get final approval?”

  “It’ll be four or five days before everyone who has to has signed off on it.”

  “When this deal closes, I’m sending you to Bermuda for a week,” I said. “You can take Janice with you.”

  I pulled the skirt out of the bag and held it up to my waist with a frown. The hem hit me somewhere between midthigh and scandal. They say that skirts go up with the stock market—the stronger the market, the shorter the skirts. I thought about sitting down, getting in and out of taxis, and walking outside in the cold and found myself fervently wishing for an economic downturn.

  “Oh, good,” I observed, “now I’ll have something to wear in case I ever have to go to a funeral for a hooker.”

  “Don’t worry,” replied my secretary over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “I guarantee you don’t have anything the porno brothers haven’t seen already.”

  Most men may lead lives of quiet desperation, but there was certainly nothing quiet about Avery and Colin Brandt. For one thing there were two of them, and while identical twins might be adorable when they’re below the age of five, there’s something distinctly creepy about two adults who are exact duplicates of each other, especially when they’re two middle-aged men who look like Marv Albert clones complete with gold chains and bad toupees. It didn’t help that they both had heavy tanning salon habits, so that even in the dead of the Chicago winter they both looked like they’d been dipped in cocoa.

  “Ah, finally, the woman we’ve been waiting for!” declared Avery in his weird pan-Atlantic accent as I pushed open the conference room doors. You couldn’t tell them apart until they spoke. Colin, the one who handled the
financial side of the business, had the softer voice—also a slight lisp.

  “I’m so sorry to have kept you gentlemen waiting,” I said, giving the bottom of my skirt a quick tug in the hopes of miraculously making it cover more of me. “I didn’t realize that you would be coming in today.”

  “We were just in the neighborhood, as it were, in a meeting with the investment bankers,” said Avery with a toothy grin no doubt meant to be charming. I knew immediately that something was up. Until now both Brandts had treated me like hired help.

  “So how’s everything with the bank?” I asked.

  Grisham & Polk were the underwriters for the deal. They were a shady outfit with a reputation as the hyenas of the financial world, feeding on scraps and making their living from marginal, cast-off deals. Every time I thought of them performing due diligence or maintaining a fiduciary relationship, I got chest pains.

  “They say everything’s still a go on their end,” Avery assured me smoothly. “They’re just waiting for SEC approval so that we can close.”

  “That’s what we’re all waiting for,” I replied, thinking of all the things I should have been doing instead of sitting locked in a conference room restating the obvious.

  “So, I guess the $40 million question is when?” demanded Colin anxiously. “According to what Stuart was just saying, we should be hearing practically any minute.”

  “I’m afraid that the government never moves that fast,” I replied, silently wishing Eisenstadt dead. So much of getting a client through the IPO process was just managing their expectations. “Even if they don’t hit us with another comment letter, it’ll be at least another five or six days before they sign off.”

  This is not what the Brandt brothers had come to hear. One look at their faces and I knew that Avco must be having cash-flow problems. Not that there was anything unusual about that. As a rule, companies go public because they need to raise money; unfortunately the costs associated with an IPO usually did a pretty good job of depleting whatever cash reserves they might have had. Although Callahan Ross and the investment bankers would take their fees out of the proceeds, there were plenty of upfront costs to be paid. In Avco’s case I knew that the bill from the legal printers alone was more than $200,000. No doubt the fact that the SEC had dragged out the process to more than four times its usual length had taken its toll, as well. The Brandts were probably over the same kind of barrel as Jeffrey Rendell and the Monarchs, though I suspected that the Brandts’ lender might be the kind who starts breaking legs when his customers defaulted—at least, I secretly hoped so.