by Adam Mitzner
Jonathan didn’t much care. Jefferson’s bill was the only way he had to soak Harper Sawyer.
It wasn’t until they’d been going at it for more than a month—which by that time meant that Jonathan was enough of a regular that the security guard downstairs didn’t ask to see his building pass before permitting him entry—that Jefferson and his three associates entered the conference room en masse, each holding a three-inch black binder that had the word June on the cover.
Here we go, Jonathan thinks.
“It’s time for the main event,” Jefferson says. “But before we get into the trees, let’s spend a moment talking about the forest. I just got off the phone with your good friend Benjamin Ethan. He’s getting slightly impatient with me. I can’t blame him, to be honest. If I were him, I’d be annoyed at the pace with which we’re going through these records, too. Now, he’s no fool, and so he knows that I’m playing slow ball because my expectation is that we’re not going to cooperate with Harper Sawyer . . . and as soon as we tell Mr. Ethan that we’re shutting him out, he’s going directly to the US Attorney’s Office, at which time he’ll pledge Harper Sawyer’s full and complete cooperation to build a case against you in the hope that it’s enough to get Harper Sawyer out from under any type of supervision charge.”
“Why haven’t they already done that, then?” Jonathan asks.
“Because the first rule of litigation is that it’s always best to do nothing and get more information. That’s why they’ve been waiting for me to finish with you, and why I’ve been taking so long to do that. But I’m afraid the string on that ball of twine has pretty much run out. Look . . . we’ve been through the June records and, of course, I want to get your take on everything, but our analysis is that after Michael Ross gave notice of redemption, you began to deviate from the fund’s model and exposed the fund to market risk. Then when the Russian president croaked, you mismarked the position to hide the extent of the losses.”
“In other words, exactly what I told you on day one?”
“Yeah, but the records leave no other story to tell. And, unfortunately for you, that’s just not a story you can tell Harper Sawyer.”
“Why not? They’re going to fire me if I don’t cooperate with them anyway, right? So why not tell them the truth?”
Jefferson purses his lips and blows out a long sigh. Then he shakes his head the way you might when disagreeing with a three-year-old.
“Do I need to draw you a picture, Jonathan? There are a hell of a lot of things worse than being fired. If you tell them the truth, you admit to criminal conduct. Benjamin Ethan takes your admission down to the US Attorney’s Office with a ribbon around it and, pardon the mixed metaphor, serves you up on a silver platter. So unless you really, really want to find out what prison food tastes like, it’s my advice that you decline to be interviewed by Harper Sawyer. Without a live witness, it’s a technical case for the prosecution, which means it’s a winnable case for you. The trading positions are very complicated. You live and breathe this stuff, and . . . let’s face it, if prosecutors could understand it, then they’d be bankers themselves and make real money. And that’s not saying anything about those fine folks on the jury. Trust me, if God forbid you find yourself in a courtroom, I can guarantee that you will not be judged by a jury of your peers. You always got out of jury duty, am I right?”
Jonathan nods. He’s never once served.
“Yeah, like I said, try explaining to a bunch of cabbies and plumbers why removing a collared call on the downside trajectory of a ruble option contract is considered a crime. You’ll see lots of eyes glaze over. But that calculus changes in a big hurry if you admit that you intentionally unhedged the position and then fraudulently marked that position to avoid detection. Then it’s shooting fish in a barrel for even the most dim-witted prosecutor.”
“Okay. You sold me. You can tell Harper Sawyer thanks, but no thanks.”
“Right. That’s the only call. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be collateral damage here.”
“Like?”
“Like the moment we shut it down, Harper Sawyer is officially going to fire you and me both. And right after that, they’ll go down to the FBI and say that they’ve conducted a full investigation and concluded without a shadow of a doubt that you were a rogue employee whom they want prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Jonathan takes this in. It’s true, of course. The part about his being a rogue employee. Still, that doesn’t make it any less distressing an outcome.
“So . . . how long before it all hits the fan?” he asks.
As the words leave Jonathan’s mouth, he’s struck by how much it sounds like he’s asking for a medical diagnosis. How much time do I have left, Doc?
“I told Benjamin Ethan that I’d give him our position on the interview before Thanksgiving. You’ll likely be fired that same day, maybe the next, depending on how they want to manage the press.”
“And then what do I do?”
“You hunker down and wait to see if the US Attorney’s Office has enough evidence to indict you.”
Damn. Waiting has never been Jonathan’s strong suit.
* * *
True to his word, James Jefferson stalls until the day before Thanksgiving to tell Benjamin Ethan that Jonathan would not cooperate with Harper Sawyer’s internal investigation. And just as Jefferson had predicted, a few hours later, Jonathan is officially fired by Harper Sawyer via an e-mail from Ethan to Jefferson.
Jefferson breaks the news to Jonathan in a phone call later that evening.
“It’s not unexpected,” Jonathan says.
“This is the end of our relationship, too,” Jefferson replies. “Benjamin Ethan made that very clear. They’re not paying my fees any longer. Not even for this telephone call.”
