chapter 16
"Where are you?" Sabrina asked.
"I don't know. Twenty-eight, maybe. Twenty-nine."
"Wow," she said. "If you're not careful, you might actually become interesting."
From the office where he had wound up, Doug could see over Four Point Channel and across the corner of the harbor to the new federal courthouse with its slanting glass façade and a row of flags out front, fluttering in the breeze.
"So here's the deal," Sabrina said. "Holland wants you at the Ritz for the deal closing with Taconic; McTeague's called three times; you've got a message from Mikey to contact him ASAP; the guy you hired to erase our e-mails says someone's messing with his program; some official-sounding Chinese guy from the Singapore Exchange wanted to confirm your mailing address at eight this morning; Evelyn Jones is on vacation; and some kid named Nate called to say he was waiting for you 'in the room.' Which I'm not even going to touch. You think just maybe you could turn your phone on?"
In the last few weeks, Doug had begun to wander like this. Using the stairs, he'd head down to floors of the tower he'd never visited before, the reception areas distinguishable only by the pallor of the ferns and the colors of the abstract paintings hung over the leather chairs. Departments whose staff he could once have recited by name had doubled or tripled in size, filling whole floors. Nodding at the smiling secretaries, saying the occasional word to the middle managers surprised in the corridor, all of them as ignorant as could be of how untenable the bank's predicament had become, he'd wind up in the office of someone down in consumer credit or government relations who was out for the day, and there he'd sit in the quiet with the door closed and his phone off, trying again and again to order his thoughts.
Through July and August the Nikkei index had shed another twelve hundred points; the Japanese Ministry of Finance, criticized for their earlier intervention, had done nothing to prevent the slide. McTeague's losses had ballooned. They were larger now than the value of Atlantic Securities itself.
But then again, hardly anyone knew. If some deputy department head occasionally bothered to e-mail Doug, inquiring about loans from one division after another to an obscure subsidiary named Finden Holdings, he didn't bother to reply. Even Holland seemed to have voided the problem from his mind, entertaining clients at Red Sox games and the Boston Pops and now finalizing the stock-only purchase of Taconic, the bank that had fallen on hard times back in the spring.
Union Atlantic's customers still drew on lines of credit and made payments on existing loans. The insurance subsidiary still wrote policies and, after initially projecting large, 9/11-related losses, looked as if it might actually show a modest profit. People all over the country still opened checking accounts and paid bills and withdrew tens of millions in cash. On the Asian exchanges, there were rumors of a huge bet on the Nikkei but people figured it was a hedge fund in Connecticut or London, because, after all, banks wouldn't expose that much of their own capital.
Indeed, the larger the problem grew the more routine the management of it had become. What had started as a crisis had turned into a condition. And then, just as the condition surpassed any previously imaginable level of acceptable seriousness, it seemed to vanish altogether, as if too big to see.
"You there?" Sabrina asked.
"Tell Holland I'm on my way."
"What about the rest?"
"Tell that computer geek to work his shit out. I want those e-mails gone."
"So dramatic. Can I shred something?"
"Piss off."
"Maybe I'll become one of those cooperating witnesses. I could write a memoir. I'm so sick of Franco. I had this whole idea about how to generate a subtle, almost perverse sympathy for him, but it all seems ridiculous now. I slept with this schlep in Watertown the other day. I tried taking his grandmother seriously, but in the end she was just an old Fascist. Who knows? My therapist says - "
Doug pressed End. He hadn't moved his gaze from the courthouse façade. He had been in the building only once, with the general counsel for a hearing in a shareholder suit. Washington had spared no expense for the judges. From the marble floors to the courtrooms rimmed in arabesques of pink-and-blue pastel, you could be forgiven for expecting exhibitions of modern art rather than juries and sentencings.
