Prodigal

by T M Heron

  I’ve never seen Anthony in defeat. And just like that the effect of the speed disappears and I’m ashamed of how poorly I’ve managed this. “I didn’t want it to come to this,” I offer.

  “Then you shouldn’t have turned up high to negotiate,” says Anthony. And I realize he isn’t defeated, just playing the long game. He looks down at his Turkish rug for a moment. “You’d better hope things look up for you immediately with Pacitto, or I’m going to have you thrown out of this partnership. Get it sorted or I will help them bury you — and there won’t be a client in the world who can protect you.”

  30

  Despite the chilling end to my drug-addled confrontation with Anthony I’ve spent the rest of this week being treated like a superstar. Bizarrely, the times that I’ve seen him he’s been friendly and courteous and it’s almost as if the exchange about burying me never took place. Only we both know it did. We both know that if Pacitto makes progress any time soon I’ll be toast. That if there’s a grave to be dug Anthony will be there with a spade. That I really need to get out from under this cloud as fast as I possibly can.

  Everything else, though, has happened the way Anthony said it would. Partnership was announced Monday. Tuesday was a sea of visitors and carousing. On Wednesday NBR published a front-page story about me, my partnership and my association with Ray Investments Limited.

  What I hadn’t anticipated was the number of gifts I’d receive once my partnership became public. I’m suddenly a celebrity. Clients, even non-current ones, send Scotch and champagne and silver shot glasses and cigars, which funnily enough remind me of my late father. Mother, as if she hasn’t done enough already, has given me a Waterford London Desktop bar from her and Helena.

  I receive a platinum fountain pen from Mel Kilbride. The card is signed from him Tara. As if he’s trying to make a point. I realize we will never recover from Lily’s, but Mel has enough fear of our little secret to continue playing the game. I realize I don’t care.

  I find myself spending a lot of time giving witty and garrulous interviews, not just to newspapers and business journals but in the social pages of the national rags.

  Bernadette has gone all out and is capitalizing heavily on who I am. Men become partners in law firms all the time, but I am part of a legacy. I’m also officially on the Ray Investments Limited board of directors, which is causing a stir in the business community.

  What I’m most keenly anticipating, however, is the partner’s official welcome on Thursday night. To finally be part of that time-honored tradition. The boardroom doors closed to all outsiders. Champagne and crayfish, $10,000 suits and platinum cufflinks, hand-crafted leather shoes and men talking carelessly about yachts and holiday houses in Bermuda.

  At some stage of the evening Anthony Hartman will give a little speech about my rapid rise through the levels at Bakers and highlight briefly some of my accomplishments. He’ll then hand me a sealed envelope.

  No one has ever said what’s in the envelope. Again, Bakers is heavy on tradition. It’s probably a summary of how your $1 million buy-in to Bakers will be deducted from your profit share for the next ten years. But I have a surprise for them if that’s the case. Because my first statement as a partner will be to present them with a check for that million dollars then and there. How many new partners can afford to do that?

  ◆◆◆

  It’s 6 p.m. and the boardroom is filling up. There are many Auckland partners present and a pleasing amount from Christchurch. But woe betide any Wellington partners who don’t turn up. They’ll have made the wrong enemy.

  After my drug-addled catastrophe with Anthony I’ve chosen to attend the official welcome in a clean state, but champagne is flowing freely and it’s hitting the spot. I make my way around the attendees, as witty and garrulous as I was with the media, accepting the handshakes and accolades and self-comparisons. These people all have enormous egos and there’s no place for false modesty in this room.

  I’m a little warm, maybe it’s the champagne, but I’m loath to remove my jacket as my bespoke suit was ordered specifically for tonight. It’s been patiently waiting in my wardrobe since a short while after my father died. Waiting for this very moment. And everything about this moment is exactly as I’d imagined. Except for the knot in my stomach.

  “Young fella,” says Giles Davis, head of Litigation, clapping me on the back. Arrogant prick. I wonder if he has a daughter. I flash my magic smile and shake his hand.

