Two Time (22 page)

I struggled to remember the drab little office in Riverhead. One of the few adornments was a wall partially covered with framed documents, the kind with Old English script inked in with the name Jonathan Eldridge. I thought I could visualize a diploma from Harvard, but it might have been a manufactured memory, born of another file I got from Joe Sullivan that held Jonathan’s resume.

Jackie had the look of canary-fed cat.

“Okay I bet there’s more,” I said to her.

“Nobody said you had to be a graduate of Harvard to be a stockbroker, or even a financial adviser. So what’s the big deal, you might ask.”

“Rhetorically, like they do at Harvard.”

“I mean, even Alena has an NASD Series 7 broker’s license, which is the basic, national thing. Jonathan would have to have at least that, and probably a Series 63, which you get from New York State. And in order to legally perform the
duties of a licensed financial consultant, he’d naturally have a Series
65
. Beyond that, he’d need to be registered in all the states his clients live in, not just New York, and registered with the New York Stock Exchange, since he put through trades.”

The framed documents came back into my mind’s eye. I tried to remember if there were any other wall decorations, but I didn’t think so. They were behind his desk, which faced Alenas, so she probably had the specifics branded into her consciousness. Clients and prospects would call, she’d always be first to pick up the phone. Answer any questions, provide an overview of the firm’s capabilities and credentials. Confident and reassuring, convincingly supportive of her boss’s attainments and proficiency, because she was convinced herself.

“You’re kidding.”

“None of em. And I looked, trust me. Checked with the NASD, the stock exchange, state agencies, nothing. Never took the tests, much less secured the licenses.”

For the first time since seeing him throw the tennis ball for his French poodle, I wanted to have a conversation with Jonathan Eldridge. Suddenly I desperately wanted to get a close look at his face, listen to his speech, test his body language. He’d always just been the guy some other guy blew up, interesting more for the lack of interest he inspired. More than a caricature, but easily categorized—the tight-assed financial wonk, the circumspect researcher, settled comfortably within his narrow forte, calibrating his own serenity as carefully as his investment recommendations. A man engaged in one of the most stressful occupations you could choose in a way that precisely established the optimum level of stress. Jonathan Eldridge, once almost two-dimensional, was now fractured into an infinity of possibilities, like the splinters of
a broken window. Or rather, everything I’d thought about him up to then simply winked out of existence, and in its place a blank unknown appeared, all questions and no answers.

Like a cheap theatrical device, my brain replayed the whole thing in reverse, searching for another start point. As I once did in the face of unexpected and catastrophic systems failure, I needed a way to reset the operating assumptions.

I stood up.

“I need another cup of coffee.”

Jackie held up her manila folder.

“You don’t want to hear the rest?”

“Okay,” I said, sitting back down.

“Alena was dead right on her hostiles list, at least for two of them, and yes I’m sorry I was mean to Alena, just don’t make me apologize every time I mention her name.”

“Which two?”

“Back up. Once you get past the fact that Jonathan had zero academic or regulatory sanction, he was very good at picking stocks and managing portfolios. The logistics were actually quite easy. Jonathan Eldridge Consultants had an account with Eagle Exchange, the brokerage firm. This account was divided into a string of discrete sub-accounts, all legally the same, but stand-alone in terms of what went in and out and how statements were issued. This, on the face of it, is not an uncommon practice with small securities shops, boutiques, one-man bands who don’t have the infrastructure to handle all the administrative detail involved in trading, which is quite onerous and potentially devastating for the broker if he happens to mess up a transaction. Perfectly legal. They make their money, as Jonathan did, by taking a percentage of the assets under management; the brokerage house still gets its commission as it would if it was all Jonathan’s personal money.

“Alena kept track of it all with her own accounting system, tied directly to the sub-accounts at the brokerage house, which were identified only by number. So, Alena had an account called Joyce Whithers that corresponded to a numbered sub-account at Eagle. Alena handled all the transactions at Jonathan’s direction, and managed the working relationship with a guy at the other end of the phone. She got the statements each month from Eagle, and issued statements of her own to the individual clients. This system was already set up by Jonathan when she started working for him, though she improved on it considerably. I could start in on how it’s another example of an underappreciated female assistant doing all the work and the boss getting all the credit, but he credited her just fine when you hear what she was making.”

