Rough Trade

by Hartzmark, Gini

  “Aren’t all 9ll calls recorded automatically?” I asked.

  “They are. Unfortunately, whoever called never said anything. Not a word. The call runs twenty-six seconds and all you can hear is breathing.”

  There was no reason to think that Jeff Rendell had not strangled his father and every reason to think he had. Indeed, I’d closed my eyes to fact after fact in order to indulge in my naive and self-serving belief in his innocence. He’d fought with his father the morning of his death. They couldn’t find him to tell him what had happened to his father. His bizarre behavior—pushing the paramedics out of the way in order to assault the body of a dead or dying man—was hardly what you’d expect from a bereaved son. Now the phone call from his father’s office that seemed to indicate that whoever killed Beau had, at least initially, meant to do the right thing and call for help. It wasn’t until he’d had some time to contemplate the repercussions of what he’d done—twenty-six seconds to be exact—that he’d elected to move on to plan B.

  Any cop will tell you that all kinds of people try to make a death into something that it’s not. Somebody has too good a time at a party where there are drugs, and his buddies take him for a ride and dump his body in the country. Grandpa dies surrounded by girlie magazines with his pants around his ankles, and the family gets him dressed before the police show up. An argument gets out of hand, and a son’s hands end up around his father’s throat. Appalled by what he’s done, the son throws the body down the stairs, hoping the death will be put down to the fall.

  And then, of course, there was the business of the key. I couldn’t believe I’d been stupid enough to allow myself to become an accessory to murder. I made a silent vow to hand it over to the police the very first chance I got.

  I did not go to the new apartment intending to end things with Stephen Azorini. In a way it’s frightening to realize that if it had been any other day, we probably would have just continued on our old, familiar path. But the tightness in my chest should have warned me that there was too much in my life that was beyond my control. That instinct would propel me to change what I could, if only to conserve the resources I would need to deal with what I could not.

  I started out with the best of intentions. A check of the past day’s voice mail messages revealed a rambling communication from Mimi letting me know that the fabric that we had ordered to cover the panels in the dining room had finally cleared customs and been delivered to the apartment. Anxious that it might be inadvertently dirtied or damaged by one of the workmen, she suggested that Stephen or I take it home for safekeeping until we were ready to use it. I hopped a cab and told the driver to wait for me while I darted upstairs to grab it. I was surprised when Danny, the night doorman, told me that Stephen had just gone up himself.

  I found him standing in the kitchen, examining the newly laid tile backsplash, his aquiline nose no more than two inches from the ceramic surface. “I don’t think these are perfectly straight,” he said, without looking up.

  Of course, there were many possible responses to this. “Nothing is ever perfect” certainly springs to mind. Or, “You’ll never notice because it’s going to have a stove parked in front of it.” In a million years I wouldn’t have predicted what actually came out of my mouth, which was “I can’t live here with you.”

  “What did you say?” inquired Stephen, straightening up and turning to face me, a look of surprise on his face.

  “I said I can’t live with you,” I replied, feeling a kind of preternatural certainty flowing through me. I wasn’t at all sure of what I was doing, but I knew in my bones that I had no choice but to go ahead and do it. “The whole thing was a mistake.”

  “You’ve chosen quite a time to come to this realization,” remarked Stephen, obviously taken aback.

  “I guess you can’t always choose when enlightenment is going to strike,” I said. Then, to cover the awkward silence I added, “I realize that this is going to be inconvenient.”

  “Inconvenient?” echoed Stephen incredulously. “What is wrong with you? Have you gone off the deep end? Both our names are on the deed. We’ve been jointly named in a lawsuit. It’s not going to be inconvenient, it’s going to be a nightmare.”

  “I’ll buy back your share of the apartment and pay you for everything you’ve spent on the renovation to date,” I replied, with the strange sensation of being outside of myself looking in. “The real estate department at Callahan Ross will take care of the conveyance of the deed and make sure that your name is removed as a defendant in any pending suits.”

