by Fran Louise
Elizabeth got to her feet. Her heels marked a jagged tune as she crossed to the window. Abel cursed and checked his watch.
“Okay,” I said, tossing the report down. “What’s this about?”
“My father,” Elizabeth said with all the weight of a Shakespearian heroine, “is, at this moment facing an unspeakable future. This could very easily be your father, Jay, and if it were, I’m sure you wouldn’t be quite so—so—lackadaisical about the whole thing.”
“I might surprise you,” I said.
Elizabeth’s expression hardened, but it was nothing compared to the ice-cold disdain I could feel coming from my father’s corner.
“It all seems mighty easy when you’ve had your life handed to you on a plate,” Abel said. A smile touched his mouth as he gestured around the apartment. “All of this: the beautiful wife; the connections; the backing.” He considered me for a second. “I bet you really believe you did it on your own. Do you really think that this beautiful woman here would have looked at you twice if you weren’t a Fitzsimmons?” He paused. “If you weren’t my son?”
“What do you need, Dad?”
He didn’t answer me, just held my gaze long enough so that the air started to thicken like sauce.
Elizabeth appeared at my side. Her hand touched my jaw, and one red talon scraped against the freshly-shaved skin. A rash prickled with intention just under the surface.
“Darling,” she said, red lips curved in a slow, sad smile. “We need you to testify in court on my father’s behalf.”
“What?” I yanked my chin out from her grasp. Her nail scratched my skin. “Why?”
“Because he needs our help,” she said.
“Then you testify. Both of you. This has got nothing to do with me.”
“Au contraire,” Abel said with a grin that made my chest tighten.
Elizabeth sighed theatrically. “Oh, Jay—honestly! We are asking you for a few hours of your time. For your father-in-law, of all people! The least you could do is just hear us out before you say no.”
I rubbed my jaw, the scratch palpitating.
“Your wife needs your help,” Abel said. He eased his already flat tie down the centre of his shirt. “Your in-laws need your help.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“Who says I get anything out of it?” he asked.
It was my turn to smile. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“How can you be so suspicious of your own family?” A flat, abrupt laugh erupted from Elizabeth like glass breaking. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you.”
I lifted my brows but didn’t comment. Instead, I came to my feet, in search of clearer air by the window. When I turned back they were both watching me; the silence was weighted like a storm cloud. “Why does he need me? He’s got a million other cronies around New York City—plenty of them with a lot more sway than I have. Hasn’t he got a couple of senators on the payroll?”
Elizabeth sat down. She glanced at Abel.
“He’s been collecting judges and politicians for the best part of thirty years,” I pressed on when the tension in the room refused to break. “I could name at least five people that could make this case go away for him. It makes no sense for me to be involved.”
Abel cleared his throat. “Harry won’t spare you if you don’t help him,” he said.
A stone dropped low in my stomach. After the initial alarm, I was relieved that the gloves were off. My father was smiling with an impervious entitlement that was utterly familiar. He wanted me to believe he was in control of this conversation, but he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be here, threatening me, if he was in control.
Not that this made me any more in control ... “Spare me, how, exactly?” I asked. I knew this had something to do with my stock, but I needed to hear it.
Abel’s brows lowered, casting a gloom over his face. I could feel a sermon in the air; a sermon about struggling to make a living, the sixth child in a family of eleven, with barely enough money to put food on the table. A sermon that I’d once revered, but that I’d later realised was used as an excuse to cheat and lie—to extort sympathy—whatever it took to succeed.
“Just tell me what it is you want,” I said in an effort to circumvent the speech. “You already know I’ve got no intention of speaking in Harry’s defence. You and Harry have been trying to shut me down for the last six months; why would I help you?”
“Because you owe me,” Abel said. “You owe Harry for his loyalty, the same way you owe your wife. You know perfectly well you’d be nothing without us.”
“Define nothing.”
“Poor,” Elizabeth said with acidic precision.
“Weak,” Abel added.
I couldn’t stop a laugh from bubbling up in my throat.
“This isn’t funny, Jay.”
“Don’t mistake this for amusement,” I told her.
Abel patted Elizabeth’s hand across the table. “Don’t upset yourself, sweetheart,” he said, taking the opportunity to give me a ripe glance.
I moved to the table and sat down again. “Okay,” I started, “you’re going to have to be crystal-fucking-clear with me here. The last conversation we had, you—and Harry—threatened to shut me down. Now you’re telling me you need my help. I’m the last person Harry wants speaking on his behalf. What can I say under oath that’s going to help him out? I’ll bury him if they force me to tell the truth.”
Abel was nonplussed. “Then you have to be selective about which truth you decide to tell,” he said.
“Are you suggesting I lie?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It sounds a lot like it.”
“No,” he asserted, “I’m suggesting that you think carefully about your situation, son. Take a step back and think for a minute.” He allowed his words to settle on me, his tight gaze holding me captive.
I sat back. Frustration was a dam in my chest, but I closed the gates on it. How had I ended up here again? I glanced at Elizabeth, who was now pacing the room, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors with unyielding determination as she nervously straightened vases and repositioned the curtains. In another life, she was my ex-wife.
