by Ron Liebman
Belfast born and bred, he had for years been a doorman at a Park Avenue co-op and was far nicer to the children of its wealthy residents than he ever was to his own boys. He was all smiles and gentle comments during the day, while surly drunk and quick with the back of his hand at night.
Our mother tolerated him, staying that hand against his boys only when he lost all control. While she was alive, our dad took her for granted. Her cancer went undiagnosed long enough to bring on a quick death. My dad no longer works. Now he spends both days and nights in a bottle.
Sean, my brother, is the chain that keeps me tethered. He never lets me forget who I am. He’s older by three years. He always looked out for me. Let me fight my own fights as a kid, but I knew he was there for me if I needed him. And now that Sean is broken, I will—no matter what—be there for him.
Honorably discharged from the marines after three combat tours, his right leg saved by battlefield triage, disfigured but workable, otherwise not a mark on him. At least on the outside.
Had Sean’s helmet strap not held, flying shrapnel from the exploding IED would have shorn off the top of his head. But its concussive effect had him lying in the road near the smoldering wreckage of his personnel carrier, immobile, helpless.
He watched the insurgents appear from out of nowhere. Saw them stand over the other two marines who just moments ago had been in the personnel carrier with him. They, too, were still alive, but down like him.
One of the insurgents was holding a gasoline can. Sean watched him pour from it, soaking the other two marines’ fatigues, and then flick on his lighter and toss it at them. He heard their screams of agony. Sean says the smell of their burning flesh is still with him.
He continued watching as one of the insurgents noticed him. Had he been shouting at them? The guy, turbaned, but in jeans and a Gap T-shirt, calmly walked over to Sean, studied him, and then raised his weapon, aiming it point-blank at his face. The guy said something in Arabic as Sean clenched his eyes shut, waiting for oblivion.
The track of automatic-weapons fire from the rescuing helicopter tore into the insurgent before he could finish the job. The others then quickly fled.
Horrible as it was, that wasn’t the worst of it.
Days before that patrol, Sean’s commanding officer had ordered him to fire at a young girl coming toward them in the Kandahar province village they were sweeping. The officer was certain she had a suicide vest strapped inside her clothes. He’d shouted at her in English to halt, not one step further. And when the young girl kept walking, he shouted his order to Sean.
Sean fired a quick burst into her, watched as the shells lacerated her body, instantly turning her into a bloody mess.
As she lay there on the ground twitching, Sean approached and used his rifle muzzle to poke at her middle. Nothing. The girl had on nothing but the powder-blue burka typical of women in this region of Afghanistan. She looked about twelve, no older.
Sean’s officer walked away as though nothing had happened. My brother knelt by the girl until she stopped breathing. At one point, just before the officer was out of range, he raised his weapon and sighted it on him but lowered it without firing.
Sean came home and then was set adrift. He goes to the VA from time to time to meet with a military shrink. Can’t see that it’s doing him any good. He’s had a series of jobs. All menial. Hasn’t been able to hold any of them.
My brother’s girlfriend, Rosy, grew up on our block. Same Irish roots. She and Sean fell in love probably in the sixth grade. Rosy was a drunk, and worse, but she truly loved my brother. She lived in the apartment with him and Seamus.
I do date occasionally. Like lots of single people my age who have precious little opportunity to meet someone outside work, I’ve met and dated women through online matchmaker sites. Until the last woman I met, I would have said it was a waste of time.
She was the exception that proved the rule. Really smart. Good-looking. And black.
No, not black Irish. Black black.
Our third time out, I arranged a dinner for us with Sean and Rosy. I chose an upscale restaurant, a place my brother and Rosy would never go to on their own.
That could have been a mistake.
6.
I’m a meat-and-potatoes guy. Sean is, too.
So I reserved a table for four at Keens Steakhouse, one of the city’s oldest restaurants. Since it’s on Thirty-sixth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, I could easily walk there from work. (I planned to return to the office after dinner.)
Keens is dark-paneled, 1890s-looking. Definitely not a part of hip New York. But the steaks are big and juicy, the wine list long (and pricey).
So we all agreed to meet in the restaurant’s bar at 7:15 p.m. for a 7:30 reservation. I got there first. Sean hadn’t met my date yet, and I wanted to be there for the introductions. The bar was already packed. Lined up two and three deep were a bunch of mostly young white guys in suits. By the looks of them, lawyers, stockbrokers, hedge-funders all. The drinking was serious. The bar loud and tight.
I saw Sean and Rosy at the entrance, Sean on tiptoes searching for me. It was early November and cold in New York. I’d worn a topcoat that I had checked. Sean was dressed like Sean. No coat or jacket, a hoodie, loose jeans, and sneakers. I could see that Rosy had made some effort to dress up. She had on jeans, too, but with a nicer top than she usually wore; her navy-surplus pea coat was carefully folded over her arm.
