As I stand gazing out of the window at the panorama of the city spread before me, there’s a rippled reflection in the glass. Someone has walked up behind me.
I turn.
“Hi,” she says.
Talia has a small box in her arms filled with books and memorabilia. I recognize the marble pen set from Ben’s desk. Given all of my most turgid fantasies of Talia, this is one role I could never have conjured-the widow performing the wifely duty, removing Ben’s personal items from the office.
“Hello.” My voice is flat, empty.
“Just a moment.” She walks back to the reception station, places the box on the counter, and issues instructions to Barbara. There are more boxes in Ben’s office. They are too heavy. She will need help. I make no effort to move away. Finally she turns and looks directly at me standing there, lost in a philodendron. For an instant we simply look at each other. It’s like ice cracking around our feet on a frozen pond. Each waits for the other to make the first move. I win the contest. She comes closer again.
“How have you been?” she says.
“Good.”
Her hands are clasped neatly together just below the waistband of her very tight, brightly colored skirt. With Talia, at least in private, mere will be no pretense of mourning. This woman who bedded me for the better part of a year under the nose of her husband is now the picture of polite reserve. We stand here eye to eye, staring in silence at each other. Barbara, the epitome of clerical servitude, appears oblivious to the tension that fills the room.
“Here for a visit?” she asks.
“To see Tony.”
“Lucky you.”
“How are you holding up?” It’s all I can think of to say, the obligatory caring question.
She makes a face. “Making out,” she says. “It’s difficult.”
I nod.
“The police just allowed us back into Ben’s office yesterday. I guess it takes a long time for them to finish whatever it is they do after something like this.”
“Sometimes.”
“A lot of unanswered questions,” she says. “I suppose we’ll never fully understand it.”
I flex an eyebrow in inquiry.
“Why he did it? Ben had so much to live for.”
With anyone else I would be surprised, but knowing Talia as I do, I have no doubt that she will be the last to hear that her husband’s death is in fact now the subject of a homicide investigation. I do not shatter the illusion.
“I suppose,” I say.
“I’ve turned it over a million times in my mind. A friend who lost her son to suicide a year ago keeps telling me to stop asking the same question over and over again: “Why?’ She says it gets worse every time you ask it. I think she’s right.”
It’s a true measure of the difference in how each of us perceives life that before I was told that Ben’s death was attributable to another person, I had asked the same question of myself, only once, and had had little difficulty arriving at a single and unassailable answer: This was no suicide.
As she speaks, I listen. There’s not a hint of reticence in her manner, though her eyes wander, taking in nothing in particular. This is the Talia I know, standing here in a public place, speaking unbridled with a former lover, her partner in adultery, unable to muster even a single theory as to why her husband might have taken his own life. Talia has a gift for viewing reality through a torpid haze, like a film shot through gauze.
We stand, she speaking and I forming a listless audience. A face from the past approaches in the hallway behind Talia. I’ve seen this face but can’t place it.
“I need your help with some papers in the desk. A decision on what to do with …” He cuts it off in mid-sentence as he sees me.
Talia turns.
“Oh, Tod.” Her voice becomes brighter. “I want you to meet an old friend. Paul Madriani, Tod Hamilton. You remember, I told you about Paul.”
He extends a hand. I give it a quick shake. There are knowing glances exchanged between the two. A kind of psychic titter invades the conversation as Hamilton looks for something to do with his hands. It’s clear that at some point I’ve been the topic of conversation between the two. I sense that perhaps Talia has not extolled my virtues. Tod, it seems, is my most recent replacement. Then I remember. The cleft chin, Wong’s. Tod was at Talia’s table the night I talked to Ben.
“Tod’s been helping me go through some of Ben’s things. He’s been a lifesaver, my rock to lean on during this period.” Her hot-pink mourning attire and the fact that she is here with her latest flame speak to Talia’s total lack of concern for the social constraints that rule other, less self-possessed souls.
“I see.”
