Chapter 36: Christmas Greetings

December 19, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“I was surprised when you knocked on my door last night,” Samantha said on Saturday morning.

“Jessica insisted.”

“Your wife, whom you took to a party, while wearing that amazing tux, sent you to my bed? I almost don’t believe it!”

“Yes, she did. Because it was Friday.”

“But all we did was cuddle and sleep in each other’s arms.”

“You snuggled close and fell back asleep,” I chuckled. “And that’s fine.”

“You could have woken me up!” she protested.

“Samantha, I love making love to you, but that’s not the only reason I spend the night with you. I love you. Do you think I have sex with my wives every single night?”

“You don’t?” she asked, surprised.

“No, I don’t. And as far as I’m aware, none of my married friends, except maybe newlyweds, have sex every single night.”

“But this was the last time before I leave for New York!”

“I have no plans after lunch,” I grinned.

“Ellie, Liz, and Mary will be here,” she pouted.

“I could entertain all four of you!” I teased.

“Seriously?” Samantha asked, sucking in her breath.

“I’m pulling your leg, and you know it!” I grinned. “How long are they staying?”

“They’re having dinner with us. I cleared it with Elyse when she got home from work yesterday.”

“How about after dinner?” I asked. “Or tomorrow morning?”

“Probably tomorrow morning,” she said. “I don’t know how late the girls are staying. What about now?”

“I have a date that trumps you,” I chuckled.

Samantha laughed, “Go see your daughter! She’ll send out a search party if you don’t show up for your before-breakfast cuddles!”

I did go see Birgit, but what was really on my mind was Bethany. It was the anniversary, if you could call it that, of Nick’s death. Kathy was spending the day with her, and I hoped Bethany’s day wasn’t too distressing.

December 20, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“That was fun,” Samantha said.

“You liked it?” I asked.

“I felt really powerful; totally in control.”

“We can do that again sometime if you want.”

She’d tied me to her bed and completely controlled our encounter.

“Not often, but it would be fun to do again!”

“Just let me know,” I said.

“I have something I want to give you as a Christmas gift,” Samantha said.

She got out of bed and went over to her dresser and came back with an envelope, which she handed to me.

“I have your gift, but it’s in the other room,” I said.

“Later. Besides, you’ve given me the greatest gift you could by letting me live with you.”

I opened the envelope and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’ve seen something like this! About five years ago! Jessica and Kara gave my friend Leila coupons that she could redeem.”

“Well, this is one for you to redeem. A complete free pass, for twenty-four hours, with no restrictions, and no expiration. Well, I suppose the rules your wives have in place would still apply.”

“Why?”

“Because of the way you’ve treated me. Because you love me. Because I love you.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I said.

“You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, obviously.”

I smiled, “Who did you talk to?”

Samantha laughed, “It’s that obvious?”

“Yes.”

“Bethany, Elyse, Jennifer, and Abbie.”

“You talked to all of them?”

“I’m trying to figure you out, and they know you really well. I want to know how to be the best partner I can be for you. They’re helping.”

“It sounds as if you’ve decided to try to keep this going for the long-term.”

“Someday I’ll want kids. I’ll make the appropriate arrangements when the time comes. You know what I want most out of life.”

She was sounding a LOT like Jessica for whom everything took a back seat to her medical career. For Samantha, it was Spurgeon Capital, but there was no question that the two were cut from the same cloth in that regard. Family, children, even sex, were afterthoughts to what they really wanted from life.

“I do. You know you don’t have to offer me something like this.”

She smiled, “I know. But I want to. I seriously want to. There’s one other thing I discussed with your wives and Elyse.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“When you’re in Japan, you make your own rules.”

I laughed, “I’ll be staying at the villa of an 82-year-old Japanese 9th Dan karate master. The only other person I know who will be there is 7th Dan master named Robert. I suppose their wives will be there, but I actually never asked if they were married or if their spouses were still alive. I suspect Sensei Robert’s might be given he’s in his sixties.”

“According to Elyse, girls seem to simply fall into your lap! And you going five weeks without sex would be some kind of record!”

I chuckled, “I went a whole month without even masturbating right before my wedding!”

“That must have been pure torture!” Samantha laughed.

“I think Kara was the one who was ready to kill someone by the time our wedding day arrived! But Jennifer and I used abstinence several times during our relationship to make sure we had our priorities right.”

