“Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t. I will take more effective measures.”
“Stay out of it.” Now I felt murderous toward him. “You can go down, too, Fred. In fact, you’re a big part of what I’m trying to demolish.” A very big part—very, very big. “And by the way, you’re fired.”
“I won’t rant.” His voice was very cold. “Just be warned.”
“You too.”
Nathan called at eight forty.
“I’m worrying about you, Jason.”
“That would be justified,” I said.
“What should I be doing?”
“Tell me I’m doing the right thing.”
There was dead air, then he tried. “I believe you are. But it’s your decision.”
“Fred disagrees with both of those statements.”
“What about Katie?”
“She’s not happy.”
“I’m sorry. I could talk to her.”
She was going to be homeless soon. Maybe she could take advantage of some of his programs. “Maybe later. Right now it wouldn’t help.”
“If I can help at any time, please tell me.”
“I will. Thanks.”
At nine, Stan Morton called.
“What are you doing?!”
“I’m sitting in my office, looking out the window,” I said.
“Your silence is deafening. I can’t get anybody at the statehouse to tell me what you’ve told them to do. So I called Forrester at his house. He’d never pass a chance to cut down Harry Bright. What do I get? A very uncharacteristic ‘No comment.’ What kind of gag have you tied on to everybody? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’m not telling anybody to do anything. They’re on their own.”
“Really.”
“And Forrester will be his insufferable self soon enough.”
“Okay,” he said, and I could hear the suspicious look on his face. “So what’s the story here?”
“I’d tell you but I’m tired of talking about it.”
“If you’re tired, I’ll send a reporter over with a pillow.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“I’m taking that as a promise.”
“Whatever. Good-bye, Stan.”
Jacob Rosenberg called at nine twenty-five.
“I have a couple papers for you to sign.”
“I’m just sitting here,” I said.
“Then I’ll be right over.”
I was ready to make my own calls.
“Get me Senator Forrester’s office in Washington.”
“I don’t think he’s there yet,” Pamela said. “He was flying back this morning.”
“It doesn’t matter. I just need to talk to somebody to deliver a message.”
I stood by her desk as she levered and forced, and after only a few moments she had a person. I took the call on Pamela’s phone.
“What may I do for you, Mr. Boyer?” said the person.
“Please give my regards to the senator,” I said. “Tell him that he’s free. He can do whatever he wants. I don’t care if the blathering idiot rots in Washington, but he better get his own machine to get elected because mine is out of business. And tell him to keep Tweedleleine and Tweedlevieve away from my family or I’ll change my mind and tell the newspaper everything about him spying for the Communists.”
The person recovered fast. She must have had plenty of practice. “Mr. Boyer—”
“Nyet, comrade. I will say no more.”
Pamela couldn’t approve of my behavior, as much as she wanted to. “You shouldn’t burn all your bridges,” she said after I’d hung up.
“I like to watch the flames.”
“You might need friends later on.”
“Not Forrester. And not Fred. I don’t want friends like them.”
It was almost ten when Jacob arrived. Lawyers are supposed to be precise with words, but his “couple papers” was not.
“Did you work all night?” I said, looking at his stack.
“Six of us did.”
“I’m glad you’re taking this seriously.”
“Well, Mr. Boyer, time is against us. The faster this gets done, the better, before we start getting resistance.”
“The resistance has already started.”
He smiled a lawyer smile. “And due to the expenses we’re incurring, and the nature of the job, this first paper is to create an escrow account with sufficient funds to cover our bills.”
“No problem,” I said. That was probably the first thing they teach in lawyer schools, to charge up front if the client is bankrupting himself. I changed the amount from two million dollars to five million.
“The two million was meant to be more than enough,” he said. “Anything unused will just go back into the main estate.”
“We don’t know what might happen these next couple weeks. Let’s be very generous, just in case.”
“Yes, sir. These papers create a single trust, which all the assets will be assigned to. It’s in your name to begin with. These are the papers that will transfer the trust to the foundation. You can sign those when you’re ready.”
