by Larry Hill
“The way he used to be?” said a different father who looked like he belonged in a freshman seminar. “I sure hope that they take his license away from him. I don’t want him killing anybody else.” The others looked at him incredulously, saying nothing.
A pathologically thin mother with her arm in a sling asked Mark what he knew about Klein as a person.
“Not much. I’ve talked to people who know people who know him and he has a pretty good reputation as a generous contributor to a bunch of charities. But they also say he’s a cheap bastard who gives lousy tips at all the best restaurants.
“I haven’t told anybody this before, but I tried to see him in the hospital. I had gone to talk to the doctors that treated Teresa and he was in the ICU at General. They wouldn’t let me in.”
Another father, bald and previously silent, asked, “What were you going to do? Turn off his ventilator or yank out his IV?”
“I really don’t know why I wanted to see him. But that’s all I wanted – to look at him. I guess that I hoped to see him suffering. I certainly wasn’t going to try to kill him although I really wanted his surgery to be unsuccessful. It wasn’t. I never went back, although I probably could have gotten in his room once he was out of the ICU. I didn’t want to talk to him or have him talk to me. Last thing I wanted was an apology from the shithead.”
“Do you want one now?” asked the dad that had made the inappropriate comment about the license.
“What good would it do? She’s dead and he’s alive.”
One of the other mothers, who had obviously had her child near the end of her prime breeding years as her hair was silver and her neck wrinkled, spoke up. “I know Ms. Klein, Jennifer, his wife. She and I were in the same book club for a while. I hate to say it, but I really like her. She’s smart and she bakes great desserts. A couple of times, she hosted the group – she does a lemon bar to die for. I never met the husband.”
That mother’s husband, younger than she and wearing a bright yellow Caterpillar cap, said, “She’s a real looker. She came over to our house once when I was home. I can’t understand why she’d go for an old man like him. Then again, maybe I can. I hear he’s loaded.”
His wife responded, “She’d been married before to another rich guy. I don’t think she needed more money. Maybe she loved him?”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
The party lasted another hour after the clown departed. Presents were opened, a piñata was obliterated, candles were extinguished, and cake was cut and smeared on the children’s faces. The families filed out to their SUVs or vans. Quiet returned to the Spencers’.
Carmen restored order from the post-party chaos. Meagan fell deeply asleep.
“Mr. Spencer, may I sit down and talk to you for a moment?” Carmen had never been so bold.
“Yes, of course.” He assumed that she was either going to seek a raise, or say that she was quitting her job. As generous as her salary and perks were, her intelligence was such that she could well have been offered something much more meaningful and lucrative than her present position. Or maybe she was getting married. She had never discussed her private life with Mark. He did not know if she even had a boy- or girlfriend.
“Sir, I am sorry to say that I overheard some of your conversation when you were with the adults.”
“That’s no problem. We had nothing to hide. I can’t ask you to cover your ears when you are serving drinks and food. Did somebody say something that bothered you?”
“No, not really. But one of the mothers did mention Jennifer Klein. I knew that your wife’s accident involved a man named Klein but I had never known that his wife was named Jennifer.”
“So, what? That’s a common enough name.”
“I know, but what I also know is that Jennifer Klein is having an affair with my brother, Ernesto. They have been, he says, lovers for years, long before she married Mr. Klein. He tells me everything about his life – I don’t think he has many other friends.”
“That’s very interesting information, Carmen. Thank you very much for letting me know. What else can you tell me? What does your brother do? Have they lived together? Have they had children?”
“No children. I don’t think they lived together. When she got divorced from her first husband, he spent lots of time at her house, but he always kept his house in the Excelsior. He’s a waiter – a waiter in an expensive restaurant in the Financial District – I don’t remember its name. I’ve never been.”
“Maybe you can get the name for me. Are you telling me that the affair between your brother and Mrs. Klein is still going on even after his surgery?”
“I don’t know sir. I don’t talk to him very often and when I do, I don’t ask anything about his women friends.”
