The Associate (29 page)

“It does.”

“I assaulted a girl one time. She’s on my list.”

The turkey on rye froze halfway down the esophagus. Joey kept chewing, but the food wasn’t moving. “You don’t say.”

“Elaine Keenan, remember her? She claimed we raped her at a party in our apartment.”

“How could I forget?”

“Do you ever think about her, Joey? She went to the police. Scared the hell out of us. We almost hired lawyers. I tried my best to forget about it, and I almost did. But now that I’m sober and my mind is clear, I’m remembering things better. We took advantage of that girl, Joey.”

Joey placed the sandwich aside. “Maybe your memory is not as sharp as you think. What I remember is a wild girl who loved to party, loved to drink and snort coke, but what she loved the most was random sex. We did not take advantage of anyone. At least I did not. If you want to revise history, then go ahead, but don’t include me.”

“She passed out. I went first, and while I was doing it, I realized she’d blacked out. Then I remember you walked up to the sofa and you said something like ‘Is she awake?’ Do you remember any of this, Joey?”

“No.” Portions of it were familiar, but Joey wasn’t sure anymore. He’d worked so hard to forget the
episode, then he’d been shocked back to reality when Kyle described the video.

“She claimed she was raped. Maybe she was right.”

“No way, Baxter. Allow me to refresh your memory. You and I had sex with her the night before. Evidently she liked it, because on the night in question we bumped into her again and she said, ‘Let’s go.’ She consented before we got back to our apartment.”

Another long pause as each tried to anticipate what was next.

“You thinking about having a little chat with Elaine?” Joey asked.

“Maybe. I need to do something, Joey. I don’t feel right about what happened.”

“Come on, Baxter, we were all drunk out of our minds. The whole night was a blur.”

“Oh, the wonders of alcohol. We do things we don’t remember. We hurt others because of our selfishness. And when we finally sober up, we are compelled to at least apologize.”

“Apologize? Let me tell you a quick story, Brother Baxter. I bumped into Elaine a few weeks ago. She lives in Scranton. I was passing through on business, saw her in a deli during lunch. I tried to be civil, she freaked out on me, called me a rapist. I suggested we get together a few hours later for a polite cup of coffee. She showed up with her lawyer, a real tough broad who thinks all men are scum. So let’s say you go over to Scranton, find her, and tell her you’re sorry because there’s a good chance she was telling the truth after all, and you want to feel better about yourself because now you’re sober and you have this desire to
be a good little alcoholic. Know what’ll happen, Baxter? Indictments, arrests, trials, lawsuits, prison—all of the above. And not just for you, Brother Baxter, but for some of your friends as well.”

A brief gap as Joey caught his breath. He had Baxter on the ropes, time to finish him off. “Her lawyer explained that the statute of limitations on rape is twelve years in Pennsylvania, so time has not expired. We got a long way to go. You get near her with some half-baked, feel-good apology and you’ll find out what rape is all about when they lock you away.”

Joey jumped to his feet, walked across the boardwalk, and spat at the rivers. He returned to the bench but didn’t sit down. Baxter hadn’t moved, but he was shaking his head.

“She wanted the sex, Baxter, and we were happy to accommodate her. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

“I’ve got to talk to her.”

“Hell no! You’re not going near her until the four of us—me, you, Kyle, and Alan—have a long discussion. That’ll be ugly, won’t it?”

“I need to talk to Kyle. He has more sense than the rest of us.”

“Yes, he does, but he has a crushing workload. Tremendous stress.” Joey tried to imagine such a meeting between the two. Kyle, thinking about the video, while Baxter and his amazing new memory confirm the details. It would be a disaster.

“I’ll go to New York,” Baxter said.

“Don’t do it.”

“Why not? I’d like to see Kyle.”

“Okay, but if you talk to Kyle, then talk to Alan,
too. Everybody talks for a good long time before you go blundering into Scranton and screw up our lives. I’m telling you, Baxter, this girl is out for blood and her lawyer has a nose for it.”

