Dog Bites Man (24 page)

It is unclear how this new revelation will affect the besieged
Mayor Hoagland.

At the time of the Brandberg-Serreqi "marriage" last week, there
was speculation that the mayor had performed the ceremony as a
means of pacifying the intense anger Ms. Brandberg has expressed
over the death of her dog, including her public statements criticiz
ing the mayor's part in the incident.

Whether or not there was an element of payoff involved, accord
ing to lawyers consulted by The Surveyor, the mayor may have
violated the New York Penal Law, which classifies as a class A mis
demeanor the performance of a marriage ceremony if the official
performing it does so "knowing that a legal impediment to such
marriage exists."

Neither Ms. Brandberg nor her "husband" would comment for
this article. Calls to the mayor's office requesting a statement were
not returned.

Sue Brandberg had forewarning about Scoop's bigamy story; he had called her the day before, asking for comment, which she re
fused to give. She had immediately tried to reach Brendon Proctor, only to find that he was on a quick, one-day trip to Chicago. She requested that his secretary get in touch with him with the urgent message to call his client at once.

Proctor's secretary had failed in her task. The lawyer had already left for O'Hare when she connected to the office he had been at, and since Proctor was a Luddite who did not believe in cell phones, she could not reach him. Then he had been stuck on the ground in his New York–bound plane for six hours, the victim of the international air traffic jam set off in the aftermath of the Wambli rally.

When he finally did get Sue's message the next morning, he called her forthwith and was assaulted by a mixture of hysteria and vituperation.

"Where were you when I needed you? Why were you in Chicago? That worm Justin Boyd and his baby reporter are about to run a story that I am a bigamist. I need a lawyer right now. When can you get here?"

As usual Proctor was annoyed at Sue's peremptory attitude and baffled as well by the reference to bigamy. What next? he thought. First that lightning marriage to her gigolo and now this. But he concealed both his irritation and his confusion and said he would be over within the hour. But not before taking a quick look at the New York Penal Law definition of bigamy. And along the way to 62nd Street picking up a copy of the new
Surveyor.

.    .    .

"Here it is," Proctor said to Sue, handing her the paper as soon as she opened her front door. Once they were seated upstairs, she read the account and then crumpled up the paper.

"Bastard!" was her terse, angry reaction as she got up and paced around her living room. Calming down, she related to Proctor the details of the visit from Greta Serreqi.

"Did you believe her?"

"I had no way of knowing. It doesn't matter. Genc has admitted it." She did not specify when the admission had been made.

"Where is he now?"

"I have no idea. I threw him out."

"I assume, Sue, that you had no reason to believe that Genc was already married?" Proctor was by no stretch of the imagination a criminal lawyer, experienced in steering clients' recollections in the right direction (that is, toward the path of innocence), but he was shrewd enough to make the attempt solely by instinct.

Sue hesitated, stalling by repeating his question. "Did I have any reason to believe that Genc was already married? No." She recalled full well her conversation about a communist marriage and stuck to her nonlegal but perhaps patriotic conclusion that such a marriage was no marriage at all.

"There were no discussions with him about this—before your marriage, that is?"

"No."

"And no hints in anything he told you?"

"I knew he had had a girlfriend back in Albania. I may even have thought he was living with her. But marriage? No." She answered quietly, perhaps because she saw vividly a mental image of that donkey cart bearing the happy—and very obviously married—Greta and Genc.

"Listen to me carefully, Sue. A person is guilty of bigamy if he or she marries another who has a living spouse. In New York it's a
so-called class E felony—not murder or grand larceny, but a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison."

Sue rubbed her face in despair as her lawyer spoke.

"As you might guess, I've only done about five minutes' research on this, but it is apparently a defense if a party acted under a 'reasonable belief ' that the other person was unmarried. If Serreqi had a wife, that defense won't do him any good. He's guilty as hell. But from what you say, it sounds like you had such a 'reasonable belief.'"