To check the markets, he switched on the television in the corner, searching for the business channel. But before he reached it, he came upon those images that were constant now on cable news: the satellite photos of the Iraqi desert, still after still of warehouses and outbuildings surrounded by nothing but sand. Like all of them, this report was being narrated by some retired member of the brass paid to opine on the nature of the weapons hidden beneath all those roofs and tarps. Soon the screen cut to B roll of aircraft carriers and naval destroyers, as the old soldier described the slow but steady buildup of hardware in the theater. The segment ended with a shot of a tanker moving low in the water, as the news anchor, in a voice that somehow managed to blend excitement and resignation, reminded the audience of America's vital interests in the region.
Lately, Doug couldn't sleep for watching this stuff. And he knew Vrieger would be watching it too. Watching the endless repetition of facts and speculation and probable lies, the consumption of which at least partially numbed the helplessness of seeing it unfold at such distance and so inexorably. The two of them had spoken the previous week and Vrieger had told him that he was all set, headed to Virginia soon for training, the invasion apparently scheduled for March but plenty of contractors needed already for logistics and security, hundreds of them flowing into Kuwait each week.
In the small hours of the morning, Doug would lie awake staring at the maps with the fancy graphics of arrows sliding toward Baghdad from north, south, and west, as the commentators prattled on: neo-cons smugly suffering lesser minds, while their opponents expressed incredulity at the ignorance of the American people for supporting the idea of such a war; and then there were Doug's favorites, the young, pro-war liberals, so fresh-faced and eager to prove they weren't weak or queer. But whoever the commentators were, the reports seemed always to return to the endless stock footage of tanks kicking dust and missiles blasting hot off the decks of cruisers. Which carried Doug back, over and over, to standing on the deck of the Vincennes, that furnace wind blowing off the fouled waters of the Gulf, clogging the ship's every pore with sand, and to the cursing of the Iranian thugs in the speedboats spit over the radio waves, and to watching the coordinates of the jetliner's altitude rise across his monitor.
In the hours before dawn, when he finally managed to turn off the news, a mild delirium often took sway, a semiconscious but still-un-resting state, in which unremembered moments floated up into his senses, strangely complete in air and texture, almost dreamlike in their exactitude. Like sitting on the vinyl backseat of his uncle John's station wagon between his cousins Michael and P.J. with the windows rolled down, thrilled to be out of his mother's apartment and on the way out to the Cape, the voice on the radio calling the game as the miles of scrub pine blurred green across his eyes; and later, the deep, ineffable happiness of returning to his cousins' house, a beautiful dusk place full of shouting and motion and the clutter of sports gear and toys, his uncle and aunt's orders barked and ignored, Michael not turning off the hose but letting the water run all the way to the bottom of the drive, where they built their hurried dams for the pleasure of watching them overrun, glimpsing in his cousins' casual disregard of their father's rebukes the freedom that came with bossy parents - to resist, to push back against a strength and solidity your petty acts could never overcome.
Or waiting out in front of the apartment, out in the cold air for his mother, after snow had fallen, wanting not to be late again to Mass because then everyone would turn to look at them; making a snowball with his bare hands as he waited for the sound of her footsteps on the stairs; watching her walk to the car in her black wool coat and blue dress, her once-a-week face made up with blush and lipstick; his hand burning on the frozen pack in his fist, seeing her breath and his, wishing his snowball were hard enough to smash the windshield but knowing it wasn't; and then entering the car, going back into that silence that wasn't even punishment or rebuke but simply her way of getting by, the air from the whining defroster cold on his face at first, its stale plastic scent soon erased by the sharper smell of his mother's cigarette.
Like taunts, these memories were, the past trying to claim him back at his weakest moments.
If he could just sleep, he kept thinking, then his concentration would return. He could switch off the news and his brain would stop shaking loose these useless recollections and he could focus again on the problem at hand.
He headed down into the lobby and out to the car waiting to take him to the Ritz. On the way there, he dialed Mikey.
