The First Wives Club (36 page)

Today she was going to visit Mr. De Los Santos at the SEC. She walked to her closet and opened the door. The light inside went on, revealing a marvelously ordered selection of simple, elegant clothes, mostly in shades of black, ivory, and beige, but with a splash of color, mostly pink, the color of most of her summer cottons and silks.

Now, what do you wear to the SEC? Annie asked herself. She thought of how uncomfortable Gil had made her feel in her simple little black jersey, and the leering once-over he had given her. I’ve got to be more formal, she thought.

It’s an old, establishment, bureaucratic kind of place. Probably stuffy.

The),‘re into money and law and order, and I need them to take me seriously. I need to be adult and conservative .

She decided on an old classic Chanel suit, the only Chanel she had a beige and black, nubby tweed. With it she could wear a beige silk blouse and beige and black Chanel pumps. And maybe a hat, she thought reaching for the black one with the net veil that she had worn to Cynthia’s funeral.

In the limousine on the way down to Federal Plaza, Annie reviewed what she would say. She hoped she would not feel overwhelmed as she had in Gil’s office. I hope he’s not just a dumb bureaucrat or a corrupt bastard. I hope we’ve got a case.

At Federal Plaza, she found it was no easy matter finding her man.

From reasonably spacious hallways and modern-looking offices she proceeded to the basement and a maze of smaller corridors and tiny, oldfashioned offices with doors holding panes of frosted glass. In one of these, she finally found Miguel De Los Santos.

Her heart sank a bit at the sight of the left-wing posters and slogans, kept, she couldn’t imagine why, from the seventies. But the lawyer himself seemed to be an alert and up-to-date-enough fellow, so she withheld judgment. He was tall, with olive skin and hair as dark as Aaron’s. His face was long and lean, with deep-set, large eyes. As she entered, Miguel De Los Santos whisked off a pair of glasses and stood up, looking her over from top to bottom. For a moment, she was a sure she saw a flicker of something in his eyes. She was overdressed!

she thought immediately. It must be the hat. She wished she hadn’t worn it.

“I’m Miguel De Los Santos.”

“Annie Paradise. Miguel De Los Santos. That means Michael of the Saints, doesn’t it?”

“Very roughly translated,” he said. “So you want to talk about Gil Griffin?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“Who doesn’t?” Miguel shrugged. “But of course, I don’t know him personally, if that’s what you mean. I assume you do?”

“Yes. He’s a horrible man.” Annie looked down and bit her lip. The conversation had just started and she was already showing her hand, being too emotional.

“Yes, well, you don’t get where he is, as fast as he has, if you’re not fairly ruthless.”

Mr. De Los Santos’s tone sounded condescending. Another big man explaining things to a stupid woman, Annie thought. If he was so smart, why was his office here, lower than hell?

“His wife was my friend, Mr. De Los Santos. She committed suicide a few months ago, as you may know. She wrote me a letter in which she told of the dreadful things her husband had done—how he had taken over her family’s company and pushed out her father and her brother.”

Annie unfolded the letter and handed it to De Los Santos.

As he studied it, Annie tried to read what she could in the physical appearance of this stranger in whom she was confiding. Cheap, rumpled suit, frayed cuff. Missing button on his shirt collar. But good bone structure, attractive, short, curly black hair, a little gray here and there, furrows between well-shaped, dark eyebrows. His lips were full but compressed now in an attitude of concentration. The intensity of his eyes and the set of his jaw further reinforced the impression of disciplined energy. She wondered, for a moment, how old he was.

Younger than she, but not by much. And much more attractive than she would expect. She cut short her analysis when he looked up from the letter with an expression of puzzlement.

“It’s certainly a harrowing document, Mrs. Paradise, but I’m afraid there’s nothing here that could be considered evidence.”

” He refolded the letter.

“I understand that, but doesn’t this indicate that Gil must have done something wrong to achieve these results? Cynthia says he managed all the family portfolios and he never went wrong once. I mean, don’t you think that if someone really investigated him thoroughly, they would find some evidence’?” Annie had leaned forward on her chair.

Miguel raised his eyebrows at her emphasis on the word thoroughly.

