Whipping Boy

by Allen Kurzweil

  “Oh, yes?” he says after another long pause.

  “Yes. And since I’m writing a book about my search for Cesar, it makes sense to talk to you.”

  “Your book, is it fiction?”

  “No. No one would believe the details of the story, yours or Cesar’s, if they appeared in a novel.”

  “The details you think you know, Allen,” Sherry snaps. “What you may have read in the newspapers is not an interview with me. It’s not an interview with the chairman. It’s not an interview with Cesar. Not by any stretch of the imagination.”

  There’s no reason to hold back any longer. “Are you saying Badische was legit?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Sherry senses my disbelief.

  “Look. I want to be clear, Allen. I’ve done some things in the past that would have gotten me stoned to death in the time of Moses. But my work on behalf of the Trust and its clients was not one of them. I did nothing wrong. Cesar did nothing wrong. Badische was not a fraud. The quote unquote crime was nothing more than a contract dispute—the result of one disgruntled client, a woman named Barbara Laurence, who defaulted on an obligation and who used the US Attorney’s Office as her personal collection agency. What she did, and what the prosecutors did, was unjust. Worst-case scenario, the dispute should have been arbitrated by the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.”

  “If everything was on the up-and-up, why did the government go after you?”

  “The prosecutor wanted to get a big feather in his cap. He wanted to build a big résumé of convictions so that he could get a job at a big firm and get paid buckets of money. Conviction, Allen. That’s all that mattered. Guilt or innocence was beside the point. That’s why we went to prison. The prosecutors twisted what Cesar and I did to fit their charges. Wire fraud? What the hell are they talking about?”

  “The government argued that you hoodwinked the lawyers at Clifford Chance into using their offices.”

  Sherry lets out a rueful laugh. “The top law firm in the world? Filled with the sharpest legal minds? Hoodwinked? How is that even possible? It was Clifford Chance who drew up the contracts. It was Clifford Chance that tallied up the total worth of the Trust based on the individual asset portfolios.”

  “Were those assets real?”

  “Of course they were real. Not all of them were tangible, but they were real.”

  “Including the special deed of trust from the Kingdom of Mombessa?”

  “Absolutely. A forestry company from Canada assessed the value of the kingdom at $50 billion—and that’s just for the timber. Minerals and diamonds weren’t even part of the calculation.”

  It’s tempting to mention what I find “special” about the deed in question. That its asset valuation is five times the GNP of the region in which it’s supposed to be located. That its capital city, Mondimbi, is a sparsely populated fishing village. That no kingdom called “Mombessa” appears on any map of Africa. Instead, I continue to present the case argued at trial. “The prosecution said there was no king.”

  “Not true,” Sherry counters. “I met him. He has a name—Henri-François Mazzamba. He’s a genuine king from the Republic of the Congo, which used to be called Zaire.”

  Again, that’s total baloney. For starters, Sherry is mixing up the Republic of the Congo with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire. And as for the so-called king? He was teaching at a grade school in Ottawa when he signed his name to the deed.

  “What about the other signatory, Prince Robert? Was he the real deal?”

  “As far as I know. His family at one time owned BASF. The B in the chemical company’s name stands for Badische,” he says, repeating the balderdash the Baron Moncrieffe fed David Glass. “It’s true that he had fallen on hard times, and for a while he was offering knighthoods for $25,000 a piece. But how is that any different from what the Vatican does? Or the Order of the Knights of Malta overseen by the Queen of England?”

  “Why didn’t you tell the jury everything you’re telling me?”

  “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My lawyer said, ‘If you testify, you’ll come off like Dr. Evil.’”

  “Cesar told me his lawyer said the same thing.”

  “Cesar was baffled that there was even a trial. He’s still baffled.”

  For nearly two hours, I listen to Sherry’s narrative of victimhood. How he was a casualty of incompetent clients. (“None of them could perform.”) Of unscrupulous prosecutors. (“They were scum, no better than human garbage.”) Of a jury misdirected by a prejudicial judge. (“Fourteen out of the fifteen witnesses were on our side. Only Barbara Laurence was against us.”)

  “The government spun it like it was a con job kingdom we created. But if anybody was a victim of a con job kingdom, it was us. Me. Cesar. I was—we were—convicted for crimes we did not commit. We just couldn’t compete with the prosecution’s craftiness.”

  It’s tough not to marvel at how uncannily Sherry’s account dovetails with Cesar’s. Both blame the victims. Both show no real remorse. Both express outrage and disbelief that their seemingly minor contract dispute with Barbara Laurence had ended up in federal court. Where their views part company is in the roles they see themselves having played. Cesar portrays himself a hapless liaison with a peripheral connection to the work of the Badische Trust Consortium. Sherry, by contrast, positions himself proudly at its center.

  “I was the one who put all the pieces in place,” he boasts. “The one who made it all happen. In a certain sense, I was Badische. And I’ll tell you something, Allen. If our deals had gone through, if our clients had been able to perform, I’d be the king of Wall Street right now. People would be lining up at my door with wheelbarrows full of money, asking me to help them invest. Instead, they treat me like I’m a sort of Madoff.”

