The Idea of Him (27 page)

Then he gripped my shoulders and pinned my arms. “Allie. Stop. I know your life sucks right now. But—”

“I
mean
it, James.”

And then I did the unthinkable. I kissed him way too hard. I held his cheeks like he was the long-gone love of my life. He grabbed my hands and kind of kissed me back, but I wouldn't call it a passionate reckoning on his part. More like a what-the-fuck-is-this-woman's-problem kind of reaction.

“Allie. You're losing it.”

I shook his hands off and clutched them back in my own again. “I know I messed everything up by rushing into marriage with Wade, but I was nervous, and I thought he would solve everything. And I did love him. I did. I mean, I think I did, in the sense that I loved the man I hoped he'd be, the idea of him. Problem is, I'm not sure he ever became what I had imagined him to be. On top of that, I'm devastated he didn't love me back in the loyal way I thought he would, like the vision never became the reality.” I looked up at him, hoping honesty and directness might prevail, as all else wasn't exactly working as I had wished. “I know you are thinking it's really fucked up we just kissed, but I swear it isn't.”

He actually looked at me stone-cold like I was out of my mind.

I carried on, “Maybe we would have been better together. Maybe I made the wrong choice back then and didn't wait for you, and fucked up everything, and now it's too late, and you have your life overseas and I . . . well, with her gone now, maybe you'll just reconsider a little and—”

James put his hand across my mouth, and I lost it again. I couldn't breathe. I collapsed against him. It was misty outside, which made me feel cold even though it was balmy.

A group of teenagers walked by briskly, and I began to shiver. James cradled the back of my head in his right hand and then held me tightly along my back with the other. He smelled like he always did: sweet and warm. He rocked me back and forth until my pathetic shuddering stopped.

“We tried,” he said. “A few times. And despite the fact that I'm far away, I still adore you. But you can't go kissing me like that just because you're freaking out like a little girl.”

“I'm not. I'm just . . . you didn't want me to kiss you, did you?”

He laughed a little. “Look, I'll take any kiss from any pretty girl, but it's not who we are right now.” He wiped my nose and smoothed down my hair. “Look at you! You're just a mess!” I muffled a laugh and he went on. “It's much better like this, us as friends forever, you know that. You're going to be all right, Allie,” he whispered into my hair. “I promise. You're going to do what you need to do right here.”

I didn't like that response in any way. “I don't know if I can.”

“Allie,” he started, and then shook his head and looked at his feet. “You are going to be fine. You have it stuck in your head that some far-fetched notion of ‘us' is going to solve all your issues, but it can't . . .
I
can't. There are telephones. Call me anytime about all the screwed-up things that happened in your marriage and we can go over what went wrong and when. But it's not that complicated because guess what? He was a lot of fun, maybe even a good dad, but he's also a selfish dick who's out for himself and cheats on you. It's not that difficult to analyze. It's good you're moving on.”

I decided to try. “You sure?”

“Positive. But I have something really important to tell you.” He paused. “I actually came into town to tell you this in person: Clementine is five months pregnant, and I'm really happy about it.”

“Wow,” I croaked, stunned. “I guess that's why she couldn't fly here, huh?”

“It's a boy.” James was happy. He'd said he was at peace. And he meant it.

Something to aspire to.

So this was finally it. I could practically hear the final boarding call for the next flight to Paris. That moment I either stood up and relinquished his hold on me or threw myself on some pyre of pity. I snapped out of my hysteria, and that reckoning I'd been looking for slammed solidly into my head. And the nice thing: that elusive happy, confident box suddenly, weirdly didn't feel so hard to climb over and get into.

39

Surprise in the SUV

With the idea of James as salvation off the table, and Tommy no longer my quick-fix crutch, maybe I was finally ready. No longer could I depend on Wade for anything except being a fun-loving dad—I had to understand that once and for all. The kids would always get my love and tons of it, but I'd have to work on feeling better inside if I were going to mother them like they deserved and I wanted.

The healthiest first step would be to march into work and call a divorce lawyer and get the separation ball rolling. The new me would execute all that without a blip. The new me would finish the final draft of the new me's screenplay without needing Tommy to paint-by-numbers me through it.

