Killer, Come Hither

by Louis Begley

  Oh Hobson! she said. He didn’t want to tell the firm he was kicking Harry out because Brown no longer wanted to work with him, was dissatisfied, or whatever. That would have raised a lot of questions, and if the questions were answered all sorts of stuff Brown didn’t like might have come out. So the smear was the solution. Hobson knows the partnership well enough to know that no one would have been comfortable going to Harry to say sorry old friend we’re so sad you’re out of your fucking mind.

  She poured herself some wine.

  No, she said, definitely not, Brown didn’t come up with that story, although by now he may know about it and may have congratulated Hobson on his brilliant invention. Brown is anything but stupid. Just devious and vicious. I’ve seen him a number of times, always with Harry except one time when I was alone. That exception was a trip I made to Houston alone in July last year, right after I became a partner. We met in his office and had a sandwich lunch during which he talked very broadly, about European history once he found out that had been my major at Dartmouth and his collection of Renaissance bronzes, of which he had many on his bookshelves and scattered around on the furniture. We were sitting on a sofa, with the lunch on the coffee table before us. It’ll be a hell of a good lunch, he had told me. He would press a button, and the waiter would come in and bring dishes and take away others. He was particularly pleased with his chef’s pecan pie. He kept laughing—an unpleasant sound, let me tell you—and carried on about how it was forbidden fruit and he always goes for whatever is forbidden, if I get his meaning. If it’s forbidden, I have to have it. I felt a kind of tension building up, and I was right. As soon as the guy left, having served the fucking pecan pie and coffee, wham! Abner’s hand was on my thigh, making its way up to my crotch. I grabbed it, and the thought flashed through my mind that I might twist it and try to break his arm. I’m strong, and physically he’s a wimp, but I chickened out and instead told him, Abner, this is a really bad idea. I’m your lawyer, remember? He got red in his face, took his hand away, and said, I can fix that. One telephone call from me will do it. Then he stood up and walked toward his desk with this huge erection he didn’t bother to hide. Once he’d sat down, he looked at me pityingly and said, You disappoint me. I thought all Jewesses from New Jersey like sex. I thought you’d suck my cock! Saying that must have calmed him, as though he’d shot his wad, because he segued right into our legal business. There was only one interruption. He had his secretary bring a sort of casket and a little gadget he used, after he’d pricked his finger, to test his blood sugar. Then he gave himself an injection. In the tummy. He opened his shirt for that purpose. Then she took the stuff away, including the little swipe he’d used to sterilize the area—he’s hairy like an ape—and he said type one diabetes. Pecan pie, my ass! We finished our work exactly on time, he thanked me, and had me driven to the airport!

  You’ve made this up, I told her.

  Not in the least. Kerry Black—he figured, because I’ve got curly black hair and come from Montclair, it’s really got to be Kerry Schwartz. The rest is reading Goodbye, Columbus. He’s got good taste in literature!

  I shook my head and probably would have made a speech, but she raised her hand to interrupt me.

  Jack, she said, we’ve gotten sidetracked. I want to explain to you why Harry very likely thought he couldn’t go to the police. He would have had to be sure that he met every criterion spelled out in the canons. Believe it or not, that’s a tough test to meet, especially for someone like Harry who lived by them.

  I do understand that, I told her. Can you tell me how big a role you think the financial considerations played, hanging on to a very big client?

  I had a sickening sense that they had been important and wanted desperately to hear Kerry say I was wrong. But she couldn’t, not entirely.

  I think they played an important role, she answered, but not the way you think. As Harry may have explained to you, we have what’s called a lockstep system at the firm. You get paid the same as the other partners of your seniority get paid. It doesn’t matter whether you work longer or shorter hours or whether you bring in business, so Harry wouldn’t have been focused on the potential impact on his own compensation. But Harry loved the firm. He didn’t want to hurt it, or to antagonize his partners by killing the goose that was laying so many golden eggs. And he couldn’t tell them all that he knew. That much I’m certain of. Harry made clear to me that his arrangement with Abner was that confidences couldn’t be shared with partners or associates except strictly as necessary for completing a particular assignment. And there was one other important factor. Harry was very lonely. Abner kept him busy and amused and made him feel he was a big deal at the firm doing a lot to contribute to its prosperity!

