by Tim Green
“Looks bad,” I say, peering outside at the sun-drenched back lawn.
“It will be,” Bert says.
“Turn that off, okay?” I say.
Down on the expansive teak dock, Rangle’s wife and daughter are lounging on deck chairs, oiled up, with their faces tilted toward the sun. Allen and Rangle are already on board the twenty-eight-foot party boat. Bert gets behind the wheel and the motor puffs blue smoke into the clean air. Villay hurries down the path, across the dock, and hops on board the boat with another apology for holding things up. Bert casts off and we ease out toward the middle of the lake.
Allen digs into the cooler and passes out bottles of Heineken. We talk about the color of the water and the smattering of new homes that mar the crest of the far hills. When we get to where the fish are, Bert drops the anchor and begins handing out fully rigged poles. I scoop up a shiner out of the bait bucket and hold up the wriggling minnow for everyone to see.
I look at Villay as I speak.
“What you want to do is run your hook through the mouth, like this,” I say, punching the hook up through the bottom side of the fish’s jaw and out through its tiny snout. “Some people hook them through the back, but it kills them too quickly. If you want to get a big one, something worth having, you have to hook it like this.”
“What’s the difference?” Rangle asks.
“Panic and agony,” I say, then smile. “The minnow thrashes longer and harder when you hook it through the face. The big ones get excited. It’s like an IPO.”
Rangle smiles with me. Villay is the last one to get a minnow and he hesitates. I put my hand on his arm.
“Bert will do it,” I say, looking down at him.
He looks at me and smiles.
We sit quietly around the edge of the boat on padded benches, our poles dangling in the air. Waves lap against the aluminum pontoons. I close my eyes behind their sunglasses and listen, enjoying the bath of sunlight, the taste of a cold bottle of beer, and the pressure I can actually feel building up behind Dean Villay’s face. Rangle and Allen talk football among themselves and Bert keeps glancing to the west while I wait.
Villay stands up and his reel clicks as he brings in his line. I open my eyes to see him inching this way. He sits down beside me and says, “I understand you’re interested in my ideas on some constitutional issues.”
“The president has asked me to give him a name or two,” I say, slowly bringing in my own line. “Your career interests me.”
“I like to think I’m as conservative as Clarence Thomas,” he says.
“I’ve read several of your more important decisions,” I say, popping my minnow out of the water and letting it writhe in the air. “But I’m not completely clear on where you sit with the death penalty.”
I cast my line out again.
The lines on his face ease. He squints at a boat going by before he says, “It’s not a deterrent. We know that. But I think in some cases, it’s morally justified.”
“What about the innocent ones?” I ask. Everyone is listening now. “Doesn’t the state become the criminal when one innocent man, even one in a thousand, is executed, when in fact he is innocent?”
“If a man is found guilty in a jury trial of his peers,” Villay says with a small smile, “by definition, he cannot be innocent. Are we talking jurisprudence, or philosophy? Those are two very different conversations.”
“Well put,” I say, and I can see all his perfect teeth.
We catch ten lake trout between us and Bert promises to have the cook serve them with dinner. Lunch is a pleasant buffet served from silver trays and eaten on a long table on the back porch set with crystal glassware and several arrangements of fresh cut flowers. Afterward, I invite Rangle into my study. We are discussing finances when a red Ferrari roars past the window. A few moments later, Bert shows Andre into the study.
He wears a burgundy Hugo Boss shirt that matches his slacks. On his wrist is a Cartier Panther. His accent is passable and his natural arrogance is enough for Rangle to buy into his identity. We hatch a plan for manipulating the Russian stock market, then join the rest of the party back down on the dock for more drinks and sun. Rangle is twisting his fingers madly and is nearly out of breath as he introduces Andre to his daughter. He pulls a deck chair alongside hers and offers it to him. As an afterthought, he introduces Allen, who takes Andre’s hand and coolly looks him up and down. The wind picks up late in the afternoon and a blanket of high mackerel-scale clouds blots out the sun.
