“I talk to the media all the time.” He paused. “Just not about myself—and why should I? I’m boring! I may have some interesting clients, but that doesn’t make me interesting.”
“Well, you are Boston’s crisis management king.”
“Or so the Globe once called me.” He smiled, relenting a bit. “Rick, I want to get a sense first of what you have in mind. I think it’ll work best if we’re both clear about where we’re coming from and where we hope to be going.”
So this wasn’t an interview at all, Rick thought. It was a pre-interview.
“Sure,” Rick said. “Well, I’m interested in the world of crisis management and reputation management. You’ve been at the center of some significant events in the last several years, yet you seem to be happiest staying out of the spotlight.”
Pappas was silent. He pursed his lips.
Rick went on: “It’s basically a character study. What kind of person has these skills and abilities?”
“I see,” Pappas said. “You’re onto something. I’m not the guy who uses up all the oxygen in the room. Which is why this little story of yours may turn out to be a nonstarter. It may be what neither of us needs. Let’s talk about you, shall we?”
“Me?” Rick attempted a smile.
“You’re no longer the guy who was writing stories about pension abuse or illegal chemical dumping in Western Mass, are you? Though your byline on that series was shortlisted for a Pulitzer; am I remembering correctly?”
Pappas was clearly remembering from five minutes ago when he read through some information file, probably in a folder on his desk right now.
“Very good,” Rick said. “That’s right.”
“You gave up a high-powered career in journalism, and now you’re in the soft-soap business,” Pappas said. “What is it that you really want?”
“What I want . . . ?”
“You. I ask because I’ve hired people in the past from your line of work, often very successfully.”
“What are you turning this into, a job interview?”
“Would that bother you?”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
Pappas leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. The lenses of his glasses were thick, distorting his eyes. “Here’s the thing, Rick. I don’t really want this piece to be written about me. And I don’t think you actually want to write it. Let’s talk about the real reason you made this appointment with me.”
“Okay. What I really want to ask about is my father. You knew him, didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” Pappas said at once. “Leonard Hoffman was a wonderful man.”
“Actually, he’s still alive.”
Pappas’s BlackBerry vibrated on the coffee table. He picked it up, glanced at it. “I understand. He had a stroke. A very unfortunate thing.”
“Going over his papers, I noticed a lot of phone calls between you two. Were you a client of his?” That was an out-and-out bluff, about the calls. Rick hadn’t seen any records of phone calls. He was hazarding a guess. If the two of them met, Pappas was the kind of man who’d have put in a call, or several calls first. Or had his office place some calls.
“Did I call your father? Of course. I called when I needed his help.” Guess confirmed.
“In fact, you were scheduled to meet for lunch on the day of his stroke.”
“Is that so? It’s been years.” His tone flattened. “What can I help you with, Rick?”
“I’m curious what sort of work he did for you.”
“Various legal errands. I can’t say as I recall the details.”
“But why him? You have access to any white-shoe law firm in the city. To be honest, I was surprised to discover you two knew each other. You move in . . . well, in very different circles.”
“If I were to limit my reach to the usual suspects, the Ropes and Grays, the Goodwin Procters, the Mintz Levins—well, they all play in the same sandbox. Your father, on the other hand, was well connected in certain quarters.”
“So what sort of legal work did he do for you?”
Pappas had become distant, wary. His eyes looked out of focus. “I’m sure it all falls under the general rubric of attorney-client privilege, Rick.”
Now Pappas hunched forward in his chair and gave a great crocodile’s smile. “Rick, we’re both grown-ups. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’d like to know? Let me know how I can help you.”
“It’s just surprising that you’d have anything to do with my dad,” Rick persisted. “You’re the major league, and he was anything but.”
“Your father provided services.”
“By services, you mean . . . ?”
“Any number of things. Rick, I’m—”
“Did my father’s services include something called the cash bank?”
