Clean Hands

by Patrick Hoffman

  Stepping out, she nearly ran into a short man with gray hair and glasses. She put a hand on his shoulder, apologized vaguely, and stepped past him. He smelled of curry. She moved away from the living room in search of her husband. The lights in the hallway were bright, and she walked with her left hand held up like she was telling someone to stay away from her. She’d been in this house quite a few times; still, she felt oddly disoriented.

  Finally—around a corner and down the hall—she found the doorway to the backyard and the pool. Breathing through her mouth and grimacing, she stepped to the glass door and gripped its handle.

  Outside, the first thing she saw, of course, was her husband. He was talking to a skinny, short-haired, short-skirted woman who couldn’t have been more than forty years old. With his eyebrows raised wisely, and his arms crossed in front of his chest, he seemed to be doing all the talking. As she moved toward him, Elizabeth felt her body temperature rise. She vowed not to seem angry.

  “Darling, there you are,” said Tyler, sounding strangely like an Englishman. “I want you to meet Jeb’s daughter. She’s a lawyer.” Elizabeth stepped toward them, doing her best impression of a smile.

  “Are you all right?” asked Tyler. “You look ill.”

  “Ate something,” whispered Elizabeth, pulling her smile tighter. No hands were shaken. The daughter, whoever she was, angled her head, made a sympathetic face, and pulled her martini glass a bit closer to her chest, like she was scared Elizabeth was going to smack it out of her hands.

  Just then, as if on cue, Elizabeth’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and read a text message from Jimmy Hipps, head in-house counsel for the Calcott Corporation. Elizabeth had never received a text message from the man before.

  She squinted to read it: Tommy Sanzone WSJ just called and asked for comment on an anonymous source story. Says source has documents speaking to very allegations of fraud.

  Elizabeth tried to make sense of the message and another one came in, this one a correction of the first: Speaking to very *serious* allegations of fraud.

  Another message popped up: Can you get on a conference call with me, Mark, Ben, Paul, Zach, and your Scott in five minutes?

  Suddenly sober, Elizabeth looked from her husband to the young lawyer. “I’m sorry, excuse me,” she said. “Work issue.”

  She stepped toward the pool and started walking around its edge. It was lit up and perfect. Somewhere inside the party a man laughed like Santa Claus.

  Nobody was standing on the far side of the pool, and there was a padded reclining seat. Elizabeth moved toward it and texted a one-word answer: Yes.

  That same night, to avoid going home, Chris Cowley stayed late at the office and forced himself to do actual work. His apartment was making him a nervous wreck. The constant surveillance had taken a toll on his psyche. He felt unhinged. Less than three weeks ago his problems didn’t exist—now they were everywhere.

  At a quarter to nine, he stood, put on his coat, and took a moment to stare at the iPhone sitting on his desk. How much trouble, he wondered, would leaving it right there bring? The question caused his internal temperature to rise, but the decision had already been made. He was leaving it. He wanted a night to himself. That would be step one. He reached out, turned it facedown, and walked out of his office.

  In the lobby downstairs, two guards stood alone behind the front desk. Their eyes stayed on Chris as he made his way to the exit, but they didn’t say anything.

  As soon as Chris stepped outside, he saw a forty-year-old man standing on the sidewalk about eight car lengths from the door. This man, like the others he’d spotted following him, wore a business casual outfit. He held a phone to his ear, and his lips moved as if he was in the middle of a conversation. Chris silently cursed him and began walking to the Bryant Park subway stop. It was cold outside. He wanted his night to begin.

  Just as Chris got down to the subway platform, a downtown-bound F train came roaring into the station. He couldn’t help interpreting that as a good sign. On the train, he pushed his way to a seat and sat down aggressively between an old woman and a young kid in a puffy coat. They both scooted over to make room.

  Chris looked around the car and wondered who else might be following him. It could be anyone, he thought. But none of the people in his vicinity seemed likely. He leaned back and dried his hands on his pants. The train bumped along and Chris counted the stops as they passed: 34th, 23rd, 14th.

