Death's Witness (19 page)

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She also knew that in order to sleep (for she needed to sleep) she would have to put something between herself and the images of these two men repeating their words. She pressed and held the channel button. The screen flashed through an upward sequence of station numbers and their programs.

At this hour of the night and in this section of the world, the television cable suddenly brought a pornographic station to her screen. She muted the volume as she watched two naked women take the clothes off a man who had been dressed as a construction worker. At first the women—both blonde, one with huge, shapely breasts, the other much smaller-breasted—seemed hesitant, awkward, forced to do what they were doing. But, as the now naked man kissed each of them, the women actually smiled and appeared to forget the camera, the sterile, depressing setting (one of those white-walled, ordinary, and new apartments in a high-rise Manhattan building), as they licked the man’s richly veined penis. The women were rapt by what they were doing. Rapt, too, Julie watched as the man entered the larger-breasted woman: the woman’s eyes widened, her hands gripped his arms. The other woman pressed her vagina into his face…After three minutes, the women changed positions, and he entered the smaller-breasted one as the other, leaning behind him, caressed his powerful thighs.

Fascinated by the scene, Julie watched intently as the camera homed in on the slip-siding, back-and-forth view of the man’s D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

penis pulling outward, plunging inward…She wanted to stop watching, but knew she couldn’t; she turned the set off only after the man had suddenly reared back, released himself from the smaller woman’s vagina, and allowed his swollen penis to ejacu-late onto the breasts of the larger woman. Julie, swept by what she had just witnessed, found her clitoris and stroked herself into a frenzy and a climax, murmuring aloud, “Vince, Vince, Vince…”

She managed to fall asleep five minutes later, thinking about Vincent Sorrentino.

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* * *

Stan Wasserman was surprised by Julie several times over the course of the next few days. The first surprise relieved him. Shortly after she arrived in the newsroom at midmorning on Wednesday, he asked her to go to the cafeteria on the fourteenth floor with him and, speaking directly and deliberately over coffee, told her that he had been “deputized by the powers that be” to ask her to speak with Gil Thomas and Cassie Barnes about her husband, the news stories, and the accusations. Looking somber—and in fact feeling guilty about a betrayal of trust toward her and his knuckling under to authority—he waited for her answer, adding, “This is not something you have to do.” It was a statement he didn’t believe, for he knew the resourcefulness of Hogan Blackburn’s ego and Blackburn’s need to control. He was even worried about his own job.

Brightly, almost gaily, Julie said, “Lighten up, Stan. They want me to talk to them, no problem.”

Immediately relieved, he said he’d arranged for a preliminary interview that afternoon at two, in one of the small studios, with just Julie, Gil, and Cassie present. And then he added, “You know, they’re friends of ours. Maybe even helpful friends.”

Julie smiled. “That sounds great,” she said. “I’m beginning to think I need friends.”

Gazing at her perfect face, Stan registered yet again the thought that she was beautiful. He had long since given up what he considered the adolescent habit of evaluating and ranking
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women based on how they looked, on a scale of 1 to 10. Yet now Julie’s beauty struck him, an unqualified 10. And what also struck him was how grateful he felt toward her because she had so gracefully relieved him from the burden that had vexed him ever since his lunch with Hogan Blackburn in the Grill Room.

* * *

By five that same afternoon Stan Wasserman was surprised again by Julie. Gil Thomas and Hogan Blackburn were crowded into his small office. Julie had already left for the day at four, wav-158

ing goodbye cheerily to Stan as she retrieved her small umbrella from under her desk after her two hours with Gil and Cassie in the privacy of the studio.

In Stan’s cramped office, Hogan was speaking. “Your lady is losing it, did you know that?”

“In what way?” Stan asked, surprised, forcing a smile. He recognized that Hogan was intense and angry.

“Let me get directly to the point, with no bullshit. I’ve seen the tape, so I know what happened. Gil and Cassie begin by telling her what they’ve been told, off the record, by the prosecutors about her husband. Gil stresses that he and Cassie don’t believe what they’ve been told, because they begin with the premise that the government is either confused or lying, but the story that’s emerged is this: about three years ago her husband is approached by a Florida businessman named Bill Irwin who claims he is an oil-and-gas venture promoter who wants to establish a ‘presence’

in New York and needs a lawyer here. He says he’s registered with the SEC and has heard a lot about Tom. Tom demurs at first, saying that he doesn’t do that kind of work. But this Irwin is a spellbinder, a regular TV-type preacher. He tells Tom that there’s nothing particularly complicated about that kind of legal work, the big-time corporate lawyers have made a mysterious specialty out of it, you don’t need to be Louis Brandeis to handle it.