  All right, I said, I get it. Or at least I think I get it. Let me try to summarize. You think Harry found evidence of widespread fraud and criminality that pervaded Abner Brown’s businesses to the point of being inseparable from them. However, you don’t know what that conduct was. Right?

  Yes, she nodded.

  He decided to withdraw, but first he tried to talk to Abner to get him to reform, come clean, or something like that. There was an implied threat added to it: Otherwise I resign from representing you.

  She nodded again.

  So Brown decided he’d move first and fire Harry.

  I don’t know, she said, but that’s a good working hypothesis because it makes all of the facts I’m aware of fit together.

  All right, let me ask you this: Can you find out for me whether there are indeed no personal papers of Harry’s at the firm or, if they do exist, where they are and what has happened to his emails? Does the firm keep copies of its lawyers’ emails, and if so would Harry’s exist somewhere? I’m focused on this because it seemed so bizarre that Hobson and Minot were eager to get at his papers at the Fifth Avenue apartment and in his safe.

  If only Barbara Diamond were alive. Kerry sighed. She would know every detail about Harry’s papers and emails.

  Well, she isn’t, I answered. But you and I are alive, and I have to get to the bottom of what happened. Will you undertake this research for me? I don’t want to put you in any jeopardy or make things awkward for you at the firm, but you’re the only person I can ask—can you handle it?

  Another nod. I’ll do my best.

  You see, darling, I told her, I’m like a stuck record. I can’t bring myself to believe Harry would have killed Plato and hanged himself because he’d lost Abner Brown’s business and had been pushed out of the firm. It doesn’t add up. Worse—it’s utterly inconsistent with everything I know about Harry. There’s some other reason, another force at work. I will not rest until I’ve figured out what that was and what really happened.

  VI

  Iraq and Afghanistan had made me a light sleeper. In Iraq, like a lot of my brothers, many nights I was on sleeping pills, counting on the tsunami of adrenaline to flush out all remaining traces of the drug if we came under attack. When I got to Afghanistan, battalion shrinks and medics were handing out antianxiety, antidepression, and antipsychotic mind-fucking medications of every description to troopers like peanuts. I stayed away from them, and, ever since I left the hospital, I’ve stayed away from painkillers and Ambien and company and have managed to hold insomnia at bay. But luxuriating in Kerry’s bed I began to realize that I would need to reach a higher level of mastery over self if I was ever going to get a night’s sleep with this big affectionate girl nestling against me when I lay on my side and, when I lay on my back, pinioning my legs under one of hers. As for her, she was out like a light, breathing regularly or snoring or muttering and chuckling to herself. I savored her nearness and my newfound happiness but willy-nilly went over the meetings with Minot and Hobson and what I had learned from Kerry. It became clear to me that the first step in making good on the promise I’d made to her not to rest until I’d figured out what really happened to Harry was to go to Sag Harbor and speak with Harry’s housekeeper Mary and his neighbor Sasha.
Over breakfast of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, soft-boiled eggs, whole wheat toast, and very strong coffee, which Kerry prepared while, at her insistence, I spent an additional twenty minutes in bed, I told her of my plan to go out to Long Island on Saturday morning and asked whether she’d come with me.

  I can’t, she said, I can’t, I’m arguing a motion for summary judgment in federal court on Monday. That means work with the team at the office both Saturday and Sunday. So I’m giving you Saturday night off on condition that you’re back in time for a late dinner on Sunday. I’ll be bushed and nervous and will need to be pampered!

