The Burden of Proof kc-2 Page 24

  It was then that he remembered Peter's caution. Stern remained stock-still. He was without indispensable equipment. This would be terrible.

  "Helen," he said. She looked at him, but his mouth seemed merely to grope. "Helen, I find this most embarrassing-" "Ohhh," said Helen.

  "Aren't you contemporary?" She pointed across the bed to a nightstand.

  "The top drawer."

  Amid the pantyhose there was a package of condoms.

  He tried not to start. Helen, who had slipped her arms back into the top of her dress, so that it was languorously draped, smiled faintly.

  "I'm not offended, if you're not. To tell you the truth, it's a necessity." He did not understand. "Birth control," she said.

  "Why, Helen," said Stern. This news,: somehow, pleased him.

  "Don't get too excited," she said and tossed aside the bedcover. "I'm in menopause. Like everyone else. Just not as far along."

  Stern fingered the package. The economy size. Twenty-four and most of them gone. Dear Lord, modern life was disconcerting. Helen had come back around the bed to him.

  She pushed her arms free of each sleeve.

  "Where were we?" she asked.

  Afterwards, he lay with Helen in her bed. Somehow, toffght, he had been less adept. He had fumbled with that stupid latex thing, and their nervousness expressed itself as an almost comic courtesy. 'Is that all right?" 'Oh yes, yes, please." Nonetheless, they lay here, quiet and adhering to one another, fully content. At some point, he thought, he was supposed to leave. But not just now. In an idle way, it occurred to him that he was a truly vile creature, one of those sly, conscienceless mpscallions out of some French bedroom farce, vowing chastity and then throwing himself on the first woman that passed into sight. What was wrong with him?

  But he did not feel vile-or wrong. He had supposed from listening to TV and the movies and cocktail talk-from wherever it was these ideas came-that these couplings, called casual, were supposed to be loveless and numb. But here in the soft dark he found himself aswarm with gentle feelings. This woman, like Margy, would he dear to him for life. Was that self-deception? Or had pop mythology just missed the point. Was it intimacy and connection that everyone was seeking? He thought, oddly, of Dixon. Did the master swordsman also experience his thousand interludes this way? Yes. Probably. Even for Dixon there must have been more to his wandering than the chance to brag. He craved acceptance, tenderness, female succor, before returning to the world made harsh by men. So, too, Mr. Alejandro Stern. His life as he had always known it was gone, and the road down which he marched was largely unknown to him. What was ahead? The last months, he recognized quite suddenly, had been rife with fear. But not right now. For the moment, with Helen curled in the crook of his arm, her breathing against him slowing as she dove near sleep, he had stepped aside, taken time out, cooled himself in the refreshed air of night. For today, tonight, for the first fraction of tune since it had happened, he was able to declare himself, however briefly, at peace.

  For the occasion, Stern borrowed the 1954 Chevy Of his law school classmate George Murray. At this time in America, automobiles had only recently ceased being shaped like tea-kettles and Stern regarded this vehicle, which came equipped merely with a heater, as sleek and impressive. He had not made the acquaintance of many girls in the United States; there seemed to be so few opportunities. For years, he had been ahead of himself in school and, accordingly, was of little interest to the young women around him. And since he was seventeen, he had worked each weekend, driving a punchboard route that took him all about the Middle West in a dilapidated, foul-smelling truck owned by Milkie, his grubby one-eyed boss. Over time, his inexperience seemed to compound itself. Foreign-born, Hispanic-accented, Jewish, he was apt in female company to feel like something set down here from another universe.

  So he was grateful for Clara's ease with him. He crossed his feet trying to race her to the car door, but she remained amused and casual.

  Somehow, he made this dour young woman comfortable. As much as he aspired to her, blindly and instinctively, she perhaps thought he was all that she deserved.

  "You know," she said, as soon as he was seated, "this was really my idea. I begged my father to ask you."

  "This," said Stern, gesturing to the two of them, "was my idea. You, however, put it into action.".

  "Oh, you are smooth." She smiled. "Daddy says that. He thinks you' re very bright."

  "Does he?" Stern, unaccustomed to city driving, watched the road in desperation. If this car suffered any injury, he would have to flee the state. Murray had made that clear.

  "What do you think of him?" she asked. "My father?"

  Stern, in spite of himself, was too distracted to prevent himself from groaning.

  Clara laughed out loud. She touched his arm as he moved the gearshift along the column.

  "I am terrible, aren' t I? I'm not like this, Mr. Stern.

  It's all your fault. Do you know that I am usually so quiet? People will tell you that about me."

  "What else would they tell me?" Stern asked. He had fallen into a companionable mood. She smiled, but it was the wrong question.

  "Tell me about Argentina," she said after a moment. The concert was Ravel. She spoke to him about the music, making offhand reference to passages that she supposed were as plain to him as if they were words written on the page. At the intermission, he bought orange juice. Only one bottle, for her. His normal penury had guided him without reflection and he saw at once that he had disconcerted her by making his lack of means so plain. But she refused to be flustered. She offered him the straw that had been punched down through the cardboard bottle cap and made him take a sip. And there something occurred. The concert hall was crowded; the grand acoustics of the building amplified the hubbub, and the lobby lights were stingingly bright after the prior hour in darkness. But the moment to Stern grew more intimate than an embrace. Somehow her character had become as clear to him as the notes which had been played: she was kind. Committedly. Unceasingly. She cared more for kindness than social grace. This vision of her overtook him, and Stern, in a kind of swoon, felt himself suddenly immersed in that warm current and his heart swimming toward her.