But not in this one ... not yet, at any rate. Stella’s image popped into my head, adding to the confusion, and then Nina’s tiny face. I crowded them out.
“You made the right choice, son,” he said in satisfaction, “calling off the divorce. Your wife needs you. Harry needs both of you.” He tapped fingers on the table, taking his sweet time. “We’re stronger as a family.”
The pressure increased in my chest but I stayed still, silent.
“Harry needs some reassurance from us, that we’ll stick together,” he said. “He needs a gesture. You’ve always kept your nose clean, Jay; everyone knows that. But these investigators...” He grimaced, and I wondered if he was enjoying this at some level. “They’re not interested in the truth. They just want a neat case. The more big fish they get, the bigger the promotion at the end of it. That’s all they’re thinking about.”
“I’m not a big fish,” I said pointedly.
Abel’s smile was dark. “You’re a link in the chain, son,” he said after a pause. “Do you understand me? You don’t just get up and walk away.”
I knew perfectly well what he was saying: if Harry started talking, he’d take all of them down. It had to stick like bile in his throat to ask me for this. Of course, ‘this’ was closer to a threat than a request, in true Abel style.
Elizabeth was inspecting the light-fittings by this time. I’d never seen her take any interest in the furnishings beyond choosing them. She’d certainly never given so much attention to their level of cleanliness before. It irritated me more than it probably should have—the superficial distraction of her.
“Harry needs your help, and you’ll help him,” Abel continued. “That’s all there is to it.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, as though the conversation had been settled to h
is satisfaction. “His lawyer will give you the details.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, coming to my feet.
“There’s nothing else to discuss, Jay.”
“No, actually, there’s a boatload left to discuss,” I said, hands on my hips in an effort to bar the exit. Something clattered on to the floor from the vicinity of where Elizabeth was still fussing, but I only spared it an impatient glance before turning back to Abel. “I will not perjure myself in court. Do you hear me?”
Abel glanced towards Elizabeth’s quiet murmurings and I sensed his patience was breaking, too. “No one’s asking you to perjure yourself,” he said.
“Fine,” I conceded, “but I’m making that clear up front. If I don’t like what this lawyer has to say, I walk.”
“How in God’s name did I end up with such a stupid kid?”
Abel’s rasping accusation stilled me like a slap to the face. After a couple of seconds of readjustment, I ground my jaw.
“Talk to the lawyer,” he said, rigid in his gleaming suit. There was a heavy beat between each word he spoke. “Listen carefully to what he has to say.” He shook his head. “Wizen up. If Harry goes down, that’s not good for anyone.”
“It’s not good for you, specifically,” I said.
He laughed. “It’s not good for you, either.”
“I can live with a black mark against my name,” I said. I rounded the table, refusing to relinquish the conversation.
Abel’s fist came down on the table with such unexpected force that the centrepiece toppled over. Elizabeth and I jolted. I was dimly aware of a scratch in the shiny wood surface under the glint of my father’s fat, gold pinkie-ring. When I looked back at his face, the same damaging glint shone in his eyes.
“Goddammit,” he ground out, whether disappointed by me or his unusual outburst, I wasn’t sure. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“Don’t spell it out,” Elizabeth said in a reedy voice as she arrived at my side.
Abel ignored her. “You’ll speak to the lawyer, and you’ll say what he tells you to say. Because—trust me—if Harry thinks we’re not on his side, he’ll take every single one of us down with him. You; me; your mother; no one gets out of this unless Harry does.”
“Darling, stop,” Elizabeth said to me.
“You’ve got nothing on me,” I said to Abel. The confidence in my voice was eroded by a thread of genuine fear under the surface. “Harry can’t take me down.”
Abel smiled. “How about fraud?”
And there it was. Though I’d been expecting it, it was still a shock to hear it. Though perhaps shock was not the guiding force; disillusion was circling low in my chest like sediment. All this time I’d wondered if he’d brought my firm into his group just to spite me over the divorce, but it had been a simple money-making endeavour. Nothing to do with me, and everything to do with pure greed.
As a bonus, now they also most certainly had something to hold over me.
“You know perfectly well I had nothing to do with that,” I said. It seemed hard to push my voice through the dense silence. “I can prove it.”
“Can you?”
“Will both of you please shut up!”
Something clattered on to the table. Small and black, my initial reaction was that some kind of bug was crawling across the surface.
Elizabeth was pale and angry. “Look,” she said.
“What is that?”
“I found it under the lamp,” she said. She was shaking visibly.
I picked up the device. It was a bug, all right, but not the type I’d originally assumed.
#
I didn’t know where to start. The phone sat limply in my hand while I sorted through the list of tasks in my brain. It was like trying to push through a crowd. Scanning my contacts list, I stopped at Fueller’s name. Would he be able to help? I had to at least explain the situation to him, get his advice. For a start I needed a new lawyer, someone connected, but connected in a legal way. He might know someone. Katrina, my loyal counsel for the divorce, wasn’t going to cut it for insider trading, among other things, up against the likes of Harry Benson.