She looks back at him, over her shoulder, and smiles. He has a confident grin. The kind that says I’m no competition. The glazed look of lust in Talia’s eyes confirms his assessment. While I can’t explain it, this hurts. I carry no torch for Talia, and yet my middle-aged ego is crushed. Seeing the two of them standing there, virtually oblivious to my presence, lost in this glow of mutual infatuation, somehow feeds a primeval yearning within me. I stand here mired in this quicksand of social discomfort.
Silence spawns a crusade for small talk-Talia’s latest real estate venture, Tod’s tennis exploits. Talia has pushed the conversation to the domestic side, asking about Sarah. She chides me until I reach for my wallet and pictures. I’m saved by Florence, Tony’s secretary, who has come to retrieve me for the meeting.
Florence Thorn is a tall, stately woman on whom social pleasantries appear a lost art. She’s all business.
“Mr. Madriani, if you’ll follow me. They’re waiting for you.”
The acid begins to churn in my stomach when I hear the plural pronoun. Skarpellos is ganging up on me.
Tod looks at me and smiles. “Nice to have met you.” For all of his looks there is a disarming sincerity, a kind of country honesty under the polished virility. Talia could have done worse, I conclude.
Tony’s secretary sets a brisk pace down the hall. We turn the corner and there-it hits me like an iced dagger. For a moment I break stride, staring in silence at the walnut-paneled double doors leading to Ben’s office. One of them is open. Police tape, a single band of canary yellow with busy black lettering, clings to the paneling near the door frame.
The secretarial station across from Ben’s office is vacant and dark. Jo Ann, Ben’s secretary, is not in. And then it strikes me. She was not at the funeral either. For as long as I had known Ben, Jo was a fixture, always at his elbow.
“Where’s Jo Ann?” I ask.
“Oh-Mrs. Campanelli is no longer with us.” She offers nothing more man a pleasant smile. That’s it-fifteen years with the firm and Jo Ann’s epitaph is covered in four words, “no longer with us.”
Florence taps lightly on the rich black walnut. The door to the spacious corner office is opened from the inside. Tony Skarpellos rises from behind an immense pedestal desk, its base formed from polished redwood burl. Tony’s waste basket is the hollowed foot of an elephant. A seamless horn of ivory is mounted on the wall above the window. In this, as in so many other ways, the Greek is tasteless. To Tony social disfavor is a badge of honor. He would nail Bambi to the wall if Disney would sell him rights.
“Paul, come in,” he says. “Please come in.”
“Tony.” I greet him, not warmly, merely a statement of fact.
The surface of his desk is a slab of polished black granite. It picks up the reflection of Tony’s mendacious smile. To reach him I traverse yards of carpeted expanse, taupe in color, and deep as sand on a dry beach.
He extends his hand. I give it a quick shake. Then behind me I hear the catch on the door as it closes. I turn to find Ron Brown standing there-playing doorman. This is not a warm reunion.
Tony clears his throat. Left with no recourse, he does the honors. “Ron, I think you know Paul Madriani.”
Brown glides across the room like a purebred Arabian steed skimming the sand. �
��Sure. Paul and I are old friends. It’s good to see you again.” He thrusts his hand in my direction as if it’s spring-loaded and pumps my arm like the handle on a hydraulic jack. Brown excels in such settings. Today he’s playing the enthusiastic corporate lackey-all teeth, beaming from beneath a meager pencil mustache.
On first blush, Ronald Simpson Brown is a difficult man to dislike. He’s personable and outwardly affable. Like corroding metal, his oppressive insecurity doesn’t become apparent until stress is applied. During my stint at Potter, Skarpellos, Brown and I discovered our mutual coefficient of friction at an early stage. From that point we maintained our distance.
“I’ve asked Ron to join us here this afternoon. Please-have a seat.” Tony smiles and gives a broad gesture toward the two leather client chairs situated in front of the vast rock of ages. I settle into cushioned nothingness and wait for the revelation-the reason I’ve been summoned.
“Some coffee, Paul?”
