Family Matters Read online

  I held the ring up toward the light to get a better look, and for a second, that fierce Olympian face seemed to wink at me. “What can you do, Sonny Boy?” it seemed to say, just the way the grandpas might.

  My two old Kaluki-playing grandpas, would-be Queens criminal masterminds, had pulled off the heist of the century—at least in their own minds. It had been payback for all of Nick’s cheating, and they’d gotten away with it. Now, I had become their partner in crime . . . and it felt pretty good.

  I smiled and put the ring in my pocket and sprinted up the stairs, finally free of the terrors of the basement. Out on the porch, I found two decks of cards and headed for the hospital and one last game of Kaluki.

  KILLING SHORT

  Cynthia Benjamin

  MUCH later, Nina told me how it all began, in that gold-plated mansion with wrap-around ocean views. “You have to understand,” she said. “The very rich, with enough money to sting and scald on whim, always have incredible views. It’s one of the many things that great wealth buys.”

  Vertical wealth is how a real estate agent I know described it. The truly rich always buy “up,” so they can look down on us and then out over the rest of the world. I’m sure the irony wasn’t lost on Jay Cronin. One of the richest men in the hemisphere was only five feet tall. It must have killed him. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

  HEIGHT was never a problem for Nina’s husband, Henry Gordon, a lanky six-footer, who had been summoned to Jay’s library in his South Hampton mansion by the sea. From what Henry later told her, I could imagine what happened after the housekeeper silently escorted him into the great man’s inner sanctum, and Jay rose to meet him. It was rumored that he wore lifts, which added a good three inches to his diminutive frame and always were artfully disguised in slightly worn, tasseled loafers. Without them, Jay Cronin could have been any short, bald, multi-billionaire enjoying a much-deserved weekend away from his personal financial galaxy. For a man about to be indicted for the securities fraud of the new millennium, he seemed at peace with himself.

  Henry had no idea why Jay had asked him to his seaside redoubt on that muzzy Saturday morning. Like the other lawyers in his department, he was oblivious to the inner machinations of his employer’s business. Henry was one of the little guys, paid to vet certain contracts and attend endless meetings. In return, he received a salary that enabled his wife to buy last year’s designer suits on Internet sale sites.

  Jay Cronin didn’t waste any time. “I have a business proposal for you. Listen, think it over carefully, and then call me tomorrow morning at this number.” He slid a piece of paper across his desk. “Say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ That’s all.”

  Jay Cronin could endure many things, but a federal penitentiary wasn’t one of them. The deal he proposed was simple. Henry Gordon would go to prison in his place. Evidence would be planted that could be traced to Henry’s computer. When that evidence was turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the charges against Jay would be dropped, and Henry Gordon would be arrested instead.

  In return, Jay Cronin would deposit twenty-five million dollars in an offshore account in his name. For each year of his incarceration, his wife, Nina, would receive an additional one million dollars. Her medical benefits under the company health plan would continue until his release.

  “It’s the least I can do,” Jay added.

  In another time and place, Henry would have left without a word and returned to the real world above the rabbit hole. But Jay hadn’t chosen Henry Gordon by chance. He knew two things about the rail-thin lawyer. He was weak and he was greedy. Henry Gordon would say yes. And the next morning he did.

  While Henry Gordon was selling his soul to a sleek, round-faced devil in eight-ply cashmere and lifts, I was meeting with the devil’s lawyer, Larry Bender. When rich, high-profile clients like Jay Cronin want to stay out of jail during their trials, they hire me as a private security guard. “Bail sitter” is the current term for the expensive services I provide. Hell, call me whatever you want. The check still clears, and I can afford to spend three months a year in my Florida condo.

  We were sitting in Bender’s corner, wood-paneled office, decorated with the requisite photos of wives, both present and future. Around us, the outer offices buzzed with young, legal minions, earning their weekend time-and-a-half to help prepare a case designed to keep one of Wall Street’s biggest swindlers out of jail. I had just signed a contract ensuring that his home confinement during the trial would be fully compliant with the court’s order. To celebrate, I indulged my favorite guilty pleasure, a particular brand of chocolate candy that I always stashed in my coat pocket.

