by Scott Turow
“The marshal was here?”
“Wednesday. ‘The US Marshal,’” says Olga. “All the time, I thought that was just in Westerns.”
“They are the federal judges’ right hands. The marshals pursue bail jumpers and other fugitives.”
“Interesting.”
“And why was it that they came to speak to you?”
“Apparently he’d bought an airplane ticket for me.”
“Ah,” says Stern. “So Kiril expected you to go with him?”
Olga just makes a face. “He called when he was on the way to the airport and told me what a great life we’d have down there. I wouldn’t even discuss it with him.”
“Was he crushed?”
“He was surprised, I guess,” she says. “But what was he thinking? I have three kids.” She points to the photos on her bookshelves. “The fourteen-year-old just started high school. Okay, I need to leave PT now, but emigrating? Come on.”
“But you were hoping to marry him, I thought?”
“Did Kiril tell you that?”
“As you know, I cannot reveal what Kiril told me. But I am certain you and Kiril were seeing each other again. And that leaving Donatella had long been your condition for the relationship.”
“Well, then you don’t need to know anything from me.”
Stern is still trying to make sense of this. After another second of staring at one another, Olga relents a bit.
“Sandy, maybe three weeks ago, he calls me and says, ‘Mi amor, I can’t stand it any longer. I must see you. As soon as the trial is over, I will marry you. I swear.’”
He wonders if he should believe this, that the renewal of her relationship with Kiril is recent. It’s hard at this stage to discern any reason for Olga to lie.
“And the wife he has?”
“Their marriage isn’t legal. Not according to Kiril. He’s always said that when he married Donatella, she wasn’t actually divorced. It was years before the decree went through in Argentina. After that, she and Kiril never had a second ceremony. He says he spoke to a lawyer.” Olga shrugs. It’s not much to her now. “He didn’t care about giving her all the money she wants.”
“Did he tell Donatella he was leaving her?”
“That was my condition, Sandy. I wouldn’t see him again until he did it. He promised he had. He spent a few nights at the U Club, so I was pretty sure.”
Stern nods. That accounts for why Donatella stopped coming to court.
“Donatella said he was at home just before the verdict.”
“He told me he slept in his study, but he needed to look after some things there. I guess he wanted to pack and get out fast, if the jury made the wrong decision. The marshal said he bought open plane tickets for both of us three weeks ago.”
Stern takes a moment to absorb this information. Even before the verdict, Kiril had decided at the age of seventy-eight to restart his life in Argentina, with Olga as his wife. Did that mean he actually expected to be convicted? After all his happy talk?
“But, mira,” she says. “He never said I’d have to marry him in another country.” She gives her head a hard shake, as if trying to make sense of Kiril’s plan.
Now that they are discussing her prospective marriage to Kiril, Stern shares what he has surmised in his recent mullings.
“I take it you expected him to be convicted?”
“Isn’t that what you thought? For me, either way was fine. You get him off? Está nítido.” It’s cool. “I’m set. Including here.” She tapped her desk, meaning the company. “But okay, yeah, I thought he was going down. Everybody said he was slabbed on insider trading.”
Stern can’t keep himself from smiling. Here is yet another meaning to the saying that every marriage is unique. Olga’s idea of wedded bliss is to have a husband in the federal penitentiary and an inheritance of hundreds of millions when he dies.
“Don’t judge, Sandy. He’s a charming old guy. I enjoy him. And if they got him, it would still be what? Three months, four months before he was sentenced and went to jail? And I promise you, he’d have a very good time. Better than sitting at home with Donatella telling him over and over again what a fool he is. Compared to that, the joint would be a relief.”
In the last few decades, given the circles Stern travels in, he has seen dozens of these May-December relationships, trophy wives coming—and often going. In such relationships, Stern thinks, no matter how much the heart—or gonads—sing songs of love, there has to be a cold-blooded understanding on both sides that the future has been bargained against the past. He—and it is generally a male—wants to return to youth, while she (though sometimes he as well) seeks a secure old age. On both sides, they are out to cheat time. After failing at three marriages before, perhaps Olga was right to wed for more practical reasons. Centuries ago, kings and queens, indeed most of the rich, married for power and money, and no one seemed to think the worse of them.
