The Big Exit

by David Carnoy

  Now Richie really feels stupid. If someone had told him last night he’d have Marty Lowenstein standing there next to him now, he’d have clammed up and not said a word. But no one had told him Marty Lowenstein was coming.

  “You give them an alibi?” Marty asks. “Is that what you tried to do?”

  He nods. “I’d just finished performing. I was a little drunk, to be honest. I don’t think any of it’s admissible.”

  Marty doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks up at the ceiling and Richie thinks he’s going to roll his eyes in disgust. But no, he’s actually looking at the ceiling—or rather the corner of the ceiling. He does a little pirouette, his eyes examining the walls as he does.

  “What are you doing?”

  “They said there were no cameras or mics in here but I never believe them,” Marty explains.

  When he’s done with his inspection, he sits down next to Richie and hands him the baseball mitt, a tan Rawlings that looks ancient and is folded so flat it might as well have been ironed. It must be at least thirty years old.

  “What’s this for?” he asks.

  “Just put it on. As a precaution. I know it’s a little tough with the cuffs. I want you to speak into it. Pretend I’m the catcher and you’re the pitcher and we’re having a mound conference except we’re doing it in the dugout.”

  “Where’s your mitt?”

  “I don’t need one. I work barehanded.” He waits for Richie to put the glove on, then leans forward, put his elbows on his thighs, and clasps his hands in front in a modified prayer position, and says: “So what other statements did you make?”

  He tells him everything he’d said. Or at least everything he can remember saying. They go back and forth, Lowenstein quietly and methodically firing off question after question. At first, it feels silly to have to keep covering his mouth with the mitt whenever he speaks. But after a few minutes, he gets used to it. Is Lowenstein really concerned the cops are recording the conversation? Maybe. But he also gets the feeling the mitt is just a prop that’s designed to help break down his inhibitions.

  It’s working. But the more he talks, the worse he feels. It’s like the time he thought he’d nailed a job interview then realized he’d totally botched it once he went over the conversation with a buddy who already worked at the firm. He kept saying, “You said what?” Marty doesn’t do that, but the way he keeps grimacing, he may as well have done.

  After he’s through, he gets the damage assessment. “Well, you hit the fast-forward button, that’s what you did,” Marty says. “As soon as you admitted you were down there, that convinced the judge to grant the warrant. They’ve obviously got something else. Some piece of evidence to link you to the crime. They need that to establish probable cause. But you allowed them to move faster than they probably should have. The good and bad news is they won’t arraign until Monday morning, which means you’re stuck here until then. I need to know exactly where you were, who you might have talked with and who might have seen you. We’re going to need to find these people right away and try to get statements from them to corroborate what you’ve said. I’m going to get Ashley on it. She’s as good an investigator as you’re going to get for what you can afford.”

  Richie rocks back and forth a little, staring at the floor. The mitt’s still covering half his face. He can feel Marty’s eyes on him. There’s still a lot he hasn’t told him. He wants to disappear into that mitt now.

  “Rick,” he says. “Is it okay if I call you Rick?”

  Richie nods.

  “Look, you know everything you say to me is protected by attorney-client privilege. You know that, right?”

  Another nod. Sure, he knows.

  “I’ve been up since four thirty,” he explains, not making an effort to cover his mouth. “Lucky for you I’m on New York time. But normally I don’t like to be woken up at four thirty unless it’s for a goddamn good reason. Are you a goddamn good reason?”

  Before Richie can formulate an answer, he goes on: “Lourdes Hinojosa seems to think so. She told me we’ve got to find a way to help you. Those were her words, ‘We’ve got to help him, Marty.’ And you know, it’s not like I don’t like to help people, but at four thirty in the morning I’m not always in the most helpful mood. Then she reminds me you’re the ex-con who’s been volunteering for us, the Sinatra impersonator who had some bad luck with that car accident. And I think to myself, Okay, I’ve got to meet this guy. You know why? Because way back when, when Sinatra was alive, I had a dream I represented him. It was a very vivid dream. I remember it to this day.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “He killed Ava Gardner. Well, that’s how it was at first. But you know how dreams go. First, he killed Ava Gardner but then it became someone else. In the end, it wasn’t really clear who he killed. In fact, in the end, I determined he was making it all up. He thought something had happened but it was really just a movie script he was working on. He’d come to embody one of the characters, was into the whole method-acting thing, and was drunk half the time, which didn’t help—and doesn’t seem to be helping you either.”

  “Did he pay well?”

  Marty laughs.

  “Funny you should ask. No. But he played my kid’s Bar Mitzvah.”

  “For real?”

  “No, in the dream.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “Actually, I think that’s what precipitated the dream. I was trying to figure out who I could get to play at my kid’s Bar Mitzvah. And there I was representing Old Blue Eyes and he said he couldn’t afford to pay me but he could come to my backyard and sing.”

  “You got any other Bar Mitzvahs coming up?”

  “Kids all graduated college. But I’m sure we can work something out. You do weddings?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. I’ve got a niece getting married next September. So talk to me. What really happened yesterday? You see your ex over there at this Café Barrone near the train station and she gives you back your ring. You’re missing about five hours after that. You wanna clue me in as to what happened in those five hours?”