  As he’s making his case, I notice Sherry doing something very weird with his hands. He wraps his fingers around the back of his neck, places his thumbs against his Adam’s apple, and squeezes.

  I can’t decide if the gesture is his way of unconsciously asserting that the government had him by the throat or if (again obliviously) he is attempting to stop himself from talking. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

  FEAR, DISGUST, PITY, REMORSE

  The conversation with Sherry, like the talks I’d had with Cesar, went better than I expected. Sherry had opened up about the fraud, something I never thought possible. After the interview, I retreated to my office and began writing, finally confident that no further communication with him or Cesar would be necessary.

  A year went by before I realized that was total bullshit.

  Troublesome questions about my conversations with Cesar kept asserting themselves: What stopped me from bringing up what he had done to me? What stopped me from revealing what I was doing to him? Why did I pull my punches?

  Part of my restraint, I figured out, was rooted in fear. Cesar, I eventually admitted to myself, scared me. And to be clear: it was not the felonious drug-mule-turned-con-man with the Mafia ties who terrified me. It was the childhood version of that man, the twelve-year-old, who filled me with dread.

  I was, even on the far side of fifty, still the boy in the tower mimicking the habits of the chamois, bouncing from one spot to another to avoid potential peril.

  But that hard-won realization only partly explained why I continually gave Cesar a pass. So much more was going on. I also avoided direct confrontation because of a growing sense of self-loathing. I hated that I had developed an aptitude for duplicity. Cesar had no idea what he was in for; a two-time loser was about to get indicted for a third time, if only in the pages of a book. Although I never thought it possible, I pitied my unsuspecting mark. Curiosity was giving way to compassion. Rancor was getting sidelined by remorse.

  By failing to confront Cesar I had failed to confront myself. The story I wanted to tell had systematically undermined the story I needed to tell. Oddly enough, the predicament was captured in the lyrics of “Smooth Operator
,” Cesar’s Lompoc prison anthem:

  Face-to-face, each classic case

  We shadowbox and double-cross

  Yet need the chase

  It was time to stop shadowboxing and double-crossing. Coming clean was the only way I would be able to end a chase that I started more than half a lifetime ago.

  “DEFEND THE 10 YEAR OLD!”

  On May 1, 2013, I screw up the courage to give Cesar a call. “We’ve got to meet, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Great,” he says amicably. He doesn’t ask why, and I don’t tell him.

  Two weeks later, I’m once more in San Francisco, sitting in a Tenderloin café, staring at a framed movie poster for The Thief of Bagdad. To pass the time, I read over some of the reminders that I typed into my phone during the flight from Providence: “Avoid parallel lies. No monocles, no knights. Confess the pain.”

  When Cesar enters the café, I do a double take. He has bulked up considerably since we last met. The goatee is gone, and so is the rest of his hair. Head shaved, dressed entirely in black, he gives off an Oddjob vibe, minus bowler and mustache.

  After hearing about the “personal branding workshops” he’s been running in São Paulo and Mexico City, I get down to business.

  “This is very hard even to bring up,” I say, my voice quavering.

  Cesar leans across the table. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “What’s happened?”

  “Actually, it’s what hasn’t happened. I know that you forgot about me after Aiglon, but I—”

  “No offense, Allen. There are a lot of people I don’t remember.”

  “—but I never forgot you. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Really? I assumed you flew out for a book signing or something.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not just call?”

  “It wouldn’t have been the same. I needed to look you in the eye to say what I have to say. It’s about Aiglon.”

  “I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “Absolutely. It’s like with my wife. One of the reasons she healed from cancer is by coming to terms with certain family issues. Reconciling with her mother and her father face-to-face really helped her. You’re doing the same thing.”

  “That’s right,” I say, surprised by his wisdom.

  “You know, neurolinguistic programming can be really useful in dealing with this sort of thing. It’s an amazing way to reframe one’s perspective. I’ve gone back to the kid I was at Aiglon and told him—told me—that I was loved. That it was my mother’s intention to provide the best for me. Of course, I didn’t feel that way at the time, but that is what she intended. It’s what I told you before. Everyone has a good reason for doing what they’re doing.”

  “You truly believe that? You believe everyone is well intentioned? Prince Robert? Colonel Sherry? . . . You? . . . Me?”

  Cesar nods. “Actions may not reflect that intention. But the underlying intent is still always good.”

  “I’m not convinced. You know what they say about the road to hell?”

  Cesar looks at me blankly.

  “That it’s paved with good intentions. Look where you ended up. I mean, Lompoc isn’t exactly a holding pen for saints.”

  It takes everything I have in me to leap the chasm of silence that opens up between us. “I have to get something off my chest, Cesar. You really did a number on me at Aiglon.”

  “Well, lots of kids did a number on me, too,” he responds blandly.

  I suppose the “too” could be taken as an acknowledgment of guilt, but I didn’t fly to San Francisco to squeeze meaning out of vague implication. “You’ve told me a ton of stories of your mistreatment, Cesar. But I haven’t done a good job telling you about mine. That’s why I’m here. To say, ‘Hey, this is what I remember. This is what you did.’ That’s what my book is about.”

  “Am I in it?”