"I don't know how you got those papers," Mikey said, "but they did the job. You won. That Graves Society's a joke. She stopped making donations three years ago. And their taxes - anyway, the court tossed Cushman's order out. Charlotte Graves isn't getting title to anything."
"Does she have an appeal?"
"To God, maybe."
"Good. I want you to call the broker and get the house listed."
"Didn't you hear what I said? You beat her."
"Yeah, I heard you. But I need it listed. I want the asset in cash."
"I just won your f*cking appeal for you! I spent a year building you a house for Christ's sake. You picked the investment, we cleared the land, you got your mansion. Now just live in it for a few years, would you? Turn a real profit."
"I appreciate all you did. I'll have Sabrina handle the broker if you want."
"Who the hell are you?"
"I'm your friend, Mikey. But the situation, it's changed."
FROM THE HOTEL WINDOW, Nate could see a young couple down at the Arlington Street gates in shorts and sun hats. They paused to consult a map as their children ran ahead to gawk at the statue of General Washington mounted on his horse, his bronze eyes casting a permanent gaze up Commonwealth Avenue. Beyond the gates, in the Boston Public Gardens, the branches of the weeping willows swayed over the edge of the pond.
As he watched the man drop down on one knee to photograph his wife and children gathered beneath the statue, Nate dialed Emily's cell phone again, impatient for her to answer. Two months ago, she'd left for college and they'd spoken on the phone most weeks since. But for the third time that day her line went straight to voice mail. As he was about to hang up, his handset beeped and he saw that she was calling in.
"So you're on it as well?" she said. "The other two have been calling me all day telling me how deeply important all our friendships have been, Jason waxing on about how much he loves me all of a sudden. It's so mid-nineties. They've never been to a rave in their life. You guys are all going to wake up depressed with jaw aches."
"I'm not on Ecstasy. I'm not with them."
"So what's with all your calls? What's the emergency?"
"Nothing," he said. "I was just checking in, seeing how it's going up there. Is your roommate still a hassle?"
"I don't believe you're not in a crisis, but whatever. We can talk about that in a minute. To answer your question, yeah, she's definitely a problem. The whole vegan, bisexual, anti-NAFTA, Nader-voter situation I could more or less deal with if she'd just keep it to herself. You'd think she'd at least shut up when she meditated, but no, that's when she chants. And she has the gall to warn me about the false consciousness of cynicism. She's a cross between a Hari Krishna and a Stalinist. It's obviously just an aggressive formation against whatever void of boomer parenting she suffered, but I don't see why I should have to cope with it."
"I need you to cover for me," Nate said.
"Cover for what?"
"I told my mother I was going to visit you. I've been gone a bunch lately and I think she's starting to suspect. I just don't want her to worry, you know?"
"Where are you?"
"The Ritz."
"Oh, my God. You're with him! That is so hot. I mean I should probably be worrying about you as a friend or whatever, but that guy is smokin'. It's so much easier for you guys. The boys in my art history class don't even look at me they're so busy checking each other out. They were comparing underwear brands yesterday. But what's with the hotel?"
"He's negotiating some kind of deal. They stay here all night."
"And he asked you to come with him?"
Nate hesitated, not wanting to disappoint Emily by upending the image behind her playful envy. Besides, what sense could he make of his circumstance if it didn't conform in part, at least, to other people's more ordinary arrangements? How could he explain to her that despite all he and Doug had done they had never actually kissed?
"Do you miss Jason?"
"That drooling pothead? Maybe. I did meet this one guy in Intro Psych. He's German, so at least he knows how to have a conversation. I don't know. This English professor last week, he handed out the syllabus and told us we'd be reading nineteenth-century novels with heroes and heroines our age or not much older, and he asked if we thought our feelings were important enough to write books about. So this one kid said, how could his feelings matter if they didn't have any consequences, like marriage or kids or your reputation? Of course, he looked like he was on meds, but it riled my roommate up enough to insist our feelings about politics mattered. Which I sort of agree with. But who wants to read a novel about some vegetarian's journey to an antiwar stance?"
