White Man's Problems Part 7

The stories were a part of life hidden in plain sight. It was as though Stevens, after years of walking past Mexican restaurants, found tacos a revelation. He had never paid proper attention to the spice and flavors of the obituaries. He became a connoisseur of their specialty composition with all its moving parts. He savored the blunt headlines: "d.i.c.k Clark, American Entertainment Entrepreneur, dead at 82" and "Sumner LaPlante, Invented Corrugated Insulation." He evaluated the choice of photograph-whether the still of a soldier posed in silhouette in uniform or the publicity shot of a long-forgotten TV actor with a fedora and a .38 from a lesser police procedural of the 1960s.

Stevens a.n.a.lyzed the tactics the writers used to make each article seem original regardless of formula. He took a special pleasure in the longer pieces by master craftsmen like Albin Krebs, who would tease out the lead highlights and a quote or two and then smoothly double back to the obituaries' beginnings. This device was especially fun when the subject was an immigrant who had adopted an Americanized name. Krebs would announce the sad pa.s.sing of, for instance, ventriloquist Willie Friedman, who was famous throughout the Poconos in the fifties and sixties, and then detail the showman's impressive longevity, making special mention of the delight audiences took in the dummies. With readers hooked and settled in with coffee and bran m.u.f.fins, Krebs would take a storyteller's pause before continuing like so: "Walter Meryce Ferndhayl was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1921..."

Stevens knew, of course, that his increased attention to obituaries meant that part of him was dealing with big issues. But he was confident he was maintaining an objective sense-it wasn't all introspection and mortality. The paper seemed to be telling him to think about the brevity and arbitrariness of life and about change and loss. In an era when most news was consumed online, the quirkily styled signature pieces spread before him in newsprint represented a time when tastes were our own. The people who were dying off-the inventors of saran wrap and the Barbie doll and the apparently endless number of marines who had shot dozens of j.a.panese on Guadalca.n.a.l-were hardening day by day into symbols of what America used to be. In death they became objects, their earnest lives now complete, leaving the world that much less substantial.

He saw the obituaries as a victory lap for the subjects-their last bit of ticker tape-and as fundamentally good things, especially when regarded alongside their journalistic shadow, the death notices. Like the side of the graveyard reserved for prost.i.tutes and gangsters, the death notices were relegated to the lower half of the facing page and had a want-ad type size and font. The citizens of the death-notice ghetto-even the nonagenarians whose families could afford the eulogies of five hundred words with their recitations of every prep school and homeowners' board and not-so-veiled anger that the subject had been denied a proper journalistic send-off-had been adjudicated to have not accomplished enough, at least as far as the coldhearted Times' obit editor was concerned, to make the grade. No matter whom you were, you could not manufacture a life in reverse that deserved to be obituarized. Something special, almost miraculous, had to have happened in your life.

There was no definition and no clear guidelines. The specialness could have come in an instant, like it did for Bobby Thompson, when he hit a home run against the Dodgers in 1954, or it might have developed over seven decades, like Daniel Bell's intellectual engagement. Whether one rated an obituary was an easy call for Stevens once he became an aficionado. The qualification process reminded him of Justice Potter Stewart's famous take on p.o.r.nography: "I know it when I see it." The chosen were of a cla.s.s.

The only corruption Stevens could find concerned the city's oldest families. Every so often, a Whitney or Astor or Blaine descendant of no particular note would sneak in. Staying vigilant for this subspecies was like bird watching for Stevens. High-end sightings were delicious-they combined sober respect for the family's part in building Gotham with grisly details of falsified estate plans forced upon fading dowagers. Stevens would catch these gems and say to Maribeth, "Have to hand it to them," in reference to the dolts who had never worked a day in their lives. "They have something." Invariably, he received no response-Maribeth tried not to buy into what she considered a grim and melancholy hobby.

Like anybody, Stevens sometimes thought about whether the Times would print an obituary about him. He doubted he would make it much further than the Carlton Tribune, the local paper of the northern Pennsylvania town where he had grown up. He imagined the piece would mention that his father was a once-prominent doctor without, hopefully, intimating that the family hit upon hard times when the fortunes of the town declined. Any piece on Stevens would certainly mention his scholarship to Colgate, where he was a member of the eight-man sculls for three campaigns and graduated with honors in rhetoric, and that he became a lawyer, joining Mason Tate & Gathers in 1979. The ideal obituary would skip over the fact that he was rejected for partnership and instead would laud him for starting his own solo practice and maintaining it out of the same office on the twenty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building from 1985 until he died. Perhaps he would draw a compliment-maybe even a friendly quote from another attorney-about his tireless work as one of the legion of hardworking lawyers who had disentangled the mess around ground zero after 9/11.