“And what was the destination of this plane ticket he’d bought you?”
“Don’t you know?”
“My guess would be Buenos Aires. There is quite a bit of family money there he probably could never expatriate.”
“So again, you don’t need me to tell you anything.”
“Have you heard from him since he arrived?”
“One call. A few seconds. I told him not to phone again, since he would just get me in trouble.”
“He was in BA?”
“I didn’t ask. A smart person wouldn’t stay there, no? Won’t they try to get him back?”
“Extradition is a very complicated legal procedure, Olga. First, insider trading must be a crime within the scope of the extradition treaty. Then our insider trading laws and the Argentine ones must more or less match. With a seventy-eight-year-old defendant, I am not sure our government will bother with a long battle.”
“So, he did the right thing.”
“Hardly,” says Stern. “It sounds like he has damned himself to die alone.”
“He’ll find someone else. He’s very smooth. Don’t misunderstand, Sandy. I care about Kiril. Really. Okay, when I started with him, he was a means to an end. I admit it. But you know, over time?” Her lower lip turns down: not so bad. “His passion? De verdad. You want to love him back because it’s so real. But some men, you know, they need to be in love.” She shrugs in the face of the blunt realities.
Stern tells her that he really did not come to discuss her romantic life.
“Que entonces?” What then?
He prepares himself and inclines toward her, supported by the knob of his cane.
“I came to look you in the eye, Olga, and ask if it was you who ran me off the road last March.”
Overall, Stern would have guessed that Kiril would have alerted Olga to Pinky’s and his suspicions. But she draws back, doing a convincing version of surprise, and utters a remark under her breath. He understands only ‘loco.’
Stern adds, “You know I was hit by another car on the highway not far from here?”
“Por supuesto, but I thought that was an accident.”
He explains some of Pinky’s research concerning the white 2017 Malibus. “We have largely established that you had one of those vehicles that week.”
“Aiyaiyai. And because of that you suspect me? Everyone up front here kept those cars from time to time.”
“But I had just spoken with you that afternoon. Not a comfortable meeting. You may recall it. I did not leave feeling that you had fond feelings about me.”
“Recall? How could I forget? I was afraid you were going to give me a whack with that cane of yours. You didn’t seem to believe a word I was saying. It was that e-mail Kiril sent me with the screenshot you were asking about.”
“And did you tell me the truth, Olga? I have always felt you knew much more than you have said.”
“I told no lies.”
“But there was more to say, was there not?”
“In this life, Sandy, there is always more to sa
y, no?”
“Olga, you are a very capable person, but I do not think of you as a philosopher.”
Olga laughs. Whatever else, she has a sense of humor. He stares until he has worn her down again.
“Okay, Sandy, so what I didn’t tell wasn’t really important. But I was with Kiril a couple hours before that e-mail was sent.”
“Where?”
“Where do you think?” She gives him a slightly exasperated toss of her small eyes. “We had happy hour, you know? Back then, I’d meet him before five at the PT condo in Center City. Around six, I’d leave to make dinner for my kids. Usually, he was asleep. A couple hours later I got that e-mail. He hadn’t said he was going back to work, but sometimes when he came in to meet me, he took the light rail in because of traffic and went back to PT later for his car. Next morning, when I asked him about it, he was playing dumb. Se lució el chayote!” Stern is not sure he gets that one. She seems to be saying that Kiril was acting like a squash—a dumbbell. “But what I really thought?”
Stern tumbles his hand toward her, beckoning her to continue.
“I always had this idea, I’m not even sure exactly why, but I figured he’d really meant to send that e-mail to Innis. You know, sometimes you call your girlfriend by your wife’s name? That’s why he made this big deal that he had no idea what I was talking about.”
