Pleading Guilty (31 page)

Attached was a listing of Litiplex invoice numbers and the amounts supposedly due.

I no longer had to look for what Bert had transmitted to Glyndora. 'Per the attached, re agreement with Peter Neucriss . . .' This, clearly, was it. But I read the memo three or four more times as I sat there in Martin's empty office, feeling as if somebody had put a cold hand on my heart. I kept asking myself the same thing, the voice within speaking in the forlorn tones of a child. What was I going to do now?

Chapter
XX. MEMBERS OF THE CLUB

The Club Belvedere is Kindle County's oldest social club, erected in the Gilded Age. Here the true elite of the county, men of commerce and standing, have dined and played squash with each other for more than a century. Not your usual grubby politicians whose power is transient and, worse yet, borrowed, but people with fortunes, the owners of banks and industrial concerns, families whose names you see on old buildings, who will still be prominent here in three generations and whose children are apt to marry one another. These are folks who, generally speaking, like the world as it is, and virtually every achievement in social progress which I can recall has involved a celebrated fracas among the club membership, some of whom have inalterably opposed the admission of first Catholics, then Jews, blacks, women, and even a single Armenian. You would think that a sensible human would find this atmosphere repulsive, but the cachet the Belvedere confers seems to overwhelm almost every scruple, and Martin Gold, for instance, in relaxed conversation spoke of nothing but "the club" for a solid month --
. H
ow good the food was, how handsome the locker rooms--when he was elected to membership over a decade ago. The club is an eight-story structure in Revival style that occupies half a block in Center City, not far from the Needle. I dashed over there, Jake's memo in my pocket, and swept in past the doorman. The facility is splendid. The entire first floor is paneled in American walnut, handsomely burnished to a deep tone which seems to embed the glow of low lights and reminds me inevitably of the brown-skinned men who chopped these trees, and their descendants in livery who've kept the wood polished to a sheen like somebody's shoes. An imposing dual staircase of white marble rises at the far end of the lobby, adorned with the club crest and winged cherubs, emblems of the period when Americans felt their surviving republic was destined again to achieve the greatness of Greece.

Naturally, I was not even in the lobby long enough to check my topcoat when here, goddamn it, was Wash. He was carrying, of all things, a golf club, a wood, gripping it like a dead goose by the neck, right below its lustrous persimmon head. I could not imagine what he was doing. It was in the twenties outside and the ground was frozen hard. He was equally surprised to see me, and met my appearance with a member's vaguely scornful air for a known outsider. He was wearing a smashing houndstooth sport jacket, checks of black and autumnal gold, and gleaming tasseled loafers. Squashed down below the neck of his open button-down shirt so that it was partly concealed, as if even Wash recognized that this was a ludicrous affectation, an ascot peeked out, spotted with itsy-bitsy paisleys. I had no idea what I was going to say when he greeted me, but I was saved by instinct.

"Meeting over?" I asked. Wash is far too cowardly to want to discuss with me the Committee's decisions about points, especially mine. That job fell every year to Martin, who, after the formalities of Groundhog Day, would honor me by a visit to my office and clap me on the back, creating the impression that he, at least, maintained firm opinions about my value. Instead, Wash's face weakened at once into a sappy ingratiating expression. Up close you can see a certain studied nature to Wash'
s a
miable mannerisms. Pressed, he has no instincts of his own. He is a collection of everybody else's gestures, the ones he sees as appealing, winning, sure not to offend.

"Not quite," he answered. "Martin and Carl needed a break for the phone. We'll resume at four. Thought I'd take the opportunity to clear my head." Wash hefted the golf club; only the fear that I might actually detain him kept me from saying that I was glad to finally know what it was for. Wash, meanwhile, escaped gladly from my company and headed for the gilded doors of the elevators.

I did not leave the lobby. With my topcoat checked, I took a straight-backed chair in a small paneled alcove near the cloakroom and the telephones. I still didn't know what I was doing here. I had rushed over to confront Martin, but now I was moving as if my weight had tripled, and thinking at the same pace. What would that exercise accomplish? Plan, I told myself, think. Beneath my hand, my knee, to my considerable surprise, had started to tremble.

