Death Benefits (11 page)

I had my own lunch date with my sister Ann and her friends. I told Nancy, who was acting as my secretary while I was in St. Louis, that I would be at Briarcliff Country Club for lunch if anyone should call.

During the few minutes before I had to leave for Briarcliff, I tracked down Sandy Feldman.

“I don't think so, Rachel,” he said in response to my question.

“Not even rumors?”

“No. Believe me, if Stoddard Anderson was sleeping with his secretary, he did an excellent job of hiding it.”

“How ‘bout Portia?”

Sandy raised his eyebrows. “So you've met our heartthrob?”

“I understand she makes more than your heart throb,” I said, and Sandy blushed. His reaction reminded me again of the corrupting influence of sharing office space with Benny Goldberg.

“No,” I said, “I haven't met her. How about Anderson and Portia?”

“Don't know.” He mulled it over. “Managing partner of the firm, one of the movers and shakers of St. Louis. He'd be the perfect target for her. I never saw her leave with him, but that doesn't mean they didn't. If someone like Stoddard Anderson was going to have an affair, especially an affair with someone in this office, he'd be so damn discreet no one would ever know.” He leaned back in his chair. “Portia and Stoddard. Well, she seems to like managing partners.”

“Reed St. Germain, huh?”

“Off and on. But that was going on back when Stoddard was alive, too. I heard that Anderson called St. Germain on the carpet for sleeping with someone in the office. Maybe it was Portia.”

***

I don't like private clubs. I don't like the concept. I don't like the execution. I just plain don't like anything about them.

Briarcliff Country Club, however, is the very worst sort: an exclusive Jewish country club, where my people—victims of exclusion since the time of Abraham—can exclude their own people. Briarcliff strives for a white-bread Judaism. There are no Tevyes at Briarcliff, and corned beef is available only on St. Patrick's Day. Over the years it has become a Jewish version of nineteenth-century Liberia, with the natives dressing in the White Man's clothes and mimicking the White Man's rituals. And just like the Uncle Toms of nineteenth-century Liberia, the good burghers of Briarcliff have their doppelgangers lurking out there in the bush: the Eastern European arrivistes at Golden Bough (aka Golden-berg) Country Club, land of the diamond pinky rings, white belts, and platinum Eldorados.

At Briarcliff you can sip Bloody Marys on the front lawn of the main clubhouse while little Jewish girls in Easter bonnets and white pinafore dresses search for painted eggs and you can try to forget what Easter brought upon your ancestors in Europe. You can promenade with your family through the Great Hall, a kitsch homage to King Arthur, and as you pass beneath the rows of heavy flags emblazoned with English heraldry you can almost—almost—forget that your family coat of arms is, at best, a gefilte fish rampant on a field of chopped liver.

Ann and I could never have become members of Briarcliff on our own. In the Briarcliff scheme of things, the Golds were descendants of mongrel yids from Eastern Europe. Ann was a Briarcliff member solely because of Richie, and Richie—like many of his generation—was a member solely because his parents were.

As I turned into the blacktop parking area at Briarcliff, I was struck by the number of large American cars, but then I realized this was the lunch crowd, consisting primarily of women. The men of Briarcliff all drive German cars in a macabre homage to the nation that had spawned their ancestors and then tried to exterminate them. The women of Briarcliff, however, were moving into larger and ever larger American cars. My sister was typical. If you lined up the cars she had owned over the past ten years in chronological order, the result would resemble one of those food chains in the ocean. Ten years ago she had traded up from her sporty little Porsche to the mandatory maroon Volvo station wagon. A few years later she traded up in size again to a seven-seater Dodge minivan, and from there up to a nine-seater Ford Country Squire. And now, as I scanned the parking lot, the trucks of choice seemed to be conversion vans and Chevy Suburbans. (Ann had a Suburban.) If the trend held firm, in about five years the women of Briarcliff would be doing carpool behind the wheel of a Greyhound bus, the diesel engine roaring and the air brakes hissing.

Having expected the worst, I was pleasantly surprised by my lunch with Ann and her friends. Her friends clearly liked my sister a great deal, which pleased me. Several asked if I had really gone to Harvard Law School. One or two asked about a couple of the bigger lawsuits I had handled. Ann had obviously bragged to them about her big sister. I was surprised, embarrassed, and touched.