“Irwin is a persuasive guy. He flies to New York a couple of times, talks to Tom, Tom reconsiders, and they do two or three D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

deals. Irwin provides Tom with investment partnership agreements that big law firms have put together for him in the past and Tom realizes that the new deals require only a word processor and the ability to change a few words. Simple work, like Irwin says. Cookie-cutter work.

“And lucrative work. Tom not only gets paid big fees for his small efforts but Irwin also has a need to have the one million, the ten million, even the hundred million, that he’s collected from his investors lodged in Tom’s escrow account for a few days or weeks. Tom at the start is concerned with the source of
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the funds, and Irwin persuades him that the source is his investors, Reagan-Bush Republican types in Arizona, California, Florida. And so the money gets lodged in Tom’s escrow account, stays there briefly, gets sent on, but leaves behind large interest payments and handling charges and ‘legal fees’ for Tom.

Like any other lawyer, Tom simply waits for instructions from his client as to where to wire the funds, and he follows his client’s instructions.”

“You really talked to Julie this way?” Stan’s question was leveled at Gil.

It was Hogan who answered, “Gil’s a little more diplomatic than I am. He did better. But the point that Gil made was that the government believes Tom became just a tad reckless with Mr.

Irwin. And, while the sequence isn’t clear, the charade of the paperwork ended at some point, and Irwin and some of his friends were able to use Tom’s escrow account at will. And Tom became far more cooperative in terms of not checking the source of the funds and in terms of where he would send the funds—

minus the interest, handling charges, and legal fees, of course—

when he received instructions from Irwin.”

“You know, that all sounds pretty primitive to me,” Stan said.

“Tom may not have been the world’s greatest lawyer, but what you’re talking about leaves too clear a paper trail.”

Hogan moved, bracing his back against the door, “Don’t be a wiseass with me, Stan, for once, please. I’m not interested in
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whether you think the government’s got a plausible theory or not.

Even the government admits to Cassie and Gil that they don’t yet know all the details, not by a long shot. That, after all, is why they wanted the documents that our own good lady was hoarding in her house. To get information, to find leads. Without her sanitizing the papers.” Hogan paused and then spoke more deliberately:

“And
that
is what we wanted and didn’t get: full, honest information from her.”

Stan, seated at his desk and staring impassively, was in fact afraid of Hogan Blackburn. Because he knew Hogan’s habits, and
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that Hogan in fact wanted a response, Stan said, “As I told you, what did you expect from her?”

“Expect? Maybe honest answers. After Gil finishes with his summary, Cassie asks, for starters, whether Tom ever talked to her about Irwin. And what does she say?”

“Tell me.” Stan could not and did not conceal the sarcasm in his tone.

“
She
believes
we
are missing the point. That the real story here is why the government is concealing the real facts about her husband’s death. She sat there talking like one of those Kennedy-assassination nuts about how the investigators are avoiding all the real leads. She talks about conspiracies. Ask Mr. Steinman and the FBI, she says, about Mr. Madrigal, about a doorman named Hector who saw her sainted husband on the night he died, about a woman who was running in Central Park with her boyfriend…”

“Again, Hogan, what did you expect her to say?”

“I expected her to have integrity, to answer straightforward questions or tell us, flatly, that she wouldn’t answer them. Not to turn this into a loony-tunes session. I’ve got the tape. Do you want to see it?”

“Did she know she was being taped?”

“Know? Christ, she wanted it that way.”

“No,” Stan said, “I don’t want to see it.”

“You ought to, you really should. She sounds like one of these mind-control, Moonie types, talking steadily about subjects D E AT H ’ S W I T N E S S

nobody wants to listen to.”

Stan Wasserman felt trapped, physically uncomfortable, and concerned about where the conversation would lead. Quietly he said, “She has been through a lot, you know that.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Sorry if I bore you.”

“Let me tell you what concerns me, more than anything else.

You tell me she’s bright. She’s
not
bright. And I worry about your judgment. I want people working on my staff who’ve got brains:
she
might as well be on
Sesame Street
.” Hogan was shouting.

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Stan checked himself, not wanting to get caught up in the shouting. “Look, Hogan, I think I understand. You want her out.”

“You don’t understand anything, do you?”

There was a genuine look of fear on Stan’s face. “I guess not,”

he said quietly.

