“In some fifteen minutes,” Arsenault was saying, “we expect one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in our history, and by ‘our’ I mean the nation and the Paul Revere Foundation and—”
Arsenault saw Peter and Evangeline, and he hesitated, then he stumbled over a few words, and then he scowled, perhaps at himself because he never stumbled in front of an audience. Then he caught Owen T. Magee’s eye and nodded toward the top of the stairs—go talk to them. Then he got back to his speech.
The room was almost full. Lots of gray heads and gray suits. Some younger people, too. No one looked as if they were worried about their next meal or their next trip to Europe. And no one even bothered to look at Magee as he scuttled along the outer rim of chairs and back to the stairwell at the top of the rotunda.
Evangeline whispered to Peter, “You should hand out business cards. Probably some money collectors here.”
“Scripophilists, you mean?”
“No. The kind of people who collect the money in banks.”
“So?” Magee came right up to them and whispered, “Did you find the bonds?”
“We think so,” said Peter.
“You think so?” Magee twitched his eyes toward Evangeline. “Where are they?”
“We lost them,” said Evangeline.
“You lost them?”
“As you said, there are a lot of dangerous people after them. In fact, one of them is sitting right there.” Peter gestured to Antonov, who was watching from his aisle seat.
Antonov gave Peter a look and a small gesture—do you have something for me?
Peter shook his head and opened his palms—afraid not.
“And one of the dangerous people won,” said Evangeline. “He killed a man right in front of me.”
“Great,” said Owen T. Magee. “Just great . . . great fucking news.”
“Way to show sympathy for what I’ve just been through,” said Evangeline.
Now heads were turning, because it was a room where voices echoed. And while Arsenault was talking into a microphone, even a whisper rose to the ceiling and reverberated.
Magee wiped a line of perspiration from his upper lip. “This means it’s over.” He looked back at the podium, then he pulled out his phone and turned for the stairs.
“Where are you going?” asked Peter.
“To save myself.”
Peter watched him go down into the little rotunda and heard him say, “Agent Sullivan, please. This is Owen T. Magee returning his call.”
Peter whispered to Evangeline, “The little weasel is calling the FBI. He’s—”
At that moment, Vitaly appeared from somewhere under the staircase and ripped the phone from Magee’s hands, opened the door, and threw it out onto Wall Street.
Owen T. Magee went chasing after it.
Vitaly looked up at Peter and Evangeline and grinned, flashing that tooth.
At the podium, Arsenault was fumbling, distracted by the noise from below. “We . . . ah . . . we believe that we have two bonds that will soon be redeemable. And . . . ah . . . the New Emission Money, ladies and gentlemen, will . . . unh . . .”
Peter led Evangeline over to the back row. Henry positioned himself at the place where the staircases met, where he had a view of the entrance below.
Arsenault gave Henry a long look, then he fumbled on for a few minutes more about the New Emission Money, the role of the Paul Revere Foundation, the importance of membership in the organization.
Then there was a commotion down at the rotunda entrance. It echoed up. Heads turned. And Henry disappeared down the stairs.
Peter heard the sounds of struggle, of voices, of someone hitting the floor.
Then Henry reappeared to the increasingly nervous and distracted audience of big players and Wall Street rollers. He tugged at his tie and grinned at Peter.
Arsenault fumbled again. “As I was . . . unh . . . saying . . .”
Then came a new sound, the distinct tick-tick-tick of high heels on marble.
And Evangeline thought that she smelled Chanel no. 5.
Then a woman appeared at the top of the staircase. She was wearing a suit of light brown silk over a tan blouse, accented by a yellow Hermès scarf. Her hair, cut short and spiky, was brown graying fast.
She was also holding a mahogany box . . . the mahogany box.
“My God,” whispered Evangeline. “That’s the bag lady.”
A moment later, Joey Berra appeared at the top of the other staircase. He was wearing a blue pin-striped suit and a gray tie that picked up the color of the pinstripe.
