On the Lam

He was a careful man and I like careful men.

Jimmy had some reservations.

"This Standards Committee is no Moreland Commission. The Governor will not be stepping in to save you," Landrew said.

"Don't worry, Jim, I wouldn't finger you. Besides, the only thing they got that directly ties me to any property subject to an Eminent Domain Proceeding is 27 Division Street. You never gave me that. Division Street is my ace sitting at the bottom of the deck," I said.

"I'll never figure you. How do you stay so calm? These people want to hang you out to dry."

"Never bluff into a stacked deck," was all I replied, leaving Jimmy to shake his head and worry.

That evening I returned from yet another overpriced dinner with the assistant to the assistant to somebody whose only function was to make an arrangement for some insurance, banking or legal work. All very legal with no actual cash changing hands and no real connection between the parties. There were, of course, the Jimmys of the world who needed loans, but they were the small fish who knew who, where, when, what, and why. The money flows for the information and for protection for my back. The graft is built into the deals. The finance, insurance, and legal work all looked legitimate and it was all pay for play.

The knock on the door came as I dropped my expensive suit jacket on the chair by the little desk. When I opened the door, she walked right in and began to undress. I was struck by déjà vu.

"What are you doing here, Doris?"

"You didn't come to me so I had to come to you."

"How did you find me?"

"A little birdy told me. On or off," she said

"What?"

"Stockings on or off."

"STOP IT."

"Can't, sorry. I need my man. It's been a year. I need my Davy."

"What happened to Mark?"

By now she was completely stripped and moving toward the bed. "He's gone, poor thing. His contract was not renewed."

"You fired him?"

"No, his contract was not renewed."

"You are the department chair."

"No, not till January. Come on, I need it."

She had her hand between her legs, masturbating herself. Am I that easy?

"This is not happening."

"Yes it is."

"Maybe just once."

"Whatever you say."

"You fired the bastard?"

"Outgoing chair did. Man likes to seduce other peoples' wives. He would not saddle me with that kind of man in my department."

"You just fuck them."

"Shut up and fuck me."

Afterward, we lay together. I had forgotten how good she felt. She had a fine body and she knew how to use it on me. No woman could do to me what Doris could. Only Annette was her rival. I could see how these women, who looked nothing alike and came from completely different backgrounds, were made of the same flesh. They liked sex but needed love. They wanted to own their men but remain aloof. They could be frustratingly practical but crave romance. Yet they would always make the rational decision. The safe and selfish choice with the justification that it was the only practical way. My problem was that I was helpless when it came to them.

"This isn't going to work," I said.

"And why not? The skinny German bitch is so much better?"

"She is not the issue. Your lying and cheating is the problem."

"You hypocrite. I didn't lie. I did everything but send you a picture. As to lying, you did that through our entire twenty-year marriage. What a fool I was to believe the poor innocent Davy charade."

"I admit I may have concealed a few things," I said.

"You are a cheat and a crook. Apparently a shrewd one, but that changes nothing. I was racked with guilt when I first heard the truth. I blamed myself. But then Annette told me the whole truth. It's just who you are."

"I had no choice. I had to support my family."

"Bushtit, my family has money!"

"You think I wanted them to support us?"

"Ha, there you have it, pride, you are proud of what you did. It's a pity you can't tell people."

"None of that justifies what you did."

"Yes it does, because you cheated first. You held back who you are. I got only part of what I was entitled to."

We took a break then to fuck some more.

"Come home," she said, "I promise to be good."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Maybe."

"So why did Annette tell you where I could be found?" I asked.

"She says we should be together, that you love me."

"Did it occur to you she has her own selfish reasons for getting us back together."

"Of course, I'm not stupid. She figures that she can see you on the side. She thinks we will reach some accommodation."

"I'm not interested."

"Neither am I. Mark and all that are behind me. I have learned my lesson," she said.

"Bullshit! You have already made some deal with Annette. Do you think I would trade one cheating wife for two cheating wives?"

"For a man facing prison you are a terrible prude," she said.

"David why are you smiling?" she then asked.

______________________________________________________

The driver picked me up in front of the hotel. The cabby was not interested in a drive to the South Bronx until I showed him the five crisp hundred dollar bills.

"The fare plus two hundred going and the fare plus three hundred coming back. I shouldn't be more than an hour," I said to the rather surprised Sikh cabby.