“By that do you mean that he has affairs with more than just the one woman – not just Jennifer Klein?”
“Oh yes. He has always had lots of girlfriends. Almost all of them were gringas – not Mexicans or Salvadorians. And most of them were rich; a few married but most divorced. He never told me me that they had money, but when his good friend from Mexico was here once, he told me about it. I guess that he was getting money from them. Can’t be very much money because he lives in an ugly little house.”
“So, why do you know about Mrs. Klein especially?”
“She’s the only one he’d tell me about. I think he sees her more than the others. I don’t remember him ever telling the names of any of the other women. And, I think he’s probably in love with her, ‘cause he talks about her like she’s his number one novia.”
“Carmen, can you find out for me if your brother is still seeing Mrs. Klein?”
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t want to get him in trouble. He’d be very mad with me if he had to go to court.”
“There’s no way that he’d have to go to court. Your brother had nothing to do with Mr. Klein’s accident.”
“Yeah, you are right. I’m having dinner with Ernesto Sunday – next week, I see him. I won’t tell him about our talk today, but maybe I can find out what is going on now.”
Superior Court Judge Louis Gasparini had drawn the case of the City and County of San Francisco vs. Frederick Klein. He had not had many high notoriety cases in his twenty years on the bench and he was thrilled to see his name in the papers early on as adjudicator-to-be in the matter of a major player on the San Francisco scene charged with being responsible for the death of a young mother, a young rich mother. Although he could not possibly admit it to anyone, even his wife, he was praying that the case wouldn’t be pled out – he wanted, desperately wanted, a trial. Like so many of his brethren in the San Francisco legal community, he was a product of the local Catholic high schools and the Jesuit University of San Francisco, both for his undergraduate degree and his JD. He had a stint with the Public Defender and then a half dozen years as a criminal defense lawyer before Governor Wilson appointed him to the Municipal Court, which shortly thereafter was amalgamated into the Superior Court. Gasparini was well liked by his colleagues and attorneys who argued before him. He was fair. He much preferred the criminal calendar to the civil one but by the luck of the draw, drew none of the capital cases or high profile white collar ones. Fred Klein was his first big fish.
Irving Greenberg called Jason Klein, having decided that the eldest son of the accused was the best contact with the family when decisions had to be made. He was not particularly enamored of the brusque LA-based lawyer, but at least the communication was efficient. He didn’t have to explain the legal niceties of an issue.
“Jason, we’ve got a pissed off judge. Gasparini’s pissed at both me and the Assistant DA, that Ms. Ng. We stepped on his toes. His take is that decisions about putting off hearings, let alone trials, are up to him and not to the lawyers. He is saying that we, meaning I, should have sent him something about how your father’s condition would make it impossible for him to help in his defense. It’s not a matter of whether he can tell the difference between right and wrong.
It’s whether he’s competent to speak up intelligibly when necessary.”
“Intelligibly is not a word that pertains to my father. So, what does this mean for the case?”
“I’m just relieved that Gasparini’s mad at Ng, too. He is not going to make us do anything like go to a psychiatrist at this point. He took my word that Fred would not be competent at trial, at least for the time being. He’s put the case off for the same two months that Ng and I had talked about when she saw him. But then, if we think he’s still out to lunch, we’ll have to get a shrink to see him. That won’t be cheap.”
“Don’t worry, Irv. He’s got cash.”
Jason called his brothers as soon as he got off the phone with Greenberg, telling them of the not surprising news that their father wasn’t going to be going to trial any time soon. He asked Robert to pass the word on to Jennifer and added, “We’ve got to get together in the next couple of days. Something’s come up that may affect him, and all of us.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I’m going to be coming up tomorrow for a deposition. Let’s meet at Mel’s Diner on Geary at 6.”
Jason rolled into Mel’s at 6:20, his brothers having made it on time. He offered no apology. The twins had chosen a magenta Naugahyde booth in the rear. The best of 50’s doo-wop was available to them for a quarter a song at their seats, but they declined. Jason perused the plasticized menu and opted for chicken pot pie. Robert and Phillip both planned dinner at home and ordered only beer.