“No, thanks.” The empty cup situated at the edge of the black desk in front of Brown indicates that whatever Skarpellos has to say will come as no surprise to Brown. The two have been at it for some time before my arrival.
Brown opens his leather notebook and removes the screw cap from his fountain pen-three hundred dollars of black enamel and gold filigree with a twenty-four-carat writing nib the size of a spear. He sits poised with this baton on his fingers, as if he’s about to sign a treaty ending world poverty. When these pens first started appearing in the hands of young lawyers in court a year ago, Harry dubbed them “spear-chuckers.”
Skarpellos opens a gold cigar box on the desk and tilts it in my direction.
I shake my head.
“You don’t mind if I do?”
“It’s your office.”
He offers one to Brown, who declines.
These are not big stogies, but smaller and black, twisted and shapeless corkscrews, things that Skarpellos discovered on a trip through Italy two years earlier. By the old Italians who smoke them, men whose few remaining teeth are brown as the snow piled along the edge of highways, I am told, these cigars are known simply as toscanelli. Ben swore they were pieces of dog shit. Several seconds in, with thick clouds of dark smoke wafting about Tony’s head, I wonder whether Potter’s euphemism was grounded so much on their appearance as the odor they emit. It’s the latest affectation, like the ginseng tea following his whirlwind tour of China, and the array of bottled mineral waters on his return from Eastern European spas. As with the frog in The Wind in the Willows, in time each went the way of the Greek’s last fad. One can only hope that his fling with toscanelli will soon follow the same course.
The accoutrements of wealth and tastelessness now in place, Skarpellos and Brown are ready to begin business.
“We all appreciate your coming by today.” He turns his head to the side and spits out little bits of tobacco, stripping the end of his tongue with his teeth and lips to comb off the last few pieces. “The partners, that is. I know that Ben’s death affected you deeply, as it did all of us.” He’s still spitting in between syllables. “Whatever caused you to leave the firm, well, that’s all water under the bridge-as far as I’m concerned. I want you to know that.”
Tony pauses. Like the village pastor, he’s giving me an opportunity to make a confession.
“I appreciate that, Tony.”
“Yeah, well.” He’s fingering a single piece of paper centered on the desk in front of him, lines printed in large type so Tony can read them without his glasses. He’s searching for his place on the script. In all of this smoke, his eyes are beginning to water.
“There’s been a lot of confusion around here. I guess you can imagine.”
I nod.
He leans back, having mastered the subject once more. “The cops have really been working the place over. We hear rumors, stories, nothing specific.” He looks at me for signs of interest. And then with typical finesse: “Have you heard anything?”
Skarpellos is not a man of small talk-or for that matter great thoughts-but for those in a hurry he possesses the virtue of directness.
“About what?”
“Ben’s death?”
“Just what I’ve read.”
“Thought you might have heard something from your pals over in the DA’s office. Your pipeline is probably better than ours on something like this.”
“What are you hearing?” I ask.
It’s clear that Tony’s not been left standing at the gate. He suffers under no illusion that his partner took his own life. For a moment I think that Skarpellos has called me here to pump me for information on Ben’s death.
He swallows a little saliva, considering his response.
“Things,” he says.
“Yes?”
“Just rumors. You know, the kind of stuff you probably always hear when somebody prominent takes his own life. Loose talk about foul play. Lotta speculation.”
“I suppose. I hadn’t heard.”
“Sure,” he says. “Well, down to business.” Digging for dirt in Ben’s death has been only Tony’s hors d’oeuvre.
“I guess we should get right to it. I’m sure there’s no need to say this, but so there’s no misunderstanding later, what I’m about to tell you must be treated in the strictest confidence. I assume I have your assurance on that?” Skarpellos looks directly at me. Brown knows his job serves as collateral for his discretion.
I nod my assent.