But as the lunch wore on, I came to feel as if I had stumbled into a parallel universe. These were women my age, none with jobs and all with children, who seemed to spend their days shopping in malls, going out to lunch, having their nails and hair done, issuing orders to their housekeepers. There was a ten-minute discussion of the subtle differences in the versions of a new style of blouse on display at Neiman Marcus, Famous-Barr, Dillards, Saks, Lord & Taylor, The Limited, Teddi's, and Ann Taylor. I doubt whether a group of graduate students in a doctoral seminar on Wallace Stevens could have employed a critical vocabulary as subtle and precise as the designer jargon of my sister and her friends.

As I tried to find a way into the Great Blouse Debate—feeling like I did back on the playground in fourth grade at the start of my turn in Double Dutch, trying to time my jump in between the rotating jump ropes—my mind began to drift. We really did exist in different worlds, these Briarcliff women and I. And who was I to say that mine was the better world? Since when did we single professional career women become anointed recipients of divine grace—at least by anyone other than ourselves? It was too easy to get smug around women with sculpted fingernails. It was too easy to assume you were on the inside looking out. As I looked around the table I asked myself how I could be so sure I wasn't on the outside looking in—out there beyond the campfire circle, watching the others sing the songs and roast the marshmallows.

A waitress interrupted my reverie, touching me on the shoulder to tell me I had a phone call. I followed her to the telephone. It was Nancy Winslow at Abbott & Windsor.

“What's up?”

“Remy Panzer just called,” she said. “He said he would like to meet with you at his gallery today after lunch. He told me he really wants to talk to you. I thought I'd call and save you the drive all the way back downtown.”

“Thanks, Nancy. Could you call him back and tell him I'll be there in thirty minutes?”

“Sure thing.”

Chapter Eleven

They were a remarkable couple. She had huge round breasts and thick jutting nipples. He had an enormous erection that arched out of his groin and rested against his chest. She was missing a hand. He was missing a testicle. Both were grinning.

They were fat, they were black, and they were short. Very short. Maybe ten inches tall. According to the placard inside the display case, they came from South Africa and were each approximately eight hundred years old. You could buy them both for $9,000.

They weren't the most expensive pieces of art in the Panzer Gallery. As I drifted around the gallery, I saw a pre-Columbian Aztec pot for thirteen thousand. At two hundred fifty dollars, a Navaho wall hanging was the cheapest thing there.

I had been greeted at the Panzer Gallery by Hans, who apparently was Remy Panzer's assistant. Hans was maybe twenty. He had hollow cheeks, dull blue eyes, and long blond hair that needed a vigorous shampoo and a comb. He was in a foul mood, but that could have been caused by his black leather pants, which cut high into his crotch and butt. The pants were tight. Although he may not have been circumspect, he clearly was circumcised.

Hans told me to wait in the gallery while he went in back to announce my arrival. He reappeared ten minutes later, clearing his throat to get my attention. “Mr. Panzer is ready for you,” he said sullenly, turning to point. “His office is in back.”

Remy Panzer's office had the look and feel of a study in an English country home—lots of dark mahogany, leaded glass windows, floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases behind a captain's desk, a burgundy Persian rug, wing-back armchairs upholstered in leather, three crystal decanters and a matching set of brandy snifters on a small Queen Anne table, an antique globe against one wall corner, and a fireplace in the other.

Behind the desk, an art book open in his hand, stood Remy Panzer. He was smoking a long brown cigarette.

“Have a seat, Rachel,” he said, dispensing with introductions. His voice was a full octave lower than I had expected. “Can Hans bring you some mint tea?”

Hans was still at the door. I turned back to Panzer. “I'm fine, thanks.”

Panzer made a dismissive gesture toward the door. “That will be all, Hans. Close the door on your way out.”

Remy Panzer took a deep drag on his brown cigarette. Tilting back his head, he blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling, ending with a pair of smoke rings, each a perfect circle.

With his bushy eyebrows brushed up and out from his forehead, his close-cropped hair, and his pointy ears, Remy Panzer reminded me of a well-groomed schnauzer. He had a neatly trimmed gray goatee and a long, sinewy neck. Like a schnauzer, he was compact and looked taut. As he turned to reshelve the book, I glanced down, half expecting to see the outline of a stiff stub of a tail protruding from the back of his pants.

He was wearing a burgundy turtleneck and burgundy slacks, the same shade as the Persian rug. A pair of black horn-rim glasses with tinted lenses hung from a strap around his neck. He took another deep drag on his brown cigarette as he turned to me.

The eyes were not schnauzer eyes. The lower lids were puffed with age and dark with fatigue. Crow's nests of deep wrinkles fanned out from the corner of each eye to his hairline. The eyes themselves seemed almost inanimate—the irises a dull blue, the whites tinged gray, as if carved from old bones.

