The Currency of Time Ch. 02

The big cop looked over at Maitland.

"I volunteered to help you out, Mr. Maitland. Because you've helped me in the past. But I'm going to kick his ass whether it's here or in some back alley."

"Can you call your dog off, Bailey?"

"Why the hell should I do anything for you, Maitland? You're a loose cannon maniac wielding way too much power. I don't have any idea what you're doing here."

"It'll all be clear in a few minutes. And if these two get into it, we're going to have a couple of badly injured or dead men. If your man kills my man, I'll have to have him arrested for murder. And I'm sure his family will sue you for his actions. He works for you. And if my guy kills your man, the least he can get out of it with is manslaughter."

The two big men stared at each. Finally Harper-Stevens said, "There are stairs down the back. If you take me down that way one of us might trip and get hurt. Just accidental."

"No head shots, no intentional crippling, the first man who's unable to continue or unconscious, it's done. Agreed?"

"Let's get out of here. Okay with you gentlemen?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. You're just leaving. You don't need our permission for that."

The two men walked out the door chatting like old friends. For a few seconds I think everyone was straining to hear anything from outside. But there was nothing.

"I repeat, Maitland, what is going on here?"

"A bluff. You put on your show. I put on my show. Neither one of us was very effective."

"I knew this was all crap. Your career is soooo over."

"Not exactly."

He looked over at me.

"McCarthy. For the last time. Don't do this. I know why you're doing it. But, she's not worth it."

We had talked before. I hadn't been able to explain it before, and I knew I couldn't now. Maitland was a smart man. But he hadn't walked in my shoes, he hadn't loved Deirdre Lancaster, and he would never understand.

"You're the luckiest bastard I know, Mort," Maitland said. "You too, Wilkes."

It was obvious that neither one of them had the slightest idea what he was talking about.

"You might avoid prison, disbarment, the end of your firm and your legal careers - all because the man you were working so hard to cheat out of $10 million is still in love with his wife."

Deirdre's look ripped my skin, but Gutman's smile of male satisfaction made me clench my fists as I fought the urge to beat his face in.

"So this is all a bluff. You have nothing."

"No. Don't start celebrating too early. We have Dr. Fairfax' statement and supporting information he provided. We still have court orders and we can prevent the destruction of any documents while we back up our case. You know we'll have members of your staff turning state's evidence. I can easily nail you. Getting convictions is not the problem."

He turned to stare at me.

"You're the problem, Mr. McCarthy."

He stared at me with those Prosecutor eyes, but I read regret as well as steely determination. Before going to him I'd done a little research. He had a good record and his appearance actually worked in his favor. Ordinary in height and appearance, a middle aged man losing his hair and his waistline, most opposing attorneys and defendants tended to underestimate him. He wasn't the kind of man you'd walk carefully around.

But I'd walked carefully around him and hadn't taken him for granted and I'd used him the way I had to serve my purposes, but I'd made sure he wasn't going to use me. So while he'd been my ally, he wasn't happy with me now.

"You have royally screwed everything up, McCarthy. Why couldn't you simply have been a good citizen, reported the criminal activities of this firm, and allowed the law to take its course. They would have gone to prison, you'd have gotten revenge against your cheating wife, and you would have walked away a rich man.

"Instead..."

He took the tape recorder from me and displayed it for the other side of the table.

"The recording that was played here today is a copy. The versions we have are all copies. McCarthy has refused to provide us with the original. Which means that any decent defense attorney will tear it to pieces. Which means we can't use it in court and it's likely you guys could get Dr. Fairfax's testimony tossed out as well, especially if he gets cold feet and refuses to continue cooperating with us. Not only is the wiretap illegal, but we have no way of proving it hasn't been altered or doctored.

"In addition, we have a copy of an email he sent to a friend outside the country a month ago."

Maitland held out a piece of paper although no one on the other side could possibly read it. He read:

"Griff, I wish I was with you in China right now. My life has turned to shit. I know that Deirdre is cheating on me with her old fuckbuddy. She's faked some kind of traumatic amnesia so she doesn't have to touch me and she will try to annul our marriage. Most of the time I want to kill him and at least beat the hell out of her."