“Also not unexpected.”
“Best of luck to you, Jonathan. I mean it.”
“Thanks, James. Really.”
* * *
Jonathan’s termination from Harper Sawyer will not be front-page news, but it will make the business section. Which means that he has to come clean with Natasha tonight, or run the risk that she’ll find out on her own.
After hanging up with Jefferson, Jonathan finds Natasha sitting in front of the fireplace, reading.
“Hi. Um, there’s something I need to tell you,” he says.
He should have thought through how he wanted to convey this information, because it sticks in his throat. He forces the rest of it out without further preamble.
“Harper Sawyer fired me.”
Jonathan’s not sure exactly what type of response he expected, but he had anticipated at least some heightened emotion. Natasha didn’t get angry often, but when she did, she wasn’t above throwing things or profanity-laced diatribes.
But the only reaction his confession evokes is a look of utter disgust. As if this is old news, and his greater sin is that he’s withheld it for so long.
“When did this happen?” she finally asks.
It’s further indication that perhaps she already knew he was unemployed. He had expected her first question to be why, not when.
“It was just made official today,” he says.
Even though she seems not to care about the cause of his termination or, more likely, already knows all about it, Jonathan adds, “There was an issue with some of the trading.”
“Okay. I guess I should do this now, then, so you don’t think it’s because of your job,” she says.
“Do what?” he asks.
Natasha walks over to the dining room, where her purse sits on the table. She fishes around inside for a moment and then removes something from her wallet.
“I was going to wait until after Thanksgiving, but perhaps it’s better if we just get it over with.”
She hands Jonathan a business card. Peter Stambleck, Attorney at Law.
“My divorce lawyer,” she says. “Have your lawyer call him . . . and that way we don’t have to talk to each othe
r about it, all right?”
“Uhhh . . . what the fuck, Natasha? How long have you been planning this?”
“Planning is not the right word, Jonathan. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
“And when did you finally decide to stop thinking and go out and get a fucking lawyer?”
“About a month or so ago.”
The sentence hangs in the air. He was tossed from Harper Sawyer two months ago, and he didn’t believe for a second that wasn’t the impetus for Natasha retaining a divorce lawyer.
“I’m going to go to my brother’s for Thanksgiving,” she continues in a controlled voice. “I’d like you to be moved out when I come back on Sunday. Like I said, our lawyers can talk about how to finalize everything.”
Natasha doesn’t look the least bit conflicted about ending her marriage. Truth be told, Jonathan isn’t, either. He has little desire to face his current difficulties with someone like Natasha at his side. He’d rather go it alone.
“I don’t think you understand, Natasha,” he says. “Harper Sawyer froze all of our assets. That means we don’t have any money. You don’t have any money.”
He says this for no other reason than pure spite. He wants Natasha to know that she’s not the winner here. Her life, at least as far as she knows it, is also coming to an end.
But the thought that she might soon be destitute doesn’t appear to faze Natasha in the least. “There’s still the apartment,” she says, “and whatever is in the Harper Sawyer account is half mine. Even if they can freeze your money, they’ll have a harder time freezing my half of it because of something you did.”
Jonathan wonders whether Natasha will be able to wrest from Harper Sawyer half of the frozen accounts. Maybe. James Jefferson had told him that divorce is often a legal strategy in these situations, the spouse claiming an equal right to the assets as the firm. Both of them equal victims of Jonathan Caine’s wrongdoing.
“I guess you have it all figured out, then,” he says.
“I’m sorry, Jonathan,” she says, and shows as much empathy as she’s probably able to muster, before she adds, “I know how important your work was to you.”
He stares hard at the woman he married. Like everything else in his life, his marriage wasn’t real. It was all just an elaborate stage set, something to trick an audience viewing from a distance.
“Fuck you, Natasha. Feel sorry for yourself. I’ll be fine. I’m staying in a hotel tonight.”
He slams the door behind him on his way out, proud that he didn’t lose it completely in front of Natasha. But when he hits the street, he realizes that he now truly has nothing.
* * *
Jonathan returns to the apartment on Thanksgiving Day. Natasha is nowhere to be seen. At dinnertime, when everyone else in America is carving up turkey, Jonathan orders Chinese food because Mr. Chen’s is the only place in the neighborhood that’s delivering. Over some greasy General Tso’s chicken, he ponders where he will go come Sunday.
The next day, Jonathan’s sister calls. He assumes it’s because Amy is going to once again plead with him to visit their father. A week before the holiday, Amy literally begged Jonathan to join her and her family in East Carlisle for Thanksgiving. Jonathan said that they couldn’t make it on account of the fact that Natasha’s family was coming up from Texas and the entire clan was going to convene at her brother’s place in Boston. He realized he could have reversed course after his marriage ended, but that would have meant explaining things to Amy, and he just wasn’t ready to do that. So he opted to spend Thanksgiving with General Tso rather than his father and sister.