He waited. Pappas was silent. He didn’t indicate whether he recognized the term or not. Rick went on, inching up to the edge of the cliff. “To be blunt, my father procured cash used for bribery. So I’m wondering whether he provided cash to you. For bribery.”
“Certainly not, but I’m glad to see you’ve retained the old think-the-worst instincts of an investigative reporter. Son, I don’t swim in that lane.” His BlackBerry buzzed again. He glanced at it and ignored it again. Then he looked directly at Rick, his eyes magnified in size, the expression dead. “But you believe your father did.”
Rick met Pappas’s stare unflinchingly. He nodded.
“Were his books a mess? Did he leave you cash you can’t account for? The more I know, Rick, the more I can help you.”
“It’s clear my father was involved in dirty work of some kind. I’m trying to get a handle on exactly what it was.”
Pappas was silent for a long while. A cloud scudded by over the Boston skyline.
“That’s quite an accusation,” he said. “I assume your father isn’t able to speak, or you’d ask him. So you must have proof of some sort.”
“A number of documents,” Rick lied.
Pappas tented his fingers thoughtfully. “Be more specific.”
“Let me put it this way. There’s a pretty interesting trail there.”
Pappas took off his glasses and massaged his eyes with his fingertips. The BlackBerry buzzed again but this time he didn’t even look at it. With his eyes still closed, he said, “You’re suggesting your father was a bag man?”
“A fixer.”
Pappas let the word hover in the air. “I believe the usual term for guys like him is expediter. How they do what they do is their own business. I know nothing about it, and I don’t judge. But I think you’re being uncharitable.”
“Uncharitable?”
“Your father, as you may know, was scorned in most legal circles. He was regarded as untouchable, the poor man. But I knew better. I knew the stuff he was made of. He was a stand-up guy. He was a good person. Now, did I send people his way? Sure. I looked out for him. So tell me something: Why in the world would you want to drag his name through the mud, a man in his condition?”
Pappas was far slipperier an opponent than Rick had expected. For a moment he faltered, unsure how to proceed. Finally he replied, “Don’t misunderstand me. I have no intention of writing an article about my dad’s business. I’m here to get some clarity on the mess he left behind. On the ‘cash bank’ and how it worked. For my own sake.”
“I see. Simple curiosity.” He said it in a gentle, thoughtful way, but Rick sensed a subtle sarcasm.
“That’s all.”
“The ‘cash bank,’ you say.”
“Whatever you can tell me.”
“Well, Rick, Boston twenty years ago wasn’t exactly the cleanest town. A lot of money changed hands, true. None of this shocks me. You know what Robert Penn Warren said in All the King’s Men. ‘Man is conceived in sin and born in corrupt
ion, and he passes from the stench of the didie to the stink of the shroud.’ Or something very close to that. Just because my hands happen to be clean doesn’t mean I judge. I do not. So tell me what you’ve found. What amount of cash did he leave around—ten thousand dollars? Ten dollars? I can’t help you if you don’t let me know the particulars.”
Rick shook his head slowly.
Pappas got to his feet and beckoned Rick with a flip of his right hand. He turned and walked out of his office into the hallway, Rick following close behind. Pappas swerved through the open door of an empty office that had been cleared out. There was a big desk and a high leather chair behind it and a lamp and a cluster of chairs and a coffee table in front of it, just as in Pappas’s office. The view over Boston Harbor was remarkable. But there were no papers or framed things. It was vacant. No one worked here.
“This was Cass Mulligan’s office. He was just hired away from me by a K Street firm. I need to replace him with someone who’s fast and skillful and savvy.”
Rick nodded. “Okay . . .”
“Let’s speak frankly.” He placed a hand on Rick’s shoulder as they both stood facing the Boston skyline. “Son, your life is shit. You left journalism behind, Mort Ostrow offered you a big pay package, and that worked out for a few years until it didn’t. You were let go. Minimal severances were paid. You have no salary, no wages, no benefits. Your situation clearly cost you personally—you and your lovely fiancée split up, yes? Holly, was that her name?”