Then he sighed loudly. “Why, exactly, do you want to see Gil Griffin indicted, Mrs. Paradise?”

“Mr. De Los Santos, I knew Cynthia very well and for many years. I knew her deep down, and she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. If I hadn’t received that letter from her, after she was dead, maybe I could have let it go, but it’s just too unfair.” Annie paused. “He’s a horrible, heartless man, and it’s wrong for him to get away with such atrocities.”

“Well, I agree with you on that, but actual proof of criminal activity is what is needed. You have to get the goods on someone,’ as they say.” He handed the folded letter back to her.

Annie took it and closed her eyes. It was her turn to sigh. She couldn’t tell this man about Aaron’s stock trade. Bad as it had been, she couldn’t risk Aaron in prison. “I might be able to get more information. More goods’ as they say.”

Miguel looked more closely at her. He liked her face. It was thoughtful and intelligent and she had good features and healthy skin.

Her clothes and jewelry put her way out of his realm, however. He looked at her suit. It’s actually pretty, he thought. But the hat—ridiculous. Is she playing the merry widow? Is she married?

Hey, forget it, Miguel. The whole outfit just shouts money. Miguel resented the chasm money could crtate between a man and a woman, but he was a realist. He made a scornful face, which Annie looked up just in time to see.

He saw her face redden.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I was thinking of something else.”

Annie blushed anew at this frank admission of disinterest, bllt this time Miguel misinterpreted. He thought she was touched by his apology.

Must be something she’s not used to, in her crowd, he thought sympathetically. And how very appealing.

“I could leave the letter,” Annie said hesitantly. “Maybe you could look at it again later. If you’re interested.”

Miguel couldn’t imagine what he could do with poor Cynthia Griffin’s suicide letter, but he wasn’t about to offend this lady again. Maybe there was more that she could offer. He felt his reluctance at ending this meeting.

“Of course, please do leave it. There might be something.” He smiled at her, but she couldn’t tell if it was a dismissive smile.

She rose to leave and he rose to accompany her. “I’ll show you a quicker way out,” he said.

He can’t wait to get rid of me, Annie thought. She tried not to let her disappointment show on her face when he brought her to the elevator. Walking behind him, she couldn’t help but notice his build-he was thin, almost skinny, with long legs. Even in a cheap suit, he looked good from the back.

Was he Spanish? Puerto Rican? Annie wasn’t quite sure. They arrived at the elevator. Well, she thought to herself, I tried.

“Call me next week to talk over what other information you may get,” he said.

Annie nodded. “And call me before then if you think of anything else,” he added as he was about to turn from her.

“I was going to say the same thing to you.” Annie smiled.

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Paradise.”

Miguel shook his head on the way back to his office. This is the vaguest complaint I’ve ever received, he thought. He sat down at his desk, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “Call me next week.”

It had come out before he even realized it. And she agreed, he remembered.

When he reopened his eyes, he saw Cynthia’s letter. All right, he thought, putting his glasses back on, I’ll read it once more. The woman did come all the way down here, all dressed up, to this dingy place.

So Miguel read it again. As he did, he envisioned the despondent woman articulate and tidy to the end, needing to unburden her heart and tell the truth about a husband who had destroyed her life. What a bastard he thought angrily. Why do people let him get away with it? God, I’d like to nail him on something.

Not for the first time, Miguel turned his total concentration to the matter of Gil Griffin. As he read the letter a third time, a thought occurred to him. He went to his file cabinet and pulled out back issues of the Wall Street Journal. Maybe there was something here, after all.

Arid Now, Miguel.

Miguel De Los Santos sat at his scarred desk in the basement office at the Securities and Exchange Commission in Federal Plaza. He scanned the Wall Street Journal, as he did every morning, not to find the biggest gamble of the day, but to unearth the biggest gamblers.

Because they frequently turned out to be the biggest crooks.

And there were plenty, he thought. Printouts sat on the clanking radiator, printouts that contained all trading “irregularities”—thousands of trades that broke patterns, were linked to other trades, made an abnormal amount or lost big—waiting to be reviewed. On his desk, on the top of the old green file cabinets and stacked on the floor, were folders filled with what he called Alleged Perps. Some he’d been following so long, he called them Old Faithfuls.