I signaled them from where I was standing at the far end of the bar. The guys standing next to me turned their heads. I noticed but paid it no mind. I watched as Sean guided Rosy through the crowd. When they got to me, Rosy first, she held out her arms for the double-cheeked kiss I always got from her. Sean must have knocked into one of those guys standing next to me. I heard him apologize. I saw the guy look Sean up and down, then turn his back on him. I couldn’t see if Sean had noticed that.
“Hey,” Sean said as we bear-hugged.
In appearance my brother and I were two sides of the same coin. Clearly related, with the same dark eyes and curly hair, the same-shaped face. I was far from manicured in appearance, but I did look the part for what I had become. Unfortunately, so did Sean. Rough hands, chewed fingernails, too many tattoos. His beaming Irish smile showing a missing tooth.
I watched Rosy look around, obviously pleased to be here. She was already drunk. Or stoned. I could see it. Her eyes were glassy, and she wasn’t all that steady.
Rosy had once been attractive. Pretty face, good figure, but the wear and tear of her life had left its mark. Now she was dumpy, anemic-looking, also heavily tattooed. Her hair was cut boyishly short, dyed a severe black, while premature gray roots peeked out from her center part. But Rosy was still as pleasant and sweet as could be.
I got the bartender’s attention and motioned for two more of what I was having. (I was drinking Heineken draft.) He quickly drew them and placed the pint glasses on the bar in front of me. I gave one each to Sean and Rosy.
“Cheers,” Sean said, raising his glass in salute.
Just then the guy Sean had bumped into took a step backward, guffawing at something one of his compadres had said, and went right into Sean’s glass, spilling beer down the front of his sweatshirt. The guy had to have noticed what he’d done, but he kept his back to Sean. Sean looked at himself, brushed excess beer from the front of his hoodie, and left it at that.
I was about to say something to this guy, but Sean signaled no to me.
“Hi.”
And there was my date, standing in front of us.
After introductions we made our way into the restaurant proper and our table.
So we’re eating, first-course salads and a shared plate of raw oysters gone. Main-course steaks for three of us. A vegetable plate for my date.
Note to self: Ask your dates if they eat meat before making restaurant reservations.
Okay, so who is this person?
Her name is Diane Robichaud. She was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Came to New York for college (Hunter) and stayed for law school (NYU). Must be something in my online profile that attracts women lawyers—this is my third so far.
She’s tall, an inch or two over me, kind of lanky, and beautiful. Nut-brown skin and green eyes. A legacy, was the way she put it, from the plantation slave master’s taking a fancy to one of her ancestors. And she’s funny.
Her dad was career army, so Sean liked that. Diane worked in lower Manhattan as an assistant district attorney in the local criminal court, though she lives in Queens. Her city-government salary was not nearly enough for a decent apartment in Manhattan, or for that matter in the newly chic sections of Brooklyn that so many young (and well-paid) professionals have colonized.
We were having a nice time. I had ordered a good Napa cabernet. (Sean and Rosy stayed with beer.) The waiter was topping up Diane’s glass. The same guys who’d stood next to us at the bar had taken the table directly across from us, against the wall. When they were being seated, I noticed one nudge the other, lifting his chin: Take a look at them.
Meaning, of course, us.
And I guess we did stand out a little. Two badly dressed white people. Clearly lower class. The nicely dressed black girl with the suited white guy. But they took their seats and settled in. Or so I thought.
We were at a round table. Rosy had her back to where these guys were seated, as I said, against the wall. They were at a rectangular table. Sean was facing them; Diane and I had side views. The time or two I casually glanced over, I could see that they were still at the hard stuff, their waiter bringing over more rounds of cocktails even though they, too, were at their steaks.
Rosy was eating, though really pecking at her food, downing beers instead. She hadn’t said much but was enjoying herself, and I especially liked the way she was with Diane, evidently impressed by this woman lawyer.
And then.
One of the guys from the other table got up and came over to us. Bending just slightly, some faux posture of friendliness, he said, “Excuse me, folks.” Touching Rosy lightly on the shoulder.
“My friends over there,” he said, smiling, very drunk. “Well, one of them thinks he may have gone to boarding school with you. Phillips Exeter?”
Rosy turned in her seat and looked over at that table. One of those with his back to the wall, stupid grin, wiggling his fingers: Hi there.
Rosy got it. But she simply turned back in her seat to face us. She was staring at the table. Ridiculed.
“No?” The guy said to Rosy. Pushing it. “You sure?”
There was sniggering at the other table.
“Okay,” the guy said. “Our mistake. Enjoy your dinner.” And returned to his own table. Retook his seat. His back to us.
More laughter, then I saw Mr. Finger Wiggler take out his wallet and pass some bills to the guy who had come to our table.
And that’s when Sean got up.
Rosy didn’t turn around, but Diane and I could see.
He walked over to their table. Leaned into the face of the guy who’d been at our table. I saw Sean put his hand in his jeans pocket and then start speaking in a voice too low for us to hear from where we were seated. The guy’s back was to us, so I couldn’t see his face, but I clearly saw him stiffen. The others at the table were no longer amused. Grim faces all around.
