The Job (48 page)

“Unless what?” she said.

“Unless whatever’s in that safety deposit box can clear me.”

“And you need me to gain access to the box?”

“Absolutely. All they’d need at the bank is your marriage certificate, Ted’s probated will, his death certificate, your passport, of course… You do have a passport… ?”

She cut me off.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“I know it all sounds-” “You expect me to drop everything and get on a plane with you? You-who may really be the guy who pushed that asshole husband of mine under a train. You-who might just be one of the charmers who tore up my house during my husband’s funeral, and then came back and did it again. You-who’ll probably hit me over the head the moment I get into your fucking car…”

She was getting dangerously loud.

“Mrs. Peterson, please…”

“I’m out of here.”

“Just hear me …”

“I’ve heard enough.”

“You’re in debt, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“He left you in debt. Serious debt, didn’t he?”

“That is none of your-” “Okay, true, point taken. But know this: There is an account in your husband’s name at the Bahamian Bank of Commerce. I don’t know how much is in it-but I think it’s substantial. And if you will just hear me out for two more minutes, I will explain how I think you might also be entitled to a million dollars.”

There was a very long pause.

“Two minutes,” she said.

My explanation took about five minutes, but she didn’t cut me off. When I finished she said, “Do you have a phone number for this bank?”

I pulled out a notebook and wrote it down.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a cellular phone. I saw her press zero, then ask for A T & T international directory assistance.

“Nassau, the Bahamas,” she said into the phone.

“I need the number for the Bahamian Bank of Commerce…. You’ve got it? Hang on….”

She pulled the notebook toward her, stared at the number I had written down, and then touched each digit with her finger as the operator verified its authenticity.

After she hung up, she looked back at me.

“Okay, there really is a Bahamian Bank of Commerce. Now what’s the manager’s name?”

“Oliver MacGuire. But if you want to call him, I wouldn’t use your cellphone. Someone might be listening….”

“You’ll just have to take that risk, won’t you?” And she started punching in the number.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. MacGuire, please…. Tell him it’s Ted Peterson’s widow… and that a Mr. Ned Allen suggested I call him.”

I put my head in my hands and wondered if Jerry really was monitoring her calls.

“Mr. MacGuire?” she said, then suddenly stood up and walked to the extreme rear of the coffee shop, out of my hearing range. She returned five minutes later, sat down opposite, and tossed her phone back into her bag.

“Mr. MacGuire said that, according to bank regulations, he could not confirm or deny the existence of an account and a safety deposit box in my husband’s name… but that if I did show up at the bank with all the documentation you mentioned, he would be able to ‘help me.” He also said you were legitimate.”

“I’ve got tickets for the one-thirty flight to Miami-which we could just about make if-” “How do I know that MacGuire isn’t being paid by you to feed me some crap about an offshore account in order to lure me out there?”

“You don’t. It’s your call.”

She said nothing for almost a minute. Then she stood up.

“Wait here. I might be a while.”

She left the coffee shop. It was 10:47. I was exhausted and emotionally wasted and terrified. I was also starving, so I ordered a large breakfast. Two scrambled eggs, sausages, home fries, toast. But I could only manage to chew a little toast.

11:10. 11:18. 11:31. I kept glancing at the clock, and began to fear the worst-that, on panicked reflection, she didn’t buy my story, and had placed a call to Detective Flynn.

11:38. And the door flew open and Meg Peterson rushed inside-carrying a small overnight bag.

“We’d better move if we want to make that plane,” she said.

We left the restaurant and walked quickly back to the parking lot, where I’d left my rented car. Heading south on 1-95, I kept thinking I was being tailed by a guy in a silver Cutlass, but then saw him drop back into the traffic and decided my paranoia was in overdrive.

“I have to be back by noon tomorrow, no later,” she said.

“You’ll be back.”

“What time do we get to Nassau tonight?”

“Just before six, if we make the connection.”

“Won’t the bank be closed?”

“If MacGuire knows we’re coming, I think he’ll be there.”

She pulled the phone out of her bag, and hit the redial button.

“Mrs. Peterson, let’s wait until we get to a pay phone… .”