As predictable as the form of a sales agreement, any story of Stevens' life would recite that he would be survived by his lovely wife, Maribeth; their son, Alex, a doctor (the medicine-man gene, like baldness, had skipped a generation); Alex's wife, Jennifer, also a doctor; and their little boy, Nicholas. And that was about it. He had done nothing notable to justify inclusion in the record as a standout. Stevens told himself that was just as well-that it didn't mean much to have been the author of cola jingles or a member of Meyer Lansky's crew. He imagined Maribeth would take out a small remembrance for him in the notices, maybe even mentioning his fondness for an orderly desk, collar pins, and-this would be her sense of humor-reading aloud the names and ages of the newly deceased from the paper in the morning.

As he looked out at the rain over Riverside Park on a gray day at his breakfast table, a death notice, lengthy even by the indulgent standards of the wealthy, jumped out at him: BROWNING-Sr. Robert Joseph, 92, Wall Street legend, retired partner of Allderdyce & Allen & Co., World War II veteran, leading philanthropist, humanitarian, mentor, cancer survivor, heart attack survivor, miracle worker, longest-living member of his generation, devoted husband of the late Mary Browning, beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, and uncle, of Greenwich, CT, and Palm Beach, FL, died peacefully at home surrounded by his family on April 24, 2012. He was an inspiration to all who knew him. Born in Manhattan, Robert was the fourth of six children of Franklin E. Browning and Lillian Gertrude (English). He graduated from Trinity School in 1934 and received a BS in theology from Harvard University in 1938 and an MS in economics from Yale University in 1939. He joined the venerable investment bank Allderdyce & Allen before enlisting in the navy in 1942. Upon his return from the war, he rejoined the firm. He became a senior partner in 1964. He had an extraordinary professional career filled with accomplishment, but he was most proud of his philanthropy. He served as a trustee of Harvard University from 1971 to 1978. He was the president of the Collegiate School Board of Trustees from 1972 to 1977. He served as governor of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the state of New York and as president of the Sons of the Revolution in the state of New York (19671969). He will be best remembered for his sixty-three-year marriage to Mary, who died in 2008. He is survived by his adoring children, Marie (C. Ferguson) Paine of Fairfield, CT; Virginia Doherty of NYC; Robert (Minnie Van der Veldt) Browning Jr. of NYC; and Gregory (Jane Timmings) Browning of Harrison, NY; sixteen grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren, with another due in July. A Ma.s.s of Christian Burial will be offered at the First Presbyterian Church, 55 Stockbridge Street, Rye, NY, on Sunday, March 15 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, friends are strongly encouraged to make donations in his memory to Presbyterian Family Services, 1011 First Ave., New York, NY 10022.

II.

Carole Lee Bingham had the job the moment she walked in-strode in, really-to Stevens' office in the late nineties, announcing herself with her hand out firmly for a shake. For seven years thereafter, she was a crack-bang worker, starting out as his secretary and rising to the position of office manager, though her duties only changed insofar as there was an expansion in the range of small tasks the ever-fastidious, self-reliant, and grindingly precise Stevens would allow her to do. The Binghams were a prominent Georgia family, which, while thoroughly proud, did not appear, from the mosaic pieces thrown out in conversation over years of office proximity, to remain thoroughly rich. Like most Southern girls, Carole Lee's deferential and capable manner made her more attractive than other women. She was curvy with pretty, long brown hair-about 75 percent of a knockout.

s.e.xual attraction to women in the office place was never an issue for Stevens, who was as straight about straying as he was about punctuation in correspondence, but he wasn't so b.u.t.toned down that he didn't recognize Carole Lee's gifts from front to back. He found something about her a bit jaggy-there were little glimpses of craziness-but he cast off these things as imperfections rather than flaws, chipped paint rather than cracks in the foundation. Her frantic phone calls with her mother were about ten yards past the flag, and it seemed bad taste in men had been pa.s.sed down through the Bingham women to Carole Lee. But she was devoted to Stevens, and he knew she admired him and respected his practice. He was disappointed when, standing where she had stood so many times to ask him how many copies of a lease he needed or to tell him who was on the phone, she revealed she was taking another job involving a vague opportunity for promotion at an investment bank. He was sanguine about it, though; secretaries came and went, like sport coats and golden retrievers. A few would stand out, but all would inevitably go away. They both moved on.

