“I don’t think she will.”
“That’s a sword hanging over the whole thing. She can contest this transfer.”
“We’ll proceed anyway.”
“And as I said before, if she files for divorce, all of this can be delayed or even halted.”
“I’m trying,” I said. To do his job, he needed to know how it was. But I didn’t like discussing it.
“Yes, sir. I just want to make sure you understand that she is the biggest threat to your plans.”
“I understand.”
He understood that he was not to press the subject. “And this is a power of attorney. It gives our firm the right to conduct transactions on your behalf for the sole purpose of moving assets into the main trust. It’s to prevent delays when we need ancillary papers signed.”
I was reading the fine print. “No. I want to do my own signing.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll keep some couriers available if we need to bring papers to you quickly.”
We got to work. Pamela only interrupted one time.
“Fred’s on the phone,” she said.
“Tell him I’m busy signing lots of papers.”
“Do you really want me to?”
“No.” I picked up my phone. “Yes?”
Fred’s voice came out of the receiver like an earthquake. “I want to know if you’ll change your mind.” That was all he said.
“I won’t.”
The line went dead.
We trudged on through the papers, and it was after eleven when we finished.
“Am I free to discuss this with Nathan Kern?” Jacob asked.
“Sure. It’ll all be his in another week.”
“As long as Mrs. Boyer doesn’t interfere.”
“Whatever. Go ahead and brief him on the whole thing, and keep him updated if anything new happens.”
I gave him a five-minute head start, and then I fled my office and returned to the streets, far different now than twelve hours before. The sidewalks were full and the restaurants were crowded. I stopped at a crammed diner. Everyone in the place got a weekly paycheck and lived off it.
“You know who you look like?” a voice said. I looked up. The waitress was waiting for my order.
“Who?”
“Jason Boyer, that millionaire.”
I smiled. “People have been saying that all weekend.”
After lunch I bought a newspaper. The state senate impeachment posse was in full pursuit of the governor. The editorial was a call for him to step down. There was a picture of me on the front cover. I wandered back toward the office. Two women on the sidewalk stared at me and whispered together.
It was spooking me. I didn’t like this feeling of being noticed and recognized. I thought about Fred and his handkerchief and his hand in the drawer. I thought about Clinton Grainger, unarmed.
I found a gun store.
I knew nothing about guns. I told the man I was working late more often and I didn’t like walking the streets at night. He told me what I wanted, an automatic pistol that he had in the back.
And there were waiting periods and background checks. I gave him my Jeff Benson driver’s license for the transaction. He studied it very carefully and decided he could trust me. He’d let me take the gun now, and he’d take care of the background checks later. He was so helpful.
I said I wanted to try it. He didn’t have a place—it took a lot of expense and licenses to run a shooting range, but maybe I could just put a couple bullets into a block of wood he had. The block had a lot of holes already and I added two more. It’s not hard to fire a gun.
I didn’t want to carry it in my pocket, so he showed me some holsters, the kind worn under a suit jacket. Of course, I’d need a concealed gun permit to use it. I told him I’d get the permit before I used the holster.
It was all easy to do, especially with such an accommodating salesperson. He smiled just like we were old friends as he handed me back the driver’s license, less the three hundred-dollar bills that had been clipped onto it. The bulge under my left arm hardly showed.
“I am not here,” I said to Pamela. “Completely not here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I closed my door. I could still back out. I could call Jacob and tell him to shred the papers. I could apologize to Fred. As long as I had the money, he’d be my friend no matter what I did.
As long as I had the money, Katie would be my loving wife.
“Katie, I’ve changed my mind. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
“Oh, Jason! Of course! I love you, dear! We are keeping the house, aren’t we? And all the money?”
No, I couldn’t do it.
That brief moment of indecision was very short, about the length of time it would take a person in the lobby downstairs to see me come in from lunch, maybe make a short telephone call, and ride the next elevator up to the top floor. There was a commotion in the outer office.
My door opened. Pamela was trying to warn me on the intercom and also stop the intruder, but he was much bigger than she was.
“Jason Boyer.” he said. Shabby black suit stuffed with muscle and fat, greasy cheeks, ragged dark hair—most bouncers were better dressed.
I stood up. “Of course I am.”
“I’m serving you papers that your wife, Katherine Boyer, is suing for divorce.”
He had laid a large envelope on my desk. It would have been a cheap thrill to hit him, to punch him in the face, but it would have just made it all worse.
“Get out,” I said.
But he had more words to say. “By court order you are specifically prohibited from selling or liquidating any property—”
He paused for a split second, looking at my suit jacket. He’d spotted the holster. In his line of work, he had to be aware of things like that.
“I said get out.”
“By court order you are also required to surrender to Katherine Boyer the deed to your residence on Old Post Road. By court order you are required to transfer to the bank account listed in these papers an amount of no less than twenty million dollars for Katherine Boyer’s expenses while the divorce settlement is negotiated. By court order you are prohibited from any communication with the following people—Jacob Rosenberg, Nathan Kern, Stanley Morton, or any employees or agents of those individuals or organizations they are associated with. By court order—”
“Get out or I will kill you.”
