“Counsel? I’m Bob’s friend. We went to school together.”
“Yes, but your investment with him—the SEC hasn’t contacted you?”
“What are you talking about?” George looks around the room as if he might find clarity in the unmade bed, the open curtains, the crack in the skylight—since when is there a crack in the skylight? His neck goes hot.
“Ah, I see. Caution on the phone, is, well, we all watch a lot of television. But it isn’t necessary. Attorney-client privilege. Please speak freely. It’s only an inquiry, in your case. With little sustainable cause, I should add. Can you take a look at the news?”
“Everything’s downstairs. I’m trying to tie my tie. Just explain it to me.”
“All right. The indictment, for securities fraud, suggests that Mr. Barrow-Woods had a contact at the FDA furnishing him with information re pending drug approvals. There are other counts, most of them unrelated to drug development, but that’s the one we need to focus on.”
“Why? Does Bob need our help?”
“One of his more recent trades was a short sale of NewGenA, which you have a personal connection to. And because you have an account with him that recently saw a profit—”
“I don’t have an account with him.”
“We can discuss it, George.”
“But I don’t.”
“Okay. Let’s just say, if you did, Barrow-Woods shorted NewGenA, possibly knowing their main treatment was about to lose FDA approval. Let me be clear. This point isn’t even in the indictment. Indictments take years to build. What he’s being investigated for is earlier, dates most recently to 2008. But, going forward, they’ll look into all his transactions. Government’s still on a bit of a publicity rampage with Wall Street. Suffice to say, your mother was in a public drug trial. I’m confident you had no access to information beyond her experience. Which means, legally, you’re in fine standing. But it looks unusual. There’s a chance it’ll show up in the complaint.”
“I don’t understand what we’re talking about. What’s NewGenA?” Something’s happening. He runs to the window and pulls the curtain.
“The biotech that was testing Astrasyne. Astrasyne was their main development. Meaning, no Astrasyne, the company tanks. This is not like a Glaxo or a Bayer. NewGenA’s eggs are in one basket. Remember ImClone? Like ImClone. Don’t forget, this is one of many of Mr. Barrow-Woods’s trades that will be looked at. It’s unfortunate that your family, being somewhat high profile—if you get enough press, the SEC will look negligent if they don’t investigate. I thought you’d know by now. When the SEC does contact you, refer them to me.”
“Look, I don’t understand what you are saying. You have to believe me. No one ever believes me!” George clears his throat. His voice is trembling.
“No need to panic here. Let me explain another way. Because you have an account with Mr. Barrow-Woods and that account recently saw a profit right around the same time as his trade against NewGenA, there will be scrutiny. By investing short, he made a profit, you understand?”
“I’ve never done that stuff with Bob. We have drinks once in a while. That’s all! I don’t do the finances around here.”
“George, this is the appearance of malfeasance causing your family a headache. Not actual wrongdoing. But I do have that on May 3, Tryphon Capital deposited one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars into a joint account controlled by you and your wife. Some of which could have come from the trade against NewGenA.”
George racks his memory. “This is a mistake!” he shrieks. Who could have done this? What is their plan? How does Pete know so much? “How do you know more about me than I do?”
“There can be years of back and forth between Barrow-Woods—between anyone—and the SEC before an indictment comes down. Requests for documentation, clarification, etcetera. Indictments are not out of the blue. This also gives Barrow-Woods’s representation time to make its own investigation, to prepare. His lawyer and I—I’ll just say we were D-I squash together. We still play. So, doing his audit, your trade looked unusual, unusual enough to give pause. Even though it’s outside the timeframe Barrow-Woods is currently in the soup for. Don’t ask me more. Could you go back over your accounts? Personal finances are complicated. Can you look online while you have me on the phone?”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Okay. Hey, take a breath. It’s kind of a pain. You need to register and set up a password. What about your financial manager? Your wife? Or, I can walk you through it, if you’re comfortable with that, and we can look together.”