So many crooks, so little time. Actually, Miguel sighed, there was plenty of time. He had been at it for years. He had apprehended several, made the indictments stick, even got them a few months of jail time. But there was so little hard proof. And so much power to cover things up. And so little motivation from his bureaucracy. That was the problem.

Mrs. Paradise’s visit had excited him. He wasn’t sure if it was the prospect of landing Gil Griffin or if Mrs. Paradise had touched him in ther way, he was going to see her again.

Miguel Carlos De Los Santos, Esquire, leaned back in his brokendown swivel chair until his head almost touched the back wall of his office.

He put his feet up on his desk and stared at the wall opposite, just six feet away.

Yesterday he had been to the eye doctor because of the headaches he’d been getting. He’d been shocked when the doctor had prescribed reading glasses.

Poring over these files would do that to you, Miguel realized, but it offended him. He hadn’t expected to age. It was a sign of the times, a reminder. He was getting older, but making little progress.

When the phone rang, he jumped, then reached for it.

“Mike?”’ It was his wife. Or his ex-wife, he supposed he should say.

Milagros was Cuban, not Puerto Rican, and unlike Miguel, she was eager to assimilate into the melting pot. But only if that meant that, like cream, she could rise to the top.

”Mike?” she asked again. Christ, he wished she’d call him Miguel and stop the Anglo shit, but it was too late for that. About ten years too late he reminded himself.

“Yes?” he finally responded.

“Listen, can you come out tonight and watch the boys? We’ve got a late closing and I’ve got to be there.”

“What about Carmen?” She was the all pair.

“She’s baby-sat two nights this week already.”

“Well, don’t you think two nights out is enough? Do the boys actually get to see the mother who has custody of them?” It hurt him that the courts had automatically given her temporary custody. Still, he reminded himself, it isn’t as if she’s a drunk or a child abuser.

She’s just a loan officer.

“Mike, I have to work, okay?”

“Hackensack Federal is more important than my boys?”

“Our boys. And give it up, huh? Will you sit or not? Spare me the sermon. I’ve got calls to make.”

“Yes, I’ll come out. But I can’t get there until six-thirty.”

“Fine.” She hung up.

Stupid to expect a ‘thank you” he told himself. Stupid to expect a “how are you.” Almost a dozen years of marriage and they were like strangers. Milly wanted things, not people, the house in Teaneck, the Chinese rugs, the Mazda.

She was going for the American dream, minus the husband with the low-paying government job and the inconvenient idealism.

But Miguel had never been able to let go of his idealism. Or his pride. It had cost him monetary success, recognition, and recently, a wife and two children.

At thirty-eight, he no longer thought of himself as a nino, but there were times when he thought he might be loco. Today was one of those times.

For Miguel had done just what he said he would do, he had become an honest lawyer fighting dishonesty and corruption. As a Hispanic he had, at first, been pathetically grateful to the establishment for taking him in, giving him a place at their table. He admired the gringos and their ordered world. In time, however, he had come to see that there were those, born to wealth and stature, who used their advantages unfairly, who spoke of laws and justice but broke the former and escaped the latter, who made fools of the rest of the people who had to play by the rules. In Puerto Rico there was a tree with deep green leaves. But when the wind blew, and the leaves were turned, the underside showed white. Yagrumo, it was called. Puerto Ricans in New York still called hypocrites yagrumos. And Miguel still hated hypocrites and thieves.

In this miserable office at the SEC he had done the tedious work of carefully tracking the financial bullies of Wall Street. Hired during the Carter administration, he had several victories, Maple Oil, the Thomas Harding thing.

But in the last decade he had followed up scores of leads and investigated hundreds of irregularities, discovering new hotbeds of corruption and wrongdoing, only to see his cases fall apart. Each time the well-heeled, well-connected wrongdoers had managed to pay off the right people, cover their tracks, and appear as innocent as lambs in the face of actual accusations. The eight years of Reagan’s administration had not been a good time for muckraking or corporate law enforcement. And the Boesky thing, and Milken—they were essentially outsiders, easy to pick off. It was the insiders, the jefes, who got away.