But all that Oprah magazine self-help stuff would have to wait.

 

AS I WALKED
about fifty yards down the block from my apartment building to work, sunglasses hiding my puffy eyes, I noticed an SUV with dark windows rolling down the sidewalk at the same speed as my steps. Quickening my gait, I tried to figure out if I was out-of-my-mind paranoid: a man on the corner in mirrored aviator glasses looked away quickly, as if he'd been watching me. I was sure he must be a Max Rowland acolyte and that this was the same black SUV I'd seen a few times before, maybe not FBI one trailing Jackie, maybe an SUV of a bad person. I ran into the Korean market two doors down and went straight to the back wall lined with glass refrigerator doors. But as I opened the glass case door to reach for a soda, a large man came to a stop inches away from me.

“Please come with me, Mrs. Crawford,” he said in a spooky, authoritative voice.

“Oh my God, you scared me. Who are you?” I pulled away.

“You're perfectly safe.” He showed me a badge I couldn't read. I figured it was a fake. He took another step toward me. “Please, just do as I say.”

I ran to the front door where I bumped into another man blocking the entrance. “It's okay, Mrs. Crawford. We're with the FBI. Let's not make a scene. Just follow us. Please, we're going to explain everything to you.”

“I don't need anything explained, and I won't say a word to you all until I get a lawyer.” I tried to barrel past him, but with the security cameras watching and the manic Asian owner at the cash register holding court with the hordes of New Yorkers in line to order their morning coffee, I wasn't at all convinced that would help.

“Really, I'm definitely not interested in talking to you, either of you, right now. I'll just go to work and you can call me there.” I went straight for the tea and coffee bar and started making myself a cup of tea, figuring I'd come up with an alternative.

The two agents were not in the mood to waltz around the deli with me. They pressed in from both sides, trapping me next to the coffee bar, and the first one whispered, “Mrs. Crawford, don't worry.” Then he whipped out his badge again. “We don't want to make a big deal of this, but we're instructed to bring you in and we're following orders.” I looked around for Jackie, half hoping she'd solve this somehow.

“What do you want?” I dropped the empty paper cup. “Why can't we talk on the street outside? No one will see us.”

“I think it's better for you to walk quietly out of the store with us and to our vehicle, as if it was part of your morning routine. Just walk right up to that black Suburban, and get inside right now, please.”

I did as I was told and we drove down to the FBI. office at the tip of Manhattan, me sitting in silence next to Agent #1 in the backseat while Agent #2 drove. I didn't want to say anything that might get me into trouble. Let them tell
me
something I didn't already know.

As we pulled up in front of a brown brick building, I announced to the agents, “I will be calling my lawyer.”

“That's fine, ma'am,” said Agent #1 next to me as he got out of the SUV and offered me a hand down. “We'll be taking you up to our boss now.”

One problem churning in my head: my lawyer was Wade's lawyer, and he'd probably helped him siphon all our cash to Murray and Max Rowland. I realized I should probably find a new one in the next ten minutes.

At the end of a long, gray linoleum hallway, I was led to the closed door of an office marked
SECURITIES UNIT, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Agent #1 with the mirrored aviators and a GI Joe jaw reached in front of me to open the door, and on the other side of the room, a well-dressed man with an air of authority walked around his desk to greet me. “Mrs. Crawford. I'm Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Witherspoon,” he said, handing me his card. He smiled at me with kind eyes and combed back his short, brown hair with his fingers. A handsome thirtysomething, he looked like a young legal whiz kid who had snagged the top job. He then escorted me to a soft side chair next to his sofa. “These FBI agents have been detailed to the U.S. Attorney's Office to work with me on major securities fraud cases overseas. Why don't I get you a cup of coffee? We're going to be in here for a long while.”

“I think I need a lawyer,” I answered, crossing my arms and not in any mood to sit down.

“We're not charging you with anything.”

“You're not charging me with anything, but you obviously want information from me. And I have a right to a lawyer and a right to remain silent so I don't say anything that would be incriminating. There's a law about that, you know. It's kind of a famous one. Aren't you supposed to be telling me that, not me telling you that?”