"Yes!" Sue said. She had feared Proctor would press her on whether she
knew
Genc was married; "reasonable belief " seemed to give her some wiggle room, though it would be just as well if no one ever knew about that picture in Genc's wallet.

"Yes, you had a reasonable belief that he was unmarried?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, Sue, you may have a large embarrassment on your hands, but I think we can probably keep you out of Sing Sing."

"What should I do, Brendon?"

"Lie low. And for God's sake, don't say a word to
The Surveyor
or any other reporter."

"Don't worry."

.    .    .

After a steak, shared with Albert, and a martini—white wine was for fairies, she maintained—Governor Foote was in a mellow mood as she strolled back to her office with Raifeartaigh and Sheila Baine. The prospect of offing Eldon Hoagland still intrigued her but she continued to have doubts, which she had expressed again over lunch.

On the way Raifeartaigh spotted the new issue of
The Surveyor
on a newsstand, as well as it's "Bigamous Marriage" headline. He bought a copy and was soon reading Scoop's story aloud to an incredulous governor and Sheila. He had finished as they got off the elevator outside the executive offices.

"Well, well, well," Foote chortled. "Maybe I can squeeze Eldon's balls after all."

G
ullighy had also received a call the day before from Scoop, inquiring about the "bigamous marriage" the mayor had performed. He had hung up on the reporter, after calling him a "crazy bastard." What will they try next? he thought to himself. Once he had been shown
The Surveyor,
Eldon asked the same thing.

"I can't seem to do anything right. The first marriage I performed as mayor and it turns out to be bigamous.

"The Court Street lawyers that reporter consulted said I committed no crime, unless I knew of the bigamy. Well, I sure as hell didn't. But please check with Noel Miller to make sure that 'knowledge' is there in the law. Jack, the way things are going, they'll put me in a black box, like the 'coffin' for that damn dog, and parade
me
around City Hall Park. Why the hell did I take this job, will you tell me?"

It was a question for which, under the circumstances, Gullighy had no ready answer.

.    .    .

In late afternoon Scoop returned to his apartment, a copy of
The
Surveyor
under his arm. Genc was there and, to Scoop's surprise, greeted him cheerfully.

"Scoop, I know you're my friend—about the only one I have over here—but you didn't have to go and see Greta. It was gentle of you to do that. She was feeling very down and felt happy that a friend was supporting her."

Scoop was conscience-stricken. He had told Greta that he was
a friend of her husband's and that he would try to help her. But he needed to know the facts before he could. He had failed to mention that he was a reporter, and one writing a story about her husband's marital adventure. She may even have thought he was a lawyer, though his conscience told him—almost—that he really had said nothing to further that impression, though he had carried a briefcase and had taken notes on a yellow legal pad purchased in the stationery store around the corner, rather than his customary notebook. He chose to stay mute as Genc continued to speak.

"You're a good man, Scoop. I thank you. But I think we do not need your help. I've talked with Greta and told her the truth. That my marriage to Sue was for green card. When I have it—I wait two years, I understand—I can get good job, say bye-bye to Sue. Then bring Greta over to have a real life, not illegal's. She understand now, and if Sue pay up, she will go home without her mouth opening."

"Genc, you better read this," Scoop said, handing him
The Sur
veyor
and pointing to the lead story.

Genc read slowly. "You fucking Gypsy," he said finally, coolly angry and waving the newspaper. "You ruin all my plans! My plans for my
life!"
He put on his shirt and started gathering up his possessions into his backpack.

"Genc, I'm sorry. Really I am. But you must remember I'm a reporter. My first duty is to my paper and my readers. You and Sue committed a serious crime. The public is entitled to know that and it was my obligation to write about it."

Scoop managed to finish his little speech, even while recognizing his priggish and self-righteous tone. More precisely, he heard the voice of Justin Boyd echoing in his own.

"What are you going to do?" he asked as Genc finished his packing.

"I'll think of something. Do not worry. But don't expect to put it down in your newspaper."

