The Burden of Proof (72 page)

"And why did he simply not buy his sat on the Exchange at this point?" asked Stern.

"Why didn't he do a lot of things?" Peter smiled, in a way.

"I think basically he was afraid to. He couldn't explain to anybody where the money came from. And, frankly, he still didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground as a trader.

He'd have lost the seat in a week. He wanted to try to stay even for a couple of months."

"And how much, may I ask, did YOur sister know about this?"

"Kate?" Peter leveled a hand. "Obviously, she knew about the Wunderkind account. But she didn't know where the initial money came from. Not yet."

"Not yet," said Stern, mostly to himself.

Peter removed two more bottles of soda from the refrigerator, and plunked one, uncapped, in front of his father.

It was French mineral water, a brand Stern had never heard of, savored with a rose-petal aroma. Stern asked for a glass. "I take it John lost the $$00,0007"

"Right. He did a little better, but eventually it was gone."

"And so he stole again."

"If that's what you call it."

"That is what I call it," said Stern. "That is what a prosecutor would call it. And that' is what a judge would call it when he or she committed John to the penitenfary."

Peter, in front of the white cabinets, turocd about. "Look, Dad, I spent summers down there. I'm not making excuses for him, but it's like nothing really exists. It's all numbers on a scoreboard. That's all.

You trade ahead of customers, in ten or twenty lots, you don't hurt a soul. Not really.

It's against the rules because if everybody did it the customers would get maimed. But one guy? No harm. It was found money. And it's money that a lot of people down there have found. You think Dixon never traded ahead of a customer?"

"No one has ever cited Dixon as a moral exemplar."

"That's for sure," said Peter with a flash of the same hard light he had shown when he said he wasn't sorry. Stern told his son to go on.

It was at this point, Peter said, that Kate found out.

There was a confession, said Peter, lots of tears.

"She makes him promise that he won't do it again. He's ripped off another 275 K by now, and he reassures her. No way. No chance. He'll never have to do it again. And promptly goes right into the dumper in the market. So he's down to his last twenty, thirty thousand, and he makes The Big Mistake. He hears all these ramors about left-handed sugar. You know about that?"

"Enough," said Stern.

"John thinks he's got inside dope--he bets the ranch that the world sugar market is going to collapse. And he gets creamed. Destroyed. The market goes up so fast he can't even get out. When the smoke clears, not only has he lost every penny in the Wunderkind account he now owes MD $250,000 to pay for the losses in the value of the positions over and above his equity."

"Enter Dixon?" asked Stern.

"Almost," said Peter. "First, John panics. You can say anything you want to about what he did, but it was low risk. Different Exchanges?

And the best bean counter in America couldn't follow the paper trail between the error account and the Wunderkind account without someone to help him. But now, with a quarter-million-dOllar deficit, he's in deep.

Obviously, they have no money. And he can't like come to the family for a loan. So he takes what seems to be the only alternative. He starts trashing all the records that show who owns the account--you know, the idea is that way they can't find him. He zaps the computer system, he cleans out the files here. He fries up the microfiche.

Unfortunately, the duplicate fiche is in Chicago. John had actually called a clerk there with some bullshit and had him ready to send the dupes, but the clerk asked what'shername first. Who's in charge there?"

"Margy Allison."

"That's it." Margy, Peter said, called Dixon, who by then had heard from MD's accounting department about the Wunderkind account and its sizable deficit balance. Dixon told Margy to send him the records John had requested. When he summoned John to his office two days later, Dixon had the pages he'd printed' out off the fiche and the account statements spread across his desk.

"He had John sit down in one of those Corbusier chairs he's got, the deep square ones with the stainless-steel frames?

Then he gets hold of John by the tie, puts his knee in his chest, and beats the living crap out of him. Quite a scene, apparently. Dixon's big,' but he's not John's size. But John lies there like a lump, bleed'me and crying, just sort of begging."

Peter grabbed a bit at his rumpled hair. Dixon by then had written his own check for the deficit in the Wunderkind account. He preferred that to admitting to his best customers, the ones who had placed the large orders John had traded ahead of, that no one noticed while an employee-worse yet, a relation--had stolen them blind. And he couldn't simply write off the debit without drawing a great deal of attention from his in-house accountants. It was all one pocket or the other, anywi, and to cover himself with the customers, Dixon preferred to keep this quiet.

"But, of course," said Peter, "Uncle Dixon was tear-ass.

John's fouled his nest, put the whole business in jeopardy, and Uncle Dixon announces that John's going to pay for it, Dixon-style. Big speech. 'You are now my fucking slave."

"Peter thrust his elbows out in imitation of Dixon and rumbled on; he was an able mimic.

"'You've seen your last raise or bonus in this century, and you'll do anything I decide you'll do, whenever I want. you'll be a floor runner or a window washer or the guy who cleans the latrines, if that's what I say. Aod if you ever think about leaving, or so much as crap crooked, I'll ruin you. I'll take the hit with the customers, and I'll call the CFTC, the FBI, George Bush, anybody I can think of, and I'll tell them this has been laying heavy on my soul, and I'll beg them to fry your ass." And to back it up, Dixon makes a big show of taking all the account records and throwing them in his personal safe and telling John that they're always going to be there."

"John believed Dixon would carry through?"

"You bet your life."

Stern thought about Margy's story and the legend of Dixon's wrath murmured among his employees. Dixon, no doubt, was convincing when he bragged about his own cruelty.

"In fact, Uncle Dixon says, on second thought, he will turn John in.