When we arrived at the location, it was a store front on a not bad looking block of buildings. Unfortunately, most of the stores were empty and there was vacant ground across the street. The cab waited for me right out front in a space clearly marked no parking.

The district offices of Senator Ruis were anything but impressive. The reception I received was hostile at best. The receptionist was placed behind a simple office desk. She was a young black woman who apparently took an instant dislike to my hand tailored European suit. I hope it was my suit as opposed to the color of my skin, but you just don't know. Two young Hispanic males were at a card table working on what looked like voter registration books. These rose as I entered, as if I were there to call them out to a fight.

"Is Senator Ruis available?" I asked.

"Do you have an appointment?" the young woman asked.

"No, but I am sure she will want to see me."

"You need an appointment. Are you a constituent?" she said, not quite able to keep the sneer out of her voice.

"Just tell her David Landon is here and see what she says."

I guess I said it with enough confidence that she hesitated.

"Wait here, I will tell her." With that she rose and headed toward the back offices.

The boys moved closer menacingly, but I only stared them down. A short, plump woman came toward me extending her hand.

"Mr. Landon, I am so pleased to meet you." The woman I presumed to be the senator said.

Behind the senator a now sheepish looking receptionist trailed. The Senator offered coffee which I declined, and then led me back to her rather modest office.

"I must say David, you are not what I expected," Senator Ruis said.

"Oh, what were you expecting, a gray haired overweight middle-aged family man? You are about a year too late."

"I see. Well, shall we discuss Eminent Domain in general or Stuyvesant in particular?"

"Neither, I don't have that kind of time. If you need advice on ED Law, I can give you several excellent attorney referrals. As to Stuyvesant, the business of my clients is confidential."

"Well, I have a subpoena right here that will test that."

"Save the effort. The chairman of your committee canceled your subpoena yesterday."

This apparently was not news to her, but she didn't figure I would know it so soon.

"You are well informed."

"You need to be in my line of work."

"And what is your line of work?"

"Lawyer, formerly Eminent Domain and now general corporate."

"I still have you on the Division Street purchase. If we expose that, it will make the papers in Shamont."

"Oh, I expect that. In fact I am counting on it. Let me ask you where were you born and raised?"

"Here of course. This is my home," she said waving her arm toward the window.

"Well, I was born in Shamont. My grandfather took me for ice cream along Broadway until he died and my mother took me with her shopping along Main Street. Do you think I want Shamont to end up like this?" I said, waving toward the same window.

From my pocket, I now extracted the envelope with its letter. It had been delivered to me by the express mail service that morning.

"What this?" she asked as I handed her the letter.

"Read it," I said turning toward the door.

It was on the Governor's official stationary, very formally thanking me for my donation of 27 Division Street to the State of New York. Behind it was a very extensive bit of research that proved what my Grandfather had told me so many years ago, 27 Division Street was a building for secrets. It housed bootleggers in the twentieth Century and more important for my purposes, fugitive slaves in the mid-nineteenth century.

"But I don't understand," she said.

"What's not to understand? The one entity the Sovern can't take property from is itself. The building on Division Street in Shamont has been gifted to the citizens of the State. Who have graciously accepted the gift of a station on the Underground Rail Road, now part of the States' historic Trails and Landmarks. The building is in its original condition, complete with hiding places and secret entrances."

"So you gave a building away. You are still a cheat and a crook."

"But one too smart for you and those who would tear up my home for some graft. Without 27 Division Street, there is a big hole in the middle of the Center Square Development. They will need to redraft and reapprove. It will take years to come back. Good day Senator."

The Senator could only stare at the documents and shake her head. There was more to this than met the eye. More to the man than you expected. He was no saint, but clearly not quite a villain.

____________________________________________________ Epilogue

The Russell Sage College's Bush Memorial Chapel is a large neo-classical building. Today it is filled to capacity. Wilhelm Jenner was pleased to see so many of the Shamont family had chosen to attend. He had been told this was to be a small quiet wedding. But the hall was filled with the various branches of the Shamont family and their German guests, including his daughter the Countess von Kabchreuth.

The bride looked pretty in her simple white dress. She was a few years younger than the groom. He had been married before -- that was a bit of a scandal and the reason why he -- a Catholic -- was not marrying within his church. It was the bride's first marriage and she was very clearly in love.