Genc headed to the door and, before leaving, bowed with mock solemnity toward Scoop. "Thank you for everything, my friend. My best friend in America!" He slammed the door hard and was gone.

Scoop sat on the edge of his bed, staring for some minutes at the headline—and byline—in the paper Genc had thrown to the floor.

.    .    .

The Post-News
once again had to swallow its pride the next morning and parrot
The Surveyor
's bigamy story; its reporters had been unable to locate Genc or Greta. Sue, as instructed, refused any comment, and Gullighy indignantly denied Mayor Hoagland's criminality. This did not stop the paper's editorialists, who wrote, under the heading "Something Smells":

We are not going to write about Mayor Eldon Hoagland and
dogs today. Instead our subject is the mayor and a fish—a very
smelly fish in City Hall. As reported on our front page, the mar
riage ceremony that he performed uniting Sue Nation Brandberg
and her boyish live-in, Genc Serreqi, was a sham. It turns out that
the smooth young Albanian who caught beauty queen Brandberg's
fancy already had a wife back home in the Balkans. This makes him
guilty of good, old-fashioned bigamy—still a felony in New York.
And it makes her guilty, too, if she smelled something fishy, so to
speak.

And what about the mayor? There was deep suspicion when the
Serreqi-Brandberg nuptials were announced that there was a
quid
for his
quo:
he would preside at her hastily arranged "marriage" if
she would keep quiet about the slaying of her beloved dog, Wambli,
by the mayor's condottieri.

We have two questions for Eldon Hoagland:

1.
Did he make a deal with Mrs. Brandberg to marry her in ex
change for her silence? Did that deal involve only the woman's
promise to be quiet, or was it more complicated than that?

2.
As to the bigamy matter, one is reminded of that question
from another ancient scandal: What did he know, and when did he
know it?

We need answers, Mr. Mayor, and the faster the better.

The Times,
presumably on the quite valid theory that it could not corroborate Scoop's story, was silent for the day.

The morning e-mail was surprisingly quiet. The only message was not, however, especially comforting:

I hope that Native American and her Albanian did have a bigamous
marriage, and I hope you knew all about it. Marriage is a dumb ir
relevancy forced upon us by religious fanatics. So bigamy should be
irrelevant, too. Who cares how many times someone goes through a
marriage ceremony? Stand up for sexual freedom—don't let the
bastards get you down. Yours in good sex—Bruce

Having not heard from Noel Miller by noontime, Eldon gave him a call. The corporation counsel confirmed that the mayor was not in violation of the law by marrying Genc and Sue, as long as he didn't have knowledge of Genc's marital status.

"That means I'm in the clear, Noel, since I had no idea her young stud had a wife.
The Post-News
doesn't agree with that, if you've seen it this morning, but what do you expect? They're certainly accusing me of high crimes and misdemeanors. What if they were right? Could I be impeached?

"I'd like to know the answer to that. Could you call me? Edna and I are getting out of here and going to Leaky Swansea's, on Long Island, for the weekend. You can reach me there. You have the number? Good."

.    .    .

Eldon was grateful for the chance to leave town; at least the Wambli balloon did not follow him to Southampton. The Swanseas were good hosts, plied their guests with good food and wine and refrained from discussing dogs or dubious marriages.

He and Edna went for a walk on the deserted, windswept beach late in the afternoon. The mild weather, the impending sunset and gently breaking waves were conducive to an intimate chat.

"I don't know if I'm going to make it, Edna. All the insults, the shouting, the innuendos in the damn
Post-News,
they're getting to me. That editorial this morning, practically accusing me of taking a bribe. Not to mention committing a crime."

"It's politics, dear. Of the New York City variety."

"I now understand why no mayor has ever gone on to be president. They all became exhausted trying to keep the melting pot from boiling over."

"They ought to revise the song. 'If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere—if you survive.'"

"I know that things will calm down. The animal righters will
run out of steam. It'll be clear I did nothing worse than lose control when that wretched dog bit me. And the idea that I committed a crime is preposterous. Eventually people will understand that."

