Fiction River Special Edition: Crime, page 8
He went quietly out the back, and said only one more thing—a request for a lawyer—and clammed up the rest of the way. Thinking about the fake witnesses, thinking about Valda and her snide Now you’ll get to see how the other half lives.
He used that—or actually, his father’s lawyers used that—and they used the strange letter he got two days later to his campus post office box. A charred photo of him and the rest of the frat—not his photo, but one half-burned, and a business card with an odd logo. FoL. And nothing else.
FoL. Fool. That’s what the lawyers thought. That’s what his dad’s fixer thought too. The charges went away as if they had never been. The witnesses vanished. And the frat got rebuilt, bigger and better—not just with insurance money, but with a little of the Ashworth family fortune.
Not that Nico got to live in the new palatial digs. He’d moved on to the best law school in the country because his family insisted he learn a trade. Trust me, his grandfather said, someday you’ll need something to do with your time.
But by the time his grandfather had given him that nugget of wisdom, Nico had already figured it out. He did a lot of thinking that night in the jail, wearing the borrowed clothes whose piss-smell didn’t quite overwhelm the odor of sweat and fear that surrounded him. Not to mention the foul toilet at the far end of the room. Or the men who leered at him and called him Pretty Boy.
He would have wagered that even Valda didn’t know how the other half lived—how this half lived. She just envied his money, even though she wasn’t that poor herself. She wasn’t a scholarship student. Her family just didn’t have as much money as his.
Not many families did.
He’d always thought his dad a sanctimonious asshole for talking about the obligation of the haves to the have-nots. And the have-nots in the jail didn’t exactly inspire him. But that moment, standing outside in the strange ash-covered hot-cold night as he watched a world disappear in flames, that moment had.
He couldn’t do anything much about the have-nots. Trying to stop poverty was like putting your finger in a river, in an attempt to create a dam. His mother’s paraphrase of Matthew 26:11, the one she used when his father got too preachy, stuck in his mind: The poor shall always be with us. No matter what we do.
He didn’t want to use a finger to dam the river. But he needed a purpose, and law was as good as any.
He even thought of criminal law, but decided he didn’t want to set foot into too many more piss-scented jails, and you had to do that, no matter what side you took. So he followed most of his classmates toward corporate—not for the money (Lord knew, he didn’t need money) but so he could understand what he and his siblings would inherit one day.
It all went swimmingly until his third and final interview with the most prestigious law firm in New York—the most prestigious law firm in the country, really. What should’ve been a hale-fellow-and-well-met moment felt furtive, Daniel Jorgensen, the partner pushing his candidacy, closing the door to the plush office, frowning, and saying, “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
Nico hadn’t even sat down in his usual chair, the thick leather one to the left of the desk. Instead he stood in the middle of the room, uncertain what to do with his hands. Through the glass window beside the door, he saw associates peering at him, one of them giggling behind her hand before someone hurried her down the hall.
“I haven’t lied to anyone,” Nico said, and he hadn’t. He even told them about the arson arrest, although he didn’t have to, since the charges vanished, and the entire incident got dropped.
“Sixteen letters say otherwise.” Jorgensen was a friend of Nico’s father from some charity board or another. Nico’s grandfather had wanted Nico at an old D.C. firm, the one the family had used since the first million accumulated, back in the Depression.
“Letters about what?” Nico asked.
“Your character,” Jorgensen said. “Considering one of them is from a major client in this firm, our interest in you is officially terminated.”
“Terminated?” Nico asked, feeling slow. “But I haven’t lied about anything.”
“Sorry,” Jorgensen said, without a trace of sympathy. “My hands are tied.”
“Shouldn’t I know what people are saying? Shouldn’t I know who is making the accusations?” Nico’s palms were damp. He resisted the urge to wipe them on the front of his suit.
“If it were just one person, we’d consider telling you. But sixteen, from various parts of the country….” Jorgensen shook his head. “We can’t take the risk. Clearly, there’s a lot more to you than your family, your excellent grades, and your seat on the Law Review. You’re not the right material for this firm.”
“But—”
“I’m sure you know the way out.” Jorgensen sat heavily behind his desk, and stared at Nico.
Nico stood for just a moment, unable to move. He hadn’t done anything. Unlike some of the other guys he knew, guys whose families were as rich and influential as his, he actually worked hard in law school. He didn’t end up in the middle of his class. He had good grades and a brain and a stellar record. He’d even given up drinking—to excess anyway. No more parties. A beer now and then. Some good wine from the family cellar over the holidays. Nothing more.
He had no skeletons—
“Do I have to call security?” Jorgensen asked.
“No, sir. Sorry, sir.” And Nico let himself out.
He walked through the wide, carpeted corridor, toward the elevator, conscious of the associates still watching him, smiling at his defeat.
He wasn’t sure why he wanted law anyway, or why he needed a place like this. He had money. He even had influence if he wanted it. He could get the power, reflected glory off his family.
He’d just wanted to do it himself.
He got in the elevator, with its rich wood paneling and gold trim. There were other options. Maybe the D.C. firm wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe.