“Ig told you that?”

“I start throwing out numbers to you, and you either point up or down.”

“Got it.”

“The clients don’t have to know all their money is getting pooled in a single account at the buy-sell end as long as their statements from Jonathan and Alena accurately reflect what they bought and sold, and the consequent proceeds. Which is what everybody got, lots of nice proceeds. All but Ivor Fleming and Joyce Whithers. No evidence, according to Mr. Doll Face, that Jonathan was skimming or misrepresenting the performance of individual portfolios. He might have made some bad calls for Joyce and Ivor, but it’s all accurately accounted for, fair and square.”

“He took better care of Butch.”

“Splendid care. I should have such care from my broker. If I had a broker.”

“But Alena called him hostile.”

“Strictly personal reasons. Tense phone calls overheard in the office, nasty little notes he gave her to pass to Jonathan, family crap. She really despises him, and I can see why.”

It must have been irresistible for Butch to have such an obvious target for his flavor of social rebellion so close to home, such an easy mark, yet apparently free of consequences, at least financial. But when I brought up Jonathan at the fundraiser, his regret was palpable. I didn’t have a brother, but I had an understanding with my sister that neither of us ever articulated. It was the bond of a common enemy, and a shared defensive strategy. We never contended with each other, conserving our resources for the real battle. There wasn’t a lot of warmth, but certainly an abiding respect for the private nature of the other. Not that any of that was obvious. What family opera is ever understandable by people watching from the outside? There’s no decoding an underlying communication that even the participants aren’t fully aware of.

“Unless you’re packing a few more revelations, I’m going for that cup of coffee,” I told Jackie.

“You drink a lot of coffee.”

“Keeps me calm.”

“That’s all Web would let me have. And I’m serious about burning this, and you have to promise me not to give him up.”

“I don’t know what we’re doing here, Jackie. So sure. He’s safe with me.”

“I don’t know what we’re doing, either, but I’m going to corroborate this so it looks like I dug it all up on my own. Then look brilliant. For whom, I don’t know. For what reason, I don’t know either.”

“Okay.”

She walked me back to the cottage, but I let her walk on her own to her Toyota pickup. I knew she’d seen Amanda
sunning herself next door, but held back the wisecracks, either being overly distracted or suddenly afflicted with a case of good manners.

But when I heard the little truck start up something occurred to me. I ran outside and caught her at the end of the driveway.

“Say Jackie, what about undergrad? Where did Jonathan go to college, or did he fake that, too?”

“I don’t know. Though I haven’t looked everywhere. I did pin down Butch’s transcript. Went to BU, graduated with honors.”

“Really. What’d he major in?”

“You’re gonna love it.”

She reached out the truck window and patted my shoulder, an uncharacteristically familiar gesture that caused an unwanted recollection of Joyce Whithers’s scaly hands.

“Economics.”

B
ACK INSIDE THE COTTAGE
I was delighted to see it was well past noon, so I bypassed the coffee and filled up a fishing cooler with the fixings of a batch of gin and tonics and hauled it over to Amanda’s recliner. Eddie popped out from one of his summer hiding places beneath the yew bushes and followed along.

“You can have a lounge of your own if you don’t mind dragging it out from behind the house,” said Amanda without looking up from her book. “You could have invited your lawyer friend, too. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Not until you get a third recliner.”

Her bikini was stark white, what there was of it, contrasting brilliantly with her skin, which was deepening toward a test of the term Caucasian. I busied myself setting up the G&Ts and fetching the chaise lounge so I wouldn’t be caught like a dolt just standing there looking at her.

I used to like looking at Abby I never tired of it, actually, long after she tired of me. She wasn’t an artistic girl, but the
way she put herself together, the precision and care that went into preserving her body and maneuvering around the consequences of aging, showed an artistry of a sort. Amanda somehow achieved more or less the same thing, without appearing to try.