“There is a client who, for the moment, shall remain nameless. Suffice it to say this is a man of some prominence.” There’s a lot of posturing here. Skarpellos weighs what he’s about to say for a brief instant. The judicious hesitation is mostly for my benefit. It’s followed quickly by a show of candor: “The man is a public official.” That narrows it to half a thousand people in this town. “It seems he’s gotten himself caught up in what’s about to become a very embarrassing-and messy-criminal case.” A long, sobering pause follows as Skarpellos prepares me for the solemnity of the charges.
“The guy’s accused of multiple counts of bribery.” His bushy eyebrows droop. He takes a slow draw on the cigar and emits an irregular smoke ring toward the ceiling. “With some sexual overtones.”
I make a face-novel, but I’m not convinced that it represents a new low in the ethos of our public servants.
Skarpellos gets the point and his dour expression turns light. He laughs. “Yeah-the guy’s a bit of an asshole. Problem is, as they say, he’s our asshole.”
“The firm has taken the case?” I ask.
“In a manner of speaking. Actually we’re only advising him at this point.” The firm is merely brokering the case. I wonder what prize is in it for P amp;S or, perhaps more to the point, for Tony Skarpellos. I begin to anticipate the drift of our conversation. Like a rug merchant, Tony studies my expression for signs of interest.
At this point Skarpellos begins to run out of steam. I wonder why it is that he can’t get to the punch line. The rules of evidence may often elude him, but bullshit is Tony’s special gift.
“As you know, this firm is not well schooled in criminal law, though Ben helped to navigate some of our business clients through those stormy waters from time to time.”
“And that’s why you’ve come to me?”
“In a manner of speaking. Yes.”
They want me to take this piece of swill off their hands. Skarpellos sits staring at me as if, like a faith healer curing leprosy, I hold some magic formula, some legal potion that I can prescribe for his client that will cleanse him. A long pause follows as Tony struggles through several versions of a pained smile. It’s a common expression for Skarpellos. He’s on one of his verbal safaris searching for the right words.
“I appreciate the firm’s confidence, Tony. Perhaps I might even share a little of it-if I knew precisely what it is you want from me.” If it’s my help, he will have to do better than this. Skarpellos will have to climb down from his throne. He may even have to crawl. For the right
fee, I might take the case.
“This is a very important man,” he explains-their client who is not really a client. “He has important friends. He’s made a mistake, but then who among us has not done that?” Tony spreads his arms over the shimmering stone surface of the desk and begins to talk with his hands, trailing highways of smoke in the air, part of the Greek lexicon.
“Tony. What is it that you want?” There’s an edge of impatience to my words.
Knowing glances are exchanged between Brown and Skarpellos. We’ve arrived at the marrow of our meeting. If we were engaged in plea negotiations, this is where the bullshit would be shelved, where we would hear no more of society’s interests, or the requirements of justice.
There’s an awkward pause as they go through the silent ritual of selecting a spokesman. Brown gets the nod. He comes on all polished charm and flashing teeth-the words emitted with the rapid-fire precision of a Gatling gun.
“Well, we don’t really want you to take the case.”
Now I’m angry. Ron Brown-the resident sycophant-is about to tell me that I’m not up to defending their man.
“You represent a client, I believe-Susan Hawley?”
I make no gesture to respond, but it’s clear that Brown needs none. Suddenly I remember my conversation with Skarpellos at the University Club and the pieces begin to fit.
“Your client presents some real problems for our client.” There’s a slight pause as Brown looks to Skarpellos, and then: “What we want is your assurance that she won’t testify.”
“What?” I’m more amused-dazed-than angry.
Ron Brown suffers from the chronic corporate disease of my generation. He possesses the intellectual fortitude of jelly. An original thought entering his mind is doomed to die of loneliness. Observing every disagreement and battle from the sidelines, Brown is uncanny in his early recognition of a victor. When the dust has settled, it seems all anyone ever remembers is that Brown turned the first spade of earth to bury the vanquished, and then lead the team fight song. He exhibits all the dubious qualities of corporate and civic leadership in our times. In a word, Ron Brown has the natural inclinations of a good politician.
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