  Carla appears from behind him. “You didn’t leave a billing address,” she says.

  “Great timing to mention it,” I say, and imagine what it would be like to break her neck. I move just a little too far into her personal space and squeeze her hand hard when we shake. I’d like to be ruder but burning my bridges with Carla would be poor judgement at this stage.

  I wonder if it’s the Jo situation that is silently bothering me? No. Something else. I can’t place it.

  I knock back more plonk and glance around for Finch. One of my greatest pleasures tonight is the angst Finch will be suffering, in general at my joining the firm, and in particular at how I bulldozed in at the end and made that partnership my own.

  I’m sure Finch would have missed tonight if he could but he’s under the delusion he’s too important a man at Bakers to be able to skip such an event. As if an official partnership welcome wouldn’t be legitimate without the great Henry Finch presiding.

  I finally spy him looking guarded and doing a fine job of blending into the furniture.

  Everyone is feeling the plonk now, and people are talking louder and laughing harder and certain partners are all too predictably starting to eye up the waitresses.

  I glance at my Rolex, which has impressed many tonight: time isn’t flying by as I thought it would. Instead I feel tense. Is it the lack of drugs? No, it’s the situation with Anthony. He is nowhere near done with me on that one. But I will this worry away with the thought that I’m a partner now. Unless I don’t make billings, which will never happen, there is very little he can do.

  Leo Packer swings by, with his undercut budgie head, the man who has enjoyed extra drawings on all the new clients I’ve brought in up until this moment. So insignificant now I could crush him with my index finger.

  Then Anthony Hartman is beside me and immediately the room is quiet. Anthony’s speech is loquacious and no doubt of similar guild to the speech all incoming partners receive. He makes reference to my rapid ascension and some of the ground-breaking work I’ve done and my impressive list of new clients including but certainly not limited to Ray Investments.

  “So it’s no surprise to anyone here that tonight we welcome Jackson to the firm,” he finishes. “He’s been on the radar a long time now.”

  “About time we had someone good looking in Corporate,” yells someone. Anthony fakes a flinch and flashes his million-dollar smile, and everyone laughs.

  “Welcome to the firm,” he says sincerely, although we both know he’s not. Then he shakes my right hand and passes me the envelope.

  Although I’m semi-curious to open it, tradition dictates this does not happen until after my speech in reply. So I rattle off my own speech which is also droll and makes jovial reference to all the right personalities in the firm and more serious but tasteful innuendo to the obscene amount of money I intend to earn this firm. When I’m done people clap loudly, although maybe not as loudly as they did for Anthony, which disconcerts me back into the moment for a few seconds, as everyone raises their glasses to toast me a final time.

  I tear open the envelope as expected and extract the contents. A small cheer goes up. I bend my head and read it.

  You belong in a cell. Fun starts tonight.

  I blink.

  The partners are clapping and a few of the more inebriated ones are making catcalls and I force a smile and raise my glass. They are a blur of faces and the room is swimming before me. I don’t know if it’s a joke. Or if I’ve been ambushed.

  I do know I need to get
out. But waitresses are circling again, and trays of crayfish are everywhere, and I’m engulfed by my goddamn fellow partners.

  I finger the note in my pocket. I want to examine it. It was ominous looking, handwritten in red ink. Not a bad strategy, part of me thinks. I could see myself leaving notes like this for my girls.

  But if the note is not a joke, if there’s any chance it’s real, some kind of “fun” will be starting tonight. I finger the note again and wonder who did this, or if it is just a joke. But if not, what the hell will be waiting for me when I get home?

  31

  I taxi home and there are cops everywhere. It’s blowing a gale and as soon as I step out of the car I’m freezing. Pacitto, immune to the cold, waves a search warrant and arrests me. Ava is there in the background wearing a toweling robe which flaps immodestly in the wind. She’s so caught up in her own hysteria she doesn’t even realize I’ve arrived. Pacitto wastes no time in telling me she had organized an intimate celebration and they had to bash down the door to get in as she’d tied herself to the bannister with silk scarves. “It made some of the boys’ week,” he tells me.