  At West Fourth Street, he counted how long the doors stayed open: nine seconds. He closed his eyes and reminded himself that it wasn’t a crime to get off the subway. The train started up again and made its slow turn east, heading toward the Broadway-Lafayette stop. A few passengers began drifting toward the door. Chris stayed seated.

  The train jolted to a stop, and the doors opened. Chris counted back—nine, eight, seven, six; the exiting passengers by that point had disembarked. A few people boarded and settled into their seats or stood with their hands on the bars. Chris kept counting; it seemed impossible that the doors would remain open for another three seconds.

  When he got to two, he stood up from his seat and rushed off the train, just as the doors closed.

  He appeared to have been the last person off. Still, he spent a frenzied few seconds looking back and forth across the platform. Then he began moving toward the exit, along with everyone else.

  The train left the station. Across the tracks, a black guy in a puffy coat stood staring at him. The man averted his gaze as soon as Chris looked in his direction. Farther down the platform, Chris noticed a white girl in a tight skirt and a short fur coat. A hipster, Chris thought. He stared at her, blinking. Wasn’t she a little old for that outfit?

  He told himself he was being ridiculous, turned his back to the tracks, and pretended to examine a movie poster.

  Exiting passengers gone, Chris took the stairs up to the mezzanine level. A crowd of about ten people passed him on their way down. They all shuffled by without so much as looking at him. He turned his collar up and took the last few stairs two at a time.

  Outside, in the cool air, he headed east on Houston with no exact destination in mind. Eventually, on Elizabeth Street, he found a bar that looked quiet. He went in, sat at the bar, and—feeling giddy—ordered a gin martini.

  Valencia Walker, meanwhile, was in her apartment watching a romantic comedy on her laptop. The movie was about two friends who had opened a bakery together and fallen in love. Valencia had eaten a bowl of ice cream. She was in her sweatpants, and, if asked, she would have placed her general mood somewhere around a 7.5 out of 10. Her phone rang, and she frowned when she saw it was Elizabeth calling; her mood dropped down to a 6.

  When she answered, Elizabeth told her that a story about the Calcott Corporation would appear on the front page of tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal. She said the reporter had received copies of internal Calcott emails. “C-suite shit, absolutely radioactive,” said Elizabeth.

  Valencia, phone to ear, closed her computer, swung her legs out of bed, picked up the bowl, walked to the kitchen, set the bowl in the sink and filled it with water. “Shit,” she said.

  “It’s hard to state how bad this is,” said Elizabeth. “Those emails were part of the stolen discovery.”

  Valencia noted the accusatory tone but chose to ignore it. “Who’s writing the story?”

  “Tommy Sanzone,” said Elizabeth. “He’s a piece of shit.”

  “Don’t know him,” said Valencia. “But listen, I’m very good friends with the editor of the business section. Would you like me to call him and see if we can kill the story?”

  “It’s fucking printed,” said Elizabeth. She sounded like she’d been drinking.

  Valencia closed her eyes and tried to pinpoint the best way to proceed. “Liz, I understand that this—”

  “Don’t fucking patronize me.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Valencia. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to relax,”
said Elizabeth, stressing the x sound. “I want you to relax and tell me why your Russian fucking friend would do this right now.”

  “Did the reporter say anything about Russians?” asked Valencia, moving her wrist, to loosen it, as if she were playing Ping-Pong.

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Liz, there are hundreds of people who could have leaked those emails.”

  “You were supposed to recover them; you were supposed to get it all back,” said Elizabeth. “How much have you billed us for this job? Fifty thousand? Plus the seven hundred and fifty thousand. That’s almost a million dollars. What do we have to show for that? We’re being fucking blackmailed for that.”

  For a moment, Valencia considered how her own mother used to get drunk and carry on with unfounded accusations. Arguing back never worked. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation on the phone,” said Valencia. She moved to the living room window and looked out at the park below her. “I can come to your house if you’d like?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Elizabeth. “This isn’t …”

  “I know,” said Valencia, keeping the softness in her voice but staying clear of any condescension. They were silent for nearly five seconds. “Do you want me to come to you?”