“So what is such a big deal that we need to all meet up? Aside from the time Dad was so sick and when he got married, we haven’t been together in years.” Robert and Phillip and families met at least monthly; they liked each other. The same could not be said for relations between them and their older brother.
Jason launched into a description of what he had seen the week before. “I was in the City last week preparing for the deposition that’s going to happen tomorrow morning. Two guys from the firm that we are using as our on-site lawyers in the case and I went for a drink at the Clift, the Redwood Room. We got a table in the back, near the kitchen, figuring it would be quieter as we had to come up with questions I’d be asking. It’s a great big case – probably 30 million bucks involved.” He hoped that his brothers would be stimulated to ask what the case was all about. They didn’t.
“And next to our table are two lovebirds, holding hands. The woman’s back is to me. I can’t make out anything about her except for her red hair. The guy is a good-looking Latino, got to be forty or forty-five, dressed in khakis and a sport shirt. I didn’t pay much attention to them – they started speaking so that we could occasionally hear that they were talking about investments – stocks, I’m thinking. It was funny – they stopped the hand holding right after we sat down. Maybe fifteen minutes later, I’m engrossed in some documents and they stand up. I look up and who do I see but our stepmother.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yep, Jennifer Klein in the flesh. She acted nonchalant saying she didn’t know I was in town and introduces me to her friend who had some Spanish name – I don’t remember. She said he was his stockbroker. I chatted him up, asking who he worked for. He was obviously not prepared and what does he come up with – EF Hutton. They haven’t been around for a long, long time. I pointed that out and he then brought up Morgan Stanley and City. The guy knows less about the stock market than my eleven-year- old. So, we drop the topic and they leave to pay the check and I ask her if she always holds hands with her broker. She left in a huff.”
“Unbelievable Jason,” spurted Phillip. “It never crossed my mind that our stepmother could be cheating on our father. But I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked. She’s a whole lot younger than he is and you don’t have to know calculus to work out that all of her needs weren’t supplied at home. So, what’s it mean? What do we do with this information?”
“She knows that I know. So confronting her doesn’t result in anything positive, while it could cause big problems. Last thing we could handle is her leaving him – she’s got plenty of money from the first guy and would get a load from Dad also – so the incentives to stay aren’t that strong, and they’d be worse if we made an issue of the cheating. And, bottom line – how bad is it that she’d got something on the side? Who suffers here? Not Dad, not Jennifer, for sure, not us. Why not just let sleeping dogs lie?
“Do you think we ought to tell the lawyers, Jason?” asked Robert.
“Yeah, we probably ought to tell Greenberg. No reason to tell Schofield – he’s Dad’s good friend and he’s not really involved in the criminal case. We might have to if there’s ever a trial on the civil case.”
“Civil case – that’s maybe a bigger deal than the criminal one,” said Phillip. “There’s no way that Dad, at least the way he is now, is going to go to jail. But how he is now, or any other time, isn’t going to be important in deciding whether he owes the Spencer family money – right, Jason?”
“Right. Big money. And, the woman was young and married to a rich man. A jury is likely to come down with a very large award. My guess is we’re going to see a great big settlement offer the day after we learn whether or not he goes to prison.”
BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO
“My name is Ernesto and I’ll be your server tonight. Still or sparkling?”
Beef, Ltd., the renowned steakhouse in the financial district was small, dark, and crowded. Sound proofing was excellent so the diners did not encumber one another. The tables had paper, not cloth covers. French china, English sterling silver flatware, and German steak knives attempted to justify the $50+ tab for dry aged beef.
Ernesto Contreras asked the Brooks Brothers bedecked Mark Spencer and his somewhat smart-casual brother-in-law for drink orders. Mark selected a Tuscan Brunello from the lavish list of wines; Jack requested a rum and Coke.
“So that’s Carmen’s brother. Pretty amazing that he’s our waiter, no?” offered Jack.