  "That was wonderful," she told him as they moved along beneath the theater lights after the concert. She had carried her coat out the door, and they stood, buffeted by passersby, as she struggled with one sleeve. Summoning himself, Stern asked her to accompany him to Chinatown for dinner. He had contemplated this moment all week. He would have to take her somewhere. Chinatown, he eventually decided, answered the imperatives of economics and romance, and the thought of the meal-he was thin in those years and always hungrymhad tantalized him for days. She refused, however. The money, surely, was on her mind.

  "I must tell you, Miss Mittler, that I intend to take a telephone next week." This was true. He had held off only because he was not certain Henry would allow him to keep his office. But the remark, spoken in jest, succeeded in amusing her. This, Stern recognized at once, was a kind of rare power with her. Under the marquee lights, Clara Mittler easily laughed. She was wearing a tiny pink hat, with a trimming of white veil, and she reached up to hold it.

  "Next week," she said. "We'll make a separate outing of it. Why rush ourselves tonight?"

  Agreed. He offered her his arm and she took it. They strode off together through the symphony crowd, the men in overcoats, the women in fur stoles and jewels. Stern felt a swell of pleasure. He was certain that someone there looked up and thought, What a handsome young American couple.

  "This is my responsibility," said Stern. "You should have no doubt about that."

  "Why would I have any doubt about it? I'm callin you, ain't I?"

  Stern continued to keep his eyes closed. Never in his life had he undergone a moment like this. Never. He had always treasured his honor. One hand crept absently along the desk until he recollected that this furtive search was futile.

  He was going to buy cigars today. That was a promise
to himself. A sworn oath.

  When he did not speak, she said, "I need you to tell me what-all I gotta do."

  "Of course."

  "How long is this goddamn thang gonna last, anyway?" What was it that Peter had said? Three weeks to a lifetime. He told her simply that one could never be certain. He had no wish to get into details.

  "That's great. I suppose I gotta come down there?"

  "Here?"

  "where else?" She was apparently confused about treatment or diagnosis.

  "I would think everything necessary can be done in Chicago.

  ' ' "Well, I'd think so, too," she said, "but it in't gonna be like that."

  He had no idea what outraged impulse she was giving vent to now. when the thought of Helen came to him abruptly, he could not breathe. He sat back in the chair rigidly, dumb.

  Surely, there could not be a problem there, too. Peter had virtually promised. And if he was wrong twice? Stern's eyes were now open wide.

  Margy asked if he was there.

  "I am sorry." He asked her for a moment and pulled himself closer to the desk, gripping the glass by its green edge.

  All that control he had exerted, that excessive, ugly compulsive grasp he always had on himself and had always quietly despised-it had a purpose. He saw that.now. "You know I only got three weeks," Margy said. "Three weeks?" he asked.

  "Till I'm supposed to be there. This thing says June 27th."

  What thing, he almost said. But he did not. A miracle process of reconstruction was immediately at work. Oh, he was still alive. He understood now: she had been served with a grand jury subpoena. He slapped himself on the chest, where he could feel his heart pounding.

  Answering his questions, she provided a short account of events the day before: The subpoena had been served by Chicago FBI agents, local functionaries uninvolved in the investigation, who merely dropped off the paper, telling her she would have to testify on the twenty-seventh about the documents called for.

  "You are quite right," said Stern. "You must come here. I was thinking for a moment that they might not require a personal appearance before the grand jury, but since they told you otherwise-" He was lying fabulously now-in an instant he would have the entire conversation retooled. "So you say the.twentY-seventh." He reached for his appointment book, but Claudia had it. He did not bother to retrieve it.

  "Yes, that is fine. Well, I shall see you here then."

  "That's all?" she asked.

  "No, no," said Stern, "of course not. I must meet with you, review the documents, determine why they have bothered you."

  "But you're my lawyer. It won't be like John. Like you said-you're responsible."

  "I must check with the Assistant United States Attorney to be certain.

  But I must say-" Stop, he told himself. Cease.

  He was blathering, still electric with reYef. "Margy, put the subpoena on the fax machine. Right now." For a moment they were on the line together, unspeaking, difficult small things gathering in the hushed whirring. Then Stern announced that Claudia was summoning him to another call, a fiction out of whole cloth, and placed Margy on hold until the subpoena copy was laid on his desk. It sought corporate records and, properly, should have been served on him as the corporation' s lawyer. He had not taken Klonsky's warning to mean they would go this far. But Chief Judge Win-cheil had let the prosecutors get away with this tactic in other cases where they had argued it was necessary to be sure that employees would be exacting in producing documents. And as usual, Stern noted, the govemment's informant had been on target in identifying who would know MD's records best.