He shrugged. There was a limit to his tenacity, and he’d said enough. He turned and walked out.
Pamela was beside herself.
“I’m so sorry, Jason. I couldn’t do anything.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
I didn’t have time for the rage. I soothed Pamela and then called Jacob Rosenberg.
“What do the court orders say?” He was incredulous.
I read them again.
“Who’s the judge?”
“Walter Willis.”
“Okay, no problem,” he said. “That’s Harry Bright’s cousin. It’s twelve thirty. . . . I’ll have them all struck down by one o’clock— except the first one about selling or liquidating. Your wife has a right to that injunction.”
“Find a judge who’ll cancel it anyway,” I said. “Are any of your cousins judges?”
“Two of my uncles are, actually, but they’re both in Boston. They couldn’t make it stick anyway. It would get immediately reinstated.”
“I was joking.”
33
Some amount of time passed. I only knew that because the sun was at a different angle than it had been. I could only think about Katie, and they were thoughts that couldn’t be put into words. Only that we’d each made our decision and we had not chosen each other.
“Jason,” Pamela said. “I’m sorry. Stan Morton just offered me five thousand dollars if I could get you to talk to him.”
“Take it,” I said.
“I didn’t mean . . . I just thought I should tell you how desperate he was.”<
br />
“Then we’ll split it. I’ll talk to him.” I picked up my phone.
“Stan.”
“Jason. Tell me this is not true. Your wife is filing for divorce?”
“It’s true.”
“No.”
This was how the fox would feel with the hounds everywhere. “I’m not allowed to talk to you anyway.”
“The court already overturned that order.”
Right. It was one thirty. “I said I’ll talk to you tomorrow. It sounds like you know everything anyway.”
“The world is going to know by this evening. What is going on?”
“I don’t know anymore.” And I hung up.
It was the dog’s day. Pamela was at the door again. “Jacob Rosen-berg is on hold.”
“Okay.”
I left him on hold while I put my head down in my hands. What had I been expecting anyway? That everyone would just smile and give me a hug? What was I doing here?
“This is Jason Boyer.”
“We’re stopped. There are five lawsuits against you so far.”
“What lawsuits?”
“By stockholders. They claim you’re devaluing their stock by your attacks on the governor. We can’t do anything with your stock until they’re thrown out.”
“Then get them thrown out.”
“It’ll take time, and I’ve only got so many people here.”
“If you need more people, get them.”
“Yes, sir. And your wife’s injunction against selling or liquidating is still in force. Whoever is advising her knows they have the trump card.”
“Do whatever it takes.”
I hung up. What had I been reading weeks ago? It had been Bleak House by Charles Dickens, where there are so many lawsuits over a dead man’s estate that the whole thing is eaten up by the lawyers’ fees. The villain in that book was a lawyer.
“I’m still not here,” I said to Pamela, “and I will be gone for a few minutes.”
Down twelve floors.
I’d missed the first part of the thug’s attack on my office, the part where he pushed past the secretary. So at Fred’s office, I reenacted it.
His secretary looked up from her desk as I came through the outer door and she reacted fast, pushing buttons and scrambling out of her chair.
“Mr. Spellman is with clients,” she said and planted herself between me and the inner door, so I would have to physically shove her aside to get to it. No problem. I got to it and threw it open.
There they were—what a spectacle.
Katie was in the big chair. I only saw her shoulder and brown hair, which I’d recognize anywhere. She was wearing a dark purple-and-black dress I remembered from the day we’d looked through the new house. No pearls. She didn’t turn.
Eric did. He was on the sofa and he started, guilty as Benedict Arnold, his eyes and mouth wide open.
“Jason . . .” he said.
But my attention was on Fred at his desk, the source of all evil.
“Stop it,” I said.
“I am stopping you. And you are intruding.”
“And you are fat,” I said.
“And you are an imbecile. Now get out.”
“That’s what I said when your man came to my office a few hours ago, but he wouldn’t. He just kept talking. ‘The court orders you to give her money,”’ I mimicked the man’s voice, right into her ear. “‘The court orders you to give her the house.’ I might have given you the house to get it over with, but not now.”
“Jenny,” Fred said into his intercom, “call the police.” To me, “I know better than to ask you to negotiate. You’ve proven you can’t, one of your many flaws.”
“And you,” I said to Katie. She didn’t turn. “Three years we’ve been married, and one day is all it takes?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was shaking, staring ahead into space.
“Get out,” Fred said.
I was back to Fred. “I’m not ready yet. As corrupt and rotten as you are, it’s not enough. You have to pull them in and destroy them, too.”
“As long as your wife’s divorce suit against you stands, you are prevented from doing further damage,” Fred said. “Fortunately she understands the importance of that.”
“And she understands the importance of money. How much did he promise you, dear?”
“Jason . . .” She turned to me. I could see the torment in her, the same as the torment in me.
