The Patriots Club (12 page)

The human face was a canvas on which man painted his every thought and emotion. Some strokes were deft, lightning quick, others long and lingering. Look close enough, however, and you could see them all. A knitting of the brow, a tightening of the mouth, a narrowing of the eyes: Guilfoyle was able to process all of this instantaneously and know a man’s state of mind. It was his gift.

And so he had known that Thomas Bolden was telling the truth.

Yet to believe that, Guilfoyle had to also believe that Cerberus had kicked out a “false positive”—in the parlance, meaning that the system had identified the wrong man. He could not do that. There was the matter of the phone calls Bolden placed to Stillman. If Bolden had called Bobby Stillman, he had to know her.

Guilfoyle fingered the drawing of the musket. In his mind’s eye, he was looking at Bolden. The two were back in the room on the seventieth floor of Hamilton Tower. He traced every line of the man’s face, recalled every twitch of his lips, the direction of his eyes. He decided that he very much wanted to speak with him again. He had a disconcerting feeling that for once, he may have been wrong, and that Thomas Bolden had bested him. He did not enjoy being made to look like an idiot.

“Hoover,” he called.

“Yes, Mr. Guilfoyle?”

“How’s it coming?”

“Slowly, sir. We have a lot of conversations to go through.”

“Hurry it up. We’ve got to get our men in place before he arrives.”

Grasping the paper with his left hand, he folded it dexterously into quarters and slipped it into his jacket pocket. As a boy, he’d practiced long hours to be a magician. He became adept at sleight of hand, and, when working alone, was able to master the most difficult illusions. Yet, everyone agreed that he was a terrible magician. One fault doomed him from the beginning. He couldn’t smile. People preferred to watch his hands instead of his face.

17

The crew pushed past Bolden into his office, all four of them. One of the uniformed security men closed the door and took up a position with his back against it.

“Tommy, please take a seat in that chair,” said Michael T. “Mickey” Schiff, the firm’s chief executive.

“I think I’d like to stand, Mickey. What’s the deal?”

“I said take a seat. Your wishes are no longer a matter of concern to this firm.”

“Please, Tom,” said Sol Weiss. “Take a seat. The sooner we’re done here, the better.”

“Sure, Sol.” Bolden allowed the chairman to guide him to one of the armchairs normally reserved for guests. “What’s this about?”

“This is about you, mister,” said Schiff every bit as aggressively as before. “About your disgraceful predilections. About bringing dishonor upon the reputation of a venerable institution and shaming the man who gave you a chance to make a place for yourself.”

The CEO of Harrington Weiss was a slight man, wiry, and proud of his fitness, his skin tanned the color of polished oak. Schiff was the firm’s Mr. Inside, the ice-blooded technocrat who had overseen HW’s successful forays into derivatives and the private equity market. As was his custom, he was dressed in a tailored navy chalk stripe with plenty of cuff showing. His hair was colored a brassy auburn. Bolden noticed that his gray roots were showing. Must have been a busy week.

“Stop it right there,” he said. “I’ve never done a thing to hurt HW.” He appealed to Sol Weiss. “What’s he talking about?”

A crowd was gathering outside the office. Secretaries, assistants, and a smattering of executives formed a semicircle of aggrieved onlookers. At its center, her chin held high, stood Althea.

“Thomas, we have a situation here,” said Weiss in his tacks-and-gravel baritone. “Diana Chambers contacted us this morning to inform us about the misunderstanding that took place between you two last night.”

“What misunderstanding was that?” asked Bolden.

“The gist of her complaint is that you assaulted her in the men’s room of the hotel last night after she refused to perform oral sex on you. I’m sorry to be so blunt.”

Schiff cut in impatiently. “Is it your practice, Tom, to slap around women who won’t have sex with you? Are you one of those freaks that needs to feel like he’s in control to be a man?”

“Diana Chambers said what?” Bolden asked, dumbfounded. Like him, Diana Chambers worked as a director at HW. She was a pretty, prim blonde, proud of being a Yalie, short and athletic with blazingly white teeth and brown eyes that bugged out when she smiled. They were friendly, but not friends. “It’s not true. None of it. Not a word. I talked to Diana for maybe two minutes last night. I certainly didn’t go into the men’s room with her. I didn’t ask her to have sex with me and I didn’t hit her. Where is she? I can’t believe she said this. I’d like to talk to her myself.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Sol Weiss. “She’s at the hospital.”

“At the hospital?”

“That punch you saw fit to give her left her with an orbital fracture,” said Schiff.

“This is nonsense,” said Bolden, looking into his lap, shaking his head.

“I wish we could say that we agree with you, Tom,” said Weiss. “But we’ve got a sworn affidavit alleging your behavior. There are two detectives waiting downstairs to take you into custody.”

Schiff removed a photograph from a buff envelope and handed it to Bolden. “This was taken last night at the battered-women’s unit at Doctors’ Hospital. Care to explain?”