So it was a surprise when she called on a Monday morning three years later and asked if she could stop by.

"Eliot, I am so sorry to bother you..." she said at his doorway.

"Don't be silly," he said, motioning to the chair in front of his desk. "Come in, come in."

Once seated, she smiled and looked around the office. "How's Maribeth? And Alex?"

"Great," he said. "We have a little grandson, you know." He showed her a picture. "He is six months today."

"Oh my G.o.d, Eliot, that's wonderful. Congratulations. How precious."

"Yes, it's great, I have to say. Amazing, the simple things. How about you? What's up?"

"Well," she said and let out a big breath. "Speaking of babies..." She gave her lip a little bite. "I'm pregnant."

"That's fabulous," he said. "I didn't know you were-"

"I'm not." She set her hands out in warning. "This will take a minute to explain."

Stevens had not known much about the job Carole Lee had left him for, but it turned out that she had joined Allderdyce and that, by virtue of moving to a big company, her life had become much more social. She moved into an apartment in the West Village and commuted downtown. She filled her time out of the office with trips to the gym and happy hours of margaritas and chips at bars with names like Carramba. "Flirting with all those bankers and lawyers in their yellow ties," she said, and then she wound her way to the present. "His name is Tim. He's married. Very hooked in-his father and uncles and cousins all worked at Allderdyce. His grandfather is, like, a legend there." Stevens noted she had picked up on the mythologizing so prevalent at major companies. It fit her loyal nature. "Tim's office was kitty-corner from me. Over time, well, you know how it goes. He would come and talk to me at my desk nearly every day. Then we got to e-mailing. Flirting, really, is what it was, truth be told. We ended up having an emotional affair for months and months. But eventually he left the bank, and we lost touch."

"An emotional affair?"

"Yes, that's what they call it." She showed an endearing quality at moments like this, down in the nuance.

"Go on."

"He asked me for a drink out of the blue three months ago. He said he'd reached the end with his wife. She is a shrew-we all worked together at the bank. She's, like, this international finance whiz. Her parents brought her here from Russia when she was-I don't know-twelve."

"So he is no longer at the bank?"

"He stayed a broker of some kind. I don't think he's a big deal-it's sort of an excuse to get out of the house. He probably manages his trust fund. They are loaded...loaded. Plus, Vera works. She's making bazillions."

Stevens nodded. "They do well at Allderdyce."

"He said he missed me, never stopped thinking about me, and on and on. Oh, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, it sounds horrible." Carole Lee's hand was on her stomach. "And that we could be together finally-I'm so stupid, I thought he really meant it. We only did it that one night." She saw Stevens' expression and stopped.

"Have you discussed the future?"

She looked away again. "He was fantastic at first. I thought he was actually happy. He was very scared of telling Vera, of course." She took a tissue from an end table. "She's such a witch." She blew her nose. "Eliot, I am so sorry, really. I just don't know who else to talk to."

"Please," he said. "Of course you should come to me." He kept on with his questions. "Has he told her?"

"It was horrible. It turned into a mess as soon as he did. She went crazy. He quit calling me. Then when he did call me, he told me to talk to his lawyer. 'George is great,' he said. As though the lawyer was going to help."

"Is it George Dandridge?"

"Yes." She turned her head sideways. "Wow, how did you know that?"

"There's a small circle in our world. Has George told you to get a lawyer?"

"No."

"Ok." Stevens reached for his pen.

"I thought it better to do whatever Tim asked. I know it sounds stupid. But I had this idea that he would leave her..."

"Never mind. You are here now."

"You don't mind, Eliot? Of course, I will pay you."

"Nonsense..." he said. He looked at his yellow pad in a manner that would show her he was shifting into attorney mode. Her eyes dipped in appreciation. "Let's get started here. I need to know about all of the events specifically and any contact..."

"Yes, ok. You trained me well, Eliot. I have everything he's sent. And the test results."

"You've taken tests?"

"Uh-huh. Several. I wouldn't do an amnio, though. Not yet, at least."

"Ok," Stevens said, with a slight hint of anger. He felt from Carole Lee the surge of relief clients give off at the flex of protection, but it was more intense-more internal-than he usually received from the "let's get 'em" of the men of the commercial world. "I know this must be terrible for you. The most important thing..." He pulled back from the bromide-not his specialty and rarely helpful. "How far along are you?"

"She sent me the worst e-mail."

"Who? The wife?"