"Doesn't it depend on how intense they are?" Nate asked, a little jealous that Emily got to spend her time considering such things.
"What do you mean?"
"Your feelings. I mean if they're intense enough, they have consequences, right?"
"You're really gone on this guy, aren't you?"
Just then he heard a knocking at the door. "I gotta go," he said. "He's back."
"Okay, lover boy. Take care of yourself."
When Nate opened the door he was dumbfounded by the sight of Mr. Holland. For a moment the two of them beheld each other in bewildered silence.
"Nate. Hi there. This is Doug Fanning's room, isn't it?"
"Yeah," he said, unable to conceive of any reason he would be staying at the Ritz-Carlton on his own dime.
Stepping past Nate, Mr. Holland entered the room, looking about with a befuddled expression, which fell away as he took in the unmade bed and the clothes on the chairs and Nate's knapsack lying on the floor.
Unlike Mrs. Holland, who rarely managed to hide her aggression toward Jason's friends, Mr. Holland had always greeted them warmly. He seemed cheered by the idea that his son had friends at all, as inattentive parents often were, relieved by some vague notion of their child's social success. He was friendly in a general way. But he suffered from no lack of focus now.
"Is Jason with you? Is he in the hotel?"
Nate realized he was being offered an escape route. If he could rope Jason into the story somehow and then get to him before his father did, he might save himself. But he couldn't put the pieces together quickly enough.
"Actually ... I know Mr. Fanning. From Finden."
"From Finden? I see."
He glanced at his watch, as if recalculating the odds on a particularly complicated bet. Nate understood that he wouldn't be asked to explain himself any further, and that this was probably a bad thing. "Well," Mr. Holland said, "I need to see Doug. So if he drops by, maybe you could tell him I'm downstairs."
He was already back through the door when he turned, as if halted by the belated awareness that their acquaintance required some parting pleasantry. "Anyhow," he said, "say hello to your parents for me."
AS THE CAR came to a stop in front of the hotel, Doug's phone rang.
"Are you in the building yet?" Holland asked.
"Yeah, I'm here. Are we closing the deal with Taconic?"
There was a pause and it sounded as if Jeffrey were holding his hand over the receiver. "So, yeah," he said. "Good that you're here. Just sit tight, another forty-five minutes, an hour maybe. I just have to go over a few more things with the lawyers and then we'll all meet in the ballroom."
"What's going on?"
"Nothing. The deal's fine. I just want you close at the end, that's all."
A liveried bellhop opened the car door and Doug passed through the revolving glass into the lobby. Beyond the elevator bank, to the right of the front desk, two heavyset white guys in navy-blue wind-breakers were talking quietly to the hotel manager. They had wires in their ears and walkie-talkies on their belts. They weren't secret service and they didn't look private. FBI, maybe. Definitely federal.
Doug considered walking back onto the sidewalk and hailing a cab. But if they were here for him, how far would he get? Not today or tomorrow, but next week or next month? He would need time to arrange things, on his terms.
As soon as he entered the room upstairs, Nate came up off the bed, all eagerness and alarm.
"I kept trying your phone," he said. "I didn't know where you were."
Doug tossed his briefcase on the couch and crossed to the window. Nothing unusual down on the street. No squad cars or agents. He regretted now having let Nate come here but when he'd told him he would be staying in the city for a while, he'd practically begged. He had arrived with a suitcase and a bag of books, as if they were on vacation together.
As a practical matter, Nate had been expendable as soon as he'd delivered the files back in July. And yet in the months since they had spent as much time together as ever. Doug had kept telling himself that getting off helped him sleep. That Nate was just experimenting, and he was just killing time. But the more he used the boy's body, the more frustrated he'd become.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Why? Is something the matter?"
The collar of his faded blue polo was tucked under on one side and his hair, as usual, was a mess.