  “I meant to ask you, George. Why do you keep eating that crap? My nutritionist told me to stay away from stuff like that. Plays havoc with the glycemic index or something.”

  I watched Larry drop a glistening cherry into his perfectly capped maw. A second later the pit flew across the room with drone-like precision and landed in a wastepaper basket near his door.

  “Fruit is where it’s at, George. Nectar of the gods.”

  Larry leaned back in his chair and belched. “From what I understand, Jay is big on chocolate too. Though he prefers it Swiss and expensive. Hell, after six months being cooped up together in his penthouse, chocolate might become an important topic of conversation.”

  I popped another piece of candy in my mouth before slipping the foil-wrapped package back in my pocket.

  “You’d be surprised at what your client and I might talk about.”

  A MONTH later, I saw Jay Cronin for the first time outside the Supreme Court building on Centre Street. His face was mostly chin and forehead, straddling a thick neck intended for a taller man. As expected, he had been indicted and released on bail in my very expensive care. For a guy who had damaged so many, Jay Cronin looked buoyant, bobbing along like a pop-up toy on steel springs past the scrum of photographers and reporters.

  “Buoyant” was one of my sister Delia’s favorite words, and it described Jay Cronin’s demeanor perfectly on this canary yellow and green spring afternoon. He looked shiny and well-tended, and his hand pumped mine with the enthusiasm of a car salesman who had just closed his first big sale of the week.

  “Good to meet you. Larry says we’ll be spending a lot of time together for the next couple of weeks.”

  “It should be a lot longer than that, Mr. Cronin.”

  When Jay Cronin grinned, his porcelain veneers seemed to reflect the sunlight. “No, this business will be over sooner than you think. I have a good feeling about this one, George. You don’t mind my calling you George, do you?”

  I did, but there wasn’t any point in contradicting him. After we slid into the back seat of his limo, Jay beamed back at the crowd that pushed against the police barricade. Of course, he didn’t know what was waiting for him at his apartment.

  The other members of my team had already completed a walk-through of Cronin’s triplex, a security sweep designed to transform a luxury residence into a luxury prison. I never had toured a newly reconfigured home with a client who didn’t break down at least once. Sometimes it’s the little things, like realizing the caller ID has been deactivated. More often, it’s the first sight of the bulletproof vest that tests the strength of a man’s bladder. But Jay Cronin accepted all the security precautions without flinching.

  “My lawyer explained what your security team would do,” he said, sinking into an overstuffed sofa. “I expect that the front door and balcony door are alarmed. And any visitor has to sign a logbook in the lobby. Not that I expect many guests until this is resolved.”

  As he talked, Cronin slipped out of his elevated shoes and into a pair of custom-made slippers without dropping an inch in height. Then he padded across the museum quality rug to a bar built into what appeared to be a wall of books. It was really a state-of-the-art home entertainment center. I knew because one of my security team had dismantled it that morning. The better to keep Jay from tracking his case in the c
able news galaxy.

  “Still, we are going to be spending a lot of time together, at least for the foreseeable future, so we should become familiar with each other’s habits. I always have one Scotch before dinner.” Cronin pointed to the well-stocked bar. “Now, what can I get you?”

  “Thanks, but I never drink on the job.”

  “Good choice. You know, George, had circumstances been different, I might have hired you myself. I can size someone up as soon as I meet him, and my first impressions are never wrong.”

  Then, Mrs. Jay Cronin slammed into the room.

  “Except once,” he added, before downing the Scotch.

  Alma Cronin didn’t need lifts. There wasn’t much she did need, except a new cook.

  “That goddamned cook just quit. Can you believe it? After all I did for her? Said she couldn’t prepare meals for this family without the proper equipment. Did you know that security team your imbecile lawyer hired took every damn kitchen knife in the apartment? And the scissors.”