Bolden examined the photo. It showed a close-up of a woman’s face. Her left eye was swollen horribly, colored black and blue. There was no question it was Diana Chambers. The insinuation . . . no, the
accusation
that he had done this incensed him. A lump of anger rose in his throat, choking him. “I didn’t do this. Christ, I’d never . . .”

“She swears you did,” said Sol Weiss. “What can I do, Tom? My hands are tied. You know Diana. She’s a good girl. I can’t imagine her lying any more than I can you doing this to her.”

“But she
is
lying,” said Bolden.

“That’ll be for a court to decide,” said Schiff. “Now, you’re going to have to leave the premises. Didn’t you hear Sol? There are two detectives downstairs waiting to take you in.”

“Give me a break,” said Bolden. “Sol, I was at your table last night. So was Jenny. I could barely move ten feet, there were so many people stopping by. Did you see me talk to Diana Chambers?”

“Look, Tommy, it was a big place,” said Weiss.

“Did you see me talking to her?” Bolden demanded.

Weiss shook his head and grunted irritably. “I like you, kid. You know that. But I don’t have any choice but to go by what Diana’s telling us. If it’s nonsense, then we’ll forget all about it. But first, we have to get to the bottom of it.”

Bolden looked from one face to the next, then exhaled a long breath. Once he left the office, he’d never be back. HW wasn’t a white-shoe firm; it was more like silk-stocking. The taint of wrongdoing was enough. Once word got out, Bolden would always be the guy who beat up Diana Chambers. His ability to attract business would effectively be nil. The mere charge was tantamount to industrial castration.

Sol was the one to deal with here. He was the boss. He’d come up from the streets. He’d know how Bolden was feeling. “Did you talk to her?” he asked him. “She told you this herself?”

“No, I did not,” said Sol. “Her attorneys have contacted the firm. If it makes you feel any better, we’ve decided to place both you and Diana on paid leave until the matter’s settled.”

“I can’t take leave right now,” Bolden protested. “We’re about to close the Trendrite deal.”

“Jake Flannagan can take it.”

Bolden swallowed, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling. And his bonus? Would Flannagan take that, too? This was the biggest deal of his career they were talking about. “This is crap!” he said, bolting out of his chair, throwing his arms in the air. “Utter bullshit!”

Schiff stepped forward to deliver the coup de grâce. “Miss Chambers’s attorneys have informed us that she will be pressing criminal charges against you, and against the firm. Besides the events of last night, she’s talking about some past violations that took place right in this office.”

“This is a mistake,” said Bolden, his eyes searching the office as if he might find the answer hidden in his books or papers. “Diana must be covering for someone.”

“It’s no mistake,” said Sol. Suddenly, he looked bored and annoyed, and Bolden could see that he was against him. “Look, Tommy, let’s do this nice and easy. Mickey’s talked to the special victims unit of the police department and he’s convinced them not to arrest you on the premises.”

“Arrest me? For what? I already told you I didn’t do anything.”

“If you’ll just gather your things and go downstairs . . .”

“I’m not going downstairs or anywhere else,” argued Bolden. “I don’t know what’s going on . . . why Diana would make these insane accusations, but I’m not just going to stand here and take it. You’ve all known me for six years. Look at the work I’ve done at the firm. At the club. I’m not some kind of animal.” But when he looked at the two men, he met a stone wall. “You have my word that I did not touch Diana Chambers.”

“Tommy, we’ve got the letters,” said Weiss. “The lovebird stuff you and Diana were exchanging by e-mail.”

“There are no e-mails,” said Bolden. “I’ve never written Diana Chambers a flirtatious e-mail in my life.”

Weiss shook his head, his mouth pinched uncomfortably. “As I said, Tom, we have a record of your correspondence.”

“You have no such thing.”

All the while, Schiff had been holding a sheaf of papers rolled up in his hands. Now he raised the papers and extended them to Bolden. “You’re denying you wrote these?”

Bolden read through the e-mails. It was standard soap-opera script.
I love you. I need you. Let’s go screw in the washroom.
Exactly what you’d expect from a pair of egocentric young bankers in love. “I know what kind of software the firm uses,” he said. “It records every keystroke of every computer in the place. If I wrote those records from my computer, it will show it. Time. Date. Everything. Show me the records.”

“There are ways around that—” said Schiff.

“Get an expert in here right now,” said Bolden, approaching Sol Weiss. “Someone who can take apart my hard drive and tell us who hacked into it. Then we’ll have some idea of who engineered this . . . this . . . setup. Come on, Sol. Put a stop to this. Someone’s framing me.”

“Who?” Schiff cut in. “Answer that. Who did all this? Who busted up Diana’s face? Who wrote all those e-mails? Come on.”

Bolden wasn’t sure how to go about describing his suspicions. Where to begin . . . what to say . . .