“I won’t sign those yet.” That would be the crucial moment. “What is the trust called?”
“I’ve put down
Jason Boyer Asset Trust
as the name.”
I found the page where that was written and crossed it out. Above the line I wrote,
Trust for the Termination of Boyer Family
Power and Riches
.
“Let’s go with that,” I said.
“The name is public information, Mr. Boyer.”
“I know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And these are all the specific assets?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “We got as many as we could. These are transfers designed to avoid sales and capital gains taxes whenever possible. There will be some taxes.”
“Which trust includes my house?”
“Let’s see.” He riffled for just a moment. “This one.” It was the trust that also owned the sailboat and the cars and furniture and all my personal assets. “There is a waiver for your wife to sign, if she would.”
“I don’t think she will.”
“That’s a sword hanging over the whole thing. She can contest this transfer.”
“We’ll proceed anyway.”
“And as I said before, if she files for divorce, all of this can be delayed or even halted.”
“I’m trying,” I said. To do his job, he needed to know how it was. But I didn’t like discussing it.
“Yes, sir. I just want to make sure you understand that she is the biggest threat to your plans.”
“I understand.”
He understood that he was not to press the subject. “And this is a power of attorney. It gives our firm the right to conduct transactions on your behalf for the sole purpose of moving assets into the main trust. It’s to prevent delays when we need ancillary papers signed.”
I was reading the fine print. “No. I want to do my own signing.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll keep some couriers available if we need to bring papers to you quickly.”
We got to work. Pamela only interrupted one time.
“Fred’s on the phone,” she said.
“Tell him I’m busy signing lots of papers.”
“Do you really want me to?”
“No.” I picked up my phone. “Yes?”
Fred’s voice came out of the receiver like an earthquake. “I want to know if you’ll change your mind.” That was all he said.
“I won’t.”
The line went dead.
We trudged on through the papers, and it was after eleven when we finished.
“Am I free to discuss this with Nathan Kern?” Jacob asked.
“Sure. It’ll all be his in another week.”
“As long as Mrs. Boyer doesn’t interfere.”
“Whatever. Go ahead and brief him on the whole thing, and keep him updated if anything new happens.”
I gave him a five-minute head start, and then I fled my office and returned to the streets, far different now than twelve hours before. The sidewalks were full and the restaurants were crowded. I stopped at a crammed diner. Everyone in the place got a weekly paycheck and lived off it.
“You know who you look like?” a voice said. I looked up. The waitress was waiting for my order.
“Who?”
“Jason Boyer, that millionaire.”
I smiled. “People have been saying that all weekend.”
After lunch I bought a newspaper. The state senate impeachment posse was in full pursuit of the governor. The editorial was a call for him to step down. There was a picture of me on the front cover. I wandered back toward the office. Two women on the sidewalk stared at me and whispered together.
It was spooking me. I didn’t like this feeling of being noticed and recognized. I thought about Fred and his handkerchief and his hand in the drawer. I thought about Clinton Grainger, unarmed.
I found a gun store.
I knew nothing about guns. I told the man I was working late more often and I didn’t like walking the streets at night. He told me what I wanted, an automatic pistol that he had in the back.
And there were waiting periods and background checks. I gave him my Jeff Benson driver’s license for the transaction. He studied it very carefully and decided he could trust me. He’d let me take the gun now, and he’d take care of the background checks later. He was so helpful.
I said I wanted to try it. He didn’t have a place—it took a lot of expense and licenses to run a shooting range, but maybe I could just put a couple bullets into a block of wood he had. The block had a lot of holes already and I added two more. It’s not hard to fire a gun.
I didn’t want to carry it in my pocket, so he showed me some holsters, the kind worn under a suit jacket. Of course, I’d need a concealed gun permit to use it. I told him I’d get the permit before I used the holster.
It was all easy to do, especially with such an accommodating salesperson. He smiled just like we were old friends as he handed me back the driver’s license, less the three hundred-dollar bills that had been clipped onto it. The bulge under my left arm hardly showed.