A few years ago Martin's pal Buck Buchan, who was running First Kindle, got in Dutch in the S &L crunch and Buck made a few calls so that Martin was hired as special counsel to the board. Buck and Martin go back to a time when the mind of man runneth not to the contrary, Korea and the U. when they were both trying to get in the girdles of the same sorority girls. There's a picture someplace of both of them in white socks and bow ties. I was with Martin the morning he had to go tell Buck they were taking his job. It was the end of the line for Buck, the conclusion of an upper-class life of achievement, a daily existence of hopping along the highsvire, with the eyes of the world upon him and his body full of the erotic pleasure of power. The tent was coming down for Buck; he would have to tend his wounded soul in the festering dark of scandal and shame. Buck had dropped the ball and Martin was going to tell him, eye to eye, man to man, and remind Buck of what he undoubtedly always knew, that for all the hours he and Martin had spen
t t
ogether matching lively minds and senses of destiny, no one could expect Martin Gold to take a dive, to abandon the noble traditions of his professional life. Martin went off to this meeting with a graven face, shadowed and grieved. Everybody here admired his grit--and so did the board at First Kindle, which has hired Martin since then with increasing frequency. But how good are all those principles when you and your law firm come out on the short end of the stick? The answer--the memo Martin had stashed--was folded in my shirt pocket.

I should have known better of course than to go after Wash. He's a weak person, never any help at all in a crisis. But when push came to shove, I wasn't ready to take on Martin--I lived with my father until I was twenty-seven and never once told him that I knew he was a thief. Nor did I want to confront Pagnucci's icy calculations. That would require more forethought and surer resolve. Instead, I went to an attendant, the kind of good-looking retainer you expect in this sort of place, a guy in a navy blazer and white gloves, retired military probably, and asked if he had any idea where M r. Thale could have gone with a golf club.

He directed me to the second sub-basement, a cavernous service area that had probably doubled as a fieldhouse decades ago, before a sturdy running track had been put down under a dome on the roof. Now a flooring of green plastic turf had been laid over the concrete and a line of folks stood whacking golf balls. Many of these people were in sweats. Down this low, it was chilly, maybe 65 degrees. The green rug of the tee area extended twenty feet or so to a curtain of netting that was suspended from the ceiling and draped in layers like a veil. Beyond was a region of complete blackness, darker than doom. Somewhere out there must have been some kind of wiring, because mounted from the concrete abutments, directly over each golfer, was what looked like a green electric scoreboard. I watched as the guy nearest me hit and then studied the screen overhead, where a progression of white dots appeared, meant, I eventuall
y r
ealized, to show the predicted flight of the ball. After the last dot lit up, a digital readout popped up, announcing the supposed distance of the shot.

I finally spotted Wash down the line, flailing away. He had a bucket of balls and had laid his fine jacket out neatly behind it. He swung awkwardly. He'd probably been playing his whole life, without ever quite getting the game.

Seeing me approach, Wash's look hardened. I knew at once he thought I'd come to beseech him about my points and he was already drawing himself up to a high-minded stance in which he could remind me, with his usual perfect cordiality with underlings, that I was way out of line. Instead, to disarm him, I took the memo from my pocket and watched him unfold it. He read it standing on the driving mat. His eyes had a sort of hyperthyroid extension from his face anyway and they were quick, with little throbbing veins jumping about. The air around us raced with the steady rhythmic click of balls struck and rising. When Wash finished, he looked utterly uncomprehending. "It's Jake," I said.

He recoiled somewhat. He checked over his shoulder on the other golfers, then pushed me back toward the steel door I'd come through to enter this area, where the light trailed off and the full subterranean dark began to reach toward you, along with the spooky underground sounds of the building.

"You're making assumptions," Wash said. "Tell me where this came from.

