City of Dreams (52 page)

There was no real evidence of sexual assault. And as for the only witness? The driver? On the Arsenault payroll.

So, she would put that experience in a dark corner, as other young women probably had. And she would never leave herself alone with Arsenault again. And if she could ever find a way to hurt him, she would.

But what about Owen T. Magee? Could she trust him any longer?

He came into the office at nine o’clock that morning, so whatever had called him away had not called him far. And he seemed—what?—cool to her for the rest of the week. But she did get a good Christmas bonus.

iii.

So she told herself she had to trust Owen T. Magee, because he put such trust in her. But she never really liked him after that.

She became “the minder” of certain male clients who were happy to know that Owen T. was looking over her shoulder while
they
got to look at her. The pay was good, but when he introduced her to yet another old guy whose eyes lingered a little too long on her high heels and shapely legs, she felt that her boss was just pimping her.

And there were plenty of old guys becoming new clients in the next few years because Owen T. Magee set out to make Magee & Magee the estate lawyer to the stars.

Not all the New York stars were on Broadway, however. There were stars on Wall Street, and in the publishing houses and agencies from Midtown to Madison Square, and at law firms all over the island. And some people were stars simply because they lived in some of the richest real estate on earth. In fact, there were more stars, making more star money, in New York City than anywhere
else
on earth. And by using every legal strategy to protect the star money, Magee and his partners got to make star money of their own.

So he was soon living in a co-op overlooking Central Park, renting a corner of the basement for his collection of ’82 Bordeaux, and as Jennifer discovered late one night, indulging a very expensive habit.

She had to return to the office to pick up some papers. She came down the dark hallway and heard sounds from his office. And there were two long, leggy women, one white and blond, the other almost cobalt black. The white girl was sitting in Owen’s desk chair, completely naked, with her legs hooked up on the armrests. The black girl was on her knees in front of the chair, and Owen T. Magee, of the widow’s peak and pallid skin and obviously bony ass, was kneeling behind the black girl and . . .

Jennifer turned and hurried out, certain that Owen T. Magee could not command such an event without the application of thick poultices of cash.

So . . . they all had their foibles.

But what the hell? It was the eighties . . . in New York.

So Jennifer went to parties. She fell in and out of love. She had affairs with men her own age and twenty years older. She drank. She even tried a few toots of the white powder, but it didn’t do much for her. She was glad of that, because a taste for cocaine would never benefit an officer of the court.

D
R.
S
MITH CONTINUED
his association with Magee & Magee, and annually extolled the superb service that Jennifer Wilson delivered to him and his museum. She had even educated herself about the differences between the British Brown Bess and the French Charleville musket, just to impress him on her trips to Westchester.

All of this led to annual raises, so she moved from old Bethune Street to a high-rent building on Abingdon Square. At the age of twenty-eight, she had a sunken living room and a balcony with a fabulous view of the World Trade Center.

And then, over lunch on a January day in 1991, Dr. Smith returned to a subject he had not spoken of since that pre-Christmas dinner three years earlier: his grandson.

Jennifer said, “You mean the ne’er-do-well who wanted to get into computers? You never brought him up again. So I never did.”

“Because he decided to take a few years and sail around the Caribbean.”

They were eating in the greenhouse room of the Italian Pavilion on Fifty-fifth. She’d never been here before. Dr. Smith liked it because it was a favorite of the William Morris agents who worked in the building at the corner, and he once he had seen James Michener lunching here with his agent. He counted that among the great thrills of his life.

“Don’t look now,” she said, “but I think Gore Vidal just walked in.”

Dr. Smith sniffed. “I’m not interested in him. Did you ever read what he said about George Washington in
Burr
?”

She leaned across the table. “Back to your grandson sailing the Caribbean.”

“Everybody thought it was another ne’er-do-well thing to do. His father, his mother. . . . But you know”—Dr. Smith looked around at all the plants growing happily on a gray winter day—“maybe he was right to do it. I wish I had traveled more, seen more exotic plants in bloom instead of in a restaurant.”

“I’ll take Manhattan,” she said.

“Now the boy has an idea. It has something to do with computers. There’s this thing called the Internet that’s”—the doctor looked through windows—“up there someplace. And he has this company that has these platforms and programs and, well . . . I don’t understand any of it, but it’s the new technology.”

“Have you discussed it with Arsenault?”

“He says he’s ready to offer capital. He says this company is called a start-up, basically a few smart guys with an idea. The boy estimates that he’ll need four million to leverage ten more in loans. So I want to redraft my will, open the corpus of the family trust. My grandson says his partner, Dmitri Donovan, has what they call an angel, too.”

“Dmitri Donovan?”

The doctor chuckled. “Yes. American father, Russian mother. It’s the mother’s family connections. I want you to meet my grandson and talk with him. Call it your due diligence before we sit down with Mr. Magee.”

S
O
J
ENNIFER MET
John Smith for lunch a few days later. They went to a little favorite of hers called Novita, near the Flatiron.

She took one look at this young guy, who seemed so wide-eyed and yet so savvy, and she decided that she did not want to go back to work that afternoon. She wanted to go to bed with him.

Not professional? Sure.

But he was six feet tall and built like a surfer. He wore tight jeans and a leather jacket over a turtleneck. And he knew this Internet stuff backwards and forwards, but he acted as if he didn’t quite know it all because there was just so much yet to discover.

And maybe, she thought, he might need somebody to discover it with him.

The first course came. Caesar salad.
Be cool
.

The second course came. Veal piccata.
Stay cool
.