"I don't even want to show you."

Stevens had called George Dandridge and informed him that he would be handling the case by the time Carole Lee forwarded all the correspondence and test results. Since it did no good to attack lawyers like Dandridge-savvy white-shoe creatures who operated according to their own set of rules-Stevens was cordial. Dandridge was suitably surprised and worried: it did not take much to see that the Browning family was in deep, and it was implicit between the lawyers that Dandridge had deepened the amount of s.h.i.t they were in with ex parte communications with Carole Lee. Stevens spent the rest of the day ruminating over the proper moves to make. He felt terrible for Carole Lee's mess but couldn't deny he also had the tingle of leverage.

But even in the state in which Stevens found himself, he was not prepared for the message from Carole Lee when he checked his e-mail before going off to bed: Eliot-I had to down a gla.s.s of wine to send this to you. I don't even want you to see it. Please don't think less of me. I think knowing this would have to come out is what almost stopped me from coming to you in the first place. Here it is: Hi Carole Lee, this is Vera, Tim's wife. That's right, the guy you f.u.c.ked in order to get pregnant. Congrats! You've succeeded...HOWEVER...what I don't understand is why you think you are in the position to raise a child? You have no job! you are by yourself! and you are obviously too stupid for words as getting pregnant underscores! Why don't you have an abortion and do what is best for this unwanted child? Do you know how horrible this child will feel-knowing how they were conceived and born only because a stupid woman wanted to play Mommy? Do you think my husband actually cares for you? He does feel badly about this child being brought into this world, but he doesn't give a f.u.c.k about you-you were a one-night stand. Why can't you do something constructive in your wasted life and dissolve this pregnancy? is this all about money? Because some money can be made available for you-and if you had any sense, that is what you would ask for. Fact: you are DUMB! Fact: you are POOR and don't have a job, career, or any prospects! Fact: no man wants a woman with a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child! Fact: you are thirty-five and your looks are not much to begin with! Fact: my husband doesn't give a real d.a.m.n about you-oh, I forgot you guys have a real bond-you made him e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e! GREAT FOR YOU! I've got an idea-maybe you can do that for a living. I take it back-you are good for something. You are not fit to be a mother-not sure if you are fit to be here at all!

Stevens stopped reading. He must have made a noise, because Maribeth was at the threshold of his small office off the front hallway of the brownstone.

"Honey? Are you ok?" she said.

"What?"

"Is it that Trimark thing? I wish you'd either settle that or send it off."

Stevens smiled at her, glad to have her think he was just working on a nasty real-estate closing. "At least all the excitement is making it a good month. Are you going up?"

"Yeah, I'm exhausted. Come watch something with me." She lingered, looking at him closely, until she decided he was ok and turned to leave. "How about Downton Abbey?"

"In a minute," he said. "Go get it ready, ok? I'll bring up something for us to share. We still have the ice cream."

"Ooh." She made a little scrunchie face. "Put the Hershey's on it," she said, her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Just a little."

He watched Maribeth trudge up the stairs and was transported back to the time when Alex was still in diapers, his little b.u.t.t working his way up the steps, turning sideways for a rest after each one. Stevens had bought the brownstone a year to the day after hanging his shingle. He had not had a slow moment since, hitting the ground running by subletting from a small firm in the Empire State Building, of all places. Rents were cheap twenty years ago, and Stevens found he could bill 175 hours a month easily among three or four real-estate developers. There was so much more time available to focus on the work when he didn't need to play the politics of making partner. It was a cliche, to be sure, but it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Stevens thought of his father, as he always did when circ.u.mstances stopped him flat, and the kind way he had said, "Son, you don't always need the things you think will fix you. That's why you call a doctor." Stevens wrote an e-mail: To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Re: Browning/Bingham CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT COMMUNICATION.

Dear George, as you can see from the hour, I am writing you under abnormal circ.u.mstances. Please take a long look at the attached e-mail from Vera Browning to my client. I will spare you the litany of possibilities this presents to you and the Browning family. I will also resist the temptation to scold your client for indolence and outright barbarity. Given our long relationship, out of courtesy to you alone, I will hold off on filing anything with the court until I hear from you-but, George, do get back to me ASAP. All rights and remedies are hereby reserved in the premises. Eliot.

Within the half hour, a response came: To: [email protected] From: Re: Browning/Bingham CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT COMMUNICATION.

Eliot, thank you for the below and for your forbearance. I will call you in the morning to discuss resolving this unfortunate situation before any more harm is inflicted upon either side.