I scrolled to Katrina Hummel’s name on the list. First things first; I had to officialise things with Nina. Stella’s doubt—her insistence that it couldn’t be—was making me nervous. Did she just not want to believe it? Was she more attached to this surfer than she was admitting to herself? Either way, I needed the ink dry on a few legal documents so that there wouldn’t be any more stalling. I gave Anna a warning shake of my head when she would approach the door, and hit the call button.
“I’ve just discovered I’m a father,” I said almost as soon as the connection was made. “Elizabeth isn’t the mother. The mother and I broke things off before I was married.” I paused. “What do I need to do?”
Karina Hummel, normally unflappable, was silent for several beats. “Oh,” she managed finally. “Well, let me see. Are you planning to support the child?”
“Financially, of course,” I said, “but I’m more concerned about my rights. The mother’s tetchy; possessive. It’s taking her a long time to come around to the idea. I need something in writing.
“Hmm.” Though it was a non-committal sound, Karina managed to load it ominously. “I’d suggest you agree an allowance of some sort, for the child, and payment terms. You know—whether you’ll pay once a month, annually. How she justifies the expenditure, etcetera.” She paused. “What about visitation? Or are you and the mother involved?”
Rubbing my eyes, I stared out at the bleak view of the city beyond. The rain seemed unceasing. I could see City Hall in the distance, and from there my mind meandered too easily to a nearby hotel room.
“I need to re-file the divorce papers,” I said, ignoring the more complex questions I didn’t yet have answers to. “Will this affect things? I’m thinking...” I paused, not having had time to formulate any real plan. “The things is, I’m considering going it alone, professionally, but I’d appreciate it if that didn’t go any further than this conversation.”
“Well, I never,” Karina said, before adding impatiently, “You know everything you tell me is confidential, Jay. When did you decide this?”
“Recently,” was all I could admit to. “I’ll need a significant amount of capitol behind me, though, if I do decide to do it, so I need this divorce to go through cleanly.”
“No, I mean, when did you decide to re-file? I thought there were some outstanding legal issues in the family.”
“Harry Benson,” I said in a flat tone. “I’m guessing you watch the news from time to time.”
She made another loaded and yet non-committal sound.
“That particular mess isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” I said. “The only concern I have is whether this baby will complicate things. I don’t need anything dragging the divorce out any longer than it has to be.”
“If the baby was conceived before you were married and you’ve just been made aware of it, then it shouldn’t cause major issues to the settlement,” Karina said. “My feeling is that Elizabeth won’t want this to go public—she won’t make a fuss.” A pause. “It affects everything else though.”
“Yeah…” I breathed out, nodding out to Anna and gesturing five minutes with my hand when she frowned at me pointedly.
“You have obligations, presuming it’s all on the up and up.”
“It’s all legal,” I said. “I did a test. Can you get my name added to the birth certificate, or do I need to do that?”
“I’ll take care of it. I’ll send you the papers.” Karina was quiet for a moment. “We should probably have a meeting, then, before too long. You’ll need to make an appointment with your financial adviser first,” she said with a laugh. “You think ex-wives are expensive? Just wait. There are trust funds, and college funds...”
“Okay, I get it, Karina.”
“How’s Elizabeth taking it?” she asked.
It struck me then that my lawye
r was the first person I’d told, beyond Fueller. “She doesn’t know yet,” I said, grimacing.
“Okay…” Karina cleared her throat, an awkward sound. “Let’s meet next month. We’ll review your will,” she said, cheerily. There was a pause. “Congratulations, by the way. Is it a boy or a girl?”
A ridiculous grin covered my face. Holy shit … I’m a father. “A girl,” I said, and I was unable to keep the pride from my tone. “Nina. She’s seven months.”
“Mazel tov.” Another pause. “And I’d suggest you tell your wife sooner rather than later, Jay. It won’t affect the legalities of the divorce, but…” Karina sighed. “Elizabeth ain’t gonna like it one bit.”
#
Stella was already at the cafe when I arrived, sitting alone at a table on the terrace. My eyes singled her out of the crowds with no discernible effort. Pale in the sunshine, she sat with her head tipped back in reverence to the sun and her dark hair shimmered in the breeze. As he approached, she looked up so suddenly that it was as if she’d caught my scent. It was a little disconcerting.
She smiled, combing my features reluctantly. “Hi.”
“Hey.” I took a seat.
Her eyes were narrowed against the sun, opaque—always cautious. Certainly no open hostility. Could we hope for a truce? The last meeting had left me with a nasty taste in my mouth, hence the reason I’d suggested we meet out in the open this time.
“How are you?” she asked, lifting her coffee cup and taking a sip.
“Good.” It was a lie; I had my meeting with Benson’s lawyer this afternoon, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. “How are you?”
“Good,” she said.
A lie for a lie … she was probably broke and definitely homeless, but I’d get to that in due time. She certainly looked fine. She looked as though she didn’t have a care in the world. It occurred to me that she lived in a very different world from the one I inhabited. There was a freedom about her, a sense of a life with options. I, irritatingly enough, seemed to be merely one of those many options.