“You’re divorcing me!” I said. “What am I supposed to think?”
“He said only I could stop you.”
I could hardly speak. “Don’t stop me. Katie, don’t stop me.”
It was too much for her. She was starting to break. We stared at each other, except neither of us could see anything through tears.
“But, Jason . . .” It was Eric. I turned to him for just a moment, and when I looked back, Katie had turned away from me. I exploded at him.
“Why are you even here?”
He cringed back. “Fred wanted me.”
“They just want to use you. You’re no match for him, Eric. Get away from him.”
He exploded at me. “Stop telling me what to do!” For two seconds he was defiant and angry; then he buckled. “You’re always ordering me around.” Now he was whining. “I can take care of myself.”
“Then go ahead. I’m sure tired of doing it.”
“Now will you leave?” It was Fred. “No one wants you here.”
“Please leave, Jason.”
Katie said it. The one last wall standing toppled.
“Don’t stop me!” I said, or yelled, or screamed. “I will do this. You will not stop me.”
“I will stop you!” Fred roared.
“You’ll have to kill me,” I said. Then his hand was in his drawer again, and I was beyond any caution to wait and see what he was reaching for, and I had my own gun in my hand. There was sound— Katie, panicked and screaming.
And then I was hit hard, Eric throwing himself into my left shoulder. I was close to Katie’s chair and I fell against it, still on my feet. He lashed out at my face. My right arm was pinned but I got my left hand on his back and pushed him down. He was still off-balance and he fell.
On the floor, he scrambled back, ready to lunge again. But the fight was over.
“Go. Now.” Fred had not moved, but there was a heavy black revolver in his hand, pointed at me. Katie stopped her fool screaming.
“The police are in the lobby,” the secretary’s voice said. “They’ll be up as quickly as they can.”
I walked out.
I must have taken the elevator, but I only knew that I was back at my desk and the sky out the window was clouded and Pamela was staring at me from the doorway, white as a sheet. Standing in front of me was Nathan Kern.
“Jason?” He’d said it more than once. “What happened, Jason?”
In my ears and eyes, Katie was still screaming and Eric’s face was red and enraged.
“I went to talk to Fred.”
“What happened? You look terrible.”
Nathan’s face was getting clearer, and Eric’s was fading.
“Katie and Eric were there. We . . . it didn’t go well.”
The screaming was fading, too.
“Your lip is bleeding.”
I felt it. “It must have been when Eric hit me.”
“Oh dear!” Nathan’s astonishment was probably comical, but I still couldn’t focus.
“I’m okay,” I said to Pamela. She slowly backed out and closed the door. “We screamed at each other and I pulled out a gun,” I said to Nathan.
As slow as I was thinking, he was slower. He gaped. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No. Not by the gun, at least.”
“But why? Why did you have a gun?”
“Just . . . Fred had one. I wasn’t going to use it. Then Eric tried to tackle me.”
“Where did you get it?”
The gun was worrying him. “I just bought it. Tod
ay.”
“Do you still have it?”
It had been in my hand. I looked; it wasn’t there. The holster was empty, too.
“No.” What had happened to it? I couldn’t remember. “I thought I had it.”
“But you don’t?”
“I must have dropped it when Eric hit me.” I had some impression of setting it down.
“Then it would be in Fred Spellman’s office?”
“Yeah.” I really didn’t remember. “It must be. I’m not going to call and ask him.”
“I will.” Nathan was more upset than I was, nervous and quivering. He tried to lighten up. “You look frightful, Jason. I’m afraid your lip might become quite swollen. You go clean yourself up, and I’ll call Fred.”
I headed for the washroom out in the hall. Pamela nabbed me as I passed her desk.
“Let me look at that.” She had a damp washcloth and she cleaned off the blood, very carefully and precisely. Nathan was calling Fred. Mommy and Daddy were taking care of me, and I didn’t mind. No police had yet appeared. At least Fred hadn’t sent them after me.
“That should do,” Pamela said. “It isn’t bad. I don’t think it’ll show.”
I trusted her expertise on busted lips more than Nathan’s. “I have a feeling my picture will be in the papers this week.”
“I could put some makeup on it.”
“No thanks.”
When I got back into my office, the call had apparently been completed. Nathan was sitting on the sofa, smoking a little cigarette, still shaking.
“I’m sorry, Jason. I hope you don’t mind.” He stubbed it out in an ashtray he apparently carried with him. His fingers jabbed the cigarette into it like a hen pecking corn. “I’m not used to stress like this.” He took a breath to clear his smoke. “Fred says he has the gun and will not give it back.”
“He can have it,” I said. I was thinking at about regular levels now. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh! Ha! Yes. I was quite taken aback by the way you came in. But you must have been surprised to see me, also. Our phone call this morning left me uneasy. I wanted to say again, in person, that I’ll do anything I can to help.”
“Thank you, Nathan.” I was sort of done with being tended to. “I appreciate it.”
The Heir Page 26