The Associate (13 page)

_________

Patty McAvoy could not be coaxed from her loft for her son’s graduation, not that any real effort was made. Indeed, both John McAvoy and Kyle were pleased with her decision to stay at home, because her presence at Yale would complicate things. She had skipped the diploma service at Duquesne three years earlier just as she had skipped the commencements for both of her daughters. In short, Patty didn’t do graduations, regardless of how important they might be. She had managed to attend both daughters’ weddings, but had been unable to take part in the planning of either. John simply wrote the checks, and somehow the family survived both ordeals.

Joey Bernardo arrived in New Haven Saturday afternoon, the day before the law school’s ceremonies, and, as directed by the written word carried by the U.S. Postal Service, he proceeded to a dark and cavernous pizza parlor called Santo’s, a mile from campus. At precisely 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 24, he slid into a booth in the far-right corner of Santo’s, and began to wait. He was amused and quite curious, and he was still wondering if his friend was losing his mind. One minute later, Kyle appeared from the back and sat across from him. They shook hands, then Kyle glanced at the front door, far away and to the right. The restaurant was almost empty, and Bruce Springsteen was rocking through the sound system.

“Start talking,” Joey said, now only slightly amused.

“I’m being followed.”

“You’re cracking up. The pressure is getting to you.”

“Shut up and listen.”

A teenage waitress paused at the table just long enough to see if they wanted anything. Both asked for diet colas, and Kyle ordered a large pepperoni pizza.

“Wasn’t really that hungry,” Joey said when she was gone.

“We’re in a pizza place, and so we need to order a pizza. Otherwise, we’ll look suspicious. In a few minutes, a thug wearing faded jeans, a dark green rugby shirt, and a khaki golf cap will walk through the door, completely ignore us, and probably go to the bar. He’ll hang around for less than ten minutes, then he’ll leave. Though he’ll never look at us, he’ll see everything. When you leave, either he or one of his teammates will follow you and check your license plates, and within minutes they’ll know that I had a semisecret meeting with my old pal Joey Bernardo.”

“These guys are friends of yours?”

“No. They are professional operatives, but because I’m just me and not some highly trained thug myself, they’re assuming that I have no clue that they’re following me.”

“Great. That clears things up. Why, old buddy, are they following you?”

“It’s a very long story.”

“You’re not drinking again, are you? Not back on the smack?”

“I never did smack and you know it. No, I’m not drinking and I’m not losing my marbles. I’m dead serious and I need your help.”

“You need a shrink, Kyle. You’re spooky, man. There’s a glow in your eyes.”

The door opened and the thug walked in. He was dressed precisely as Kyle had said, but with the addition of a pair of round tortoiseshell eyeglasses. “Don’t stare,” Kyle whispered as Joey’s jaw dropped. The diet colas arrived, and they took a drink.

The thug went to the bar, ordered a draft beer, and from his stool could see their table in the long mirrors behind the racks of booze, but he could not possibly hear what they were saying.

“He just put on the eyeglasses,” Kyle said with a large smile as if they were telling jokes. “Sunglasses would be too conspicuous in here. He added the big round ones so he can look around and not get caught. Please smile. Please laugh. We’re just two old chums reminiscing here. Nothing serious.”

Joey was flabbergasted and could manage neither a smile nor a laugh. So Kyle erupted in a loud cackle, then pulled off a slice of thin pizza as soon as it arrived. He was animated and smiling, and with his mouth full he said, “Eat, Joey, and smile and please utter a few words.”

“What have you done? Is that guy a cop or something?”

“Or something. I’ve done nothing wrong, but it’s still a complicated story. You’re involved in it. Let’s talk about the Pirates.”

“The Pirates are in last place, and they’ll be in last place come September. Pick another subject, or another team.” Joey finally took a slice and bit off half of it. “I need a beer. I can’t eat pizza without a beer.”

Kyle flagged down the lazy little waitress and ordered one beer.

There was a large screen in one corner. ESPN was
running baseball highlights. For a few minutes, they ate pizza and watched the footage. The guy in the rugby shirt was working on a twelve-ounce draft, and after about ten minutes it was gone. He paid in cash and left. When the door closed behind him, Joey said, “What the hell is going on?”

