“Frozen,” I said again. “My God.” I ran a hand across my face. “All right. What can I do about this?”
“Nothing,” Stearns said. “Nothing except wait this out. I can have Todd Richlin talk to a friend of his at the SEC”-Richlin was Putnam & Stearns’s resident financial genius-“but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
I looked out the window at the miniature streets of Boston thirty-some floors below us-the green of the Public Garden and the Common resembling the green-sprayed lichen of a toy train set; the magnificent tree-lined Commonwealth Avenue; and running parallel to it, Marlborough Street, where I lived. If I were the suicidal type, it would have made a good spot from which to jump. “Go ahead,” I said.
“Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, acting through the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston, have shut down First Commonwealth, apparently for alleged drug ties.”
“Drug-?”
“Well, the word is that Doc Osborne’s involved in some kind of money-laundering scheme for drug types.”
“But I have nothing whatsoever to do with whatever shit Doc Osborne is into!”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he replied. “Remember when the Fed shut down that big discount brokerage in New York, Drexel Burnham? They literally went in and put handcuffs on people and put a sticker on the door. I mean, you could take a tour of the place a year later and you’d see cigarettes still in ashtrays, half-full cups of coffee, all that.”
“But Drexel’s clients didn’t lose their cash!”
“Well, look at Marcos of the Philippines, or the Shah of Iran-sometimes they just seize all the money and let it earn interest-for good old Uncle Sam.”
“Seize all the money,” I echoed.
“First Commonwealth literally has a padlock on the door,” Stearns went on. “Federal marshals have seized all the computer equipment, all the records and documentation, sequestered-”
“So when can I get my money?”
“Maybe in a year and a half you’ll be able to pry the money loose. Probably longer.”
“What the hell am I going to do?”
Stearns exhaled noisily. “I had a drink last night with Alex Truslow,” he said. Then, daubing his mouth with a linen napkin, he added casually: “Ben, I want you to free up time for Truslow Associates.”
“My schedule’s a little cramped, Bill,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Alex could mean upward of two hundred thousand dollars in billable hours this year alone, Ben.”
“We’ve got half a dozen attorneys as qualified as I am. More qualified.”
Stearns cleared his throat. “Not in all ways.”
His meaning was clear. “As if that’s a qualification,” I said.
“He seems to think it is.”
“What does he want done anyway?”
The waitress, a large-bosomed woman in her late fifties, refilled our coffee cups and gave Stearns a sisterly wink. “Pretty routine stuff, I’m sure,” Stearns said, brushing crumbs off his lapel.
“So why me? What about Donovan, Leisure?” That was another white-shoe law firm, based in New York, founded by “Wild Bill” Donovan, the head of the OSS and a major figure in the history of American intelligence. Donovan, Leisure was also known to have links to the CIA. For something as secretive as intelligence, it’s amazing how much is “known” or “rumored.”
“No doubt Truslow does some work with Donovan, Leisure. But he wants local counsel, and of the Boston firms, there aren’t many he feels as comfortable about as he does us.”
I was unable to suppress a smile. “’Comfortable,’” I repeated, savoring Stearns’s delicacy. “Meaning he needs some sort of extracurricular espionage work, and he wants to keep it all in the family.”
“Ben, listen to me. This is a wonderful opportunity. I think this could be your salvation. Whatever Alex wants, I’m sure he’s not going to ask you to get back into clandestine work.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I think something could be arranged. An emergency loan, say. An advance as a lien against your equity stake in the firm. Taken out of your end-of-the-year share of the firm.”
“A bribe.”
Stearns shrugged, took a deep breath. “Do you believe your father-in-law died in a genuine accident?”
I was uncomfortable at hearing him articulate my private suspicions. “I have no reason to disbelieve the version I was told. What does this have to do with-”
“Your language betrays you,” he said angrily. “You sound like a fucking bureaucrat. Like some Agency public affairs officer. Alex Truslow believes Hal Sinclair was murdered. Whatever your feelings about CIA, Ben, you owe it to Hal, to Molly, and to yourself to help Alex out in any way you can.”
After an uncomfortable silence I said, “What does my legal ability have to do with Truslow’s theories about Hal Sinclair’s death?”
“Just have lunch with the guy. You’ll like him.”
“I’ve met him,” I said. “I have no doubt he’s a prince. I made a promise to Molly-”
“We could all use the business,” Stearns said, examining the tablecloth, a sign that he’d just about reached the end of his patience. If he were a dog, he’d emit a low growl at this point. “And you could use the money.”
“I’m sorry, Bill,” I said. “I’d rather not. You understand.”
“I understand,” Stearns said softly, and began waving for the check. He was not smiling.
“No, Ben,” Molly said when I returned that evening.
Normally she is effervescent, even playful, but since her father’s death she was, understandably, a very different person. Not just subdued, angry, despondent, mournful-the range of emotions anyone goes through with the death of a parent-but uncertain, hesitant, introspective. It was a very different Molly these last few weeks, and it pained me to see her like this. “How can this be?”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I just shook my head.
“But you’re innocent,” she said, on the edge of hysteria. “You’re a lawyer. Can’t you do something?”
“If I had been smart enough to spread my money around, this wouldn’t have happened. Twenty-twenty hindsight.”
She was making dinner, something she does only when she needs the therapeutic benefits that cooking provides. She was wearing one of my rattier college sweatshirts and oversize jeans and stirring something in a saucepan that smelled like tomatoes and olives and lots of garlic.
I don’t think you would call Molly Sinclair beautiful the first time you saw her. But her looks grow on you so that after you’ve known her for a while, you’re amazed to hear anyone express the opinion that she’s anything less than stunning.
She’s a little taller than I, five foot ten or so, with an unruly mop of kinked black hair; blue-gray eyes and black lashes; and a healthy, ruddy complexion, which I think is her finest feature. I’ve always considered her somewhat mysterious, slightly distant, no less so now than when we met in college, and she’s graced with a serene temperament.
Molly was a first-year resident in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, and at thirty-six she was older than anyone else in her year, since she started late. Which is very Molly: she’s a serious procrastinator, especially when she has better things to do. In her case, this meant trekking through Nepal for more than a year after college. At Harvard, even though she knew she’d eventually end up in medicine, she majored in Italian, writing her thesis on Dante-which meant she was fluent in Italian but not so fluent in organic chemistry.
Molly was forever quoting that line from Chekhov, to the effect that doctors are the same as lawyers, but while lawyers merely rob you, doctors rob you and kill you too. She loved medicine, though, far more than she cared about material possessions. She and I had often talked-half seriously-about quitting our jobs, selling this albatross of a house, and moving somewhere rural, where we’d open a clinic to treat poor kids. The Ellison-Sinclair Clinic we’d call it, which sounded like a psychiatric hospital.