“Did you have a good Thanksgiving with Natasha’s family?” Amy asks.
“Yes,” Jonathan lies. “And you?”
“Not so much. I’m calling to tell you that Dad passed out last night. He’s okay now, thank God. Alert and responsive. I called 911, and they took Dad over to Lakeview Hospital. They’re still running tests, but they said it’s time for him to move into their assisted-living facility full-time. He needs more care than Theresa can provide.”
Jonathan’s first thought is that he can’t afford putting his father in assisted living. Theresa’s agency had required a year’s payment up front, so she was a sunk cost.
“How much is that going to run?”
Amy’s silence reveals her surprise. Jonathan’s never once asked about the cost of anything.
“It’s covered by insurance that was part of Theresa’s agency’s deal,” Amy says. “They told me that there won’t be any out-of-pocket to us.”
Jonathan’s relieved. At least his financial collapse won’t affect anyone besides him and Natasha.
“I guess we should do that, then,” he says. “I mean, if that’s what the doctors say.”
“All right. I’ll handle all the admittance stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“We’re booked on a flight out tonight. I’ve used up all my vacation days at work, and Jack has a cello recital, and the kids have school, and I just can’t spend any more time here.”
“Amy, don’t worry about it. I appreciate that you were with him this weekend.”
“I’m not asking for your permission to leave, Jonathan. I’m telling you that I’d like you to come to East Carlisle and see Dad. He shouldn’t be in the hospital alone.”
“Okay,” Jonathan says.
“Okay you’ll go?” she asks, as if she can’t believe she’s gotten him to agree.
“Yeah. I’ll go.”
“Thank you,” she says, sounding both relieved and confused. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel knowing that you’re going to be with him.”
“Of course,” Jonathan says. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen him. In fact, things are slow for me at work right now anyway, and so maybe I’ll see if I can take a little time off and spend it in East Carlisle, so I can see him on a . . . you know, regular basis. I guess I’ll stay at Dad’s house. My twenty-fifth high-school reunion is tomorrow night anyway. I wasn’t going to go, but now I suppose I will.”
“Um . . . okay,” Amy says.
Clearly she knows something’s up, but that’s the least of Jonathan’s concerns at the moment. What matters is that he won’t be homeless come Sunday night.
18
One Month Later/December
“What are you going to do to ring in the New Year?” Jackie asks.
They’re scrunched together on Jonathan’s twin bed. Jackie’s head rests on his bare chest. He can feel her breasts along his midsection.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about our spouses,” Jonathan answers.
“I’m willing to make an exception this one time. I want to imagine what you’re doing tonight when I think about you. Which, I hope you know, will be every second of the evening.”
It’s another opportunity for him to come clean with Jackie and tell her all that he’s been hiding—about his job, his marriage, his life. He could tell her that he’s ringing in the New Year with his father, that his marriage has been over for a month now, far longer than that in reality, that he’s unemployed and homeless, without a penny to his name.
He’s not ready to come clean. Soon, he hopes, but right now Jackie’s love is his only hope of salvation, and he can’t bear to think about what life would be like if she also found him to be a failure. To paraphrase what Jack Nicholson famously said, Jonathan simply can’t handle the truth.
And so rather than answer, he glides his fingertips down the length of Jackie’s spine and says, “You go first.”
“Well, our New Year’s Eve tradition is glamour all the way,” she says with a laugh. “Do you remember Tony Gallucci?”
“I think so. Big guy. Football team. Not very bright.”
“Yeah, him. We go to his house and spend the night in his basement. He is so goddamm proud of that basement because he remodeled it a few years ago, with an oak bar and stools, a dartboard, and, I kid you not, a Playboy pinball machine. It’s like the b
asement every sixteen-year-old boy wishes he had, but Tony actually installed it when he was forty, so . . .”
“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Jonathan says.
“Oh, believe me, it’s awful. Everyone will be drunk by eleven, and disgusting by midnight.”
Jackie lifts her head up so she’s looking in Jonathan’s face. She seems pained by merely having to think about the evening that awaits her.
“Now it’s your turn,” she says.
Jonathan is spared from lying by Jackie’s ringtone.
“Do you want to get that?” Jonathan asks.
“No, I really don’t,” Jackie says. “It’s like what they say about two a.m. phone calls, right? Nothing good ever happens at two a.m. Well, I think nothing good ever happens when you’re a married woman in bed with another man and the phone rings. I should just head home. After all, a new year awaits.”
She kisses him deeply. “Happy New Year, Jonathan.”
* * *
Although Jackie would have thought it was impossible, she finds Tony Gallucci to be an even bigger asshole now than he was in high school. He’s on his third marriage, this one to a woman who served him beer at the Grove while he was only a few months into his second. Instead of going on a honeymoon, he bought his new bride D-cups.
Jackie and Rick arrive a little after ten, and the basement already smells like lager. Tony’s wife, Cheryl, who calls herself Cher, is busy making sure that Tony gets his money’s worth on his investment in her chest. Rick seems all too happy to take in the view.