Black Maps jm-1

by Peter Spiegelman

  There’ve been a few changes. Before career prospects, it had been about the company and the hours that I kept, and before that, about the probations and the suspensions from school. And before it was Ned, it had been my uncles offering the well-intentioned, sensible advice. Until her death, the kind words were spoken not by David, but by my mother, Elaine. And ever since my father, Philip, passed away, we’d been short one bemused, distracted spectator.

  But the basic quarrel-about irresponsibility, expectations, and disappointment, about waste and embarrassment-endures. It’s old business, and it goes all the way back to Philip and Elaine, and their larger struggle.

  It wasn’t outright war between them-there were no pitched battles, and it wasn’t that well organized. It was more a simmering border feud, with fierce skirmishes, stretches of nervous quiet, and an endless tallying of encroachments. But as to who was defending what territories, and against whom, I couldn’t say. Nor can I say how I became my father’s proxy in these firefights-how I became a lightning rod for so much of my mother’s disapproval and discontent. Maybe I was just less expert than my siblings at keeping out of the crossfire-at keeping my head down or choosing sides.

  A door opened, and there were slow footsteps. Lauren stood next to me.

  “Sorry,” she said. She spoke softly. I laughed a little.

  “I won’t say I told you so. ”

  “Please don’t. I feel lousy enough as it is. I dragged you here, and told you this wouldn’t happen, and…”

  “We’ve been at this a long time, Laurie. It’s not your fault.” She looked down at the street.

  “Ned means well,” she said after a while.

  “And David?” I asked.

  “David’s a putz.” She laughed, and I laughed with her.

  “His Mom impression is coming along,” I said. “Close your eyes, and you can’t tell the difference.”

  Lauren turned to look at me. “She meant well, too, you know. Really.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It’s just that… you were too much like Dad,” Lauren said. “At least she thought you were.” A cold gust blew across the terrace, and I felt her shiver beside me. She crossed her arms, hugging herself.

  “And that was by definition a bad thing, right?” I asked. “She did marry the guy, after all.” We were quiet, and watched a plane crawl across the sky.

  “Ever wonder why?” she asked. “Ever wonder what the hell they saw in each other?” I chuckled.

  “I don’t give it a lot of thought,” I said. “There’s only so much you can know about people-and less still about marriages. And when it comes to your parents’ marriage-forget it.”

  “Is that a professional opinion?”

  “If you asked me professionally, I’d say what I say to people who want their spouses followed: Are you sure you want to know? ” She laughed a little.

  “Probably not. It’s a little too close to thinking about them having sex-it’d cost me a fortune in therapy.” The breeze picked up, and Lauren shivered again.

  “Go in,” I said. “You’ll catch a chill.”

  “You come too.” She rubbed her arms.

  “In a minute,” I said.

  I watched Lauren go inside and stand by Keith and Marco in the den. In another incarnation, the room had been my father’s study-the site of what my uncles called his very early retirement. It had been lined, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves then, and furnished with a broken-down leather sofa, a big leather chair, and a small writing table-all gone now. With its high windows and big view of sky, the room had seemed to me, at various times, like a treehouse, a lighthouse, and a sailboat. He’d called it his duck blind.

  It wasn’t forbidden to us-we could go in when we liked. But I was the only one who ever did. I’d find him sprawled on the sofa, or in the chair, or sometimes writing or sketching at his small table, and I’d sprawl too, and read with him in silence. When I was older, he’d sometimes pull a volume off the shelf and toss it to me. He never said more than “You might like it,” and he never asked afterward if I had. It was an eclectic list-poetry and fiction mostly-Rilke, Akhmatova, Borges, Raymond Chandler, Robertson Davies, John Fante, Philip Dick-and if there was a message there, I couldn’t divine it.

  He’d worked at Klein, in a job my grandfather made for him there, and one day, after twelve years, he’d stopped going-I never knew why. One of many things I never knew-about him, about them both.

  I put my palms on the coping and felt the cold seep into my hands. I watched the figures move in the windows across the way. I thought about my words to Lauren and shook my head.

