The Twelve Apostles Read online

  THE TWELVE APOSTLES

  William J. Coughlin

  First published by

  G.P. Putnam Sons, Inc.

  1984

  Anyone who is anyone in the lofty world of corporate law knows that the vacant senior partner’s chair at the illustrious Manhattan firm of Nelson & Clark is the most fiercely coveted prize in the profession. Nelson & Clark is so awesome in its influence, so elite in its international prestige that its senior partners are known irreverently as “The Twelve Apostles.”

  Beautiful Christina Giles wants the vacant Apostle’s chair, and she has the legal prowess and political savvy the position demands. But first she must outwit a ruthless, Eurasian tycoon with a maniacal desire to possess her and use her as a pawn in a dangerous corporate takeover…and then she must defeat—and maybe destroy—her lover, brilliant fellow lawyer Dan Spencer, in a hard-core power struggle only one of them can survive…

  “FAST-PACED…THE PASSIONS, PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL, OF $500-AN-HOUR CORPORATION LAWYERS AND THE ROBBER BARONS THEY SERVE.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “BIG MONEY, BIG POWER, SEX AND SUSPENSE…SATISFYING!”

  —Washington Post Book World

  To Ruth Bridget

  I would like to thank Joan Sanger, my editor, and Richard Pine and Arthur Pine, my agents, for their guidance and encouragement. A man is nothing without friends.

  The game ain’t over till it’s over.

  —YOGI BERRA

  1

  She studied her reflection in the mirror with the same objectivity she used in analyzing a land development proposal. Basically, she liked what she saw, but not in a truly vain way. Luck or genetics—she really wasn’t sure which—had blessed her with the strong, handsome features that men called beauty. But she felt the high cheekbones were a gift from her mother’s Irish ancestors, and that her smooth skin and dark brown hair came from the Spanish strain in her father’s side of the family. She looked for wrinkles, found none, and then made a face at herself, mocking the search.

  Thirty-six, the mother of a fourteen-year-old son, Christina Stevens Giles was pleased with what she saw in the mirror. She looked more like her son’s older sister than his mother. And with regular exercise and careful diet she had managed to retain her youthful figure. That was important to her, and it had always been important.

  Even the best product needed attractive packaging. She had proved herself a successful attorney, an asset to her law firm, but nothing could be neglected now. Her career at Nelson and Clark was at a critical point.

  Christina quickly slipped into her clothes. She chose an understated gray business suit with modest skirt and a plain silk blouse with a large bow that suggested a man’s tie. Her hairstyle was a compromise between a severe business cut and a fuller, softer, and more feminine look.

  She walked from the dressing room into their bedroom. Although her own bed was sleep-rumpled, her husband’s hadn’t been slept in. It was the second time in a week.

  As usual, he had called and breezily informed her of an emergency case that would keep him at the hospital during the night. He said he would bunk down there if necessary. It was in keeping with his usual pattern. First there were the medical emergencies, overnights, soon to be followed by the medical seminars, always for a few days, and always out of town. All it meant was that the always charming Dr. Hank Giles had found himself another girlfriend. It was always the same: he would be whistling and singing, happy with himself for a few months while the affair went on at a torrid pace. What always followed was a snarling, snapping period of depression after he, or sometimes the girl, called it quits. His affairs never lasted more than a few months at a time.

  She was just as glad that he had found someone again; it would free her from his fawning, half-drunken embraces, at least for a while. Getting a divorce was part of the plan, but not until their son went off to college, now only four years away. By then the boy would be strong enough emotionally to handle the situation. Besides, she knew the firm frowned on divorced women and she had the chance to realize a marvelous opportunity there. If one of the main partnerships opened up—and Abner Slocum was fast approaching the age of mandatory retirement—she knew she would definitely have a chance at the vacancy since she was already the head of an important department within the firm, the only non-Apostle with such a major responsibility. So marriage it had to be, at least until something was settled at the firm. She could wait. She just hoped that Happy Hank, as people called him, would continue to content himself away from her bed. Once she had loved him, very deeply. But he was a boy in an adult body, and his constant infidelities had long ago killed her love and respect for him.

  Christina checked herself once again in the full-length mirror. She wanted just the right look, attractive but professional. Satisfied, she walked down the hall to the apartment’s spacious kitchen.

  Her son merely glanced up at her, then returned his attention to his book. A bowl of half-eaten soggy cereal sat before him. Although she loved him, she secretly rejoiced that he was going back to boarding school in a week. He was becoming too much for her to handle. The metamorphosis from child to man, that painful period of adolescence, was producing a truculent, pouting, growing pillar of pimply flesh; created it sometimes seemed merely for the purpose of irritating her. They used to call him Little Hank, but now he was Henry. He wasn’t little anymore. In the past few months he had shot up in height, more and more beginning to resemble his father, a factor she knew could influence how she felt about him—and for which she made conscious allowance. There was certainly no point in visiting the resentment she felt toward the father upon the son. She wished that the cute chubby little boy could have stayed that way for just a bit longer. But, she reflected, at least he didn’t have his father’s insinuating charm, now so offensive to her.