“I am not here,” I said to Pamela. “Completely not here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I closed my door. I could still back out. I could call Jacob and tell him to shred the papers. I could apologize to Fred. As long as I had the money, he’d be my friend no matter what I did.
As long as I had the money, Katie would be my loving wife.
“Katie, I’ve changed my mind. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”
“Oh, Jason! Of course! I love you, dear! We are keeping the house,
aren’t we? And all the money?”
No, I couldn’t do it.
That brief moment of indecision was very short, about the length of time it would take a person in the lobby downstairs to see me come in from lunch, maybe make a short telephone call, and ride the next elevator up to the top floor. There was a commotion in the outer office.
My door opened. Pamela was trying to warn me on the intercom and also stop the intruder, but he was much bigger than she was.
“Jason Boyer.” he said. Shabby black suit stuffed with muscle and fat, greasy cheeks, ragged dark hair—most bouncers were better dressed.
I stood up. “Of course I am.”
“I’m serving you papers that your wife, Katherine Boyer, is suing for divorce.”
He had laid a large envelope on my desk. It would have been a cheap thrill to hit him, to punch him in the face, but it would have just made it all worse.
“Get out,” I said.
But he had more words to say. “By court order you are specifically prohibited from selling or liquidating any property—”
He paused for a split second, looking at my suit jacket. He’d spotted the holster. In his line of work, he had to be aware of things like that.
“I said get out.”
“By court order you are also required to surrender to Katherine Boyer the deed to your residence on Old Post Road. By court order you are required to transfer to the bank account listed in these papers an amount of no less than twenty million dollars for Katherine Boyer’s expenses while the divorce settlement is negotiated. By court order you are prohibited from any communication with the following people—Jacob Rosenberg, Nathan Kern, Stanley Morton, or any employees or agents of those individuals or organizations they are associated with. By court order—”
“Get out or I will kill you.”
He shrugged. There was a limit to his tenacity, and he’d said enough. He turned and walked out.
Pamela was beside herself.
“I’m so sorry, Jason. I couldn’t do anything.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
I didn’t have time for the rage. I soothed Pamela and then called Jacob Rosenberg.
“What do the court orders say?” He was incredulous.
I read them again.
“Who’s the judge?”
“Walter Willis.”
“Okay, no problem,” he said. “That’s Harry Bright’s cousin. It’s twelve thirty. . . . I’ll have them all struck down by one o’clock— except the first one about selling or liquidating. Your wife has a right to that injunction.”
“Find a judge who’ll cancel it anyway,” I said. “Are any of your cousins judges?”
“Two of my uncles are, actually, but they’re both in Boston. They couldn’t make it stick anyway. It would get immediately reinstated.”
“I was joking.”
Some amount of time passed. I only knew that because the sun was at a different angle than it had been. I could only think about Katie, and they were thoughts that couldn’t be put into words. Only that we’d each made our decision and we had not chosen each other.
“Jason,” Pamela said. “I’m sorry. Stan Morton just offered me five thousand dollars if I could get you to talk to him.”
“Take it,” I said.
“I didn’t mean . . . I just thought I should tell you how desperate he was.”
“Then we’ll split it. I’ll talk to him.” I picked up my phone.
“Stan.”
“Jason. Tell me this is not true. Your wife is filing for divorce?”
“It’s true.”
“No.”
This was how the fox would feel with the hounds everywhere. “I’m not allowed to talk to you anyway.”
“The court already overturned that order.”
Right. It was one thirty. “I said I’ll talk to you tomorrow. It sounds like you know everything anyway.”
“The world is going to know by this evening. What is going on?”
“I don’t know anymore.” And I hung up.
It was the dog’s day. Pamela was at the door again. “Jacob Rosen-berg is on hold.”
“Okay.”
I left him on hold while I put my head down in my hands. What had I been expecting anyway? That everyone would just smile and give me a hug? What was I doing here?