“Desert?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I have something to ask you first.”
Here we go.
I got up and walked to her side, and dropped to one knee. A grin spread on her face and that was all the answer I needed. I took the ring in its little box from my pocket.
Then the spotlight hit me, blinded me, and Eve screamed.
The world went crazy. It sounded like thunder,
whup whup whup
, but it was the blade of a helicopter. The blasting wind blew out the candles, and knocked them over, and sent napkins flying from the table. I fell back on my ass, covering my eyes as Eve kept screaming, covering hers with both arms. All of a sudden men in black were everywhere, and they had guns. I started to get up but there was a knee in my back and all of a sudden two hundred plus pounds was pushing down into the middle of my spine and someone was yanking my wrists back. I thought they were going to break my arms. Mom came running out of the house, screaming at them. One of the black-clad men grabbed her arm and she went down hard on the terrace, and I saw blood on her lips and bellowed in fury, trying to buck loose, almost tearing my own shoulders out of joint as they cuffed me.
It was only then that someone barked, “
Federal Bureau of Investigation!”
I went still.
What? What the absolute
fuck?
There was a gun pressed to the back of my head.
“Stop moving.”
I looked around. Jesus, there had to be fifty of them on the lawn. Where did they all come from?
Hysterical, I looked around. I dropped the damn ring. It was sitting on the stone floor of the terrace.
Eve picked it up, and opened, and looked at me.
“I don’t know what this is about,” I shouted, “I’ll take care of it. Go inside with Mom.”
“Shut up,” the FBI man barked.
They pulled me up by the arms, painfully. They dragged me through the house, where they were ransacking everything. There was a van waiting out front, one of a dozen black vehicles. They dragged me inside and sat between two guys with rifles dressed up like ninjas, like I
was going to do something terrible if they didn’t watch me every second. It was only then that a man in a suit stepped into the van and the doors slapped closed behind him. He was the stereotypical G-man, right down to the mirrored aviators and the chewing gum. He chewed loudly, stared me down. I stared right back. I didn’t know what this was about, but whatever it was I was innocent, I’d done nothing wrong and I was absolutely certain I could prove it.
“Victor Amsel,” he said, “You have the right to remain silent.”
He ran through all the rights. You know how it goes.
I chose to exercise my right to remain silent, but not before I snarled, “Fuck you, asshole.”
That seemed to amuse him. He sat back.
“You’re a big fish,” he said, staring me down. “Make my career.”
I said nothing. I knew at least that much. I wasn’t going to talk my way out of this, and the more I talked the more I’d mouth off and give them something to use against me. I’d find out what I was charged with later. Mom would be calling the lawyers now. We had people on retainer. I’d be out by morning.
I kept telling myself, I’d be out by morning.
As they booked me, I’d be out by morning.
As they fingerprinted me, I’d be out by morning.
As they took mug shots, I’d be out by morning.
As they took my clothes and made me put on an orange jumpsuit, I’d be out by morning.
As they locked me in a solitary holding cell on the four floor of the grim block of a jail house, I’d be out by morning.
By early afternoon the next day, I stopped lying to myself. I waited for the visit, for Eve and Mom to show up and tell me it was going to be alright, this was all a huge mistake, this would be taken care of and I’d take my graduation walk and get my birthright and marry the girl of my dreams. This was all just a temporary pit stop on the road to happily ever after.
Neither Mom, nor Eve, came to see me.
A federal prosecutor did.
They took me to an interrogation room. Later I learned they called it
the fish tank
. It was a square, ugly room of unadorned concrete with a steel table. In the middle was a ring, bolted to the metal. They put a pair of those long shackles on my wrists with the chain running through the loop on the table, so I couldn’t get away.
I named him Junior G-Man in my head.
“Ronald Powers,” he introduced himself.
“Go fuck yourself,” I replied, cheerily.
“That’s not a very good way to start our conversation.”
“You’re not here to help me. I’m not going to get out of this by talking to you. I have nothing to say.”