Henry leaned over to Joey. “This your show, baby.”
Joey said, “It’s hers.” Then he made a gesture to the woman.
By now, everyone was watching. The woman hesitated a moment, then she started down the aisle between the two hundred members of the Paul Revere Foundation.
Her heels tick-tick-ticked over the black-and-white marble floor.
And once she started moving, Joey stepped in behind her.
Arsenault went to say a few more words, but the smooth had completely deserted him. He fumbled and fell silent.
The woman carried the box in front of her as though it contained jewels, and depending on the court decision, its contents might be worth more than the Hope diamond.
Peter whispered to Evangeline, “This is going to be good.”
Evangeline said, “What do you mean ‘going to be’? It’s good already.”
Her shoes—Jimmy Choo? Versace?—tick-tick-ticked past all those rich men and women of finance, so many of them running feeder funds for Avid Investments, past Will Wedge and a dozen other Harvard-educated brokers who did business with Arsenault because he was a Harvard man and had to be trustworthy, past the empty seat of Owen T. Magee, and up to the podium where Arsenault stood, watching this high-heeled advance.
Tick-tick-tick.
Finally, Arsenault said, “What is this about, miss? What is in that box?”
Joey Berra moved his bulk close to Arsenault, put his hand over the microphone, and said, “Please sit down, sir.”
“Sit down?” said Arsenault. “At my own meeting? I don’t think so.”
Joey whispered through clenched teeth, though everyone could hear, “Sit down. Now.”
Several of the ladies and gentlemen in the audience, who weren’t used to such scenes and certainly weren’t used to seeing one of their own talked to like that, murmured, grumbled, stood. A few of the males made moves to the podium.
But from the back of the room, came Henry Baxter’s big, deep voice. “The man said sit down and listen. He meant y’all. So sit the fuck down.”
After another moment of snapping heads, reddened faces, confusion, Henry Baxter said to the podium, “Proceed, ma’am, if you please.”
The woman put the box in front of her.
“My name”—she cleared her throat—“my name is Jennifer Wilson.”
“What?” Austin Arsenault, who had not gone far, stepped forward again. “That’s a damned lie. Jennifer Wilson is dead.”
That brought a murmur in the room. A few of them probably remembered the Magee & Magee associate who had gone on to fame and ignominy with Intermetro.
Joey put a finger to his lips.
Arsenault said, “I won’t have you besmirching—”
And from the back came Henry’s voice. “Don’t make me come up there, Mr. Avid Austin. I ain’t as polite as Joey B.”
Arsenault gave Henry another look, then stepped back.
Peter had to chuckle. He knew that Henry was having a helluva time.
Evangeline wasn’t chuckling. She was watching wide-eyed with a lump in her throat. From the moment she met her on the Bowling Green, she knew that the bag lady was more than she appeared. Most people were.
Jennifer Wilson’s face seemed drawn from age and stress, but a bit of eye shadow and blush gave her a brightness she never had as Sally, a naturalness she never had as Erica.
“Mr. Arsenau
lt was half right,” she said. “I died, with so many other Americans, on 9/11. But I escaped death and was reborn.” She looked at Antonov, who looked over his shoulder as if looking for Vitaly.
“Don’t you worry about your boy, Mr. Antonov,” said Henry. “He be all right when he wake up. Them handcuffs ain’t too tight.”
Jennifer gave a nod to Henry and went on. “I used to dream of writing my autobiography, but in an autobiography, you’re supposed to tell the truth about yourself. I could not admit that I disappeared because I was guilty of insider trading. But I admit it now.”
Joey Berra leaned into the microphone and in his best FBI official voice said, “Just to inform you all, the statute of limitations on that crime has expired.”
Jennifer nodded to Joey, licked her lips, shifted her eyes around the crowd. “I was guilty. And I ran. A man I’d never seen before—a janitor—pointed me to life that day and probably died himself. And there were so many others who helped, who saved lives, and sometimes sacrificed themselves. And then Americans came to work at Ground Zero, to volunteer, to give money, to play the role of citizen in the best sense.” Her voice wavered. She paused and looked back at Joey.