“I’m not getting on that plane unless I know he’ll see us tonight.”

“They’re probably listening….”

“They’re not the CIA…. Hello? Yeah, Mr. MacGuire, please. Mrs. Peterson here again…. Hello, Mr. MacGuire? Meg Peterson… Listen, Mr. Allen and I will be arriving from Miami tonight at six. Now I’ve got to be back in the States by noon tomorrow, so … You sure that won’t be a problem? .. . Terrific. Okay, really appreciate that…. See you then.”

She turned off the phone.

“He said he’ll be waiting for us at the bank around six. Sounds like a very accommodating guy.”

“I’m a good customer.”

“I bet you are.”

“Who’d you get to look after your kids?” I asked.

“My sister. She lives in Riverside. She’ll pick them up at school, and they’ll stay at her place tonight.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Just that the prime suspect in Ted’s death was whisking me off to the Bahamas for the night.”

“I see.”

“You have no sense of humor.”

“I lost it on January second of this year.”

“What went wrong on January second?”

“I went wrong.”

“I know that feeling. My “I-went-wrong’ date was July twenty-seventh, nineteen eighty-seven.”

“What happened then?”

“I married Ted Peterson.”

She told me a little about herself-how she was raised just outside of Philadelphia, attended Wheaton, went to New York after graduating, and was doing rather nicely in advertising when she met wonderful Ted.

“He was Mr. Ivy-League charm. Mr. Corporate Big Shot. The shit I was destined to marry.”

“Why did you, then?”

“He reminded me exactly of my dad.”

Within two years, she knew the marriage was bad news. But

Ted had been transferred to GBS’s head office in Stamford, and Meg was pregnant with Child Number One.

“So it was suburban nightmare, here we come,” she said.

“And, at Ted’s urging, I made the dumb mistake of giving up work.”

“You could have resisted,” I said.

“I guess I have a talent for unhappiness.”

Child Number Two followed eighteen months after Child Number One. And Meg found out about Ted’s first affair.

“A barmaid at this dump in Stamford he used to drink at after work.”

“Classy.”

“His middle name.”

“How’d you find out?”

“She called up the house, pissed, crying, boozed up, saying how Ted had promised her the moon, the stars, and her very own trailer. Of course he denied everything. Just like he denied investing two hundred grand in some Bordeaux vineyard that went down the toilet. Or losing a hundred and fifty thousand in some crazy hedge fund. Or taking a second mortgage out on our house. Or landing us in such fucked-up shape that I actually had to beg my dad for ten grand last month. And now you tell me the bastard had money socked away the whole time. It was probably going to be his running-away money-the disappearing act he always hinted he might pull someday. Leaving me and the kids with all his debts.”

“Exactly how bad were his debts?”

“Try six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of bad.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah-at work Ted was considered Mr. Achiever, Mr. One Hundred and Ten Percent. But, at heart, the guy had this totally reckless, self-destructive streak. It was as if he kept trying to see just how far out on a limb he could go. At least when he went under that train I came into around three hundred thousands’ worth of life insurance. But there’s still another three hundred grand to clear-and the house is definitely destined for the auction block if this offshore account of his doesn’t save our ass.”

“Trust me, it will.”

“Never say those two words to me again.”

“Sorry…”

“

“Trust me.” That was Ted’s endless mantra.

“Trust me, I’m not sleeping with anybody else.”.. . I’m just screwing them.

“Trust me, we’re in terrific financial shape.”… but do the kids really need new shoes? Trust me, trust me, trust me…”

“Why did you stay?”

“Cowardice. Stupidity. Low self-esteem. The usual classic ‘wifely’ reasons. But I did tell him around a month ago that I wanted out. Some of my girlfriends knew that I’d mentioned the “D’ word to him, and wondered if he threw himself under the train because he was so depressed about the prospect of me divorcing him. You know what I told them?

“Ted would never kill himself over something so trivial as losing his family.”

” “But he was still pretty desperate about the debt he’d landed you in.”

“So desperate he got into bed with some pretty nasty characters-like this Jerry Schubert guy.”