And in that instant, he lost them. Weiss’s face clouded over. Schiff’s brow tightened. Bolden’s momentum was spent. The temperature in the room might as well have dropped ten degrees.

“Nobody’s taking your computer apart,” said Schiff. “We know that you were conducting a secret affair with Diana Chambers. You had a couple of drinks under your belt, you felt the blood running, so you took her to the bathroom. She didn’t deliver the goods, so you smacked her.” He turned to Sol Weiss. “Come on, we’ve wasted enough time on this. It doesn’t matter what Bolden says in here, anyway. We’re all fucked. It’s going to end up in court and the firm’s reputation will be indelibly tarnished.”

Weiss laid a hand on Bolden’s shoulder. “Look, Tom, unfortunately, everything Mickey’s said is true. There is going to be a criminal complaint lodged against you and the firm. I, personally, would appreciate it if you’d allow these gentlemen to accompany you to the lobby.”

Bolden looked at the guards and realized that he didn’t recognize them. He, Thomas Bolden, who went out of his way to talk to every employee, to know their names, and a little about them, had never before laid eyes on these two hulks. They sure as hell weren’t your average Argenbright employees. They weren’t affable or easygoing. No weight problem, lousy vision, or snaggletoothed grins here. These guys were pumped. They were fit. Like Wolf and Irish, they were capable.

“Who are they? I don’t know them.”

“Come on, sir,” said one of the guards, reaching out for him. “Let’s do this the right way.”

Bolden shrugged off the hand. Belatedly, it came to him that this entire charade was an extension of last night’s events. Guilfoyle was not finished with him. Bolden backed up a step. Suddenly, he was going on about what had happened the night before. The mugging, the ride to Harlem, the intense interrogation about subjects on which he was totally and blessedly ignorant. He pointed at his cheek, demanding that they all take a closer look. “It’s a powder burn. Someone tried to kill me. That’s what this is about. It’s about something called Crown. About some guy I never even heard of. Check their chests,” he said heatedly, pushing his way past Schiff toward the uniformed guards. “They have tattoos. A musket. Look for yourselves.”

Sol Weiss clutched at Bolden’s shoulder. “Tommy, calm down. Get ahold of yourself. We’re listening.”

“No, you’re not,” said Bolden, turning on him, knocking Weiss’s hand off his shoulder. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. You’ve made up your minds and you’re wrong.”

He hadn’t meant to be so aggressive, but somehow Weiss lost his balance and toppled to the floor. The sixty-eight-year-old chairman of the last pure partnership on Wall Street uttered a plaintive cry and tumbled backward into the corner. A billionaire had been assaulted by a hysterical executive. A violent, unstable criminal had taken his hand to the head of the firm.

Bolden kneeled to help Sol Weiss to his feet. Mickey Schiff struggled to get past him and offer assistance to the fallen chairman.

A billionaire had been assaulted!

“Goddamn it,” said Schiff over his shoulder. “Get Bolden out of here. Now!”

One of the two guards, the one who’d done the talking, unsnapped his holster and drew his pistol. “Mr. Bolden. You will come with us now, sir.”

Until then, Bolden had kept his emotions under control. One look at the gun changed all that. They had missed him once, he told himself. They wouldn’t miss him again. His escape had been a matter of dumb luck. No one had expected Bolden to be able to look after himself. The sole advantage he’d enjoyed was gone. He was sure that the men downstairs were not police officers, and that this had nothing to do with assaulting a woman.
Nothing happens without a reason.
It was about a setup.

And in that instant, all his old talents came back to him in a rush: his distrust of authority, his reckless violence, his fine-tuned paranoia, and most important, his hard-earned instinct for survival.

Mickey Schiff stood next to him. Bolden grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him into the guard holding the gun. Bolden followed close behind, keeping an arm on Schiff’s back, sandwiching the guard between Schiff and the wall.

“Stop it, Tommy. No!” yelled Sol Weiss.

Pistol held high, the guard fought to slide past Schiff. Bolden clubbed the outstretched hand. The gun fell to the floor.

The second guard was working his pistol free.

Bolden knocked Schiff aside and scooped the gun off the floor as Sol Weiss rushed to get in between the parties. “Put your guns away,” he shouted, waving his hands. “This is Tommy Bolden. I won’t have it. I won’t.”

“Gun!” shouted the first guard.

“Drop the weapon!” shouted the second guard, raising his pistol.

“Stop it! All of you!” shouted Weiss.

And then amid the disorder, a gunshot exploded.

A kaleidoscope of blood and gore splattered the window.

Sol Weiss turned unevenly. For a moment, he stood shaking, trembling violently, his mouth working like a fish’s, a choking noise rising from him, his eyes dreamy, unfocused.

“Sol!” cried Bolden.

Weiss slid to the floor, a ribbon of blood streaming from the crater in the center of his forehead.