He turned over possibilities in his mind as he made his way back to the apartment his family kept near Central Park. And as he walked in, the doorman handed him a letter, addressed to him. Plain white envelope, just his name in gorgeous calligraphy.
Nico turned it over in his hands. “Who left it?” he asked.
“Bike messenger,” the doorman said. “I was to give it to you as soon as you came in.”
Nico nodded, and opened the envelope.
Inside, a business card embossed with three letters.
FoL.
***
His father agreed: whoever had sent the business card had sabotaged Nico’s chances at the New York law firm. And the entire family did damage control with their D.C. firm, the kind of damage control Nico hated: the threats of lost business, the demands that Nico join or else.
Nico didn’t want that. He didn’t need that. His dad’s fixer had found the sixteen letter writers—none of whom had ever met Nico. They’d all been paid a fee to tell a variation of the same story, a story of sticky fingers and cheating on exams, a story of other iffy evenings that ended in gasoline-induced fires.
The fixer couldn’t find who had paid the letter writers. Nico’s father hired several private detectives and they couldn’t track the funds either.
Nico couldn’t think of anyone who would go after him like this. He figured—and his family figured—that a nutcase was harassing him because he was wealthy. Eventually, we’ll catch him, the fixer said, and Nico believed him.
Maybe if Nico cared more about the New York job, he would have fought for another interview. Instead, he felt a bit relieved. He understood why they hadn’t hired him.
Nico wouldn’t have hired himself either, if any of the charges were true, which they weren’t. And as his father said all the firm had had to do was investigate; they’d’ve realized these were lies.
But his grandfather pointed out there was no reason to investigate. The lies were enough. There were always a lot of sons of privilege looking for a sinecure at a prestigious law firm. They didn’t need to take Nico, not without the family tie. So they didn’t.
But the D.C. firm did.
And Nico settled into the expected role as the son of privilege whose ambition took a back seat to the silver spoon dangling ostentatiously from his mouth.
***
Not that it made him happy. None of it made him happy—the same old people, the same old clubs, the summers in the Hamptons or the Cape, the winters in Palm Beach or Malibu or Aruba. He’d done all of this since he could remember, and his work at the firm was to keep people like him and his father and his grandfather happy, which he was unbelievably good at, because—after all—he’d been doing it since birth.
The only bright spot was Molly. Molly, whose real name was Caroline Modestina Havier, who hated the family pressures as much as he did, who called herself Molly because it irritated her mother. The family called her Caro, her enemies—and she had a few—called her Modesty, and those who loved her, truly loved her like Nico did, called her Molly.
She’d had an actual debut in Washington society. She’d had another in Paris, because of all the family ties. Her gowns were written up in Vogue, her Paris debut became the subject of a column on the children of the rich and powerful in Vanity Fair, her good works made her the darling of the society page of The New York Times.
She was, as his father said, a catch.
But Nico cared less about who she was and more about how she made him feel. He’d finally found a kindred spirit, one as lost in this world as he was, doing the expected thing, but rebelling in tiny ways.
She had a loft in Soho—all hers, hip and beautiful, inspiring him to find a place in D.C. instead of the family manse. She insisted on vacationing in Madera and St. Petersburg, none of the usual places. She hated dressage, and loved Las Vegas. Her only real nod to the privilege she’d grown up in—the only place among the rich and powerful (or the R&P, as she called them) that she truly loved—were the fashion shows. She took time away from her job at an upscale New York P.R. firm, a job as much of a joke as his, to go to Milan and Paris for each fashion season.
That spring, he didn’t go along—he saw no need to. She didn’t really want him there. Besides, they’d already had their big moment in a cheesy diner outside Saratoga Springs where they’d gone because she wanted to see “the ponies.”
The ring he gave her probably cost more than the diner itself. But the patrons had waited breathlessly when he got on one knee on the filthy linoleum floor, and proposed, and applauded when she accepted.
They had to have a big society wedding because, after all, It Was Expected. She had debuted, and he was the eldest in his family, and their union was to Society as important as a corporate merger.
They picked a date one year away. They wanted to marry in three months, but his mother had a fit. They tried to find something within six, but her mother caught them, and straightened them out. No one should expect their friends to clear their calendars for a marriage, unless, of course, there was a reason for the haste…?
It took him a while to realize she thought her daughter might be pregnant. But he couldn’t understand why, in that case, she’d want to wait even six months.
Even though he’d been born to this world, he didn’t always understand it.
They booked a date at all the proper venues. A famous fashion photographer, a friend of Molly’s, took their engagement photo—or, more accurately, photos, so that a different one could go to the Times, Le Monde, and the Post. Molly wore a specially designed dress, which got them in Vogue, and his family threw a special party for the elite, which got them into Town and Country.
It was a Big Deal, perhaps the largest thing he’d ever been involved in, and required more troops than the Invasion of Normandy, or so it felt to him. Even though no one insisted he pick his groomsmen with care, they did insist that his friends (some of whom were societally challenged) go through an extensive three-week evening course on the social graces.