I didn't like him.

“I'd like to hire you,” he said.

“For what?”

“To complete what Stoddard Anderson began.”

“Which was what?”

He took a seat behind the desk. Leaning back, he blew another stream of tobacco smoke out of his mouth, ending this time with a single smoke ring that hovered above us for a moment, vibrating, and then disappeared. He shifted his stare from the vanished smoke ring to me.

“Stoddard Anderson's death came at a most infelicitous time.”

“Is there a felicitous time to slit your wrists?”

“Oh, I'm sure there is. For each of us. Perhaps that time had arrived for Stoddard. Unfortunately, his death has delayed consummation of a most important matter he was handling on my behalf.” He tapped the ash off his brown cigarette into a silver ashtray. His fingernails were manicured and buffed to a high gloss. “He was my attorney on the project. I will still require the services of an attorney. You are the obvious choice.”

“Why?”

“You have impeccable academic credentials. And that, I should add, is not an insignificant concession from a Yale man.” His facial muscles wrenched his mouth into something that was supposed to resemble a smile. It didn't. His eyes remained inert. “You have an excellent professional reputation as well. If my assumption is correct, you are presently representing the Widow Anderson in connection with some matter relating to her late husband's estate. Since I quite doubt that Stoddard's wife would have—could have—independently selected counsel, much less a young, female, solo practitioner from Chicago, I must also assume that Abbott and Windsor played a material role in your retention by the Widow Anderson.”

“And if they did?”

“I view it as further affirmation of your qualifications. It confirms my decision to retain you as my attorney.”

“What do you need an attorney for? What was Stoddard Anderson doing for you?”

Remy Panzer studied me. “You are representing the Widow Anderson, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And that representation is in connection with some aspect of her late husband's affairs, correct?”

“It has some connection with her husband's estate. That's all I can tell you.”

“But of course. The hallowed attorney-client privilege.” He steepled his hands together in front of his face, fingertips touching, and bowed his head in mock deference. “Excellent, Rachel. Precisely the response I deserve. And require. For you see, the matter for which I need your services requires the highest level of confidentiality.”

“If Stoddard Anderson was handling it for you, why not use someone from his firm to finish it?”

“I should very much doubt that anyone else at Abbott and Windsor knows anything about the project. Moreover, I should very much doubt that a typical Abbott & Windsor corporate attorney would have the qualities or the spunk required for my task. You, on the other hand, are not a typical corporate attorney. And you certainly have the requisite spunk.”

“You assume a lot.”

“On the contrary, I assume nothing. As you corporate lawyers would say, I have done my due diligence on the subject of one Rachel Gold in advance of this meeting.”

Panzer stood and moved behind the desk chair. Opening a platinum cigarette case resting on the edge of the leather desk pad, he removed a brown cigarette. Lifting the case, he tilted it toward me.

I shook my head. “I quit.”

“Good for you,” he said, lighting his cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter. He sat down behind the desk. “Will you serve as my attorney?”

“That depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On what you want me to do. On whether representing you would conflict with my representation of Mrs. Anderson.”

“I want you to finish what Stoddard Anderson started.” He paused, his eyebrows arching. “I can assure you that your compensation will be quite generous. I negotiated a flat fee with Stoddard: a quarter of a million dollars, payable upon completion of the task. Based on my understanding of Stoddard's efforts on the project, he had completed most of the work before he died. Indeed, he may have completed it all. If so, your only task would be to retrieve it for me. Nevertheless, I am willing to pay you one hundred thousand dollars for what in all likelihood is, at most, a few days' work. Indeed, Rachel, you may have earned that fee already.”

Leaning forward, he exhaled tobacco smoke through his nostrils. The twin streams of smoke wheeled and churned as they hit the surface of his desk. “As for a conflict with the Widow Anderson”—he shrugged—“you can split the money with her in any way you see fit.”

“That's a lot of money.”

He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Baseball players earn ten times as much for playing a child's game.”

“Baseball isn't a crime.”

“And what makes you think this project is?”

“Too much money.”

He shrugged. “Is fifty million dollars too much for a Van Gogh? Is fifty thousand too much for a bottle of wine? Value is relative, Rachel. No price is too high if the market will bear it.” He leaned back in his chair.

“But the bottle of wine that sells for fifty thousand dollars is unique,” I said.

“And so are you, Rachel. You have access to Stoddard Anderson's files and records. I do not. That makes you unique.”