She had just the maid of honor standing witness -- a short, plump Hispanic woman. The best man was another matter. Tall, expensively dressed, he had the look of a lawyer and he outshone the groom in appearance. But none doubted the superior character of the groom, Lawrence Boswell, Jr., the new president and chief officer of the Shamont Bank & Trust, or the chaste beauty of his bride, Elizabeth Parker. None in the room would say the same of the best man, David Landon, nor of his wife.

Wilhelm Jenner, seated in the audience, was well pleased with the opportunity to mix with his new associates from Shamont. When David had suggested acquiring the bank after the failure of the Center Square Development, Wilhelm was unsure, but all had turned out well. They were now building their facilities with the money of others and the active support of the Government. David had been the right choice. He was just corrupt enough to pull the necessary deals off. He had first come to Wilhelm's attention when Annette took off to America with him. Wilhelm investigated and liked what he discovered. Annette's husband gave them respectability as Wilhelm's own father-in-law had predicted. Unfortunately, Rupert was near useless when it came to their business. They were the little fish, and the big ones were always trying to swallow them.

Landon had fixed things well. The state got the land for them cheap, exempted them from all taxes, and subsidized the training of their workers. There would be cheap power when the state lifted the fracking moratorium, which Landon said would come when gas prices rose. The wedding today neutralized one of their problems, the good Senator Ruis. Landon had run rings around her with that historic building scam. Jenner did not believe for a moment that Landon had not originally been planning to hold the Center Square scheme up for some kind of blackmail with that building. It was the kind of ploy Wilhelm himself would have used.

Wilhelm Jenner had come a long way from the days when he sold pirated black market rock and roll records on the streets of East Berlin. He did not look his sixty-seven years, and today he felt young. Why not? The evening before he had bedded two women together -- the mother of the groom and the mother of the best man. They had come to his room to beg his intercession with "Poor misguided David," as Agnes described him.

"How can I help? Surely yours is a family problem," he said.

"He respects you, Mr. Jenner. Make him listen to reason," Margaret begged.

"Call me Wil, please. Ladies, may I offer you something to drink while we discuss this?"

They had been amazingly easy to get into bed -- the reports he had received had not been wrong. He did not tell them that he had already ordered David to stop acting like a child and reconcile with his wife. That way he and Annette could be safe. He had even promised to send her over frequently, ostensibly on business. That last promise Annette had negotiated with him in return for help reconciling the Landons. She had had to play a trump card, but Rupert getting his mistress pregnant had freed Annette up for that move.

The ceremony ended and the wedding party adjourned to the Victorian mansion along Washington Park that was the new home of David Landon, a big house in a Victorian neighborhood. A house that could hold the entire family and their many guests.

"David, may I speak to you?" Agnes Landon asked.

"Yes mother?"

"I want you to know that I—"

"I know you never intended to hurt me. You were looking out for my best interests. It was certainly not your fault that things were...well, not quite what they seemed."

"I love you and always will. No matter what, you are my son. I've done some things I'm not proud of but—"

"Life's not a bowl of cherries," David said, a smile breaking his usually somber face.

"I used to say that to you. Didn't I?"

"And smile and things always work out. Be happy, you only live once."

"Are you happy...?"

David reflected on that as he looked across the small garden in which they stood to where his wife Doris was speaking to his mistress Annette. The two women were laughing and enjoying themselves.

At that moment, Annette turned to him. She smiled and let her hand come to her belly. She wore an empire waist gown shorter in the front than the back. It was a very elegant dress befitting of a Countess and one that hid her developing figure. She moved her hand away and turned back to Doris.

"Of course, why not be happy? We only live once," he said, embracing his mother.

"Oh, I'm so pleased. Life is so difficult we needed to keep the family together. Wilhelm said that just last night. He is a wise and understanding man. The Countess is so lucky to have him as a father."

"Yes, mother I'm happy, and I have learned my lesson. I'll be a good boy from now on. Never bet into a stacked deck no matter how pretty the dealer is," he said. Agnes was puzzled by the last statement as she followed his gaze across the room to where Doris stood next to Annette Malene Grafin von Kabchreuth. The daughter of her latest paramour who hoped his daughter's latest pregnancy would give him the grandson he craved.

Ok there we have a sequel and I hope enough ending to satisfy. Feel free to comment.