I also want to give you the heads-up that you will be receiving a personal call from Mrs. Browning. As irregular as it sounds (it's safe to say we're both in pretty strange territory), you can take the call, and permission is hereby granted to speak to her directly. She understands the ramifications.

Once again, Eliot, your professionalism and friendship is appreciated in this most troublesome matter. The litigators can get this case soon enough anyway-I'm not sure either of us has a large enough magic wand at this point to accomplish a good result. Oh, for the good old days.

Unless you request otherwise, I will give her both your office number and your mobile.

Customary reservation of rights and settlement privilege.

Thanks again, George Stevens smiled as he read. Dandridge had a smoothness cultivated over a career filled with the management of rich men's secrets. Cornered and with devastating evidence of a client gone rogue, George had played a wily card: familiarity. Against all good practice, Dandridge had gotten chummier in his writing ("Oh, for the good old days") than protocol allowed. He was preparing the mood in which he would have to negotiate the painful settlement that was coming for the Brownings. It was artful and something a pedestrian lawyer would have not risked.

Stevens tried to draw a profile of Vera, like a cop sizing up a pulled-over driver. He spent a little time on the Internet, and based on that research and Carole Lee's commentary, he was able to imagine a brilliant, ball-busting first-generation Russian woman who used wits and everything else to make it in the lion's den of Allderdyce. She would have been in the right place at the right time, coming of age at the firm just as the Russian and Eastern Bloc economies were opening. The well-positioned Wall Street firms made billions in that window of privatization. Vera must have leveraged her business drive and dazzle into a partnership. At the time, promoting her would have allowed management to check off two boxes: female and expanding markets. Next, Stevens a.s.sumed, came a romantic liaison, followed by a period in which she overpowered the resistance of the blue-blooded Brownings with pure personality. She probably would have contrasted her forcefulness with an unexpectedly endearing subordination to family traditions and somehow found that rare place where the established make a calculated acceptance of outsiders, the way Augusta admitted women. Ultimately there would have been marriage to the malleable Tim-whose parents probably factored in the scion's limitations-and then, after a few children, Vera was set. Big job, big money, big status-a long way from the apartment of two academics on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg.

As Stevens waited for the call the next day, he busied himself with the treble and strife of his daily grind. He reviewed a master commercial lease for CCR violations, spoke to the general counsel of an electrical-engineering firm being acquired by a conglomerate, and dictated a purchase and sale agreement for the physical equipment related to the transaction. All the while he planned his confrontation with the Russian. Should he set her up? She was obviously unhinged-he wondered if he should goad her into saying even more than she'd already written in the e-mail. Or should he play the nice guy and tell her he would help in any way he could to get some sort of peaceful result? He did feel for her after all-her life was being ripped apart.

Line two lit up.

"Eliot Stevens."

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Stevens. This is Vera Browning. I believe you are expecting my call." Her voice was professional but shaky and betrayed just slightly that English was not her first language.

"I am. George Dandridge told me you'd be calling and he said it was ok for us to speak directly. What can I do for you?"

"Hah," she said, the sarcasm aggressive through the phone. "I suppose you can do a lot."

"Listen, Mrs. Browning, I have to tell you-this feels like an awkward call..."

"Let's cut through it, ok?"

Stevens went quiet. After a second he said, "Ok. Go ahead."

"Good. Let's begin. Your client is attempting to ruin my life. Let's begin with that. Let's also begin with me telling you it is not something I will allow. She is a stupid s.l.u.t who manipulated my idiot husband into this situation."

"Mrs. Browning, this conversation isn't going to go very far if you continue to use personal insults. I'm just not going to listen to it."

"Oh please," she said, the hint of accent blending into picked-up New Yorkese. "I can't believe this." A gasket blew. "You know what? Spare me, ok? Just f.u.c.king spare me. You think you can come in here and be some kind of shakedown p.r.i.c.k?"

Stevens, as prepared as he thought he was, hesitated. But only for a moment, and then he went into the opening. "Ok, ok. Listen, Mrs. Browning, you need to understand how much money you are spending with each word you say. Do you have any idea how much I love what you are saying? Do you?" Stevens paused for effect and then took his tone down a notch. "You may not realize this, but I'm the last reasonable person you are going to talk to. You think things are bad now...wait till I give that e-mail-in which you humiliated yourself, by the way-to a lawyer who would like to do nothing more than attach the a.s.sets of you, your husband, your husband's family, and, depending on how clever they want to get, perhaps a bit of Allderdyce's insurance. I'm sure your partners will like that. I'm sure your husband's grandfather will like that." He reduced his tone once more. "Really, this is shocking-a woman of your intelligence putting stuff like this out in writing-you should know better."