Dessert. He suggested tiramisu with two forks.

Oh, shit, she thought.
Two forks
.

And she heard herself saying, “How about a little limoncello to go with it?”

They ended the afternoon in her bed. She called in sick. She was anything but.

T
HAT
S
ATURDAY
,
HE
introduced her to his partner, Dmitri Donovan.

Dmitri was the research brain but nobody’s idea of a front man. Skinny, pallid, sarcastic, and smarter than Einstein, especially when he started talking about bits and bytes and the many ways to achieve personal nirvana while playing something called Final Fantasy.

“He knows it all,” said John, whom Jennifer had taken to calling “Smitty.”

“You’re damn right,” said Dmitri. “And the best of both worlds . . . Irish last name and relatives in Brighton Beach. And they all love me. My mother’s uncle, Andrei Antonov, will put up half the money.”

“So,” said Smitty, “I need two million from my uncle’s trust. Then Dmitri and I start off fifty-fifty . . . as equals. We each bring an angel.”

T
HE FOLLOWING WEEK
: the big meeting, on one of those brilliant, bitter January days when the Empire State Building sparkled like a giant crystal rising into the sky.

Owen T. Magee now occupied his late father’s office, the one with the view.

Austin Arsenault came because his firm continued to handle investments from the trust. It was plain that he did not want the Smith portfolio emptied. He also had a proposal, and he had brought his accountant, Carl Evers.

The three of them had their heads together when Jennifer brought Dr. Smith and his grandson into the office. Owen was whispering to the other two.

Jennifer knew what he was saying, because he had already said it to her: “There’s a way into the trust. But we aren’t telling Dr. Smith because if we break into it to fund a start-up, we lose control of it and Dr. Smith probably loses his money.”

She expected that they were more concerned about the control. “Isn’t that unethical?” she had asked.

“Not at all.” Magee had responded. “We are simply protecting a client and his money from himself and his family.”

Now there were greetings all around, everyone took a seat, and before John Smith had a chance to make a case, Owen T. Magee said, “Mr. Evers has something to say.”

“Yes,” said Evers. “I’ve been doing an analysis of operating expenses in a high-tech start-up like this and I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to operate is not to invade the trust, but to borrow the money. Mr. Arsenault has brought together several investors who can offer venture capital.”

“Venture capital?” said Dr. Smith. “Isn’t that what I’m providing?”

Owen T. Magee said, “Your trust is your security, Doctor, now and in the future. You don’t mortgage future certainties for present possibilities.”

“Where would we be,” asked Dr. Smith, “if George Washington and Alexander Hamilton thought that way? What if the Continental Congress had not done all that it could, even backing those New Emission Bonds in 1780, in order to gamble future certainties for present possibilities?”

That was the first time that Jennifer had heard mention of the bonds in more than three years. And nicely used, she thought. Good for something at last.

“A revolution is not the same as a business venture,” said Arsenault. “Don’t you agree, Miss Wilson?”

She flicked her eyes toward him. He always pretended to defer to her in any meeting, as if he was still trying to get into her panty hose, the son of a bitch.

She said, “Perhaps a business venture like this is the modern equivalent of a revolution.”

John Smith, the subject of this debate, leaned back and laughed. “You have to admit it, she’s good, Mr. Magee. She’s very good.”

Dr. Smith said, “So I’d like to know what she thinks about redrafting.”

Owen T. Magee had already prepared her: “Keep your mouth shut. Don’t offer any opinion contrary to ours.” Now he was hunched down in his chair, his brow furrowed, his eyes shifting.
Tricky Dick?
Tricky Owen.

“Go on,” said John Smith to his new lover. “Say what you think.”

“Yes,” said Doctor Smith.

Jennifer Wilson knew that she was about to close a chapter, but she would be opening another. “Mr. Magee and I both know a way into the corpus of the trust, entirely legal and easily done. And John Smith may be the smartest man in this room. So I say do it.”

Owen T. Magee almost spit.

Dr. Smith said, “There’s my smart girl.”

Austin Arsenault gave a disgusted laugh, like a man putting his unused prick back into his pants.

Accountant Carl Evers wrote a series of notes about how quick she was on her feet. He showed them to her later when they became friends and, for a brief time, lovers.

T
HE TRUST
was reopened so that Dr. Gary Smith could invest in the future.

The mission statement of Intermetro proclaimed that it would “provide new platforms for Internet connection in urban environments.”

John Smith took one seat in the board as president. Two seats went to the Smith family, one to Doctor Gary and one to Owen T. Magee, as trust representative. Dmitri Donovan’s family received two seats, one for Dmitri and one for his cousin, businessman Yuri Antonov, whose father had been the Russian “angel.” Two other seats went to thought leaders in the field, an NYU math professor and an expert in router hardware, the “gateway” technology of the moment.

Jennifer Wilson joined as in-house counsel and compliance officer. She was also living with the company president.

They would all get rich . . . on air, and they would end up floating.

FIFTEEN

Thursday Morning

A
ROUND ELEVEN FORTY
, Henry knocked on the door.

“You look like a lawyer,” said Evangeline.

He was wearing a three-piece brown suit. He tugged at the tie. “The party of the first part shall hereby be known as the party of the first part. So let’s party in Times Square. Smoke this Berra boy out, ’cause if he’s as good with a gun as you say, we may need him on our side.”

“Why?”

“Those pictures from last night.” Henry stepped into the apartment, went over to his computer and called up the photos that Peter had taken with his cell. “Those are very bad boys in those pictures. How’d your friend Delancey get hooked up with them?”