“Mrs. Crawford, we are not reading you your Miranda rights because you're not under arrest. You can sit here in silence and listen. You can ask us any questions you want, and we will answer them as truthfully as we can.” He handed me a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee that smelled like it had been brewed three days before.

“I still want a lawyer,” I answered. I walked over to the window, where, beneath us, stood the square fountain memorial at Ground Zero.

“That's fine,” Witherspoon said. “It's too late for that, I assure you. But if you want to call your lawyer, you can. But I wouldn't try your office.”

“What is this?” I asked around the room, stiffening my body more. “Why can't I call my office? Where exactly is Murray? What's happened with him?”

Witherspoon chuckled and sat on the sofa arm with his hands clasped in his lap. “Why don't you get comfortable, Mrs. Crawford? I've got a long story to tell you that I know you'll be interested in hearing.”

40

Courtesy Call

I tried not to laugh at Witherspoon's plan. “Sir, you cannot take one of the great narcissists and attention seekers of our era and put him in witness protection. It won't work in a million years.” The cheap brown leather squeaked as I plunked myself down in the armchair. “Your usual plan of action just won't function well with Wade Crawford.”

“He has no choice,” Witherspoon answered matter-of-factly.

“Believe me: if you send Wade Crawford to a witness protection program, he'll spill the beans to the first grocery clerk he sees.” I took a deep breath and eyed the glass awards and framed honors that lay haphazardly along the dusty windowsill. “The guy lives on recognition and notoriety,” I said, amused at the mere concept of Wade assuming a different name. “Ward Cranford. Hah.” I shook my head in mock laughter, but I could sense that it was already a done deal.

Witherspoon rested his elbows on his knees and delivered the following fact. “Your husband has admitted to his involvement in a corrupt investing scheme with absolutely no prodding from us, and now we need to protect him until we have the real offenders under wraps.”

I laughed. “I'm telling you: witness protection won't work for more than twenty minutes.”

“Many women have the same reaction you're having now. It can be hard on families, but we need to close in on every one of the characters involved in an international ring holding millions of dollars in these overseas accounts. We just want three months for your husband to take a little break. You can visit him with the children. We are there for you in every way, Mrs. Crawford, but he needs to be in witness protection for six months; there is no getting around that.”

“How would he live?” I asked, imagining a cargo-short-clad, Teva-sandal-wearing Wade in his rented ranch house in Topeka, with a maroon Prius parked in the driveway. “You really think his ego will take not being able to run his little media empire for three months? I find it hard to believe he agreed to that.”

“Witness protection is an important part of the arsenal in our investigations. It's much more prevalent than you know. People take sabbaticals from work all the time or care for a loved one. It's actually quite simple.”

“It's nuts. I'm telling you.” I nodded and pushed my lips together tightly. These guys would not get one more word out of me.

“The most important thing for you to know is your husband is going to be protected. He was involved as an accomplice, but his cooperation will allow him to remain uncharged and free from prosecution.”

“Does he know this?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know we're divorcing?”

“That is none of my business, ma'am, but, yes, I've heard.”

“Is this what they do with mob wives? Get the case in order, criminals charged, then inform the wife calmly as a courtesy call when it's all over?”

“I'm not going to comment on our activities, Mrs. Crawford, and this situation is unique.”

“Okay, then please inform me on just how unique.” I wondered where the Jackie piece fit and when I'd be hearing that one thing she couldn't tell me that made her cry on that bench.

“We know you're aware of some of the dealings that have been going on,” Agent Witherspoon answered.

“I am, kind of, but . . .”

Witherspoon went on, “First: your boss, Murray Hillsinger, is broke.”

“He orders fifty-eight-dollar entrees every day, sir. And then asks the waiter to double it. I'm not sure broke is really the right term. Or else it's relative. Donald Trump was broke in the 1990s for a minute and a half.”

