The James Deans (8 page)

There was nothing particularly unique about this sort of thing. It’s the way both parties had operated for the last century. Just try getting a civil service job in Nassau County without listing your party affiliation as Republican and/or tithing a chunk of your income to that same party.

What set Francis Sr. apart from the rest of the political hacks was his ability to broker his results into power that extended beyond his county. He was a man to be feared and reckoned with. Even the sharpies in the city and Albany listened when Francis Sr. spoke. In the end, however, that influence led to his demise. He had gotten a little too powerful, a little too influential, to suit the party bigwigs. So in keeping with the time-honored tradition of state politics, they cut him off at the knees. What only my father-in-law, my ex-friend Rico Tripoli, and I knew was that they had used me to do it.

I had a few hours to kill before going home and retrieving my tuxedo from the back of the closet, so I went to the room next to the office and set about mixing and matching the Spivack and police files. As I had anticipated, the Spivack file was far more exhaustive. They had run complete background checks on nearly everyone they interviewed in connection with the case. There were even surveillance reports on some of Moira Heaton’s former professors from Fordham University. The cops had spoken to many of these same people, but hadn’t been nearly as thorough.

As I had twice before, I copied down some names, numbers, and addresses. To what end, I was unsure. I would be the third, fourth, or fifth person to talk to these people about the same five seconds in each of their lives. By now they would no longer be discussing what they had seen or thought they might have seen, but would simply be repeating lines as an actor might in a play he or she had performed several times. Maybe the problem was that not enough time had elapsed between Moira’s disappearance and now.

I treated myself to a beer out of the office fridge and turned on the radio. I could tell Aaron had been around, because the radio was tuned to an AM news-only station. When I did paperwork, I wanted to relax, listen to music. Aaron relaxed by getting tense about something other than work. You had to love my big brother. Lately, I’d been listening to this new wave station that featured anorexic Englishmen with strange haircuts and synthesizers. Welcome to the eighties!

Klaus called me on the intercom as I was getting up to change channels. Things were slow out front and he wanted to bullshit about what I was going to wear to the Waldorf.

“I was thinking of borrowing your Dead Kennedys shirt,” I said.

“Unfortunately, I’ve gotten rid of that old thing. Too bad really, considering how incredibly inappropriate it would have been at a Democratic fund-raiser.”

“Good point.”

“That’s what you have me for.”

“No. I have you to manage the store. Good-bye, Klaus.”

I finished my beer without bothering to turn the dial. It wouldn’t kill me, I decided, to listen to the news. Depress me, yes, but not kill me. Recently, I had stopped listening to the news, stopped reading the papers. The papers were once a great passion in my life, but the miscarriage had changed all that. It was selfish of me, I know, to turn my back on the rest of the world because of a small tragedy in my life. I had just found it too hard to be constantly reminded.

So now I sat back and listened to the litany of carnage that we New Yorkers had come to accept as news. A street cop had been killed in Brownsville last night when an undercover drug bust went sour. The suspect had been killed too. The trial of a vicious rapist—Ivan the Terrible, the newsman called him—had gotten off to a smooth start at Queens Criminal Court. Ivan the Terrible; very cute. I wondered how the victims felt about the snazzy nickname. But given that four hundred people had been drowned in Bangladesh when their ferry sank and that another mass grave had been discovered in Cambodia, New York was having a relatively good news day.

I WAS NOT so foolish as to suppose that my sudden invitation to the Waldorf was the result of my good looks or boyish charms. It was partially a payoff, one of the perks I was to receive for taking the case. Access, casual or otherwise, to the people Katy and I would share drinks with this evening was worth its weight in gold. A quiet word dropped in the proper ear by Geary or Brightman could mean that Irving Prager & Sons, Purveyors of Finest Wines and Spirits, would receive a favorable hearing when bidding to supply all fund-raising events within the five boroughs. Or if, for some odd reason, one of the party elite needed a private matter looked into by a discreet ex-cop … It was the classic carrot-and-stick scenario. By having Weintraub and his buddy show up at our stores, Geary had shown me the stick. This evening was all about a close-up view of the carrot.