“That’s a conversation the two of us must have, but not here. It’ll take an hour or two, and then the first conversation will lead to another and another. If we do it here this weekend, we’ll get caught. The bad guys are watching, and if they see us engaged in serious talk, they’ll know. It’s important for us to finish the pizza, walk out the front door, and not be seen together alone, until you leave town tomorrow.”

“Thanks for inviting me up.”

“I didn’t invite you for the graduation, Joey. Sorry about that. The reason you’re here is to give you this.” Kyle slid across a folded sheet of paper. “Put it in your pocket, and quick.”

Joey grabbed it, glanced around as if assassins were moving in, and shoved it in a jeans pocket. “What is it, Kyle?”

“Trust me, Joey, please. I’m in trouble and I need help. There’s no one else but you.”

“And I’m involved, too?”

“Maybe. Let’s finish the pizza and get out of here. Here’s the plan. The Fourth of July is just around the corner. You come up with this wonderful idea for a rafting trip down the New River in West Virginia, three days on the river, two nights camping out. Me and you and some of the old gang from Duquesne. A boys’ weekend while we can still do it. The list there has ten names and e-mails, stuff you already have. It
also has the name of an outfitter in Beckley, West Virginia. I’ve done all the homework.”

Joey nodded as if nothing made sense.

Kyle pressed on. “The purpose of the trip is to shake the surveillance. Once we’re on the river and in the mountains, there’s no way they can follow me. We can talk and talk and not have to worry about being watched.”

“This is crazy. You’re crazy.”

“Shut up, Joey. I’m not crazy. I’m dead serious. They watch me around the clock. They listen to my phone calls, and they’ve bugged my laptop.”

“And they’re not cops?”

“No, they’re much scarier than cops. If we spend too much time together now, they’ll become suspicious, and your life will get complicated. Eat some pizza.”

“I’m not hungry.”

There was a long gap in the conversation. Kyle kept eating. Joey kept watching the ESPN highlights. Springsteen kept singing.

After a few minutes, Kyle said, “Look, we need to go. I have a lot to tell you, but I can’t do it now. If you’ll plan the rafting trip, we can have some fun and I’ll give you the full story.”

“You ever been rafting?”

“Sure. You?”

“No. I don’t like the water.”

“They provide life jackets. Come on, Joey, have some fun. A year from now you’ll be married and your life will be over.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“It’s just a boys’ trip down the river, a bunch of old
friends from college. Shoot the e-mails and put it all together. Whatta you say?”

“Sure, Kyle. Whatever.”

“But when you e-mail me, use the diversion.”

“The diversion?”

“Yes, it’s written down. In your e-mails to me we’re headed for the Potomac River in western Maryland. We can’t give these thugs too much notice.”

“What are they gonna do, follow us down the river in a speedboat?”

“No. It’s just a precaution. I don’t want them anywhere around me.”

“This is real strange, Kyle.”

“It gets stranger.”

Joey suddenly slid the pizza aside and leaned forward on his elbows. He glared at Kyle and said, “I’ll do it, but you gotta give me a clue.”

“Elaine’s back, with her rape scenario.”

Just as quickly as he had leaned forward, Joey shrunk back to his side of the booth and limply recoiled. Elaine who? He’d forgotten her last name, if in fact he’d ever known it. That was five, maybe six years ago, and the cops had not only closed the file but slammed the damned thing shut. And why? Because nothing happened. There was no rape. Intercourse maybe, but with that girl everything was consensual. He had a December wedding planned with the woman of his dreams, and nothing, absolutely nothing could screw it up. He had a career, a future, a good name. How could this nightmare be alive?

With so much to say, he managed to say nothing. He stared at Kyle, who couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

Is she awake? Joey asks.

No response from Baxter Tate. No response from the girl.

“This is something we can deal with, Joey. It’s frightening, but we can handle it. We need to talk, for hours, but not here, not now. Let’s get away.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

_________

That night, Kyle met his father for dinner at a Greek place called the Athenian. They were joined by Joey Bernardo, who’d had a few drinks in preparation for the evening and was so mellow he was quite dull. Or maybe he was just stunned or scared or something else, but he was certainly preoccupied. John McAvoy downed two martinis before he touched a menu and was soon telling war stories about old trials and old cases. Joey matched him martini for martini, and the gin thickened his tongue but did not lighten his mood.