Rick felt something twist within his abdomen. Pappas had done his homework. “That had nothing to do with my job,” he protested.
“Irreconcilable similarities, then, is that it?” Pappas gave a low chuckle. “The temperature sure seems to have dropped quite a bit since the days when you and Holly were enjoying umbrella drinks at Pink Sands on Harbour Island, hmm? You’ve got to be wondering about the decisions you made. Now, you know the media from the inside out. I’ve always thought there’s no better defense attorney than a former prosecutor. You’re just the sort of person I’d be pleased to see on my team. If this is a scenario that might appeal to you, we can have that conversation. But maybe you have other decisions in mind.”
“I’m flattered,” Rick managed to say.
“The question, Rick, is whether you’re more interested in the past or in the future.”
Rick hesitated. “Both, I suppose.”
“Let me tell you a story,” said Pappas. “When I was a kid, my old man kept a small home office—he was an accountant—with a file cabinet whose top drawer was always locked. Naturally, I was curious.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Then as now, I liked knowing things. What could possibly be in that locked file drawer? What could my father possibly be keeping from me? I loved and respected my father more than anyone in the world. Well, one day a friend and I figured out how to pick the lock on that top file drawer, using a couple of paper clips. We managed to unlock it. And what sort of files do you imagine were hidden away in that drawer?” He smiled ruefully. “Alas, no files. No papers. Do you know what was in that drawer? Magazines. What you might call smut magazines. Magazines with photographs of women with big boobs, lots of leather, lots of chains. Women being dominated. Women being submissive. My father was into what’s called BDSM. Bondage and discipline and sadomasochism.” He seemed momentarily lost in thought. “This was a side to my father I wish I’d never learned. I didn’t need to know this. It turned my world upside down. It made me lose all respect for the man. I wish to hell I’d never opened that file drawer, Rick.”
He stared at Rick again with those enlarged, blurry eyes. Rick nodded.
Pappas went on. “It’s my business to know things. To know as much as I can. But sometimes . . . well, every once in a while you learn something you later wish you could unlearn. But you can’t. Though, by God, you wish you could.”
There was a long silence. Rick said nothing.
Finally, Pappas said mournfully, “Do you really want to know what’s in that file drawer, Rick?”
29
Alex Pappas hadn’t been fooled by the interview ruse, not for a moment. He seemed to know why Rick was there even before he arrived at his office. He was the sort of man who prided himself on always being a step ahead. And he had been.
Rick had the uneasy feeling that Pappas had agreed to the faux interview because he wanted to meet Rick. He wanted to sound Rick out, to find out what he could about what Rick knew and how he knew it.
And to manipulate him, to shame him if possible, to discourage him from probing any further and to try to buy him off. Pappas had done deep research into Rick, to a creepy extent, and he wanted to make sure Rick knew it.
But though Pappas had seen right through it, the meeting had been successful, from Rick’s point of view. For one thing, Rick had spotted Pappas’s business cards in a holder on his desk, facing the visitor on the outer edge of the desk, and he’d slipped one into his pocket. More important, he’d learned a number of useful things. He was now certain that Pappas was the “P” in his father’s appointment calendar. And he’d corroborated his theory that Pappas was connected to the “cash bank” Monica Kennedy had mentioned. Pappas’s behavior, his blatant attempts at manipulation, had confirmed it.
But all Pappas’s attempts at intimidation had failed. Rick didn’t much care for Pappas’s condescending attitude toward his father. Pappas had given him a warning, and Rick was never good with warnings. Warnings just egged him on. They awakened the long-dormant investigative journalist part of his brain. Pappas was afraid of something, and now Rick was determined to find out what.