  —

  I called Mary and Sasha as soon as I got back to my apartment. Mary said she could be at the house anytime Saturday morning. I told her that I’d leave the city no later than nine and should be there by eleven-thirty. That was all right with her. When she heard my name, Sasha broke down and cried. She was free on Saturday evening and invited me to dinner at her house. The prospect of speaking with Hobson was repugnant, but it had occurred to me that an official channel of communication with the firm might prove useful. Hobson took my call right away and waited for me to speak. I told him that although I didn’t want to have any dealings with Minot, I hoped the firm would represent me as executor of my uncle’s will.

  Hobson seemed taken aback. Perhaps he had expected me to cave and work with Minot after all, but it struck me as more likely that he had become accustomed to the thought that I would seek help elsewhere and decided it was good riddance.

  Fred’s feelings will be hurt, he said finally, but I suppose we can’t help that. I’m glad you wish to stay with your uncle’s firm. There is a partner I have in mind who’d be a good fit. If he’s available, I’ll send you his name and telephone number.

  That’s good of you, I said. Thinking about what you’ve told me about Mr. Brown and my uncle, I’ve realized that there are a couple of things that I’m not clear about. Approximately when was it that Mr. Brown told you he no longer wanted my uncle to work on his problems, and approximately when did you tell Harry that he had to retire?

  I thought he’d simply hang up. Instead, he said, I’ve just looked at my calendar. Abner Brown came to see me on the fifth of October. He was spending the weekend in the city; I spoke to Harry the following week. On Tuesday, the ninth, to be very precise.

  The party for my book number two had taken place the following day, I suddenly realized. So Harry hadn’t let on that he’d just been hit by a truck. And he said nothing during our dinners in the weeks before I left for Belize. Clearly, he understood that I wouldn’t leave if I knew what was going on, and he didn’t want to spoil a vacation to which he knew I was looking forward. He was quite a fellow.

  I see, I told Hobson, thank you! And if I understand you correctly Harry retired as of the first day of 2012. So from the time you and he spoke until then—or is it until he died—he had the use of his office, Miss Diamond worked for him, and so forth?

  That’s exactly right, he answered. As I told you, he used that time to disengage from his other client responsibilities and, although I may not have mentioned it, to hand over to me the matters he was working on for Abner Brown. If it hadn’t been for the need to do all that, I might have insisted on an earlier retirement date. But you should understand that retired partners, if they wish, may retain an office at the firm—usually a much-smaller office—and the shared services of a secretary who may or may not be their old secretary. We’re very civilized, he tittered. Of course, given his worsening condition, physical and psychological, I very much doubt that he would have wished to avail himself of that privilege.

  By the time I had hung up with Hobson it was close to eleven. Jeanette had gotten to the apartment before me and was busy packing clothes in preparation for the move to Fifth Avenue. I made sure she had everything she needed for her lunch and mine and set out for a five-mile run in the park. The day had taken shape. After lunch I would work on my book, and at eight I would meet Kerry for dinner at the Italian restaurant to which I had taken Harry on his birthday the day before 9/11. I’d made a Saturday-morning reservation on a Hampton Jitney scheduled to arrive in Sag Harbor at eleven. I could catch it easily if I went to the bus stop straight from Kerry’s apartment.

  —

  I was so scared, Jack, so scared! Mary said as she embraced me.

  I’d been waiting for her in the kitchen of the Sag Harbor house, into which she stormed noisily as soon as she arrived.

  You can’t imagine what he looked like, hanging there from that rope. He had on one of those flannel shirts he wore around the house, the red one, his old brown corduroy trousers, and socks. I looked for his shoes later, and I found his slippers—you know, those L.L. Bean slippers he wore around the house—put away neatly under the sofa. As though he’d put them there before lying down and then decided to get the ladder and the rope. And his face! Blue-green, with little specks of red, eyes bulging. The smell was something terrible. He’d shat and pissed in his pants. And Plato on the floor a little ways off, his head twisted, like a rag doll’s. At first I couldn’t believe it. But it was worse than that. When I picked up the poor little thing I saw that his whiskers had been cut off! Can you imagine such a thing? The shears—I guess he did it with the poultry shears—were lying right there on the worktable.

  Mary, I said, are you sure? I hadn’t heard that before. It’s impossible. Harry would never have done such a thing.

