The Associate

by John Grisham

Chapter 26

  At 4:30 on Monday morning, Kyle hurried off the elevator, alone, on the thirty-third floor and walked to his cube. As usual, lights were on, doors were open, coffee was brewed, someone was working. Someone was always working, regardless of the day or hour. The receptionists, secretaries, and clerks weren't due until 9:00, but then they only worked a forty-hour week. The partners averaged around seventy. It was not unusual for an associate occasionally to hit a hundred.

  "Good morning, Mr. McAvoy. " It was Alfredo, one of the plainclothes security agents who roamed the hallways during the weird hours.

  "Good morning, Alfredo," Kyle said as he wadded his trench coat and tossed it in a corner, next to his sleeping bag.

  "How 'bout those Jets?" Alfredo asked.

  "I'd rather not discuss it," Kyle shot back. Twelve hours earlier, the Jets had drubbed the Steelers by three touchdowns in heavy rain.

  "Have a nice day," Alfredo said happily as he walked away, his day obviously made better because his team had slaughtered the Steelers and, more important, he'd found a place to rub it in. New York sports fans, Kyle mumbled as he unlocked his drawer and pulled out his laptop. As he waited for it to power up, he glanced around to make sure he was alone. Dale refused to punch in before 6:00. Tim Reynolds hated mornings and preferred to arrive around 8:00 and make up for it at midnight. Poor Tabor. The gunner had flunked the bar exam and had not been seen since. He'd called in sick last Friday, the day after the results were published, and evidently his sickness had continued throughout the weekend. But there was no time to worry about Tabor. He could take care of himself.

  Working quickly, Kyle slid the tiny T-Klip from the video camera into an adapter, which he plugged into his laptop. He waited a few seconds, clicked twice, then froze as the image appeared: Bennie in perfect color, standing at the elevator door, waiting patiently for it to open completely, then walking forward, the steady, confident walk of a man with no fears, no hurries, four steps over the marble floor, then a long glance down at Joey but no connection; five more steps and he disappeared from view. Screen blank. Rewind, watch it again and again, slower and slower. After the fourth step, when Bennie looked casually at Joey, Kyle stopped the action and studied Bennie's face. The shot was clear, the best of the video. He clicked on "print" and quickly made five copies.

  He had his man, at least on tape. How about this little video, Bennie? Guess you're not the only one who can play games with hidden cameras. Kyle quickly fetched the copies from the printer beside Sandra's desk. All printing was supposed to be logged in and charged to a client, but no questions were asked by the secretary if a few pages were used for personal reasons. Kyle held the five copies and patted himself on the back. He stared at the face of his tormentor, his blackmailer, the rotten little son of a bitch who was currently in charge of his life.

  He thanked Joey for such a superb job. A master of disguise, too quick for the bloodhounds behind him, and a brilliant cameraman.

  There was a voice somewhere nearby, and Kyle put away his laptop, hid the T-Klip, and walked up six flights to the main library on the thirty-ninth floor. There, lost among the stacked tiers, he added four of the prints to his hidden file. The fifth he would mail to Joey with a note of congratulations.

  From an upper-level balcony, he looked down at the central floor of the library. Rows of tables and study carrels, piles of books scattered around urgent projects. He counted eight associates hard at work, lost in a world of research for memos and briefs and motions that were past due. Five o'clock on a Monday morning in early November. What a way to start the week.

  The next step in his scheme had not yet been determined. He wasn't certain there was a next step. But for the moment, Kyle was content to take a breath, savor a small victory, and tell himself there was a way out.

  JUST MINUTES AFTER the markets opened Monday, Joey was chatting with a client who wanted to dump some more oil stocks when his second desk phone rang. He routinely carried on more than one phone conversation at the same time, but when the second caller said, "Hey, Joey, it's Baxter. How are you?" Joey got rid of the client.

  "Where are you?" Joey asked. Baxter had left Pittsburgh three years earlier, after they graduated from Duquesne, and he seldom returned. When he did, though, he rounded up the old gang, those who could not avoid him, and threw some wild drunken party that killed a weekend. The longer he stayed in L. A. and pursued his acting career, the more insufferable he became when he was back home.

  "Here, in Pittsburgh," he said. "Clean and sober for 160 days now. "

  "That's great, Baxter. Wonderful. I knew you were in rehab. "

  "Yes, Uncle Wally again. God bless him. You got time for a quick lunch? I need to talk to you about something. "

  They had never had lunch, not since college. Lunch was too civilized for Baxter. When he met friends, it was always at a bar with a long night ahead of them.

  "Sure. What's up?"

