The Adored (28 page)

Santa and Silvana formed a pact after that night. Nothing would ever come between their friendship.

Santa’s mind returned to reality: How in this entire world can this small beast be here, here at this beautiful party? She pulled Paulo’s arm and walked away.

The young woman from Recife looked puzzled. “Do you know that girl?” she asked Chunk. “She seemed to recognize you, but she just walked away.”

“She recognized me alright,” he said.

“Why didn’t she speak to you?” Lupe asked, followed by another question, “Who is she?”

“Let’s just say an old friend from Puerto Rico,” DeLuna replied. He then spotted one of Barnes’ bankers, and DeLuna walked in his direction. Lupe looked over her shoulder towards Santa Alba as Chunk nudged her forward.

The other men here this night at Jonathan Barnes invitation were not as grotesque as DeLuna, but some were just as evil. Not the businessmen who created jobs, enabled meaningful lives, made products, and paid taxes. Not them, they weren’t all good but most were. The evil lied in the non-productive set, the leeches, the skimmers, and the hangers on. Dressed in fine clothes, ladies in silk gowns, men in tuxedos, all sporting rich tans at the beginning of summer, they lived a life none of them knew in their families growing up. It was a life they would not relinquish under any circumstances. What they had was theirs; others would have to fend for themselves just as they had. Even now, survival was important, more important.

Chapter 39

After Harvard Law, Gideon Bridge joined Bridge Law, run by his grandfather Roy Bridge. He spent his first two years litigating. By twenty-four he was supervising junior lawyers; at twenty-six he was managing a section and its P&L statement. When he turned twenty-seven, he was the firm’s youngest partner. At least daily he and his grandfather discussed cases, what assignments should be made and what Gideon should be thinking of next. As the recession had ended, they talked of beefing up the mergers and acquisitions area.

Gideon Bridge knew corporate law but absorbed more of it daily. He spent prodigious amounts of time every month learning and staying current with new law that was constantly being made in the court rooms of the world. Corporate law was becoming boundaryless. Giant global companies were in every country in the world; precedents established in one country were quickly being adopted in other countries. He used his firm’s electronic data bases and internet subscription services to research in depth the thinking behind landmark cases. He loved the law and his grandfather for mentoring him into it. It was not unusual for the older man and his grandson to fly to London to hear lectures on “the origins of English property law,” which created the foundation for much of America’s law on property rights. And when a prominent English executive got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the two would occasionally drop in on a trial at the Old Bailey courthouse.

His spare time in his mid-twenties was devoted almost entirely to catching up with his Brunswick brothers after the lost year and half in Venezuela with his Mormon fling. More recently where he spent his time was shifting; a new interest had formed.

It began one winter night after a business dinner in lower Manhattan. As he walked into the bitter cold, a cold blown in by a west wind whipping off the Hudson River, a young homeless girl was begging outside the restaurant on Chambers Street. The temperature that day did not rise above twenty degrees, setting the stage for a ten-degree night.

Gideon reached in his pocket and pulled out some change, probably a dollar fifty in quarters. He placed them in the girl’s outstretched hands. Hands he noticed that wore no gloves; hands that were, were…blue. He stopped and watched as the half-frozen girl tried to get her right hand to pick the quarters out of her left hand. After fumbling for a moment, she dropped three of them. Gideon stepped forward towards the girl, and she looked up. She could not have been more than seventeen. He bent down, picked the quarters up, and handed them to her again.

“Thanks,” she said weakly.

Gideon took his wool lined leather gloves off and offered them to the girl. She eagerly grabbed them and tried pulling one on. She could not separate her fingers to push them into the finger holes. Gideon tried helping, and as he touched her small hands, they felt hard and cold, like they were dead.

“What’s your name,” he said to her.

“Anne,” she replied with a half-smile.

“Do you live around here?”

“Over in Meatpacking, when I can find boxes.”

Gideon cringed. “Anne, I think you have very bad frost bite on your hands. You need to get to a hospital.”

“I’ll be alright,” and she rose from the steps she was sitting on. “Thanks for the gloves.” And she walked off into the night.

Three nights later Gideon went to the Bowery Mission with ten pairs of gloves. The first time he came to the Bowery Mission he was more interested in knowing their needs at that point. The mission director, a small, thin Irish lady named Karen Kiernan, was profusely grateful. She explained the goals of the Bowery Mission, and while conceived in the great depression in the 1930s to care for souls who found themselves lost, homeless and near starvation as a result of the market crashes, one common denominator over the years was found among these souls: the tendency to turn to alcohol and, in the last twenty years, to drugs of any kind. Kiernan explained some of the drivers of these tendencies were now reversing the process; it was the drugs that were causing loss of jobs, resulting in homelessness.

Beginning every October Gideon regularly brought a bag of fur lined gloves, men’s and women’s, maybe fifty pair in all to the Mission. He does this throughout the winter every month up through March. He could not get the image of the frozen dead hand of Anne out of his mind.

Mrs. Kiernan was grateful for Bridge’s donation, since gloves, something as simple as gloves, were one of the most important items the mission needed during winter months, and despite all the clothing donated to the mission, the one item donors did not seem to think about was gloves.

Having a benefactor like Bridge met some of the Mission’s critical needs and helped to keep the operating budget whole. Some months he brought more gloves depending on needs expressed by Mrs. Kiernan.

By his second year of helping the Mission, Bridge was contributing in other ways. His personal donation had uplifted the budget by 25 percent, enough to allow the mission to bring back the part-time psychiatric counselor let go during the recession when donations nearly dried up. Bridge’s donations were so significant that the budget prior to 2007 was almost completely restored.

Mrs. Kiernan convinced Bridge to come onto the board of the Mission with her. He was heartily welcomed by the other six members: two from Wall Street, one from the Media, one Congressman from the Mission’s district, one retired police commissioner, and one Catholic auxiliary bishop.

