Thirty minutes later we’re all at the jail. I know for a fact that Butch has a gun in a shoulder harness, and I suspect that the bondsman, a guy named Rick, is also armed. We’re ready for anything.
I write Rick a check for five hundred dollars for the bond, and I sign all the paperwork. If the charges against her are not dismissed, and if she fails to appear for any court dates, then Rick has the choice of either forking over the remaining ninety-five hundred dollars, or finding her and physically hauling her back to jail. I’ve convinced him the charges will be dropped.
It takes forever to process her, but we eventually see her walking toward us, no handcuffs, nothing but a smile. We quickly escort her to my car. I’ve asked Butch and Deck to follow us for a few blocks just to be safe.
I tell Kelly about the death threats. We suspect it’s his crazy family and redneck friends from work. We talk little as we hurriedly leave downtown and head for the shelter. I don’t want to discuss last night, and she’s not ready for it either.
At 5 p.m. Tuesday, lawyers for Great Benefit file for protection under the bankruptcy code in federal court in Cleveland. Peter Corsa calls the office while I’m hiding Kelly, and Deck takes the news. When I return a few minutes later, Deck looks like death.
We sit in my office with our feet on the desk for a long time without a word. Total silence. No voices. No phones. No traffic sounds below. We’d been postponing our discussion about how much of the fee Deck would get, so he’s not sure how much he’s lost. But we both know that we’ve gone from being paper millionaires to near insolvents. Our giddy dreams of yesterday seem silly now.
There’s a flicker of hope. Just last week Great Benefit’s balance sheet looked stout enough to convince a jury it had fifty million bucks to spare. M. Wilfred Keeley estimated the company had a hundred million in cash. Surely there’s some truth in this. I remember the warnings of Max Leuberg. Never trust an insurance company’s own figures because they make their own accounting rules.
But surely somewhere down the road there’ll be a spare million or so for us.
I don’t really believe this. Neither does Deck.
Corsa left his home number, and I finally muster the strength to call him. He apologizes for the bad news, says the legal and financial communities up there are buzzing. It’s too early to know the truth, but it looks as though PinnConn took some heavy hits trading foreign currencies. It then started syphoning off the huge cash reserves of its subsidiaries, including Great Benefit. Things got worse, and the money was simply skimmed by PinnConn and sent to Europe. The bulk of PinnConn’s stock is controlled by a group of American pirates operating in Singapore. It sounds like the whole world is conspiring against me.
It’s quickly evolving into a huge mess, may take months to unravel it, but the local U.S. Attorney was on TV this afternoon promising indictments. A lot of good it’ll do us.
Corsa will call me in the morning.
I relay all this to Deck, and we both know it’s hopeless. The money’s been skimmed by crooks too sophisticated to get caught. Thousands of policyholders who had legitimate claims and have already been screwed once will now get it again. Deck and I will get screwed. Same for Dot and Buddy. Donny Ray got the ultimate screwing. Drummond will get screwed when he submits his hefty bills for legal services. I mention this to Deck, but it’s hard to laugh.
The employees and agents of Great Benefit will get screwed. People like Jackie Lemancyzk will take a hit.
Misery loves company, but for some reason I feel as if I’ve lost more than most of these other folks. The fact that others will suffer is of small comfort.
I think of Donny Ray again. I see him sitting under the tree trying gamely to be strong during his deposition. He paid the ultimate price for Great Benefit’s thievery.
I’ve spent most of the past six months working on this case, and now that time has been wasted. The firm has averaged about a thousand bucks a month in net profits since we started, but we were driven by the dream of paydirt on the Black case. There aren’t enough fees in our files to survive another two months, and I’m not about to hustle people. Deck has one decent car wreck that won’t settle until the client is released from his doctor’s care, probably six months from now. At best, it’s a twenty-thousand-dollar settlement.
The phone rings. Deck answers it, listens, then quickly hangs up. “Some guy says he’s gonna kill you,” he says matter-of-factly.
“That’s not the worst phone call of the day.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting shot right now,” he says.
The sight of Kelly lifts my spirits. We eat Chinese again in her room, with the door locked, with my gun on a chair under my coat.
There are so many emotions hanging around our necks and competing for attention that conversation is not easy. I tell her about Great Benefit, and she’s disappointed only because I’m so discouraged. The money means nothing to her.
At times we laugh, at times we almost cry. She’s worried about tomorrow and the next day and what the police might do or find. She’s terrified of the Riker clan. These people start hunting when they’re five years old. Guns are a way of life for them. She’s frightened at the prospect of going back to jail, though I promise it won’t happen. If the cops and the prosecutors pursue with a vengeance, I will step forward and tell the truth.
I mention last night, and she can’t handle it. She starts crying and we don’t speak for a long time.
I unlock the door, and step quietly through the dark hall, through the rambling house until I find Betty Norvelle watching television alone in the den. She knows the barest details of what happened last night. I explain that Kelly is too fragile at this moment to be left alone. I need to stay with her, and I’ll sleep on the floor if necessary. The shelter has a strict prohibition against men sleeping over, but in this case she makes an exception.
We lie together on the narrow bed, on top of the sheets and blankets, and hold each other closely. I had no sleep last night, a brief nap this afternoon, and I feel as though I haven’t slept ten hours in the past week. I can’t squeeze her because I’m afraid I’ll hurt her. I drift away.
Fifty-three
Great Benefit’s demise might be big news in Cleveland, but Memphis is hardly concerned. There’s no word of it in Wednesday’s paper. There is a brief story about Cliff Riker. The autopsy revealed he died of multiple blows to the head with a blunt instrument. His widow has been arrested and released. His family wants justice. His funeral is tomorrow in the small town which he and Kelly fled.
As Deck and I scour the paper, a fax arrives from Peter Corsa’s office. It’s a copy of a long front-page story in the Cleveland paper, and it’s filled with the latest developments in the PinnConn scandal. At least two grand juries are swinging into action. Lawsuits are being filed by the truckload against the company and its subsidiaries, most specifically Great Benefit, whose bankruptcy filing merits a sizable story of its own. Lawyers are scrambling everywhere.
M. Wilfred Keeley was detained yesterday afternoon at JFK as he was waiting to board a flight to Heathrow. His wife was with him and they claimed to be sneaking away for a quick holiday. They could not, however, produce the name of a hotel anywhere in Europe at which they were expected.
It appears as though the companies have been looted in the past two months. The cash initially went to cover bad investments, then it was preserved and wired to havens around the world. At any rate, it’s gone.
The first phone call of the day comes from Leo Drummond. He tells me about Great Benefit as if I know nothing. We chat briefly, and it’s hard to tell who’s the more depressed. Neither of us will get paid for the war we’ve just waged. He does not mention his dispute with his former client over my offer to settle, and at this point it’s moot. His former client is in no condition to maintain a malpractice action. It has effectively avoided the Black verdict, so it can’t claim it suffered because of Drummond’s bad legal work. Trent & Brent has dodged a major bullet.