  “I’m at a party,” said Elizabeth. “I just took a conference call with Scott and all of Calcott’s in-house people. I’m by a pool right now, if you can believe that. Sitting by a fucking pool.”

  Valencia closed her eyes, relaxed her mind, and focused on Elizabeth’s tone.

  “My husband’s talking to some short-haired intern, Louisa Eldrich’s probing me for gossip, I have food poisoning—shrimp—oh God, hold on, Michael D’Angelo’s calling.”

  The line went silent while Elizabeth answered the call. Valencia walked to her office and plugged her headphones in. She felt nervous, and, rather than fight against that feeling, she tried to embrace it. She’d been trained that way. Draw the fear into your belly, accept it, appreciate it, own it.

  “They lost him,” said Elizabeth, coming back on the line. “Tonight of all nights, they fucking lost him. My God, how hard can it be? These people are ridiculous.”

  “Lost who?” Valencia asked, playing dumb.

  “Chris Cowley—fucking Chris Cowley,” said Elizabeth. “The only reason, and I’m talking the only reason I haven’t fired him was so we could keep our eyes on him.”

  “Now this,” said Valencia.

  “Now this,” said Elizabeth. “At least we’ll have him out of our hair.”

  Valencia took a moment thinking about what this would mean. “You have to do what you have to do,” she said, finally.

  “I’ll tell you what I have to do,” said Elizabeth, sounding drunk again. “Fire him.”

  After barely saying goodbye, Elizabeth ended the call.

  The next morning at 8:42 a.m., Yuri Rabinowitz was woken by a loud pounding noise. It took a moment to realize someone was banging on the front door. It was hard to imagine a more unwelcome sound.

  Yuri reached for his phone and saw four missed calls, all from his uncle’s man, Grigory Levchin. The night before, Yuri and his brother had been out partying with their friends. They’d taken Molly, drank an obscene amount of vodka, and danced at a club in Greenpoint until five in the morning. Yuri was, to put it mildly, in pain.

  He pushed himself out of bed and pulled on the shirt he’d worn out. It was a bright, button-up thing that—upon catching a glimpse in the mirror—now seemed utterly ridiculous. He hurried to the stairs. As he passed his brother’s door, he called out “Isaac!” There was no response.

  It occurred to him that it might be the FBI outside. He’d stay silent, of course. He wouldn’t say anything; he’d wait for his uncle to arrange an attorney. Had Grigory been calling to warn them of an impending raid? Yuri cursed himself for not listening to the voicemail and he felt a sharp pain in his head. His stomach, in answer to everything, threatened to empty itself.

  I’m in hell, he thought.

  Before he reached the door, he recognized the shape and general color of Grigory Levchin’s head on the other side of the frosted glass. Which wasn’t to say he felt more relaxed. Good news never followed that kind of knocking. He was still in hell.

  Yuri unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. He tried to seem calm, and asked “What’s up?”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone?” said Grigory. He was wearing jeans and a sweater, an unusual outfit for him. He leaned in after he spoke, as though anticipating that Yuri’s answer would be difficult to hear.

  Yuri had never seen the man so upset. For a moment, he thought he was going to be told that Uncle Yakov had been killed. “I had it off,” he said. “I was sleeping.”

  “Get your brother, your uncle wants to see both of you.”

  Yuri gestured for Grigory to come in, but the large man just frowned, shook his head, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. The smell of tobacco reached Yuri’s nose instantly. Without closing the door, he turned and headed back upstairs.

  His anger, as he went, became focused on Isaac. It was his brother who made them stay out all night. “One more drink,” he’d insisted. As he approached the door, Yuri told himself not to start a fight. It wasn’t what they needed right then. But when he opened the door, the first thing he saw was the shape of a sleeping woman. “Wake up, asshole,” he said to his brother. His anger had returned.

  “Huh?” Isaac leaned his head up. He looked even worse than Yuri felt. “What?”

  “Grigory’s downstairs. He says we need to go with him,” said Yuri. “For what?”

  “What do you think?” said Yuri. “Get dressed. Two minutes.”