  “Are you going to give me a reason for this remarkable decision?” asked Stephen in a puzzled voice.

  “I don’t want you to think that it’s because I’m afraid,” I said slowly. “Actually, it’s just the opposite. Moving in here with you would be the coward’s way out. And some things happened to me today to make me realize that no matter what, I’m not a coward.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The management committee met in the largest of the firm’s nine conference rooms, a formidable quintet of Callahan’s most senior partners arrayed somberly around the massive table. They were dressed in suits and ties—unusual for a Saturday—and no doubt meant to signal the serious nature of these proceedings. Skip Tillman sat at the head of the table, and you could tell that even after all these years it still gave him a secret thrill.

  It didn’t help that I felt like roadkill. Muscles in my neck and back that I’d never even given a thought to now screamed out for my attention. The bruise on my shoulder where the Jester caught me with the pipe now extended halfway to my waist and was complemented by a perfectly round imprint, in deep purple, of the circumference of my defunct Volvo’s steering wheel that now graced the center of my chest.

  Overnight, I found that I’d developed a newfound appreciation for the work of personal injury attorneys. If Callahan Ross gave me the boot, maybe I would be able to find gainful employment in that field. Too bad there was nobody to sue in my accident. In my life the worst damage has always had a way of turning out to be self-inflicted.

  My discomfort was not entirely physical. I’d been up half the night contemplating my life and wondering what had ever possessed me to say what I had to Stephen. I’d spent the other half of the night wondering why he hadn’t said a single thing to try to get me to change my mind.

  Aching and unable to sleep, I’d finally gotten out of bed, wrapped myself in an old flannel bathrobe that had once belonged to my husband, and sat on the glassed-in porch of the apartment that I shared with Claudia. From there I was able to watch Hyde Park street life as it played itself out on the busy corner outside my window. If I’d been hoping for an epiphany, I was disappointed. I saw dope deals, arguments, tired people coming home from work on the bus, but no answers.

  And yet what I saw beyond my window made me realize something important. In the years since Russell died, I’d spent my waking hours in the five city blocks that surround my office, blocks crammed with granite, avarice, and old men. I’d let my world grow much too small. If I was willing to allow the phlegmy old men of Callahan Ross, who now sat frowning above the wattles of their chins at me, to be my judges and declare my worth, then I’d allowed my soul to be narrowed hopelessly, as well.

  All this went through my mind as I stood and faced them. As painful as it was to find myself taken to the woodshed by such an experienced and vindictive bunch, I told myself there wasn’t much they could do to me without my consent. Partners are not subject to summary dismissal, and right now the most they could do was try to shame me into quitting.

  Not that they couldn’t make life difficult for me. No one wants to belong to a club where the other members were determined to make life as unpleasant for you as possible. Now that my secretary had been demoted to the word processing pool, I fully expected to come in on Monday and find that I’d been reassigned to an office in the supply closet and my name deliberately misspelled on the firm’s letterhead.

  Skip Tillman cleare
d his throat. “We’ve called you here this morning to give you an opportunity to give your own account of events leading up to this firm’s being dismissed as counsel from Avco Enterprises.”

  From his tone of voice it was clear that I was being called on the carpet. The words might express the intention to be fair, but everything else about the exchange indicated that the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

  “No,” I said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “No. I do not wish to explain. Everyone in this room knows what happened yesterday. I see no reason to go into it.”

  “Kate,” said Tillman sadly, “I don’t think you fully understand the gravity of the situation.”

  Rumor had it that all of his political brownnosing had finally landed him on the short list for appointments to the federal bench. It sounded to me like he’d already started practicing his delivery.

  “Skip, if you don’t think I’m smart enough to understand what’s going on, then you should never have made me a partner in the first place. As you know, I have been retained to represent the Milwaukee Monarchs football team, which is in desperate need of our services. I was in Milwaukee on that matter yesterday when I was regrettably detained.” I was not about to regale them with tales of the break-in at Chrissy’s house. Not only did it sound too much like the dog-ate-my-homework excuse, but also they’d never believe it anyway.