  "Nothing much. Just want to say hello. Grab a sandwich and meet me down at Point State Park. I'd like to sit outdoors and watch the boats. "

  "Sure, Baxter. " Since it was all so obviously planned, Joey was becoming suspicious.

  "Noon okay?"

  "See you then. "

  At noon, Baxter showed up with nothing to eat, nothing but a bottle of water. He was thinner and dressed in old dungarees, a faded navy sweater, and a pair of black combat boots, all selected from the secondhand shop above Brother Manny's shelter for the homeless. Long gone were the designer jeans, Armani jackets, and crocodile loafers. The old Baxter was history.

  They embraced and swapped insults, and found an empty bench near the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers merge. A large fountain spewed water behind them.

  "You're not eating," Joey said.

  "Not hungry. Go ahead. "

  Joey set aside his deli sandwich and studied the combat boots.

  "You seen Kyle?" Baxter asked, and they spent a few minutes catching up about Kyle, Alan Strock, and a few of the other fraternity brothers. When Baxter spoke, he did so softly and slowly and he gazed across the rivers, as if his tongue were working but his mind were engaged elsewhere. When Joey spoke, Baxter listened but did not really hear.

  "You seem detached," Joey said, blunt as ever.

  "It's just weird being back, you know. Plus, it's so different now that I'm sober. I'm an alcoholic, Joey, a full-blown raging alcoholic, and now that I've stopped drinking and all of that poison is out of my system, I look at things differently. I'm never going to drink again, Joey. "

  "If you say so. "

  "I'm no longer the Baxter Tate you once knew. "

  "Good for you, but the old Baxter wasn't such a bad guy. "

  "The old Baxter was a selfish, pompous, egotistical, drunken pig, and you know it. "

  "True. "

  "He would've been dead in five years. "

  An old barge inched along the river, and they watched it for a few minutes. Joey slowly unwrapped his turkey on rye and began eating.

  "I'm working my way through recovery," Baxter announced quietly. "Are you familiar with the process in Alcoholics Anonymous?"

  "Sort of. I had an uncle who sobered up a few years ago and is still active in AA. It's a great program. "

  "My counselor and pastor is an ex-con known affectionately as Brother Manny. He found me in a bar in a Reno casino six hours after I left the rehab clinic. "

  "Now that's the old Baxter. "

  "Indeed. He's led me through the Twelve Steps recovery process. Under his direction, I've made a list of all the people I harmed along the way. Talk about frightening. I had to sit at a table and think of all the people I've hurt because I was drunk. "

  "And I'm on the list?"

  "No, you didn't make it. Sorry. "

  "Darn. "

  "It's mainly family members. They're on my list, and I'd probably be on their lists if they ever got serious about life. Now th
at I've made the list, the next step is to make amends. That's even more frightening. Brother Manny beat his first wife before he went to prison.

  She divorced him, and years later when he sobered up, he tracked her down to say he was sorry. She had a scar above her lip, thanks to him, and when she finally agreed to meet with him, he begged for forgiveness. She kept pointing to the scar. She was crying, he was crying, sounds horrible, doesn't it?"

  "It does. "

  "I assaulted a girl one time. She's on my list. "

  The turkey on rye froze halfway down the esophagus. Joey kept chewing, but the food wasn't moving. "You don't say. "

  "Elaine Keenan, remember her? She claimed we raped her at a party in our apartment. "

  "How could I forget?"

  "Do you ever think about her, Joey? She went to the police. Scared the hell out of us. We almost hired lawyers. I tried my best to forget about it, and I almost did. But now that I'm sober and my mind is clear, I'm remembering things better. We took advantage of that girl, Joey. "

  Joey placed the sandwich aside. "Maybe your memory is not as sharp as you think. What I remember is a wild girl who loved to party, loved to drink and snort coke, but what she loved the most was random sex. We did not take advantage of anyone. At least I did not. If you want to revise history, then go ahead, but don't include me. "

  "She passed out. I went first, and while I was doing it, I realized she'd blacked out. Then I remember you walked up to the sofa and you said something like 'Is she awake?' Do you remember any of this, Joey?"

  "No. " Portions of it were familiar, but Joey wasn't sure anymore. He'd worked so hard to forget the episode, then he'd been shocked back to reality when Kyle described the video.

  "She claimed she was raped. Maybe she was right. "

  "No way, Baxter. Allow me to refresh your memory. You and I had sex with her the night before. Evidently she liked it, because on the night in question we bumped into her again and she said, "Let's go. " She consented before we got back to our apartment. "

  Another long pause as each tried to anticipate what was next.

  "You thinking about having a little chat with Elaine?" Joey asked.