  “And the razor blades,” I added, before introducing myself. “It’s stipulated by the court as a condition of your husband’s release on bail.”

  Alma Cronin regarded her perfectly shaped nails while she pondered her situation. When she turned to face me, her frozen helmet of hair took about five seconds to catch up with the rotation of her head. My sister Delia would have described it as perfectly “coiffed,” another of her favorite words. “Then I’ll get take-out from the corner market, assuming I’m allowed to leave the apartment.”

  “That won’t be a problem for you, Mrs. Cronin. And don’t worry about your house keys. They’re useless. My men disabled all the locks this morning.”

  She didn’t flinch. “All those damn keys weighed a ton, anyway. It’s probably the only plus to this incredible situation.”

  “Turning lemons into lemonade,” Delia would have said. Then Alma Cronin was gone, sailing past her husband with the disdain of a luxury liner for the unappealing dingy by its side.

  Jay Cronin’s well-polished face had lost some of its luster. For a moment, the man who had engineered a multi-billion dollar security fraud looked like any other hen-pecked schnook. But the moment passed, and Cronin shot me a look you could split rails with.

  “I’m paying your company $75,000 a month to turn my well-appointed apartment into a well-appointed jail cell. Why don’t you give me the grand tour, so I can see exactly what my money bought.”

  THREE weeks later, I had become an extension of the Cronin family, and our lives together settled into a predictable routine. As his trial date drew closer, Jay spent most mornings with his lawyer. There was always a crowd yelling for his blood waiting outside his Upper Fifth Avenue apartment building on Manhattan’s Gold Coast. Among the yahoos, I noticed a slim, tense woman in a belted raincoat. Her beautiful eyes never left Jay’s face.

  Lockdown kicked in as soon as Jay returned to his apartment. Instead of a six-by-nine cell, he was confined to a twenty-room palatial triplex with a wife who hated him and a twenty-two-year old son who was embarrassed by his father’s fall from grace. Whenever I saw Jay Jr., he ignored me. He seemed more concerned about losing his cell phone privileges than his father’s legal problems. Nothing’s more obnoxious than a self-entitled trust fund baby who’s just found out his money vaporized overnight and, with it, most of his friends.

  One afternoon, we were sitting in Jay’s library just off a terrace that was larger than many multi-family homes. No replacement was ever found for the angry cook, so we were eating take-out from a nearby deli. Jay’s wife and son had disappeared into their respective wings of the apartment after breakfast. Now the most feared financial chieftain on Wall Street was gnawing happily on a corned beef sandwich perched atop a metal tray that straddled his legs.

  “Reminds me of my childhood,” he said, pointing to the metal tray. “Every Friday night, we used to eat like this in front of the radio, because we couldn’t afford a TV. God how I hated that house. Overheated and crowded and noisy. Listen, George. Do you hear it?”

  “What?”

  “The silence.”

  I knew what he meant. “Money can’t buy what really matters,” Delia used to say. But it can buy your way out of Riker’s via a professional security team. And it can buy silence. Despite what my men had done to his apartment, they couldn’t change that—the total stillness that cocooned every room. Only people can shatter silence. And five minutes later, Nina Gordon burst through the front door. I recognized her as the woman who always waited for Jay outside his apartment building. Somehow, she had talked her way past the security guard in the lobby.

  “You can’t let him go through with this,” Nina screamed. Her anger created its own force field that almost seemed to overpower him.

  “Mrs. Gordon and I have to discuss something in private. Could you leave us alone for a few minutes, George?”

  “You know the rules, Mr. Cronin.”

  “Ah, but rules, as my father used to say, are just a series of choices.” Then, Nina looked at me, and I made some choices of my own.“Please give me your handbag and raincoat, ma’am.”

  “Is that all?” she hissed. “Sure you don’t want to pat me down? I could have a concealed weapon.”

  I looked at Jay. “You have five minutes. I’ll leave the door open.”