“It's still a lot of money.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Obviously, one doesn't earn a fast hundred thousand in fees without being willing to move out of the sunlight into…shall we say…the penumbra. But that's exactly where the truly exceptional lawyers thrive, Rachel. Indeed, that's where all truly exceptional people thrive. Artists, explorers, scientists.” He paused. “And collectors. The great ones find their niche out there.”

“Not if it means they could lose their law license.”

“Come, come, Rachel. You're hardly June Lockhart, and I am surely not little Timmy. If you need assurance, don't underestimate the significance of Stoddard Anderson's involvement. Do you actually believe that a politically ambitious attorney—a conservative Republican, of all things, Mr. Straight Arrow himself—would participate in a criminal scheme?”

He had a point. “I'll have to make my own decision,” I said. “But I won't be able to unless you tell me the facts.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned back in his chair and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “I shall begin at the beginning.” He was staring at the ceiling and stroking his goatee with his thumb and index finger. “It is a most remarkable story, and it opens with a lawyer.” He shifted his gaze to me. “If you succeed, it shall end with one as well. Are you familiar with the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés?”

“Generally,” I said.

Panzer nodded. “You may be interested to know that Hernán Cortés was a fellow member of the bar. He had been a Spanish attorney—a bored Spanish attorney—before he decided to get into the conquistador racket. He was motivated, if one can use that bit of psychobabble, by a powerful lust for gold.”

“Sounds like some attorneys I know,” I said.

“He also had a rapacious appetite for women.”

“Yep.”

Panzer tried to smile. It was closer this time.

“Quetzalcoatl was an Aztec god,” he said. “A white god, in fact. According to the sacred texts, Quetzalcoatl was supposed to return from the East and arrive at Tenochtitlán in the year 1519.”

“Arrive where?”

“The capital of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlán. Mexico City sits today atop the ruins of Tenochtitlán.”

Unbeknownst to Cortés, Panzer continued, he was about to become the beneficiary of a remarkable coincidence. For his ship landed on the eastern shores of the Aztec empire in 1519. As he and his men began their march west toward Tenochtitlán, word spread quickly. A large white man had arrived from the East, people said. His godlike qualities seemed confirmed by the size of his sexual organs.

“For you see,” Panzer said, his eyebrows arching, “Cortés wore a prodigious codpiece. The Indians had never seen one before.”

By the time Cortés reached Tenochtitlán, Panzer explained, the entire Aztec nation was in an uproar of anticipation. “The Emperor Montezuma personally greeted Cortés at the gates of the city and presented him with a staggering array of gifts, including two circular calendars, each as large as a cartwheel, one of gold and one of silver.”

Panzer stood and ran a finger along a row of books in the bookcase. “Cortés was a guest at the emperor's palace for almost a year,” he said as he removed an old, battered volume. He turned to me. “During his stay he viewed treasures of unimaginable value.” He opened the book and leafed through the pages. “He sent five lengthy letters to Charles the Fifth of Spain. Those letters have been reprinted in countless history books and translated into more than a dozen languages. But this,” he said, turning the book around and sliding it across the table to me, “appears, as far as I can determine, in only two books, including this one. It is a biography of Cortés by the nineteenth-century Spanish historian Wilfredo Sola. This”—he pointed to the page—“is in the original Spanish of Cortés' time. The actual document is in the Spanish national archives—and long ignored, I might add.”

The pages of the book were yellowed with age. I scanned the Spanish text on the page. It looked like a detailed list. I turned the page. The list continued. I turned the page again. More of the list. “What is it?” I asked.

“An inventory.”

“Of what?”

“The lost treasures of the Aztecs.”

“Who wrote it?”

“Cortés. Or more likely, one of his scriveners.”

“For what purpose?”

“For the information of the Spanish king. Cortés attached the document to his second letter to Charles the Fifth. It is a partial inventory of the vast Aztec treasures he had viewed.”

“You said it's been ignored by historians?”

Panzer nodded. “The text of the Cortés letter itself describes many of the most remarkable treasures, including the famous six-foot gold serpent that was literally encrusted with gems from snout to tail. As a result, this inventory has never received the attention it deserves.”

“These are
lost
treasures?”

Panzer nodded. “Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán in 1521. The Aztecs were no longer friendly. Cortés eventually took the city by siege. The siege lasted seventy-five days and left a quarter of a million Aztecs dead from wounds or disease. On August 13, 1521, the capital fell. But when Cortés entered the city, he discovered that all of the treasures were gone. Vanished.”