“You’ve done that with me, too!”

“I have. That proved to Kara that I was serious about you. I mean, she knew, but that made it crystal clear. I don’t do that with many girls.”

“Bethany.”

“A VERY different issue altogether. With different reasons.”

“Not according to Jennifer and Elyse. It was about your relationship with her. Same thing.”

“I suppose if you look at it that way, then yes.”

“I suppose we have to go have lunch,” Samantha sighed.

“Yes we do. What time do you leave on Tuesday?”

“The Gulfstream will be ready to go at 10:00am on Tuesday. Dad’s sending a car for me. I’ll be back late on Sunday. You’re going to the Foundation Winter Gala on the following Monday, right?”

“Yes.”

We got out of bed, showered, and went downstairs to have lunch with the family.

December 21, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“I was really surprised you called last week,” John Lentz said when he was shown to my corner table at Maxim’s.

“You and I got along pretty well, and I hadn’t talked to you since the problems over the summer. I figured it was safe to do so now.”

He shook his head, “I still can’t believe all that shit that Lisa pulled. OK, fine, she cheated on me. That pissed me off, but wasn’t the biggest surprise. It was what she did to you and Samantha that really frosted me. I mean sure, I’d have dumped her for cheating, but trying to wreck your relationship because you wouldn’t have sex with her? That’s just lower than whale shit.”

“And yet, her dad is the salt of the earth,” I said. “I’m not speaking on her behalf, but I will say Lisa really regrets what happened.”

“Doing it or getting caught?” John sighed.

“Good question. I don’t know that I can answer that question. She did ask me to talk to you months ago but I turned her down.”

“She called a few times. I never took her calls. I don’t really know that I could even speak civilly to her at this point.”

“I hear you on that one,” I agreed. “But things are cool with her old man?”

“Absolutely. He and I are cool, and I’m still doing the legal work for his REITs. He was really apologetic about his daughter’s behavior. I guess he was suspicious, but didn’t have any proof until the whole thing with you and Samantha blew up. You’re cool with him?”

“Absolutely. I’m sure we’ll do business together in the future, though I don’t think I’m going to be in the market for real estate any time soon!”

“You should ask him about investing in the REIT. The returns are huge, and you bailed him out, so he might let you in.”

“That’s something to think about. I don’t have a ton of money to invest, but diversifying into real estate is probably not a bad thing. I saw you guys are doing the work on the financing for the project across the street from my old building.”

“The strip mall? Yeah. Those are nice income earners, so long as the economy stays reasonably healthy. How’d you hear we were in that one?”

“I talked to the owner. He saw us moving out and stopped over to find out why we were moving. You know, check on the business climate. But we’re not retail, so our interests don’t really align. He did mention something that I should probably relay to you.”

“What’s that?” John asked, suspicion showing in his eyes.

“You know my company did a buyout of a competitor, right?”

“Sure. Jeri financed it for you. I did her side of the paperwork.”

“Information about the deal leaked from either your firm or from Allen & Baker. I suspect Allen & Baker, personally, given the timing. But you have a similar problem. According to the guy, somebody in your firm is talking to a third party about his business interests. He was pretty animated about it, too. I was kind of surprised at how pissed he was.”

“What do you mean?”

“Basically, he said that whoever was leaking information was in a world of hurt and would be dealt with. That really bothered me, so I kind of begged off as being busy and he left. The dude was clearly pissed. I thought you should know.”

I saw fear in John’s eyes. No, that wasn’t right. It was abject terror. He knew exactly what the problem was. And the fact that he wasn’t saying anything to me made it clear that he had no idea I was sending a message. I was being a friend and relaying information I had, which was what everyone in the circles he was used to traveling in did.

The waiter came to take our order, and I ordered the chicken Parmesan, knowing that it was served over a bed of spaghetti with meat sauce. I’d blow my carb limit for the week, but I’d had the dish once about six years before and it just blew me away. John ordered, and I could see just how nervous he was. I was tempted to ask him about it, but didn’t want to tip him off. On the other hand, completely ignoring it could also send the wrong message.

“You OK?” I asked when the waiter left.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about how much trouble someone could be in for doing that.”

“Violating the attorney-client privilege?” I said to cover myself. “That will get you disbarred. A pissed-off client is NOTHING compared to that!”