The courses were underway, the hall paid for, the chamber orchestra booked, when he went to Molly’s Soho apartment to pick her up for their first quiet evening out in nearly a month.
He knocked, the sound echoing on the empty floor. The only thing he didn’t like about her loft was that it was on the top floor of a warehouse in a neighborhood that could be dodgy at night.
When she didn’t answer, he knocked again, feeling his heart pound.
Finally, the door banged open. Molly was barefoot, wearing her oversized U-Conn sweatshirt and a pair of briefs with sweetie written in hearts across her delectable ass. Only he didn’t dare say anything, since her face was blotchy with tears. She held a Big Gulp cup in her left hand, and judging from the smell, that cup was filled with beer.
“What the hell do you want?” she asked.
He frowned. “I thought we had a date.”
Her mouth curled upward and she mimicked his tone. “I thought we had a date. Moron. Why the hell would I date you?”
He was beginning to recognize this feeling, this the-world-has-shifted-on-me feeling. “We, um, planned the date yesterday…?”
She snorted. “Yesterday. Yesterday’s gone, asshole. Didn’t you get my message?”
“I haven’t been home,” he said.
“Home,” she sneered. “You don’t check voice mail?”
“I came straight here.”
“Of course you did,” she said in a tone that meant she didn’t believe him. “Well, go home, asshole. You’ll know what happened then.”
He put a hand against the door, meaning to slip into the loft, but she blocked him. “Tell me what happened now.”
“I sent your fucking ring back, that’s what happened,” she said. “It’s off. You’re a damn pig, and I can’t believe I fell in love with you. Piggy.”
He hadn’t seen her. He hadn’t sent a message. He hadn’t told anyone to talk with her. He hadn’t done anything.
“What went wrong, Molly?” he asked.
“You.” She shoved him away from the door, but he didn’t budge. “Get out of here.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” he said.
“What’s going on?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re harassing me, that’s what’s going on. Get. Out.”
She shoved him again, and when he held his ground, she brought her knee up sharply and hit him full force in the balls. Pain radiated through him. He bent in half, and she slammed the door. For a moment, he thought he was going to puke. He clutched the wall, unable to catch his breath. When he did—when he finally did—he turned toward the door.
The deadbolts clicked shut, one after another, until all three were engaged. She’d been watching him, and had done that deliberately, just so that he would know that he wasn’t welcome.
“Molly!” he shouted.
“Calling 911,” she shouted back. “You wanna be in the news? I’m calling the tabloids first. Your daddy would love to see you on the front page of the Enquirer.”
She knew how much both families would hate that.
He stood for a minute, uncertain what to do.
“I’m dialing,” she shouted.
He raised his hands in supplication, but knew it would do no good. So he turned his back and headed for the stairs. He’d call her in the morning when she sobered up. He’d apologize for whatever the hell she imagined that he had done, and he’d make it up to her with an even nicer ring and maybe a matching necklace. Something custom-made, specially designed just for Molly.
He limped down the stairs and took a cab back to the family place, where the doorman—a different one—handed him an envelope.
Nico looked down, expecting calligraphy. Instead, he saw a font used in 1970s rock posters. He held the envelope between his thumb and forefinger, and asked the doorman for a letter opener. The doorman had one and watched with great interest as Nico slit the envelope open.
A business card fell out. Embossed in gold in the same font as the envelope, the card said simply: FoL.
***
This time, he got mad. Not why-me self-pitying mad, but full-blown anger, powerful enough to scare the doorman. An anger that Nico hadn’t indulged in since he stopped drinking. It took all of his strength to maintain control.
Nico used the phone in the lobby to call his father, who called in all the fixers, who were going to solve this.
And so was Nico.
Nico hadn’t really cared about the NY job. The loss had been a blow to his pride, and it had angered him that someone had messed with him and his life.
But he loved Molly, and he wasn’t going to let go without a fight. He called her, and left messages, which she didn’t answer. He didn’t go to her loft—she had made that clear, and his father reiterated it (the last thing you want the press to call you is a stalker, boy), but he sent her mail and he called and he sent a few friends over, all to no avail.
Soon he found out why.
His father’s best fixer, a burly man named Stansbury who had rumored CIA connections, came over with copies of “the evidence.” He poured photo after photo on the dining room table, and within minutes, Nico was glad he was the only family member in attendance at the family apartment.
Photos—graphic photos—of every sexual encounter he’d had since college. The girls, sometimes unrecognizable, always looked pained, or drugged, even though they weren’t. He’d stopped combining sex and drinking after the fire, and he’d made damn sure that every girl he’d been with since then had given sober and aware consent.
Some of the articles about the fire had postulated that a group of girls, angry at the way the frat boys took advantage at drunken parties, had gotten their revenge. He never thought so because if that were the case, the girls would’ve gone after one other frat, the one that prided itself on screwing the most unscrewable girls. Someone there even claimed that a member had gotten Valda into bed.
Nico hadn’t believed that either.
But these photos—jeez, they did make him look like a pig. Especially so many of them, especially with the women’s eyes closed or their faces in a pre-orgasmic grimace.