He whispered something in her ear that seemed to give her strength.
She turned again to the audience. “I may have my guilt. But I’ve never stopped being proud of the way New Yorkers reacted on that awful day. And I’ve never stopped dreaming of doing something good for the country and the city that endured so much yet gives us so much.”
And Joey stepped in again. “That’s why she’s here, and why I’m here, to pay our debt to New York.”
Then Jennifer continued. “I’ve lived on the street. I’ve dug in trash bins for food. I’ve climbed to the pinnacle of wealth. And”—a smile fled across her face and was gone—“like the man says, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and I’d rather be rich.”
Henry chuckled and said, “You got that right, babe.”
“But where does wealth end and greed begin?” she went on. “Does the glutton ever say he has had enough? Or is there always room for another big bonus while your company is laying off workers and you’re calling it creative destruction? Can you always justify strapping on the golden parachute when your company’s stock tanks and you say, ‘It would have been worse if not for me?’ And when stockholders who hoped to educate their kids with that tanking stock go into debt to pay tuitions, do you go home to your East Side co-op and count your money? When it’s bailout time, do you take your big slice, while the people who sweep the floors and wash the windows lose their jobs and wonder who’s bailing them out? And will you credit card titans ever admit that that twenty-nine-point-nine percent interest is not just wrong, it’s evil? Christ condemned usury in the Bible. Maybe you should listen to him.”
Evangeline wiped a tear from her eye. “She’s getting stronger.”
Peter said, “But where is she going?”
“When we talk about the economy, it’s always somebody else’s fault. The Democrats blamed Bush for the recession from 2000 to 2002, even though Clinton was president for half of it. The Republicans blamed Obama for the recession from 2007 to 2009, even though Bush was president for most of it. And they’re both wrong. We are all part of one big system. As the late Kathy Flynn used to say—”
That brought murmurs, turning heads. Most everyone in the crowd knew Kathy Flynn of MarketSpin.com, but apparently not everyone knew of her murder.
“—it’s like the cycle of condensation to evaporation to rain. And cycles turn, as they always have. But sometimes, there’s a money drought. That’s the nature of capitalism.” Jennifer looked at Austin Arsenault, who was still standing at her shoulder. “And the Paul Revere Foundation is right. If we don’t act responsibly, the cycles may stop. The drought may last until we are a desert, a twelve-trillion-dollar deficit desert.”
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said yet.” Arsenault folded his arms and struck a pose.
She said, “We cannot inflate the deficit away, though we may be forced to try. We cannot tax it away, though all of us in this room may face tax increases. We cannot cut it away, though we must cut, too.”
“That pretty much covers it all,” whispered Evangeline.
“And we cannot surrender our national sovereignty to those who buy our debt. So”—she looked them over—“what to do?”
“You had your chance and you threw it away,” said Arsenault.
“My chance in the backseat of a limo?” she answered.
But he didn’t back down. “You had your chance in the greatest country in the world.”
She looked at him for a moment and said, “If I ever need to be reminded of that, I think of what a hardworking Russian immigrant told me after the first tower felt. He said the wound would heal and scar, and we would go on, because Americans don’t quit. New Yorkers don’t quit.”
“You got that right, too,” said Henry Baxter.
Jennifer gave him a nod. “But in a generation, we have gone from the largest creditor nation in the world to the largest debtor nation. So . . . do we quit on our future and just let the deficit grow? Or can we in this room—men and women who have enjoyed the sweetest fruits of the financial system that Alexander Hamilton gave us—can we make a difference? Can we give something back?”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Will Wedge in his best honking accent.
She looked at him and smiled. “And this is why I am here.”