  The question throws me. “In the book? Yes, Cesar, you’re in the book. In a certain sense, you are the book.”

  “Wow,” he says, chuckling the same way he chuckled when recalling the nice fat girl he enjoyed punching at school. As he’s chuckling and I’m remembering the nice fat girl, an alarm goes off on my phone. I glance down and see that the screen is telling me:

  “AND I WAS JESUS CHRIST”

  The prompt isn’t necessary.

  “I don’t think I’ve told you this, Cesar, but I spent my first four Christmases in Villars. My dad was alive then. After he died, I never returned—until I went to Aiglon, until I was ten years old, rooming with you at the top of Belvedere. One of the first things I recall you saying is that if a fire broke out in the dorm, you’d have to throw me out the window. After—”

  Cesar cuts me off. “Remember the fire drills we had?”

  “Sure. But what I’m trying to say is that the threat of—”

  “It was near the showers.”

  “That’s possible, but I—”

  “That’s really all I remember about that, Allen. Like I’ve said before, I only recall bits and pieces.”

  “Do you remember calling me Nosey?”

  “Nosey?” Cesar chuckles.

  “Nosey,” I confirm.

  “Why? For what reason? Is it because you were nosy? Because of the kind of inquisitive person you are now?”

  For the first time, I hear the tiniest hint of aggression creep into Cesar’s voice. I ignore it and barrel ahead. “Well, I guess I was nosy. And obviously, I still am. I’m also still Jewish, which might have had something to do with the nickname.” I curve my thumb and index finger around my nose.

  Cesar looks at me blankly. He appears to have no recollection of the gesture he invented to silence a pesky roommate.

  “And at one point, you and Paul—I’ve tried to bring this up before—you guys tied me to the bedpost and pantomimed a whipping sequence from Jesus Christ Superstar.”

  Cesar titters and slaps the table with his palm.

  “You can laugh, Cesar, but it was fucking traumatic for me!”

  “Sorry,” he says. “I do remember the song. It was a big deal at the time.”

  That’s something, I suppose. Previously, he had no memory of it at all.

  “But I don’t remember any of the other stuff.”

  “You performed ‘The Thirty-Nine Lashes.’”

  “And you were Jesus Christ?” Cesar says, unprompted, suggesting that he might recall at least some tiny portion of the incident.

  “Yeah, Cesar. And I was Jesus Christ.”

  I have the song cued up on my cell phone but resist the urge to play it. There’s something more important I need to say before Cesar bolts. “The worst thing that happened to me at Aiglon wasn’t Jesus Christ Superstar or the nicknames. Do you remember what I told you about my watch?”

  Cesar shakes his head.

  “What happened was I left the watch under my pillow and went to take a shower. When I returned, it was gone. I cherished that watch. It had been my father’s. It was by far the most meaningful thing I inherited from him after he died.”

  “Wow, that stinks,” Cesar says. “Do you know what happened to it?”

  “I do. Paul tossed it out the window.”

  “Paul? That doesn’t sound like him. My memory of Paul is of protecting him from getting bullied.”

  “You’re joking! Paul didn’t need protection. He was huge.”

  “Huge but weak,” Cesar says.

  “I don’t—”

  “Hold on! Something makes me think it might have been Winn who took your watch. He stole money from me. I don’t know how I remember this all of a sudden, but I do.”

  “Winn was bad news. He was always calling me Kikewheel. But he had nothing to do with my watch getting stolen.”

  “I remember blaming Winn,” Cesar insists.

  “You may have blamed Winn, but Winn didn’t swipe my watch. It was Paul.”

  “Are you sure? Did he confess?”

  “He told Group Captain Watts tha
t he launched it out the window on a dare. He left Aiglon soon afterward.”

  “I thought he was kicked out because he didn’t have the grades. Or because he just wasn’t mentally all there.”

  I shrug. “I don’t know the specific reason for his departure.”

  “Was the watch found?”

  “Nope.”

  “But what does your missing watch have to do with me? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Stolen watch,” I correct. “Paul only ever did what you told him to do. He was your henchman. You were his—”

  “So you’re saying I had something to do with it?”

  I give a nod. “You made my life hell.”

  Cesar’s jaw tenses. His brow furrows. “So, basically, I’m being blamed for your memories? That’s what’s happening?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound like you’re writing about me. This is really only your interpretation based on your recollection of events.”

  “I wouldn’t disagree. But that doesn’t change the fact my father’s Omega was hurled out the window.”

  Cesar turns pensive. “Well, all I can say is I’m sorry you remember losing your watch or whatever it was that happened.”

  “It wasn’t lost. It was stolen,” I say testily.

  “If you wanna blame me, that’s fine,” Cesar says. “I don’t remember any of this. But clearly, you do.”

  The back-and-forth continues for a few more minutes, but try as I might, it’s next to impossible to grab a bullshitter by the horns.

  “Look, Allen. We see things the way we want to see them. Especially when it comes to memory. We put things together that have absolutely no relation to one another. We take one plus one and we get a hundred. I know. It’s like that with me and Badische. It’s easy to draw negative conclusions after the fact, but I know that what I did for my clients, I did with good intentions.”