The Associate

The Associate Page 12

Of 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 Each could be withdrawn immediately in the event Kyle or someone else started poking around.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.

Just ignore it.

Kyle sat as he always sat with Bennie  -  right ankle on his left knee, arms folded across his chest, wearing a look of complete contempt.

"Congratulations on your graduation," Bennie said, sipping coffee from a paper cup and standing by the window that overlooked Fifth Avenue. "Did things go well?"

You were there, you asshole. Your boys watched me and Joey eat a pizza. You know what my father had for dinner and how many martinis he knocked back. You saw Joey stagger out of the Greek place drunk as a skunk. When they took my photo in cap and gown, your goons were probably snapping away, too.

"Swell," Kyle said.

"That's great. Have you found an apartment?"

"I think so."

"Where?"

"Why do you care? I thought we agreed that you would stay away from me."

"Just trying to be polite, Kyle, that's all."

"Why? It really pisses me off when we get together and you start this happy horseshit like we're a couple of old pals. I'm not here because I want to be. I'm not chitchatting with you because I choose to. I'd rather be anywhere else in the world right now. I'm here because you're blackmailing me. I despise you, okay. Don't ever forget that. And stop trying to be polite. It goes against your personality."

"Oh, I can be a prick."

"You are a prick!"

Bennie sipped his coffee and kept smiling. "Well, moving right along. May I ask when you take the bar exam?"

"No, because you know precisely when I take the bar exam. What am I here for, Bennie? What's the purpose of this meeting?"

"Just a friendly hello. Welcome to New York. Congrats on finishing law school. How's the family? That kind of stuff."

"I'm touched."

Bennie set down his coffee cup and picked up a thick notebook. He handed it to Kyle. "These are the latest filings in the Trylon-Bartin lawsuit. Motion to dismiss, supporting affidavits, supporting exhibits, briefs in support of, and briefs in opposition to. Order overruling said motion. Answer filed by the defendant, Bartin, and so on. As you know, the file is sealed, so what you're holding there is unauthorized."

"How'd you get it?" Kyle asked.

Bennie responded with the same silly smirk he always gave when Kyle asked a question that could not be answered. "When you're not studying for the bar exam, you can bone up on the lawsuit."

"A question. It seems to me that it's a long shot for Scully & Pershing to assign me to the litigation section that happens to be handling this case, and it's even more of a stretch to believe they would allow a green associate to get anywhere near it. I'm sure you've thought about this."

"And the question is...?"

"What happens if I'm nowhere near this case?"

"Your class will have about a hundred rookie associates, same as last year and the year before. Roughly 10 percent will be assigned to litigation. The others will go into everything else  -  mergers, acquisitions, tax, antitrust, transactions, securities, finance, estates, and all the other wonderful services the firm provides. You'll be the star of the litigation rookies because you're the brightest and you'll work eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, and you'll suck up and kiss ass and backstab and do all the right things it takes to succeed in a big law firm. You'll want to work on this case, you'll demand it, and because it's the biggest lawsuit in the firm, you'll eventually be assigned to it."

"Sorry I asked."

"And while you're worming your way onto this case, you'll be providing us with other valuable information."

"Like what?"

"It's too early to discuss. Right now you need to concentrate on the bar exam."

"Bless you. I hadn't thought about it."

They sniped for another ten minutes, then Kyle left in a huff, as usual. From the backseat of a taxi, he called the realtor and said he'd changed his mind about living in the meatpacking district. The realtor was upset but managed to keep her cool. Kyle had signed nothing, and she had no legal ammo to launch. He promised to give her a call in a few days, and they would resume their search, for something smaller and cheaper.

Kyle moved his junk into a spare room in the SoHo apartment of Charles and Charles, two Yale Law grads who'd finished a year earlier and were now working for different mega-firms. They had played lacrosse at Hopkins, and were probably a couple, though they'd kept things quiet, at least at Yale. Kyle had no interest in their relationship. He needed a bed for a while and a place to store his possessions. And he needed to keep Bennie honest, if that was possible. The Charleses offered him their junk room for free, but Kyle insisted on paying $200 a week. The apartment would be a great place to study because the Charleses were seldom there. Both were being thrashed by hundred-hour workweeks.