“Look around you. There are only three waiters in the place. The odds were fairly good that he’d be ours. I was prepared to ask to change tables if he wasn’t.
“Good looking guy, don’t you think?”
“Yes, he is. I’m not surprised. Carmen is a dazzler. Plus, his skills as a lady’s man would require that he not be a dog. From what we’ve heard about Jennifer Klein, she’d have a wide selection to choose from.”
Ernesto returned to the table with the Cuba Libre and the expensive bottle of Tuscan red. “Gentlemen, let me tell you about our specials tonight.” He told them about the Chilean sea bass and the vegetarian plate, a must in San Francisco, but almost no one ate anything but rib eye, filet, or New York strip at his restaurant. They chose meat, rare for the widower and medium well for his dinner guest. Ernesto marveled at the wisdom of their choices and suggested baked rather than french fried, plus a side of creamed spinach to share. The diners were most impressed by the service as well as the meal. The pacing was impeccable, the presentation perfect. Mark adored his rib eye. Jack waxed enthusiastically about his filet mignon, especially after he found the courage to ask for A-1 Sauce.
At no time during the unrushed but well-timed dinner did Mark bring up to Ernesto the facts surrounding his coming to the eatery. There was no mention of his being the employer of the waiter’s sister, let alone was there any hint of Mark’s knowledge of the relationship between Ernesto and Jennifer Klein. Mark ordered a cheese plate to follow the meal; Jack chose cheesecake. Both finished off the evening with a non-vintage but expensive port.
“So, bro, what was the purpose of all that?” asked Jack outside the restaurant, after Mark had paid the bill, left a tip well above the expected 20%, and asked for a take-out bag for the leftover Brunello.
“You know, Jack, I really don’t know how to answer your question. Just like I didn’t really understand why I tried to go into the ICU to see Klein when he was so sick. I had no plans and I don’t know what I’d do with the information th
at I got, either then or now. I’m no criminal – I’m not going to do anything myself, or hire a hit-man. Sure, I’d like to see Klein suffer, but you know, he’s probably suffering plenty already. As for Ernesto, I guess I am going to try to get to know the characters in the story of how my wife died. By the way, Jack, please don’t tell Carmen that we came to her brother’s restaurant.”
Mark Spencer had been conceived on a farm. He wasn’t born on one. His parents were Nebraska farmers at the time of his birth and he was delivered in a twenty-five bed hospital in Grand Island, the nearest city with an obstetrics department. Corn, soy beans, and alfalfa were the source of what little wealth the Spencers and their six children – Mark had two sisters and three brothers – lived on. Dirt poor would be too strong a description. Dirt lower middle class fit the bill a bit better. The family had an old station wagon and an older tractor. They had two milk cows – Jerseys - and half a dozen Suffolk sheep. Chickens and ducks had free reign, offering a continuous supply of eggs and poultry for the table, plus entertainment for the two generic farm dogs. The family was not without its own entertainment; they had a 27-inch color television and a VHS tape player on which they watched only G-rated movies. Mark, unlike most of his siblings, was not the kind of farm kid that stayed home from school for planting or harvesting. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer believed in education even though neither of them had finished high school, but recognized that they lacked the resources to pay for college for all of the children. Mark did well as a student; he was the most academically gifted of the six. He proudly brought home report cards with more As than Bs, and no Cs. In high school, he excelled in math and science and starred on the school’s six-man football team, where he was quarterback on offense, backfield on defense. There was no doubt that he’d go on to further schooling. With the help of a generous scholarship, he enrolled at Hastings College to be close enough to home to help on weekends and less academically burdensome weekdays. At Hastings he met Teresa McElroy, a freshman when Mark was a junior. They studied, they went out, they went to movies, and bought tickets to the few rock concerts that were held in the plains of central Nebraska. They necked. They did not have sex. Teresa, like Mark, a product of a Catholic upbringing, took to heart the proscription against seriously fooling around before marriage. She was the offspring of a pharmacist and a housewife in the small city of Hastings.