Tim Green - Exact Revenge

Bert hops up to get the book, but when he sits down, he puts it in his lap instead of giving it to me and says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You got all that money now,” he says, “but you don’t do nothing that’s fun.”

“What’s the question?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Maybe when I finish doing what I have to do,” I say, “I’ll go to Disney World.”

“My grandmother used to say that even a big chief needs to laugh,” he says, “or else it makes his spirit small.”

He’s wearing a crooked smile and extends his beefy fist across the tabletop and says, “Want to wrestle?”

I take his hand and bait him with a chance for a quick win, but I slip out at the last possible second, pin his thumb down, and quickly count to three.

“Best out of three,” he says. “You never win a war with just one battle, and I got the phone book.”

He beats me two in a row, mashing my thumb and rumbling with laughter, then slaps the phone book down on the table.

“Thanks,” I say, rubbing the joint between my first and second digits and opening the book. “My spirit’s now soaring.”

Dan Parsons is listed at a new address in Skaneateles. Elizabeth Street. Nice neighborhood, but nothing like his white Georgian mansion on the lake. There is also an office listed on Fennell Street. After breakfast, we drive out to Skaneateles, where the trees in the village are frosted and the homes and buildings wear fresh caps of snow.

Dan’s office is in the back of the old Trabold’s Garage. Someone has renovated the old stone blacksmith shop and put a restaurant on the ground floor. We park in the municipal lot behind all the stores and buildings. There is a bent old man in a hooded parka and heavy snow boots shoveling the stairs that lead up to the offices.

When we reach the bottom, I notice a tear in the corduroy pants stuck into the top of the man’s boots and say, “Excuse me, we’re looking for Dan Parsons’s office.”

The man stops his shoveling and turns. It’s Dan. His face is pink, either from the cold or embarrassment. Most of his curly white hair is gone. His nose is even more pronounced. His jowls hang limp from his jawbone and the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes sag with disappointment. His smile is gone.

“I’m him,” he says, glancing at Bert and then turning his attention back to the shovel. “If you wait a minute, I’ll finish this. What do you got? A house closing?”

I study the profile of his face for the joke. This is a man who brokered billion-dollar deals. A good house closing can net you five hundred.

“No,” I say. “I need to talk with you about the IRS.”

His head snaps up and his eyes seem to droop even more. He presses his lips tight.

“You don’t look like Feds,” he says.

“We’re not,” I say. “I’m here to help.”

“Well, I don’t have any money to pay you,” he says, “so unless you’re with Legal Aid, you might as well not waste your time. When’s the last time you saw a lawyer who had to shovel the steps to help pay his rent?”

“Can we go inside?” I ask.

Dan shakes his head and slowly mounts the stairs. He grips the railing tight through his ski gloves to steady himself. He kicks some of the snow off the landing and we go inside and down a narrow hall. His office isn’t much more than a closet with a desk and a phone. There are two chairs opposite the desk that are wedged between it and the wall. On the wall are pictures of Dan and his wife-fading, but still pretty and trim-and their son, who is now a good-looking young man.

After Dan hangs his parka on the back of the door, I see that his husky shoulders have gone round and his potbelly has become a barrel of flab. He wears an old herringbone blazer that’s too tight around his middle, and beneath the wrapping of his plaid scarf is a yellow paisley tie.

He sits down with a sigh and motions to the chairs. Bert and I sit.

“What do you want?” Dan asks.

“I said I’m here to help.”

“How’s that?”

“How much do you owe the government?” I ask.

Dan’s knuckles are swollen and bent. He rests his forearms on the edge of his desk and raps the knuckles gently on the edges of his blotter. Outside I hear the muted banging of a garbage truck emptying a Dumpster.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, taking a card from my pocket and pushing it across the desk. “My name is Arthur Bell. I’m an attorney and I have a client who wants to help you.”

“Bob Rangle?” he says.

I have to swallow before I say, “Rangle?”

Dan shrugs and says, “No, I didn’t figure. He was the congressman. I put that son of a bitch in office and I went down to New York a few weeks ago to ask for a loan. He runs a fund now.”

“No,” I say, “I have nothing to do with him. My client is Seth Cole. He was friends with Raymond White.”

“What?” he says. His eyes narrow.

“My client was in prison for a time,” I say. “Raymond White saved his life. When he heard that Raymond died, my client wanted to do something for the people who were good to him.”

“Raymond died?”

I nod.

Dan’s eyes lose their focus and he looks down at his hands. They are clenched tight like his teeth.

“No one told me,” he says, as if speaking to himself.

“No,” I say, “they probably wouldn’t. You weren’t actually related to him.”

His eyes snap up at me. He scowls and says, “He was-”

Then he drops his eyes again and says, “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“My client wants to pay off your debt,” I say. “He thinks Raymond would have wanted that.”

“I’ve got this dream, you know,” Dan says as he massages the fingers of one hand with the other. “I got this dream of starting it over. Parsons amp; Parsons. My son’s gonna be a lawyer, you know?

“Mister,” Dan says, looking up again. “I appreciate your coming here. But I owe them thirteen million dollars… I’ve got an insurance policy for ten, and to be honest I’ve been thinking about taking a fast drive, maybe hitting a bridge. Problem is, my wife would still owe the bastards three more and you better believe these people don’t negotiate.”

“Mr. Parsons,” I say. “Seth Cole has authorized me to pay the IRS in full.”

“Hey. Get the hell out of here,” he says, shaking his head in disgust. He rises up out of his chair and draws himself up nearly straight. “Who sent you?”

“Believe me,” I say. “Thirteen million dollars to Seth Cole isn’t what it is to most people. Who’s your bank?”

He stares at me for a long time. I hold his gaze, fearful that he will see me.

Finally, he wags his head and says, “Next door.”

“Let’s go,” I say. “You’ll see.”

Together we go down the back stairs and into the single-story bank next door. I ask for a wire number and I call Bob Mancini, my contact at Goldman Sachs. The girls at the bank are twittering behind the counter and the manager comes out from his office as well.

“What is it?” Dan asks.

The manager is shaking his head. He looks up with a wide grin.

“Mr. Parsons,” he says. “Goldman Sachs just put thirteen million dollars in your account.”

“Can they take it back?” he asks, shooting a glance at me.

“No sir,” the manager says. “It’s there. No one can take it but you.”

Dan Parsons utters a cry. He grabs my hand and gives it a quick strong shake, then he races out of the building. Bert and I walk outside. I stand on the sidewalk and watch Dan make his way up the street in a ragged jog while Bert gets the truck. When Bert picks me up, I have him drive to Elizabeth Street.