WHEN IT BECAME clear that Bennie's operation had just been stiffed for six months' rent at $5,200 per, for apartment 6D in the slaughterhouse, plus the costly "decoration" of 5D below it, plus $4,100 a month for a year for the apartment on Beekman, Bennie fumed but did not panic. The wasted money was not a factor. What bothered him was the unpredictability of it. For the past four months, Kyle had done little to surprise them. The surveillance had been effortless. The trip to Pittsburgh in February had been dissected and no longer concerned them. But now Kyle was in the city, where watching him was more challenging. A civilian subject is usually easy because of predictable thoughts and patterns. Why would he try to shake surveillance if he didn't know it was there? But how much did Kyle know or suspect? How predictable was he?

Bennie licked his wounds for an hour, then began planning his next project  -  research on Charles and Charles and a quick inspection of their apartment.

THE SECOND detoxification of Baxter Tate began with a knock on his front door. Then another. He had not answered his cell phone. He had been driven home by a cab at four in the morning from a trendy nightclub in Beverly Hills. The driver helped him into his condo.

After the fourth knock, the door was quietly opened with no effort because Baxter hadn't bothered to lock it. The two men, specialists in retrieving wayward family members with addiction problems, found Baxter on his bed, still dressed in last night's getup  -  white linen shirt stained with some strain of liquor, black linen Zegna sport coat, bleached designer jeans, Bragano loafers, no socks over his very tanned ankles. He was comatose, breathing heavy but not snoring. Still alive but not for long, not at the rate he was going.

They quickly searched the bedroom and adjoining bathroom for weapons. Both men were armed, but their handguns were hidden under their jackets. Then they radioed to a waiting car, and another man entered the condo. He was Baxter's uncle, a man named Walter Tate. Uncle Wally, brother to Baxter's father, the only one of five siblings who had accomplished anything in life. The family banking fortune was now three generations old and declining at a steady, but not alarming, rate. The last time Walter had seen his nephew he was in a lawyer's office in Pittsburgh cleaning up after another drunk-driving episode.

Because his four siblings were unable to make even the most basic decisions in life, Walter had long since assumed the role of the family boss. He watched the investments, met with the lawyers, handled the press when necessary, and reluctantly intervened when one of his nieces or nephews flamed out. His own son had been killed hang gliding.

This was his second intervention with Baxter, and it would be the last. The first had been two years earlier, also in L.A., and they had shipped the boy off to a ranch in Montana where he sobered up, rode horses, made new friends, saw the light. Sobriety lasted all of two weeks after he returned to his worthless career in Hollywood. Walter's limit was two rehabs. After that, they could kill themselves for all he cared.

Baxter had been dead to the world for about nine hours when Uncle Wally shook his leg long enough and hard enough to rouse him from his drunkenness. The sight of three strange men standing by his bed startled him. He backed away from them, scrambling to the other end of the bed, then he recognized Uncle Wally. He'd lost some hair, put on a few pounds. How long had it been? The family never got together; in fact, the family strove mightily to avoid one another.

Baxter rubbed his eyes, then his temples. A skull-cracking headache arrived suddenly. He looked at Uncle Wally, then at the two strangers. "Well, well," he said. "How's Aunt Rochelle?"

Rochelle had been the first of Walter's wives, but she was the only one Baxter ever remembered. She had terrified him as a child, and he would always despise her.

"She died last year," Walter said.

"That's just awful. What brings you to L.A.?" He kicked off his loafers and wrapped his arms around a pillow. It was now obvious where this was going.

"We're taking a trip, Baxter. The four of us. We're gonna check you into another clinic, sober you up, then see if they can put you back together."

"So this is an intervention?"

"Yes."

