Authors: Chris Knopf
I was about to get out of there when Denny’s phone rang. He picked it up off the card table and answered.
“Yeah, she’s still here,” he said. “Yeah, I told her what I could. No, I don’t know what it’s about. No idea. Yeah, sure, I’ll do that. Yeah, yeah, okay,” he said, then paused and looked over at me, “Dad.”
I took a few steps backward, then turned and moved as briskly as dignity would allow to the door. My face was burning, and I could feel my heart lodged somewhere just south of my throat. The infuriated part of me wanted to go back into Winthrop’s office and ask him, “What’s up with your kid?” but the other part, the one that thought it was a much better idea to just run like hell, won that argument.
For a change.
I drove directly to my office. Along the way I lit a cigarette with my Volvo’s virgin lighter before I could stop myself. A silly concept, I realized immediately, me trying to keep anything in my life pristinely preserved.
When I got to the office, I cleared the sofa, which had been serving as a file cabinet, and dropped down on my back. Then I worked on getting heart, lungs, and brain to slow down, in unison if possible. The cardiovascular part went as planned. The brain, not so much.
I found myself in an argument with myself. Actually, with my multiple selves. I’m not suggesting I’ve got a split personality, but sometimes I wonder how many Jackies are living inside the same body. At least one of the contenders that day was begging to me to stop what I was doing, whatever it was, and get back to honest, boring, but socially acceptable work, like taking depositions and closing on houses. To jump off the tracks before official law enforcement ran me over, which it was surely going to do.
I’d crossed the line going to see Winthrop without telling Joe Sullivan. The problem wasn’t just getting in the cops’ way. It was messing with potential witnesses, people whose testimony could affect the case.
The element of surprise had been taken away. Both Winthrop and his meatball son were now forewarned.
This voice of admonition and common sense, however, was a lonely one. The rest of the gang wanted to jump off the sofa and go do something, anything. The more heedless, the better. Only the motivation was in contention. I was furious, that was clear. I was royally and nearly uncontrollably pissed off: at the cops for being so plodding and bureaucratic, at the Wolsonowicz family for the way they loathed Sergey—only slightly more than they loathed one another—and at myself for not understanding what it all meant.
Anger, however, can look a lot like fear. I don’t like to think of myself as a fearful person. You can’t be that way and live on your own in a house on three acres of woods at the end of a long driveway. Or work all by yourself when you aren’t out there representing antisocial frights and grappling with judges, prosecutors, and indifferent civil servants within the New York State legal system.
But there’s a limit. Getting shoved off the road was certainly bad enough. The shock and strangeness of the experience, the anonymity of the perpetrator, even the uncertainty over what had actually happened—if it was malicious intent or just some strange act of road rage I’d unwittingly provoked.
The thing with Denny Winthrop was different. This time I could see his arrogant face and hear the narcissistic banality of his words. I’d helped Burton defend people like him from charges like assault, reckless endangerment, even manslaughter. I knew how close he’d come to losing what modicum of control he had over himself and how close I’d pushed him to do just that.
This was at the crux of the internal argument. Just how much control did I have over my own actions? How close was
Ito
the brink?
What I didn’t do was ask myself how I’d gotten to this point in the first place. Right at that moment, I didn’t know and really didn’t care.
There were too many other things I didn’t know, and there was a computer in the room that might be able to fix that.
I got up off the couch and made a pot of coffee. Then I slipped a pre-rolled joint out of a plastic grocery bag I kept in a locked file drawer and settled down in front of the computer, the greatest friend of the compulsively curious ever invented by man.
I typed in “Oscar Wolsonowicz,” and nothing came up, but there were a lot of hits on “FuzzMan.” I went right to his blog. I wanted to look a little closer, now that I knew the boy was likely to inherit a bundle. When I got there, he was in his usual hateful mood. The objects of scorn were a full range of public and private figures—politicians, entertainers, neighbors, other bloggers, dental hygienists, stamp collectors, jackhammer operators, and the entire front office of the New York Mets. I looked hard to find some redeeming social commentary woven into the diatribes, but like the last time I visited, it just wasn’t there. Neither was any organizing philosophy beyond the hope for the imminent demise of high-profile individuals and institutions.
