No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (4 page)

"The SEC," I told him, "is taking
testimony from a guy named Wood, Edgar Wood. What I want to know is
simple. Where is he? What's he saying?"

"I have a friend over at Justice."

"No. Justice won't be in on this one. There's a
glory shortage these days, and besides, keeping it in-house protects
the investigation."

"How's that?" he asked.

"Wood is an attorney and he's talking about his
former client. If he were talking to somebody at Justice, or any
other law-enforcement group, his testimony would be flat-out illegal.
It would also be open to discovery and he could be deposed."

"Interesting. Very slick," Willie said
admiringly. The wind came from the east, throwing the rain at a
slant. We edged around the sheltering curve of our tribute to Thomas
Jefferson. When we were facing west the angle of the wind and wall
gave us a dry spot. Willie took a "bullet" out of his
pocket. He manipulated it around so that the cocaine in the bottom
dropped into the little cup of the crossbar. Another twist and the
cup heed up into an aperture at the top. A quick practiced set of
gestures that ended with a deep snort. He repeated it for the other
nostril. Balance. He offered me some.

I wanted it. When I took it I would want more. No
matter how much more there was, eventually I would have to deal with
coming down. I concentrated on the ashes of coming down.

"Thanks anyway," I said. He shrugged and
helped himself again.

"Let's say," Willie said, chemically
inspired, "let's say I number among my friends a congressional
aide whose boss likes to make an issue of corporate abuse. Without
naming names . . ."

"Of course. "

". . . let's say my friend approaches the SEC.
His congressman, he says, is interested in corporate abuses of
securities regs. Even that, like he wants to strengthen enforcement
capability. You know, he wants to start hearings, but he needs a
juicy case, something ripe."

"It sounds real time-consuming," I said.

"In a rush, are we?"

"Yeah. "

"I'll do what I can."

"Go to hell, Willie. Find a way to do it. Waltz
over, use your boss's name. Over & East is a New York
corporation; the Exchange is in New York; if it affects the Apple,
it's your business. "

"The regulatory agencies are tough. They're
insulated. You gotta, you know, coax 'em."

"OK, I'll give you an easy one. To start with. I
want to know who's on the investigation. A guy named Brodsky, Mel, he
has his name attached to the press stories. Find out if he's the man.
If he's not, find out who is."

"You got it," he promised. "Gimme a
couple of days."

"Let's do this on New York time, shall we, not
D.C. time. It's not even lunch yet. Get it for me by the end of the
day. "

"Fuck off," he said.

"OK, how long, Willie?"

"As the guy on the toilet seat said,"
Willie said, "as long as it takes. "

"Don't make me push you, 'cause I will. It
wasn't so long ago you and your man had your asses in a sling. Do it
before your bottle runs dry."

"OK, OK, you want it, you got it."

"I'm at the Watergate," I told him. "And
get me addresses, phone numbers, all that."

"I'll move it as fast as I can," he
promised and shook my hand as if it meant a lot. I turned and walked
away. He called out, "Hey, don't you need a ride?" But I
kept walking. "Take care of yourself," he called wistfully.

I waved over my shoulder without turning and walked
down toward the river. The sky was muddy and the muddy gray river was
coated with scum. The job could be routine. Not really so different
than planting a little listener to prove that the unloving and
unloved spouse was doing a rub-a-dub-dub and a humpty-dumpty with
anonymous strangers so there would either be lots more or lots less
alimony. Or than finding out the thief was inside and was the
son-in-law. Or locate the runaway to rind out that she should have
gotten the hell out of where she ran from.

But it could get closer to the line. I hated prisons.
I understood Edgar Wood's panic. I understood every punk in the world
who sold out his friends to stay on the outside. Something ached in
me to play touch and go with the line that had bars on the far side.
It was the same yearning ache that lurched inside me when Willie
Contact offered me the cool white cocaine. It was in my testicles and
lower bowels. There was a sensation, as if the devil stood behind me.
When I turned to look, there was nothing there, not even my own
shadow.
 

4
THE
LINE

"
THE WORKING TITLE
of my book, the new one," Sandy explained, "is
Over
the Line
, but only the title seems to be
working at the moment, so, yes, take me away from my typewriter and
tell me about Edgar Wood and I'll help you look in restaurants."

The subject of her study, an inevitable one for a
shrink in Washington, was why someone who had everything would risk
it all committing grossly illegal acts just to attain what he
obviously already had. Wood definitely fit that category. It was a
wonderful coincidence. Now both of us had a completely justifiable
desexed rationale for being together. "A question like that
presupposes," I said, "that man is rational, that crime is
an aberration. That aberration is an aberration, and it's not. It's
the real norm."

"Is it?" she asked. "You go over the
line. But I think you do it to find out where it is. And it puts you
in conflict. In a way it helps you to identify with the people you're
after. But it hurts you, because when you bring punishment, you think
you should be punished too.

"
But, I bet, not your Mr. Wood. He thinks his
prosecutors are persecutors. The kind of people I'm studying are
people who are really making it. The eminently successful personality
who, it would seem, has, or can get, everything without crossing the
line. One thing that marks them: David Begelman who was head of
Columbia Pictures and stealing nickels and dimes; or John Mitchell;
or Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan who's been named by Genovese family
bagmen; or Ed Meese who rewards the people who lend him money with
government jobs, is that none of them sees the line. Even when
they're caught, their viewpoint is that they were merely doing
business as usual."

"You can hear that same old song from every
two-bit con at Rikers or Attica, it's no big thing."