George says something that sounds like fine. He races to his office. Doing as the lawyer tells him, he finds his checkbook; with the account number and many failed passwords—numbers and letters, numbers and letters—he registers online. Yes, there’s a newer account. There’s their primary joint checking, their secondary checking, the trust his mother has restocked, the mutual funds, the retirement accounts, and, and! A new joint account opened in March, registering one deposit: 125K, made May 3. But how can he trust what he sees? He tells Pete the login and password and immediately regrets doing so. He races back up to the bedroom. Safer in the bedroom.
“Okay, George? Hey, George? Yeah, it’s a personal trade in, one second, here we go, in your wife’s name.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, stands, sits again, puts his hand in his hair, looks under the bed, looks out the window from behind the curtains, bites his thumb, locks the bedroom door, unlocks the bedroom door.
“May third. My wife?”
“Can you come by today? This is a fish-caught-in-the-net scenario, you understand? It’s a red flag for the SEC, that’s all. I’m confident none of it will hold water. But you and your wife do need to come by. I have two other attorneys, in finance law, financial crime specifically, I’d like to bring in. Can you come down?”
“Financial crime?”
“That’s the territory.”
“I mean, we mentioned my mother to Bob but—but why does that matter? He’s a friend. Are you telling me that’s a crime? I keep saying, he’s never handled our finances. And they trade all kinds of things all the time, right?”
“Yes, exactly right. Maybe your family situation made him aware of the trial. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Nothing wrong either way. We’ll discuss any conversations you and he have had on that subject. Again, it’s because of the timing, because you’ve recently been in the news, the SEC most likely can’t not pursue an inquiry. How will it look when the Journal makes the connection and points out the SEC never bothered to investigate? We want to be prepared.”
“I’m trying to tell you, I’ve never fucking invested with Bob.”
“George, you have. All I can say is, you have. How’s three o’clock? Can your wife make three o’clock? We’ll need to talk to you both.”
“Wait! How did he make money if the drug went bad? This is bullshit. This is because of The Burning Papers, isn’t it?”
“George, no. One thing at a time. As I said, Mr. Barrow-Woods bet against NewGenA a few days before the study shut down. The profit on that specific trade was not significant, not compared to what he’s indicted for. But they’ll look at how he got his information. Again, this is not part of the current indictment. We’re trying to kill it early here. As far as we know, he could have simply gifted much of that one hundred twenty-five to you. It’s your only transaction and you never transacted back to him and that’s in your favor. I don’t think there’s a case. But you understand there’s an inquiry and there may be an investigation, evidence or not. A bumpy ride, press-wise. We’re working on strategy. Three o’clock? I’ll need you to approve additional counsel. I’m general counsel, you understand?”
“I see! I’m the joke of the world! Who’s trying to ruin me? You might be one of them. How would I know? What have I done that’s so bad?”
“This is a shock. But please, we’re your team, here.”
“Fine, I’ll see what you have
to say. My wife. Even my wife? I have to be in the city anyway. I’m dressed and everything.”
“Very good. See you soon.”
Now he understands. He thought his humiliation was over. But it was never over. They’d waited until his guard was down. A mistake he won’t repeat! Three o’clock. He won’t go to the city at three o’clock. He won’t—Iris. Even Iris! He’d thought if the world was against him, it was against them together. Somehow she’s betrayed him. He’s suspected her for some time, but how he wanted to be wrong! He can’t figure it out. How many times Iris said, “You’re being paranoid.” It makes him want to cry! It makes him choke! He is choking, he is crying, he’s careening across the bedroom, clutching his own throat. He’d done a decent job, hiding how decimated he is, manning up, while talking to the lawyer. He’d thought that he and Iris were almost happy again. He’d tried to ignore his suspicions. He’d told himself he was only being paranoid. Things were getting better. Better and better and better and better. Now what will happen? What happens next? Will they throw him in jail?