"Have you ever had your wife tell you she was pregnant with another man's child, Mr. Stevens?"

"No, and I can't imagine how bad you feel. I know it must be difficult. No one is saying it isn't a hard...Well, you know, this is really a strange conversation to be hav-"

"How much?" she screamed. "Tell me how much! Don't try to pretend you're my friend. Don't try to pretend you are doing something right. She has been after money all along-even as a little secretary, she was walking around the office and looking at the married men. You don't know about this b.i.t.c.h. And now you are the man with a hatchet. So again, I say, spare me, Mr. Stevens. You-you-need to tell her to do the obvious thing. There is one plain and simple and proper thing to do here, and we all know what it is. This little...b.i.t.c.h...is now going to change the life of a family. A big and proud family of many good men. Do you have any idea? I have a five-year-old child. What do I say to her?" She shifted from anger to exasperation. "This is where, honestly, Americans prove what they say in Russia. It is true. Everything done by lawyers." She made a disgusted noise. "You know, you could help here. George says you are a good lawyer. You could fix this. This girl-she has no man. She has no father-no one to tell her what to do. You should be that person."

"You're wrong."

"But no, you won't do it. You want the money. You want the money from the family and from the businesses and from me and my husband-and the whole world. So f.u.c.king spare me. Tell me how much that piece of s.h.i.t wants."

Stevens hung up.

III.

During idle lunch hours or when his meetings took him uptown, Stevens liked to wander in the fifties and sixties, just east of the park, looking at buildings. Reliably, he pa.s.sed by the exclusive social clubs of the City-the Union Club, the Links Club, the Leash Club. When he was starting out at the firm, he thought he might join the Century Club once he made partner. But he gave up the idea when the elevation did not happen. He and Maribeth instead bought a cottage in Columbia County, and he devoted his weekends and the energy he had planned to use in life as a Master of the Universe to the Tennannah Lake Golf and Tennis Club and the Ancramdale Presbyterian Church.

After his call with Vera Browning, Stevens decided to take one of his walks. He took a cab to the park and drifted over to Madison and Park and then Lexington. He went by the Metropolitan with its flags and courtyard manned by a doorman in full battle regalia, a dark blue uniform and hat, maroon capulets, and other fringes. He floated into the midsixties, eventually meandering down Sixty-Sixth Street toward York. It had been a good life, this course he'd pursued. Certainly his mother and father would be proud of him, and he was reasonably sure Alex was as well. The City struck him now as a big grid, the Bronx uptown and the Battery down, two hundred streets divided longways by ten avenues, with tiny parks all around and a big one occupying the middle. There were stories everywhere-in every Korean grocery and Senegalese cardboard rip-off, around every Pakistani cabby and Queens housewife-but in the end each place and each person was a pin on the grid. Obituaries ran every day, on Tuesdays next to the chess; a few of the dead would be there, and everybody else would not.

His cell phone rang. He didn't recognize the number, but as a man trained once and always for the service business, he answered. "Eliot Stevens." There was silence on the other end. "h.e.l.lo?"

"This is Vera." She was woozy-maybe even drunk. She spoke as though their conversation were just continuing, as though time had stood still while he wandered, as though they were in one of those movie scenes edited to show things happening simultaneously and in gaps, in the streets and in the bars, at intermittent spots throughout the grid.

"Look," he said, "this isn't a good idea. We shouldn't deal directly." He tried to be kind. "It's not..." He heard a sob. A trash truck went by, and he covered the phone. When the noise subsided, she was still crying. "Call George. It's not going to work this way..."

"All I called to say to you, Mr. Stevens...Eliot...whatever," she said, pulling herself together, "is that you can tell your client that I will not bother her again. I'm sorry. Good-bye."

With no other responsible course of action in sight, Stevens turned up the pressure on the Browning family over the next several weeks. He compelled Dandridge to provide a detailed list of all communications with Carole Lee and all test results and medical charges. He also negotiated for Carole Lee a temporary weekly stipend from Tim and procured a written guarantee that all her medical expenses through the birth would be covered. As the process between the lawyers ground on, the fourth and fifth months of Carole Lee's pregnancy pa.s.sed, and Mother Nature, Roe v. Wade, and a vague sort of morality, which grew stronger with time, caused certain options to fall away.