Richard Patterson - The Lasko Tangent

“Good afternoon, Chris.” She didn’t smile, but the words carried a faint, wry allusion to the morning. The receptionist sensed it somehow, and squinted, as if she were picking up distant signals on a crystal set. It would have all been very funny, some other day.

“Are you free?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said crisply. “Come in.”

I sat across from her. Her navy silk blouse made her tan rich brown. Her hair was pulled back.

She saw my eyes and smiled pointedly. “I didn’t have time to wash my hair this morning.

I grinned. “It looks fine.” But I had to get to it. “I’ve got a problem for Chairman Woods.”

“What is it?” Her wispy smile vanished.

“McGuire set up a meeting this afternoon between me, Lasko, and his lawyer, a man named Robert Catlow. No stenographer. Lasko wanted to pick my brains. I wouldn’t play. It’s fair to say that I did not leave them laughing.”

Her face went glacial; right then, we could have fooled the receptionist, or anyone else. “Why didn’t you tell us before the meeting?”

Because I’d rather do it myself, I thought. “I don’t know.”

“And now you want Jack Woods to clean up after you.”

“I want his help.” I hesitated. “And yours.”

Her voice was cool and distant. “Just how much help do you expect, Chris? You’re not a day ahead of me anymore. I’ve caught up.” Not quite. I remembered the dead man’s memo, hidden in my desk drawer. “You used me to backdoor McGuire on the Lasko subpoena. You didn’t tell us that you were going to meet a witness. You tried not to tell me that you were going to Boston at all.” Her recitation was dispassionate, as if she were introducing exhibits. “You’ve been acting as if you were an independent contractor.”

“I do better on my own,” I said.

She looked at me as if to learn where my words began and ended. “So far, you’ve done brilliantly. You’ve got no facts and a dead witness. All that you’ve managed is to make trouble for your own commission.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

A thin line of annoyance furrowed her forehead. “You had better decide who you work for, Chris.”

I told myself that I had done as well as I could. I had taken five days’ free ride: sneaked out the second subpoena, gotten to Lehman’s memo, and sent Lasko away with nothing. “When can I talk to Woods?”

“He’ll be in Monday morning.”

“OK, I’d like to see him at nine.”

She inspected me evenly. “Don’t expect applause.”

I stood, suddenly angry. “Look, the last three days I’ve seen someone killed, been threatened by a pig and his tight-assed lawyer, and been screwed by my own boss. So I don’t give a shit what you think.”

Her eyes widened. I looked back, knowing how little of that had been meant for her, and realizing that I could still feel her. I felt schizoid. Some other day, I’d have taken her home. Instead, I turned and left.

It was five o’clock. From my window I could see the street in front of the building. It suddenly teemed with cars and bodies. As if on cue, an army of civil servants scrambled out the doors and into the streets. I turned away and glanced at my desk. Someone had thoughtfully clipped an article on Lehman from the Boston Globe. The cops were still calling it a hit-skip. I picked up the phone and called Greenfeld.

Greenfeld was already at the Madison when I arrived, sitting at a table near the bar. He saw me and grinned. “You look like hell, Chris,” he said in greeting.

I sat down. “That’s funny, I feel terrific. After I leave here I’m planning to practice my kung fu, make love to the wife of the Brazilian ambassador, and write the first two chapters of the Great American Novel.” His grin broadened. “What are you so cheerful about?” I asked.

We ordered two martinis. “You too would be cheerful,” he explained, “if you’d just gotten rid of one of the great American boors.”

“Who’s that?”

“My brother-in-law. Living proof of the remarkable survival powers of the upper-middle class. Took five years to get through prep school. Basic intellectual deficiencies, stemming from a weak gene pool. So his father hunts up an eastern school which needs a library. Takes him another five years to get a C average in history. He’s still unemployable, so then his father finds a suitably mediocre law school. It’s a three-year program, but it takes him four, mostly because he spends his time drinking beer and playing the bowling machine at the student union. So Dad gets him a job with a friend. Now he lounges at the country club, drinking gin coolers and bitching that ‘the blacks’ don’t work hard enough.”

I smiled. “You must like him a lot.”

Greenfeld contemplated that. “‘Loathe’ isn’t a bad word. ‘Despise’ is OK, too.” He dismissed his brother-in-law. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’ve had a shitty day. I wanted a good stiff drink and the pleasure of your company. I’m expecting you to emulate the bright chatter of the Algonquin round table, playing all six members, while I listen and get drunk.”

He looked curious. “Were there six members of the Algonquin round table?”

“Christ, Lane, I don’t know.”

His grin reappeared. “Why not?”

Our drinks arrived, brought by a waiter so quiet and efficient he blended into the bar. The bar itself was small and pleasantly dark, with small squares of silver glass on the wall, picking up fragments of light. A few patrons drifted in, looking for the first drink. I picked up my martini. I like the first martini of the evening. It tastes clean and new, especially if you get it before the bar crowds up and the air gets noisy and stale with smoke. I sipped. The martini almost felt like a fresh start.

Greenfeld put his drink down. “What’s happening with your Lasko case?”

“Nothing much. I met Lasko today, though. He and Catlow were over at the commission.”

His eyebrows raised. “Did you learn anything?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, except that I don’t like them worth a damn.”

“What did they do?”

“Mainly tried to walk all over me.”

He smiled. “That’s not unusual.” The smile faded. “You know, I saw that one of Lasko’s executives was killed by a car the other day. In Boston.”

I nodded. “I read the article.” I spoke as casually as possible. I couldn’t prove murder. And to suggest it to Greenfeld might wind up losing me the case. But my little game felt pretty bizarre, like denying that Lehman had ever existed.

I couldn’t tell whether Greenfeld was looking dubious, or just thoughtful. I sipped my drink, picking around for a change of subject. “What do you hear about Justice’s antitrust case against Lasko? Is it going ahead, is the White House dropping it, or what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Does the White House know about your Lasko thing?”

I could give him that much. “I’m sure they do.”

His thin smile appeared fleetingly, then vanished in thought. “That puts your agency in a touchy position, doesn’t it?”

“So it would seem. Have you anything that can help me?”

He stared at me questioningly. “You sound like you need help.”

I grinned, trying to sound careless. “I always need help.”

He thought. “I’ve heard one thing, thirdhand, from my fabulous selection of sources. Lasko is supposed to be busy in the Caribbean, buying secretly into banks, dummy corporations, things like that. Someplace like the Netherlands Antilles, with no regulation, where your boys can’t get them.”

“Does your friend know what for?”

He shook his head. “Getting information out of the Lasko organization is not the easiest thing in the world. But hell, Chris, that’s your line of work. Have you ever heard of a Netherlands Antilles corporation that was straight?”