  Richie takes a deep breath. He waits a moment, then puts the mitt up to his mouth.

  “I’m going with the curve,” he says.

  “Bring it,” Marty says.

  “I slept with her.”

  Marty leans in a little closer. “With who? Your ex?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where, at her house?”

  “No, a place called Watercourse Way in Palo Alto. It’s kind of like a spa. You can rent a room with a hot tub in it.”

  “Okay. Very Cali. On the East Coast, we don’t have hot tubs. We have Jacuzzis.”

  “I know. I’m from Jersey.”

  Marty smiles. “Just like our pal Frank.”

  “Yeah, only I’m from Teaneck.”

  “Teaneck, huh? So, tough-luck Richie from Teaneck, did you tell our police friends you fucked your ex in some watery zen chamber with flutes playing in the background a few hours before her husband was killed?”

  “No.”

  Marty Lowenstein nods, then falls silent a moment, seeming to mull over the revelation.

  “I take it there’s more to the story.”

  “Lot more,” he says into the glove.

  17/ UNINTIMIDATABLE

  MADDEN REMEMBERS THE DAYS WHEN DEALING WITH THE PRESS WAS a lot easier. When he started as a cop, you had the Chronicle, Examiner, San Jose Mercury, and smaller papers like the Peninsula Times Tribune, since folded, which had different local sections geared to various towns along the Peninsula. The papers planned stories to run in the morning edition or, in the case of the Examiner, the afternoon. It was all pretty straightforward. You granted an interview or did a press conference and the story would appear in the paper the next day. If you wanted to draw some attention to a case, the department’s PR person would call reporters and try to get them to bite on a feature. Sure, you got the occasional wrinkle or misquote and every
now and then things went south, but for the most part, the encounter was pretty predictable—and manageable.

  Is he being too nostalgic? Probably. But that doesn’t stop him from lamenting the fact that the entity formerly known as the press has become an ambiguous, slippery blob. It reminds him of a toy he’d bought for his daughter last Christmas, a concoction called GobbledlyGoop that comes in a small bucket. You mix it with water, add a few drops of color, and soon you have a batch of what the company accurately describes as the most “ooey, gooey slime imaginable.” Depending on how much water you mix in, you could change its consistency, make it thicker or thinner. The kids love it. He finds it repulsive, but it does entertain and even educate, kind of like guys like Tom Bender.

  It’s around ten when he gets to Bender’s house. The Great One opens his front door wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, and holding a piece of toast in one hand and a squirming and excited pug puppy in the other. His short hair is gelled and spiked, he looks freshly showered and crisp yet tired and weary at the same time, with dark bags under his eyes, and his white, pasty face has small clusters of spider veins high on both cheeks. He looks thinner than the last time Madden saw him; he’s lost weight.

  “Do you know who I am?” Madden asks.

  Bender looks at Madden for a second—then looks past him, as if he’s expecting a larger contingent that has yet to materialize.

  “Yeah,” Bender comes back disinterestedly. Then to his dog, “Say hello to Detective Madden, Beezo.” Next, he takes a bite of his toast and keeps talking. “I was just writing about you,” he mumbles. “A sidebar really. How’s the case going? I hear you may have got the guy.”

  “Sorry for the unannounced visit,” Madden says.

  “If you’re looking for me to reveal any sources, I’m not going to do that. And don’t bother with any of that police intimidation crap. I’m unintimidatable.”

  Madden isn’t sure that’s a real word.

  “This is an off-the-record visit,” he says. “I just want to ask a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay, sure, come on in. Last time I think I saw you in person you were raiding one of my parties.”

  Madden follows him inside. “Ancient history,” he says. “Different house.”

  The new house actually reminds Madden of Bender’s old one—probably from the same era, designed during the 1960s with a simple Frank Lloyd Wright flair, with large bay windows in the living room. It feels open and airy. But the big difference is Bender is no longer a renter. He owns this place and has clearly put considerable thought and effort into making this a showcase home, with expensive modern furniture, artwork, and sleek appliances. And while his new yard seems a bit smaller, not a twig seems out of place.

  Bender ushers him into the kitchen, which is connected to a deck. Madden peeks out to see a teak dining table, lounge chairs, umbrellas, and planters with flowering plants. How mature. Madden marvels how he’s gone from geek frat boy to nester. He’s come a long way in just a few years.

  “I sold out,” Bender says, opening the sliding door to the porch. “And I don’t mind saying it. I’m a sellout. In case you were wondering, this is what selling out buys you.”

  He sets Beezo down outside and slides the door closed as the little dog tears off into the yard.

  “You see this coffee machine here?” Bender points to a contraption that looks like it belongs in an upscale restaurant. “This cost more than the car I used to drive. I have my assistant fill it up at the beginning of the week and then I just push a button and bam, I get whatever fucking style coffee I want. That’s what selling out buys you. Latte?”

  Madden shrugs. “Sure.”

  Bender retrieves a glass mug from a cabinet, sets it the machine, and presses a button. The machine goes to work, grinding beans.

  “I take it you saw what I wrote last night?”