"Groovy. Happens all the time out here. It's a miracle a single movie ever gets made with all the damned intervening that goes on in Hollywood. Everybody's always getting asked to help with an intervention. I mean, look, you're not going to believe this, but two months ago I took part in an intervention. A link, that's what I was called, but I guess you guys know all about that. Can you imagine? I'm sitting in a hotel room with these other links, some I know, some I don't, and poor Jimmy walks in, beer in hand, and gets absolutely ambushed. His brother sits him down, then we go around the room and tell the poor boy what a miserable piece of shit he is. Made him cry, but then they always cry, don't they? I cried, didn't I? Now I remember. You should've heard me lecturing Jimmy about the evils of vodka and cocaine. If he hadn't been crying so hard, he would've come after me. Could I have a glass of water? Who are you?"

"They're with me," Uncle Wally said.

"I figured."

One of the specialists handed Baxter a bottle of water. He drained it in one long, noisy slurp with water splashing down his chin. "Got any painkillers?" he said desperately. They handed over some pills and another bottle of water. When he had consumed it all, he said, "Where we going this time?"

"Nevada. There's a clinic near Reno, in the mountains, spectacular country."

"It's not a dude ranch, is it? I can't take another thirty days on a horse. My ass is still raw from the last detox."

Uncle Wally was still standing at the foot of the bed. He had not moved a step. "No horses this time. It's a different kind of place."

"Oh, really. I hear they're all the same. Folks here are always talking about their latest rehab. Always comparing notes. Great way to pick up girls in a bar." He spoke with his eyes closed tightly as the pain rippled through his head.

"No, this is different."

"How so?"

"It's a bit tougher, and you'll be there longer."

"Do tell. How long?"

"As long as it takes."

"Can I just promise to stop drinking right now and skip the whole damned thing?"

"No."

"And I'm assuming that since you're here and since you're the big chief of this sorry little tribe my participation is not exactly voluntary?"

"Right."

"Because if I say go to hell, get out of my house, I'm calling the police because the three of you broke in, and that there's no way I'm taking a trip with you  -  if I say all that, then you'll simply bring up the trust funds. Right?"

"Right."

The nausea hit like lightning. Baxter bolted from the bed, shedding his sport coat as he stumbled through the door to the bathroom. The vomiting was loud and long and mixed with waves of profanities. He washed his face, looked at his swollen red eyes in the mirror, and admitted that a few days of sobriety was not a bad idea. But he couldn't imagine a whole lifetime with no booze and no drugs.

The trust funds had been established by a great-grandfather who had no idea what he was doing. In the days before private jets and luxury yachts and cocaine and countless other ways to burn the family fortune, the prudent thing to do was to preserve the money for future generations. But Baxter's grandfather had seen the warning signs. He hired the lawyers and changed the trusts so that a board of advisers could exercise a measure of discretion. Some of the money arrived each month and allowed Baxter to survive quite comfortably without working. But the serious money could be turned off like a spigot, and Uncle Wally controlled it with an iron fist.

If Uncle Wally said you were going to rehab, then you were about to dry out.

Baxter stood in the bathroom door, leaning on the facing, and looked at the three. They had not budged. He looked at the specialist nearest to him and said, "You guys here to break my thumbs if I put up a fight?"

"No," came the reply.

"Let's go, Baxter," Walter said.

"Do I pack?"

"No."

"Your jet?"

"Yes."

"Last time I was allowed to get hammered."

"The clinic says you can drink all you want on the ride in. The bar is stocked."

"How long's the flight?"

"Ninety minutes."

"I'll have to drink fast."

"I'm sure you can handle that."

Baxter waved his arms and looked around his bedroom. "What about my place? The bills, the maid, the mail?"

"I'll take care of everything. Let's go."

Baxter brushed his teeth, combed his hair, changed his shirt, then followed Uncle Wally and the other two outside and into a black van. They rode in silence for a few minutes, but the tension was finally broken by the sounds of Baxter crying in the rear seat.