"But...I think sometimes maybe our marriage never had a chance. Maybe it was cursed from the start, and maybe that's my fault. I've never told anyone this, but that night I rescued her from those assholes who slipped her the date rape drug. I took her to a motel and dried her out with coffee. We talked and I took her home. But what I never told her or anybody else is - I had to strip her down to make sure she was okay and hadn't been hurt.

"And when she lying there on that hotel bed, still out of it, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Her breasts, her pussy, that ass. Those legs. I never thought I really went for the thin chicks, but, the longer I looked at her, the harder I got.

"And after a while, I thought she was fucking those guys on a regular basis. And God knows I've gotten enough women drunk over the years to get between their legs. I started touching her and she started responding. The short of it is - I fucked her. I don't think she was really aware of what was happening. I cleaned her up and after she came out of it I acted like nothing had happened. I don't know if she ever believed me.

"But the truth is, I raped her. Whatever words you might use, it was rape. Only it was me instead of those other assholes. And everything else happened the way you've heard. Now we're married and I love her and she's screwing around on me. And I wonder if a marriage that starts out with rape and lying can ever wind up ending good?"

Maitland stared the paper, shook his head, and then threw it on the table.

"Now, I don't know if this message is true. Either McCarthy is a rapist, or he was setting himself up for a rape charge."

"Setting himself up for a rape charge?" Bailey had shot to his feet. "Your victim is a liar and a rapist. And you're going to use him to bring us down? Do you realize, once again, how crazy that sounds?"

"Not crazy," Maitland said, staring from me to Deirdre. "Sad. When he came to me, he told me his plan. He wanted to shake up his wife and her lawyers. Shake them up enough that they would simply give him his $10 million and he'd walk away. But he wasn't willing to go all the way. That's why he refused to hand over the original tape. And he provided us with the email."

"Normally I'd have grabbed him as a hostile witness and gone after you, Bailey, Wilkes and anyone else involved. But...

"He played it very well. The wiretap will be torn up and shredded but it's too involved in the case. Even if the court keeps it out, it will still lurk over the trial. The news will go out. So the defense attorneys will go after him for illegal taping and if I don't prosecute, they'll go to the governor and use my partiality to go after me.

"Now, the rape has nothing directly to do with this case and if I don't believe it, I don't have to act on that. But Mrs. McCarthy is already prepared to claim he raped her. If you believe he raped her, that throws the whole marriage and the pre-nup into question.

"And regardless of what it does to the case, women's groups will go crazy. The governor will assign a special prosecutor - he'll have to. And with a confession in black and white, McCarthy will serve time for that. So, despite my reluctance, I may have to prosecute him on a charge that I know is bogus. To cover my own ass. I think I do a good job, and I can't do that if I have everyone in the world calling for my removal for protecting rapists."

He pointed to one of the secretaries - I assume she was a secretary - and asked, "Could somebody get me straight coffee? Black will be fine."

Wilkes nodded and a pretty blonde left the room.

"I don't want to send an innocent man to prison, even though I think he'll be $10 million richer when he gets out. But I don't want to let all of you guys" gesturing to the side of the table dominated by Bailey and Wilkes' troops, "get away with fraud and theft of $10 million and perjury and subordination of perjury and bribery and filing false documents and a lot of other types of creative criminal acts."

He paced back toward me, then turned and approached Bailey.

"Just for the sake of argument, Bailey, if McCarthy signs papers releasing any claim to that $10 million and agrees to a divorce, are you going to push the assault and rape and other charges? Or will you let him walk away?'

"Those charges will vanish. He can walk away with $250,000, since Ms. Lancaster has already agreed to that."

Maitland stood behind Deirdre.

"You said your husband raped you. He's made a pretty formal confession. Are you willing to forget about that, or once he's signed the papers you want signed, are you going to turn around and turn the information over to women's rights groups and let them go after him?"

All she did was shake her head, but Bailey said, "She'll let him walk away and there won't be any further recriminations. The last thing she wants is to have all those old, painful memories brought to light again."

At that moment the secretary came back in with a ceramic blue coffee cup. Maitland took it and emptied it in three swallows. He handed it back to her."