Another long gap in the conversation. Joey finally sat down and thumped his pal on the knee. Just a couple of old frat brothers who still cared for each other. “You can’t do this, Baxter,” Joey said with as much conviction as he could muster. At the moment, he was thinking about his own skin. How would he tell Blair, who was now five months pregnant?
“Hey, babes, just got a phone call. Seems they want me downtown, something about a rape charge. Could be serious. Might not be home for dinner. Someone said reporters are waiting. Catch it on Channel 4. Later. Hugs and kisses.”

“I’m not sure about what happened, Joey,” Baxter said, softly and slowly as ever. “But I know what I did was wrong.”

“My uncle, the alcoholic, when he went through AA, he made a list, too. He had stolen a rifle from my father, and he saved his money until he could buy another one. Brought it to the house one night, big surprise, big scene. But if I remember correctly, you, as the alcoholic working your way through the Twelve Steps process, cannot make amends if doing so will harm others. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Then there’s your answer. If you approach her and beg forgiveness, she and her lawyer will go nuts and drag in me and probably Kyle and Alan as well. You can’t do it, because it will harm us.”

“If you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to
worry about. I’m confronting what I did, and what I did was wrong.”

“This is crazy, Baxter. Look, you’re clean and sober and full of the gospel, good for you. I’m very proud of you. The future looks great, yet you’re willing to throw it all away and risk twenty years in prison. Come on! This is madness.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Get your ass back to Reno or somewhere far away and forget about this. Go live a great life out there. Just leave us alone.”

Two policemen walked by, laughing, and Joey stared at the handcuffs on their belts.

“You can’t do this, Baxter,” he said. “Give it some time. Pray about it. Talk to your minister.”

“I have already.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said to be cautious.”

“Smart guy. Look, you’re in a state of transition right now. Everything is unsettled. You’re out of L.A., you’re clean and sober. All good stuff. Again, I’m proud of you. But it’s a mistake to rush off and do something foolish.”

“Let’s walk,” Baxter said and slowly rose to his feet. They strolled along the river, saying little, watching the boats.

“I really want to see Kyle,” Baxter finally said.

I
n the four and a half months Kyle had lived in his grim little apartment, he had managed to avoid having guests. Dale had asked about it a few times, then let the matter drop. Kyle described his place as a dump with almost no furnishings, lukewarm water, bugs, and uninsulated walls. He claimed to be looking for something much nicer, but then what first-year associate had time to look for an apartment? The truth was that he wanted a dump for that very reason—he could keep guests away, and in doing so avoid the risks of having their conversations listened to and recorded. Though he had not attempted to rid the place of mikes and electronic bugs, he knew they were there. He suspected there were cameras, always watching, and since he had lulled them into believing that he was clueless about their surveillance, he went through the motions each day of living pretty much like a hermit. Intruders came and went, at least one per week, but there were no invited guests.

Dale was content to meet at her place. She had a
fear of bugs. If you only knew, thought Kyle. My apartment has every kind of bug known to the covert world.

They eventually managed to sleep together without actually falling asleep beforehand. Both collapsed shortly afterward. They had violated firm policy on at least four occasions and had no plans to stop.

When Baxter called and asked if he could crash at Kyle’s for a few days, Kyle was ready with a string of lies that were mildly convincing. Joey had sent a Mayday call from his desk phone to Kyle’s just minutes after he’d said goodbye to Baxter. “We gotta do something,” Joey said over and over until Kyle told him to shut up.

The idea of Baxter lounging around his apartment and talking at length about the Elaine episode was almost too much to imagine. Kyle could see Bennie with his technicians, clutching his headphones, listening to Baxter preach about the need to confront the past, admit everything, and so on. If the Elaine episode blew up back in Pittsburgh, Kyle would be dragged into it at some level, and Bennie would risk losing his leverage in New York.

“Sorry, Bax,” Kyle said happily on his cell phone. “I have only one bedroom, if you can call it that, and my cousin has been sleeping on the sofa for a month. She’s in New York looking for a job, and, well, I gotta say, the place is cramped.”

Baxter checked into the Soho Grand. They met for a late pizza at an all-night joint on Bleecker Street in the Village. Kyle picked the place because he’d been there before and, as always, had taken notes on its suitability for future use. One door in and out, large front windows that faced the sidewalk, lots of noise, and it was too small for one of the bloodhounds to
enter without being noticed. Kyle arrived at 9:45, fifteen minutes early so he could secure a booth and sit facing the door. He pretended to be engrossed in a thick document, the tireless associate ever dedicated to his work.