I think he outdid himself with a rant against the sickening soft-heartedness of contemporary nihilists.
Fuzzy was also an active responder on other blogs. On one he showed up often as a guest commentator. It was called Retort and was run by another charmer named Rip. Retort was true to its name, offering a forum for any and all contrarian views, a natural attractor for Fuzzy. The commentary was chockablock with searing, scatological wrath, which might have been fun for them, but to me was a dreadful, dispiriting bore. Rip always followed Fuzzy’s lead, and though neither of them was likely to be crowned the H. L. Mencken of online media, Fuzzy actually could sound reasonably intelligent despite the rancor.
I forced myself to read on and began to notice their focus was primarily financial. Both were heavily engaged in the stock market, with Fuzzy again taking the lead, offering advice and a rabid form of
proselytizing on behalf of his picks. As I worked my way back through the archives on Fuzzy’s blog, an even deeper read revealed that Rip had run up some serious losses. After that, Fuzzy’s influence grew as Rip’s self-confidence faded, and despite what sounded like the banter of equals, Fuzzy obviously ran the whole show.
This involved an emphasis on short selling, Fuzzy’s favorite thing, which meant making money on a company’s misfortune by betting that its stock value will fall. Short sellers were a natural and legal cog in the financial machine, but it was hard to like them any more than you like carrion birds cleaning roadkill off the highway.
I went back to Google and picked up a link to his father. The same few hundred thousand references popped up, which I started leafing through from the beginning. It wasn’t until the forty-fifth page that the headline “What Makes Tony Run?” caught my eye.
It was an online magazine article examining Tony W.’s emotional and psychological motivations. It covered a lot of historical background, then drifted into his romantic habits, which started with the young initiates at his private salon in Arizona and branched out to the wives of his financial patrons and favored gallery owners. Reports of people’s rampant sexual appetites are always more engaging when you don’t know the players. It’s an abstraction, on a par with scenes from a dirty movie or novel. A voyeuristic daydream. It’s different when you’ve sat across the table from the guy’s wife and pet his daughter’s dogs. I barely got through half the article before I had to click off the page.
Before this began to depress me, I escaped into a search of Elizabeth Hamilton Pontecello. The stack of hits at the top of the list covered her death and funeral. I dug deeper and found several court documents relating to Betty’s shoplifting cases and consequent adjudication. Shoplifting rarely excites prosecutorial ire, as Betty’s record proved. It didn’t hurt that she was a woman of a certain age, sophistication, and social acceptability. It’s not fair, but these things matter in a
court of law. It’s a human tendency to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who looks more like your great-aunt Tilly than the hardwired sociopath she actually is.
I spent the rest of the day searching for more on both Elizabeth and Sergey, without much result. I did learn from an article in a Manhattan society publication that Sergey was born in Portugal to a Russian mother and an Italian father, who claimed various connections to European royalty. I tried to get deeper into that, but all the relevant sites were in Italian, and all I knew was conversational French.
My eyes finally began to blur. I tore myself away from the screen and was surprised to see it was getting dark outside, lost as I’d been in the timeless wastes of cyberspace.
I went into my little restroom and splashed water on my face. I thought another joint might be the perfect way to bookend the computer time, but then I wondered if it would make me too sleepy to drive home. Before I had a chance to take up another schizoid debate, Joe Sullivan called me on my cell.
“You’re done,” he said.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Alden Winthrop called Ross Semple, Southampton chief of police. My boss,” he said. “I’m still in the process of cleaning up all the shit after it hit the fan.”
“Oh.”
“If you got a client you’re defending for murder, you can talk to whoever you want. But not if your client’s the victim. Then somebody might say you’re interfering with a police investigation. Ross said exactly that, in fact.”
While he was talking the question of the joint was decided. I lit it up and took a deep hit before asking, “So what did Winthrop say? Did you talk to him?”
“We’re all through here, Jackie. Ross actually likes you even more than I do, but not that much. You’re now officially on his shit list. Just
remember you did it to yourself. I bent over backward for you, but now I’m done bending.” Then he hung up.
“Asshole,” I said out loud.