Maitland walked to the front of the room, then paced to the back. It could have been for dramatic effect, but I had the sense he was really pacing as he thought about the room and the people in it.

"I've done things in this job I didn't want to do. Things I hated, because they were the right thing to do. I know there are people who think I'm cold...and hard. People even think I enjoy tormenting people. Well, I do sometimes. But they're usually people who deserve it.

"This one...Mort can be an asshole, but I know why he went along with this. Mort, you and Viviana have no children, do you? Married 40 years with no offspring. You were Deirdre's godparents, you held her when she was christened. You've probably spent as much time with her as Orion did before he died. I know you were more than attorney and client. And when she came to you and begged you to find a way to get her out of her marriage, and then had the accident that gave you a perfect plan, I don't think you thought about money. I think you did it for her.

"And you, Deirdre. All you're really guilty of is being stupid about the men you fall in love with.

"And you, McCarthy, you're just guilty of being stupid.

"I don't want to do this, I really don't. I tried every way I could to avoid this. But it's just not in me to look the other way and let anyone get away with this type of crap. I'm probably going to regret this."

He pulled his cellphone out and punched in a number.

"Hi, could I speak to Mr. Edwards. Tell him it's important...Dallas, it's me. Yeah. I'm afraid we're going to have to roll the dice. Yes. I know he's a friend of yours. But we have him, and they wouldn't bend. No. No give at all. I'd say 85 - 90 percent chance of conviction. And it will be a hell of a case. Crooked lawyers, pretty multi-millionaires, fraud, infidelity. This might become a movie of the week eventually."

He stopped talking, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. Then he handed the phone to Bailey.

"He'd like to talk to you for a minute."

Bailey listened for two minutes, In the end, all he said was, "You're serious?"

He handed the phone back to Maitland.

"Just give him the money, Mort. It's only $10 million. Stop this before it goes too far to be stopped."

Bailey leaned over to Deirdre and whispered to her.

Gutman tried to say something.

"Shut up, you asshole. This is all on you. If you hadn't been so greedy none of this would have happened."

"But they've already threatened us," Deirdre said, starting to glance at me but moving her head away so fast she could have suffered whiplash. "Nothing's changed. Why are you wanting to give up?"

"Everything's changed, Deirdre. Edwards has unleashed Maitland. He's a damned pit bull. Once he sinks his teeth in, he doesn't let go. And I don't want you to have to go through what will happen to you once he starts. Just give McCarthy the money. Your boyfriend will get over it."

She finally let her gaze rest on mine, without flinching or any evasion.

"Alright, Michael. You win. Take your $10 million and slink out of here. Let me be with the man I love. And that isn't you."

Bailey motioned to Wilkes, who got up and left the room.

"You'll have the money by tomorrow."

"I want it in a half hour. Cashier's check."

"Ten million dollars in a half hour?"

"I believe the Hunt Bank can cut a check for $10 million and have it here in that time."

A secretary followed Wilkes out. Maitland sat down next to me. He pulled his cellphone out and spoke into it.

"Our officers are pulling out. They're telling your staff all of this was an extremely realistic exercise we developed in concert with your firm to train police and lawyers in dealing with fraud cases. You very civic mindedly agreed to play the bad guys. Dr. Fairfax, you'll receive a certificate suitable for framing thanking you for your participation. The paperwork, all of it, will be destroyed. Dr. Teller, Mr. Wilson, you'll also receive certificates for your participation. "

His gaze swept over Bailey's troops.

"And Mort, I'm sure all of your people in here today will respect the confidentiality of this exercise. After all, I'm sure that if any distorted rumors of today's activities were to get out, it would cause you a great deal of heartburn. Trust, the trust a lot of wealthy individuals have in your firm, and you, is a precious commodity you can't afford to lose."

"I trust my staff," Bailey said as he studied the room and I thought the temperature in there dropped by about 30 degrees.

And then we waited. People talked in whispers. Deirdre and her new love whispered, heads together with an occasional kiss. Maitland busied himself on his phone. There was a knock at the door and before anyone could move, the big cop who'd walked Harper-Stevens out of the room stood in the doorway. He held his left wrist up to his chest with his right hand, blood dripped off cuts and his face looked like hamburger after it's been softened up with a hammer.