She opened the box and held it up so that the cameras feeding the meeting to sites around the country, and to CNN and FOX News, could pick it up. Then she slid a piece of molding from the side of the box. Then she slid a false bottom out through the space left by the molding. Then she held up the open box.
And there, on television screens around the room and around the country, were one hundred and ninety-five tiny, crudely printed pieces of paper in two neat stacks, compressed down to almost nothing.
Peter leaned closer to Evangeline and whispered, “This is your moment.”
“My moment?”
“Without you, those bonds would still be in Walter O’Day’s desk.”
Jennifer Wilson said, “If you believe Hamilton, you are now looking at the unretired debt of the American Revolution, almost twenty thousand dollars worth of bonds purchased in 1780 by a woman named Loretta Rogers. And this debt, like all our debts, is still growing, still throbbing like a carbuncle on the bottom of the body politic.”
Arsenault stepped closer and leaned over her shoulder. “This is what I have been saying all along.”
Jennifer held up a thin bond and showed it to Arsenault.
He reached for the box, but Joey grabbed his arm. “Look. Don’t touch.”
Jennifer glanced up at the video screens. “If the Supreme Court rules the right way, I will be rich again, because these are bearer bonds, and I am the bearer. Not Mr. Arsenault”—she jerked her head in his direction—“nor Mr. Antonov”—she glared at him. “But like Loretta Rogers, I am a patriot. So what should I do with her bequest?”
“I think you should give them to our foundation,” said Arsenault, “we can—”
She just laughed. Not on your life. “Anyone else?”
Evangeline whispered, “She used to be a lawyer. She must have been good.”
“Give the money to charity,” cried someone.
Jennifer nodded. “I like that. But our whole country is a charity. Anyone else?”
“I say wait until the court decision, then decide!” shouted Will Wedge.
“Mr. Wedge, Harvard genius, cutting things close and neat as always.” She no longer seemed nervous. Her voice was strong, her eye contact was good. And people were leaning forward, listening, waiting, wondering where she was headed. “You’re telling me that if Arsenault’s argument is rejected, I can forgive this debt and pretend that I’m a patriot. If it’s upheld, I can cash the bonds and proclaim that I’m doing it for the national good, for the”—she looke
d at Arsenault—“what do you always call it? Symbolism. But you’d take the money anyway, as you’ve always planned to.”
“That’s a damn lie,” said Arsenault.
She gave a little cock of her head. “You wanted Will Wedge and all the other smart people in this room to think that you were a patriot. But you just wanted the bonds because you’ve been losing money for years, and half the people in this room have been burned, only they don’t know it yet.”
“What?” shouted someone in the back.
“That’s a damn lie,” said Arsenault.
“Don’t know what yet?” cried someone else.
Antonov looked again toward the back, as if he might make a run for it.
And Henry’s voice boomed out, “This show ain’t over yet, folks. So y’all take your seats and quiet down.”
Jennifer waited a moment and looked again at Arsenault, “If what I’ve said about your financial straits is a lie, if you really started this treasure hunt because you wanted Americans to see the hazards of a deficit and what it means, then you’ll appreciate my solution for these bonds.” She positioned the box in the middle of the podium. The she pulled from her pocket a small can of lighter fluid.
“Oh, no,” gasped someone.
Arsenault moved toward her.
Joey said, “Another step and I will shoot you. And you will not be the first man I’ve shot today.”
Arsenault looked toward the left side of Joey’s jacket, saw the bulge of the holster, and stepped back.
Jennifer said, “No matter what the Supreme Court says, the best that a true patriot could do today, on this street, where Washington took the oath of office, where brokers made the Buttonwood Agreement that started a stock exchange, where J. P. Morgan did his business, is to forgive this debt . . . as thanks for all that America has done for us and for all that it will do in the future.”
She pulled a cigarette lighter from her pocket, and another gasp rose to the coffered ceiling.
Arsenault cried, “No!”
Peter Fallon began to laugh. There was nothing else to do. Just laugh at the audacity of what these two had probably been planning all along.
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