A smaller, but no less significant, part of the evening’s agenda was to showcase Steven Brightman. I think Geary was anxious to see me see the state senator in action. Maybe the both of them wanted that. I got the sense that Geary and Brightman preferred having true believers on board. Lord knows Brightman’s office workers were fiercely dedicated to him and would, I imagine, have forgiven him his foibles if he dared admit to any. Beyond loyalty and love of family, I wasn’t the true-believer type. They couldn’t've known that, so I couldn’t really blame them for trying.

Thomas and Elizabeth Geary and six of our table-mates were already seated when we arrived. One glance at Mrs. Geary revealed much about her daughter. Constance had inherited her mother’s calm demeanor, indigo eyes, and handsome, if not quite beautiful, looks. At sixty, she might have passed for forty-five. I found myself thinking of Domino and of how soon she might pass for sixty.

“What is it?” Katy prodded, catching me drifting off.

“Nothing important.”

We did the expected round of polite introductions. Everyone was pleased to meet everyone else. Everyone looked lovely. Everyone would forget everyone else’s name in five seconds. Thomas Geary tried to ensure that some names would not drift aimlessly out of people’s ears and into space. He took Katy by the arm, bringing her near his seat. He tapped his water glass with his fork.

“Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen.” He waited until he had the table’s full attention. “This beautiful young woman is indeed the wife of Mr. Moses Prager, but years before she held that honor, Katy here was the daughter of Francis Maloney Sr.”

No one stood. There were no
Bravos!
from the table. They did, however, applaud as if she’d sunk a tricky thirty-foot putt on the eighteenth green of the club championship. Even five years after his “retirement” the mere mention of Francis Maloney still elicited grudging respect and appreciation.

Katy beamed. She loved her dad and, I think, was enjoying the spotlight after so long grieving the baby.

“Yes, how is Francis these days?” Elizabeth Geary asked out of respect more than curiosity.

“He had a small stroke a few years back,” Katy said, “but he’s fine now. You know how stubborn a man he can be.”

Everyone at the table, myself included, nodded their heads in agreement, but the Francis Maloney Sr. lovefest was at its end. Good thing, for it was time for the Brightmans’ grand entrance. No man in a powdered wig banged a baton against the floor to formally announce their appearance. Peter Nero did not stop playing the piano. The brass section did not trumpet the couple’s arrival. No one quite applauded, yet it seemed to me all heads turned as the couple came toward our table. Much handshaking and backslapping occurred between the door and our table. The star had arrived, and everyone in the room knew it.

“Will you look at her,” the gentleman sitting next to me whispered in my ear. “She makes Jackie Kennedy look like one of Cinderella’s sisters. Fucking guy’s already banged all the best society pussy in the tristate area and now he’s married to a goddess.”

I had to check to make sure I wasn’t sitting at the bar at Glitters but at a table in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria. In any case, his point was well taken. Brightman’s wife was stunningly, breathtakingly gorgeous and not only in the long view. During the second round of introductions, I had a chance to get a closer look. Katerina. that was her name, stood a good six feet tall in heels and moved like a swan. She had perfect brown skin, and lustrous black hair worn in a bob, not teased up and sprayed to death as was the current fashion. Her cheekbones were high, her jaw and nose were clean and angular, and her green eyes were flecked with gold.

By the time everyone’s blood pressure returned to normal, the evening’s festivities had begun. Some party functionary gave a welcoming speech followed by twenty minutes of Rodney Dangerfield doing his no-respect shtick. He was great, adapting his material to the audience. President Reagan’s name was bandied about in concert with the names of myriad Democratic pols from Jimmy Carter to Mario Cuomo. In the world according to Rodney, the Democrats got no respect. Who says comedians don’t know anything?

After Rodney came a few more speeches, a little dancing, the appetizer and salad courses. During dinner, some southern politico, the attorney general or governor of Arkansas, gave a rather windy and overearnest speech about holding on to the Democratic Party’s ideals in the face of stiff Republican opposition.