  “Even if you were out of town on another matter,” broke in Myron Schap, the brindle-haired partner who was widely held to be both Tillman’s Iago and his successor, “you were not only out of town but unreachable.”

  “Accept my explanation or ask for my resignation, but never, never, call me a liar—especially to my face.”

  “You realize that Avco has categorically refused to pay one penny of our fee,” sputtered Edwin Margolis, the head of the tax department.

  “Avery and Colin Brandt, who are the principals in Avco, are complete scumbags. If you recall, I believe that those were the exact words I used when Stuart Eisenstadt first suggested that we represent them in this matter. As far as I’m concerned, there was never any guarantee that they were going to pay us in any event. Besides, they won’t be the first client that we’ve had to sue in order to collect and I guarantee that they won’t be the last.”

  “It’s easy enough for you to be flip about a quarter of a million dollars,” snorted Gus Rolle hypocritically. His wife was a dog food heiress and if her family’s company weren’t one of the firm’s biggest clients, Callahan Ross wouldn’t have even hired him as a paralegal.

  “Oh, I think I have an idea of how many zeros we’re talking about,” I assured him. “What I don’t know is what all of you want. Is this conversation enough for you? Would you feel better if I broke down and cried?” I looked around the table and felt every inch the bratty teenager. “Because what you see is what you get. This is all the satisfaction I’m prepared to offer. If it’s not enough, you can try to fire me.”

  I looked around the table, standing my ground. In the background the grandfather clock could be heard ticking ominously. “In that case I’m going back to my office,” I announced. “I have work to do.”

  Then I marched out of the room and smiled to myself. No matter what else, I’d reduced five lawyers to complete speechlessness, which, when all was said and done, was no small feat.

  By the time I got back to my office, my breathing had returned to something very close to normal. As I turned the corner I was pleased to see Sherman Whitehead waiting for me. He was wearing a light blue golf shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck and a pair of plaid high-water

  pants.

  “How did it go this morning?” he asked.

  “I remain bloody but unbowed,” I reported.

  “Gregson said that they were going to try to can you.” Tim Gregson made partner the same year I did. He was a money-hungry deal lawyer with the face of a choirboy and the ethics of a crack dealer. I had no doubt he’d be managing partner someday.

  “It’s early in the day yet, but so far I’m still here.”

  “Then do you have a minute?”

  “As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with Avco. I am officially off the case.”

  “No. It’s about the Monarchs. I stayed up last night going over their balance sheet.”

  “Pretty scary. No wonder you couldn’t sleep.”

  “The bank is trying to force them to go under, aren’t they?”

  “Wouldn’t you if you were in their shoes? Not only will they get the franchise for ten cents on the dollar, but now that some asshole’s leaked the possibility of the team moving to L.A., instead of being the heartless bankers that took the Monarchs away from the Rendells, they’re going to be the heroes that keep the team in Milwaukee.”

  “I take it you think they were the ones who leaked it to the press.”

  “First they had to know it to be able to leak it. My guess is that either Harald Feiss told them or he leaked it himself.”

  “Why would the minority owner want to do that?”

  “I don’t know, maybe he’s cooked up some kind of side deal with the bank. He claims that Beau was planning on making a deal to move the team out to the suburbs to anchor a planned sports/entertainment/retail complex.”

  “Where?”

  “Someplace out in the boonies called Wauwatosa.”

  “That’s what I came to talk to you about. Last night, going through the financials, I came upon a hefty line item for real estate taxes for an unidentified parcel of land. I looked up the plat numbers this morning and it’s all in Wauwatosa—-an enormous tract, at least a couple of hundred acres. The real estate taxes alone are something like seventy grand a year.”

  “Are they delinquent on the taxes?”