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “A fool for a client,” I said to myself.

  On paper, they had little in common. He was an only child, the end of an old WASP line whose money and distinction were spent before he was born. His legacy, he used to say, was a mildewed shack on Fisher’s Island, a decent squash game, and a bulletproof liver. She was the youngest of four-the only daughter. Her family was old too, but not WASP. She didn’t play squash, didn’t drink much, and her inheritance was considerably bigger than a shack.

  They met at a party in someone’s apartment off Washington Square. They were married four months later in city hall. They flew to Italy that same day, and stayed there for over a year. It was, as far as I know, her only act of rebellion. She was four months’ pregnant when they returned.

  I don’t know why they married, or why they left the country afterward, or why they stayed away so long, or why they came back. I don’t know why Philip took the job at Klein in the first place, or why he stopped when he did, to spend his time in the study or on a squash court or with a pitcher of martinis. And while I can guess about Elaine’s anger, I don’t know why she married Philip to begin with, if what she wanted was the life she’d always had. What had she been looking for?

  I never asked Philip about his work, and by the time I’d had my own brush with Wall Street, it was too late to compare notes. So I never knew what he’d made of it all-if his experience was anything like mine. Was he appalled by the greed and self-indulgence? Was he stunned by the bureaucracy and politicking? Was he bored silly? Was he able to find even a single thing there to care about? I never knew.

  French doors opened from the living room, and Tyler stepped outside. “The boys are asking for you.”

  They were in Derek’s room, doing something intricate with Legos. I got down on the floor and helped them do it.

  “You okay, Uncle Johnny?” Alec asked. He peered at me over the lid of a toy chest.

  “I’m fine, buddy. Pass those green pieces over, okay?”

  After the Legos, we played with Hot Wheels for a while, and then we built an elaborate railroad out of wooden tracks. Then Derek tried to teach me to play something on his Game Boy, but the point of the thing eluded me, and I couldn’t work the controls reliably. Then we played soccer with a Nerf ball, then I was a zombie, and then I tickled them both till they were sweaty and hoarse and threatening to barf. It was getting late for them by then, and they needed to catch their breath, and so did I, so we sprawled sideways on Derek’s bed, with me in the middle, and I read six or eight stories to them.

  After a while I realized that they’d fallen asleep. I sat there with them, quite still, and looked at the chaos of scattered toys on the floor, and at the darkness outside their windows. Alec sighed and shifted. I looked down at my nephews and thought about the protected, privileged world they lived in, and how far it was from where I lived these days. At some point I drifted off too, and when I opened my eyes I saw Jane Lu, leaning in the doorway, watching.

  “Share a cab?” she whispered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The restless gray skies and cold wind had kept all but the hardiest from the playground. Empty swings moved in small, noisy arcs, their metallic scraping like the call of distant birds. The sandbox was sodden from the weekend rain, and deserted. A few kids braved the slides. A few others cl
ambered on an elaborate climbing structure that bristled with ramps and ladders and poles. A couple of nannies, a couple of moms, and some grandparents watched from the benches. I sat on one near the playground gate-just me and a stroller.

  It was about one-thirty on Monday, and I was watching Alex Pierro and his mother on the climbing structure. The thing was intended for older kids, but he’d been insistent. He needed help on it, nonetheless. His mother held him gently at the waist as he negotiated a ladder to the second level. He pushed her away, indignant, when he made it to the top.

  We’d met at one o’clock, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street. Alex was in his stroller, wearing corduroy overalls, tiny work-boots, and a fleece jacket against the cold. His cheeks and small hands were pink. He’d smiled at me briefly, but was more interested in his toy locomotives. I’d been surprised to see him.

  “It’s nearly his nap time,” Helene had said, smiling. “He’ll play around for a little, and he’ll be out. We can talk then. I brought us some lunch.” She’d tapped the large diaper bag that hung from the stroller. I’d followed her across Fifth, into Central Park, and down to the playground near 77th Street. Helene wore a bottle green sweater over a white turtleneck, snug jeans, and low-heeled, brown boots. Her hair was loose and parted in the middle, and her hair band matched her sweater.