There was a restaurant in Southampton I’d visit with Sam when we were working our way through whatever legal mess he’d roped me into. We’d go there after a tough day to unwind and regroup over a quick drink, though for Sam there was never an occasion that didn’t call for a quick drink. That day, the marijuana had fogged up my reasoning powers, but I knew I was hungry and, counter to expectations, wide-awake. So I decided a glass of wine and some bar food made the most sense right at that moment.
I almost called Harry to come join me, but then he’d want to know how I spent my day, and I’d have to lie or tell him about Denny Winthrop, and I didn’t want to do either.
It was that pleasant time at the restaurant before the dinner crowd arrived when you could count on a seat at the giant U-shaped bar close to the big French doors that in warmer weather were opened on the sidewalk. While waiting for my merlot I watched the staff move around tables and spread white tablecloths, busy with the transition. The air was stirred around enjoyably by strategically placed paddle fans. There was no one else at the bar, so Geordie, the bartender, agreed to switch off the TV so I didn’t have to be distracted by grown men in antiquated outfits throwing and hitting a little white ball, when they weren’t standing around scratching their own balls and spitting on the ground.
I’m not a person who is easily discouraged, but the call from Sullivan, while expected, made me feel like somebody had pricked my mood with a pin and let out all the air. I’d had the feeling before, though I hated acknowledging it. I couldn’t accept that a person could be racing along all flush with energy and zeal, and then one dumb stumble
and they’re ready to crawl off like a wounded animal, curl into a ball, and die. When I was younger, I wanted to blame these feelings on something outside myself, some other person, like my father or the sadistic prick who taught seventh-grade chemistry, but I always knew that would be a cowardly lie.
“What the hell am I doing?” I asked Geordie as he set the glass of wine in front of me.
“Drinking, which is what any sane human being ought to be doing at this hour.”
Geordie wasn’t his actual name; it was a nickname relating to his English roots. He came from a place, as he told it, of limitless masculine courage and mythical consumption of warm beer.
“I’m being stupid,” I said. “I need to go back to title searches and petitioning for variances and learn to be realistic about my place in the world.”
Geordie considered that line of reasoning.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, love, but I’m not sure I like it.”
“Which part?” I asked.
“Never been a big fan of realism. Waste of time.”
“And you’ve never gotten yourself in something over your head?”
“Ah, that’s it, then. Bit off more than you can chew?” he asked.
I nodded and took a sip of the wine, not a gulp like I wanted.
“I think I messed up on something, and I want to fix it, but the harder I try, the more messed up things seem to get. I’ve got a real talent for digging a hole, jumping in, and pulling all the dirt back down on top of myself.”
Geordie wiped a section of the bar with a wet dishrag.
“That’s your problem,” he said. “You’re trying too hard.”
“Don’t start going all Zen on me, Geordie,” I said, putting my head down on my folded arms.
“I’m a barman. What do I know? Except that you can’t make truth
reveal itself. You have to let it come out on its own. Create the necessary environment.”
“That’s pretty damn philosophical. No wonder you’re a barman.”
“You need to stop thinking for a while,” he said. “Distract yourself. Take polka lessons. Go sit on the beach. Jump in the ocean. Get in a bar fight. Just not here, if you wouldn’t mind. Management frowns upon it.”
“No worries,” I said, my voice muffled by the soft pillow of my arms.
I spent another hour in boozy repartee with Geordie, increasingly interrupted by incoming clientele. I knew what I was doing—beating all my hopes, fears, and self-recrimination into a type of putty that I could mold to my liking before trying to get some sleep. When I thought that was achievable, I got up and left, not even saying good-bye to Geordie, who was happily engaged in further nonsense with a crowd of big tippers at the other end of the bar.
I stopped at the convenience store on Montauk Highway to buy coffee for the ride home and milk for the next day. The place had been there since I was a kid, and there was never a time when it wasn’t jammed with people of every description and social standing. Which was true that night. There were four guys working the registers, and the lines led to the back, where the coolers held all the dairy products. I politely cut between two guys in muddy T-shirts buying potato chips and bent down to grab a quart. Then I heard someone call my name. When I stood I saw Ray Zander, equally muddy, standing at the end of the line.