  "Maybe. I need to do something, Joey. I don't feel right about what happened. "

  "Come on, Baxter, we were all drunk out of our minds. The whole night was a blur. "

  "Oh, the wonders of alcohol. We do things we don't remember. We hurt others because of our selfishness. And when we finally sober up, we are compelled to at least apologize. "

  "Apologize? Let me tell you a quick story, Brother Baxter. I bumped into Elaine a few weeks ago. She lives in Scranton. I was passing through on business, saw her in a deli during lunch. I tried to be civil, she freaked out on me, called me a rapist. I suggested we get together a few hours later for a polite cup of coffee. She showed up with her lawyer, a real tough broad who thinks all men are scum. So let's say you go over to Scranton, find her, and tell her you're sorry because there's a good chance she was telling the truth after all, and you want to feel better about yourself because now you're sober and you have this desire to be a good little alcoholic. Know what'll happen, Baxter? Indictments, arrests, trials, lawsuits, prison - all of the above. And not just for you, Brother Baxter, but for some of your friends as well. "

  A brief gap as Joey caught his breath. He had Baxter on the ropes, time to finish him off. "Her lawyer explained that the statute of limitations on rape is twelve years in Pennsylvania, so time has not expired. We got a long way to go. You get near her with some half-baked, feel-good apology and you'll find out what rape is all about when they lock you away. "

  Joey jumped to his feet, walked across the boardwalk, and spat at the rivers. He returned to the bench but didn't sit down. Baxter hadn't moved, but he was shaking his head.

  "She wanted the sex, Baxter, and we were happy to accommodate her. You're blowing this way out of proportion. "

  "I've got to talk to her. "

  "Hell no! You're not going near her until the four of us - me, you, Kyle, and Alan - have a long discussion. That'll be ugly, won't it?"

  "I need to talk to Kyle. He has more sense than the rest of us. "

  "Yes, he does, but he has a crushing workload. Tremendous stress. " Joey tried to imagine such a meeting between the two. Kyle, thinking about the video, while Baxter and his amazing new memory confirm the details. It would be a disaster.

  "I'll go to New York," Baxter said.

  "Don't do it. "

  "Why not? I'd like to see Kyle. "

  "Okay, but if you talk to Kyle, then talk to Alan, too. Everybody talks for a good long time before you go blundering into Scranton and screw up our lives. I'm telling you, Baxter, this girl is out for blood and her lawyer has a nose for it. "

  Another long gap in the conversation. Joey finally sat down and thumped his pal on the knee. Just a couple of old frat brothers who still cared for each other. "You can't do this, Baxter," Joey said with as much conviction as he could muster. At the moment, he was thinking about his own skin. How would he tell Blair, who was now five months pregnant? "Hey, babes, just got a phone call. Seems they want me downtown, something about a rape charge. Could be serious. Might not be home for dinner. Someone said reporters are waiting. Catch it on Channel 4. Later. Hugs and kisses. "

  "I'm not sure about what happened, Joey," Baxter said, softly and slowly as ever. "But I know what I did was wrong. "

  "My uncle, the alcoholic, when he went through AA, he made a list, too. He had stolen a rifle from my father, and he saved his money until he could buy another one. Brought it to the house one night, big surprise, big scene. But if I remember correctly, you, as the alcoholic working your way through the Twelve Steps process, cannot make amends if doing so will harm others. Isn't that right?"

  "That's correct. "

  "Then there's your answer. If you approach her and beg forgiveness, she and her lawyer will go nuts and drag in me and probably Kyle and Alan as well. You can't do it, because it will harm us. "

  "If you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. I'm confronting what I did, and what I did was wrong. "

  "This is crazy, Baxter. Look, you're clean and sober and full of the gospel, good for you. I'm very proud of you. The future looks great, yet you're willing to throw it all away and risk twenty years in prison. Come on! This is madness. "

  "Then what should I do?"

  "Get your ass back to Reno or somewhere far away and forget about this. Go live a great life out there. Just leave us alone. "

  Two policemen walked by, laughing, and Joey stared at the handcuffs on their belts.

  "You can't do this, Baxter," he said. "Give it some time. Pray about it. Talk to your minister. "

  "I have already. "

  "And what did he say?"

  "He said to be cautious. "

  "Smart guy. Look, you're in a state of transition right now. Everything is unsettled. You're out of L. A. , you're clean and sober. All good stuff. Again, I'm proud of you. But it's a mistake to rush off and do something foolish. "

  "Let's walk," Baxter said and slowly rose to his feet. They strolled along the river, saying little, watching the boats.

  "I really want to see Kyle," Baxter finally said.