“Tell me, we’re old friends. What’s going on between the two of you?”

Stan put his elbow on his desk and spread his long, slender fingers over his forehead. He said, “That’s a pretty despicable question.”

“What did you say?”

“What’s this, a schoolyard, Hogan? You heard me.”

“I’m going to get out of here before I do something I regret.”

“Don’t hurry,” Stan said. “You’ve already done it.”

Hogan Blackburn left, slamming the door to Stan’s cubicle.

Finally Gil, still seated, leg still dangling over the chair’s arm, said, “Beneath that cool blond exterior beats one hell of a temper.

He talks to me that way all the time.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Look, Stan, I think I know what really irritated him, and maybe it’s something you can do something about.”

“What is this? The bad cop–good cop approach?”

“Listen to me. She said she had decided that she was going to go all over town telling her story to every friend she’s got in the news business about how the police, the FBI, and the United States Attorney’s Office are covering up the facts about her husband’s death.”

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“She doesn’t have a right to do that?”

“That ticked him off.”

“He not only has a low threshold, he has an erratic one.”

“And she was genuinely strange, you should know that.”

“I guess we’re all genuinely strange sometimes. That’s part of living out a life.”

Gil stood. “Maybe you could think about whether there’s something you know, or can remember, about what she knows.

That might help everybody: you, me, Hogan, her—”

Stan said, “Gil, why don’t you go put your makeup on? It’s
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almost showtime.”

* * *

Stan Wasserman’s final surprise from Julie came two days later, on Friday. An article appeared on page three of the
Post
, its headline reading: “Football Widow Says Feds Flop.” Beneath the blocky black headline was a picture of Julie, taken recently. She looked exuberant, radiant, an image totally out of sync with the words and message the article contained.

Stan read the article three times, skimming it on the first reading and then bearing down on the words. The article described recent interviews with Julie in which she accused

“federal agents” of failing to pursue leads about her husband’s killing, ignoring statements by two eyewitnesses who had seen her husband running with a tall blond man shortly before the shooting, and neglecting information that her husband had been stalked two hours before he was killed by a man from Mexico City claiming that his name was “Mr. Perez” and that he was sent by “Mr. Madrigal.”

And Julie named names in the article. She mentioned a federal agent, John McGlynn, who she claimed buried information he was receiving; Neil Steinman, a “zealot, a man with a grudge,” she said, who had arranged to ransack her home and take away things belonging to Tom such as his trophies, awards, and memorabilia—

even the Heisman Trophy.

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Stan read the article for the third and last time with dismay. He saw in the article references to the United States Attorney’s Office declining comment because there was an “ongoing investigation of the matters referred to by Mrs. Perini, including an investigation of Mrs. Perini herself”; references to Julie as a “reporter for NBC”; and references to unnamed people at NBC having “no comment” on Mrs. Perini or her status or future at the network.

Alone in his office, Stan Wasserman thought about Julie.

Focusing on portions of the
Post
article, he was certain (although he had not yet been told) that events were about to happen in her
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life that would cause her pain and that were likely to separate her from him forever. He had not seen her since that Wednesday afternoon when she waved to him, cheerily, as she retrieved her umbrella at the end of her lengthy, closed-door meeting with Cassie Barnes and Gil Thomas. At that point he had assumed that her interview with Gil and Cassie had played itself out without any lasting repercussions.

On Thursday—obviously the day she sat down with the
Post
’s reporters—she had called in sick. When he spoke to her, she sounded energetic, vital, asking him whether he knew if Gil and Cassie were going to be able to use the information she’d given them the day before. Stan deflected her by saying he hadn’t talked to them. And, when she called in sick again on Friday, the day the
Post
article appeared, she simply left a message on his voice mail.

* * *

By five that Friday afternoon NBC issued a press release stating that Julie Perini had requested and been given an inde-terminate leave of absence to pursue other interests. An unpaid leave of absence.

Ten minutes after the release was issued and brought to Stan Wasserman’s desk by a messenger, Hogan Blackburn called Stan.

“I want you to get on the horn now and tell her that I don’t want her in this building again. Tell her that her stuff is being put in a
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green garbage bag and that the bag’ll be dropped off someday with her doorman.”

Stan paused. As he leaned over his speakerphone he struggled—with anger, with fear, with a sense of self-loathing—and then he said, his long elegant fingers touching his temples, “I will.”

“You will what, Stan?”

“I’ll call and tell her that.”

“You bet you will,” answered Hogan.