My buddy leaned over to me again. “This joker’s gotta be kidding me with this speech. What’s he trying to do, bore us into contributing money? Jesus!”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Who, Jethro up there? Clinton, I think. Bob Clinton, maybe. He better stay in Arkansas, because he has about as much chance for national office as the Mets have of winning a second World Series.”

“Amen.”

After the main course, Carly Simon, a notoriously stage-shy performer, did a few Gershwin standards. Katy and I held hands under the table during “Someone to Watch Over Me.” It was corny, but sometimes corny is okay. Shortly before dessert, Brightman slipped away from the table, only to reappear at the head of the dais.

He gave a brief but rousing speech about the eventual end of the cold war and his belief that the time for mapping out a post-cold war world was upon us, that once the end came, planning would be moot. He touched on many subjects: AIDS, the growing power of the religious right, and the burgeoning national debt. His most impassioned words, however, were about overcoming tragedies and roadblocks to achieve one’s goals.

“For nearly two years now,” he said in a hushed voice, “I have struggled, letting an unjust and undeserved stain on my reputation keep me from accomplishing the great things for this state and this nation I know I was put on this earth to do. But great things are never done in isolation, so please help me help you. With that help, your help, I know I will clear my name and reputation. Join me. Will you join me in this mission to unite our party, to unite our state and country so that our grasp will no longer exceed our reach? Will you?”

The applause was thunderous, deafening. That Clinton guy, I thought, should have taken notes. The room was on its feet, stomping. “Brightman. Brightman. Brightman,” they chanted. The atmosphere was more Baptist church revival than fund-raiser. Intentionally or not, State Senator Steven Brightman had just hung an albatross firmly around my neck. High-minded speeches were all well and good. But unless I found out what had really happened to Moira Heaton and soon, Brightman was going nowhere but the political scrap heap. His bold words would be nothing more than wasted rhetoric.

It was no coincidence that Geary nodded at me just as Brightman delivered his line about the unjust stain on his reputation. I guess what Geary didn’t comprehend was that I already had all the incentive I needed to get to the bottom of things. All the carrots and sticks in the world weren’t going to create leads where there were none, nor would they produce physical evidence that didn’t exist.

People seemed to simply drift away after the coffee was served. No one felt the need to make a show of polite good-byes. The only thing I can compare it to is the end of a big fight card. After the main event, the crowd go their separate ways. And if I had been expecting one of Geary’s little lectures on golf, horses, and politics, I was going to be disappointed. He and his wife simply waved at us as they exited the ballroom. Brightman, like a fighter coming off an injury to announce his return to the ring, was too busy accepting the accolades of an adoring crowd to even remember I existed.

KATY WAS STILL buzzing halfway back home to Sheepshead Bay. For her the night had been a coming-out party, and not only because it helped put the miscarriage behind her. Politics, though not particularly her calling, were definitely in her blood. She had watched her father work it so well for so long that the thrill of events like this evening’s were inescapable. That scared me a little. Any similarities between Katy and her dad scared me.

“Brightman’s a natural,” Katy said as we passed under the Verrazano Bridge. “I can see why Mr. Geary is so anxious to back him. He’s worth the gamble.”

“You liked him? Brightman, I mean?”

“As a candidate, of course. What’s not to like? His wife alone is worth a bump in the vote. She’s unearthly.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Katy punched me playfully. “Liar. She was the talk of the powder room.”

“Was she? I thought she’d more likely be the talk of the boys’ locker room.”

“God knows I love you, Moses Prager, but what you don’t know about women … Besides, I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

“Oops! So what were they saying?”

“That while he was single, Brightman had bedded half the models in the city. Apparently, he had a sweet tooth for all things beautiful, especially women.”

“The fat guy sitting next to me said the same thing. Good thing you hadn’t met Brightman until this evening.”

“Thank you.” Katy leaned over and softly kissed my neck. “By the way, that fat guy sitting next to you was Scott Schare, the CEO of Schare, Light, Cohen, and Halter.”

“The big ad agency?”

“The very big ad agency. Him I knew before. Remember the company I was working for when we met?”