“Mrs. Crawford,” Witherspoon said, tapping Murray's file in front of him. “Murray Hillsinger is broke and in debt. Men who find themselves in this situation can get desperate. They need cash quickly, or their empire will tumble. He gambled too big on investments he knew nothing about to keep his PR firm afloat. He went long on stocks like he was at the craps table, thinking every media rumor your husband could spin would work like solid gold and boost stock prices. This did work for a time, but then the big one didn't—it's always like that; they get too greedy and then the big one takes them down.” He shook his head. “We see this all the time with important figures who are low on cash. Sometimes they break the rules around the edges to get that cash back quickly. Since you were doing PR for the Fulton Film Festival, you should know they actually laundered a good deal of cash through a movie called”—he glanced at his notes—“
Belle de Jour II
.”

“Belle de Jour?”

“Yes, you see, the bigger you make a movie seem, the easier it is to juggle the profits and losses.”

The panels, the
Meter
magazine cover, closing the festival with
Belle,
all to hype a film they knew was horrible.

Witherspoon closed a file. “Their real crime was trying to screw with the stock market by using the media to their advantage. You can ask your lawyer or me as many questions as you like. We have no reason to charge you. We're positive you had nothing to do with this. We did some checking.” His kind eyes crinkled as he grinned a little.

“What do you mean, checking?”

“We have our methods, Mrs. Crawford. Max Rowland has been making shady deals ever since he left prison. He's one of the big ones we wanted, and we got him. We just have to nail those around him.” Poor Camilla in her pink-bubble-gum Chanel. Back to Allenwood for family visiting hours every Saturday.

“Any newscasters in the mix on this?” I wondered where Delsie figured.

“If you're talking Delsie Arceneaux, she's back at work and she just got herself a raise. That one knows how to take care of herself, but she wasn't worth the trouble if you really want to know the truth.”

I suppressed a smile, thinking about how Delsie drove our entire company crazy with her requests. Apparently the FBI agreed: they found her so impossible and taxing, she'd scared them off from even trying to get anything out of her. “So what do I do now?” I asked.

“You take a deep breath.” He placed a Chase bank card with a fifteen-digit code on the desk between us. “And I believe this is yours.”

I shook my head. “Someone cleaned out that account, I assume Wade.”

“Well, this is a new account.” Witherspoon then barked at the guy with the aviator glasses. “Get Agent Egan in here, please.”

The sexy woman who'd sat next to Jackie at the bar of the Tudor Room walked through the door with her straight red hair swaying back from her shoulders. As she introduced herself, I noticed her tight suit fit her behind as snugly as the Dolce and Gabbana number I'd seen her wearing when she followed Wade.

She told me, “Jackie made them put all your money back in another account and rename it yours alone now.”

“Wade agreed to this?”

“He didn't have a choice, frankly. We even extracted a waiver from your husband yesterday,” Witherspoon answered. “But he didn't seem too attached to the money, he was so concerned about the legal aspects of it all, and keeping his name clean.”

This actually made sense because I knew Wade never cared about the cash; it was attention and the excitement of playing with the big boys that he sought. I palmed the bank card, thankful my kids and I were whole.

Agent Egan walked over to the seating area. “I was assigned to Ms. Jackie Malone. She said that the money in the account was yours, and you did nothing that should cause you to lose it, so you should have it. We won't be freezing the account.”

“You sure?” I asked. “You sure it's all back in there?”

“Yes. Ms. Malone made sure of that,” Agent Egan replied.

“We had one smart cookie on the inside who helped us crack this case,” Witherspoon added. “Once she got a sense of what was really going on, she became obsessed with finding the answers. She thought someone ought to take them down. Never seen a woman so determined. I like that in a woman!” This guy was clearly smitten with Jackie. He went on to explain more. “And I hear Murray Hillsinger wants you to run the film festival without him. Max Rowland basically bought it with all their cash so Murray's company owns it and someone has to handle it now.”

“He wants me to . . . you mean, run it?” I covered my face so they couldn't see me smile. Going from promoting films to actually choosing them was just the kind of independent life plan I needed at this point. “How's Murray going to fare in all this?”

“Well, Mrs. Crawford.” Witherspoon got closer to me. “Murray is going to put his PR business on hold for a while and move away somewhere quiet too, like your husband, until we round everyone up. He's free from prosecution for now because he's cooperating, but he is not allowed to engage in business dealings of any kind, so yes, he is fine with your leaving the PR department to run the film festival. But . . .”

“But what?” I looked around. “There is something you aren't telling me.”