"You feel better now?" Maitland asked.

Grove smiled a painful smile and said, "You should see the other guy. Speaking of, I'm going to take him to University."

"How is ..." Matt Henry began.

"I think I broke his leg, definitely his ankle. Knocked out a couple of teeth and he might have a concussion. I didn't do that deliberately. I think he broke my arm, he definitely broke a few ribs and I might lose a couple of teeth. Nothing too bad. He put up a good fight."

"You guys ready to kiss and make up?" Maitland asked.

"Not exactly, but we're okay. I do need to get him to University."

Bailey pointed to Matt Henry and said, "You go with them and make sure they realize this was an accident. Handle the paperwork and the insurance."

Henry just nodded and was out the door.

It seemed like hours, but it was only 35 minutes later when there was a knock on the door and the secretary named Marge opened it. A big man with thick black hair frosted with gray stepped in carrying a briefcase chained to his left wrist.

"Mr. Bailey?"

"Davidson, thank Ms. Hunt for being so prompt. And careful"

I could see the bulge under the left side of his coat and in addition another man in dress clothes stepped in directly behind him with another bulge under his coat on his right side. The way he automatically scanned the room marked him as private security.

"Who gets the check? Should I give it directly to you?"

Bailey shook his head and pointed to me.

Davidson sat down next to me and produced a key that opened the briefcase. Inside there was only one thin business envelope. He picked it up and handed it to me.

"If you would, open it and confirm that it is a cashier's check for $10 million. And then I have a form for you to fill out to confirm that you received it."

I ran a thumb under the lip of the envelope and slid it open. There was a double-folded piece of paper. On the front was a cashier's check with a one followed by seven zeroes, on the back that the paperwork that goes along with a $10 million check.

Even knowing it was going to be coming, it didn't seem quite real. Only a piece of paper, but it seemed more...substantial, more...solid than paper.

"The stuff that dreams are made of, right?"

I looked up at Davidson. He was smiling. He appreciated the check, but it obviously wasn't a big thing in his life. I had to remember that he was a big man in the Hunt bank and he was used to dealing with big numbers.

I glanced over at Gutman. His eyes literally burned. At any moment I expected him to burst into a pyre of flame. I loved it so much I hated to end his torment.

Bailey stared at the check too and said, "Alright, McCarthy. You have your money. How about signing the paperwork so we can speed up the divorce."

"I'm feeling in a celebratory mood. Could you scare me up a good cigar and a lighter?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Maitland. Can you just get him the hell out of here?"

"I don't know, Mort, after everything today, how can it hurt to let him smoke a cigar. This is a big day for everyone."

Mort gestured and a secretary vanished and reappeared a moment later with what I recognized was a cheap Cuban knockoff. And a cheap cigarette lighter. But I don't think Mort was all that fond of me at the moment.

I had smoked in some fairly opulent settings and I'd smoked with a scrounged up match waiting for rescue in a Colombian swamp. But I did it as slowly and carefully as I could. I flicked the lighter which looked to be a $1.99 Gate special and rolled the foot slowly above the flame, drawing in the smoke and slowly twirling the cigar. After getting the foot going, I started the puff. It wasn't the best I'd ever smoked, but on the other hand, it wasn't the worst. It just seemed appropriate.

As I puffed, the foot, or open end of the cigar for people who never picked up that filthy but enjoyable habit, it began to flame. I picked up the cashier's check and held it to the foot and moved it so the flame would touch the paper. Behind me I could sense Davidson tense to act, but then he stopped himself. It was MY ten million.

It took a little while, but flame curled at the end of the check and then it began to creep up the paper, the creamy white turning black with threads of red. The black turned into ash and began to spread across the width of the check. It didn't sound like anyone was breathing. The sound of the licking flame was the sound of a lot of dreams dying.

Someone had slipped an ashtray near me. I held the check over it as it disintegrated into pieces of inky ash and fragments fell into the glass. When it was over, I dropped the final half inch of uncharred paper into the ashtray, wiped my hands, and looked over at Bailey. I think no one had moved. The expression on every face was the same - shock and disbelief.