by Chris Knopf
“Yeah you did. How much did you pay for Violeta?”
He took a moment to answer.
“I never touched that woman.”
“You think Rosie will believe that?”
“You bastard,” he said.
“Might be, but you know what they say about glass houses.”
He rose like a shot out of his seat, paced a few steps away, then came back and sat down.
“What’s your game here, Acquillo?”
“Saving my friend Burton Lewis from you. You went upstairs when Darby and he were arguing, but when you got there, Burton had left. Darby was all in a lather, still hopped up after the altercation. He starting taking it out on you, throwing around threats and accusations, revealing your secrets, that just like Darby, you’d bought and paid for a companion, only to chicken out on consummating the relationship. That you were neck deep in the whole squalid operation. Rosie was coming up behind you. You were afraid she’d hear what he was saying. You got pissed, and frightened, and you panicked. You pulled him into the bedroom, hoping she wouldn’t hear, but he kept at it. You shoved him to make him stop, a bit too hard. He stumbled backward and went through the window. Rosie either saw you do it, or came in the room right after. It was Rosie’s idea to pin it on Burton, an act decided when she said in front of Violetta, ‘Burton, what have you done?’”
Joshua started to shiver, as if the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped to zero.
“You can’t prove any of this,” he said.
“Jackie Swaitkowski has Violeta squirreled away, waiting for me to call her so she can go over to the Village police HQ to give her statement. She’ll tell them that you brought her to the States under false pretenses, that you held her virtually captive for four years by threatening the life of her mother. This will be highly credible, given that the feds have a few hundred other young women testifying to the same thing. She’ll also say that you told her to lie about that night, that you went upstairs before the crash, intimidating her in the same way that kept her a prisoner in that house.”
A remarkable change came over Joshua Edelstein. His body sagged as if someone had pulled a plug and let out all the air. He hung his head, and like the blues song goes, began to cry.
“I’m a good person,” he said. “I wanted Violeta to have a nice life, but Rosie wouldn’t let me. She said I had to keep her there. Rosie didn’t know how that would expose me to all sorts of horrible trouble, but I couldn’t do anything about it.”
He took in a deep sobbing breath, and like my involuntary surge of confession to Charlotte Ensler back in La Selva Bendita, it all came gushing out.
“I wanted to help all those poor people. Loventeers does wonderful work, I don’t care what you say. It was those bastards Reynolds and Darby, those sick fucking perverted bastards, who just saw it as a way to get rich and have an endless supply of kids to exploit, and wound, and traumatize, and,” he searched for other verbs, but only came up with, “destroy.”
“So it was easy for you when the FBI approached you with some, say, persuasive encouragement.”
He recovered enough to say, “Just a little tax thing. Okay, a pretty big tax thing. It would wreck the firm. Rosie’s precious fortune could go up in smoke.”
“She didn’t know anything about the Loventeers’ side projects, or any of this other stuff,” I said, as kindly as I could manage.
He wobbled his head.
“She doesn’t know shit, but thinks she knows everything. I was never as good as her father, who left us an inheritance from this piss-ass shopping center in Upstate New York and I turned it into a global empire. And she still treats me like I’m some schmuck from the Lower East Side. She’s from, where, the Upper East Side? La-de-fuckin’-da. She blamed me for never having kids. I got tested, buddy, and you know what? Lots of great little swimmers.”
“Did she see you push Darby out the window?”
He shook his head, his face hung so low it nearly rested on his chest.
“Just after. You know what she said? ‘Don’t say anything.’ The man was dead, her own personal fuck toy, and all she could think about was keeping our hands clean. Protecting our so-called reputation. No matter that it would destroy another man’s life in the process.”
He picked up his head and said through his tears, “The woman has no shame. No heart. And I let her get away with it because I have no courage. I’m a coward, Sam. I always have been.”
“So it’s time to grow some balls. In exchange for cooperation, the FBI can let you off the hook for the Loventeers. But not this. Not when Burton’s standing there falsely accused.”
He put his face in his hands but gave a little nod.
“I know. It’s over,” he said. “I can’t live with the guilt anymore anyway. I’ve been thinking of swallowing a gun.”
I believed him.
“I’m going to have to call the police to come get you,” I said.
He looked even more horrified.
“Oh, please, Sam, no. Not here.”
“Then we take a trip over to the FBI field office. It’s a short cab ride. Take your pick.”
He was breathing heavily, his mind a stew of anger, fear, and remorse. And panic.
“I don’t have to tell them anything,” he said. “I’ll have a lawyer.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But they’ll also have this.”
I took a small digital recorder out of my pocket.
“It’s still running, so think about what you’re going to say.”
He looked over at his big office window.
“Don’t try it,” I said. “That’s tempered glass, not like the stuff at your house. You’ll just bounce off. And then I’ll knock you out and carry you down the elevator. Don’t think I’m not in the mood to do that.”