Baxter was wearing the same dungarees, sweater, and combat boots Joey had described. They embraced, then fell into the booth talking nonstop. They ordered soft drinks, and Kyle said, “I talked to Joey. Congrats on the rehab. You look great.”

“Thanks. I’ve thought about you a lot in the past few months. You quit drinking during our sophomore year, right?”

“Right.”

“I can’t remember why.”

“A counselor told me that the drinking would only get worse. I didn’t have a serious problem, but one was definitely foreseeable. So I quit. Didn’t touch a drop until a few weeks ago, when I had some wine. So far, so good. If I get worried, I’ll quit again.”

“I had three bleeding ulcers when they took me in. I thought about suicide, but I didn’t really want to do it because I’d miss the vodka and cocaine. I was a mess.”

They ordered a pizza and talked for a long time about the past, primarily Baxter’s. He unloaded story after story about the last three years in L.A.—trying to break into the movie business, the parties, the drug scene, the gorgeous young girls from every small town in America doing everything physically possible to either get a break or marry rich. Kyle listened intently while keeping an eye on the front door and the front windows. Nothing.

They talked about their old friends, Kyle’s new job,
Baxter’s new life. After an hour, when the pizza was gone, they eventually got around to more pressing matters. “I guess Joey told you about Elaine,” Baxter said.

“Of course he did. It’s a bad idea, Baxter. I understand the law, and you don’t. You’re walking into quicksand and you could take us with you.”

“But you did nothing. Why are you worried?”

“Here’s a scenario,” Kyle said, leaning closer, eager to unveil a narrative he’d thought about for hours. “You go see Elaine, looking for some type of redemption, forgiveness, whatever you think you might find there. You apologize to someone you once hurt. Maybe she turns the other cheek and accepts your apology, and you two have a nice hug and say goodbye. That probably will not happen. What is much more likely to happen is that she chooses not to take the Christian approach, doesn’t give a rip about this cheek-turning business, and decides, with the advice of a pretty nasty lawyer, that what she really wants is justice. She wants vindication. She cried rape once and nobody listened. You, with the best intentions, will vindicate her with your awkward apology. She feels violated now, and she likes being the victim. Her lawyer starts to push, and things unravel quickly. There’s a prosecutor in Pittsburgh who, not surprisingly, likes to see his face on the front page. Like all prosecutors, he’s tired of the mundane, the gang shootings, the daily street crime. Suddenly he has a chance to go after four white boys from Duquesne, and one just happens to be a Tate. Not only a Great White Defendant, but four of them! Talk about headlines, press conferences, interviews. He’ll be the hero, and we’ll be the criminals. Of course we
are entitled to a trial, but that’s a year away, a year of absolutely terrifying hell. You can’t do it, Baxter. You’ll hurt too many people.”

“What if I offer her money? A deal with only two parties, me and her?”

“It might work. I’m sure she and her lawyer would enjoy those discussions. But offering money implies guilt, an admission of some sort. I don’t know Elaine, and neither do you, but given Joey’s encounter, it’s safe to say she is not too stable. We can’t predict how she will react. It’s too risky.”

“I can’t live with myself until I talk to her, Kyle. I feel like I harmed her in some way.”

“Got that. It sounds great in the AA handbook, but it’s a different matter when other people are involved. You have to forget about this and put it behind you.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“There’s an element of selfishness here, Baxter. You want to do something that you think will make you feel better. Well, good for you. What about the rest of us? Your life will be more complete, our lives could be ruined. You’re dead wrong here. Leave this girl alone.”

“I can apologize to Elaine without admitting I committed a crime. I’ll just say that I was wrong and want to apologize.”

“Her lawyer is not stupid, and her lawyer will be sitting there with a tape recorder, probably a video camera.” Kyle took a sip of a diet soda and had a quick flashback to the first video. If Baxter saw it now, saw himself tag-teaming with Joey while Elaine was motionless, his guilt would crush him.