"You're right—I think."

"The real question is whether it will settle down soon enough—soon enough for me to push the programs I promised. We're all ready to launch our technology zone project, but it needs my full-time attention. I can't give that with all the stupid distractions. It's so tedious and boring."

"You've been through it with nutcases before, dear. Those new-wave upstarts in your department were almost as extreme as the Animal Liberation Army. And that Dean of the Faculty at Columbia made it about as difficult for you as
The Post-News.
Everything's going to be all right."

"Let's hold hands and look at the sunset. As long as we're okay, we'll hang on."

.    .    .

Noel Miller called early Saturday morning.

"Good news, Eldon. As I thought, there's absolutely no provision for impeaching a mayor. You're in the clear unless you become mentally disabled. Then they can push you out." Miller chuckled.

"Don't laugh. The way things are going I could be round the bend tomorrow. But thanks for the good word, Noel. Not that I was worried."

"You're okay, my friend, absent mental illness or physical incapacity. Otherwise the only way they can get rid of you is if the governor removes you. Which is a pretty preposterous idea."

Eldon felt an uncomfortable tightening in his throat. "She could do that?" he asked incredulously.

"Yep. All by herself. But for God's sake, don't trouble your head about that. Relax and have a good weekend."

The mayor did his best to follow his counsel's advice. But he did spend a restless Saturday night, dreaming, among other things, of quarreling with Randilynn Foote over her B minus and hearing her obscenity-laced anger at the removal of the furnishings from the Governor's Rooms.

.    .    .

Governor Foote had had a brief meeting with Attorney General Mason Mudson on Friday afternoon. An obese, slow-moving (and by more than one account, slow-witted) small-town lawyer, he had been the bastion of the Republican Party in his upstate county seat. Since all of Randilynn's running mates in her campaign for election had been from the metropolitan area, Mason had been picked to balance the ticket.

Mudson had also been able to raise a surprising amount of money for his own campaign. Many business interests, bruised by attacks from a succession of vigorous, populist, proconsumer attorneys general, saw in him the ideal: a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and a lethargic one. Those dreaded words in the heading of legal complaints, "The People of the State of New York
ver
sus
. . .," would not be
versus
them.

Once elected, he happily discovered that one was not chained to Albany, the state capital, or the snowbound Brasilia, as some called it. Overcoming an upstater's revulsion to Sodom-on-the-Hudson, he had come to like it, though his wife, Prudence, resolutely re
fused to leave Skaneateles; in her view the people in New York City "smelled funny."

Mudson was an appreciative dais-sitter at fund-raising and political dinners. He thought the food was marvelous, and there was always the VIP attention—gathering with the event's guest of honor and an occasional celebrity in a private room away from the hordes attending the function in question, drinking free drinks and being addressed as "General." They were even more fulfilling than those Kiwanis Club weekly dinners in Skaneateles, though he had enjoyed them, and the mystery-meat entrees, too.

He had a set speech—written for $100 by a
Syracuse Herald-
Journal
reporter—about the great Empire State and the benefits that free enterprise could bring to it (the Syracuse reporter, given the meagerness of his fee, had lifted this portion of the text from various right-wing foundation press releases).

Randilynn Foote was grateful to Munson, so eagerly representing her administration at the banqueting events she could not abide. "He likes having his ass licked," she once observed to Raifeartaigh, "and as long as he doesn't get a sexually transmitted disease in the process, that's fine with me."

At their Friday meeting in her office, Governor Foote made it clear that no decisions had been made but that she wanted to "explore all the options." She told her AG that Ms. Baine had done a great job in researching the applicable law, but she wanted to be doubly sure that Mudson agreed with her young assistant's conclusions.

"You make certain you're in synch," she had instructed him, "because if I do anything you're going to have to spread holy water all over it."

Mudson, like everyone else who had looked at the question, was
amazed at the power in the governor's hands. But he promised to vet Ms. Baine's conclusions, and the meeting was adjourned until eleven o'clock on Monday.