We spent the next few minutes debating the pros and cons of cooperating, and the more I learned about it, the less it appealed to me. No one would be off-limits; I would be forced to cooperate against all my old friends. The only exceptions would be my father, who'd been Stratton's Chief Financial Officer (he hadn't done anything illegal, anyway), and my longtime assistant Janet *(who'd done illegal things but was so low on the totem pole that no one would care). Greg assured me that I could get both of them “passes.”
What bothered me most, though, was the thought of cooperating against my ex-partner, Danny Porush, who had been indicted along with me and was still sitting in jail, trying to make bail. And then there was my oldest friend, Alan Lipsky. He was also under indictment, although his case was only partially related to mine. I couldn't imagine cooperating against Alan. We had been best friends since diapers. He was more a brother to me than my own brother.
Just then came an insolent burble from Greg's telephone. His secretary said rather casually, “Joel Cohen is on line one. Would you like to take it or should I tell him you'll call back?”
At that very moment, inside the twenty-sixth-floor corner office of De Feis O'Connell & Rose, you could have heard a pin drop. The three of us just sat there, staring at one another, mouths agape. I said it first: “That rat bastard! He's superseding me already! Holy shit! Ho-lee fuc-king shit!”
Magnum and the Yale-man nodded their heads in agreement. Then Magnum put a forefinger to his lips and said, “Shhhh,” and he picked up the phone. “Hey, Joel, howaya?… Uhn-huhn… Uhn-huhn. Right, well, it just so happens I have your favorite person sitting right in front of me…. Yeah, that's right. We were just talking about what a blatant miscarriage of justice this whole thing is.” Greg winked at me confidently and then leaned back in his seat and began rocking. He was a mighty warrior, ready to take on the insolent Joel Cohen. Magnum could crush him with a single gust. “ Uhn-huhn,” continued Magnum, rocking back and forth. “Uhn-huhn … Uhn-huhn—” And then all at once his face dropped, and he stopped rocking in his fabulous black leather throne, as if the finger of God had descended upon him. My heart skipped a beat right before Magnum said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joel. Settle down. Don't be doing anything rash here. You can't be serious about that. She's not the sort of— Uhn-huhn… Uhn-huhn… Well, I'll talk to him about it. Don't do anything until I get back to you.”
She? I thought. What the fuck was Magnum talking about! She who? She Janet? Were they after Janet? That made no sense. Janet was merely an assistant. Why would they want her? A visibly shaken Magnum hung up the phone and uttered the five most poisonous words I'd ever heard in my life. He said, without a trace of tone, “They're indicting your wife tomorrow.”
There were a few moments of eerie silence, and then all at once I popped out of my armchair and screamed, “ What!No fucking way! How can they do that? She hasn't done anything! How can they indict the Duchess?”
The Yale-man threw his palms up in the air and shrugged. Then he opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. I turned back to Magnum and said in a tone of ultimate despair, “Oh, shit… Oh, my God… Oh—my—fuc—king—God!”
“Calm down,” said Magnum. “You gotta calm down. Joel's not going to do anything yet. He promised he'd wait until I spoke to you.”
“Spoke to me about what? I—I don't get it. How could they indict my wife? She didn't do anything.”
“According to Joel, they have a witness who says she was in the room with you when you were counting money. But listen to me: The facts aren't really important. Joel doesn't have an interest in indicting Nadine. He made that clear to me. He just wants you to cooperate; that's the beginning and the end of it. If you cooperate, your wife gets a pass. Otherwise, they're going to arrest her tomorrow. It's your call.” With that, Magnum looked at his wristwatch. It was one of those purposely understated, superexpensive jobs, with a chocolate-brown leather band and a pearl-white face. Had to set him back $20,000, I figured, but it was the sort of watch that was supposed to say, “I'm so successful and confident that I don't need to wear a gleaming gold wristwatch to project an image of success and confidence.” Magnum added, “He gave me until four o'clock to get back to him; that's four hours from now. Tell me what you want to do.”
Well, it was plainly obvious that I had no choice. I would have to cooperate now, regardless of the consequences. After all, I couldn't let Joel indict my wife. Not in a million years.
Wait a second!All at once a series of delicious thoughts came bubbling up into my brain, starting with: How could the Duchess leave if she were under indictment too? She would be stuck with me then, wouldn't she? We would be like two peas in a pod. I mean, what man in his right mind would take on the burden of an indicted woman with two children?
Yes, the Duchess might be a world-class piece of ass, but two young children and a federal indictment hanging over her head would make her much less enticing to the average gold mine.
In fact, I would have to say that virtually all gold mines—or at least the more productive ones—would quickly close their shafts to a woman burdened with such dire circumstances. She would become a cautionary tale in her own right, a young woman with more baggage than the lost-luggage warehouse at Kennedy Airport.
So, yes, that was the answer then; there was no other way: I would let the Duchess go down in flames with me. I would let her get indicted too. She would have no choice then but to stay married to me. It was my only logical move. It was my only rationalmove. I looked Magnum in the eye and twisted my lips subversively, and I said, “You call that rat bastard right now and tell him to go fuck himself.” I paused for a moment and watched every last ounce of color drain from his long, handsome face. Then I added, “And then after that,you can tell him that I'll cooperate.” With that, Magnum expelled a giant gust of air, as did the Yale-man. I said, “I mean, I really don't care anymore, even if I end up going to jail for twenty years. I just really don't give a shit.”
It was pure, unadulterated irony. My wife had dumped me in my darkest and most desperate hour, yet I was still willing to fall on my sword to protect her. Talk about the world being upside down.
Magnum nodded slowly. “You're doing the right thing, Jordan.”
“You are,” added Nick. “It'll work out in the end.”
I looked at the Yale-man and shrugged. “Maybe it will, Nick, or maybe it won't. Only time will tell. Either way, I amdoing the right thing. That much I know for sure. Nadine's the mother of my children, and I won't let her do a day in jail, not if I can help it.”
*Name has been changed
CHAPTER 4
A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
What was I now? How far had I fallen? I was under house arrest and being dumped by a gold-digging Duchess: a British Brooklynite who had the face of an angel, the temper of Mount Vesuvius, and the loyalty of a starving hyena.