  The contents of the subpoena were in most regards predictable. Listed first were approximately two dozen dates; the government wanted every ticket written on the central order desk those days. By asking for records of all of MD's business on each date, the government was continuing its effort to obscure its interests by not focusing on individual transactions. But amid this volume of papers would be the tickets John had written at Dixon's instruction for the orders that had ended up booked to the error account. Once again, the informant was right on the mark.

  In the sUbpoena's second paragraph, the grand jury requested all MD's canceled checks for amounts over $250 written in the first four months of the year. This, Stern took it, was a continuing step in the govemment's efforts to trace into Dixon's hands the illegal profits made trading ahead. It was also an encouraging sign; apparently, as Dixon predicted, the subpoena to his bank had been unavailing. Stern had spent an evening or two examining copies of the records the bank had produced and could see nothing nore noteworthy than the occasional six-figure personal checks for investments and purchases that were part of Dixon's millionaire life-style. Certainly, there were no large deposits from unexplained sources.

  "What is this last item?" Stern asked Margy, as he got back on the line.

  His pulse had retreated to normal. He read: "'All account opening documents, purchase and sale records, confirmations and monthly statements for account 06894412, the Wunderkind Account." Do we know what that might be?"

  "I been lookin at that," said Margy.

  "And?"

  "And he's a clever old dog. You got the error-account statements I gave you?"

  Stern put her on hold a moment while Claudia pulled the file..

  "Look at Jan 24," she instructed. "You see where the error account's got a buy and a sell of fifty thousand bushels of oats?"

  He saw it. Dixon someone, to indulge the formal presumptions-had bracketed these orders around a surge in oat prices caused when Chicago Ovens bought more than two million bushels that day in Chicago.

  "Trades make a profit of about forty-s'rx thousand, right?"

  He was in no position to follow, let alone challenge her arithmetic. He simply agreed.

  "Now look at the next day. You see where there's a buy of two April 90 silver contacts in thet Dixon's instruction for the orders that had ended up booked to the error account. Once again, the informant was right on the mark.

  In the sUbpoena's second paragraph, the grand jury requested all MD's canceled checks for amounts over $250 written in the first four months of the year. This, Stern took it, was a continuing step in the govemment's efforts to trace into Dixon's hands the illegal profits made trading ahead. It was also an encouraging sign; apparently, as Dixon predicted, the subpoena to his bank had been unavailing. Stern had spent an evening or two examining copies of the records the bank had produced and could see nothing nore noteworthy than the occasional six-figure personal checks for investments and purchases that were part of Dixon's millionaire life-style. Certainly, there were no large deposits from unexplained sources.

  "What is this last item?" Stern asked Margy, as he got back on the line.

  His pulse had retreated to normal. He read: "'All account opening documents, purchase and sale records, confirmations and monthly statements for account 06894412, the Wunderkind Account." Do we know what that might be?"

  "I been lookin at that," said Margy.

  "And?"

  "And he's a clever old dog. You got the error-account statements I gave you?"

  Stern put her on hold a moment while Claudia pulled the file..

  "Look at Jan 24," she instructed. "You see where the error account's got a buy and a sell of fifty thousand bushels of oats?"

  He saw it. Dixon someone, to indulge the formal presumptions-had bracketed these orders around a surge in oat prices caused when Chicago Ovens bought more than two million bushels that day in Chicago.

  "Trades make a profit of about forty-s'rx thousand, right?"

  He was in no position to follow, let alone challenge her arithmetic. He simply agreed.

  "Now look at the next day. You see where there's a buy of two April 90 silver contacts in the error account?"

  "Yes." According to the posting notes in the error account statement, this trade, like the oat transactions the day before, had been made under an account number of which MD had no record. Therefor
e, all the trades had been set over in the error account.

  "Now guess what the cash value of the silver is? Surprise you that it's a little under forty-seven thousand?"

  Everything was a surprise at this point, but Stern, recognizing his role, merely said "No."

  "Now look down the error account statement," she said. "See the two silver contracts again?"

  "'Journal transfer to A/C 06894412." "Stern read the note from the statement, then looked again at the subpoena. This was the number of the Wunderkind account. As usual, he did not understand.

  "See, he used the profit he made in oats on the twentyfourth to buy silver on the twenty-fifth. The cost of the silver gets debited to the error account, and after it's paid for, he makes accounting entries and journals the silver into this other account, Wunderkind. See? He's turned the profit into silver and he's got it in his hot little hand."

  "And does anything similar happen on other occasions?"

  "Far as I can see, it's every doggone time. Makes some money tradin ahead, then he throws on an error position to absorb the profit and shifts it over to the same account."

  "Wunderkind?"

  "You betchum."

  Stern explained it to himself to be sure he understood: it was a complicated device to move the profits made by trading ahead out of the error account. Once the profit was in hand, he would buy new contracts, making some mistake that would also put the new trade in the error account; after the error account paid for the new position, it was transferred to the account of Wunderkindmwhatever or whoever he was.

  This was why Dixon had given him that sly look on the golf course.

  "And what happens to all the positions which this Wunder account holds?"

  "Dunno, cause I ain't got the records yet. He probably closed them right out and put the money in his pocket."