  I didn’t tell Kerry about it because she was already so sick over what happened. I didn’t want to make it worse. What can I say? Here, see for yourself. I took pictures.

  She took out her cell phone, brought up the picture gallery, and showed me two photos of Plato lying on a towel, his head twisted and, without the slightest doubt, the whiskers shorn off.

  Let’s sit down, I said, and have a drink. I need one.

  She said she could use one too, a gin and tonic. I prepared one for her and poured a triple shot of bourbon over ice for myself.

  What did you do with Plato’s body? I asked.

  I took it to the vet we use and had him cremated. The ashes are waiting for you. I thought you might want to bury them in the flower bed, where he used to lie in ambush waiting for chipmunks. That’s if you’re keeping the house. If you aren’t, Brian and I will bury him in our backyard.

  I told her that I planned to keep the house and hoped she’d work for me just as she had for Harry.

  You bet I will, she answered.

  Good, I said. If you have time we’ll have lunch together, but first let’s go over everything, I mean everything you saw and did that day when you found the body.

  The story she told me was almost word for word what Kerry had said. Then, when we walked through the house—because I wanted to retrace her steps—she added some information that was new. The house when she arrived that Monday morning was neat as a pin. Harry’s bed made, the bathroom as though he hadn’t used it, the kitchen the same, he’d either had lunch out and hadn’t bothered making tea in the afternoon or he’d thrown out the garbage before killing himself—here she choked on tears—because the kitchen pail was empty, and he’d put in a fresh liner. Harry always kept everything in order, but this absence of any sign of his presence although he’d been there since Friday morning was eerie. Of course, she’d been there on Friday and cleaned, but still she’d never seen the house so dead. The ladder he’d used was kept in the garage, so he’d have carried it to the studio.

  We went together through the kitchen into the garage to take a look at the ladder. Just as I remembered, it was an eight-foot fiberglass stepladder that Harry had bought at the hardware store on Main Street and was proud of, although he complained about it being just a bit too heavy. Beside it was the six-foot aluminum ladder he used for most purposes. Harry’s Audi was in the garage as well, clean but dusty, I noticed.

  Which ladder did he use, I asked, although I thought I knew the answer. The big one so he could reach the beam and tie the rope?

 
No, he didn’t, she answered, he used the little guy. He must have stood on top of it. I guess he didn’t want to open the garage door and carry the big ladder through the front door into the garden and the studio. He would have never gotten it through the kitchen.

  I guess that’s right, I said. Do you mind if I take the six-footer to the studio? I just wonder whether I could have tied the rope around the beam standing on it.

  She seemed surprised but didn’t object.

  It made me sick to do it, but I opened the ladder and stood it up in what I supposed was the position Harry had chosen—Mary had pointed to the spot almost precisely in the middle of the room—and climbed up to the top, where the warning labels tell you that you’re not supposed to stand. Harry was almost exactly my height. Perhaps half an inch taller. I lifted my arms.

  What kind of rope was it? I asked Mary. Nylon?

  No, she said, some kind of hemp.

  Thick?

  I wouldn’t say so, less than an inch.

  So it wouldn’t be especially heavy.

  Harry used to keep his boat at the Three Mile Harbor marina, the Sag Harbor marina not being to his taste, and only gave it up when the traffic on Route 114 between Sag Harbor and East Hampton and then through East Hampton to the boat got bad, and the time it took to go to Three Mile Harbor and back home could no longer be justified. He had been a good sailor when I last had an opportunity to observe him and had a first-rate sense of balance. He should have had no trouble laying the rope over the beam and tying a square knot. Prior to that, he would have tied a hangman’s knot at the other end, something every sailor and fisherman knows how to do, and slipped the end he was going to attach to the beam through the loop he’d made. Then he would have gone down a couple of rungs to put the noose around his neck, and at some point—how much time would he take?—kick the ladder away…. It occurred to me that it must have been a short rope, or that anyway he’d tied it so there wasn’t a big distance between the beam and the noose.