  “The time stamp said four in the morning.”

  “Morning, night, who gives a shit what time it is anymore?”

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “What’d you think? Pretty good, huh? Beat the Merc, the Chron. I had it first and now it’s everywhere. I take it you dispute its central hypothesis?”

  “I took a journalism class or two, and back then, at least, one anonymous source didn’t make something true.”

  “Whoever said anything about true? I simply present the information that’s available to me at the time. If I don’t do it, someone else will. That’s a fact, Detective. Do I think you contaminated the crime scene? I don’t know. Maybe. My source is pretty good. Or at least I think it is. So now it’s up to you to prove me wrong.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s irresponsible.”

  “Maybe. But the fact is I get things right more often than I get them wrong. In the old days you had to bat a thousand—or very close to it. Nowdays you hit seven fifty, eight hundred, it’s good enough. ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ has become ‘more likely than not,’ a preponderance of evidence. It’s—”

  “Look,” Madden says, “I’m not here to have a philosophical discussion about how you do your job.”

  Bender hands him his coffee.

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Try it,” Bender encourages him.

  Madden obediently takes a sip.

  “Good, right? Fucking better than that Starbucks crap. That’s what selling out buys you, Detective. Kona. Premium. Organic. Twenty-five dollars a pound. Or something like that. Who cares?”

  “Mr. Bender—”

  “Tom.”

  “Okay, Tom. Here’s the deal. I’m here to make a deal.”

  “Really?”

  Now Bender seems intrigued.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m looking to take advantage of your considerable knowledge.”

  Bender nods. He seemed to be willing to concede that point—that he has considerable knowledge to offer.

  “Honestly, you probably know a lot more about Mark McGregor than we do right now. I need to learn as quickly as possible about this latest business he was tying to get off the ground, who I might talk to about it, and what your sources might know about his business dealings.”

  “I thought you had the guy. I’m hearing it was a straight revenge thing. His old pal Richie Forman, Mr. Bachelor Disaster. You arrested him last night, didn’t you?”

  Madden is impressed that he knows as much as he does. Whoever the source is, he or she is good.

  “We did. But that doesn’t mean we shut down the investigation.”

  “You didn’t get a confession then, I take it?”

  “I can’t discuss that.”

  Bender laughs. “You wouldn’t be here if you did. That’s a fact. So, in exchange for tapping my great knowledge base—and it is great—what are you offering in return?”

  “Exclusives.”

  Bender leans a little closer.

  “I like the sound of that, Detective. How ’bout a badge? You know, in the movies, the sheriff gives the guy the gold star, you know, deputizes him.”

  “You want a badge? I’ll give you any badge you want.”

  “I’m just kidding. Truth is—and perhaps you guessed this—I never wanted to be on the side of the prosecution. I always wanted to be a defense attorney. Criminal. But then my grades in law school weren’t quite as good as they should have been. I know that’s hard to believe. But I had a little too much fun for my own good. My only regret really. Anyway, bouncing around the bottom of the legal profession is sort of like being dragged behind a car. So I fell into all this tech stuff. Turned out there wasn’t much competition. Ambitious, talented writers generally don’t gravitate toward tech. You can rise to the top quicker than you think. The first Comdex I went to—you don’t know what that is, but it used to be a huge computer trade show in Las Vegas. But anyway, the first Comdex I went to I weaseled my way into the hot party, the Spencer the Cat party. A
nd there I was, dancing next to Bill Gates and Michael Dell and some other billionaires I didn’t know. I’d been on the job two months and there I am, boogeying with the big guys. It told me something. Height was easily attainable.”

  Madden doesn’t really care what it told him. He wants information that’s pertinent to the here and now. “I know about Comdex,” he says. “I used to build my own computers. What do you know about Mark McGregor?”

  Bender takes another bite of toast, finishing what’s left of the remaining piece. But this time he chews and swallows before he speaks.

  “Pretty good track record,” he says. “Had two start-ups with decent exits. Nothing anybody could really retire on, but his investors were happy and he made out well himself.”

  “What kind of money are we talking?”

  “I believe he sold the first company for something like sixteen million. Nothing sexy. B to B stuff. The technology behind the technology. He sold the second company for more, but he had more investors. But he knew the drill. You do that a few times, raise money, you start to get the hang of it. You learn how to waste less time, know who the players are, and who to go to and who not to.”

  “What was his latest venture?”

  “Sinatra?”

  “Yeah, whatever it was called.”

  “Ah, but what it is called is key.”

  “That was the code name, though, right?”

  “Sure. Code names are important, too. The company’s name was actually Crune. It was pretty interesting. His first real consumer play. Had some buzz going. Basically was the gamification of geo-advertising. What I thought was interesting was the human element. You took something that had traditionally been automated and you brought in what were essentially these guides—or docents I think they were calling them. You’d essentially follow certain people who were experts in one particular zip code. The idea was you have this warehouse of deals and these docents would comb through them and then select ones they liked to broadcast out to their followers. Kind of like Twitter but on a more micro level. Anyway, he’d managed to combine a few hot concepts, got a few of the right people on board, and he’d peddled it right. Was fairly low-key about it.”