He sat down and made a cutting motion across his neck with his hand. I flinched, until I realized he was signaling someone on the other side of the bulletproof glass.
It meant
stop recording
.
That made me a little nervous.
“Off the record. Not so brave now, are you, you little prick?”
“What do you want?”
“When the mikes come back on, which has to be fast because we’re going to say it’s a technical error, we’re going to negotiate a plea deal.”
“I’m not talking to you without my lawyer.”
“Shut up and listen. You take the conviction. Plead out. We’ll give you a light sentence. Two years.”
Two years of my life for something I didn’t even do? I was about tell him what I thought about that, and him, and his ugly necktie, when he raised his hand.
“I know it’s a shitty deal. Here’s the other condition.”
He dropped a folder on the table. My chains rattled as I pulled it to me and spread it open.
Pictures of me and Brittany. At the pizza parlor. Surveillance stills of me walking into the vault after she did.
So what? Were they threatening her, or…
Oh.
Oh
God
.
“We show the girl the pictures. Proof you’ve been fucking another woman.”
“I didn’t,” I snap. “I never, this is a lie-“
“That’s not you?”
“It is. I was working with her to gather evidence on…” I trailed off.
“Working with her missionary, or bent over the desk?”
“Asshole,” I snarled. “Fuck you. I’m not taking any deal. You don’t have shit on me, I didn’t do anything illegal. So go fuck yourself.”
He made a gesture. The tapes were rolling again. I couldn’t tell, exactly, I could just feel it.
Christ.
“So,” he said, “Let’s talk deal.”
“Lawyer,” I said.
Four hours of pleading, yelling, threatening, arguing, reasoning, and then finally stony silence, and I never said another word.
I was one hundred percent certain that Eve would take my side, that she would never, ever believe a filthy lie about me cheating on her.
I didn’t figure on one thing.
I didn’t figure on Brittany backing up their bullshit.
Chapter Seventeen
Victor
It was a long six weeks in that solitary cell. Technically, it was a luxury, to protect the rich boy from general population. I was in jail, not yet in prison, where they house petty criminals serving short sentences along with people who’ve been arrested and charged but not yet tried, or are undergoing trial. Still, there were plenty of people there that would get off on teaching the rich boy a lesson. They let me out to eat lunch, at least, and I got an hour of exercise a day.
I spent that pacing in circles in a caged-in pen, by myself, watched by a guard who looked about as interested in me as I was in the cracks on the floor, which depending on the day could be not at all or very intensely. I had my lawyer in the first twenty-four hours. He was a friend of my Dad’s, a
good guy named Morty Grieg. He brought with him a partner, a woman named Claire Barnes. Together, they promised me they would take care of all of this.
They didn’t.
The trial lasted for seventeen days. That translated to three weeks, since we skipped a Wednesday because a juror had a doctor’s appointment and the trial did not continue on Fridays. Everything was very stiff and formal. This was federal court, I was charged with federal crimes. Insider trading, wire fraud, and embezzlement.
The biggest piece of evidence was the papers in my attache, and all the papers in the vault with my fingerprints on them. Brittany wasn’t watching Martin, she was setting me up. She showed me paper after paper, even had me sign stuff, and I didn’t realize what I was doing. The vault recorded every time I was in and out and there were signatures from the sign-in books, and they brought in people to testify that I’d been seen more frequently in the office for the last six weeks or so. I just sat there and absorbed it. My lawyers would tear them apart. It didn’t mean jack shit, there was no proof I actually did anything, only that I knew. I was waiting for the big Perry Mason moment when my lawyers would turn and dramatically accuse Martin where he sat in the gallery with Mom and Eve.
Any comfort that thought might bring me turned to ashes in my mouth when I saw her. Eve looked like somebody died. Her eyes were always red, and there were tracks burned in her cheeks from crying. She looked like a drowned rat in ill fitting clothes, staring down at the floor most of the time with my mother’s arm around her, listening.