Dinner is in the dining room at eight. We are dressed in a way that makes Ms. Vanderhorn feel at home and are seated around the grand mahogany table. Two girls in waitress uniforms hurry in and out, serving dinner. Billy Fitzpatrick and his wife, Diane, have joined us. Billy is the district attorney for Onondaga County, Villay’s old job, and his wife is a judge. Both are highly regarded by everyone, and I figure I may as well put the five million I gave to the party to some good use.
I have them seated facing the Villays at my end of the table. Allen presides over the other end, holding his mouth at an odd angle while Andre sucks down Jack-and-Gingers and boasts to the Rangles. From time to time he touches Dani Rangle’s bare arm and she giggles.
After the main course is taken away, there is a lull where the conversation fades to a murmur.
I clear my throat and say, “Billy, question for you. What’s the statute of limitations on murder?”
Billy’s eyes are pale green and set in a round red Irish face. He looks me over.
“That depends on how well you know the DA,” he says with just a hint of a long-lost Brooklyn accent. “Just kidding. There is no time limit on prosecuting a murder. It’s the only crime that doesn’t have one. Why?”
“Bert thinks this place has a ghost,” I say. “And he says that the spirit will be restless until someone is punished. Ridiculous, I know, but I’m in a bind. Bert is the best man I’ve ever come across and I’m pretty fond of this place.”
“What? You got a clairvoyant or something? Tarot cards?” Billy asks, dabbing his lips with the napkin.
“Not far off,” I say, looking around the table. The others have stopped talking now and their eyes are on me. Villay tugs at his necktie. His wife is stiff and pale in her black dress.
“I don’t believe it, but Bert,” I say, nodding toward the dim corner of the dining room where he stands in a suit, watching the help, “comes from a long line of Akwesasne medicine men. He told me the first day I showed him this place that there was a ghost. I had a good laugh, right, Bert?”
Bert steps into the light with half his face covered by the shadow of his nose and his eyes narrow canyons of darkness. He grunts and nods, then like distant thunder, he says, “My grandmother always told me that the wings of the dark spirits brush the lips of the medicine man and his line. And when I came to this place, I felt that on my lips.”
“Yeah, I saw a psychic one time on the witness stand,” Billy says with a mischievous smile. He takes a sip from his wineglass. “Didn’t go over too good, but a medicine man? That might work.”
This brings a laugh from everyone, even the Villays, and the tension evaporates. While the moment is calm, I excuse myself and go upstairs. I know from the Hewlett Harbor maid whose toothbrush is whose and I slip quickly into the Villays’ bedroom, where I put the right drop on each. Their room has been soundproofed, but for good measure I go through the other rooms, applying more drops from the red vial on other toothbrushes.
By the time I get back, dessert is being served and the first fat drops of rain tap intermittently against the windowpanes.
“Please. A toast,” I say, raising my wineglass. “To health, happiness, young love, and the Russian stock market.”
This brightens everyone except Allen, who stares passively at me. I make a point to grin at him, until finally, he smiles back. Glasses clink together and everyone drinks. I nod to the girls who wait like Bert in the shadows of the long room. They step out and refill everyone
’s glasses. Rangle is half in the bag and now he stands up.
“I have a toast,” he says, bowing his head toward Andre so that the dark auburn flap of his hair falls sideways off the top of his bald head. “To the czar and all his offspring.”
Andre looks at him, puzzled, then smiles, although I don’t believe he understands who the czar is. We all drink to the czar and Rangle sits down with a satisfied look on his face that quickly melts under his wife’s glare.
When Dani giggles and leans toward Andre, he kisses her ear. Allen slams his fist down on the table, jarring the china and tipping over his half-empty wineglass.
“Keep her,” he says, and marches out of the room with his head high.
Andre and Dani burst out in giddy laughter. Rangle shows all his teeth and his wife looks like she ate a bad piece of fish. I signal the girls again and they pour more wine.