  Finally Ava comprehends that the person being handcuffed by the gate is her beloved boyfriend. “What’s happening?” she screams.

  “You need to call Carla Diaz,” I say.

  A look of suspicion crosses her face. “Who’s Carla Diaz?”

  “My lawyer. You need to call her immediately, Ava.”

  Even in the midst of it all she’s not happy I’ve got a female lawyer. If I wasn’t cuffed by this stage, I’d slap her. “Just fucking call her!” I want to scream. But I’m an important man and we don’t cave to pressure like that. I’m innocent and I’ve been set up and I’ve a note in my pocket to prove it. “Her number’s in my phone,” I say struggling to fish it out of my pocket. The note comes out as well and an icy gust snatches it up.

  “The warrant covers your phone,” says Pacitto cheerfully as this is happening. He takes it off me and gives it to someone to bag but I’m barely noticing.

  “The note! Someone get my note before it blows away!” There is desperation in my voice. “It proves I’m innocent!” I yell.

  Pacitto soaks up the moment. “Sure it does. An official pardon from the Pope, is it?” He makes a gesture with his head and uniformed cops close in on me.

  “Ava, get that note,” I shout.

  “She’d better be just your lawyer,” says Ava darkly.

  The note is gone. Carried off into the darkness. And now I’m being carried along by a sea of cops.

  “That’s all she is and she’s a bitch and I hate her — so just call her,” I bellow, exploding with pressure and hating myself for it. I throw Ava an ugly look as I’m heavied towards the waiting car.

  The people in my neighborhood are discreet and no one is in sight. But I know despite the lack of crowd I’ll have a large audience all watching from the top stories of their homes. And someone’s teenage kid will be recording it all on their phone.

  As I’m “helped” into the back of the car I see Detective Grayson bolting out of the house as if someone’s just set fire to his mother. Disappointment washes over his stolid, doughy face. Stringy hair whipping against it in the wind. He’s missed the whole thing.

  “Super-flash neighborhood,” says Pacitto. He doesn’t want to miss a minute and is riding in the back with me. “Never arrested anyone from here before.”

  I ignore him but he’s animated and conversational.

  “We dug up the knife,” Pacitto says. “I’m betting her blood is still mixed in with all that dirt.”

  There’s a uniformed cop on my left, pressed right up close in my personal space. I wonder if he’s doing it deliberately to rile me. If he is, it’s working.

  “Don’t you want to know what else we found?”

  “Satanic etchings?”

  “Funny guy. You already know. We found her scarf. Husband’s already identified it.”

  His undisguised joy is beginning to nauseate me, so I turn away and all but bump noses with the goon on my left who stares at me with open hostility. He’s close enough that I can feel his breath and it challenges every heterosexual instinct in my being. If I was high this would be the point at which I’d head-butt him. I spend a moment reflecting on how fortunate it is I’m not high.

  The cop in the front passenger seat — yes, it would appear I need a four-man escort — is on the phone to his wife. He’s taking note of what she needs brought home and by all accounts it sounds like he’s in for a very average meal.

  I wonder where the wind has taken my ominous partnership note by now and who wrote it. If the stuff they dug up on my property checks out to be Jo’s, then the person who typed that note murdered Jo or knows who did. Either that, or this is the worst partnership initiation joke I’ve ever known.

  “You know what your problem is?” Pacitto is leaning over me to recapture my attention. “You’re too smart, you’re too rich.”

  “That’s two problems, not one,” I say. “And they’ve never overly burdened me.”

  “I hadn’t finished,” says Pacitto. “A lot of the poor guys get caught because they make dumb mistakes—”

  “There’s a reason these people are poor,” I say knowingly.