Just then, the door swung open with the force of a hurricane. A flustered secretary appeared, apologizing to her boss for letting Murray Hillsinger in without warning. Witherspoon winked, signaling to her that he understood there was no stopping the beast.

“Oh, Jesus, I didn't want you to hear this whole thing from them. I'm just so sorry, kid.”

I felt so uncomfortable. “Murray.”

“You're going to be better off without me messing it all up.” He slumped down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. Murray looked at me softly. Did I see his eyes watering? What the hell? “There's something bigger for me than all the business mess, much bigger that's got me—”

“What?” I looked around. “There is something you all aren't telling me.”

“I can't even begin . . .” Murray started shaking a little. Silenced for once in his life.

Witherspoon took over. “Well, let's start with the fact that Murray's fine with bringing Jackie Malone into the festival too. He actually likes that idea, that if you were okay with it, Ms. Crawford, that Jackie might be great at the spreadsheets, business angles; she's got a handle on the entertainment industry as she majored in that, right, Murray? For many reasons, it's important to you that Jackie land on her feet, right, Murray?”

“How well do you know Jackie?” I asked my former boss.

He didn't answer, like he was ashamed.

I went on. “I remember how shocked you were to see her at your house with her mom.” Pause. No answer. His sausage fingers still covering his eyes. “It's fine, Murray; what about you don't I know at this point? I don't care, you can tell me. Were you one of her clients? The ones that pay with casino chips?”

Murray straightened up, disgusted at the thought. “Absolutely not!”

“Well, then, how do you know her?”

Everyone in the room looked at each other like they knew something that I clearly didn't. This was the one thing Jackie couldn't tell me yet. I knew it was.

“How do you know about her? I mean, I know you know her mom from way back.” I slapped Murray's shoulder. “Murray, we're this far in; you've got to come clean. What the hell is going on between you and Jackie?”

Agent Egan walked over to me and looked into my eyes. “Jackie was doing a lot of investigating, and she kind of had him nailed. And once she had him nailed, she asked Murray for something, right, Murray?”

“What?” I didn't understand anything they were saying. “I mean, why did she have to get Murray nailed so badly first? I don't understand.”

Silence in the room.

Egan went on where the men wouldn't. “She wanted Murray to take a paternity test.”

It was as if someone knocked me out cold.

Once I came to, about thirty long seconds later, I answered very slowly, “A paternity test for Murray Hillsinger, as Jackie's dad?”

Nods all around the room. Murray couldn't look at me.

“You're Jackie's dad?” I had to think about it for a minute. “From a thing with her mom, out in Southampton, way back?”

He nodded. I took that in for a very, very long time while the events starting clicking together in my head. I never could grasp Jackie's motives until now. Her aggressive pursuit going after Murray and uncovering the scam was so . . . primal.

That's why Jackie wouldn't give up.
“She told me she needed to help me figure this out, because she didn't want to see another woman get screwed financially, which was only the excuse she was giving me. I now know that was only a secondary reason, but did you screw her financially, Murray?”

He heaved a few huge breaths out. “Her mom, Barbara, and I had a thing, when I had a little house and not so much money, way long ago. She used to tend to the garden. I was married to my first wife at the time, and Barbara was a lot of fun, and somehow she got pregnant. I didn't want anything to do with it and though we thought it was mine, we were never one hundred percent sure. She just wanted a kid so bad and said fine, she'd never expect anything. Then she started working for me about fifteen years later because I felt bad. She needed cash and she didn't want just a handout. I gave her as much business as I could, but I just didn't want to know about the kid. That's the deal we made way back when. She's a proud woman, never would have asked me for anything since we made a deal. I made a big mistake; I should have found my daughter, not made her seek me out me like this. My mom's gonna kill me for being such a piece of shit.”

Murray put his head in his arms and sobbed, his gelatinous body shaking like, well, a huge bowl of Jell-O.

“Where's Jackie now?” I asked everyone.

“As I said, you can find her, but you better hurry.” Witherspoon looked at his watch. “She's graduating in two hours.”

Agent #1 Aviator man from the SUV abduction stood at attention. “I'll be happy to drive her, sir.”