“A final toast,” I say, rising to my feet. “To domestic felicity.”
They all stare at me blankly, but raise their glasses just the same and empty them. I take a sip, look at my watch, and suggest after-dinner drinks on the back porch for those who haven’t had enough. I then thank them all again for coming, excuse myself, and wish them all a good night.
50
ALLEN IS DOWN AT THE LAKE. I can see his shape lit by the low-voltage lights along the shore. The rain is still falling in random bloated drops. Allen appears not to mind as he casts stones from the beach into the rippling black water.
“I’m sorry,” I say, toweling off a lounge chair beside him before I sit down and put up my feet.
Allen is silent. A sliver of the orange moon peers through the trees on top of the far hill before disappearing into the bank of clouds. Over the hissing of the wind in the trees I can hear the crunch of Allen’s feet on the beach. He throws half a dozen more rocks into the water before raising his voice above the wind and saying, “What made you invite that asshole anyway?”
“It’s really not Andre’s fault,” I say. “He is what he is and I have a business deal with him and Rangle. To tell you the truth, I think it gives you a good out.”
“Who says I want an out?” he says, turning to face me. A drop of rain strikes his cheek and he wipes it away.
I fold my hands together.
“Allen,” I say quietly. “That’s a rocket ship bound for space. You want to be on it because it’s fast and sleek and exciting. But whoever mounts that baby is going to burn up as soon as they leave the launching pad. You know that. I know you know…”
“What did you… plan it or something?”
“Of course not,” I say. “But I’ll tell you the truth. I didn’t stop it, and that’s because you’re my friend.”
“So what,” he says with a small smile, looking up at the dark sky then back at me. “I owe you two lives now?”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I say.
“I feel like I do,” he says, “even though I wanted to punch you in there.”
“Violent,” I say, skipping a rock of my own without getting up from my seat.
“That’s my father’s side,” he says. “To hear him tell it, I’m practically a clone. It makes my mom and me laugh.”
“Pretty crazy about your mom, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “Dani Rangle is a long way from her. I’ll have to remind myself of that for the next one.”
“Well,” I say, rising from my seat and looking up. “Time for bed.”
“Good night,” Allen says.
“As your mom would say, don’t forget to brush your teeth,” I tell him, and he laughs.
I watch him from my bedroom as the tempo of the rain picks up. I lose his shape for a moment in the mist rising from the water. Then his rain-soaked shape appears from the gray and the back door slams shut. Thunder begins to crash and the blackness is shattered by white bursts of light. The trees bow down and one of the old spruces cracks like a cannon.
I listen to the storm rage and wait until after midnight before I sit down with a mug of green tea and start up the computer. The Villays are snug in their bed under a blue light occasionally lit bright by flashes of lightning outside. Christina’s mouth is open, her arm flung over her forehead. Villay himself is tossing and turning, muttering to himself, whining like a feverish child. His eyes are open, but stare blankly at the ceiling.
I split the screen so I can see the images projected onto the ceiling and Villay at the same time, then I start the sequence, just the way Chuck showed me. The instant Villay sees the image of his first wife’s face he shrieks like a sorority girl. His head twists from side to side, but his eyes seem frozen on the image, his body pinned to the bed.
In an eerie voice, the computer-generated image of Villay’s first wife begins to moan and shriek and it rises on the back of the howling storm outside, flailing above it then sinking back as if she were drowning all over again.
“You killed me, Dean,” she says, wailing. “You killed me. You murdered me. You and she. Murderers, Dean. I won’t leave you, Dean. You chose her, but now I’m back. I won’t leave you, Dean. You killed me…”
On and on she groans. For Villay, it is an unending nightmare. One he cannot escape. The drug in the green vial was perfected by the CIA in the eighties, before the end of the cold war. It opens gaping holes in the mind so that horrible images and sounds can be poured in without filter and slosh around to contaminate without end.
It won’t happen tonight. Or tomorrow night. But sooner or later, the drug will do its job.