In a very short time, Bridge took on other projects for the Mission: providing pro-bono legal representation to many formerly respectable men who had lost everything and gone astray into crimes like burglary, spousal abuse, if there was still a spouse to strike out at, and creating public disturbances.

A strong link existed between the Catholic Church and the Mission. Since its founding there had always been a priest, monsignor, or now, a bishop on the board. And for good reason, more than half of all needy men and women, since the mission started tracking demographic data, were of the Catholic religion.

In Gideon Bridge’s third year helping the Mission and his first year on the board, in a quiet ceremony Mrs. Kiernan, Bishop John Foley and retired police commissioner William Flaherty presented to Gideon Bridge the “Heart of New York” award. No press covered this event; in fact, the other board members did not know it took place. Of the now eight board members, including Bridge, only the four of them knew of the award, except for the eight others who had received the same award over the past seventy years. And while there were no written criteria, the three permanent members currently charged with administering it, Kiernan, Foley and Flaherty, held individual giving from the heart as most important. Additionally, a personal revelation needed to take place to bring the individual to the Mission. In Bridge’s case he related to Kiernan, when he first showed up at the door to help, the story of the homeless waif he gave his gloves to. And it was the searing reminder of the poor girl’s condition that continued to drive Bridge’s spirit, initiating his gloves program, his substantial personal giving to aid the Mission’s needs, his coming onto the board on his own time, and representing the legal needs of the poor on his own and with his firm’s resources. They saw Bridge as having a deep personal commitment to help his fellow man. Gideon Bridge did all that and asked nothing. In fact, his Brunswick brothers knew nothing of it.

Bishop Foley arranged for a private dinner in the rectory of St Patrick’s Cathedral. Just the four individuals were to be at the dinner. The one requirement for this award was that the recipient be Catholic, which Bridge was, by birth, by sacraments, by way of the circuitous route from the Catholic faith to Mormonism and back again, even if not by consistent practice.

While Bridge was aware the board wanted to thank him, he was surprised by the location, that only three members of the board would be there, and that he was asked to say nothing of the event to anyone, board members or otherwise.

When he arrived at the rectory, he was ushered in by Bishop Foley to a private dining room that was set for five places. In short order he found out the fifth place was for Cardinal Patrick Quinn. Bridge was shocked, pleased to meet him, but wondered what was going on. This was more than the simple recognition Mrs. Kiernan had discussed.

To begin the dinner, it was not any of the board members who spoke but Cardinal Quinn.

“My new friend in Jesus, Gideon Bridge. Welcome. I’m afraid you have stumbled onto a most grateful organization charged by the Catholic Church to silently help the neediest among us, those who are in danger of losing their immortal souls,” he paused. “Let us eat, thank Jesus for his sacrifice and yours, and after dinner we will talk more of your good work.”

And they ate in the large room with candle sconces on the walls. In front of each guest at the round table was one round fat candle.

When dinner was over, the Cardinal stood, walked around the table, hugged each of the other three, and thanked them for their service to Christ and their fellow man.

Bridge was on edge now. This had the ring of ceremony about it. It was eerie for him, like something out of a medieval novel he had read. It was taking on a formality he was not comfortable with. He was not a practicing Catholic, and yet, he felt he was at the center of his religion this night. He no longer went to mass or received sacraments. Not that he was ever largely aware of all of the mysteries of the Catholic Church, he wasn’t that interested. He believed in God, at least he had gotten that far. He wasn’t sure if Christ was the Son of God, really, although he believed what Jesus Christ did, believed in the good way Christ lived his life as a model. And while Gideon Bridge led an alternative life style, complete with loving his fellow MAN, he believed fervently that Jesus Christ, man Prophet or Son of God, changed the world forever by his teaching that every life was precious.

“Gideon,” the Cardinal began, “we have asked you here tonight to thank you for the gift of love you so obviously have for your fellow man. And we want to thank you for all those needy men and women you have helped, that you will never meet, until you get to heaven.”

The Cardinal’s words echoed in the dim chamber and now he approached Gideon, hugged him. The Cardinal walked back to his place seating and picked up a small black box. He opened it and walked to Gideon.

Bridge looked at the box. It contained a gold ring. In the center of the ring as it widened was a cross. To the sides of the cross were four quadrants: two smaller and two larger. They had glass in them and beneath the glass was something beige.

The Cardinal lifted the ring out, and said, “Take this Gideon as a symbol of our love for you and our thanks to you. Wear it as a symbol of Christ’s love for his fellow man.”

Bridge stuck out his left hand; he put his ring finger forward. The Cardinal gestured to Bridges right hand which Gideon put forward as the Cardinal placed it on his finger. It slid on easily, a little snug at the knuckle, but an almost perfect fit. Mrs. Kiernan smiled at her good estimate at the Bridge ring size.

“Thank you, your Eminence,” Gideon said, and turning to his fellow board members he said, “This is a little much.”

“It is an early appreciation,” Commissioner Flaherty said, “of all the good work you will do in your life. And he reached his right hand to shake Bridge’s hand when Gideon noticed that the Commissioner had the same ring. As Mrs. Kiernan and Bishop Foley shook his hand, he noticed the same ring on their hands.

Gideon’s suspicion of ceremony rang true. “Something else is going on here,” he smiled seriously, “This ring, our ring, your presence Cardinal Quinn.”

“Bishop Foley told me in addition to a good heart, you had a good brain. Capable of sniffing out a scheme, yes?”

Bridge smiled, he relaxed a bit, “Yes,” he said.

“What we have done tonight,” Cardinal Quinn said, “is welcome you into the Sacred Society of the Heart of Jesus Christ.”