  The woman in the bed groaned and pulled the covers over her head. Yuri couldn’t help looking at the hill that her hip created under the blanket. I need a hill like that, he thought—kids, a family, the quiet life.

  He turned and walked back to his room; he needed to dress more professionally. He didn’t need this clown shirt. He pulled it off and exchanged it for a white oxford. When he stepped back into the hallway, he heard the shower running in the bathroom.

  This fucking guy, he thought; an angry feeling sloshed around in his guts.

  When he opened the door, he found his brother not in the shower, but instead sitting naked on the toilet. A horrible, fetid smell reached his nose. “You can’t—!” Yuri yelled. He meant to say, You can’t shower, but he couldn’t even get that out.

  His brother leaned forward on the toilet, groaned, and forced out an explosion of diarrhea. “What am I going to do?” he answered, looking like he might cry, but then smiling.

  Yuri stepped back into the hall and slammed the door closed. He stood there for a moment looking down the hallway, then opened the door and slammed it again. He repeated this a few times, and then walked downstairs.

  My toothbrush is in there, he thought. My deodorant.

  The front door was closed when he got back. He found Grigory washing his hands at the kitchen sink. “I can’t control him!” Yuri said. Grigory turned. “You need hand soap,” he said, nodding toward the sink.

  Hand soap? Hand soap? These people are all insane, thought Yuri. He looked at Grigory and measured the man and wondered if he could be knocked out with a cast-iron pan. “What does Uncle want?” Yuri asked again.

  “He said, ‘Call Yuri and have them come in,’” answered Grigory, pulling paper towels from a roll and drying his hands. “I tell him you’re not answering. He says, ‘Go get them.’ I don’t question him and say, ‘First, sir, please sir, tell me the exact agenda of why you want to talk to them, Yuri might need to know’—come on.”

  Grigory went to the trash can and threw the paper towels away. “You look like real shit, you know that?” he said.

  Yuri went to the same trash can, and with some difficulty, pulled out the white plastic bag. He spun it and tied it closed and carried it to the garage. Inside the garage, he turned the lights on and put the trash into a l
arger black bin. He then hit the opener and the garage door rumbled up. Yuri wheeled the bin to the curb with his eyes barely open against the sun.

  When he was done, he turned and saw his Armenian neighbor Narek standing across the street. The man waved but put his head down and walked away before Yuri could wave back. Reminded of the man’s son, Yuri turned and looked down the street for his van but didn’t see any vans at all. He didn’t want to wait with Grigory, so he spent a few minutes picking up trash that had blown into their hedge.

  When he finally got back to the kitchen, he found Isaac standing there, dressed and looking fresh, telling a story that had Grigory laughing quietly and shaking his head. “What?” said Isaac, seeing his brother’s face. “What was all that about?” he asked, pointing upstairs. “Why you gotta slam the doors?”

  “We’re late,” said Yuri.

  “Late for what?” said his little brother. “I’m ready to go.” He held his hand toward Grigory. “We’re waiting for you.”

  Yuri turned, went back upstairs, and took his toothbrush and toothpaste to his bedroom and brushed in there. Own your choices, he told himself in Russian while he brushed. You made a choice to get into this.

  He changed shirts again, putting on a blue shirt that would hopefully make his face appear less pink. Fucking pieces of shit, he thought. Bastards. He went back downstairs and the three of them walked silently to Grigory’s car.

  When they got to Leo Katzir’s office, they found the lobby—save one old man slumped in his seat—free of clients. Yuri noticed that a plant in a stand near the window had died. The girl he liked did not appear to be working that day, and the new one, a girl he’d never seen before, did her best not to look at the three men when they walked in.

  “May we go in?” Grigory asked her.

  “Yes, please,” said the woman, standing up and opening the door for them.

  Inside the lawyer’s office, Yuri’s uncle, dressed in one of his normal silk sweaters, sat in a chair facing Leo Katzir’s desk. He turned as they entered, smiled sadly. He looked tan, clean, and well rested. Leo Katzir, meanwhile, sat behind his desk, hands folded, looking pissed off.