We spent the early afternoon catching her up, though I left out Ike and Connie as I had with Hodges. I didn’t want her to worry, though more importantly, I was afraid of what she’d think. Maybe another echo from my long marriage. Abby took it for granted that I could protect her from physical threats, yet hated any demonstration of my ability to do so. She saw it as proof of my incorrigible brutality, a matter of breeding, that I was genetically destined to play out the baser impulses of the immigrant class.

Socking our chief corporate counsel hadn’t done much to improve her outlook.

I also needed Amanda to believe that Jackie had turned up all the new information on Jonathan Eldridge on her own. Barely into my first new relationship in years and already the deceptions were piling up.

“You’re not going to say anything to Butch,” said Amanda, suggesting by the question that she didn’t think I should.

“There’ll be plenty of other distractions at the Council Rock. Do we need to prepare for this?”

“I was wondering about the dress code.”

“Come as you are?” I offered.

“In my case, that might prompt revision of the code.”

“Not if Butch is enforcing.”

“He’s harmless enough,” she said.

“If it helps your planning, I’d like to leave a little early so I can stop in on Sullivan.”

“How’s he doing?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m stopping in. Markham told
me he was healing but still couldn’t remember anything past the night before. Probably won’t ever at this point.”

“I won’t forget it,” she said, quietly.

“Bummer alert.”

She laughed a sharp little laugh.

“Where did you come from again?” she asked.

“The Land of Thuggery, darling, born and raised.”

—

I found Markham Fairchild seated in front of a computer at the nurses’ station. He didn’t look up but must have seen me in his peripheral vision.

“I be right with you. Just getting a step-by-step lesson in double amputation. You can learn anyt’ing on the Internet.”

I was prepared to believe him when he said he was kidding.

“I was just checking on Jamaica Defense Force, who I’d like to amputate at the neck the way they play dis year. You looking for the officer?”

“Is he awake?”

“Oh yes. Very much on the mend. Go home in a day or two. Get him away from this germ factory we like to call a hospital. Good patient. Much more cooperative than other people we could talk about.”

I’d dropped Amanda off in the Village. I knew Sullivan wouldn’t like somebody he didn’t know very well to see him in this situation, and anyway, she wouldn’t get past the uniform at the door without getting frisked. Luckily I knew the cop already, so I got through with my modesty intact.

Sullivan was sitting up in bed watching the Mets on TV He’d lost weight, too quickly, causing his skin to hang loosely around his neck and jaws. Always pale, a platinum blond who never saw a day at the beach, Sullivan now nearly
disappeared into the starched white hospital sheets. But there was nothing lost in the vitality of his eyes, hard as a pair of light-blue marbles.

“What’s the score?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. Not really paying attention.”

“I’ve heard of the Mets. Play for Queens, I think.”

“Don’t like baseball. But it’s better than game shows.”

“How you feel?”

“Like I been bashed over the head and stuck with a knife.”

“That’s an improvement on the last time I was here. You were sure it was a batch of bad baked ziti.”

“Don’t bullshit me. Everybody’s bullshitting me.”

“About what?”

“Who did it.”

He was motionless in the bed, his hands resting atop the covers, palms raised, one holding the remote for the TV You could see the bulge of bandages around his midsection pushing out from the hospital gown. Only his head moved as it followed me across the room to the other bed where I could sit down.

“I don’t know, Joe. Nobody does.”

“More bullshit.”

“I’m not bullshitting. All I have is a theory.”

“Ivor Fleming. The guy we talked about at the diner.”

“Yeah. Ivor Fleming. More specifically, a couple of his goons. But like I said, just a theory. Itd help if you could remember something.”

“Shock, loss of blood to the brain, blow to the head, natural defenses against severe trauma. All that shit wipes out the memory. Erases the disc. Cleans the slate. Nothing’s left. Nada, zilch. I’m sick of explaining this to people. Ross is in here every other day asking me the same stuff. I’m ready to start making shit up just to get him to lay off.”