by Scott Turow
In the hallway, the company parted. Sennett, outside the judge’s presence, abandoned the semblance of a pleasant demeanor and walked off with a stiff look and no comment. Klonsky tarried only long enough to tell Marta that she would wait to hear from her. Once more, she said nothing to Stern. As the elevator descended, Stern felt the weight of his troubles. Marta, on the other hand, was exuberant.
“What a gas!” she cried on the way from the courthouse. The judge was right; she had done very well. Stern complimented her at length. “Can I come back if we don’t work this out?” Her plans were to return to New York tonight.
“You are my lawyer,” answered Stern. “I cannot proceed without you.”
But he intended to allow no repetition of this scene, exciting as it may have been. He had phoned Dixon’s office before they left for the courthouse, and Elise, his secretary, had promised that Stern would be his first call. It was time to play Dixon the music, the short, sad song. This party was over. Stern kissed Marta in the courthouse square and sent her toward home, where she and Kate were to go through the last of Clara’s things. He returned to the office, his mind, with customary dolefulness, on his brother-in-law.
36
BY FIVE O’CLOCK he had still not heard from Dixon. He had talked to Elise twice in the interval, and on the last occasion, near 3 p.m., she had said that Dixon had a critical problem in New York on the Consumer Price Index future and was flying out again tonight.
“Tell him if he leaves town without making time to see me I shall resign as his lawyer.”
Elise, accustomed to trivial banter from Stern, paused, waiting for the punch line, then took the message without comment. Stern called Dixon’s home next, but reached only Silvia. They spoke for almost half an hour about the islands, Helen, Marta’s arrival. Eventually, Stern asked if Silvia knew where her husband might be. He was due home shortly to pack, she said, and Stern made her promise that Dixon would call.
Late in the day, Stern sat by the telephone, reviewing the FBI reports on Remo Cavarelli’s case, which Moses Appleton had provided at last. As Stern expected, the agents’ memoranda reflected little hard evidence against Remo. His three cohorts were, as they said, dead bang—caught in the truck with their hands on the beef sides—and each had pled guilty weeks ago. But they were all tough professionals, old school, and would keep their mouths shut. The only proof against Remo was his dim-witted arrival—the agents stated that he literally had walked up to the truck and looked in at the arrest taking place—and the remark by one of the thieves that “our guy made arrangements.” The government would claim this referred to Remo, who supposedly was going to dispose of the loot, a role which would account for his late appearance on the scene. So far as Stern could tell, the government had no real basis for their suspicions. Assuming that the prosecutors found no proper excuse to bring out Remo’s long criminal record in front of the jury, he stood a reasonable chance of acquittal. The case should be tried. Stern, who had not been to trial in almost four months, since the weeks before Clara’s death, welcomed the prospect. The only problem was convincing Remo.
The phone rang. “Stern here.”
“Daddy.” It was Marta. She and Kate had finished for the day. They were leaving shortly for the airport and wondered if Stern wanted to meet them for dinner before her flight. They hoped to reach Peter, too. Eager to see Kate in particular, Stern agreed. He went down the hall to determine if Sondra could assist on Remo’s trial, and to solicit a second opinion from her on the strength of the government’s case.
When Stern returned to his office, Dixon was sitting on the cream-toned sofa. Wearing a double-breasted blazer and yellow socks, he had his feet up and was smoking a cigarette. He was brown and wholly at ease; the top of his forehead was peeling. Amazed by his entry, Stern only then noticed the leather key case thrown down on the sofa beside him. He’d forgotten having given Dixon a key.
“Silvia says you broke up with your girlfriend. I thought you had better judgment than that, Stern. She’s an interesting gal.”
Stern had heard similar criticisms often this week, but he did not care to discuss the matter, especially with Dixon, who only meant to divert him.
“Dixon, have I mentioned before that you are my most difficult client?”
“Yes.” He flicked his ashes. The crystal tray was on the sofa beside him. “What’s up?”
“Many matters.”
Dixon turned his wrist. “I’ve got ten minutes. The car’s downstairs. I have a meeting at LaGuardia at 9 p.m. I spend two years working on this thing and it goes to shit in a week. Honest to God,” he said.
Stern considered his brother-in-law with a stark humorless look and sat down behind his desk.
“You are going to prison, Dixon.”
“No, I’m not. That’s why I hired you.”
“I cannot remake the facts. I have no comprehension of your motives. But I understand the proof. It is time we consider the alternatives.”
Dixon caught on at once.
“You want me to plead guilty?” He stubbed out his cigarette, eyeing Stern as he did it—there was a yellow cast to his eyes, a hulking feral power. He felt, evidently, he was under attack. “You think I’m guilty?”
This, of course, was one further element of their unspoken compact. Dixon spared Stern the facts; Stern withheld his judgments. He was surprised to find himself even now so reluctant to express himself, but there was no avoiding it.
“Yes,” said Stern.
Dixon ran his tongue around inside his mouth.
“Dixon, this matter is taking on hopeless proportions. John has been granted immunity and will testify before the grand jury next week.”