He's going to turn him in tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and he says it'll be the day after that. Then he's back on the fence. And so this is John's life. He works on the order desk. Then, when everybody's gone, Dixon finds something humiliating for him to do, like sort the, trash.

And then every other day Dixon says he's thought it'over, the best course for him is just to drop the dime on John.

One day he calls John to his office, while he phones the CFtC

Enforcement Division and has this long chat about error accounts. He gets hold of a photo of John and draws bars across it. He even gives John the draft of a letter that Dixon says he's sent to the U. S.

Attorney. Every day, it's something else. My beloved uncle is practicing extreme mental cruelty. Hard to believe of him, of course." Stern, tempted to comment, said nothing at all.

"So that's where this thing is when Kate comes to see me.

John is in Uncle Dixon's prison, which by now, he figures, is ten times worse than the real thing. At this point, Kate and he have decided the only thing John can do is bite the bullet: John will call the FBI and confess and go to prison, and Kate will terminate her pregnancy. This is their life plan. And riobody's kidding. All right?"

Peter finished his soda and burped again. He nodded to his father.

"Did you think perhaps," said Stern after a moment, "that I might be helpful in an arena in which I have worked for most of my life?"

"First of all, Dixon was your client, which means he was an object of religious worship. And second, what the hell would you do?"

"Obviously, I would speak with Dixon."

"And how would you prevent him from going to the law?

That's what he said he'd 'do. That would leave John without even the benny of having turned himself. in."

"I ould ask Dixon not to do so.?"

"And he's always done just what you w ' anted; fight His son had lifted his face to a haughty angle. Peter was an angry young man, no doubt about that. Life deeply dissatisfied him--people failed him in all respects. He was not gay, Stern suddenly thought. He was, rather, oddly misanthropic. He rendered help out of some sense of superiority or noble duty, but he expected--perhaps even enjoyed--disappointment, time and again. He had full faith in no one.

In this, Stern realized, to a greater measure than he wished, Peter was his son.

"I thought about this for a long time. I went to dinner out there and I talked to Kate and John all night. I took Dixon's little letter to theUiS. Attorney home with me, where he'd laid out the whole seam. I kept going over the details. And then, of course, I figured out the answer. The obvious fucking answer: John should go to the FBI.

But..." Peter, maestro-like, had lifted both hands. "Yes?"

"But blame Dixon. Say it was ,ll Dixon's show. John was minorly involved, just the flunky." They looked intently at one another, "Very clever," said his father at last.

"I thought so." Peter smiled stiffly, for effect. "Of course, there were a few problems. For one thing, John could never carry this off.

Not on his own. He didn't have the nerve left 'to walk down the street by himself, let alone bullshit the FBI."

"So you volunteered?"

"Yes."

"You became his representative."

"Right."

"His defense lawyer," said Stern.

Peter did not answer; it was clear, however, that he had never thought of it this way.

"Is that truly, Peter, how you imagine this business is conducted?"

"Oh, spare me," he said. "I sat at your dinner table too long. How many people have you gotten immunity for who were lying their asses off and blaming whoever the government wanted to hear about?"

"Far fewer than you apparently imagine, Peter. And in any event, whatever fictions were spoken I had not created,"

"No? Were they 'fictions' you really believed? I know.

You're just the lawyer. If the client has the baltsor the brains--not to tell you he's lying, you pass him along without comment. And how many of .those little fairy tales have you helped shapeT'

Peter was the son. He knew his father:s life well. "There are distinctions, Peter. I think as little of your presumption in this matter as you would, were I to perform open-heart surgery."

"Look," said Peter. "It was my sister." He resumed once more his aspect of inspired anger. The challenge was there: my sister. Your child. They stared again at each other. "So you called the FBI," said Stern.

Peter met Kyle Horn in the lobby of a downtown hotel. They adjourned to the men's room and searched one another for electronic devices. Then Peter made his proposal. He was uninvolved himself, but he knew a man.

The man had a boss who was one of the biggest names at the KCFE. There was a seam. The man was involved--at the bottom, not the top--and he was scared. He would tell allZ---but only for immunity and a promise that Peter's part in arranging this would never be revealed. Take it or leave it, Peter told him...

"And the government agreed?"

"Not at first. I had to meet Sennett. They made me go over the whole thing about four times. Finally, I let them interview John in person.

All hush-hush, since they wanted John to be able to stay undercover. But I could see they would go for it from the day I gave them Dixon's name.

They actually made jokes about RICO'ing the place and calling it Maison Stan."

Maison Stan, thought Stern.

"Did they know you were my son?"

"I told them."

"They must have been very amused.""

"I suppose. Mostly, they were concerned. None of us knew for sure who Dixon would use as his lawyer, but once you Showed up I got all kinds of bulletins and memos and guidelines and crap about never discussing the case with you. Which I've followed. For the last three weeks they've been telling me I've got to stay away from Marta, too, and I have.

"We all sort of panicked when what's-her-name, Margy, sent out that memo saying you were going to talk to the people on the order desk." But Sennett had figured for a while that they were going to have to subpoena John to keep his cover, so they did it then and told you that you couldn't represent him. Pretty cute, huh?" Peter smiled faintly.

Stern did as well. All deserved. They had rnn rings around him.

"I take it that Mr. Tooley was another player in your farce?"

"More or less. I suggested him and Sennett thought that was great. I think at one point Stan told Mel not to ask too many questions, which was fine with him. He's not your biggest fan."

"Indeed not," said Stern. Peter had located all'his father's foremost antagonists and joined league with them.