  “He won’t last but a few minutes,” she’d said when we got to the playground. She’d draped her coat on the stroller and followed after Alex. A half hour later, he showed no signs of flagging.

  But it was pleasant there, watching the kids play, and I didn’t mind the wait. I’d had a busy few days. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I’d gotten results from the search services. Each one had returned several hits for each of the names I’d submitted. I compiled a list of all of the responses, eliminating the duplicates. For Kenneth Whelan and Steven Bregman I had five possibles each. I had eight for Nicholas Welch, and three for Michael Lenzi. I’d spent the weekend refining my list.

  The search services had provided date-of-birth information for most of the names, along with last-known and previous addresses. Using the birth dates, I culled from my list anyone too old or too young to have dealt with MWB during the time that Alan Burrows was there. Ten names came off my list. That left me with two Whelans, three Bregmans, five Welches, and a single Michael Lenzi.

  I then did an online search of publications for the four names, including in my survey the major dailies in the tristate area, a bunch of the suburban weeklies, several banking and finance trade rags, and Who’s Who. I cross-referenced the results with my remaining list, and was able to pare it down some more. I turned up a two-year-old feature in a New Jersey paper about a Nick Welch who was a riding instructor, training aspiring Olympians out near Gladstone. According to the article, he was a Jersey boy, born and bred, and lived in the same house that he’d grown up in. There was a Nick Welch with a Gladstone address on my list, who seemed to have no prior addresses. I crossed him off. I was similarly able to eliminate another Welch, who’d been convicted of torching his tire business in Stamford, Connecticut, a year ago, and a Bregman, whose obituary three years back noted his long career with Con Ed.

  I found some likely candidates this way, too. The latest Who’s Who listed a Kenneth Whelan of Summit, New Jersey, who was a senior executive in corporate finance for a big Swiss bank. A brief piece in the Wall Street Journal, nearly three years ago, and a longer article in a trade rag from around the same time, reported that Steve Bregman was leaving his post at a big asset management firm to start his own hedge fund. The trade rag mentioned that Bregman made his home in Pound Ridge, New York. And Nick Welch of New Canaan, Connecticut, had received a two-paragraph obituary in his local paper eighteen months ago. He’d died in a boating accident on Long Island Sound, and had been head of fixed income sales at one of the largest broker-dealers on the Street. My list had a Whelan in Summit, a Bregman in Pound Ridge, and a Welch in New Canaan, and I’d put stars by each one.

  First thing this morning I’d placed a call to the one Michael Lenzi left on my list, in Brooklyn Heights. A young-sounding woman had answered and given me an office number. I’d called it and found him. I’d told Lenzi the truth-or at least a version of it. His name had come up in the course of a confidential investigation, I’d said, and I wanted to meet with him. No, the investigation had nothing directly to do with him, but I was hoping that he could provide some background information. Lenzi had been wary, and curious. I’d cited my employer’s concern with confidentiality and assured him that I could elaborate when we met. He’d finally agreed to fit me in tomorrow afternoon.

  I’d taken a run at Kenneth Whelan of Summit, New Jersey, this morning too, but with less luck. None of the search services or online directories had a phone number for this Whelan, and the reverse directories showed someone else now living at the Summit address. I’d called the main New York number of the Swiss bank that Who’s Who had given as Whelan’s employer. I’d bounced between a dozen departments before finding a pleasant woman with a lilting Jamaican accent who’d informed me that Kenneth Whelan had relocated to the bank’s Singapore office.

  I’d called the other Kenneth Whelan on my list, in Rockland County, on the off chance that he too was a banker. No luck-he was in plumbing supplies. Singapore Whelan was likely my man. That was too bad, because I wanted to talk to these people face-to-face; I wanted to hear what they had to say, and to watch them as they said it. But for Whelan, the phone would have to do. Given the time difference, I’d try him tonight.