  She poured some instant breakfast mix and cold water into a cup and stirred the lumps out of it. “Well, what mad and exciting adventures do you have planned for today?” she asked.

  He scowled up at her. “Kenny Wade is coming over later. We’re just going to bum around for a while. Can I have some money? We’ll probably end up at an arcade and I want to play the games.”

  “Why don’t you boys drop over to the Museum of Modern Art. They’re having a new—”

  He sneered. “That place is full of fags. Jesus, Mom, I’m safer over on 42nd Street than in there.”

  She sighed. He’d been sent to the very best schools, but he’d also been brought up in the city. Although he was a typical “rich” kid and lived on the posh Upper East Side, he was nevertheless a true son of New York, and in his own way, streetwise.

  She fished out a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and handed it to him, attempting a smile. “Be careful,” she said, more to superstitiously assure herself than to really caution him.

  Her son took the bill, and merely grunted as he went back to his book.

  She gulped down the chocolate drink, then headed for a mirror to repair any damage. A chocolate ring above the lips was definitely out this season, and today it was important that she look good, it would be a long and tiring day, but it would be important to the firm and to her. She had arranged a meeting with the Japanese bank people today. If they approved participation in the transaction, their money would be the key to unlocking a series of mortgages she had set up to bail out the giant Thompkins Steel Company. It was what she did best—arranging the financing of intricate mortgage deals for large corporations, and thinking up legal schemes to convert corporate assets into usable money without really giving them up. She was good at it, she knew that, perhaps one of the very best in the business. She seemed to have a special knack for the work.

  The Thompkins
deal, if it went through, would bring in an enormous fee to the firm, and the triumph would ensure extremely high visability within Nelson and Clark. She knew that despite her relative youth and sex—there was already one woman Apostle—that by continuing to pull off miracles like the Thompkins business she would have a real shot at the next opening for main partner. It wouldn’t be easy, nothing good ever was. And when the opening occurred, several of the participating partners, like herself, would compete for it. Only one would win while the others, the losers, would leave the firm. It was a tradition, a life or death thing, not unlike the gladiators of old—a struggle where one lived and one died. But today she felt ready, confident, almost eager for that struggle to begin.

  She left the apartment, every thought of her son and husband gone from her mind. Christina Giles was all business now: she was a warrior on her way to do battle.

  He often wondered why she hadn’t abandoned Scarsdale; it was just not the same anymore, not after the invasion of the advertising types and insurance executives, people who obviously had money, but not real money, not old money.

  He smiled wryly, looking at the wrinkled, almost transparent skin of his hands. The old crowd was dead, or at least most of them. Vanished like some mystical tribe of legend, remembered, and spoken of occasionally, but having left behind no vestige of their once glorious culture.

  “Is this it, sir?”

  The chauffeur’s soft voice startled him into the present.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Turn in through those gates just ahead.” Well, he thought, at least she had held on to the land, despite all the pressures brought by greed-inspired developers.

  The house, framed by a stand of trees at the end of the drive, was a Georgian palace, a monument to a life-style long dead. Although he hadn’t been there for years, the sight of the house brought a flood of bittersweet memories into sharp recall.

  The limousine pulled up in front of the mansion’s tasteful entrance. The chauffeur, accustomed to driving Abner Slocum when the attorney needed transport outside New York, skipped around to the passenger side of the enormous Cadillac.

  Abner Slocum at first resented the extended hand. But finding his legs cramped and stiff after the long drive, he reluctantly accepted the driver’s help.

  The beautifully carved front door swung open as Slocum climbed up the few front steps. There was something regal about the place, it was definitely a residence fit for royalty. The maid, a middle-aged and slightly stout woman, smiled hesitantly. “Mr. Slocum?”

  “That’s right.” The attorney nodded his acknowledgment.

  “The other gentlemen are in the library, waiting for you.” There was a hint of disapproval in her tone, as if he shouldn’t have made such important men wait upon him. But Slocum knew she had no idea of their relative importance—the others were the estate appraiser, the accountant, and the man from the IRS. They would expect to wait for a man like Slocum.

  The maid led him into the front hall, so instantly well remembered with the baby grand piano still standing in its accustomed place. Slocum knew there were other grand pianos scattered throughout the house. She had never learned to play the piano, but she liked the shape and preferred to use them as convenient tables. It represented the kind of sweeping expensive gesture he always associated with her.

  “Just a minute,” he said to the maid, as he stepped into the huge main room, his eyes drawn to the life-sized oil hung above the Georgian fireplace.

  He walked over and looked up at the painting, vividly remembering when it had been commissioned. She had been thirty-nine years old and a startling dark-eyed beauty. He’d been just twenty-eight. Although the pose was meant to be demure, still the full curves beneath the silken gown were plain enough. He acutely remembered how her body had been, the athletic thighs, the alluring fullness of her hips that contrasted with her surprisingly small waist and flat stomach. His eyes moved up to the simple bodice where a large catch of lace failed to conceal the beauty of her breasts.