  Nothing worse than finally making the little speech you’ve dreamed about giving only to keep having it interrupted.

  I know I’m not in a strong position to be back-chatting but the cop beside me is virtually sitting on my knee now and it’s starting to derail me. I remind myself again it’s purposeful.

  Pacitto ploughs on undeterred. “The poor ones don’t plan,” he says. “The rich ones do — cos they’re smart. But the rich ones think they’re above the law. They’re arrogant. That’s where they fall down.”

  “I was set up,” I say. “If I’m as smart as you say I am, why would I take the knife and her scarf and store it in my house?” I rest back into the seat as if it’s a comfortable ride and close my eyes.

  ◆◆◆

  I refuse to have any kind of interview. “You’ve arrested me,” I say. “You can’t question me without my lawyer.”

  “Fine,” replies Pacitto, although I can tell he’s second-guessing the enthusiastic nature of his approach, and he throws me in a cell.

  The cell is all concrete with a bench and a mattress and a toilet. I don’t want to touch the mattress but I’m tired and the only other seating option is even less savory. The mattress is thin. There’s a manky grey blanket folded at the end which I’m not going to touch.

  An hour later a uniformed cop brings me a phone. “I don’t know her number,” I say darkly.

  Another hour passes. A different uniformed cop brings me a laminated printout of lawyers and phone numbers.

  My fingers are so numb I can barely dial. “They’ve arrested me,” I say. “You need to come down and get me out.”

  Carla lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. In the background I hear laughter and music.

  “I was set up. Someone planted the knife and a scarf in my house,” I say.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “How do you think? Because that’s what they found, and I didn’t put them there.”

  More background laughter and music on her end and I can hear Carla having a muted conversation. Finally she says, “It’s not going to be possible to get you out tonight.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s ten-thirty. Everyone who’s anyone has gone.”

  “Then phone someone at home. Call in a favor, for God’s sake, or don’t expect to be paid!”

  “You’re in no position to make threats,” says Carla, and hangs up.

  Right then, right there, I know I’m going to abduct her one day. She’s not my type but for her I’ll make an exception.

  “I need another number,” I yell.

  Pacitto head appears at the window. He unlocks the door. I realize he’s been listening the whole time. How is anyone to get justic
e in this place?

  “Changing lawyers?” he asks.

  “Nope.” Not now. Because I’m going to abduct my lawyer one day. And I won’t want it to look like we ever fell out.

  “Then that was your phone call,” he says.

  He sits down beside me. He smells good and I note he’s showered and shaved. “This is over, Jackson. Your lies have caught up with you,” he says.

  “It was planted. They were planted. Can I have a coffee?”

  “That’s a good idea. Why don’t we both have a coffee and discuss why your car was seen outside her house that night?”

  I gain an immediate understanding of the idiom about blood freezing. I’m not sure if I can speak. “You can’t interrogate me without a lawyer,” is the best I can manage.

  “It’s not an interrogation. Just a chat.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Then neither is the coffee.”

  He leaves me with my frozen blood in my frozen cell. I then gain another understanding of another idiom, the one about hearing your heart hammering in your chest. Was my car really seen or is he fishing? I know cops are allowed to lie. They can make stuff up. They do all the time. On the other hand . . .

  A uniformed cop brings me a Styrofoam cup of tepid water which I suspect has originated from a tap. I wonder if anyone’s urinated in it. My throat is sore and suddenly I’m too thirsty to care. Can I really be broken this easily? It’s a great drop with a chlorine nose and subtle undertones of fluoride and ash. My hand shakes each time I raise it to my mouth. I don’t remember ever being quite this cold.

  I’ve no idea what the time is and eventually I lie down on the bench. The mattress is a token gesture and the chill of the concrete seeps straight through it. At some stage through my hypothermic daze I break a little further and pull the blanket over me. It smells of wretchedness and desperation. They’ve left the lights on and the prick who regularly checks on me through the small window in my cell door ignores my requests for darkness.