It will break his mind.
51
“INCREDIBLE,” Rangle says, tapping an open copy of the Wall Street Journal that rests on top of the black onyx slab that makes up his desk. “Russian sweet crude through the roof. That’s the fifth perfect trend in two weeks.”
I clasp my hands behind my back and walk across the thick rug to the window. I can see New Jersey. The Statue of Liberty gleams, emerald in the last rays of the afternoon sun.
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” I say.
“Do you know what someone said they’re calling me?” Rangle asks. “The wizard of Wall Street. Do you think that’s a compliment?”
“Of course,” I say.
“It’s a jealous town,” he says, musing. He strokes his little mustache and then grasps his fingers.
“Pleased?” he says, shaking his head, grinning now. “My little girl’s head over heels in love. My wife is happy. No small feat there. Did I tell you that Vance International got me copies of the documents that draw a direct line from our Prince Andre all the way to Alexander III? I’d go out and buy a Powerball ticket if I didn’t know we were going to make more with our new Russian prince.”
I put my hand against the glass. It’s warm from the day.
“God, it’s a long way down,” I say in a low tone.
“Excuse me?” Rangle says. I hear his desk chair swivel my way.
“Did you ever look down?” I ask, glancing back at him. “It’s a weird feeling I get whenever I’m up high. What it would be like to have it all rushing up at you and you can’t stop it.”
Rangle is beside me now. He raps his knuckle on the window.
“Safety glass,” he says.
“That’s right. We’re safe,” I say. “We’re on the top. But just look.”
He glances at me. His eyes flicker down toward the street and the waterfront below. Cars crawl along like ants. People are specks that barely move. He clears his throat and moves back to his desk. The intercom buzzes and his secretary announces that his lawyer is on the line and says he needs to talk to him.
“Not now,” he says. “Tell him I’m with Seth Cole and I’ll get right back to him.”
I turn and take a seat facing his desk. I make a steeple of my fingertips and say, “On the twentieth, we’ll take a position in the Bank of Moscow. There will be a favorable announcement first thing on the twenty-third and the price will jump hard. It’ll happen fast and we’ll sell into the surge
at four p.m. Moscow time.”
Rangle leans toward me. His hands grip the edge of the dark wood desktop.
“How much?” he asks. “I can leverage half a billion after what happened with the oil. Everyone will want in.”
“As much as you think is wise,” I say. “Just buy into it in ten-million-dollar blocks and make sure you use different brokerage houses.”
“Oh, what are you worried about?”
“Safety glass,” I say quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“My God,” Rangle says, exposing half his teeth behind a smile that’s close to a sneer. “This is it. The Russian market. I was on top in the late nineties and then I took a huge hit, but I told my wife, I said, ‘It will come again. One day, the opportunity will be there and I’ll jump on it.’”
He looks hard at me, narrowing his eyes. His ears seem to flatten and he says, “I want a billion.”
I nod my head and sigh.
“That sounds reasonable,” I say. “And while you’re at it, there’s something I’d like to do… for Allen.”
“Of course,” Rangle says, “he can get in at whatever level he wants. There’s no million-dollar minimum for a friend of yours, Seth. You know you don’t even have to ask, just tell me.”
“It’s not about the fund,” I say. “That’s too obvious. In fact, I want this entirely between you and me. Charity isn’t charity unless it’s anonymous. I want to help him indirectly. I understand his father is looking for an investor in his company.”
“He’s been looking,” Rangle says, twisting his lips. “And there’s a reason he hasn’t found one. That’s not for you, Seth. Very sketchy. Casinos. Hotels. In his mind if he can sell his partnerships, he can get into the Friars Club.”
“It wouldn’t be me,” I say. “But I have a friend who represents a group of Native Americans. They’ve got some casinos upstate and they want to get into Atlantic City. I was thinking I could put him in touch with Frank’s partners. Not even go through Frank. Buy his interests out and they all live happily ever after.”