Stern ponders again. It would explain why Innis knew about the deaths, if Kiril had turned to her for help at that moment. No matter how angry Innis was, it was in her interest to solve the problem so she could get out of PT with the value of her stock options undiminished. He weighs that, then he runs Olga’s words back and realizes that apparently she takes it for granted that Kiril’s protests of innocence were phony.
“I wish you’d been frank with me, Olga. The whole case might have gone very differently if you’d shared your thought that Innis had some role in helping Kiril change the data.”
“Nuh-uh,” says Olga. “Papi—the guy I called Papi, anyway—he always said, ‘Don’t never tell nobody’s secrets.’ And what do I know anyway? Maybe I’m crazy, you know? But one thing straight, hombre. I’m the only person out here who never lied to you. Verdad.” She draws her plump chin to her chest and gives him a fiercely direct look from her black eyes. “So, yeah, I remember talking to you that day. You were pissed when I said I couldn’t read that dataset. ‘Well, then who reads numbers for you?’ But where you really jumped on me was when I said I never talked to Lep.”
As unlikely as it seems, Stern believes he can recall that moment. Stern has been told that Lep, though normally ill at ease socially, loves to play teacher, to guide others through the realms where he is master. Because of that, everyone went to Lep for assistance on research issues or numbers. Granted, Lep would not have liked Olga’s sporting with Kiril, but that was over by then (or so all had been told), and Innis said more than once that Lep was professional at work, no matter how little use he had for his father’s girlfriends. All in all, Olga’s statement that she would never talk to Lep struck Stern as odd.
“But I didn’t run you off the road, Sandy. I had a meeting with an oncology group at the Hotel Gresham. That’s how I finally got you out of my office, cause I had to boogie.” That detail is a complete blank to him. She asks for the date in March and then pecks at her keyboard and swivels her huge computer monitor around to show Stern her expense report for that day. Stern finds his glasses and leans across her desk to examine the scanned documents: A parking ticket at the Center City hotel, with the entry time within minutes of when he had been hit, and a bill for cocktails there. She even has a date-stamped photo on her phone of herself at the podium, talking to the doctors. “I got there with, like, ten seconds to spare before my speech, by the time I was done talking to you, then Lep.”
Does she flinch faintly when she hears herself?
“I thought you do not speak to Lep?” says Stern.
She waves a hand around.
“I don’t run down the hall and ask him to help with my homework. But he’s in charge of the company, Sandy. When we need to talk, we talk. In and out. No small stuff, not even weather. Just business.”
“But you say you nearly missed your speech? It must have been an important subject.”
“Whatever. Quién sabe?” Who knows? “I don’t remember. Had to be he asked to see me.”
He studies her, and Olga shakes her head without looking away. As always, he knows there is more that she will not say.
The office phone rings, and she picks up. Her next meeting is about to start. Stern reaches for his overcoat, which is on the other chair.
“And when do you expect to leave PT, Olga?”
“A month?”
It is hard to feel concerned for Olga. She will exit, undoubtedly, with a handsome package, augmented somewhat in the #MeToo era after her affair with the CEO. More important, given her record here, she is bound to be in great demand at other pharma companies. Stern says as much to her.
She shrugs. “I’ll land soft. I just hate to pull my girls out of school. You know. They’re at that age. And I would love to be here for the relaunch, when Livia comes back on the market. But Lep, you know. I can’t leave fast enough.”
She gives a little nonchalant wave but, shockingly, appears to flush. Like Innis, she has apparently developed a deep connection to the company. Stern finds himself trying to be avuncular.
“Olga, you have a brilliant future in this industry. And a brilliant record here. To be candid, I would not be surprised at all if Lep encounters some pushback from the board when he announces you are going.”