Except in this case, getting disbarred was nothing compared to being fitted for cement overshoes and winding up in the Chicago River, or worse, Enos, Indiana, where the Spilotro brothers had been buried alive in the cleansing that occurred when Carlisi had been made street boss after Joseph Aiuppa and John Cerone had been sent to prison. John was in deep shit, and I didn’t know that he had a way out at this point. Given the infiltration of the Chicago police by The Outfit, even the Witness Relocation Program probably wasn’t enough to protect him.

John didn’t say anything for a few minutes, so I decided to switch the conversation.

“I hear you’re dating a new girl,” I said.

He smiled, “My little sister’s friend, believe it or not. I knew her when she was twelve and had braces. Now she’s eighteen and almost as good looking as Kara! Almost!”

“She’s what, ten years younger than you are?” I asked.

He smiled, “Any other girl I’d say was just looking to cash in. This one had a crush on me from when she was thirteen, but I never really noticed her until maybe a year ago.”

“That’s cool. My sister ended up engaged to a guy she first met at twelve. They dated off and on - mostly off - then finally reconnected in their early twenties. Another friend of mine married the guy she met when they were two, though there were quite a few detours along that road.”

A road which culminated with her death from cancer, but that wasn’t something to bring up at this point of the conversation. The rest of our lunch was casual, though John was nervous throughout. I was sure he was trying to think of a way out of the trap he was in, but I certainly couldn’t see one. If he was informing on The Outfit, they’d kill him if he didn’t find a way to make things right. But doing that would mean screwing the Feds who might have an indictment hanging over his head.

I was just a messenger, but I did feel some amount of responsibility for what was happening. I wondered if there was any way I could help John without getting in trouble with The Outfit myself. I certainly couldn’t think of one. If I warned him to run, he could certainly do that, but I might be blamed for it. But he might run anyway, and that could present a problem as well.

I had, in my past, been a party to the death of a man I didn’t know. Theo claimed self-defense, and that he only shot when the other guy pulled on him, but I didn’t think the Law would see it that way. That entire sequence of events had bothered me, but I’d come to terms with it by convincing myself that all I’d done was drive Theo someplace, and what happened between the two men was their business. Now, again, I was potentially in a similar situation. Was there anything I could do?

If there was anyone who had the resources to help John disappear, it would be Alec Glass, or Noel Spurgeon, or one of the other people in their circles. But John wasn’t family and I wasn’t sure how far they would go for someone who wasn’t family. I also didn’t know for sure what kind of reach The Outfit had. Could John live safely in Monaco? Or some other far-flung place? And if he could, how could I make that happen without getting in trouble. Even if he and Lisa were still an item, I didn’t see how that would help.

It was a shitty situation and I didn’t see any way out for him except to simply disappear from the face of the earth, and the only way to do THAT was cooperate with the Feds and hope that Witness Protection could actually protect him. Pete was a Deputy US Marshal, and the program was run by the Marshals Service, but I had no way of even broaching the subject with him which wouldn’t make him suspicious. That was his job, after all. And while I could trust him, I had no idea who else I could trust. What had happened with the police and my investigation had made that abundantly clear.

“Thanks for having lunch with me today,” I said. “We should do this again. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas to you! Call me in January,” he said. “And let me cover this. I can write it off as a client meeting.”

I nodded and let him pick up the tab. The way he was behaving made it relatively clear that he didn’t suspect I was involved in any way, and that was a good thing. Now, if I could just find a way out for him, I’d feel a lot better. We shook hands, and I started the walk back to the office. I walked through Union Station to use the pay phone to call a number that Theo had left me.

“I just met with our friend,” I said to the woman who answered. “He got the message.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

I hung up and continued back to the office.

December 24, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“What are we going to do if Samantha is here for Christmas in the future?” Kara asked as we showered after making love under the tree.

“I think we’ll worry about that if and when it happens. The Hamptons trip is a regular thing for her family, and given that she needs to maintain at least a working relationship with her dad, she’ll probably go. She’ll probably go on the Monaco trip next summer, especially given that I’ll be in Japan.”

“And we’re going to Iron Mountain, even though you won’t be here. I’m sorry you’re missing that.”

“Me too, but we’ll go to Katy’s place with Birgit in the Spring.”

“And bring Samantha?” Jessica asked. “We really should.”

“We better let Katy know, because Samantha will need a room.”