Suddenly, he remembers Iris asking him to open the account with her. She’d come home late, said she’d been shopping in the city. So this is why she took over the credit cards and the banking those months, exerted such control! Is the screen a lie or is the lawyer a lie or is Iris—to be fooled by—it was Bob who convinced him to talk to her that day at the golf club. It was Bob who insisted he go that day, insisted he talk to the tall, pretty woman with the dog. Back to the office, ducking low! He googles Bob. He races over several articles, only a few hours old, confirming that yesterday Bob was indicted on fourteen counts of securities fraud along with two employees at the FDA. He’d resigned from Tryphon Capital, entered federal court in Manhattan, surrendered to federal authorities and was arraigned, pled not guilty to all counts, and was released pending trial.
Released! He dials Bob’s number from the home phone and is surprised to see—only more evidence, why should he be surprised?—seventeen recent calls attached to the number on the phone’s display.
He is surprised, however, when Bob answers the phone. He was planning on leaving a scathing message, he didn’t know what, or on terrorizing Martha.
“Hey, man,” Bob says, “I’m totally ripped up about your name getting into this.”
“You. You and Iris.”
“Listen, it’s not in your best interest to talk to me. I picked up to say I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
“You’re fucking Iris and you fucked me!”
“Never. It’s a good girl you’ve got there. Aboveboard. All of it. The money was for you. Her heart’s in the right place.”
“For me? Then why am I learning about it today? I’ll kill you,” George hears himself say. “I’ll ruin you. You tell me, who I am and what is happening.”
“All right. All right, calm down. You want to know the truth? The truth is, everything’s clean as a whistle, which is why I took your call. And I am sorry you got roped in. Deeply.”
“I don’t believe you. You’ve been calling my wife? You paying my wife? You sleeping with my wife? You know what she calls you? Mr. Pig. Smug Mr. Pig. A cover, I guess. Oh, she’s clever. How long have you known each other? Everything’s a cover-up.”
“George, I’m—Mr. Pig?”
“Fat, fucking Mr. Pig.”
“Yeah? Hmm. Okay then. Listen, I don’t want to speak ill of another man’s wife. But, Iris, you know what? She tricked me, man. She said you were broke. You want me to explain the money? I was trying to help you out. You, not her. She came to my office and she said, George needs this, George needs that. And then, after. After, man. I mean, weeks after, at my party, remember? She lets it out that it was for somebody named Victor. I never touched her. And that’s the truth. You’re looking at the wrong guy.”
George throws down the phone. When he trusted no one, he’d trusted Iris. When he hadn’t trusted Iris, the clearer part of him had. When his mother was cold to Iris, those early days, when his mother had said, “You met her where?” and “She’s a coat checker? A bartender?”—every question of Iris’s motivation for marrying him was right. His mother, always right. Oh, to have thought he was loved. Every memory, black. Every memory, burned.
Where will he go? He has to go. Maybe he’ll go to the south of France and find his father, who probably is dead, but if he’s not dead, George will kill him, tell him how he’s ruined his life and then throw his old ass off a cliff. Or maybe he’ll go to Buenos Aires, change his name and buy a new face, become a man none of them can find. Maybe he’ll go—anywhere!—and come back when everything’s sorted out. If it’s safe. Whatever, three o’clock, he won’t be there. He’ll have to miss his meeting with Annie Mason. Bullshit gig, anyway.
He googles Iris and finds nothing.
He googles himself and finds the malicious old things, nothing new. He googles NewGenA and Astrasyne and his mother, but there’s no connection. He googles his mother’s foundation. The result is an unending list of articles about all the ways she’s made the world better—bah. He shuts the laptop and finds his briefcase and shoves in the laptop. He opens the desk drawer—what does he need? He needs his watch and his passport and his wallet and a copy of the libretto and his notebook and his good pen and his checkbook and his integrity and he’s already wearing a suit and he’ll buy clothes on the other end, and he finds everything but the watch, where is his watch? He still isn’t wearing shoes. He swipes the blade of grass from his foot and takes the bag and drops it on the living-room couch, next to the dog. The dog eyes him, chews on its peanut-butter grenade. If there were any justice, he would bite the dog, but he’d never bite the dog, he is kind and he is just, a good man in a bad world. Instead, he pets the dog, somewhat frantically; then he’s up the stairs to fetch his shoes and socks, down the stairs wondering where Iris keeps the keys to the second car, to the Lexus he never drives, but drive it today he will, and he’s just spotted them, right on the hook with all the others, when the doorbell rings and here is Victor, holding the blue leash.
