“Right! I saw that. What a screw-up.”
“Par for the course these days.”
As the conversation drifted dangerously close to politics, Simon switched gears and asked about another law school classmate who was battling cancer. Since both were busy lawyers, they managed to wrap up the conversation with promises to get together soon.
Back to $20 million! Simon got another beer and thought about the conversation for a long time. Later, he would go online and do some research, try to find out why Congress allowed the estate tax provisions to slip away. As if one might be able to understand anything Congress did.
Chapter 3
Simon and his wife, Paula, had not filed for divorce because they could not afford one. Both desperately wanted out, but since they were barely afloat financially with one household they could not imagine trying to maintain two. Both wounded and scarred, they were tired of fighting and had settled into a somewhat sustainable coexistence that allowed them to pass the days in muted suffering as their three kids grew up. Fortunately, the two older ones were teenagers who were struggling through the usual strains of puberty and adolescence but not yet causing serious problems. They seldom left their bedrooms and never allowed themselves to be caught offline. A device was always in hand. The youngest, Janie, was nine years old and still a sweet kid.
To avoid conflict and keep the tension away from the children, Simon usually slept at the office. He had remodeled a small suite upstairs, knocked out a couple of walls, and configured a small pad where he survived with a tiny bathroom and narrow bed. When talking only to himself he called it The Closet. It wasn’t nice but at least it was away from Paula.
She was out this Tuesday night, the monthly book club gathering where wine seemed to be more important than literature. It gave him the green light to cook his favorite Italian sausage meatballs with pasta and hang out with Janie in the kitchen. They talked about school and soccer and life in general. She caught him off guard by asking, “Where do you go at night?”
“Well, I often work late and just sleep at the office.”
“That’s weird. Why don’t you just come home? It’s not that far away.”
“I don’t want to wake up everybody. Mom’s a light sleeper and needs her rest.”
“Buck thinks you and Mom are getting a divorce.”
Buck had always been a nosy brat and too mature for his years. Simon managed a smile while realizing that it was the first time the word “divorce” had been uttered by one of the children, or at least to his knowledge.
He said, “No, we’re not getting a divorce, Janie. Mom and I are both working too hard and don’t have a lot of time for each other, but that’s not unusual these days. Everything will be okay. Tell Buck to stop talking like that.”
Divorce had been on the table for at least three years but they had been careful around the kids. Buck was sixteen and missed nothing. Danny was fourteen and going through puberty with his head in the clouds. Janie was a little girl who loved both parents. The thought of leaving her was painful.
“It seems weird that you would sleep at the office when your bedroom is here in the house with us.” She watched him as she said this, as if she knew the truth.
“Everything is okay, Janie, I promise. The pasta is ready, so go get your brothers.”
The only time Buck and Danny left their rooms was to eat. Both had insatiable appetites, along with awful table manners. Paula had given up on the rules. Danny ate with earbuds and an iPad with some dreadful acid rock band screeching away, barely audible but loud enough to be annoying. Buck had earbuds and a cell phone. Simon asked them to unplug things and talk about their school days. They looked at him as if he were a trespasser and flagrantly disobeyed. At that point, Simon could slap the table, raise his voice, make a scene, start a fight he could not win, and create even more bad blood. Paula would hear about it and weigh in on behalf of her children. It was easier to ignore their behavior, another act of cowardice that had become routine around the Latch household.
So Simon chatted nonstop with Janie as the boys ate like pigs. The sooner they finished, the sooner they could escape to the safety of their rooms. They left their plates on the table, more rules violations, but Simon just ignored them again. After dinner, when the kitchen was spotless and the house was quiet, Simon kissed Janie on the forehead and said he had to get back to work. She wanted to say something but didn’t. He locked the doors, made sure the house was secure, and left a few minutes before ten. Paula would be home soon, and the less he saw of her the better.
In earlier years he had parked his car, a leased Audi that needed to be swapped for a later model, in front of his office on Main Street when he worked early and late, a bit of free advertising intended to impress others with his formidable work ethic. These days, though, he hid it in an alley around back at night to quash rumors that he had moved out and was living at the office. He suspected those rumors were already making the rounds, because a couple of Paula’s friends had big mouths and didn’t like Simon anyway. He was almost certain that the book club girls spent more time sipping wine and bitching about their husbands than discussing the hottest bestseller.
He parked in the alley and, instead of taking the rear stairs up to his pad, he walked three blocks to the basement of an old bank building. Chub’s Pub had been a part of his life for many years. He had been there as Chub transformed it from a seedy low-end beer hall, known for its illegal poker and bookmaking, to a mid-level sports bar with a dozen widescreens and a less violent clientele. Gambling was still rampant because Chub was the biggest bookie in the area, but it was kept quiet and out of the way. The vice squad made a perfunctory visit once a week but only because it was expected. Most of the cops hung out in Chub’s when off duty. He even paid a few of them to work the door on weekends.
It was a Tuesday night in early March and the place was not crowded. Simon went to his spot at the end of the sweeping bar and settled in before a screen that offered video poker. The bartender, Valerie, soon appeared with a bourbon and ginger ale, along with a fake smile and the same greeting, “What’s up, Lawyer Latch?”
“All’s well, Valerie, how are you?”
“Just living the dream.” Then she was gone. They didn’t have much to discuss because Simon had handled two of her no-fault divorces, at cut rates, and she wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the second one. With time they had settled into a respectful standoff that required a forced pleasantness but nothing else. Sort of like his marriage.
The drinks were free as long as he was playing video poker, which was still illegal in the state, but Chub was smart enough not to get caught. His machines were hot-wired to a file that kept a running balance of each gambler’s wins and losses. No money changed hands in public. The vice squad could see nothing illegal above the table. Simon and the other players received monthly statements from the pub and settled up in cash whenever Chub said so.
Cal Poly was playing UC Irvine and Simon had $500 on the game, his standard bet. He watched it on a screen hanging above the racks of bottles as he sipped his drink and occasionally looked at his poker screen. He knew nothing about either school, so why would he place a substantial wager on a game thousands of miles away? He once asked himself such questions, but stopped doing so because the answer was clear. It was all about the action. March Madness was right around the corner, and, in preparation, Simon needed to watch as many games as possible. The Big Show still got him excited, especially after last year when he mopped up in the Sweet Sixteen and won $4,000.