"What did you do?" Doug said, sliding his thumb down Nate's smooth cheek. "Shave?"
"Yeah. You think I'm too scruffy. It's my Ritz-Carlton look."
He took hold of Doug's hand and guided it down to his hip. "You look good in that suit," he said, stepping in close, their faces just a few inches apart.
His gall rising, Doug turned Nate around and pushed him forward onto the bed.
"After this," he said, "you're leaving. You understand?"
When Nate had removed his shirt and jeans, he rolled onto his back.
"What are you doing?"
"I never get to look at you," Nate said.
Doug grabbed him by the backs of the knees and pressed his thighs to his chest, bending him open. Holding him down like that, he fiddled with his own belt and trousers, amazed and repulsed by the endlessness of the boy's need. He spit in his hand and entered him with a single jab. Nate winced, his eyes watering, but Doug kept going. This was the thing - why he had kept him around. To tackle a male body, one like his own boyish self, to push it and get at it, his dick and this f*cking just a means to the end. To f*ck weakness, to pummel it.
Even as he seemed about to cry, Nate kept his eyes open, staring straight at him. Doug reached his hand down to cover the eyes, but with surprising force Nate peeled the hand back and kept looking. It was unbearable. He jabbed harder, pushing air from Nate's lungs, forcing him to gasp for breath. And still he wouldn't look away. A surge of nausea rose up through Doug's body as he hovered over him, threatening to drain all his energy, making him wish for a moment that those eyes were the barrels of guns that would finish him here and now. But time kept on and he was sweating and Nate came on his chest and stomach and Doug emptied himself into him and pulled out. And then Nate, spread-eagled on the bed, arms out to the sides, looked once again as he had before, like a lamed foal awaiting its owner's merciful bullet.
Doug wiped himself off and pulled his trousers up, watching Nate rise from the bed and disappear into the bathroom. The ringing of the shower water blended with the ringing of his phone, which he ignored.
Nate was quiet when he returned, dressing with his back to Doug, who flipped on the TV in search of news.
A few minutes later, from over his shoulder, Doug heard him say, "I got you something."
"What do you mean?"
"A present."
"What for?"
"I don't know. I felt like it." Coming around to Doug's side, he handed him a small wrapped box. Doug removed the gold ribbon and tore away the paper. Inside the case was a pair of black-and-silver cuff links.
"You've got all those cuff shirts. But you always wear the same links."
Doug closed the case and put it aside.
"This game," he said, "it's over."
"It's not a game to me."
"You don't know what you're talking about. You're a kid. You think that what you feel matters."
"It does."
"I'm doing you a favor. You can't see it now, but I am. You want to be defenseless all your life? You want to be the chump? You like sleeping with guys - fine. But take your heart off your f*cking sleeve."
Standing up, Doug grabbed his jacket and briefcase from the couch and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
At the entrance to the ballroom, a security guard asked him for ID.
"You're not press, right? There's no press allowed."
Teams of lawyers were arrayed around an enormous oblong table, their seconds seated behind them like congressional aides. The young associates whispered in their bosses' ears, as a guy in suspenders at the head of the table read aloud from a paragraph of the contract projected on a screen behind him.
Save for occasional naps on their hotel beds, the lawyers had been in this room for three days straight, fighting over the details of the acquisition, down to the last indemnification.
At a desk in the far corner of the room, Holland's secretary, Martha, was typing furiously on her laptop.
"Where's Jeffrey?" he asked her.
"Doug," she said, seemingly alarmed by his appearance. She pointed to her right. "It's the second door down. Good luck."
Another security guard, this one a man Doug recognized from the office, opened the door for him and he entered the windowless antechamber. The two men from the lobby, still wearing their blue windbreakers, sat on folding metal chairs. They stood as he entered; he heard the door close behind him.
"Douglas Fanning?" the older of the two asked, as his partner removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt.
"Yeah," Doug said. "That's me."