I told him. I didn't know how to explain and I didn't. But even Wash recognized that my bona fides were a side issue. It was obvious from the results that I had good reason to search. "The memo's a phony, Wash. There's no Litiplex, remember? There are no records at TN. Jake faked this. Maybe Bert's in on it too. There are a million questions. But it's Jake for sure." Wash scowled again and took a gander over his shoulder. His look was reproving, but he was too well brought up to tell me to keep my voice down.

-I say again you're making assumptions."

"Like hell. You explain this."

The whole notion of a challenge clearly vexed him. I was putting him on the spot. Then I saw Wash's pale, soft face become firm as he fixed on an idea.

"Perhaps it's Neucriss," said Wash. "Some game of his. Maybe he made all this up." Peter, God knows, was capable of anything. But I had realized still sitting in Martin's office why he had contacted Peter. Martin had the memo. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know if the document was real or a fraud, if Neucriss, by some improbable circumstance, could explain. But it wasn't Neucriss jacking us around. It was Jake. "Sure," I said to Wash, "sure. So we get Jake in Martin's office and tell him there's no Litiplex, and does Jake say, 'Oh my God, Neucriss told me there was'? Hell no. He acts like this whole thing's a shock to him. 'How dare Bert,' he says. 'And by the way, if you don't find him, let's never hear about this again.' This only adds one way. Jake wrote this frigging memo to Bert. Bert gave him the money. And Jake's got it now. He's covering himself, Wash. And Martin's helping him."

"Don't be absurd," he said immediately. He was reacting to the idea of Martin as corrupt. His mouth worked around, as if he could actually absorb the bad taste.

"Absurd? You think about this, Wash. Who was it who said he'd called the bank down in Pico? Who told you that the General Manager, whatever his name is, Smoky, that he indicated between the lines it was Bert's account? Who'd you hear that b
. S
. from?"

Wash is a good deal shorter than me, and my height seemed at the moment, as it is now and then, an odd advantage, as if I was out of reach of refutation.

"Think about Martin's performance the other day," I said, "dragging Jake in and spilling the beans after you and Carl had decided otherwise. What did you make of that?"

"I was put out," Wash said. "I told Martin so afterwards. But that's hardly the sign of some dark conspiracy, that he felt he had to speak up."

"Come on, Wash. You want to know why Martin whistled Jake in? He wanted Jake to know. He wanted it, Wash. He wanted Jake to know that Martin had the goods on him and was keeping his mouth shut."

A certain blankness set in as Wash pondered all of this. He was very slow.

"You're putting this the wrong way. I'm sure Martin found this document somehow and realized, I suppose, that for the time being it was best not coming to light. You're making it sound sinister."

"It is sinister, Wash."

He frowned and torqued away. He took one more look in the direction of the other golfers. I could see that my brusqueness and bad manners had finally stimulated Wash to a sense of offense.

"Look, man,- he said, using that term, "man," in an old-fashioned high-born way, "he was following the logical imperatives here. Don't be so quick to scorn. Or condemn. Think this through. This firm cannot go on without Jake. Not in the short run. Tell me, Mack, you're such a clever fellow--tell me. If you run and do something half-cocked, you tell me what your plans are.- His aged light eyes, pocketed by all that used flesh, glimmered with rare directness. The plans he was asking me to specify were not an investigative scheme. He meant what plans did I have to make a living without Jake. I actually took an instant to let the little logical steps descend. Nobody was going to reward my virtue if I put a knife in Jake's heart. I knew that. I'd been hugging his hind end for years with that realization. Nothing had changed really. It's just that the cost would be a little bit higher, in terms of my own self-respect.

"So that's it? I'm supposed to say dandy? That's Martin's answer. Let Jake steal. Just so long as he sends business. 'Hey, Jake, you know that I know. So cut the crap with the firm in Columbus. Let's resume the gold rush.' Come on, Wash. This is making me sick."

There was a sudden thunderous rumble above and we both jolted. One of the golfers had bounced a shot off the heating ducts on the ceiling. They were padded in foam but still let forth a tremendous sound on impact. The instant of brief fright seemed to prompt Wash to an effort at candor.