“Take it from me, Mrs. Peterson: Desperation is a dangerous thing.”

Just before we pulled into La Guardia Airport, I glanced in the rearview mirror and thought I saw that silver Cutlass again. But then it was gone.

We made the 1:30 Miami flight. We dashed for the 5:00 P.M. puddle-jumper to Nassau. And Mr. MacGuire was waiting for us at the bank. I could see Meg Peterson’s amazement at the shabby funkiness of this venerable offshore financial institution-but MacGuire’s innate graciousness instantly won her over. She presented him with the requisite documents. He studied each carefully-especially Peterson’s probated will. Finally he asked to see Meg’s passport. Then he passed judgment.

“Mrs. Peterson, from the documentation you’ve shown me, I can confirm that your late husband did have an account with this bank. And though it is also clear that you are the beneficiary of this account, I cannot allow you access to the funds in his account until we receive the standard court order to allow their disbursement.”

“I’ll get in touch with my lawyer tomorrow.”

“Once I receive their green light, the money is yours.”

“And how much money might that be?”

Mr. MacGuire tapped a few keys on his desktop computer.

Then, squinting at the screen, he said, “One million, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars.”

For a moment Meg Peterson froze. Finally she said, “Are you serious?”

“I am very serious.”

A small smile formed on her lips.

“Well, if you are very serious, then I am very, very pleased. Would you mind repeating that figure again, Mr. MacGuire?”

He did.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Now, in the matter of his safety deposit box,” Mr. MacGuire continued, “I do not think that we need worry about getting approval from his estate for you to inspect its contents, as he did leave written instructions that it should be opened by his beneficiary in the event of his death. He also recently made the unusual provision of posting a key to the box back to me for safekeeping.”

He opened his top desk drawer and pulled out a large key ring as well as a single tiny key with a tag marked B2i. We left his office and walked down a narrow back corridor to a steel-reinforced door. It had five locks, all of which MacGuire systematically opened. Inside the small, dark room was a table and chairs and two walls of safety deposit boxes. MacGuire put the tiny key into the box labeled B2i, then asked Meg to turn the lock. The little door swung outward. Mr. MacGuire pulled out the long steel box and placed it on the table.

“Now, if you would like privacy while you inspect it … ,” he said to Meg.

“I’d like you both to stay,” Meg said.

“Are you sure?” MacGuire asked.

“Safety in numbers,” she said, and lifted the lid on the box. Inside was a small microcassette recorder, twenty microcassette tapes, a handful of documents, and a folded note. Meg opened it, read it, then passed it on to me. It said:

If you’re reading this, then they’ve gotten me. The tapes tell the story. They knew I had the tapes. They just didn’t know where. And because I had opened the fund account for them here, they were certain that I must have been stashing them elsewhere. After all, why keep them right under their noses’?

This seemed like a legitimate enough proposition ; | when I first got into it. But then, at Grand Cayman, I was ” told the truth-even though, deep down, I really knew the truth all along.

My last word: I thought I was a true asshole … until I met Jerry Schubert.

Edward Peterson I passed the letter on to MacGuire. When he finished reading it, Meg said, “That son of a bitch. With what he had banked here, he could have cleared our debts in a minute. This really was his ‘running away’ account.”

“But why didn’t he disappear if he was worried that Jerry might get him?” I asked.

“I think we should listen to the tapes,” Meg said.

It took us well over three hours to work our way through all of the ten-minute micro cassettes It took us well over three hours to make copies of the twenty micro cassettes using MacGuire’s own Dictaphone machine (and twenty spare blank cassettes he managed to unearth in the bank’s storage room). Then there was an hour’s wait while MacGuire drove us off into the night to the house of a lawyer friend named Caryl Jenkins, who was also a notary public and formally witnessed Meg’s signature on a letter authorizing the bank to dispatch these tapes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Manhattan branch) in the event of either of our deaths. Then it was back to the bank, where the original tapes were transferred out of Peterson’s safety deposit box and into a new box, now registered in the name of Megan Peterson.

Suddenly it was 7:00 A.M.” the sun was rising-and Oliver MacGuire insisted on driving us to the airport.