  From the hall outside the library, I could hear them arguing.

  “If anything happens to him, anything . . . I’ll kill you. I don’t care what happens to me, but I won’t let you destroy him.” Then she ran from the library and slammed out of the apartment.

  Jay looked at me and shrugged. “Her husband doesn’t deserve her.”

  AS Jay had predicted, it was over a week later. We were in his limo, on our way to the courthouse, when his lawyer called my cell.

  “Tell him the Feds dropped all the charges.”

  I’ve been a bail sitter for a lot of high flyers who made the wrong turn. Every one of them would have given up the password to his Swiss bank account for that news, but Jay Cronin seemed unfazed by his reversal of fortune.

  “I must admit, I’ll miss your company, George. I always found your conversation far preferable to my wife’s.” I wasn’t sure that was much of a compliment.

  Reporters had staked out the entrances to his apartment house, so I asked the driver to drop us in front of a Madison Avenue electronics store two blocks away. For almost two months, Jay and I had been isolated from all media. It seemed fitting that our time together should enter its final phase in front of an oversized high-definition TV. Although Jay’s pinched face filled every screen in the store, no one connected the nondescript, elfin man standing next to me with his television avatar.

  At our request, a salesclerk turned up the volume, just as a television reporter announced that all charges had been dropped against Wall Street power broker Jay Cronin. Instead, the U.S. Attorney’s Office was preparing to charge one of Cronin’s employees. Jay’s icepick-thin lips formed the semblance of a smile. Pointing to the open bag of chocolate candies in my hand, he held out both palms like an orphan on Halloween.

  “Blood sugar’s heading south, George.” Then he grabbed the bag from my hand, trying to place the brand.

  “I thought the name was familiar. My firm bought this candy company two years ago. Dumped it at the end of last year.”

  “Why’d you sell, if you don’t mind my asking? It’s great stuff. Been around for forty years.”

  “So had most of the workers. When they walked away from our deal, it became too expensive to produce.”

  “What deal was that?”

  “The usual. Wage cut. Benefits cut. Union assholes hung tough. Never figured we’d cut them loose, but we closed the factory and sold the land in a month. By next January, you can buy the same brand, made in Mexico for one-fifth the price.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  AFTER the charges against Jay Cronin were dropped, I stayed on at his apartment for a few more days. This tim
e around, I supervised the removal of all the security paraphernalia my men had installed. It was like flipping on a secret switch. Within hours, new locks were installed, and the expensive home entertainment system was buzzing again. Jay removed his bulletproof vest for the last time.

  Nameless computer moles with equipment that outclassed the Feds had created a virtual trail leading to Henry Gordon. He was arrested and charged with securities fraud a week later. Jay and I were having drinks in his library when the banner flashed across the screen of the wall-sized, flat-screen TV, next to the faux book covers. Jay looked genuinely shocked by the news.

  He was especially talkative at dinner that night, and Henry Gordon was the only topic of conversation. As always, we ate alone. Since his acquittal, his wife and son had morphed from social pariahs into social butterflies and regained their rightful places in New York society.

  “I’m not surprised it turned out to be someone in the legal department. But I would never have picked Gordon.”

  “Not smart enough?”

  “Not hungry enough.”

  “Still, something must have happened to alert his wife. She is the woman who came to the apartment several weeks ago?”

  “For some reason, she thought I knew about his impending arrest. Women in love are capable of almost anything, so I’ve been told. She was insane with worry.” As Jay talked, he examined the silver toothpick he carefully worked between his molars.

  “I noticed how troubled she looked when I reviewed that day’s video file.”

  Jay didn’t flinch. “You mean the video camera outside my apartment door? I had forgotten about that. What happens to those files?”

  “Since the case was dismissed, I erased them. And the logbook with your visitors’ names has been misplaced. Didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “The fewer memories, the better.”

  We were contemplating our choices from the dessert tray—what would my sister have said about that?—when Jay’s butler slipped into the room and whispered in his ear. Jay smiled and waved him away.