In fact, the meeting with Pappas had emboldened Rick. He’d stuck his head into the lion’s mouth and pulled it back out without any visible bite marks on his neck. Five days had gone by without his being abducted again by the poetry-quoting Irishman with a butcher’s saw.
I’ll ask you again, the man had said. Who’ve you been talking to? A simple question, Mr. Hoffman. Because your father doesn’t speak. So it’s someone else.
Maybe the Irishman had gotten the answer he wanted. Or maybe he’d decided Rick didn’t know the answer.
Who’ve you been talking to?
The question wasn’t Where’s the money? It was Who have you been talking to? Who’d told him about the money?
The Irishman, and by implication Pappas—since they had to be a team—wanted to know who he’d been talking to.
You must have proof of some sort, Pappas had asked. Proof that Lenny had engaged in bribery.
The more I know, Rick, the more I can help you.
Pappas had wanted to know what Rick knew. Were there account books? Were there records? Was there proof?
Maybe Pappas had finally concluded that Rick knew next to nothing, that he hadn’t been talking to anyone, that he had no records, no proof.
Nothing that would cause Pappas any kind of problems.
If so, that would mean that Rick was no longer a threat to Pappas. Which meant that Pappas wasn’t a threat to Rick. And neither was the poetry-quoting Irishman.
That would mean it was safe for Rick to appear at the obvious, expected places. He needed to return to Clayton Street anyway, and it would be easier in the daytime.
On the way, he thought about what Pappas had said. Did I call your father? Of course. I called when I needed his help.
Rick had been bluffing, but the bluff had turned out to be the truth. Pappas had indeed called Lenny.
So maybe there were records of those calls. When you were doing investigative journalism, you amassed as many documents, files, records as you could, to try to spot the tiny anomalies that might reveal something unexpected. Investigative journalism wasn’t like meeting Deep Throat in a parking garage. It was like mining for gold. You dug and dug, past the topsoil, down to the mineral layer, then you blasted the rock apart using explosives, then you trucked the rocks somewhere els
e to crush and process, and for every ton of rocks you went through, you’d get maybe five grams of gold. If you were lucky.
He was still digging into the topsoil.
He called his sister, Wendy, spoke for just two minutes, and hung up. Then he parked and entered the house. The crew was hard at work, their music blasting, nail guns rat-a-tat-tatting, power screwdrivers whining and squawking.
Rick gave Jeff a wave. Jeff replied with a thumbs-up.
Then Rick headed down to the basement, where it was quieter, and cool, and peaceful. He pulled the cord on the bare overhead bulb in the back part of the basement where the old files and records were kept. Within a few minutes he’d located the cardboard boxes from Staples in which Wendy had boxed up all the old files and papers left around the house after their father’s stroke.
He found the box marked PHONE BILLS and took it down from the shelf. He took out a few bills and opened them.
They were useless. Each bill listed the menu of “services” the phone company had provided for the month as well as whatever long-distance calls Lenny had made. But local calls weren’t listed. They never were. There was nothing here.
Then Rick found a thick envelope that changed everything. It was a bill from Cellular One, for Lenny’s cell phone. Rick had forgotten that his father had a cell phone fairly early on. By 1996 cell phones were starting to become popular, especially among businesspeople and lawyers.
And in the early days of cell phones, the wireless providers were still sending thick bills detailing every single call placed.
He pulled out all the Cell One phone bills for 1996. He couldn’t find any after August, but then he remembered that Joan Breslin had canceled his father’s phone after a few months, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to recover. He opened the envelope for the February bill, which covered all calls for a month starting from the beginning of January.
And he began going through the statement, his eyes running down the lists of phone numbers, of calls placed and calls received. He was looking for patterns, particularly repeated calls to and from any phone number. The number listed most often by far was the number of Lenny’s office, which was no surprise: Lenny would have called the office to talk to Joan multiple times when he was out and on his mobile. Then there was the family home number, showing calls between Rick and Wendy and their father at work.
The Fixer Page 16