He wept a little more, which I guess was cathartic. I waited him out, then stood up and told him it was time to go. He looked up at me.
“Of all the people who worked on the house, I always liked you best, Sam,” he said. “Even more than Frank. That offended Rosie. She said you were trash. That should have told me something.”
I helped him up to his feet. I knew what it should have told him, but she’d already ruined his life, so I didn’t see the point in telling him what it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It took me a little while to figure out how to throw rubber balls with that Australian thing of Burton’s, but I finally got the hang of it, winging the thing across Burton’s backyard, about the length of a football field.
The spectacular distance only seemed to incite Eddie to greater heights of glory.
It had grown cold enough to force Burton to install the winter windows on the big patio and bring out a pair of tall, chrome-plated space heaters. It was a Sunday afternoon and none of the others felt the need to do more than sprawl on the cushioned, wrought-iron furniture and eat to excess.
Amanda and I were drinking a zesty mixture of seltzer and cranberry juice, since she’d pointed out that we were both boozing way too much, and that any future fun depended on avoiding cirrhosis of the liver. I admitted that the tense times had been taking their toll, so went along, and almost felt better as a consequence.
Burton and Joe Sullivan had abandoned the football game when it became apparent that the Giants were going down in ignominy. Harry Goodlander, a devoted supporter of the Eagles, found the situation satisfactory.
“Where are the Eagles from again?” asked Jackie.
“Philadelphia, darling,” said Harry. “You need to improve your sports literacy.”
“Maybe I could get a book.”
The week before, we’d received word from the Suffolk County DA that Joshua and Rosie Edelstein were close to plea agreements on the Darby killing, and cover-up, and Joshua had been neatly folded into the ongoing federal prosecution of the Worldwide Loventeers, now outed as their star witness. The organization itself had been consigned to the stewardship of dignitaries from New York and
the UK, led by a former MP whose wealth and dedication to philanthropy promised to preserve their legitimate good works, despite all the scandals, for the foreseeable future.
Milton Flowers, absolved of any knowledge of, or responsibility for, the slave trade, had been wooed out of retirement to serve as executive director. In recognition, I sent him a bottle of sacramental wine.
They changed Carolyn Harris’s cause of death from suicide to homicide and left the case open, though no one thought it would be resolved any time soon. Eulah thanked me when I told her over the phone, saying, “I’ll write her with the news.”
Jackie’s semi-obsessive study of Bellingham’s files had unearthed Johnnie Mercado’s history, ten years at a Loventeers’ campus in Uruguay, sponsored as a refugee when he was eighteen, by Elton Darby.
Violeta Zaragoza joined a cleaning crew in town, earning enough money to bring her mother up from Puerto Rico. I knew that because the service cleaned Burton’s house, giving him the opportunity to assure her beyond all doubt that he would have behaved the same as she if their situations had been reversed. That she, like him, was the victim, not the perpetrator.
His general manner mostly returned to its prior state, though he said he took a lesson away from the whole episode.
“In a way, I’m partially to blame,” he said.
I tried to protest, but he interrupted me.
“I set myself up for happenstance to inflict the harm. I’d isolated myself, always fearful that getting close to someone would eventually bring me sorrow. Instead of warding off evil, I actually attracted it.”
“You gotta find somebody to love.”
“A thing devoutly to be wished.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Very indebted to Sonia Ortega, who helped with my Spanish, and put me in touch with her family in Puerto Rico—Edith and Junior Velilla, and Alicia Nieves, who provided invaluable guidance and information. Other folks in Puerto Rico who shared their time and experiences include Nahiomy Rodrigues, Scarlett Alguera, and Aida Bauza. They lived through it all. Gracias a todos ustedes.
Al Hershner gave me the rundown on buying a car in Puerto Rico, and rode me around in his white Wrangler on Vieques. As a bonus, his wife, Paige Goettle, checked out my French.
Jim Walter helped me with Jewish social dynamics and insults, a fine art. The Right Reverend Jep Striet, retired, helped with the Episcopalian priest, whom he apparently resembles, though that must have been a coincidence.
Birmingham lad Andrew Wood told me how a football player would kick a person’s head if it was a soccer ball.
Jill Varick Fletcher, with roots in New Britain, CT, provided the Polish cuisine, and as with my other sixteen books, did the first edit. Barbara Anderson also pitched in on initial editing, and copy editing, as part of the gallant Permanent Press crew of Susan Ahlquist, Lon Kirschner, and Nick Collins. Final edit by Judy Shepard, who with co-publisher Marty Shepard, continues to stand by me.
My wife, Mary Farrell, also continues to endure all this, a kindness undermined by our dogs, Jack and Charlie, who’d much prefer I just toss the ball.