  After my Whelan calls, I’d opened up the file Neary had given me on Trautmann, and dug out a phone number and an address for his company, Trident Security Consulting. Trautmann, it seemed, was running a new-economy outfit. The phone number got me an answering service, with an operator who could barely spell Trident. A reverse directory search revealed that the company’s address belonged to a commercial mail drop on Hillside Avenue, in Bellerose, Queens. According to the file, Trautmann’s home address was in Bellerose, too. A trip to Queens was in my future, then, but I wouldn’t be calling for an appointment first. I’d surprise Trautmann-after I’d had a chance to look him over.

  My last calls this morning were to Mr. and Mrs. Pierro. I’d found Rick in his office, and he’d squeezed me into his calendar for tomorrow morning. I’d found Helene at home. She hadn’t seemed surprised by my call, or by my request to meet. She hadn’t seemed concerned or curious, either. Her only question was if one o’clock this afternoon would do. I’d said that it would.

  After that, I’d worked out the kinks with a quick four miles along the Hudson. Then I’d showered and shaved, dressed in black corduroys, a pale yellow turtleneck, and a black leather jacket, and headed uptown to meet Helene.

  “He’s on his last legs, really,” Helene said as she trailed after Alex. He was headed for the slides now. “Could you catch him at the bottom?” The slides were for bigger kids too, but Alex was undaunted.

  “Sure,” I said, and followed. Helene spotted him on the ladder while I waited below. He made it to the top alright, but the slide was wet and slick, and his feet slipped out from under him as he was sitting down. He slid down fast on his back, with his feet in the air, and shot off the end of the slide. I caught him in midair and hoisted him up high, and he squealed with laughter. Helene came over, shaking her head.

  “Thanks,” she said to me. She took Alex from me. “That’s enough for you, big man. You need a rest, right? How about a binky for you?” Alex rubbed his eyes.

  “Binky,” he agreed. In short order, Helene had him in the stroller, chewing on a pacifier. She slipped a cap on his head and mittens over his hands, and adjusted the seat so that he was lying flat. She put on her coat and took a pair of chocolate-colored gloves from her pocket.

  “Let’s walk a little, till he’s asleep. Then we can eat,” she said. We left the playground and followed a path south, toward the boat pond. By the time we got there, Alex was out cold.

 
The boat pond had been drained for the winter and there were plenty of empty benches around it to choose from. We picked a west-facing one. Helene opened the diaper bag and took out two paper-wrapped sandwiches on French bread, a couple of Granny Smith apples, a large bottle of water, paper cups and napkins. “I hope this is alright. I had some cookies in here, somewhere,” she said, still digging in the bag. She looked up at me. “You didn’t want a big sit-down lunch, did you?” I shook my head. “You pick-mozzarella with prosciutto or with tomato. Either one’s okay with me.” Her southern accent seemed more pronounced today.

  “Tomato,” I said. She handed me a sandwich and started unwrapping hers. It wasn’t exactly the usual circumstance for conducting a sensitive interview: over a picnic lunch in the park, with the subject’s toddler sleeping nearby. Not what I would’ve chosen. If Helene had meant to disarm me, she’d made a fine start of it. She opened the bottle of water and poured us each a cup. It was probably a good idea to cut to the chase, before she started knitting me socks.

  “You know what I’m working on for your husband?” I asked.

  “That fax he got. Somebody’s trying to blackmail Rick because he did business with MWB way back when,” she said, and handed me a cup. I nodded.

  “Does he know you’re talking to me today?” Her eyebrows went up.

  “Of course. He told me to do all I could to help you.” I nodded again.

  “I was down at what’s left of MWB last week, in Gerard Nassouli’s old office. I saw a photo you’d taken of him, some years ago.” She peeled off her gloves and took a bite of her sandwich. No response. Okay. “How long ago did you take it?”

  “What did it look like?” she asked. I described it to her, and she nodded as I spoke. “That was a very long time ago. Let’s see… it must be thirteen… no, fourteen years back.” She took another bite of her sandwich.

  “Before you’d met Rick?” She nodded. “When did you meet Nassouli?”

  “Not long after I first came to town. About fifteen years ago.”