“He won’t change his mind, Sandy. By now he wishes he never knew me.” She looks askance and then focuses on the wall. For a second she seems incapable of speaking. Then, suddenly, her flush deepens, and Olga Fernandez of all people is crying. Both eyes fill up and the tears, gray from her makeup, trail down each cheek.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she says, and squeezes the back of her fist against her nose.
Stern struggles to make sense of what he is seeing. Olga weeping over a job? But then he reconsiders what she said, and the internal Geiger counter he has always depended on to register the truth begins to click and sizzle. Now he knows why she doesn’t talk to Lep.
“There was something between Lep and you at one point?”
She resolves to stare out her window toward a garden area, colorless and bare now as winter approaches, with a small pond in the center that will soon freeze over. But she is not focused on the view.
“Something,” she answers. The tears continue to spill. She has made no effort yet to wipe her face. “You know, they tell you—Papi told me—Don’t shit where you eat. But you know, Sandy. He’s really nice. Coño!” she says suddenly. Damn! “He ran over my heart with a semi, and I’m still sitting here telling you he’s a nice guy.” She laughs bitterly, followed quickly by an involuntary heave. With that she reaches into her drawer for a paper napkin, the remnant of some fast food meal, and scrapes it across her face.
“It was my fault. I admit that. That’s always been my type, you know? The quiet pretty boys. Smarter the better. He kept saying ‘No, no, no.’ But you know, he needed it. I knew he needed it. He was living in a coffin. Between Kiril and Greta? And Donatella. His life was about everybody else. And he is such a sweet guy. And he was so grateful when it happened. It was really something. A fuego.” On fire. “I fell hard, too, man. Really hard.”
“This was some time ago?”
“2014 we started. Finally I told him, New Year’s 2016, ‘Dude, you gotta leave Greta. We can’t stay on the sneak forever.’ You know, he never said he would—leave? It wasn’t like he led me on. But we were in love. Really in love. And I didn’t want to end up like Innis. But he just couldn’t do it. You know, he wanted to. I knew deep down he wanted to. So I just thought, Well, if I make it hard enough on him, he’ll come around.” She wipes her eyes again.
Stern thinks about that for a second, before he
understands.
“So that was the genesis of your relationship with Kiril? As a way to force Lep’s hand with Greta?”
She nods.
“And did Kiril ever know about Lep?”
She glances back at Stern directly for the first time, a sharp look, as if he is an idiot. Then her eyes return to the window.
“You know, Sandy. People like me? You grow up knowing you’re never gonna get what you want anyway. La piña está agria. Siempre.” The pineapple is always sour. “So you know, if you can’t have the loaf, have a slice. And being with Kiril, that at least meant Lep couldn’t fire me. I’d be damned if I’d leave before the med was on the market and all my options vested. But mostly, I thought I’d get him back. I figured he’d never be able to stand watching me with Kiril.” This time she places the palms of both hands against her eyes and drags them down her face to stop her weeping. Then she again looks at Stern, seemingly for help.
“I’ll be better off getting out of here, right? He’s never changing his mind.”
Stern does not answer. He is still trying to absorb the emotional impact of all this information.
“So the day I was in your office grilling you, Olga, on your way out you stopped to tell Lep that I had asked a lot of pointed questions about your relationship?”
She gives a weighty nod.
“Us? That’s his deep dark secret. Cause Greta, man, there’d be no ‘Sorry.’ It would be adios. And I always promised we’d be on the D and the L. Even though I knew it would be the best thing for me if Greta found out. Whatever I did, it didn’t make sense, even to me, but I was just always thinking, If I prove I’m really all-in for him, we’ll end up together.” She gives her head another solid shake. “I mean, Sandy, love is just so fucking strange. Right?”
He nods slowly as he holds her eye. It is a bit shocking how sorry he feels for her.
She picks up her cell from her desk and points it toward herself. He knows only from watching Pinky do the same thing that she is using it as a mirror.
“Wepa,” she says at the sight of herself. Congratulations. Pure irony. “I got people coming in, Sandy.”