Even Dixon was brought up short by that news.
“And he’s saying what?”
“That he followed your instructions—each improper order in Kindle came from you. He was a witless sheep led astray. I am sure you can imagine his testimony.”
“Did John tell you this?”
“Dixon, as you know, I may not communicate with John about this matter.”
“Where do you get this from? His lawyer? What’s his name, Toomey? I thought you said he was a snake. Maybe he’s bullshitting you to help out his old compadres.”
“About the testimony of my own son-in-law? I would think not. No, Tooley has done what he must in this case. He has persuaded John to follow his own interests. He is a young man. He has a pregnant wife. No one, Dixon, would tell him to turn his back on immunity. No one,” Stern repeated.
“I won’t believe it until I hear it from John.” Dixon lifted his chin and dragged on his cigarette. “I could have had a million reasons for placing those orders.”
Stern knew that if he asked for one or two Dixon would remain silent for some time.
“Besides,” said Dixon, “you’ve been telling me they have to show I made money through this thing. You said that the profits got shifted into that account—what’s its name?”
“Wunderkind.”
“They can’t find the records,” said Dixon.
“I believe they have located them,” said Stern.
Dixon abruptly came to his feet. He hitched his trousers and walked behind Stern’s desk to check on the safe, on which Stern out of habit had rested a foot.
“No, they didn’t,” said Dixon. He wagged his head and displayed a broad wiseass smile.
Stern groped on his desk until he found the subpoena. Dixon took some time reading it. When he was done, he was considerably sobered.
“How’d they find out where it was?”
“They have their own story, but I tend to suspect it was by the same means they have found out everything else: their informant. Perhaps you were careless in discussing this.”
“The only person around who even knew it was moved was Margy, because she cut the check to the cartage guys. I told you that before.”
Had he? If so, Stern had forgotten. The detail had not seemed significant then. Dixon was reexamining th
e subpoena.
“This thing was due today,” he said.
Stern described the hearing.
“You’re not going to let them get it, are you?”
“I shall follow any instruction you give me, Dixon, assuming Marta and I agree it is within the law.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I can assert the attorney-client privilege.”
“And?”
“I doubt I shall have to testify about our conversations.”
“What about the safe?”
“That is a complex legal question, Dixon.”
“But?”
“When all is said and done, Dixon, I suspect we shall have to produce it.”
Dixon whistled. He lit another cigarette.
“Look, Stern, you told me, when I sent it here, those bastards wouldn’t be able to get it.”
“I told you Dixon, that your personal papers would be more secure.”
“Fine,” said Dixon. “It’s personal. It’s all personal shit in there.”
Stern shook his head.
“If I say it’s personal,” said Dixon, “where the hell do you get off saying it’s not?”
“No,” said Stern. He would not pretend he had never practiced law that way, but he had allowed himself the luxury of a clear conscience for many years and he was not about to become Dixon’s winking collaborator. “There is no stretch of the imagination, Dixon, under which internal company documents pertaining to the Wunderkind account do not belong to the corporation. They should have been produced by Margy last week.”
“Oh, for cry sake,” said Dixon. He stood up and threw off his gold-buttoned blazer. He was wearing a shirt of dark vertical stripes, wide open at the throat, with the white hairs of his chest well displayed; his arms were thick, and dark from the sun. “Get the fuck out of my way.” Dixon strode around Stern’s desk, bent at the knees, and lifted the safe several inches into the air. Then he began to walk with it.
“Dixon, this subpoena is directed to me, not to you, and I must comply with it. You may not remove the safe from these premises.”
With the safe slung between his knees, Dixon started toward the door, lumbering like an ape.
“Dixon, you are placing me in an impossible position.”
“Ditto,” he said.
“Marta is extremely clever, Dixon. Much more so than I. There are motions to file. With an appeal, we may keep the government at bay for months. I promise you we shall resist by every lawful means.”
“You’ll lose.” He had little breath, but he continued swinging along. “You’ve already told me you don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“Dixon, for God’s sake. This is madness. You are assuming,” said Stern, “that the government has no other way to prove you controlled that account.”
Dixon, past the desk, eased the safe to the floor and turned back.
“What other way would they have to prove that?”
“There must be other means,” Stern offered lamely. For an instant he’d had a thought of mentioning the check Dixon had written to cover the deficit balance in the Wunderkind account. But that impulse was past. On a giddy night in the woods, he had made an irrevocable promise. Whatever may have occurred since, he surely would not go back on his word. At best, he could be indirect. “Certainly, Dixon, the account application cannot be the only means to determine who was responsible for the account. Perhaps John knows.”
Dixon peered at Stern in determined silence. At length, he shook his head with painstaking slowness, a gesture of absolute refusal.
“No dice,” said Dixon. He bent at the knees again and took hold of both sides of the safe.
“Dixon, if I appear without the safe or an explanation for its disappearance, Judge Winchell, I promise you, will remand me to the custody of the marshal.”
“Oh, they won’t put you in jail. They all think you walk on water.”
“Dixon, I insist.”
“Me, too.”
“I must withdraw, then, as your lawyer.”