When he finished, Sean straightened up. We watched the guy get up and then walk right out of the dining room. Not so much as a glance our way. Sean came back to our table. One of the others still at their table signaled the waiter for the check. Keep in mind they, too, were in mid-meal.
The check arrived, it was quickly settled, and then the rest of them got up and left the restaurant. Filing right by us, eyes elsewhere.
Sean winked at Rosy. Letting her know. All okay now.
“What did you say to them?” Diane asked.
“Oh,” Sean said, shrugging. “They had somewhere else they had to be. I was just reminding them of that.”
“Where else?” Diane asked.
“Anywhere else,” Sean said as he sliced off a big chunk of steak and ate it. “Great place, bro,” chewing, he said to me. “Let’s come back here sometime.”
Diane and I exchanged glances. She raised her eyebrows. Nodded. Yeah, let’s. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a mistake coming here.
And what was it that my brother said to that guy?
By then we’d finished dinner and were back out on Sixth Avenue headed for the subway for them and the office for me. Diane and Rosy were a few paces ahead of us, delightedly gabbing.
“What’d you say to him?” I asked Sean when I could see we were out of earshot.
He hunched his shoulders, like it was no big deal.
“Nothing much,” he said. “Just told the motherfucker now that he’d insulted my girl, I felt honor-bound to hurt him. You know, like with the knife in my pocket, telling him maybe . . . I don’t know, I’d stab him in the balls or slice off a piece of his ear. One or the other. Needed to fuck him up ’cause of what he did. Told him that.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. Oh, yeah, I also told him if he left that very second, got his sorry ass out of there, I’d let him be. Told him his buddies needed to leave, too. But I said they needed to decide real fast, ’cause I was kind of hot right at the moment.”
“Come on,” I said. “You weren’t going to do anything. In the middle of a fucking restaurant?”
Sean looked at me. Even under the streetlights, I could see something in his eyes, something very dark that wasn’t there when we were kids. Something post-military.
“Nah,” Sean said after a while, winking at me. “I was just saying.”
I didn’t believe him.
And that frightened me.
7.
I spent the next several weeks working on the new case.
The weather got even colder. New York slides from fall to winter like a runner into a stolen base. Not there. Then there. Coats get heavier, and the knit hats and scarves come out.
My apartment was close enough to Times Square for me to walk to work. I liked that. It gave me time to think. Even in the cold.
My plan was to file the first lawsuit in New York. Get a judgment authorizing asset seizures and then use that case as precedent for other cases we’d file elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad.
I called Carl Smith. Got his secretary. Told her I would like an appointment to sit down with the big man and brief him. She said she’d pass on the message. Later that day she called back to tell me Mr. Smith had said no need for a meeting, I should just do what I needed to do.
And since our initial conference I hadn’t seen him.
Correction.
I happened to be on his floor and needed to pee. Smith was coming out of the men’s room just as I was going in. He inadvertently handed off the door to me. I stopped. Waited. Expecting something from him. How’s the case going? Making progress?
Nothing. He nodded at me.
I stood there holding the door and watched him walk down the hall. There wasn’t a crease in his tailor-made suit. Not a hair out of place. He was perfect.
I felt the pressure of being in charge of my new case. My office hours were getting even longer than usual.
I did make time for Diane. Her hours weren’t great either. A prosecutor’s life isn’t a walk in
the park. We’d have late-night dinners or earlier dinners with us both returning to our offices. I’ve stayed over at her place, and she’s done the same at mine.
It was just before Thanksgiving. I was in Queens. At Diane’s. Couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake her, so I went into the combination living room–dining area–kitchen of her tiny one-bedroom. The clock on the microwave told me it was 2:45 a.m.
Diane’s apartment was in a place called Long Island City. It’s not a city (though it once was), and it’s in the borough of Queens though technically, I think, it may actually be a part of Long Island. LIC is located right on the East River with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline, much like its richer cousin Williamsburg in Brooklyn. It once was a really rough place, run by a notorious Irish Boss Tweed sort of guy colorfully named Patrick “Battle-Axe” Gleason. Those days were long gone by the time Diane moved into one of the new high-rise buildings dotting the waterfront.
She had been an early tenant, taking an upper-floor water-view apartment before anyone wanted to live there. Since then LIC has become increasingly fashionable with the well-heeled, though non-filthy-rich, segment of New York’s ever-present upwardly mobile classes. Rents were skyrocketing. Diane was already looking to move, unable on her modest government salary to withstand the next rent hike.
So I was on the thirty-first floor, standing at the window, facing the East River, directly across from Manhattan. I was staring out at her magnificent skyline view, wearing only boxers and a Rutgers T-shirt. Diane was off in the morning to Lake Charles and her family for Thanksgiving. I wasn’t invited. I didn’t expect her to ask me, but still . . .
Would I have gone if she had? Did she not invite me because we weren’t there yet in our relationship? Or was there another reason? The other reason.
Thus far she and I had only tiptoed around race. An elephant in the room? I don’t know. What I did know was that she was beautiful, sensitive, and charming. We seemed compatible. Getting to intimate didn’t take long. And that had been good, too.