  “Nope. They’re current.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, my interest piqued. Going through Beau Rendell’s papers I had found no account that was less than sixty days overdue, including the property taxes on his house. If he was up-to-date on the taxes for this parcel, that in itself was noteworthy.

  “I’m sure. I checked with the County Recorders office on-line. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I can’t find any record of the purchase or the deed in the records you gave me. I mean, if they’re laying out for the real estate taxes, you’d expect them to hold the deed.”

  “Maybe it’s kept under lock and key somewhere,” I suggested, my thoughts turning to the safe-deposit box.

  “I looked it up. The Rendells don’t own the land, and it’s not deeded to any of the holding companies associated with the team. Instead, it appears to belong to a corporation called Debmar, Incorporated.”

  “Who the hell is Debmar?”

  “From what I can gather, it’s a holding company. I traced it through two other shells to another holding company in the Caymans.”

  “In the Caymans? It sounds like somebody is hiding something.”

  “Do you want me to keep looking?”

  “Yeah. Do that. Of course, if there’s any hands-on investigating that needs to be done in the Caribbean, I think it’s better if I handle it personally. After all, I may be in the doghouse, but partnership still has its privileges.”

  Late that afternoon a messenger delivered an envelope to my office. Inside was a key. The accompanying note may have been unsigned, but I had no trouble recognizing Cheryl’s handwriting. All it said was It’s downstairs in your parking space.

  I’d completely forgotten that I’d asked her to get me some new wheels. Even barred from communicating with me, she’d managed to do what I’d asked. Propelled by curiosity, I packed up my briefcase, picked up the key, and took the elevator down to the parking garage. There, in my space, was a sleek new forest green Jaguar sedan with chrome Cragar wheels.

  I walked around it once, peering in through the windows, looking for what, I don’t know. Then I unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. With its leather seats the interior smelled like the inside of a glove. The b
urled wood of the dashboard gleamed. I put the key in the ignition, and the deep-throated engine purred to life.

  “Not bad,” I thought to myself as I pulled out of my spot and headed down the ramp toward the exit. It wasn’t until I was heading east on Balbo toward Lake Shore Drive that I realized there was no way I could take this car home to Hyde Park. In the alley behind my building a car like this would have a half-life of something like six minutes. I might as well cruise the parking lot where the drug deals went down and hand the keys to the first dealer that I met.

  I fumbled around looking for where the British engineers had hidden the car phone. I eventually located it in the console between the seats, but only after I’d switched on the lights, the windshield wipers, and launched myself into cruise control somewhere in the vicinity of Soldier Field. First I called Cheryl and left a message saying thank you on her answering machine and promising her a test drive. Then I called Chrissy at my parents’ house and asked her if she minded having company for the night. She sounded pleased at the prospect of not being alone, but also preoccupied. When she mentioned that she’d just gotten off the phone with Jeff I figured that was probably the reason and decided not to pursue it, at least not over the phone. Instead I told her to put a bottle of wine on ice and save a glass for me.

  After I hung up with Chrissy I dialed the mobile operator and asked to be connected to the Regent Beverly Wilshire only to be told by the hotel operator that Mr. Rendell’s room wasn’t answering. Frustrated at just having missed him, I left a message for him to call me just as I pulled into the alley behind my building.

  I rolled down the window and offered a kid on a bicycle twenty bucks if he watched my car for ten minutes. Eager for the twenty—hopefully not the hubcaps—he agreed, and I pelted into the apartment and grabbed a change of clothes. I also stopped long enough to listen to the answering machine messages. There was one from my bank confirming the transfer of funds to pay for the Jaguar and another from Cheryl reminding me that I had seventy-two hours to switch my insurance coverage from the Volvo. Then the machine clicked and I stood there listening to the whir of the tape as it rewound, feeling confused by my sense of disappointment. After all, I was the one who’d done the deed, made the break, put an end to things. Then why on earth had I been hoping that Stephen Azorini would have called?