Dixon took a moment with that.
“So withdraw,” he said at last. He adjusted his shoulders and, with a practiced groan, hoisted the safe again.
“Dixon, you are committing a federal offense right before my eyes. And one in which I am implicated. You are forcing me to notify the government.”
Dixon, near the door, glanced back over his shoulder with a sullen, challenging darkness.
“Dixon, I mean it.” Stern reached for the phone and dialed the U.S. Attorney’s Office. At this hour, they were unlikely to answer. “Sonia Klonsky,” said Stern into the instrument, while in the earpiece he continued to hear the ring.
By the door, Dixon dropped the safe; he was red-faced, heaving for breath. As Stern replaced the phone, Dixon waved a hand disgustedly. He took a step out, then came back to the sofa and stuffed his cigarettes and his keys into a pocket of his sport coat. He shook a finger at Stern, but he did not yet have enough breath to speak, and left without another word.
37
STERN HAD AGREED TO MEET his children at the Bygone, one of those clever chain restaurants plunked down by their corporate parents at commercially availing spots in every major city in America. The one in Dallas looked just like the one in the tri-cities—the same old cast-iron lampposts, bell jars for bar glasses, and little girls’ trading cards with pictures of kittens cutely cemented under the urethane tabletops. The restaurant stood on a bluff overlooking the network of highways near the Greater Kindle County Airfield. Stuck in traffic, Stern could see it miles away.
The airport now was what the river had been to Kindle County a century ago, a point of confluence for the vast urges of commerce. Great office buildings—rhomboid shapes of shining glass—had risen in what were hayfields only fifteen years before; enormous warehouses with corrugated doors and various chain hotels constructed of preformed concrete stood at the roadside, and the highway was heavily posted with signs for other projects that would be under development to the end of the century. The traffic at all hours was thick. Stern, stalled intermittently, snapped off the radio in the Cadillac so he could give vent to various thoughts about Dixon.
Perhaps, Stern thought, tracing the trouble back to its roots, if Silvia had felt more secure in the aftermath of their mother’s death, she would have found Dixon less compelling. Stern had done his best, planned carefully for both of them. He sold some of his mother’s furniture and two rings to raise capital, and by the following fall, Easton University, the pastoral haven of privileged education in the Middle West, became the refuge of the orphaned Sterns. Silvia, a gifted student, ahead of herself in school like her brother, enrolled in the college on a full scholarship; he attended law school on the G.I. Bill. Stern for the sake of economy, and continuity, lived in their mother’s apartment in DuSable, riding the train down each morning, while Silvia was soon invited to join a sorority.
For financial support, Stern resumed the punchboard route he had driven throughout college. The punchboards were minor attractions utilized by small-town merchants; for a dime a chance, customers poked tiny paper rolls out of the board and read a joke or, far less often, word they had won a washer or a TV. On Friday mornings, Stern loaded new boards and the prizes won a week before into the aging truck his boss Milkie provided him, and rambled in fourth gear along the prairie highways, visiting the small-town stores to make his deliveries and split the fees. By the time he returned to the tri-cities late Sunday, Silvia had taken the train up and was in their mother’s apartment preparing dinner. These were rewarding, expansive moments, coming off the road with the dust of several states on his suit, and he looked forward to his sister’s company, their hours as a family of two.
One Sunday night he turned the key and found Silvia seated at the dining-room table with Dixon Hartnell, who was still in uniform. Passing through the city on leave, he had searched out Stern’s address and Silvia had let him in. She claimed to have remembered Dixon’s name, but there was n
o way to be sure. Silvia was smitten with all of Stern’s law school friends, and from the first moment you could see that these two young, good-looking people were intent on each other.
Stern was horrified to find Dixon, long consigned to the past, beside his precious sister. Dixon still had the flossy gleam of a cheap suit, and having been shot at in Korea, having served as the commander of other men, he was if anything more brash. Stern treated him correctly, and sent him on his way after dinner, fairly certain they would not see him again.
Dixon’s correspondence with Silvia began properly enough with a note thanking his hostess for dinner. It never occurred to Stern to suggest she not answer. Eight months later, when Dixon appeared again, mustered out and enrolled at the U., it had become a romance. Stern had never been Silvia’s disciplinarian and he was at a loss as to how to put an end to this disastrous relationship, though he bristled with disapproval whenever the two were together in his presence and barely spoke to Dixon. Finally in Silvia’s junior year, a crisis erupted. Stern forbade her to transfer to the U. to be with Dixon. She accepted this edict with typical silent distress, but three months later they announced marriage plans. Silvia and Dixon countered every irate objection Stern raised: Dixon would convert to Judaism; Silvia would not have to leave college; Dixon, indifferent to school anyway, would drop out and take a job with a brokerage house. Stern, long-suffering, denounced Dixon at length: a huckster; a fake; an illusion. They remained resolute. One Sunday night, Dixon appeared at dinner and begged Stern to attend the wedding: he would both give away the bride and be the best man. ‘We can’t do this without you,’ Dixon said. ‘We’re the only family each of us has got.’