“Hi, George. How’s it going? I’ve had this in my glove compartment forever. Um, are you okay?”
“Iris isn’t here.” He’s dimly aware that he is shaking.
“I can wait. Or, should I come back?”
“I’ve lost my watch.” George’s voice shakes with the rest of him. “Maybe when I was getting the paper this morning. Somewhere in the grass, maybe.”
“You want help looking?”
“Yes.” They step outside. Victor bends over and squints into the grass, his hands on his thighs. “Here’s something!” he cries, turning his back to George. “No, it’s only—” George slugs Victor with all his might, a sideways blow that half misses, cuffs him at the throat. Victor staggers, blinking with surprise. He steps backward, his gold medallion swinging. His foot catches in the exposed roots of the tree. He twists at the waist and falls. There is the satisfying sound of his head knocking against the trunk, but also the unsatisfying truth that he fell because he tripped, and not from the strength of the blow.
“What the fuck,” Victor says.
The dog, inside the house, begins to bark. Bark, bark, bark. His nails drag against the inside of the door. Victor is lying on his back as if he were looking for bunnies in the clouds, next to the glinting bullet of a sprinkler head poking out of the ground.
“Victor,” George whispers, squatting down, putting his face beside Victor’s face, “I know why you’re here.” The grass tickles George’s nose, smells sweet. As if the world has slowed, the life teaming around him reveals itself—an ant climbing an emerald blade beside Victor’s ear. Victor’s closing eyes. Two squirrels, chasing each other up the ash, into the rustling leaves. A gleaming black beetle on the cuff of George’s light gray pants. The bright sound of the crickets and the dark sound of the cicadas. The dog barks through the window and the bees rise heavily from the purple-flowered weeds, not so many bees, anymore, and the mosquitoes float and somewhere hopping the
lawn are sweet field mice and adorable chipmunks and hawks and starlings and the asshole blue jays rocketing the sky and once Iris told him about a skunk hiding by the pool and once Iris told him a pair of box turtles live behind the artificial waterfall but he’s never seen them and he never will and he hears himself saying, “Victor, Victor.”
Victor’s eyes snap open and he touches the back of his head. “What did you do that for?” He gets unsteadily to his feet.
“You can have her.” George springs up. “Don’t hit me!” He leaps away. He dashes back into the house and slams the door. Through the plate glass over the flagstone beside the door he shouts, “Know what I think? I think you stole my watch. A lot of things have gone missing! You think I haven’t noticed? What else of mine have you taken?”
“You people are unbelievable,” Victor says, his hand on the glass. Or, George is pretty sure that’s what Victor says. Louder, so there’s no doubt George can hear, Victor says, “I could but I won’t.” He points at George. “Not worth it.”
“Now I know everything!” George screams, pounding his fists on the glass. “I’ve figured it out! Thief!” The dog is a fury of sound behind him.
“I didn’t steal anything from you, you ass.”
“My watch has been missing a long time!”
“I was trying to help you find it.” Victor seems about to say more. He shakes his head.
“What?” George says, holding his hand to his ear. “Speak up!”
“Never mind. I don’t need this shit.” Victor turns, and with the care of a man who is injured, he walks down the driveway, against the high, howling pleas of the dog.
George dashes upstairs and yanks his cell phone charger from the wall socket beneath the night stand. He returns, grabs his bag and keys. He looks cautiously out the window. He doesn’t see Victor, though Victor’s car is still parked out front. Whatever, what the fuck, asshole, George thinks, as he fires the Lexus to life and scrapes out of the garage. He swerves around Victor’s car and is on his way.
The Unfortunates: A Novel Page 32