They had other evidence. It was all bullshit but they had it.
They spun a story and it went like this: Some three years ago when I started sleeping with Martin’s daughter, I began scheming to get rid of him, because he could catch me at my games. According to the prosecution, I’d been running the company behind the scenes for two full years while Martin was in the dark, trying to put out my fires without knowing the cause. His main concern was maintaining the trust and my family’s accounts, and his wife.
I wanted to throw up.
My instrument to achieve this was Brittany. She lied to me, she hadn’t been working with the company for a few weeks, she’d been working at Amsel since she graduated from college herself, almost four years ago.
According to them, it was two years ago when we started the affair.
Immunity. They gave her
immunity
to testify against me.
The rest of it was a blur, but I remember the day she said her piece with crystalline, focused clarity.
She sat in the witness box in a dark suit, like she was going to a funeral. Her frizzy hair was smoothed, bound in a severe bun. She looked twice as old as she did the day I met her, but she had a childlike vulnerability that must have absolutely wowed the jury. She sat primly in the box and waited.
Ronald Powers asked the questions himself.
“Can you tell us your full name?”
“Brittany Lynne Andrews.”
They had her swear in. No book or So Help Me God like TV, it was all very formal.
When she was done with that he looked over at me and said, “Can you identify that man, please.”
“His name is Victor Amsel.”
“Thank you. Can you describe the nature of your relationship with him?”
She cleared her throat, and turned red. It was very, very convincing. I would have been fooled myself. She looked guiltily at the jury, looked past me at Eve, and never once set her eyes on me. She swallowed hard and said, “For the last two years, he and I were engaged in a sexual affair.”
You could hear a pin drop, except for the soft sound of weeping. Eve.
I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t make myself.
Stop it, I thought. I was starting to get angry with her. How
dare
she believe this bullshit. My hands clenched into fists.
Morty grabbed my arm. “Quiet,” he murmured.
“That’s not at issue here,” Powers said, slyly. “What else can you tell us about your relationship?”
“It is an issue,” she said, calmly. “That’s how it started. I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. I’m older, dedicated to my career. I didn’t get out much, and the heir to the company was showering me with attention, but he was just using me.”
“How was he using you?”
She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes. “He needed me to cover his tracks. He’s been stealing money from the company and running bust-outs on some of the companies Amsel bought into for over two years now. I kept notes.”
“You did?”
“I did. I thought… I thought he was going to… propose to me,” she said, sighing. “He bought an engagement ring. He took me with him to look at it, but it was for
her
. Then he came to me with this plan. He was going to blow everything open and blame his stepfather. He needed to get rid of him. Everything we did was a constant game of cat and mouse, avoiding Martin Ross catching us in the act. I was terrified. When I wanted to stop, he threatened me.”
“Threatened you?”
“Yes. He said I was nothing to someone like him, he could make me disappear with a phone call and no one would care. I was scared, so I started putting together a file. Like insurance. I started getting material to tie him to his crimes. Then I found out he was going to propose to Martin’s daughter. He… he
hit me
,” she broke down, “he said if I told anyone about us he’d kill me himself, and-“
“Objection,” Morty snarled, “This is all hearsay, and-“
“Overruled,” the judge said, calmly.
I blinked. It wasn’t supposed to work like that. I mean, the whole objection-overruled thing is a TV schtick, right? They usually go talk in the judge’s office and shit. What the hell was this? Morty was purple, beside himself with fury. His partner leaned over and whispered.
“Let them. This is all fodder for the appeal. They don’t have anything on you, Vic. They have no evidence. What they do have points to Martin!”
There was a commotion behind me. Mom and Martin led Eve out of the gallery. She was sobbing, her shoulders shaking. She was completely breaking down and there was nothing I could do. I was chained to the fucking floor. The bailiff gave me the stink eye if I even thought about getting up, like he just
knew
.
The rest of Brittany’s testimony was boring. Dates and places we met, half of them fabricated.