"The way you go over the line," she
snapped, "most often is with women. Maybe because that's where
you don't know there is one. But that's boring and you're not the
type I'm interested in. "

Some of that wasn't true. But I didn't argue, a sign
of wisdom and maturity.

"Another thing," Sandy said, still trying
to transform simplicities like greed into the complexity of a
personality profile, "is that they're all overachievers. Watch
out for overachievers."

"Your husband," I said. The psychologist
psyched, the Freudian had slipped and it showed. We always understood
each other too well.

"We always understood each other too well,"
she sighed, smiling. "Maybe I should have let you marry me."

"That's why you
didn't."

* * *

Lawrence Choate Haven had provided me with photos of
Wood. A Washington clipping service had photos of Mel Brodsky from
his promotion to litigator. Sandra had made a list of the capital's
twelve most ostentatious restaurants based on my theory that no man
making the kind of money Wood earned gets into a position where he
has to steal $8 million unless he has the most obvious and
ostentatious tastes. The
maitre d'
at the Four Seasons recognized Wood. I tipped what I call lavishly.
He did not appear impressed.

The
maitre d'
at Leone d'Or, though a little haut for my taste, put the two photos
together as dinner companions. Which told me that Wood was in the
D.C. area and that Brodsky was at least one of his interrogators.
When I called Mr. Brodsky at the SEC he was not in, but they offered
to take a message. I asked if he would be in later. They didn't know.
Tomorrow? They didn't know, but they could take a message. I
concluded that Mr. Brodsky was off, wherever they kept Wood, merrily
deposing.

Sandy drove me back to the Watergate. I expected to
be dropped off, but she climbed out and let the valet take the car.

The elevator was crowded and warm. Sandy opened her
coat. In Miami, in August, the mangoes come into season. Their erotic
shapes hang so heavy the branches curve down, they're so rich and
ripe, that it's possible for a man to get an erection looking at a
tree. Sandy's breasts remind me of mango season, or vice versa, and
the three middle-aged, midwestern men in the elevator practically
turned corners with their eyes in a desperate search for cleavage.
They had three wives who were not fruit fanciers.

"I've never seen you in action before,"
Sandy drawled; "you have some good moves, and I'm looking
forward to more." She topped it off with an extra swing in her
walk when we stepped out. She was angry about something.

Her anger stayed with her while she waited through my
phone calls. Willie Contact had Brodsky's address and phone number,
in suburban Maryland. Willie acted like he was a hero to come up with
so much.

I called Joey D' in New York. The man might be old,
but he moves on New York time, and he would get me more by the hour
than Willie did by the day. I asked him to find out what kind of
wheels Brodsky had, the plate number, and his credit status. He asked
me if I had seen Sandy.

"Yes," I admitted, looking at her.

He grunted.

"She's happily married, or at least thoroughly
married, and has no interest in me." She mouthed the word
"liar," and I continued, "But she has been of great
help, strictly in the investigative sense."

He promised to get what I needed by live and hung up.

"A great scoundrel has reformed," Sandy
said bitterly, "and the women of the world don't know what
they're missing."

"In all the time we went together," I
replied, "I never saw you angry."

"You never saw me married. "

"I can understand my marriage going wrong,"
I said. "I blamed it on her, of course, but I don't think any
woman would have been entirely satisfied with my attitude. You know,
when she would ask which was more important, her or my work, I would
actually say work. Then she would ask if I would always be true. I
would say, I don't know. Just because they were honest answers is no
excuse."

"A great scoundrel sees the error of his ways!
Da-dum da-dum!"

"But you're smarter than I am, and any man who
got you is lucky to have you."

"The man that got me," Sandy said,
"sometirnes thinks that marriage is a prison."

"Prison," I said, "is not a metaphor.
There is nothing that is like a prison."

"And he thinks freedom is anything under
twenty-five with quick-release pants." She glared at me. "You
should understand that. That's not far from your style."

"Is it gonna help if I go to bed with you,"
I slapped back, "or is it gonna help if I don't?" Then I
was sorry and said, "Would it help if I told you you're one of
the most marvelous women I've ever met? Special. Lovely. That I want
you desperately. That when you talk, I listen because I trust your
intelligence. That when you left me it was ashes in my mouth. Because
that's all true. That's the way I think of you."

She nodded "yes, " then she said, "Have
you ever noticed that life is a damned cliché? Frankly I'm insulted
by that; I thought I was too good to live a cliché."

"Sandy, life is worse than a cliché. It's a
country-and-western song."
 

5
COWBOYS

MEL BRODSKY HAD
a wife,
Priscilla, and two children, ages two and four. He had a six-year-old
Buick and a one-year-old diesel Rabbit. The Buick was blue; the
Rabbit was yellow, and he still owed money on it. He lived in an
attached townhouse in a development just outside Gaithersburg,
Maryland. $78,00 was still due on that.

If he wasn't a stay-at-home guy, he was in big
trouble. The development was called River Oaks. I assumed that meant
that it had neither, but I was wrong; there was one oak by the sign
marking the entrance. The development also had a school, supermarket,
rec center with two pools. It was its own little world of commuter
living with a choice of garden apartments, townhouses or tract homes.
It was only ten or fifteen years old, and aside from that one oak,
there wasn't a tree thicker than my thigh.

Oak View Lane was a curlicue up a hill that ended in
a cul-de-sac. Three separate flanks of attached townhouses formed a U
around it. Two parking slots were assigned to each of the twenty-two
homes with six extras assigned to visitor parking. It was the sort of
place where a stake-out would blend into the background like a Hassid
at the College of Cardinals.