  Abner Slocum studied the face. Her eyes seemed almost to stare back at him boldly, just as they had done that first day, the day he had been sent out by the firm to take care of a minor legal job for her first husband.

  Slocum sighed. Age could be a terrible thing. Just recently she had died—in her eightieth year—and now he was sixty-nine. In the beginning they had been lovers for a few years, and then friends after that. Memories flooded his mind as he stared up at the painting.

  You made me what I am today, Sylvia, Slocum thought to himself, suddenly grateful. It was true enough. She’d guided his legal career until the summit itself had been attained: a main partner in Nelson and Clark, he had become one of the Twelve Apostles. It took the full power of her fortune, every bit of force that her money had generated, but he had made it.

  Well, he thought to himself, you saved me years ago.

  Sylvia, and now, even in death, perhaps you can save me again.

  Slocum smiled at the face in the painting, almost hoping somehow it would smile back. But by just looking at her he felt a sudden surge of confidence, a warm sense of power. It was nearly sexual, erotic.

  The maid cleared her throat with a little cough. “Mr. Slocum, the others are waiting for you.”

  “Of course, my dear. We must not keep them waiting any longer, must we?” He followed the maid toward the library. He felt like whistling. No, they wouldn’t beat him this time, not ever. He would be ready. Sylvia Winship’s death gave him just the weapon he needed. He would be damned before he’d let them throw him out of the firm.

  “Let’s go over it one more time,” Patrick Collins said.

  “Jesus, I’m sick of talkin’ about it,” the girl snapped.

  Collins half smiled as he looked at her. Too much makeup and not enough clothes, he thought to himself—or enough brains. “Look, you’ll be damn sick of women’s prison, too, unless you handle this just right.”

  She pouted. Collins made a mental note to have her boyfriend, Manny, a small-time hood, buy her a new dress for the trial—something that didn’t cling or ride up. She had good legs, but this wasn’t the kind of criminal charge where legs would buy her anything.

  He listened once again to her obvious lies. He wondered if she was so stupid that she thought he would actually believe her fairy tale of mistaken possession of nearly a half million dollars’ worth of cocaine. A jury certainly would not.

  It was hopeless. She would never be convincing no matter how he might polish her up. Perhaps he could work out a plea if they were lucky. A trial would be a disaster.

  “You and Manny come back Tuesday afternoon, about four. We may want to approach the defense a bit differently. We can talk about the alternatives.”

  She shrugged and stood up. “Manny said maybe I should give you a blow job. He said you’d like that, or maybe a half and half.” Her eyes wandered over to the worn leather couch.

  Collins smiled. “Maybe some other time, honey. I’m a little busy right now. But tell Manny thanks.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  He watched her hip her way out of his office. He sighed. Well, he thought to himself, there were going to be some very happy hutches up in state prison when she got there, but at least it wouldn’t be going to waste.

  Patrick Collins glanced at his watch. It was just past one o’clock. His son, Michael, would be in the interview now, perhaps only halfway through lunch. Collins knew far better than his son the implication of being recruited by Nelson and Clark.

  He looked at his son’s picture, framed in silver, on his desk. Grinning back at him, looking like a young John Kennedy, his son had the Irish features, blue eyes and wild brown hair so typical of his ancestors from the Emerald Isle. Unlike the late President, Michael Collins was thickly muscular and possessed an almost delicate grace. He was a son to be proud of.

  Nervously, Patrick Collins got up from his desk and walked to the window. He looked down on Broadway, watching its human and vehicular traffic. Crawling wi
th cabs, the street was a continuing symphony of horns as cars and trucks jockeyed for position. Some brave—or foolish—people risked life and limb as they scurried through the moving river of steel.

  It was his world. To Patrick Collins there was no street quite like Broadway, a mix of everything—from pervert to priest, from hooker to hard-hat. Matrons strode right alongside whores, and businessmen shared the sidewalk with pimps and muggers.

  But it wouldn’t be the world of his only son.

  Michael Collins was different. The boy had chosen a different path. Although he had elected to become a lawyer like his father, his eye had always been on a different level of the profession. First, he had gone away to the law school at Notre Dame, and had done well there, having been graduated with honors after serving as editor of the Law Review. In contrast, his father Patrick had worked his way through the city law school and had always been grateful for a mere passing grade.

  Now Michael was being recruited by the country’s number-one law firm. Nelson and Clark, the legendary Twelve Apostles.

  Although Patrick Collins was regarded by many as one of New York’s best criminal trial lawyers, he had never been graced in even meeting one of the Apostles. They were as distant from him as the original twelve. Called because they had twelve main partners, the elite law firm occupied six full floors in the luxurious Logan Building at Park and 58th, and maintained an enormous staff of lawyers and clericals to serve the nation’s most prestigious banks and corporations.

  In the law, having the chance to perhaps one day become an Apostle was on the same level as an Englishman having the chance to become a baron.

  Collins could think of nothing except the interview. It was as though he himself were the one being considered for the law firm. He was feeling increasingly anxious.

  Patrick Collins walked to his office door and opened it.