Kyle had invited him because he did not want his father to launch into a last-ditch effort to persuade him to resist the evils of corporate law and do something productive with his life. But after the second martini, and with Joey barely coherent, John McAvoy made such an effort. Kyle chose not to argue. He ate garlic crackers and hummus and listened. Red wine arrived, and his father told another story about representing some poor soul with a good case but no money, and of course he won, as is true with the vast majority of lawyers’ tales. John McAvoy was the hero of all of his stories. The poor were saved. The weak were protected.

Kyle almost missed his mother.

Late that night, long after dinner, Kyle walked the Yale campus for the last time as a student. He was stunned at the speed at which the last three years had gone by, yet he was also tired of law school. He was tired of lectures and classrooms and exams and the meager existence on a student’s budget. At twenty-five, he was now a fully grown man, nicely educated and all in one piece with no bad habits, no permanent damage.

At this point, the future should hold great promise and excitement.

Instead, he felt nothing but fear and apprehension. Seven years of school, great success as a student, and it was all coming down to this—the miserable life of an unwilling spy.

O
f the two apartments Kyle was considering, Bennie preferred the one in the old meatpacking district, near the Gansevoort Hotel, in a building that was 120 years old and had been built for the sole purpose of slaughtering hogs and cows. But the carnage was now history, and the developer had done a splendid job of gutting the place and renovating it into a collection of boutiques on the first floor, hip offices on the second, and modern apartments from there upward. Bennie cared nothing about being hip or modern, and could not have cared less about the location. What impressed him was the fact that the apartment directly above 5D was also available as a sublet. Bennie grabbed it, 6D, at $5,200 a month for six months, then he waited for Kyle to lease 5D.

Kyle, though, was leaning toward a second-story walk-up on Beekman Street, near City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was smaller and cheaper at $3,800, still an obscene amount for the square footage. In New Haven, Kyle had been splitting $1,000 a month for a
dump, but one that was three times as large as anything he’d seen in Manhattan.

Scully & Pershing had paid him a signing bonus of $25,000, and he was thinking of using it to secure a nice apartment early in the summer when more were available. He would lock himself away in his new digs, study nonstop for six weeks, and take the New York bar exam in late July.

When it became obvious to Bennie that Kyle was ready to lease the Beekman apartment, he arranged for one of his operatives to suddenly appear, badger the real estate agent, and offer more money. It worked, and Kyle was headed for the meatpacking district. When he verbally agreed to take 5D, for $5,100 a month for a year, beginning on June 15, Bennie dispatched a team of technicians to “decorate” the place two weeks before Kyle was scheduled to move in. Listening devices were planted in the walls of every room. The telephone and Internet lines were tapped and wired to receivers in computers located directly above in 6D. Four hidden cameras were installed—one each in the den, the kitchen, and the two bedrooms. Each could be withdrawn immediately in the event Kyle or someone else started poking around. They, too, were connected to computers in 6D, so Bennie and his boys could watch Kyle do everything except shower, shave, brush his teeth, and use the toilet. Some things should be kept private.

On June 2, Kyle loaded everything he owned into his Jeep Cherokee and left Yale and New Haven. For a few miles, he went through the usual nostalgia of saying goodbye to his student days, but by the time he passed through Bridgeport, he was thinking about the
bar exam and what was waiting beyond it. He drove to Manhattan where he planned to spend a few days with friends, then move into his apartment on the fifteenth. He had yet to sign a lease, and the real estate agent was becoming irritated. He was ignoring her phone calls.

As scheduled, on June 3 he took a cab to the Peninsula hotel in midtown and found Bennie Wright in a tenth-floor suite. His handler was dressed in customary drab attire—dark suit, white shirt, boring tie, black shoes—but on June 3 he had an additional article or two. His suit coat was off, and Bennie had strapped around his shirt a shiny black leather holster with a nine-millimeter Beretta snug just below his left armpit. A quick move with the right hand, and the pistol was in play. Kyle ran through all the sarcastic remarks he might make in the presence of such weaponry, but decided at the last second to simply ignore it. It was obvious that Bennie wanted his Beretta to be noticed, maybe even mentioned.